Октомври

Events that change life also change people's thinking, change their spiritual peace, change their concepts of the beautiful and the ugly, of the sublime and the low. They also change artistic thinking, which receives verbal and figurative embodiment in literature. Literature is a seismograph for the changes taking place in the lives of peoples. It captures new phenomena and, if they are seeds in the folds of fertile furrows, gives them life. At the same time, it creates an appropriate form to accommodate the new content. The Great October Socialist Revolution is the greatest of these events that change life. It was natural that it would become a turning point in the development of art and literature, especially of those peoples who were most affected by it. Such were the Slavic peoples, not only those in the Soviet Union, but also those outside it. I will not speak here about the Slavic peoples in the Soviet Union - Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. The turning point that occurred in their general and literary development with the Great October Revolution is well known, obvious to everyone. I will focus on the literatures of the Slavic peoples outside the Soviet Union.

At two consecutive meetings, the Scientific Council of the Institute of Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences discussed and accepted for publication Vasil Kolevski's work "The Pathos of October", dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. In his review, Angel Todorov emphasized the importance of the topic, gave a positive assessment of the work and concluded that the influence of Soviet literature on Bulgarian is a profound regularity for the activation and development of our entire culture and literature. From this position, the author also considers the issue of the reflection and reception of Soviet literature in Bulgarian progressive periodicals from 1917 to 1944. Angel Todorov made a brief overview of the material presented in the book, emphasized its breadth, systematization and assessment from a modern scientific point of view. He characterized the study as seriously and competently written. He also made some critical remarks.

The Great October Revolution not only changed the public consciousness, thinking and spirituality of millions of people in the world, but also created for them a clear and precise answer to the agonizing question of a way out of capitalist slavery. The victory of October became a worldview, a significant page in history, a complete system of ideas and feelings, of perception of life phenomena.

I think this is one of the most complex topics for any citizen who is actively involved in public affairs. This is all the more complex for a writer who is convinced of the civic mission of literature. Because the explosion of the October Socialist Revolution not only swept away the entire gloomy tsarist-landlord edifice of the blackest injustice and police brutality in Russia, but caused a wide detonation throughout the globe. It changed the course of history on our planet. And this shock was felt especially strongly in countries like ours, where there have always been social unrest and where the people take an active part in the political life of the country. The socialist movement in Bulgaria had already established itself as a political factor long before the October Revolution, and this had an impact on our entire national culture.

The problems of the development and prospects of contemporary literature, of socialist realism, of its genesis and its general laws, of the national peculiarities of individual literatures, of their connections and interactions are acquiring extremely important significance. They are in the center of attention of writers from socialist countries, as well as of Marxist literary critics from capitalist countries. Many studies have appeared of both a general theoretical and a concrete-historical nature. Reactionary bourgeois writers are increasingly forced to turn to these problems.

This tremor was a single one, but strong enough to shake the entire planet. Extraordinary. And inimitable, because it was the first. . . Prepared by the entire development of humanity, it fertilized it so that the dawn would be born - no, but the sun of the great world hope. Until recently, it was a "utopia," a "wandering ghost" that panicked popes and emperors, kings and policemen, kings and magnates feared. They are still afraid now. And that is why they entered and continue to enter into a sacred alliance to fight against this great hope, transformed by the Bolsheviks into an invincible force... But despite all the crusades against it, despite the elite armies of that Europe that sent them to the East, despite all the spells and anathemas, today, as never before, the unquenchable fires of October burn brighter, and the ideas of Marx and Lenin march victoriously even over that world that longed to embrace their banner.

The October Revolution, which shook the entire world and caused radical changes in the socio-political life of a number of countries, also pushed the spiritual development of the peoples onto a new path. For the Bulgarian people it played a fateful role, largely determining their further economic and cultural development. It is enough to glance at the Bulgarian literature of those revolutionary years to feel the irresistible power of the new spiritual engines of our national consciousness, created by the Russian Revolution. After 1917, the entire cultural and literary life in Bulgaria radically changed, the people and the homeland again invaded the works of literature, the worldview of the Bulgarian writer changed, a qualitatively new literature of socialist realism was created, the democratic-realist principle in the work of almost all significant artists strengthened... These processes are very deep and complex, they affect different artists to varying degrees and become accessible and understandable only through direct acquaintance with the works of art born directly or indirectly from the Great October. In this regard, the newly published fiction collection "October" is a significant contribution. It illustrates the basic, irrefutable process of a deep ideological and aesthetic transformation in Bulgarian literature and the revival of its revolutionary traditions. This collection is published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, edited by Zdravko Srebrov, Yordan Radichkov, Kamen Kalchev, Neviana Stefanova and Rozalia Lykova, and contains one work each by thirty-seven prominent Bulgarian fiction writers.

A fiftieth anniversary requires a review. We look for it in all publications dedicated to the October Revolution. The collection "October and Bulgarian Literature" contains articles, memoirs, and studies that were not prepared specifically for the solemn occasion, but have been printed before. Collected now, these materials recall the excitement of five decades ago and, at the same time, are proof of the enduring interest of our writers in October and Soviet literature. They mark the directions in which scientific research thought moves, concerned with the great problem of Bulgarian-Soviet literary relations.

I do not hesitate in the title and in the following lines to qualify Vasil Kolevski's book "The Pathos of October (Soviet Literature in the Bulgarian Proletarian and Anti-Fascist Literary Press 1917-1943)" in this way, because the work done by the author, dedicated to an important issue of literary relations between the Soviet Union and Bulgaria, whatever its shortcomings, is at a scientific level and testifies to a certain knowledge of the material and problems, to a conscientious and close attitude to a not so easy task. During the bourgeois-fascist dictatorship in our country, the proletarian and anti-fascist literary press was almost the only place where Soviet literary-theoretical and aesthetic thought and the artistic and literary production of Soviet writers could be presented and evaluated more fully or more mutilatedly - depending on the behavior of the censorship - and where at the same time their influence on our communist literary thought and practice found expression. Therefore, it is quite natural, when developing the topic of Soviet literature in Bulgaria, that the researcher's attention should be directed primarily to progressive newspapers and magazines.

The impact of the October Socialist Revolution and Soviet fiction does not only imply the dissemination of ideas, the translation and reading of books. This is perhaps the purely external side of this complex and deeply contradictory process. But as an "external side" it also has its place and significance. However, it is no less important to see the ideological and aesthetic changes that occurred in the creative development of individual our writers and in literature as a whole after October. A new aspect in this regard is the way in which we responded to the first October events. Because new art, new production means, first of all, the discovery of a new form, on the one hand, and, on the other - the rejection of the "old" rules in order to manifest the new ones. And not only that. The new is never born suddenly, on the contrary - the elements from which it will "crystallize" accumulate for a long time. The new inherits and simultaneously elevates to a higher level that which prepared its appearance.