Григор Хар. Григоров

The figure of the writer-hero is established only in the conditions of some premodern notion of literature, while the modern idea of literature produces the image of the professional writer, master of playing with words and creating plots. The premodern and the modern states of literature are two successive phases of the "literary field" (Bourdieu) and the transition between them can be observed in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The difference between the two stages is considerable: in the first phase the emphasis is put on the themes, i.e. on what is written, while in the modern stage it is put on the style, i.e. on how is written; in the first stage the writers compete for the right of executing a certain social role (e.g. the role of chroncler), while in the second period the rivalry is between entire aesthetic movements (e.g. impressionism vs. expressionism). The writer-heroes execute the cultural function of "memory guards and glory sovereigns" (Veselovsky) and substitute the traditional ethical regulations with the decrees of a heroic code - they dethrone the everyday virtues and legalize the heroic virtues. According to multiple criteria (the heroic deed type, the existential position toward life and death, the specific authority of the speech, the type of heroic declarations, etc.) three social roles could be distinguished: the poet-revolutionary, the chronicler and the national poet. The most evident heroic declaration is the choice of a pseudonym. In addition, to win a certain role the writers must also follow specific responsible conduct in relation to the causes of the nation, which is manifested as a certain unity of action and words, of life and literature. The most important characteristics of these three roles are the following: The role of the poet-revolutionary is constituted through the public poetic vow of heroism, declared in first person singular, such as: "Let's go to death, brother!" (Botev) or "Now or never, / let's go to fight!" (Stambolov). In order to receive such a role from the public the writer-hero must accomplish the poetic vow during his life. In such cases, the execution of the heroic deed is realized as a unity of words and action - it is symptomatic that the most popular songs during the rebel in 1876 ("Play on pipe, grandfather", "Do not cry, mother, do not grieve", "We do not want treasure", etc.) contain heroic declarations in first person. There is no other more adequate way to proclaim the heroic deed than the expression of the program followed by the heroic deed. If the figure of the poet-revolutionary is founded as "sovereign of glory", the images of the chronicler and the national poet could be defined as "guards of memory". The main feature that differentiates them is partiality-impartiality of shared knowledge. Representatives of the chronicler role are Zahary Stoyanov and Stoyan Zaimov, and their specific point of view consists of the unique knowledge of the witness and the impossibility to be an objective narrator. The speech of the chronicler gains its specific authority from the fact that the narrated events are not only knowledge, but also personal acquired experience. The position of risking their lives gives them the right to judge social vices - a right entirely used by Zahary Stoyanov. The role of the national poet, embodied by Ivan Vazov, is supplied with the authority of the commentator, nonparticipant in the narrated events, that is to say not trying to draw personal dividends from the constructed image of the past. The lack of social prestige of the participant is a weakness, compensated by the non-contradictory position of the distant commentator. The heroic sacrifice of the national poet is composed of full devotion to the creative power in the name of the national cause. The national poet builds the ideal image of the collective existence and his heroic sacrifice is expressed as a long-term civil duty. These three heroic writer roles are constituted in accordance with their different positions in relation to the border between life and death. The poet-revolutionary declares in his works that he is ready to risk his life, the chronicler - that he had already risked his life, and the national poet - that he devotes his life in the name of a common cause. The authority of the writer's speech is therefore consequence of the specific instances, from which it is communicated, namely: the speech of the man on the threshold of death, the man living second life or the responsibly living man.

The article closely investigates the history of writing and re-writing, understanding and re-understanding of the song "Mila Rodino" ("Dear Motherland") from the end of 19th century to 1964, when it was officially declared the Bulgarian state anthem. The paper comprises two essays. The first essay collects many imagined memories of the spontaneous creation of the song by Tzvetan Radoslavov who came back in Bulgaria to take part in the Serbian-Bulgarian War. The assumption is that the myth of spontaneous creation is attached only to songs that contain heroic declaration. This is external to the song. However, it influences its understanding - it seems that at the end of 19th century "Dear Motherland" was read as a song about a man who is returning home, while the geographical space in the first stanza was interpreted as a panoramic "photography" of the motherland, viewed from Vidin. The text versions of "Dear Motherland" in secondary school music textbooks suggest that during the Balkan wars the song was re-used by Bulgarian nationalism: the melody wasturned into a march; the text was rewritten in such a way that the mentioned geographical areas had to be unequivocally understood as a map of Bulgarian ethnic territory; in some of the versions "abstracts" of the sacred Bulgarian history appear. The second essay is dedicated to the version of the song, rewritten by Georgi Dzhagarov and Dimitar Metodiev, which was declared the state anthem in 1964. This version of the text keeps the reading of the song as an ethnic map: the geographical spaces of "Stara Planina", "Danube" and "Pirin" mark the three eternal political areas of Bulgaria (Thrace, Moesia and Macedonia), according to the national myth. At the same time this version is discreetly bound to communist ideology: the assumption is that the interventions in the text are influenced by the model of song "Septemvriytsi", written by the guerilla fighter Hristo Karpachev.