Krastyo Genov

Among the major problems facing our literary science today, a particularly important place is occupied by the problem of the emergence, formation and development of socialist realism in Bulgarian literature. And this is quite natural. Because the further development of our entire contemporary literary art is closely linked to the solution of this problem. That is why for a number of years now literary theorists, critics and historians have been devoting special attention to this problem. And it is no coincidence that their efforts are increasingly directed towards clarifying the essence of the artistic methods used by proletarian-revolutionary poets and writers - precisely where the very core of the problem lies. The works of Georgi Bakalov, Todor Pavlov, Pantelei Zarev, the Soviet literary scholars Dmitry Markov, Nikolai Kravtsov and others contribute to mastering this difficult area to one degree or another. First of all, in our and Soviet literary science and criticism, there is no dispute that in our country the method of socialist realism was formed as a result of a certain socio-historical, ideological-political and literary development - inextricably linked with the growth of class consciousness and struggles of the Bulgarian proletariat under the leadership of the Communist Party, under the influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution and of young Soviet literature (in the beginning - mainly from the work of Maxim Gorky). As pioneers of proletarian-revolutionary literature in Bulgaria, Dimitar Blagoev emerged - in the field of theory and criticism, Dimitar Polyanov and Georgi Kirkov - in the field of lyric poetry and fiction. In a historical-literary sense, Polyanov and Kirkov stand in the closest kinship-genetic relationship with the social-revolutionary traditions established in Bulgarian literature by Lyuben Karavelov and Hristo Botev, as well as with the critical realism of Aleko Konstantinov and Stoyan Mikhailovsky. With their creative activity, Dimitar Blagoev, Dimitar Polyanov and Georgi Kirkov gave shape to the first - "propaganda" - stage of the development of our proletarian-revolutionary literature (until the end of World War I). The poetry of Hristo Smirnenski marked its second stage - with the manifestation of socialist realism as a new method in our national literature.

In a letter to the newspaper "Nezavisimost" from 1874, the brothers Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov are characterized as figures of national importance. Their names are placed alongside the names of Georgi Rakovski and Petko Slaveykov. Entire centuries and thousands of years will pass - the letter emphasizes - and their name will be pronounced with reverence in Bulgarian songs, Bulgarian fairy tales, and on the sedenki... Because "The Miladinovs are forerunners, and their followers are complements of that beginning, on which the first pages of the new Bulgarian church and civil freedom will be written..."1 Whether in this case we have a letter actually sent by an unknown patriot from Tarnovo, or whether it was also composed in the editorial office of "Nezavisimost" itself, cannot be established with certainty. However, one thing can be considered indisputable - that both Karavelov and Botev, as editors of the newspaper, at least agreed with the thoughts developed in the letter and, above all, with the assessment of the Miladinov brothers. And this is indicative enough. Moreover, these "forerunners" of the great struggle for national liberation were themselves clearly aware of the great historical task they had taken upon themselves. Therefore, they could not help but foresee the dangerous risks it posed to them as "tsarist enemies". That is why, when, before the bayonets of a numerous police convoy, he was brought to trial for the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Dimitar Miladinov did not doubt for a moment that he was being led to an open death. 3 And at the same time, it was not by chance that the younger brother made such a fervent patriotic confession to his noble patron Joseph Strossmayer: that "spreading enlightenment as much as possible and preparing the people for freedom" - he was ready to sacrifice, if necessary, himself, his blood and his life for his people. And they truly sacrificed them without hesitation, so that the hearts of grateful generations would live forever in the souls of the Navskis.

In vol. 4 of "Literary Thought" (pp. 137-138) with a critical note on the literary studies department in issue 4 of the Abstract Bulletin for Linguistics, Literary Studies and Ethnography, published by the Center for Scientific and Technical Information and Documentation at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Along with some reasonably pointed out omissions and inaccuracies in the content of the bulletin, the author of the note, Lyuben Georgiev, has shown very unenviable awareness. He has also succumbed to bad suspicion. Therefore, as the editor of the mentioned department, I feel obliged to come up with the present counter-reply.

The great poet resembles the sea: the more the diver enters into it, the deeper it becomes, the more wonderful and unsuspected beauties its depths reveal. We experience the same feeling when we want to stir up that wonderful peace of ideological and artistic values ​​that we call the poetry of Hristo Smirnenski. Four decades ago, the "discoverer" of Smirnenski as a poet and his first enthusiastic critic - Georgi Bakalov wrote about him: "He was a poet. A true poet. A juicy poet, as they say. A poet who is rarely born... There is no other poet in our country after Botev as popular among the masses as Smirnenski. The names of the two Hristovtsi are inseparably linked in the consciousness of the masses. Inseparable in immortality.

"For us, the Bulgarians, the Hieromonk and Pro-Igumen Paisius of Hilendar is a national pride." This high and in a sense new assessment of the first Bulgarian Revivalist, sounded by the illegal radio station "Hristo Botev" during the armed anti-fascist struggle, was an assessment not only of the revolutionary working class and the Communist Party, but also of our entire progressive society, of the working people heroically fighting against fascism and capitalism. That is why, after the victory of the socialist revolution in our country, Paisius of Hilendar attracted the strong attention of many literary critics, historians, philosophers - T. Pavlov, Zh. Natan, D. Kosev, P. Dinekov, P. Zarev, Em. Georgiev, V. Velchev, Hr. Hristov, Vl. Topencharov, B. St. Angelov, etc. Some foreign (mainly Soviet and Italian) scholars also showed special interest in his personality and work - A. N. Robinson, G. D. Gachev, R. Picchio, etc. In response to accumulated misconceptions on the part of biased bourgeois scholars in the past, the problem of Paisius' ideology naturally turned out to be the most relevant now. In connection with this problem and to a large extent as subordinate to it, the questions of the era, of the socio-economic, political, and cultural state of the Bulgarian people in the 18th century, as well as the questions of the domestic literary sources of "Slavic-Bulgarian History" were thrown into a new, broader, Marxist-Leninist study.

Even Marx and Engels believed that the "future" proletarian literature would appear as an organic "complete fusion of great depth, conscious historical meaning" with Shakespearean liveliness and effectiveness" of artistic depiction. This is how they imagined the essence of proletarian verbal art, which for several decades now we have been calling the literature of socialist realism. In fact, through these and similar formulations, the founders of Marxist aesthetics noted two main features of proletarian literary art: first, its deeper and qualitatively new historicity in comparison with the art of past societies and second, its ability and historical obligation to start in its artistic searches from the highest ("Shakespearean") creative achievements of the universal human genius.