(Post)Modern Apocrypha as an Epiphany of Sense (on the Basis of Bulgarian Literary Biblical Paraphrases)

Author(s): Ewelina Drzewiecka / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2014

The paper is devoted to the author’s concept of modern apocrypha in the context of the two main tendencies of (Post)modernity: unmasking and paraphrasing. On the basis of the literary paraphrases of the Evangelical story, found in the Bulgarian (Post)Modern literary, there is shown a hermeneutic passage from “apocrypha as a literary mystification” (“literary apocrypha”), i.e. a concept often applied in literary studies, to “apocrypha as an epiphany of sense”, i.e. a concept which can be useful in cultural studies and in history of ideas. It is suggested that in the light of the postsecular thought, being an individual interpretation of the canon, the (Post)Modern apocrypha has a great epiphanic potential, which means that hiding minority truths, it reveals in fact some crucial, and crypto-theological, problems of the present. Drawing the axiological difference between “the unmasking apocrypha” (pseudo-gospel) and “the paraphrasing apocrypha” (epiphany of sense), the author claims that only the last one does actually incarnate Charles Taylor’s ideal of the authentic (and poetic) expression (of will), which helps in establishing an individual sense-making horizon as a positive response to the “heretical imperative” of (Post)Modernity.

Kalin Yanakiev as a Writer of Apocrypha? Remarks on the Essay Дебат върху теодицеята (A Debate on Theodicy)

Author(s): Grażyna Szwat-Gyłybowa / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2014

The article engages with the philosophical and theological notion of theodicy as formulated by Kalin Yanakiev in Дебат върху теодицеята (A Debate on Theodicy), an essay which appeared in Yanakiev’s book Философски опити върху самотата и надеждата (Philosophical Essays on Solitude and Hope,2008). The article uses the category of apocryphalness to analyse the ideas sparked off in Yanakiev’s work by a passage from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, along with a series of Yanakiev’ s philosophical and poetic images which are interpreted in the biblical and philosophical context. The article also touches on the relationships between Yanakiev’s ideas and Orthodox Christian theodicy.

Непознатият Йордан Йовков

Author(s): Kamelia Zhabilova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

Предсказанията на Матей Лансберг в български фрагмент от XIX в. (щрихи към гадателните книги и профетичната литература на Балканите)

Author(s): Mariyana Tsibranska-Kostova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 17/2017

The article presents comments on and text edition of two folios of the so-called Bulgarian fragment of Mathieu Laensberg’s prophecy, written in the Bulgarian language of the first thirty years of the nineteenth century. The article does not focus on the prophet’s very speculative biography, neither on one of the Enlightenment’s most valued Almanacs, from Belgian Liege, which since its first appearance in 1636 was also associated with Laensberg. Rather, she aims at sketching preliminary observations about some typological features of the prognostic and prophetic literature, both western and eastern, emphasizing the analysed text and its comparison to the horoscopic portion in’s 1838 Perpetual Calendar by Teodor Pirdopski, who was best known as a gifted compiler of damascenes and miscellanies.

Konflikt i wojna jako „bicz Boży” w literaturze bułgarskiego średniowiecza

Author(s): Marzanna Kuczyńska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 17/2017

The article focuses on the motif of war as a tool for the realization of God’s plans for people and the sign of His reward, and above all the penalty for human misdeeds, so called “whip of God”. The forms of the presence of the idea of God’s whip, his literary images and the functions it implements, are analyzed. The analysis was carried out on the material of the Bulgarian literature from 10th-15th century.

Пенчо Славейков

Author(s): Yanko Yanev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6/2017

Чьтение книгъ – християнска добродетел и агиографски топос в старобългарската книжнина

Author(s): Greta Stoyanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 13/2013

Reading books in the old Bulgarian literature clearly seems to be the Christian story, functioning as hagiographic topos adopted by fathers of the church in literature of the Slavonic world and is undoubtedly introduced by the Long life of St. Kiril. This trend is also marked by the author in the Speech of a monk was carved into the reading of the books (of the Izbornik from 1076) and proves that in many aspects for Slavic bookmen is generating а model.

Лично и исторично в “Автобиография” на Григор Пърличев

Author(s): Strashimir Tsanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 13/2013

The text deals with the relation personal - historic in Grigor Parlichev’s Autobiography. The aesthetic merits of the work have been examined. The main focus is on the dramatic identities of the relation personal - historic which define the autobiography as an important component of the literary-historical process.

Обществото и певецът

Author(s): Sava Sivriev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 13/2013

The article studies the conflict between Ivan Vazov and the Bulgarian society during the 80s of the 19th c. This conflict is to be seen in Ivan Vazov’s articles in the then Press. It is poetically revealed in his books of poems “Rebec” (1881) and “Fields and Forests” (1884). During the Bulgarian National Revival Ivan Vazov finds it worthy to deny himself, searching identity with the collective body, servicing to the society with the Word and lyric poetry. These are times of ideals and national ideology, through which the Bulgarian society lives its life. During the 80s of the 19th c. the idealism of the Bulgarian Revival thought stays in the past. The remnants of the National Revival theocentrism are substituted by the anthropocentrism of the new times. The mentality of Bulgarian society changes. It aims at gaining money and social success. This new mentality makes the society alien to Ivan Vazov. In his lyric poetry of that time - “Rebec” (1881) and “Fields and Forests”, first, we read the conflict with the society, and then - the drama of the poet’s break of relations with this society. Ivan Vazov seeks an individual sense of being. At the end of “Fields and Forests”, after the dramatic breakoff with the society we find a new program for the meaning of life and creativity. A poet should not serve the collective values. He is an elect. His talent is a gift of God. A poet should not go down with the others. They should go up to him. His life is in the world of the ideal things. For Ivan Vazov the new meaning is a life within culture, art, creativity, to overcome solitude, sadness, grief, lack of sense, i.e. anthropocentrism again, but being a world of ideas.

Напомняне за Стефан Руневски

Author(s): Nikolay Dimkov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 13/2013

The article revives the memory about the life and work of Stefan Runevsky, a Bulgarian prose writer from the beginning of the previous century, who stays at the base of the national literary tradition but with his creative work outlines the background where the popular names of Bulgarian literature from the Liberation till the First World War stand out.

Една „батална” сцена у Ил. Р. Блъсков за Жельо Собаджията, неговите другари и Карл Май (през погледа на един киносценарист)

Author(s): Krasimir Kunchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 12/2012

The paper is an attempt at reading one of the Bulgarian Revival classical works - Blaskov’s “Lost Stanka” - through the prism of expectations the postmodern person at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, as a script with all the merits of an action film. The battle scenes in the novelette reflect those of the frightening characters in Karl May’s novels. The emphasis has been put not on the stereotypical expectations of the Bulgarian revivalist literature as an apology of slave sufferings but on the eternal subject of war and man’s inherent wish of resistance.

Адаптация към съвременните реалности или оцеляване в либералната джунгла

Author(s): Petar Stefanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 12/2012

The article deals with the state of children’s literature in Bulgaria after the beginning of the democratic changes. It establishes the absence of some of its major components, mostly resulting from the lack of strategy for its place, role and development, as well as from a certain indifference on behalf of the society and the state. The reasons for the current state of children’s literature are seen also in new phenomena, that change not only the way in which we live, but the spiritual make-up of adolescents. Admitting that nowadays it is impossible to return the same cult toward fiction to the children, that was characteristic in the past, the author reflects upon the possibilities for unification of the efforts of both the cultural and educational institutions to support learning and literacy in order for children to be able to join this universal source of information: the book.

Изборът да бъдеш Ахасфер (Две източни пиеси на Борис Априлов)

Author(s): Vihren Chernokozhev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 12/2012

The subject-matter of the paper is connected with the name of the writer Boris Aprilov whose works and fate have been aesthetisized through the prism of the eternal motif of the wandering Jew. The choice of being Ahasfer - the person condemned to eternal wanderings, uncomprehended, far away from his homeland, is a self-induced choice. The text is not limited to the historical and biographical facts connected with Aprilov but interprets two of his “Eastern” plays: The One Thousand and the Second and the comedy The King’s New Clothes. The paper reveals new information about Aprilov’s works, the relations among writers, actors, playwrights and the first steps of the Satirical Theatre, blessed by the Starshel newspaper.

За комунизма и посткомунизма в България в литературните репортажи на Илия Троянов. Кучешки времена. Революцията Менте 1989

Author(s): Snezhana Boycheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2014

Ilia Troyanov’s reports “Dog Times” present a thorough analysis and criticism of communist era and the post-communist period in Bulgaria.”The Fake Revolution 1989”, appeared after the changes, after the author researched the archives and interviewed the witnesses of the depicted events. In a nutshell, Troyanov’s message is that communism has left deep marks not only in people’s mentality, but it has also bequeathed to us the establishment. The social group of former favored people - security force officers, plant managers and party secretaries held Bulgarian economy hostage. Twenty years after the changes few things have changed in Bulgaria, the so-called tender revolution of 1989 has turned out to be a fake. The old structures of power have remained virtually intact under the cover of political and economic underhand dealings.

Идеология и пародия в жанра: поглед върху белетристиката на Цветан Стоянов. „Случаят с професора”

Author(s): Plamen Antov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2018

The paper considers the special attention of the “high” intellectual, literary critic and social philosopher Tsvetan Stoyanov to the “low” forms of the fiction/novel genre – humor and crime. The answer is: the both precisely guarantees a top freedom of identifications. To the highest degree “softening-up” of the discourse in the belles letters sphere, in the first stage, but in the second – to the modern irony through which the Stoyanov’s fiction prose stays in the political sphere and operates with it. The political situation is an object to not a clear, unambiguous obstructions, but a ambiguous and sly discourse games. The both spheres – political-ideological and its parody – are mixed in the crime story The Case with the Professor (1966) by a very complicated manner and therefore almost imperceptibly. This work is examined in detail to explicate the mechanism through which Tsvetan-Stoyanov’s fiction presents in the genre. And how, in the frame of genre, it operates with ideological values – pro and contra simultaneously. The novel is a parody of crime genre in its strong ideological soc-version and fully valued, complete, “earnest” crime-spy reading simultaneously. The Stoyanov’s fiction prose operates with the big imperative of the Ideology in the same dual, double-faced way: not directly and unambiguously (“dissidently”) opposing from outside, but by means of an ambiguous, polysemantic, full of suggestion, slippery, slipping out, serious-ironic narrative which plays on the edge. Not radical self-excluding, but co-sharing, complicity, partnershiping in a cunning duplicity of the game –inside and outside simultaneously, but not leaving the area outlined by its own rules. A try to outwitting of the clumsy mono-discourse of the Ideology through shaking, breaking up of the meanings in the frame of the game itself. Stoyanov remains to the end within the word/speech relying on its slyness within the framework of the dialogue. This operative strategy works simultaneously within genre’s and ideology’s field unbreakable connected within autonomous “inner space” of the work. – But this strategy is seen as regularly followed from the social-biographical figure of the modern “playing intellectual” whose perfect personification is Tzvetan Stoyanov.

Възрастният в "детските" киносценарии на Валери Петров

Author(s): Mladen Enchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2013

Based on the films A Knight Without An Armour and Yo- Ho-Ho, the article is an attempt at analyzing the image of the adult in Valeri Petrov's screenplays which could provisionally be called children's. The work points out the romantic substrate of the authors' concept about the adults, focusing on the thesis that while communicating with the child they express simultaneously the aspects of their social role, their individual consciousness and the extent of their individual morality.

Традиция и модерност в поезията на Пенчо Славейков

Author(s): Temenuga Teneva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2011

Pencho Slavejkov is described as "a father of the Bulgarian modernism". Reading the universality of the philosophical ideas about man and art in his poetry is helped by a generalized representation of the folkloric culture as familiarity and deposition (extraction) of the family experience.

Scripta manent, verba volant în romanul lui Gheorghi Gospodinov, „Un roman natural”

Author(s): Cătălina Puiu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 4/2017

The paper addresses the substandard language used by Gheorghi Gospodinov in his novel A natural novel. His book can be approached as a mixtum compositum, a puzzle formed of various short stories. The writer carefully uses regional or demotic phrases, nicknames, and skips paragraphs in order to create a timely and postmodern text.

Rațiune, imaginație, halucinație la Pavel Vejinov

Author(s): Carmen Dărăbuş / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 2/2019

The article analyzes the micro-novles The Barrier and White Lizard by Pavel Vejinov, Bulgarian Writer from 20th century, which transcends the commun features of science-fiction writing towards the meaning of human condition. Composer Manev (the relation of reason with art) and the researcher Aleksov (the relation of reason with science) are absorbed by their work, so they lose the way of the natural rhythm of life. Manev will involve intensely in Doroteea’s life, a strange young girl; he will let himself be trained in the way she sees life. Aleksev will help create a monster, devoid of empathy, totally insensitive. They both overcomes barriers and the only solution its death: Doroteea and Nesi commit suicide.

Cromo-simbolistică în literatura bulgară contemporană

Author(s): Cătălina Puiu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 2/2019

Beyond their specific properties, colours encompass a vast array of symbolical,social, as well as religious meanings, which may vary greatly from one culture to another, and are not at all universal. They can represent physical or moral traits, convey gestures, states of mind and spirit. The authors' predilection for „colorful titles” suggest their multiple symbolism and diverse interpretation. In the work of the Bulgarian writers discussed in this paper (Gheorghi Gospodinov, Teodora Dimova, Zahari Karabashliev) the chromatic symbols preserve their entire traditional value, but they evolve however toward knowledge and exploration.