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Abstract: The purpose of this article is to restore in its possible completeness and to present in its linguistic concreteness the critical reception of Bunin in Bulgaria between the first author’s publication (1903) and his last publication in the period before the social collapse in 1944. The critical reception has not been a subject of a separate survey until now – it has been partially touched on in the frame of research of Bunin’s translation reception. As a result of archival and research work, the author has identified 69 texts, 67 of which have been reviewed de visu. This number includes articles and reviews published in Russian in emigrant editions in Bulgaria. The inten-sity of Bunin's critical reception was influenced by two events: his stay in Sofia in 1920 and his awarding of the Nobel Prize in 1933. That is why the text is separated into three sections, subject to chronology: 1) 1903–1919; 2) 1920–1932; 3) 1933–1943. The “microscopic method” of P. Bicilli is applied in the article – according to it a study requires the systematization of “facts” into a “tendency”. The first chronological section comprises 6 publications that reveal different points of view on the writer’s work (aesthetic, Slavophile, sociological). A slow process of Bunin’s critical reception started in Bulgarian cultural space at that time, and one can see its dynamization after his arrival in Sofia in February 1920. The election of the writer as a professor of Russian literature at the Sofia University is seen through A. van Gennep's concept of liminality as an “intermediate” period in Bunin's creative path. The 17 publications from the second period testify to an increase in the reception of the writer and to the critics’ ambition to put emphasis on the poetics of his works. Bunin is included in Bulgarian canon of Russian literature and in the canon of Bulgarian literary studies. The third chronological stage and the general trends in Bunin’s reception are discussed in the second part of the article.

About the author(s) :

Galina Petkova

Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Sofia, Bulgaria)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1002-5183

 

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s : I express deep gratitude to my colleagues Irina Koleva (Stilian Chilingirov Regional Library, Scumen), Diana Marinova (University Library of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”), Peta Kehayova (Ivan Vazov National Library, Plovdiv), and Valeria Jordanova (Luben Karavelov Regional Library, Ruse) for their help with the preparation of this publication, as well as to Director of Slavonic Library in Prague, Dr Lukáš Babka for his kind assistance with my research.

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 31.08.2023; date of publication: 31.10.2023

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