Bulgarian Literary Modernism – Pulsations of Proximity: Bulgaria – Germany – Europe

Abstract

When studying Bulgarian literary Modernism, a pivotal characteristic of it is always taken into consideration, namely, its relationship to European Modernism. Bulgarian Modernism is not simply and only a part of European modernist tendencies between the mid-19^th to mid-20^th centuries. It rather transfers “the original”, then discloses and re-creates it with the piety and self-awareness of a certain secondariness. At least in the beginning, it did this before being able to create autochthonal cores of its own – a process which started in the second decade of the 20^th century in the works of some of the symbolists, and especially during the 1920s – 1930s, in the context of the avant-garde upsurge and through the search for a multiple, non-doctrinal modernity. This subordination, of course, is an aspect of a process which, as a matter of fact, is much more complicated and profound. It has to do with the ‘adjustment’ of the modern Bulgarian culture (since the national Revival onward) within the context of European culture – a process both spontaneous and consciously performed.