Мая Горчева

The paper proposes to examine Ivaylo Petrov"s prose about the extinction of the rural life through the notion of plebs and to introduce in literary criticism the historic dimension of the "directed industrialization" that took place in the beginning of the communist regime. Drawing the economic and social mutations through the plots the author puts forward the wagers of morality and gives multiple instances of the turn of mind.

The paper is an attempt to outline the emigrants" poetry, with emphasis on the correspondences and the divergences with the native literary tradition and the trends in current poetry.As for the first generation émigrés, they attested a strongromantic bent and worship for the national symbols. The second generation from the end of 1950s and 1960s demonstrated broader interest for the actual context and their poetry adopted the language of the new country, alongside with new topics and poetic models. Inherent for both generations was the symbol of the Doppelgänger. Moreover, this is an overarching symbol present in the poetry abroad and in the country.

The theme of a double life, characteristic of the writing of Bulgarian emigrants, has gained a hypertextual and especially existential meaning after the disclosure of the writer as an agent of the services. He is simultaneously a witness and a discloser in his works: the ordeals of signing the declaration of secrecy are retold in both editions of the novel “The Indifferent”; it spurs to the ruthless self-disclosure in the dramas “The Mushroom” and “The Smile of Fear”. The research traces the relationship between the textual evidence in both editions of the novel as well as the memory of the double existence of the author in order to outline the significance of literary evidence as the most truthful memory of the “cluelessness” of time.

In the European cultural tradition, the image of the islands brings together the geographical strangeness with a social utopia. The paper traces its historical alterations, as attested in documentary and literary travel stories, in comparison with Leibniz's thesis of the “best world”.