Petar Dinekov

In October 1962, the Institute of Literature was visited by the prominent French Slavist Prof. André Mazon. A guest of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, during his two-week stay in Sofia, Prof. Mazon had set himself the task not only of conducting some scientific research, but also of getting acquainted with the work of our Slavic scientific institutes, of meeting with representatives of Bulgarian Slavic studies and of informing our public about the achievements of French Slavic studies - with this aim, he also read a report on the topic "Slavic studies in France". Prof. Mazon spoke with the director of the institute, Prof. G. Tsanev, and a number of scientific associates, showing a keen interest in their work. He became acquainted with the structure of the institute and its publications and expressed his admiration for the broad opportunities and the great material support that the Bulgarian People's Democratic State provides for the development and progress of science.

The work of Cyril and Methodius is very diverse, can be viewed from different angles and raises many questions. One of the most interesting is the question of its connection with the development of Bulgarian literature. Some will say that this goes without saying - Cyril and Methodius are organically intertwined in the history of Bulgarian literature, without their work its emergence is unthinkable; everything is clear here, there is nothing to dispute and nothing to add. In fact, the questions are more complex than they seem at first glance. Let us take just two of them. On the one hand - were there not manifestations of Slavic writing in Bulgaria before the time of Cyril and Methodius and in that case can their work be considered the beginning of Bulgarian literature? On the other hand - is not a work included in the history of Bulgarian literature that developed up to the Moravian mission in the sphere of Byzantine culture, and then - among the Western Slavs? Is this not a stage of pan-Slavic literature that had a strong influence on the development of old Bulgarian literature, but did not enter into its history? That these questions have not been fully resolved, and at the very least - there is no agreement on them, is clearly visible when we turn our attention from the literary work of Cyril and Methodius to their language - it still bears different names in science: Old Church Slavonic, Old Church Slavonic, Old Bulgarian.

With his creative work, Lyudmil Stoyanov fills more than six decades of the history of new Bulgarian literature - he published his first poems at the age of 19 in 1905 in the magazine "Artist", and even today, in 1968, he has not interrupted his writing work. Some will say: the long life of a writer inevitably covers several periods in the development of a literature. The difference with Lyudmil Stoyanov, however, is that he is not only present in these periods, but also most actively participates in them as a citizen and artist. The historian of Bulgarian literature in the 20th century will seriously struggle with which period to place him: Lyudmil Stoyanov cannot be absent from the development of our literature in the first decade of the century and the eve of the wars; in the period after the First World War he is one of the most active participants in literary life, and in the 30s he develops his enormous anti-fascist activity; The defeat of monarcho-fascism and capitalism brought him to his literary post, and for the third decade now he has been taking the most active part in building our socialist culture.

The program of the "Bulgarian Literary Society", founded in 1869, is multifaceted: to make efforts to develop the Bulgarian language and literature, to spread education among the people; to study the way of life of the Bulgarians and their neighboring peoples; to collect and publish folklore, ethnographic and other materials, to arrange exhibitions, to encourage every more serious manifestation in the field of art, science, etc. Many of the tasks formulated in the society's statute remain a project. But one of them - the publication of a "Periodic Magazine" - it manages to implement. The organ of the Bulgarian Literary Society was conceived as a monthly publication with three sections: literary, for original and translated works of art; scientific, for "articles on various branches of science" and critical, for reviews and critical analyses" on the occasion of newly published literary and scientific works.

The participation of representatives of the revolutionary Bulgarian emigration in Romania and other Renaissance figures in the establishment of the Bulgarian Literary Society is well known. Nevertheless, some new documents point even more specifically to their contribution in the preparatory stage of the Society's establishment and in its further development.