Elena Dimitrova

The bold feuilletons of the Lucky Man appeared in the 1990s, when the bourgeoisie, eager for power and wealth, had already thrown the people into a new slavery. At that time, the Populist party, headed by Konstantin Stoilov, was ruling. Stambolov was overthrown from power, but his deputy oppressed the people with the same barbaric means. The democratic Tarnovo constitution, which was at that time, was cruelly trampled. This is how Dimitar Blagoev characterizes this bloody era: "In terms of domestic politics, the Populist regime was just as gangster and violent as Stambolov's. The Stambolov regime had many political murders through torture in prisons, through mass shootings during elections, through military executions, etc. But the Populist regime added to these horrors political murders from ambushes by bribed robbers and gangs. "1

I saw him for the first time when I started working at the Institute of Literature. He was a member of the Scientific Council of the institute. He had come with Konstantin Petkanov to a meeting. I was impressed by the poet's spiritualized face, his sad gaze, which radiated such tenderness and nobility. At that time, the collection of studies on Ivan Vazov was being prepared intensively, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his birth. Nikolay Liliev participated in the editorial board. And a year before that, a collection of memories of Vazov was published, edited only by Liliev. He had to search for and collect the materials, constantly urging the authors to submit them. This task was not at all easy. Later, from the archive of Elin Pelin at the Institute of Literature, a postcard written in humorous verses came across, in which Liliev asks the great writer to send him his memories of Vazov. This witty parody of Vaz's poem "Kings Mark" shows how much the collection of memories tormented him. Since the letter has been lost, I will quote it approximately, from memory:

Liliev appeared in our literature at the beginning of the century, almost simultaneously with Debelyanov. At that time, Yavorov was experiencing a tragic collapse of his youthful ideals. His anxious, restless spirit was wandering in the nightmarish abysses of disbelief. He had become very susceptible to the pessimistic worldview of the symbolist aesthetic. Spontaneously, by a necessary inner command, the great poet paved the way for a belated literary fashion, which the poets of the then young generation - Nikolay Liliev, Dimcho Debelyanov, Lyudmil Stoyanov, Theodore Trayanov, Geo Milev, Hristo Yassenov and others - got carried away. In his homeland - France, this school took shape in the 1980s. It is well known that symbolism is based on the most extreme subjectivism, the hopeless philosophy of a tired, already worn-out psyche. It would be, however, a gross vulgarization to consider that the representatives of symbolism are conscious ideologists of the bourgeoisie and supporters of its order. For the most part they are people with high spiritual impulses, horrified and disgusted by the vulgarity and predatoryness surrounding them, who seek salvation in the world of chimeras, of self-absorption. Symbolism, however decadent in its essence, is a negation of guildsmanship, but a negation that is passive and harmless to the dominant system.

Bulgarian history after the Liberation is dramatic and oppressive. The selfless patriotism of the Bulgarian National Revival was replaced by ruthless partisan struggles, which brought to the surface unscrupulous careerists and gangsters, dark characters like Vazov's Gorolomov and Alekov's Bai Ganyo. With bitter irony, Vazov called this period an era that nursed great people. In vain did his Kardashev seek romantic plots. Reality offered him only vulgarity, vulgar accounting, and crime. No matter how biased Irecek's assessments may be in places, in his diary he still faithfully captured the degeneration of political morals in the young principality, the rampant passions for power and material well-being. "People are ready with inner rage to throw stones at anyone, recklessly;..." "A person who does not lie and does not slander others, here is something extraordinary, a miracle of the world..."2 The young Czech scientist was shocked by the selfishness of the rulers with whom he was in constant contact. On the pages of his diary we repeatedly encounter such statements: "A person will become dull. .No longing, no idealism, no enthusiasm. I have fallen away. A desperate struggle against stupidity... A person becomes a misanthrope". Of course, in this miserable world there also live bright personalities, with Renaissance idealism, such as Petko Slaveykov, Vasil Drumev, Petko Karavelov, Vazov, Pencho Slaveykov, Aleko Konstantinov, Svetoslav Milarov, Olimpiy Panov, Trayko Kitanchev and others. They actively participate in political life, but its appearance is given by self-forgetful tyrants like Stambolov and Stoilov. The power is in their hands and with the most brutal means they neutralize their ideological enemies. Because of his love for Russia, boldly expressed in a church sermon, Metropolitan Kliment (Vasil Drumev), is threatened with a death sentence, which is commuted to 15 years in prison and eternal exile. Petko Karavelov spent years in the Black Mosque, Svetoslav Milarov, Atanas Uzunov, Olimpiy Panov, Alexander Karagyulev and others. They perish at the will of Stambolov, and later a villainous bullet from an ambush pierces Aleko's heart. Stambolov had found a brazen justification for the lawlessness and murders - that he was committing them out of inner conviction, and his successor Konstantin Stoilov called the violence of his district governors and gendarmes "exerting a moral influence on citizens". In the young principality there are no obstacles to the development of capitalism. But due to its lateness, due to the lack of democratic traditions, this development takes on the most ugly forms.

The great proletarian poet usually lives in our consciousness with the dazzling brilliance of his poetic images, with the captivating dynamics and heroism of mass revolutionary scenes, with his youthful exaltation. Smirnensky was a contemporary of epochal, hitherto unheard-of events in history. Dizzy by their grandeur, the poet saw them in fantastic outlines. For him, the rebellious slaves turned into titans, who, having built their enormous stature on a par with mountain ridges, carry within themselves the sun and the storm, and the revolution was an angrily erupting volcano, a stormy sea, a fierce element of ocean waves, a bristled fiery colossus. "A fairy tale of fiery images and paintings" - this is how Georgi Bakalov defined the form of Smirnensky's revolutionary poetry. But if we exhaust the poet's creative portrait with these features alone, it would be very incomplete. The inspired proletarian singer turned out to be a master not only in revolutionary poetry, but also in tender, intimate lyrics, in the short story, in the essay, in the feuilleton and in satirical poetry. In Smirnensky, the poet, the fiction writer, the cheerful humorist and the merciless satirist happily combined. And in all genres he achieved a rare variety of stylistic techniques, he emerged as a unique creative individuality. It was as if the muses had fallen madly in love with this fiery young man and generously showered him with versatile gifts. Along with the titanic images of the October Revolution, of the rebellious masses, Johann, Delecluze, the gladiator, the little gavroshchés, the street woman, the tobacco worker scarred by the "yellow guest", the stonemason, the florist, the blind musician, the Russian peasants condemned to starvation appear before us as alive. They are all drawn in natural height, without romantic embellishment. And in "Winter Evenings" with great simplicity and expressiveness, pictures of harsh everyday life are drawn. Many of the stories are written with the same simplicity. In them the tone is not so elevated, there is not that titanicness of the images, as in much of the revolutionary poetry.

Everyone who has interacted with him says that he was a very quiet and kind person. But in his work we often see him angry and merciless. He boldly exposed the disgrace of the bourgeois world, deeply undermined its rotten foundations, without realizing it himself. Stefan Kostov was born in Sofia on March 30, 1879. His father, Lazar Kostov, was a prominent voivode from Bansko, who took an active part in the liberation struggles of Macedonia. There are no turbulent moments and dramatic events in the life of St. L. Kostov. His biography is quite modest. But if the biographer delve into the inner image of the writer, he will find rich material for his spiritual portrait. Stefan Kostov graduated from Slavic Philology at Sofia University. He listened with interest to the lectures of our distinguished scholars Benyo Tsonev, Miletich and Ivan Shishmanov. As a student, and for a year after graduation, Stefan Kostov was engaged in journalism. This profession gave him the opportunity to see the ugliness of political mores, which he so passionately exposed in his comedies. In 1903 he became a teacher in Sofia, at the Second Boys' High School. In 1906 Kostov was sent to specialize in Vienna. There he listened to lectures by prominent Slavic scholars Yagich, Vondrak, Reshetar, and also by K. Irechek. But these lectures did not satisfy him. "Anyway," he shared with Professor Shishmanov, "I am now a student again and will soon send you an official certificate to the Ministry. I signed up to listen to Old Bulgarian literature for 2 hours with Mr. Yagica, Old Czech literature for 2 hours with Mr. Vondrak, Serbo-Croatian literature in the 18th century for 2 hours with Mr. Reshetara, and ethics with Mr. Jodl. For now, at least, the lectures on literature do not attract me at all, because they seem very elementary in content to me and because I do not find in them at all what I am looking for. It seemed to me that they treat questions more from the field of Slavic paleography: monuments, their redactions, sources, translations, witty guesses about dates and eras when they were created are listed before me - this, indeed, gives a somewhat impression of deep learning. But as for explaining the content of a work, starting from living, social conditions. environment, time, etc. - there is no mention of all this, or very little is expected... maybe I am wrong, but it still seems to me that as long as Slav. literature remains so isolated on philological soil, it will not progress much. It suits me better to do things at home and I do most of them that way. Now I am reading about Serbo-Croatian works - history, literature, ethnography