PENCHO SLAVEYKOV ON THE ISLAND … AT THE CEMETERY

Abstract

The article examines Pencho Slaveykov’s unique poetic book “On the Island of the Blessed” (1910). The point of view of this book is special: it is about the discrepancy between the original idea and the final realization. The reasons for this are discussed: Why is the author Bone Voydan missing there? Why was he appointed patriarch of island literature, but was removed from the anthology? Attention is paid to the parodies after Maxim Gorky, as well as the parodying of the editions of Ivan Andreychin. Special attention is paid to the problem of how Slaveykov’s books end. The images of death, among which the image of the cemetery is especially curious, at the end of Slaveykov's books are analyzed. On the other hand, the problem of the authors who play the role of compositional soldering elements in the book is outlined. The last book of Slaveykov is an illustration of his ideas about the unique and the universal, about the original and the extravagant. It is an exemplum – of how a national literature can exist: in the circles of its ethnic integrity or in search of its intertexts in the secret corners of the other European poetic images and examples. That is why I consider “On the Island of the Blessed” Pencho Slaveykov’s most important book.