Игра на кодове и прочити в разказа „Паладини“ от Г. П. Стаматов

Author(s): Iliana Ivanova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 2/2024

The article is dedicated to the centenary of the independent printing of the story Palladini by G.P. Stamatov as a separate booklet. This story is one of the most artistic works by the writer and, beyond offering aesthetic pleasure, provides researchers with the opportunity to deepen their analytical skills. By focusing on certain codes not widely discussed by critics—primarily religious and musical—researchers can uncover their interplay with other codes in the text. Through analysis, new meanings are derived that have biographical references to the writer and address issues along the genealogical line both backwards and forwards (in relation to the father and the daughter, respectively).

Българската литература в европейския културен контекст

Author(s): Alexander Panov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6/2024

In the article, an attempt is made to prove the failure of the thesis that the development of Bulgarian literature was delayed, and then accelerated and catching up. Instead of literature being considered for itself, from which it follows that it must necessarily pass through certain objectively existing stages, it is conceived as a means of building certain attitudes, feelings and beliefs, aimed at finding a solution to emerging ones in the process of modernization spiritual problems of the nation. Several main problems are considered - creation and development of the national ideology, overcoming the chaos of values, emergence of the individual utopia, social conflicts, building a bridge between actuality and the past by building a history of memory and outlining the role of women in the modern world. In the realization of all these spiritual processes, it can be seen that Bulgarian literature developed in full sync with the cultural processes taking place at that time in a European context. The conclusion is that the way in which Bulgarian literature is understood and taught at home and abroad must be reconsidered in order to come to the perception of native literature as an integral part of a common European symbolic space.

История и идеология (Темата за революцията в два учебника по литература за X клас)

Author(s): Boyko Penchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6/2024

The purpose of the article is to explore the rethinking of the literary-historical narrative in the Bulgarian literature textbooks after 1989. The main method is a comparative literary-historical analysis of two textbooks, very similar in terms of authors and content, published in 1984 and 1992 respectively. The article explores the strategies of re-conceptualization (and dislodging) of the concept of revolution in these textbooks, as well as the altered functions of literary movements such as symbolism and modernism in the framework of the literary history, thought in secondary schools. The “new reading” of literature after 1989 is compared with Jean-François Lyotard’s concept of the crisis of grand narratives and the shift towards a new type of knowledge legitimation – through the category of “performativity”. The article raises the question of whether the de-ideologization of literature also leads to its de-historicization and whether this is dangerous for its social validity, given the problematic applicability of the performative criterion in dealing with literature within the educational system.

Романтическата парадигма в „Балада за Георг Хених“

Author(s): Adriana Damyanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6s/2024

The text proceeds from some of the challenges that the current literature curricula for the second high school stage face in the learning and teaching of this component of the subject Bulgarian language and literature – the adequate implementation of the competence approach in literary education, the thematic organization of literary material, the preservation of conceptual and target continuity of the literary educational process. With the idea of helping to successfully deal with them, the exposition tries to read V. Paskov's „A Ballad for Georg Henig“, in accordance with the competence approach and engaged in both the thematic diversity of the work and its aesthetically specific interpretation.

Нетипичните паузи в речта на актьорите от серийния филм „Войната на буквите“

Author(s): Silviya Koeva / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2024

The present study marks and analyses atypical uses of pauses in the speech of the actors in the War of the Letters TV series. The focus is on the positions in the syntactic organization of sentences where pauses appear in their realization as utterances. Taking into account the non-spontaneous nature of speech in the studied discourse, it is assumed that they are integral to the adopted communicative strategies. The question is raised to what extent these pauses are effective and whether they have already evolved into typical “violations” of the generally accepted rules of using intonation pauses.

Езикова игра във „Вселена“ от сборника „Уж“ на Д. Воденичаров

Author(s): Radina Ivanova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2024

The present article is devoted to the phraseological language play found in Vselena from Uzh – a collection of Dimitar Vodenicharov’s literary works (Vodenicharov is also the author of several other books, including Phraseological Novel). By using language play in the text, the author interprets the Biblical themes of creation and Adam and Eve, intertwining the logic of the modern world (with an emphasis on the stereotypes of women) with the logic of the holy book. As a result, there is a clash between the language of today’s popular culture and our preconceived notions about the high style characteristic of texts like the Bible. The analysis focuses on various types of lexical-level language play (i.e. lexical, phraseological and other playful transformations). The article concludes that, on the one hand, language play is a feature specifically used in the construction of the text under analysis (Vselena), on the other hand, it is related to the cognitive mechanisms used by the modern person for its interpretation and his/her abilities to encode and decode a multi-layered text through making associative links based on extensive background knowledge.

Development Trends in the Morphological-Typological Profile of German

Author(s): Nikolay Stankov / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

The article presents the results of an analysis of samples extracted from a total of six corpora containing literary, scientific and journalistic texts stemming from fixed periods within the 20th and 21st centuries. The aim is to discover whether and to what extent the morphology of the German language has become more or less analytic or synthetic and what quantitative morphological-typological differences there are between the three major text types: literary, scientific, and journalistic. The concept of grammaticity is also briefly discussed and applied to the analysis. The study finds, among other things, that 21st-century scientific texts tend to exhibit a higher level of syntheticity than the other two text types, that German has simultaneously become less analytic and less synthetic over the past 100 years, and that, as a result, it encodes less grammatical information nowadays than it did at the outset of the 1920s.

Цветовете на смъртта – фразеологизми с компонент черно и бяло в немския и в българския език

Author(s): Gabriela Grigoryan / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2024

This article offers a comparative study of German and Bulgarian phraseological units with the components black and white within the semantic field of death. The phraseological units were extracted from phraseological dictionaries and can be divided into full equivalents, semantic equivalents, and non-equivalents. The comparative study makes it possible to determine the common and specific features in the symbolism of the colours. The results reveal the predominance of similarities in the symbolism of black and white in the two languages. It is also noted that, in the phraseological units that have a component black or white, colour symbolism does not always play the dominating role for their motivation.

Критика и въображение: Лукиан от Самосата и неговата „Истинска история“

Author(s): Hristo Hristov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2024

Тhis article focuses on three main problems. Firstly, the connection between the life and work of Lucian of Samosata, which exists implicitly in his fantastic short story “A True Story.” Secondly, the complete clarification of the specific genre of the story in relation to the characteristics of the audience of the work. Thirdly, the specific nature of Lucian as the author of the story, i.e. his roles in that case of a literary critic and master of belles-lettres. The role of the literary critic is related to the culture of the Hellenistic age and has evolved in the epoch of the 2nd-century Roman Empire. The role of the master of belles-lettres is that of the author searching for new ways beyond the classical literary patterns of the past such as Homer’s epic poems.

ПЕТЪР – ДИПЛОМАТ И КНИЖОВНИК ОТ IX-ти ВЕК, СЪДИЯ, СРОДНИК НА КНЯЗ БОРИС-МИХАИЛ И „ВЕЛИК КУРАТОР НА АРХОНТА НА БЪЛГАРИЯ“, ЧЕРГУБИЛЯ И ЧЕРНОРИЗЕЦ

Author(s): Trendafil Krastanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 24/2024

In the present study, the man of letter Peter Chernorizets is identified with a Bulgarian diplomat and writer from the 9th century, who was appointed as a comit, chergubilya and “great curator of the archon of Bulgaria Boris-Mihail”. In the summer of 866, the envoy Peter was sent to Rome with 115 questions to Pope Nicholas I and again he personally brought to Bulgaria the famous “Responses of Pope Nicholas I to the questions of the Bulgarians”, interpreting them together with other boìls before the ruler. Later, as a monk (Chernorizets), he wrote words and teachings that have no equivalents in Greek, but have textual borrowings from the “Responses of Pope Nicholas Ι to the questions of the Bulgarians” A.D. 866.

Съветският съюз: критични и изобличителни ракурси (наблюдения върху пътеписни книги от 20-те и 30-те години на XX век)

Author(s): Maria Russeva / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2024

The paper focuses on the Soviet Union as presented in Bulgarian interwar travelogues – Nikola Iliev’s Kakvo Vidyah v Savetska Rusia: Istinski Razkaz (What I Saw in Soviet Russia: A True Story) (1921), P. Stoyanov’s Istinata za Ruskia Bolshevizam (The Truth about Russian Bolshevism) (1921), Ivan Abadzhiev’s Prez Velikite Karvavi Dni na Rusia (During the Great Bloody Days of Russia) (1929), and Boris Dimitrov’s Na Iztok – Vsichko Novo! S.S.S.R.: Vpechatlenia i Razmishlenia (To the East – Everything New! U.S.S.R.: Impressions and Reflections) (1941). The country is depicted in these travelogues as a totalitarian “hell” – an enclosed society isolated from the outside world. Moreover, it is governed by means of repression and terror, with the intention to subjugate not only the bodies, but also the minds of its people. The Soviet citizens described by those Bulgarian writers not only find themselves deprived of basic human rights and civil liberties, but also their existence is reduced to the level of survival amid everyday restrictions and poverty, as well as fear of an omnipresent and threatening police aggression.

За някои палеографски особености на Берлинския дамаски

Author(s): Tatyana Braga / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2024

The paper focuses on a late New Bulgarian damascene, which is kept in a book repository outside Bulgaria. The codex is known in scholarship as the Berlin Damascene (Berl. Slav. Fol. 36) and is part of a large collection of manuscripts and old printed books from the former Royal Library in Berlin. Today this manuscript with an interesting historiographical fate is in the possession of the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków (Poland). The Berlin Damascene is mentioned regularly, if only fleetingly, in publications on the Damascene theme, but for many years the main source material remained the inventory of B. Tsonev (1937). So far, the manuscript has not been the subject of a comprehensive study. The opportunity to work with the manuscript de visu has allowed us to make some general preliminary observations on the paleographical features of the Berlin Damascene and also to indicate tasks and prospects for future research to be undertaken.

Чии са тълкуванията в Слово 32 на Учителното евангелие?

Author(s): Dobriela Kotova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2024

The article is dedicated to Oration 32 of Constantine of Preslav’s Uchitelno Evangelie (‘Didactic Gospel’). In all four Slavonic copies of this written monument, the name of Cyrill of Alexandria appears in the title, thus attributing to him the authorship of the commentaries that make up the middle section of the sermon. In it, the commentary on Lk 16:19–31 is translated, which is part of the catena on Luke Type A CPG/ClaCla C130.1 (catena prima, die Grundform). In most Byzantine manuscripts witnessing this catena, there is an attribution Κυρίλλου in the margins to one of the opening passages. A comparison with catenae of other types further reveals the names of John Chrysostom and Isidore of Pelusiot. On the basis of the analysis, into which the Syriac translation of Cyril of Alexandria’s Homilies 111 and 112 and John Chrysostom’s Conciones de Lazaro are also included, the boundaries of the fragments stemming from individual authors compiled in the anonymous commentary of CPG/ClaCla C130.1 are established. It becomes clear that the majority of the commentaries included in Orations 32 are in fact excerpts from John Chrysostom’s Conciones de Lazaro, 1–4. The comparison between the various catenae also seems to indicate their dependence on a common archetype.

Национална научна конференция „Образът на жената в литературата“

Author(s): Boryana Vladimirova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 49/2024

Българистиката в полето на съвременната хуманитаристика

Author(s): Georgi Gospodinov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2025

Житейска история и художествена интерпретация. Творчеството на Атанас Далчев в учебниците по литература за средно образование

Author(s): Nadezhda Stoyanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2025

The paper focuses on the complicated inclusion of Atanas Dalchev’s work in the list of studied authors in Bulgarian secondary education after 1944. Although he had the reputation of one of the most significant Bulgarian poets, his influence on the younger generations was defined as negative by the socialist realists. Dalchev’s poetic principles maintained the distance between “reality” and literary convention, between author and Lyrical Self, which, however, confronted the Socialist realists’ idea about the social character of literature. This was one of the reasons why the poet’s work was left out of the school canon until 1980s and on its turn provoked a number of critical strategies that aimed to rehabilitate the author by including his works in the literary-historical process and by legitimizing his aesthetic system. The main object of the paper is the reception of Atanas Dalchev during Socialism, but at the end some trends in the textbooks published after 1989 are also noted.

Мястото на Светослав Минков в учебните програми по литература

Author(s): Mariya Ruseva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2025

The paper is focused on the presence of the writer Svetoslav Minkov in Bulgarian literature curricula before and after 1989 until his exclusion according to the latest Ordinance No 5 from 2015 of the National Education Standards of Bulgaria. In People’s Republic of Bulgaria, the appearance of Minkov’s works is sporadic and ideologically oriented, while during the years after 1989, the inclusion of the author with his stories with fantastical elements written in the 1930s corresponds with the emerging tendency towards universalization and focus on common human values while studying literature in school. The article argues that the presence of Svetoslav Minkov in Bulgarian literature curricula steps on the possibility of creating intellectual provocation for the students while analyzing the literary text and perceiving the empirical reality.

Кръгът „Мисъл“ за мястото на Ботев сред „великите мъртви“

Author(s): Anna Alexieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2025

The paper is focused on how the image of the poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev was shaped according to the figures, belonging to the “Misal” (“Thought”) Literary Circle. There was no consent about how Botev should be thought. According to Pencho Slaveykov, he “could hardly be nominated as a good poet”. For Yavorov, Botev was “one of the gods, who ascended to the Earth”. Special attention was paid to the hierarchy of the “great dead people” (following the phrase by dr. Krastyo Krastev) and the place of Hristo Botev amongst them. Chronologically considered, in the first papers, written by Slaveykov and Krastev, published in the last decade of XIX c., the image of Botev was everything, but high ranked national hero. They put particular accent on his uncontrollability and anarchic attitude. He was also heavily criticized as a poet. The study states that all the variations of the way Botev was regarded by “Misal” figures could be explained by the memory about him, which was still personal experience based, communicative (Assmann), and its transformation into a cultural one, the foundation of the literary canon, was still to come. However, Botev was institutionalized as national hero in a relatively monolithic and positive narrative during the second decade of XX c., when communicative memory transformed into a cultural one. Therefore, in the late texts by dr. Krastev, Botev was nominated as genius, lifted considerably above all of his contemporaries.

The phenomenon of the “Professorenroman” in Bulgarian literature

Author(s): Milena Kirova / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2025

This article, based on the author’s previous research in Bulgarian, presents a phenomenon that until now has not been the subject of systematic study: the Bulgarian Professorenroman (literally “professor’s novel”). Tracing the development of Bulgarian academic fiction over the last three decades, it brings out the presence of a relatively homogeneous group of works that share common literary characteristics and ways of communicating with readers. The present analysis defines several common features shared by approximately a dozen novels by contemporary Bulgarian writers, all of them university professors. The phenomenon of the Professorenroman is examined briefly in the historical context of its emergence in the 19th century, and in more detail as an effect and consequence of the development of postmodernism in Bulgaria since the late 20th century. It is complemented by a more detailed reading of four recent novels.

Телемахия: съвременният дебат върху „Митът за Одисей“

Author(s): Kamelia Spassova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2025

How does the most Odyssean Greek hero become a figure of the native in the Bulgarian version? Through the metaphor of Telemachia, the paper examines how post-1989 intellectuals have redefined the interplay between domestic and cosmopolitan tendencies in our national project. Their reflections on Toncho Zhechev’s The Myth of Odysseus are an attempt to deconstruct the ideological implications behind the returning Odysseus and thereby rethink the history of Bulgarian criticism since the time of late socialism. Boyan Manchev interprets Zhechev in terms of national exoticism, particular universality and idyllic discourse. Miglena Nikolchina adds a new conceptual framework, indicating the role of the post-structuralists of the 1980s and their turn to Antiquity. Boyko Penchev dwells on Zhechev’s autochthonous conservatism, where the genus, the ahistorical, and the organic are privileged at the expense of nation and history—an approach designed to undermine the official ideology during the 1970s. What captures my attention is the genealogy of cosmopolitan attitudes that these intellectuals propose as an alternative to Zhechev’s conservative utopia.