Angel Anchev

One of the first translators of Soviet literature in our country, from the time of its penetration in the 1920s, was Nikolai Khrelkov. A close friend of G. Milev, Khrelkov collaborated in his magazines, Libra (1919-1922) and Flame (1924-1925), mainly with articles and translations from Russian Soviet poetry. This activity of N. Khrelkov, which at that period completely absorbed the attention of our poet, was not appreciated in its merits - it was either ignored or considered as part of his fascination with the Russian symbolists. In fact, the author of Midnight Congress, like Geo Milev, turned his gaze to the young Soviet art. It attracted him with its revolutionary call, with its ideas and innovation.

The literature on Leo Tolstoy shows that each era has approached the assessment of his work with its own criterion. What seemed to the democratically minded representative of realistic literary thought of the second half of the last century, N. N. Strakhov, in Tolstoy's work to be of undeniable value, was precisely what the reactionary decadent D. Merezhkovsky considered the great writer's artistic impotence. They make no exception to this general approach to the study of L. Tolstoy's work and his late works. However, compared to the vast literature devoted to the brilliant writer, there are few publications on his late work. Nevertheless, they very clearly outline the main trends in pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russian science, which, with few exceptions, are reduced to denying the creative potential of the old Tolstoy and the artistic significance of his works - The Kreutzer Sonata, Father Sergius, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, After the Ball, etc.