Елка Димитрова
Между две политически дати: островът на българската литература и острови в българската литература
Elka Dimitrova
Between Two Political Dates: The Island of Bulgarian Literature and Islands within Bulgarian Literature
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Summary
The study presents the conception of the project “Islands of the Unblessed. History of the Unconventional Bulgarian Literature from 1944 to 1989 in Its Socio-Cultural Context”. It is based on the idea of a kind of fragmentation of the Bulgarian literature from the period of the totalitarian regime, dictated by the non-inclusion of a number of authors and texts in the official stream of socialist realism without placing them by all means under the sign of dissidence. In this sense, twelve thematic “islands” are outlined – as areas of resistance, non-belonging, various types of marginalization in relation to the socialist canon. On the other hand, the Bulgarian literature of the period itself is presented as relatively isolated from the world – exactly because of its ideological closure.
Keywords: Bulgarian literature; totalitarian regime; socialist realism; non-belonging
Николай Аретов
Алтернативната литература. Второ приближение
Nikolay Aretov
Alternative literature: Second approximation
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Summary
The article examines the efforts to define and typologize Bulgarian "alternative" literature, which is usually associated with oppositional behavior and is frequently found in the writings of repressed authors, political emigrants, and underappreciated writers, as well as in the manifestations of "samizdat". The approach put forth here broadens the chronological range of the phenomena under consideration, searches for linkages and conflicts between them and the literary canon, literary stratification, and differentiation of the readers, and also concentrates on texts that defy conventional literary status. Different sorts of these "alternative" texts are identified, some of which are connected to folklore subgenres that lack prestige and reader preferences for works that literary criticism treats negatively.
Keywords: alternative literature; literary canon; stratification of the literature; readers audience; nonprestigious genres
Георги Господинов
Поетът и системата. Бягства и убежища в късния социализъм
Приписки за трима поети – Христо Фотев, Иван Теофилов и Борис Христов
Georgi Gospodinov
The poet and the system. Escapes and Refuges in Late Socialism.
Notes on three poets - Hristo Fotev, Ivan Teofilov and Boris Hristov
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Summary
The text explores the strategies of self-preservation in a totalitarian system, such as Bulgarian socialism, through the poetry of three charismatic, non-conformist poets: Ivan Teofilov (b. 1931), Hristo Fotev (1934-2002) and Boris Hristov (b. 1945). The motif of the im/possible escapes and refuges is revealed in their writing. Several thematic and biographical lines are traced: their choice to be "unbelonging," their self-marginalization as an ethical gesture, the theme of the unattainable "world denied," other arts and friendship circles as a shelter, and, above all, the shelter of language and the joy of it, the ability of these poets to unchain and expand the language.
Keywords: Ivan Teofilov, Hristo Fotev, Boris Hristov, im/possible escapes, refuges, self-marginalization, “world denied”
Надежда Стоянова
Отложеният диалог. Образът на писмото в българската поезия от края на 60-те и 70-те години на ХХ век
Nadezhda Stoyanova
Delayed dialogue. The Image of the Letter in Bulgarian poetry of the Late 1960s and 1970s
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Summary
This research work is focused on the interpretations of the letter as a literary image in Bulgarian poetry of the late 1960s and 1970s, as well as on the question of the sender and their complex relationships with the addressee. The image of the letter is presented in two ways. On the one hand, a letter received or sent becomes an expression of hope for the presence of the Other, despite the distance in space or time. On the other hand, the written messages do not always reach their addressee, or it may be difficult to reconstruct their content – the envelopes are sealed, the content is fragmentary and laconic. Therefore, they can awaken the fear of the absence of the Other – a fear that, during these years, is no longer devoid of post-structuralist intuitions about the vulnerability of the subject. The study is divided in three parts that consider the issues of the expected or unexpected letters; the unarrived, unwelcome, and unopened letters; the unwritten or written letters.
Keywords: Bulgarian poetry, the 1970s, letters, “silent poets”, subject, sender, addressee
Мария Русева
„Неудобният“ остров. Книгата „За Япония като за Япония“ (1984) на Марко Семов
Maria Ruseva
The “Inconvenient” island. The Marko Semov’s book “About Japan as about Japan” (1984)
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Summary
The article aims to examine the publication of Marko Semov’s book “About Japan as About Japan” (1984). The author is well placed before the socialist authorities in the People's Republic of Bulgaria, but his book about Japan is associated with crossing the established ideological boundaries, which is why the writer was sanctioned and his book was stopped from distribution. The article argues that the image of Japan in the book turns into an “inconvenient” island, during the visit of which not only the cultural asymmetries between the Bulgarians and the Japanese can be distinguished. Considered in a comparative aspect, next to the spectacular Japanese successes, it is much easier to stand out the numerous shortcomings related to the Bulgarian system in social, economic, ecological terms, etc.
Keywords: Japan, Marko Semov, travel writing, ideological criticism, 1980s
Марияна Цибранска-Костова
Новобългарската проповед от XVII-XVIII век сред православни и католици: реторика на привличане, средства за въздействие
Mariyana Tsibranska-Kostova
The New Bulgarian Preaching of the 17th – 18th centuries among Orthodox and Catholics: Rhetoric of Attraction, Means of Influence
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Summary
The aim of the paper is the analysis of several key themes in selected representatives of the New Bulgarian sermon and the corresponding means of influence as a manifestation of the socio-cultural dynamics between creator and user and of the social needs in which stable attitudes and notions of the Christian religious paradigm are encoded. The specific content and linguistic–textual parameters are considered in direct relation to the historical moment in the following oppositions: Christian norms–real social phenomena; moral norms–their antipodes; cultural-religious tradition–innovation. The sources have been deliberately limited because of the volume of the potentially significant material: 1.The original sermon of the Catholic missionary and Bishop of Nicopolis, Philip Stanislavov, from his Abagar, printed in Rome on the 6th of May, 1651; 2. A selection from the sermons against the superstitious beliefs of Josif Bradati (c. 1714–after 1758). The study proves the existence of a continuity between the "abagar" tradition and the works of Joseph Bradati and his followers. Although the sermon is essentially a struggle against magical healing practices, it is an attempt to create or restore dialogue and religious communication. In other words, it defends the role of Christian institutions, which had been weakened under Ottoman rule.
Keywords: Abagar, Joseph Bradati, new Bulgarian sermon, Bulgarian medieval legacy
Ноеми Стоичкова
„Прогресисти и консерватори“: литературноисторическа оптика
Noemi Stoichkova
“Progressives and Conservatives” Optics of Literary History
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Summary
The text examines B. Penchev's latest monograph "Progressives and Conservatives. Temporal patterns in Bulgarian literature from the late 1940s to the 1970s" as a possible contemporary literary-historical attempt on the recent past. Through the outlined and dominant thematic-problematic cut, the monograph creates the picture of more than 30 years of Bulgarian literary development processes, both in a diachronic plan, leading back to the interwar international times, and in a synchronic one, positioning them in (Western) European and Soviet cultural parameters. Unraveling multiple plots—literary, critical, and philosophical—that are constantly intersecting, intertwining, and relativizing between each other, the study covers in a fragmentary yet broadly intertextual manner some cultural-historical "native" and "foreign" phenomena. They arrange a voluminous, conceptual puzzle that is both self-contained and dialogical with scientific positions that are currently established as authoritative in the field. By combining theoretical discourses with literary-historical precision, the examined metatext moves along the razor's edge of the subjective and the objectifying.
Keywords: literary-historical study; multitude of critical literary and philosophical plots; diachronic and synchronic plan; native and European context