Анна Алексиева

The text deals with the depressive conditions of subjectivity, which, denominated with the concept of melancholy, is expressed in the Bulgarian Renaissance poetry from the 40s and 50s of XIX century. Provoked by the situation of love non-realization, these conditions elaborate their own language, assigned the task to describe the symptoms of melancholic. Thus, the articulation of a number of psychosomatic reactions such as cry, the feeling of "burning down to ashes" with love, the claustrophobic adjustment to placement in uncozy, decreased spaces, the insurmountable attachment of the subject to the past, his impossibility to maintain social relations, etc. becomes possible. Love poetry from the middle of XIX century, which exposes the symptoms of melancholic, evidences the occurrence of considerable transformations in Bulgarian socio-cultural space. It presents a new role type - the melancholic person in love, whose image becomes an example to be followed, a regulator of everyday practices and behaviouristic models. In a wider perspective, this type of poetry marks an important development line in Bulgarian lyrics, which fluctuations might be revealed in the post-liberation love poetry.

The analysis of the first Bulgarian narrative poem "Stoyan and Rada" (1845) proceeds from the assumption that the poem represents two types of subjectivity, two types of love behaviour: courteously ritual and traditionally patriarchal. The former model followed by the subject speaking in the first part (the so-called "dedication") includes an active I-position, flexibility of communication, and eroticized gestures. The poem's second part which contains a text within the text (a gift from the character to his beloved) represents another type of behaviour through the characters of Stoyan and Rada. That type is sensitive to the social sanctions and the transcendental authority, and is orientated towards the past and the folklore patriarchal culture. Examining the complicated dialogue between those two antithetical models, the paper is trying to find out why the seducer lover from the first part of the poem is telling his beloved exactly the story of Stoyan and Rada and what relation does it bear to the courtship situation. The speaking subject is seemingly clear about the uniting closeness provoking power of a sad sentimental story that activates identificational and compassionate impulses. His gallant talking embodies the utopian notion of word's inviolability and omnipotence, and its ability to shape all kinds of views, situations, and feelings, including love.

The article explores Luben Karavelov"s novel "Turkish Pasha", accepting that the text is a good illustration of the way Bulgarian literature from the period of the National Revival considers the sphere of the violent and the sadistic on the one hand and the nature of martyr-and-victim experience on the other. The emphasis is laid upon violence and the ritualization of torture, bodily violation in Karavelov"s novel which inevitably leads to analogies with works written nearly a century earlier, like for example "Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue" by Marquis de Sade, no matter how paradoxical these parallels may seem because of the different socio-cultural context and the receptive status of the authors. Both works are built upon the principle of "text within text", in both cases the narrators are women and both works use the categorical apparatus of the Enlightenment discourse. The article considers the obvious intertextual closeness, yet it does not unfold as a typical comparative analysis, because above all it is interested in the attempt of Bulgarian literature to build its own model of making sense of violence and suffering, which without being totally different from the available European practices and concepts, has its own specificity because it is refracted through the prism of national identity. This model is studied on different levels: with respect to the nature of the sadistic subject (which coincides with the character of the Turk to the extent to which it is doubly negated - as a foreign invader and a figure with power, a tyrant), with respect to the object of sadistic violation (the victims are always young, virtuous, and innocent) and from the point of view of the ritualization of the punishments and the sexual aggression of the oppressor. The motif of incest is explored as an final phase of the regression of sadistic violation. This motif turns into the tragic culmination of Karavelov"s text. We can see in this motif not only the familiar folklore matrix (the meeting between the brother and the sister, who failed to recognize each other), but also the Revivalist concept of retribution because of the lack of memory. Karavelov"s characters are punished because they have forgotten who they are, because of their failure to preserve their national identity. The text spares only the nun, who tells the story about the endless Bulgarian sufferings, who describes the misfortunes of virtue, following the ideological point of view of the time that a happy ending is impossible under the yoke.

The paper aims at analyzing the images of the Bulgarian National Revival heroes in the Grand narrative, manufactured during the socialism. The heroes of the National Revival epoch were re-thought as predecessors of the socialist activists, using various propaganda procedures: neutralization of the attempts, made by the previous regime for establishing intellectual genealogy between it and the heroes from XIX c.; forging of particular slogans; re-shaping of school and university curricula; introducing anniversaries and commemoration practices; even founding research institutions. In the period of so called mature socialism, the national heroes were successfully integrated and re-used for the purposes of the new, nationally-oriented phase of the regime. Post-socialist attempts to re-think the national pantheon were not able to re-fashion the National Revival part of the narrative, whose kernel kept on being marked with unparalleled dignity, high moral and selflessness.

The paper is focused on ideological modeling of the image of Hristo Botev, regarded as national hero, during the Interwar period. Three particular works are analyzed: “The poet rebel: Hristo Botev” by Theodosy Anastasov, “Veneta” by Fany Popova-Mutafova, “Hristo Botev (Historical novel)” by Georgy Savchev. All these texts were published in the same year – 1935, and this fact could be considered as one of the arguments for grouping them together. They could be seen as representative for various prose genre forms. Authors of them demonstrated different attitude towards the established (canonical) historical and literary-historical narrative, both popular and academic, dedicated to Botev. While interpreting them, the paper is aiming at outlining both points of ideological match and tensions between literature and history as disciplinary fields.

The paper examines songs with love and erotic content, dating back from the so-called National Revival Period. They used to be visible part of the popular culture of Bulgaria and the Southeastern Europe region in initial decades of the Modern Bulgarian statehood. These songs were originally written in Bulgarian and in Turkish, but with Cyrillic alphabet. Turkish ones are introduced for the first time in Bulgarian Literary History Studies. They were taken from books by Manol Lazarov, Petko Slaveykov, and by an unidentified author with initials K.S.M. This popular literature genre had a complex biography, following to some extent the ideological planning of the Bulgarian society and the social trajectory of the ideas of the nation, particular for that period. Initially, they were well accepted, so they gained vast popularity. Such a positive reception was particular for the period, when they were not experienced as non-matching to the emerging national ideology. Coincidingly with the rising of Bulgarian nationalism, their popularity decreased and they accumulated certain criticism, so in the beginning of the XX c. they were marginalized. In the last decades of XIX s., according to the changes of the ideological climate in Bulgaria, some of them were reinterpreted in a patriotic key.

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.

In 2025, the journal Literaturna missal (Literary thought) is going to publish an issue dedicated to the interdisciplinary topic "Sound and Text". The issue will include articles in English and Bulgarian. The complex interrelations between sound and text have a history as long as literature itself, dating back from the primary unstable form of oral poetry, through the secondary writing forms of oral poetry, up till today’s digital audio-visual forms (Paul Zumthor. Oral Poetry: An Introduction). Sound should be considered in the broadest possible sense, and in many literary and cultural forms it is practically inseparable from the text. The interconnected forms of sound and text are positioned in a broad intercultural context, as these forms develop from the verse of Antiquity to the present day. The research could focus on acoustic and textological issues of the Medieval Corpus and Early Modernity to the 20th century. It can adopt historical or theoretical approach. From the perspective of intermediality, the research could analyze the sound-text interaction in the historical avant-gardes and neo-avant-gardes. The complex relations between the two are crucial also for many other realms of contemporary cultural studies (electronic audio literature, film, theatre, performance, popular music, video games, digital media, etc.). Their theoretical and historical configurations call for examination from various perspectives.

If we view literature and law as different spheres of language usage or classify them as different “language games” (Ludwig Wittgenstein), we would probably jump to the conclusion that they cannot explain each other. Despite the different conventions of law and literature, however, the two have been inextricably linked since ancient times and sometimes in complex and mediated ways. Poetry and legal proceedings have common rhetorical roots from a time when both were public attractions. Law and literature have been opposed in social and historical aspect multiple times. A number of lawsuits have been organized against certain literary works; lists of “banned books“ were prepared. There are also literary representations of fictional trials and laws, of fictional states with sinister or absurd legislation. The field of critical theory also contains both oppositions and examples of agreement between the two fields. The issue of the journal is being prepared in partnership with the seminar "Literature and Law" of the "Ethical Studies Section", Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at BAS and the "Faculty of Slavic Studies", Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski".