Книжка-2

Table of Contents: Issue 2, 2024 - Bulgarian, English

This paper deals with several well-known topics in a slightly different way: Petko Slaveykov’s articles on women’s question, his criticism of European fashion, and his love poems and their relations with his personal life. He was a great advocate of the emancipation of women, not without some restrictions typical for his time. His writings demonstrate different images of the author that were determined by the genres, patterns used by him, and the trends in society and literature; they also evolved with the age of the author.

The article presents and comments on two topics, in which Pencho Slaveykov is present - in the presentation of Bulgarian literature in the monthly "Nord und Süd" of 1911 and in the thematization of the problem of paganism in various French and German language publications of 1914. In the former case, Slaveykov is the creator and dominant representative of Bulgarian literature, while in the latter, he is included in the broad circles of European aesthetic pursuits.

The article is dedicated to the first and most significant novel in Bulgarian literature with a plot from the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) – the novel "Condemned Souls" (1945) by Dimitar Dimov. In the context of criticism of the literary work of the author (the so-called „Tabacco“case 1951–1953) and its quasi-socialist poetics, the tendency towards historical incoherence is analyzed. Dimov’s novel has a large number of small historical and logical inaccuracies, but one error is indicated as essential: the narrative of the "Condemned Souls" takes place in 1936 and one of the main characters is a Jesuit, but the historical truth is that between 1932 and 1938 on the territory of Spain „The Society of Jesus“ is banned by the republican Constitution (1931) and edicts of the prime minister Manuel Azaña (1932); these statutory provisions are not repealed until 1938 when the rights of the Order are restored by Francisco Franco. In this way, Dimov’s novel is interpreted as a ‘torn creation’ between fiction and the historical truth.

The paper is focused on two movies, dedicated to the life and deeds of the Bulgarian poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev. Chronologically, the first one – “Freedom or Death” (1968), was directed by Nikola Korabov – a film director, considered as a part of so-called classical era of the Bulgarian cinematography. The second one, entitled simply “Botev” (2022), was directed by Maxim Guenchev – a contemporary movie director, known with his history-based works. In different time contexts, both movies were met with considerable criticism by the audience and cinema professionals. The paper pays particular attention to the reasons why these films provoked so many pronounced negative reactions. The first movie was not accepted positively because of the political circumstances took place in 1968. Prague Spring affected the whole socialist block. Thus, the movie by Nikola Korabov was seen as deviating from the politically correct line of the Bulgarian socialism, so its screening was stopped by the ideological censorship. The interpretation of the main character and the way the history events were shown was regarded as diverting from the socialist canon. Consequently, the movie was prohibited for public display. “Botev” movie’s reception was not particularly warm as well. The audience was influenced by the director’s pro-Russian point towards the Russian aggression in Ukraine. The same attitude was shared by the main movie character from the screen. It should be taken into account that nowadays the national-populism is in constant raise, and the dictionary of the social dialogue, dedicated to the problems of the national identity, is radicalized respectively. Concerning the artistic language of the first movie, it is defined as a style mixture with no coherent intention, as involving unnecessary Biblical reminiscences, overexaggerated aestheticization with no plot motivation. Summarizingly, the movie was seen as a display of mannerism, unfitting the idea of the national hero’s concept in its socialist version. The movie “Botev” by Maxim Guenchev leaves an impression for amateur, informal event, targeted for close friends and the families of the cast. In conclusion, the image of Hristo Botev was not properly screened either in the socialist period or in the 21 century and more than 30 years after its collapse.

The article of John Lewis Gaddis “The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past” is an essayistic endeavor to conceptualize the task of history through several figural concepts. The author uses figural concepts – such as metaphorical concepts for example – since he claims that history does not analyze them thoroughly, but represents a dynamic work with the past. The first figure is the painting by David Caspar Friedrich where a man looks at the past as a landscape and not in details. That is the power of generalization and abstraction. It is also exemplified by the abstract cubist model in the art of Pablo Picasso. The founder of the Annales School, Marc Bloch emphasizes the limited scope of the examined events in a historical work. In an essay by Mark Twain it is outlined how maturing is in fact humbling oneself. The role of history is to humble the historian and show him how insignificant he is in the broad picture. Finally, there is an analysis of Thucydides’ "History of the Peloponnesian War", which reaches some important philosophical generalizations. The Athenians were ruthless to the conquered populations, but sometimes they cancelled their brutal measures as unnecessary. From that, Gaddis infers that history’s task is to outline potentialities, but every potentiality can also be amended or not fulfilled at all.

The article of Shannon Forbes “Equating Performance with Identity: The Failure of Clarissa Dalloway's Victorian “Self” in Virginia Woolf's “Mrs. Dalloway” deals with the critique of Virginia Woolf for the Victorian ideas of the identity and unity of the Ego and the identity and unity of consciousness. The article is about the novel “Mrs. Dalloway”. It examines some of the feminist and psychoanalytic implications of this critique and outlines some important parallels with the essay “A Room of One’s Own” by Woolf. The early feminist writing of Woolf is viewed in the light of the psychoanalytic doctrine of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan that undermines the claims of the ethics of the 19th century that the subject must be consistent and monolithic and anything else should be considered unhealthy. The article elaborates on the episodes in “Mrs. Dalloway” where Clarissa enjoys the walks in London precisely for the purpose of borrowing from the orderliness of the modern city and putting her own personality in order. Clarissa presents the meetings with Peter and Septimus as overburdening because of their questions is she happy and how does she feel. Judith Butler is quoted revealing the performative meaning of Mrs. Dalloway’s actions and her life as a performance. Luce Irigaray is quoted in feminist perspective. She comments on the mirror-function of female personality in patriarchal society, which keeps the female identity always fragmentary and dependent. Clarissa Dalloway hopes for her party to resolve all that.

Postcolonial literary works by women examine leaving their homeland, enslavement, suppression, rebellion, variance, ethnicity, sexism, location, and reactions to British imperialism and the USA's crucial control conversations, as well as the basic realities of language and communication that gave rise to all of this. Postcolonialism is not opposed to what it includes; instead, it opens up new avenues of research and knowledge. This research sheds light on the intricacies of gendered, racial, and cultural identities in the wake of colonialism by elevating the voices and experiences of postcolonial women. It also contributes to continuing discourses within feminist theory and postcolonial studies. In the end, it makes the case that in order to imagine more inclusive and fair futures, it is critical to magnify a variety of tales and viewpoints.

The book „Fiction in the archives. The selection of facts and documents in scientific research“ (2024) contains articles from the scientific conference with the same title held in March 2023 at Sofia University. Compilers of the collection are Andriana Spasova, Anna Alexieva, Boyka Ilieva, Nadezhda Alexandrova, Nikolay Zhelev, Slaveya Nedelcheva. The collection aims to raise the topic of the two-way interaction between fact and fiction, myth and history, document and literature.

The book “Inter armа. The Premonition of War in Czech Culture (1935–1939)” contains texts representative of both Czech culture and the dominant attitudes in European cultural space, chronologically framed by the Spanish Civil War and the eve of the Second World War. The compiler of the collection, author of the preface, and translator of most of the texts is Dobromir Grigorov. The selected literary testimonies – journalistic essays, poetry, fiction, and drama – contain important intellectual insights, ideological messages, and pose common contemporary questions about the changing interpretations of concepts such as socialism and democracy, and their divergent interpretations. A significant focus in a number of texts is the clash between the individual right to freedom and justice on the one hand, and collective identity on the other. Some of the authors such as Karel Čapek, Vladislav Vančura, and František Halas are well-known to Bulgarian readers, but others are almost or completely unknown – Gustav Winter, Emanuel Vajtauer, Otokar Fišer, Milena Jesenská.