Krastyo Goranov

We have before us a truly interesting, passionately and vividly written book. The author boldly raises some fundamental questions of aesthetic science that have often been sidestepped in recent times. The central problem that has completely absorbed Burov's attention is the relationship between "the subject and content of art." Everything else is subordinate to this problem. What is said about the function of art is an illustration of the main thesis about the peculiar subject and content of art. In the first chapter, Burov criticizes the widespread view that the subject of art is the whole world and that its specificity arises not from the subject, but from the form of reproduction of life (the figurative form). Of course, the reflection of life in the "form of life itself," in a living, concrete, individual image, is a very important feature of art. But imagery is also inherent in science, photography, and the practical activities of people. After offering an interesting and accurate critique of Kant and Schiller on the one hand, and of some Soviet theorists on the other, Burov comes to the following conclusion: Imagery is not an essential specific feature of art. It explains nothing and must itself be explained. The whole point is in the specific subject matter of art, which gives rise to the specific figurative form. What is this subject matter? All true art

The life of a genius is not measured by the average duration of human existence. Every passing day expands the boundaries of his immortality. The works of contemporaries give us the opportunity to better understand the greatness of genius. Genius is contemporary even after millennia. But one is the contemporaneity of Aristotle, another of Shakespeare, a third - of Marx. And hardly has the history of mankind known such a complete manifestation of Man with a capital letter, such penetration into the depths of the future, without leaving the real basis of the present, as was manifested in the work and personality of Lenin. 90 years have passed since his birth and only 36 years since his death, and the ideas of Leninism, the ideas of communism are increasingly becoming ideas of all working humanity, marking the path to the future.

Artistic image and signal! What is the connection between these concepts that are so distant at first glance? Is it possible to prove the hypothesis of the signal nature of the work of art? There is no doubt that these new, as well as undeveloped questions will increasingly insistently excite art theorists. Aesthetics cannot stay away from the intersection of sciences. The border areas of knowledge have become the ground for the most serious scientific discoveries of our time. Aesthetics has ceased to be far from the needs of society. Aesthetic education, according to the decisions of the XXII Congress of the CPSU, acquires a necessary general character, art receives new exceptional functions of organizer and transformer in the formation of modern aesthetic taste in every member of socialist society. Thanks to the profound revolutionary changes and new technical means of social communication, the artist received an extremely numerous and extremely diverse in social, national and individual needs and capabilities audience, art has penetrated into every home, to every individual. Public regulation and management of the process of formation and development of aesthetic taste is required. In this regard, the study of the laws of public information is of exceptional importance. The artistic image can be considered as a signal of a special kind, which is still very poorly studied by cybernetics. In this regard, aesthetics can not only receive a lot, but also give a lot to this famous ultramodern scientific discipline. This can be done both by way of a precise general definition of the artistic image, and by way of some private definitions, the disclosure of individual aspects of the artistic image. Of the general definitions, the most synthetic and closest to the requirements of modern thinking seems to us to be the definition of Todor Pavlov, given in "General Theory of Art".1 Here we do not set ourselves the task of interpreting or updating Todor Pavlov's formula.

The restoration of the Leninist spirit in the field of ideology after the 20th Congress of the CPSU gave impetus to the rapid development of Soviet aesthetics. The period of stagnation, of scholastic reasoning, far from the living problems of art and the aesthetic needs of the people was gradually replaced by serious scientific research, with numerous discussions, with a significant increase in research culture. Of particular interest were the problems of the nature of the aesthetic, of the subject and methods of aesthetic science, of the connections with communist construction. The fighting, offensive line is being revived In our aesthetics, the best traditions left to us from the time of Marx, Engels and Lenin are being revived. Among the numerous new aesthetic literature, the small in volume, but very rich in content and problems, book by the famous Soviet art theorist L. N. Stolovich "Subject of aesthetics" stands out. We are accustomed to the bad habit of books on aesthetics being, as a rule, thick, with large deviations, filled with vague reasoning, which so scares creators of artistic values ​​and repels them from the significant questions of theory. And therefore even the volume of the book under consideration can be a pleasant surprise, especially since it has been a long time since I have read such a brief, so clear and at the same time such a complete exposition of some basic questions of aesthetic science. Stolovich's work has the following structure. The first chapter examines the main results of the discussion on the nature of the aesthetic in recent years. The core of the book is the second chapter - on aesthetics and the essence of the aesthetic. But perhaps the most interesting is the third chapter, with a number of new considerations. - on the limits and methods of aesthetics. The generalizing Fourth Chapter examines the place and tasks of aesthetics in the aesthetic education of working people.

The Bulgarian communist Dimitar Gachev, who inherited the theoretical principle and irreconcilability of Blagoev, fully formed himself as an art critic and historian of aesthetics in the USSR. The period from 1930 to 1937 was particularly active for his development. After that, the cult of personality not only slowed down, but also tragically interrupted his creative activity. Gachev felt on his shoulders the impact of forces, essentially alien and hostile to socialism, which inflicted so many defeats not only in the political and economic, but also in the intellectual life of our society. But he remained faithful to communism, to the great Soviet homeland, until his last breath, he went away with the dream of building communism in Bulgaria. The 20th Congress of the USSR and the April Plenum in our country returned, among many others, the cultural values ​​that Gachev created to the treasury of socialist culture.

"Contemporary Literary Issues" is the new book by Stoyan Karolev. A new theoretical and critical book in our literature is not a frequent occurrence to go unnoticed. Stoyan Karolev is one of the most mature, insightful and sincere representatives of the middle generation of Marxist literary theorists and critics. He possesses a rare talent: to respond to the most acute contemporary problems, to have a clear position and at the same time to be devoid of malicious pickiness and narrow-mindedness. This is a good and moral critical talent with great erudition and true principle. The arrangement of artists or scientists by age has always seemed unconvincing to me. The characterization of "young artist" or "young critic" has often included not only benevolence, but also condescending neglect - even the "young" are already approaching "the field of life". Referring to advanced age does not give us much either. Past merits and accumulated experience are worthy of respect. However, these values ​​are often overshadowed by the selfishness of age, by conservatism, by the fear of the new. And this has more than once led to "subjective honesty, objective reaction" (at best), to falling behind the needs of the era. Both youth and maturity are equivalent, as long as they can be measured by bold talent and high value productivity. Old Goethe had much younger talent than a number of beardless Eckermanns. Proof is the second part of "Faust". Every true talent is young, since every work presupposes the original creation of unconventional, fundamentally new values, for which there is no preliminary algorithm. This general rule is powerful both over the artist and over criticism.