Journalism and the Novel – Peter Zavoev, “The Crooked Pear”
Вестникарство и роман – Петър Завоев, „Кривата круша“

Summary/Abstract: The mass book in Bulgaria, following the foreign publishing model, starts from the newspaper feuilleton – the so-called novel-feuilleton, as well as the pamphlet novel with a sequel. In the beginning, these cheap sensational readings are only translations, with the main role in their publication and distribution being played by the newspapers themselves. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the daily Bulgarian press relied extremely heavily on sensationalism, on yellow journalism, which applied the same ‘novel’ approach. One of its most prominent representatives is Petar Zavoev, who is also the author of the first original Bulgarian sensational novel “The Crooked Pear” (1908), which was initially published in paperbacks and later as a separate book. It is this novel that is the subject of consideration in the present article, which analyzes the problem-thematic orientation, the plot, the characters and the author‘s visual means. “The Crooked Pear” follows the collapse, the tragedy of the patriarchal family in the period of the so-called initial accumulation. This social-life issue is widespread in the Bulgarian literature of the time, but Petar Zavoev approaches it with melodrama, which is openly naturalistic – the disintegration of the rich family is not due to social and living circumstances, but due to the will of biological instincts, pathological deviations, incest, etc. The author relies on the sensational twists, the entanglement of the intimate intrigue, the piquancy combined with eroticism and – more or less – the foretold dramatic-tragic denouement.

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