Българският

Symbolism still remains one of the most unexplored areas of our literary history. The reasons for this are many and of the most diverse nature. Bourgeois science cannot embrace this phenomenon in perspective and retrospectively - it lacked the historical distance, and its very approach could hardly ensure the desired success. In the period of the cult of personality, the inertia of crude sociological simplistic thinking for a long time kept our literary science captive to the setting, the essence of which was reduced to the statement that symbolism was one of the ideological disguises of the reactionary bourgeoisie. Alleged vices were exposed, real and undeniable virtues were kept silent. And since there was a time when exposing the openly reactionary in science and art was considered almost an outdated taste, and the arrows in our criticism were aimed at "disguised" idealism, "disguised" fideism, etc., then it seemed fashionable to criticize symbolism as well.

In the short period of victory and disappointment in the struggle for spiritual independence, between 1870 and 1873, Petko Slaveykov wrote three poetic works that became the crowning glory of his poetic work - "Don't Sing to Me", "My Cruelty Has Broken", and "The Spring of the White-Legged Woman". During these years, he wrote other poems, but they repeat the motifs known until then in his poetry, they do not carry the dazzling novelty of the aforementioned ones, both in spirit and in expression.