Stephen Greenblatt. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. New York: W. W. Norton. 2011.

Author(s): Nikolay Aretov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2015

Stephen Greenblatt tells the story of how Poggio Bracciolini, a 15th-century papal emissary, and obsessive book hunter, saved the last copy of the Roman poet Lucretius‘s On the Nature of Things from near-terminal neglect in a German monastery, thus reintroducing important ideas that sparked the modern age. The author analyzes this development in a very broad cultural and philosophical scale. This review presents the monograph of the so-called New Historicism and its possible applications in Bulgarian scholarship.

Търновският надпис на Иван Асен ІІ, св. 40 „добропобедни“ мъченици и някои аспекти на култа им във Византия и в средновековна България

Author(s): Maya Petrova / Language(s): Bulgarian,Old Slavonic Issue: 49-50/2014

The triumph in the battle of Klokotnica in 1230, a great success for Tsar Ivan Asen II, made Bulgaria a dominant power in the European South-East. This seemingly improbable Bulgarian victory turned out to be so complete as to appear miraculous to its contemporaries. Byzantine sources explain it as a just punishment of Epirus’ Emperor Theodore Komnenos, who breached the peace treaty with Ivan Asen II and invaded Bulgarian territories with an enormous army. Yet the only Bulgarian source for this encounter, the Tărnovo inscription, attributes Ivan Asen’s victory to the help of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. In modern historical writings this evidence is unanimously interpreted as an indication that the battle took place on 9 March, the feast date of the saints. It is very likely, however, that the mention of the Forty Martyrs in the inscription has not only chronological, but also ideological meaning. The article examines the information from the Tărnovo inscription in the context of the cult of the Forty Martyrs in Byzantium (where they were particularly honoured by the imperial court) and in medieval Bulgaria, as well as in relation to their veneration as victorious helpers in battles. Attention is paid to the claim on the Forty martyrs’ patronage as a piece of propaganda and a proof for the religious sanction of Ivan Asen’s rule. It is viewed as a constituent part of the policy of Asenid dynasty for securing of powerful heavenly patrons for the state by “taking over” the cults of important Christian saints, promoting their (real or invented) Bulgarian origin, and translating saints’ relics to the new capital of Tărnovo.

Св. Амфилохий Иконийски в светлината на гръко-латинската и славянската агиография

Author(s): Slavia Barlieva / Language(s): Greek, Ancient (to 1453),Bulgarian,Old Slavonic,Latin Issue: 49-50/2014

The article presents two medieval translations – Latin and Slavic – of the pre-Metaphrastian Life of St. Amphilocius (c. 340–395), one of the honored Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Bishop of Iconium and a staunch opponent of the Arians. Basing her argument on Paolo Chiesa’s conclusion that the Latin translation, extant in MS 354 of The Municipal Library in Mantuva, was made by Anasthasius the Librarian, and assuming that the Slavic translation is most likely synchronic to the Latin one, the author compares the Mantuva text with a Slavic copy from MS 218 of the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church. She establishes evident similarities in the two translations, which inlcude also common deviations from the putative Greek original, the closest extant text to it being the copy in Cod. Barberinianus Gr. 318. This comparative analysis is the first stage toward preparing a critical edition of the Greek pre-Metaphrastian Life of Amphilocius and a study of its relation to the Slavic lives of the saint. The Appendix to the article includes a reprint of the Latin translation and an edition of the Slavic copy from the Serbian MS 218.

Неизвестен препис на Беседа 45 и Беседа 47 от старобългарското Учително евангелие на Константин Преславски

Author(s): Marija Spasova / Language(s): Bulgarian,Old Bulgarian Issue: 49-50/2014

От Месопотамия до Етрополе. Трансформации на мита за гигантската космическа птица

Author(s): Ana Stoykova / Language(s): Bulgarian,Old Slavonic Issue: 49-50/2014

The paper discusses the archaic mythological motif of giant cosmic birds that invoke the sun to rise, escort it on its heavenly way, or protect the earth from solar radiation. Tracing variants of this motif in the literary tradition (Slavonic Book of Enoch, Apocalypse of Baruch, Physiologus, etc.) points to the conclusion that it occurs in texts that originated in the form familiar to us in Greek, during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, most probably in Alexandria. It appears that sun-birds absorbed ancient ideas that passed from Sumer and Akkad through Babylon into the Hebrew apocalyptic tradition and were later combined with Greco-Roman elements. The names for the bird in the texts under anaylsis – phoenix, gryphon, halkydra – are the result of interpratatio graeca; they appear in order to “translate” the image of the cosmic bird from one culture into another. In the end, the motif, in a Christianized form, penetrated into the Byzantine tradition and, from there, into Old Slavic writing, enjoying a sustained interest through the Late Middle Ages. This case of millennial continuity points to the transplantation of an ancient mythological motif from Mesopotamia to various monotheistic cultures and its eventual adaptation into the Christian Byzantino-Slavic cultural sphere

Една непубликувана сатирична творба на Васил Попович и нейният контекст

Author(s): Nikolay Aretov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2021

This paper presents the satirical works of Vasil Popovich (1833-1897), most of them unpublished in his lifetime, and analyses them in the context of their time – the debates about the standard language, about literature and the Bulgarian Literary Society from the end of 19th century. In the focus are also the conflicted relations of V. Popovich with Ivan Vazov, Aleksandar Teodorov-Balan, Vasil D. Stoyanov, and Konstantin Jireček. The tension between them is interpreted as a manifestation of their competition for symbolic capital and for gaining an important position in society and literature. As a supplement, at the end is added an unpublished text by V. Popovich from 1887, written in an imitation of Oldbulgarian/ Church-Slavonic language as a personal letter.

„Примитивна наслада“ или патриотично оръжие?

Author(s): Anna Alexieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2023

The paper examines songs with love and erotic content, dating back from the so-called National Revival Period. They used to be visible part of the popular culture of Bulgaria and the Southeastern Europe region in initial decades of the Modern Bulgarian statehood. These songs were originally written in Bulgarian and in Turkish, but with Cyrillic alphabet. Turkish ones are introduced for the first time in Bulgarian Literary History Studies. They were taken from books by Manol Lazarov, Petko Slaveykov, and by an unidentified author with initials K.S.M. This popular literature genre had a complex biography, following to some extent the ideological planning of the Bulgarian society and the social trajectory of the ideas of the nation, particular for that period. Initially, they were well accepted, so they gained vast popularity. Such a positive reception was particular for the period, when they were not experienced as non-matching to the emerging national ideology. Coincidingly with the rising of Bulgarian nationalism, their popularity decreased and they accumulated certain criticism, so in the beginning of the XX c. they were marginalized. In the last decades of XIX s., according to the changes of the ideological climate in Bulgaria, some of them were reinterpreted in a patriotic key.

„Si rex non essem, Jesuita essem” – kwestie wyznaniowe w kontekście polityki wewnętrznej i zewnętrznej Stefana Batorego w mowach gratulacyjnych Andrzeja Patrycego Nideckiego

Author(s): Robert Mileszczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2022

The aim of the dissertation is to present Stephen Báthory’s stance on religious issues and the organization of religious life in Livonia (Inflanty) in the light of pressure exerted on the king by various political factions and religious elites with often opposing concepts regarding the future of the territory annexed to the Commonwealth after the Treaty of Yam-Zapolsky. This goal will be achieved through the analysis of three congratulatory speeches delivered by Andrzej Patrycy Nidecki in the presence of the king in November 1579', January 1581, and August 1582.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret: From Novel to the Oscar-Winning Film Hugo

Author(s): Ioana-Georgiana Mititelu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

The present paper aims to discuss the journey from page to screen of ”The Invention” of Hugo Cabret, a gripping novel written and illustrated by Brian Selznick. Throughout this process, critical approaches will be examined to understand how specific narrative elements have been condensed or reimagined for the purpose of cinematic flow. This article delves into the fascinating world of film production and emphasizes the harmonious relationship between film and literature.

Le jeu de la sémiose. L’humour comme opération sémiotique ludique dans Cent mille milliards de poèmes de Raymond Queneau

Author(s): Aristide James / Language(s): French Issue: 13/2023

What is the value of play for a reader when the literary text itself is radically conceived as a ludic device? The Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle’s flagship product, Raymond Queneau’s Cent mille milliards de poèmes, a collection of combinatory poems, is an exemplary interrogation of reading, in view of the double problematic it raises: auctorial effacement and lectorial activity. The aim of this article is to pave the way for an epistemological re-qualification of the notion of humour, by approaching it as a (playful) practice of making sense, and more specifically here as an interpretative practice. Based on a dialectical conception of play, inherited from Kant’s “free play of the faculties”, it is intended as an opportunity for an unusual rapprochement between humour and literary reading. With the author’s ambivalent complicity, the reader’s own staging merges with the work’s semiosis.

La tutelle de La Vie mode d’emploi de Georges Perec dans 209 rue Saint-Maur de Ruth Zylberman est-elle ludique ou existentielle ?

Author(s): Shuichiro Shiotsuka / Language(s): French Issue: 13/2023

In this paper, we examine the relationship between the Oulipian aspect of G. Perec’s Life A User’s Manual (1978) and R. Zylberman’s investigation in her book 209 Saint-Maur Street (2020). If we dwell on this comparison, it is because there is a twist between them: on the one hand, this reportage is certainly a fine example of ‘investigative literature’, but it is not, unlike Perecquian reportages, under the domination of ‘existential constraints’; on the other, it is set in collective housing, as is the case with Perec’s novel, but without resorting to linguistic constraints. In the end, we show that the tutelage of Life A User’s Manual in the book of Zylberman is existential in nature, but with a hint of Oulipian playfulness.

Le jeu dans le roman Hors d’Atteinte ? d’Emmanuel Carrère : une réponse à l’angoisse existentielle ?

Author(s): Paméla Baës / Language(s): French Issue: 13/2023

At the casino, Frédérique abandons herself to the roulette wheel, which gives her a protective “out of reach” place. A moment of oblivion, gambling gives her intense vertigo and appears to be a form of abandonment, an act of revolt against the diktats of society. It is also defined as an ordalic practice, meaning that the character relies on chance. As a kind of pharmakon, the game provides a feeling of omnipotence, curbing the heroine’s anguish but also proving to be mortifying. Frédérique, the specular double of an author in the grip of ontological anguish, quickly slips into gambling madness. Is the game really beneficial? Does it have a cathartic effect on the character? Or, on the contrary, is it pure fantasy, an illusion incapable of fulfilling the heroine’s fantasies, except for a brief interlude outside reality?

Психосоциология на престъплението в романа „Пропаст“ от Антон Страшимиров

Author(s): Iliyana Dimitrova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 2/2023

In his last novel, “The abyss. From the Notes of a Doctor” (1936) Anton Strashimirov continues to show interest in the collective stereotypes and the social preconditions that shape a person’s behavior and emotional attitudes towards the world around him/her. With its polyphony of human voices and interpretations, the work under comment intersects different, even incompatible, individual interpretations of essential aspects of existence, seeking answers to questions related to the boundaries between good and evil, freedom and coercion, sin and crime.

Тодор Влайков и Михалаки Георгиев (за патриархалната задруга – „Дядовата Славчова унука“ и „Рада“)

Author(s): Neli Kirilova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 2/2023

The article discusses the patriarchal cooperative as part of the traditional cultural system of patriarchal man. The focus is on the deviations from established norms and orders leading to cracks in this world model. This issue occupies a central place in the work of Todor Vlaykov and Mihalaki Georgiev. Placing them in an intertextual dialogue delineates two models of patriarchalism. The dialogue between Vlaykov and Georgiev also outlines a different conceptually attitude in fictional text. And last but not least the points of view of this article are the different aspects in the poetics of two writers who are qualified as „discoverers of the Bulgarian village“. The object of textological researchers are two emblematic works for the authors – “ Grandfather Slavcho’s granddaughter” and “Rada”.

Едно от лицата на Мопасановите Мадлени

Author(s): Sonya Aleksandrova-Koleva / Language(s): English,Bulgarian,French Issue: 2/2023

The text aims to present one of the aspects of Madеleine’s image in Maupassant’s novel “Bel-Ami” by focusing on her physical features. The ambiguous nature of the specific female character is analyzed as part of doubled image which also includes that of the Le Madеleine church in the light of the characteristic for the French fiction writer stylistic specifics of repetition, dispersal and multiplication on different textual levels. Different reasons for doing so presented are reported: scientific, contextual and biographical; toward the artistic work an approach is laid through linguistic and literature prism.

Пишещият герой в следвоенната немскоезична литература

Author(s): Ivan Popov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian,German Issue: 2/2023

The article analyzes four novels by the Swiss authors Max Frisch and Urs Widmer, as well as by the Austrian Thomas Bernhard. In all of them the narration is of the so called “unreliable” kind, which is to be explained by the modern problem of the relation between life and literature and the different ways the texts approach that problem. The conclusion is that during the second half of the 20th century writing and fiction were gradually losing the aura of being “the other” to life which Modernism used to ascribe to them.

Модерността на пастурелата – Адам дьо ла Ал и проектите за обновяване на руския театър

Author(s): Diyana Nikolova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 2/2023

The text discusses the dramatisation of Adam de la Halle’s 13th century pastourelle Le Jeu de Robin et Marion as a modern genre. This work was connected to the projects for modernising Russian theatre during the first decade of the 20th century. The essays offer an analysis of Evreinov’s Игра о Робене и Марион performed at the Old Theatre in 1907 within the context of theatralisation, theatricality and art synthesis.

LES ÉMOTIONS D’EMMA BOVARY

Author(s): Camelia Manolescu / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2022

For the nineteenth-century writer, and especially for the realist novelist Gustave Flaubert, so preoccupied with his writing and the fate of his characters, emotion drives the course of the action. Flaubert, well known for his special way of conceiving his novels, for his impersonality and impassibility as techniques that make his writing unique, was also tempted by the analysis of how Emma masters her emotions (in the novel Madame Bovary which created a stir at the time). Our study is, first of all, an analysis of the theory of emotions in general and, secondly, an analysis of Emma Bovary’s emotions, the main character of the novel Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, namely, illusion, pleasure and desire.

LA DOULEUR DANS MÉMORIAL POÉTIQUE (1945-1972) DE LUBOMIR GUENTCHEV

Author(s): Alain Vuillemin / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2022

In Mémorial poétique, Lubomir Guentchev, a French-speaking Bulgarian author, states that “poetry [...] has experienced much more pain than joy” (our translation). Pain could be said to be the main source of his inspiration. This collection has as dedication "In memory of V.", Valentina Dimitrova Guitcheva, a young woman with whom he was allegedly deeply in love and who had disappeared in 1946. This grief was overwhelming. In 1975, at the end of Mémorial poétique, Eucharistia, a prose poem, recalls the memory. A bond of sacred communion existed between Valentina's memory and the author's "inner self". He was convinced of that. He transposes this suffering into Mémorial poétique, turning it into art. How does he do that? How does he transform this pain? What literary models is he inspired by? What aesthetic research does he also engage in?

АНАЛИЗА ГЛАГОЛА КРЕТАЊА У ЈЕЗИКУ ПРВЕ КЊИГЕ МОЈСИЈЕВЕ

Author(s): Sanja M. Brdar / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 27/2017

In this paper we observe verbs with meaning of human self-movement on land, with the use of one’s own limbs. These verbs will be classified into several groups according to two main criteria - dominant diferential sema and direction of movement. The examples are drawn from the Old Testament (translated by Đuro Daničić), more precisely from the First Book of Moses. The whole purpose of research is to point out the frequency of the verbs in the text, the verb complements and their semantic. We also wanted to point out the differences in the use of these verbs in the language of XIX century, when the Old Testament was translated, and in the modern language.