Linguistics, Interpretations, Concepts (LInC)
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p-ISSN: 3033-0181 / e-ISSN: 3033-0599
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Item POLITICAL FORNICATION AND THE NATIONAL IDEAL: THE IMAGE OF THE UNION(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Gyulemerova, VelikaThe article analyzes Chardafon the Great. A Biographical Sketch in Profile, examining the ideological image of the homeland and different perceptions of the Unification. The emphasis is on the opposition between Zahari Stoyanov and Ivan Vazov which affected their different perceptions of the act of Unification. While for Vazov the heroes of this period are compromised, for Stoyanov they embody a new form of dignity. This difference in points of view is of crucial significance to understanding different ideological models in Bulgarian literature. The article also emphasizes the way in which patriarchal morality and traditional values are reinterpreted in the text. The main focus is the reversal of the biblical parable of the Prodigal Son – instead of condemnation, political “fornication“ is shown as adaptability. Chardafon the Great offers an alternative historical perspective, in which traditional notions of power, homeland and political loyalty are questioned. Zahari Stoyanov does not simply tell the biography of a hero, but creates a new model of national identity, in which imperfection and humor play a central role. The text affirms the Unification as an act of national self-affirmation, in which the people take their destiny into their own hands, despite the lack of “blessing“ from the Great Powers.Item MOSAIC OF FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY NOVELS AND THE HEART IN THE CARDBOARD BOX – CO-AUTHORSHIP PRACTICES, CREATIVE INFLUENCES(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Georgieva, VanyaThe paper explores an approach to understanding the contribution of A Mosaic of Famous Contemporary Novels” (1909 – 1948) to Bulgarian culture and literature. Special attention is paid to the collaborative translations included in the series. The co-authoring practices illustrated by the narratives chosen have had an influence on the creation of the collective work of Svetoslav Minkov and Konstantin Konstantinov. The novel The Heart in the Cardboard Box (1933) is examined in the light of intertextuality, translation between different cultures, the relations between textual reality and the reality beyond the text.Item “THE GRAY PROFESSOR”, OR ON BULGARIAN CRITICISM AS A LIFELONG PURSUIT (DR. KRASTYO KRASTEV IN MILENA KIROVA’S LITERARY-HISTORICAL PORTRAITURE)(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Velkova-Gaydarzhieva, AntoniaThe text critically examines one of the defining strokes in the post-independence literary history of Milena Kirova – the one dedicated to Dr. Krastyo Krastev, whose devotion to literary criticism became a lifelong pursuit. The focus is on one of the first extensive literary-historical attempts that constructed a complex, internally contradictory, multifaceted – both in characterological and socio-stylistic terms – portrait of the Critic, known as “the man in gray.” For the first time, a silhouette of a modern arbiter of esthetic taste has been outlined so closely and in such detail from a psychographic, esthetic-literary, historical-contextual, and creative-biographical perspective within the framework of the literary-historical narrative. To shift the perspective on him–from the familiar, conventional literary-historical image of a rigorous but dull and doctrinaire scholar, he emerges as one of the most perceptive and conceptual connoisseurs of esthetics, a zealous builder of modern Bulgarian culture; the “General” of literary criticism in our country.Item IMPRESSIONS OF ISTANBUL BY DR. TODOR YANKOV – THE FIRST BULGARIAN TRAVELLER TO THE IMPERIAL CAPITAL(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Mevsim, HüseyinRegardless of whether it is called Constantinople, Istanbul or Tsarigrad, the global city on the Bosphorus has always occupied an important place in Bulgarian political and spiritual history. The first travelogue in Bulgarian literature about this city appeared in the pages of a magazine only at the end of the 19th century, and very little is known about its author, Dr. Todor Yankov, today. This paper attempts to understand the reasons for the late appearance of the first travelogue; it examines three works – by Petko Slaveykov, Ivan Bogorov and Dimitar Mollov – about Istanbul, which may be taken to function as preludes to Impressions of Istanbul. The research offers a biographical and creative portrait of the educationalist, politician, publicist and writer Todor Yankov while outlining the compositional features of his travelogue about the imperial capital. The author of the travelogue was a representative of the first post-independence generation, which also determines his different attitude towards both the capital of the Ottoman Empire and the Bulgarian cultural and historical heritage in it; he carries the consciousness of a Bulgarian European pushed away from the narrow dimensions of the strictly domestic.Item PAUL McCARTNEY'S SONG LYRICS: LITERARY AUTO-REFLEXIVITY(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Zahova, KalinaThe paper presents certain contemporary observations by Paul McCartney on his own song lyrics written during his creative periods with The Beatles, Wings, as a solo artist, and in collaboration with other artists. The article traces the relations between specificity and openness of the interpretation, as well as the deliberate and spontaneously originated polysemy. Paul McCartney's auto-reflexivity is examined not only as a form of autobiographicality, which it inevitably is, but also as a manifestation of various aspects of literariness.Item THE CASE OF THE LOWER DEPTHS OR GORKY’S CHEKHOVIAN PLAY(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Dimitrov, LyudmilThe text examines Maxim Gorky’s most famous play, The Lower Depths, in the context of its emergence, which was not merely the period of the author’s early dramatic expressions. This period marked the concluding stage of 19th-century Russian literature, when the archetypal plot built by Griboyedov and Pushkin, and constantly maintained by Russian playwriting through shifts, mimicry and revivals, is ultimately deconstructed by Chekhov as exhausted and henceforth untenable. The article outlines the contradictory figure of Gorky, whose work relies on vain imitations, ideological constructs, and the use of, or reference to, external authority, borrowed from his illustrious contemporaries, Leo Tolstoy and Chekhov, without Gorky’s surpassing the artistic level achieved in Russian drama up to that point.Item WILLIAM BLAKE’S MILTON: GIN A BODY MEET A BODY COMIN THROUGH THE SKY(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Terziev, LubomirThe paper focuses on one of the crucial stages in the formation of the subject of the apocalyptic event in William Blake’s mythopoeia. The central claim is that in his epic poem Milton, the poet performs a peculiar act of kenosis epitomized by Milton’s coming down from heaven to enter mortal Blake’s foot. This prepares the merger between Blake’s “real” persona and Los – the imaginary figure of the visionary poet.Item DIMINUTIVES IN RABBIE BURNS’ POETIC PIECES (AND THEIR TRANSLATION EQUIVALENTS IN RUSSIAN, FRENCH AND GERMAN)(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Chankova, Yana; Bagasheva, Maria; Kiryakova-Dineva, Teodora; Todorov, BlagovestThe present paper is part of a more comprehensive and extended re-search project which seeks to investigate and quantitatively and qualitatively analyse the data obtained with respect to the diminutive forms attested in the poetic works of Robert Burns and their respective translation equivalents in Russian, French and German. What we present here is a pilot study on the diminutive forms in the original poetic texts and in their translations into the three languages. The aim is to investigate the types of form-formative patterns of expressing diminutiveness and their function in the respective languages. The discussion opens with a brief outline of the specific features of the category of diminutiveness in the studied languages.Item VINCENZO KORNAROS’ DRAMA AND ITS BULGARIAN READERS – AN EXAMPLE OF THE CULTURAL INTERACTION BETWEEN KARAMANLI AND BULGARIAN LITERARY TRADITIONS. ETHNICAL, REGIONAL AND SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF 19TH CENTURY BULGARIAN-TURKISH BILINGUALISM(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Saldzhiev, Hristo; Konaç, AyşeThe article touches on the social and cultural aspects of Bulgarian-Turkish bilingualism in the 19th century. The Cyrillic transliteration of the Turkish (Karamanli) translation of the religious play of the Cretan poet Vincenzo Kornaros has been used as a basis for the present investigation. Initially, this work was writ-ten in Greek at the beginning of the 17th century during the Venetian rule of the is-land. The work apparently followed the model of Jesuitical religious drama and ex-emplified the Cretan Renaissance which developed under direct Italian influence. Sophronios of Sille in 1836 translated it into the Turkish dialect of Karamanli using Greek letters. The Cyrillic transliteration was published in 1845 by the Bulgarian hierodeacon Hadzhi Yoanikiy in the printing house of the Constantinople Patriar-chate in Istanbul. This new edition contained a long list of the names and residences of the people who pre-ordered the Cyrillic variant of the drama. The list also in-cluded fragmentary information about the social and professional status of the readers. The analysis of the evidence from the list, as well as other Cyrillic Turkish editions indicate that Bulgarian-Turkish bilingualism from this period could not be limited to a certain region, social, or professional group. In many regions it was a popular phenomenon and was spread among different groups. The final part of the article comments on the discontinuation of this bilingualism.Item RESHAPING THE GROWING MIND: HOW DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY CHANGES THE WAYS CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE AND WHAT CAN WE DO?(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Vulchanova, Mila; Vulchanov, ValentinDigital technologies are dominating our daily lives. From smartphones and tablets to applications and virtual or augmented reality, they provide useful solutions, for e.g., navigating in new environments, learning languages, or acquiring literacy skills, in addition to entertainment. While available technologies may extend our mental capacities, our brains also adapt to those technologies and acquire many of their features (Carr, 2008). Concerns have been raised about the consequences of this digital reality for processing information and acquiring knowledge (Wolf, 2018). Extensive exposure to digital technology may impact specifically strongly young children, due to increased sensitivity to external input and brain plasticity in the first years of life. This then offers the opportunity to harness new technologies for educational purposes and align them with evidence-based and age-appropriate educational goals.Item REPLACEMENT OF INFINITIVES BY DA-CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF BULGARIAN: DIACHRONIC AND FORMAL ANALYSIS(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Sočanac, TomislavThe paper studies the diachronic patterns of competition between infinitives and da-constructions (also known as ‘Balkan subjunctives’) in Bulgarian. The use of these grammatical categories is studied across different historical periods (from Old Bulgarian to Modern Bulgarian) and in different syntactic contexts. It is argued that certain aspects of infinitive loss and its replacement by da-constructions were due to a broader typological drift from non-finite to finite structures, while others were a result of local language-contact pressures within the Balkan-sprachbund area. The paper also provides a formal analysis of the diachronic syntax of the mood marker da, which accounts for its spread to control contexts typical of infinitive use and the eventual complete replacement of infinitives by da-complements in Bulgarian.Item CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS: LIFE IS A JOURNEY IN DOCTOR MARIGOLD BY CHARLES DICKENS(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Kyriakakis, EfstratiosThis paper explores the application of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to the language and narrative structure of Charles Dickens’ short story Doctor Marigold. It identifies and discusses some of the numerous correspondences between the source domain and target domain which underpin the structural metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY, such as THE PERSON LEADING A LIFE IS A TRAVELER, HIS PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS, THE MEANS OF ACHIEVING PURPOSES ARE ROUTES, etc. The analysis establishes the rich mapping nature of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor which might provide an explanation for its being an entrenched metaphor. This metaphor also structures the whole narrative of the short story. The linguistic evidence and the narrative structure reveal the cognitive processes in which both everyday and literary language are grounded.Item OBSERVATIONS ON BULGARIAN SURNAMES ARISING FROM TURKISH LOANWORDS MEANING PROFESSION OR CRAFT(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Kartalova, MariyanaThe article examines the Bulgarian surnames, which are based on Turkish loanwords that have established themselves in the Bulgarian language. It should be noted that the original source of these Turkish loanwords may be a lexeme of Arabic or Persian origin. The empirical material is limited to those surnames that are motivated by a lexeme with the semantics of profession or craft. Bulgarian surnames from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century have been extracted. When studying the target group of anthroponyms, both possible linguistic relations and those of an extralinguistic nature are considered. The field of research includes synonymous relations between anthroponymic units, the formation of thematic circle, or the so-called “semantic sockets”. When presenting the synonymous relations between surnames motivated by a Turkish loanword and those with a domestic basis, it is not always easy to establish which form arose first (cf. Dyulgerovand Zidarov, Chobanovand Ovcharov, Kuyumdzhiev and Zlatarov, Domuschiev and Svinarov, etc.). The examples, as will be clear from the presentation of this research, are indicative of the entry of Turkish vocabulary into the Bulgarian language, which also affects the surname system of the Bulgarians. This leads to the parallel existence in our language of surnames inspired by lexemes of different origins.Item THE CONCEPTS OF DYING AND DEATH IN UKRAINIAN DRAMA ABOUT THE FULL-SCALE WAR OF 2022-2024: BASIC MODELS AND TEXTUAL STRATEGIES(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Bondareva, OlenaThe article deals with interpretations of the largest war in the modern world, proposed by contemporary Ukrainian non-combatant playwrights after 24 February 2022. Three basic models of the conceptual field of dying and death have been identified: the eternal battle between Good and Evil, the totality of war as initiation, and new rites of passage. Within each model, three major textual strategies have been analysed based on examples of contemporary plays about the war, covering various general cultural aspects of the artistic interpretation of the war through the writers’ comprehension of dying and death: the opposition between Ukrainian vitality and Russian mortality as Good and Evil; metamorphosis of the body in the context of the war; the impossibility of observing burial rites under the conditions of war; cataloguing of Russian war crimes; transformation of the victim status; conscious and spontaneous resistance to aggression; design of new rituals of transition; transfer of ordeals from the postmortem to the zone of death's anticipation; opening of portals between worlds.Item EXILE AS A TRAUMATIC PRETEXT OF A COUNTERNARRATIVE LITERATURE: THE MUSEUM OF UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER BY DUBRAVKA UGREŠIĆ(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Kambourov, DimitarThe text undertakes another attempt to read Ugrešić’s great novel from the viewpoint of the recent phenomenon of an East European world literature. It is an attempt to demonstrate how features such as counter-narrativity, anti-fictionality, and non-linearity, summoning key novels by Tokarczuk, Cărtărescu, Krasznahorkai, and Gospodinov, find their paradigmatic model in the novel of this Croatian exile. Her prose invents and implements the paradoxical regime of an intellectual commentary distance, pursuing identification through pain. An amateurish authenticity, shining out from an imitation of exemplary art, is the artistic program that, openly formulated and fulfilled by Ugrešić, was indirectly inherited and developed by Tokarczuk and Gospodinov, bringing them world audiences and awards. At the end, the text reflects on why a program that proved so successful with Tokarczuk and Gospodinov did not make Ugrešić the literary star and cult writer she deserves to be.Item THE NOVELS FLUGHUNDE [MEGABATS] (MARCEL BEYER) AND LICHTSPIEL (DANIEL KEHLMAN) – PATHS THROUGH THE PRESENT TO THE TRAUMA OF THE PAST(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Minkov, BorisThe article examines two works with similar problems, which – although set in the years of the Second World War, do not belong to the genre of the historical novel, because the different approaches to the questions of memory take them beyond the genre model. In Beyerʼs Flughunde (1995), the lyrically infused narration is directed at a kind of romantic obsession with listening to the voice of everything, at the idea of reaching and capturing unadulterated human voices and sounds, overcoming the prosthetics of the technical. The approach of this novel suggests the presence of deep dimensions of memory and the discovery of unsuspected patterns of memory ordering through the acoustic unconscious. In Kehlmanʼs Lichtspiel (2023) this approach is also present. The reader is invited to search the recesses of memory with the narrator for motives in past behavior and reenactments of decisive moments. But access to the deep dimensions of memory is denied here, and the paths to the past lead to suggestions of the anesthetic power of blind chance.Item FANTASTIC ELEMENTS IN THE NARRATION OF PAST TRAUMA IN LISA WEEDA’S NOVEL ALEKSANDRA(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Zhygun, SnizhanaThe article analyzes the narrative of past trauma in Lisa Weeda's novel Alexandra as a third-generation trauma narrative. The aim of the study is to assess the role of the fantastic elements in the narrative strategy of the author. Lisa, the protagonist and narrator, seeks to discover the history of her relatives, the Krasnov family, but the sources she needs are remote in time and separated in space. Therefore, the novel creates an imaginary chronotope, the Palace of the Lost Don Cossack, where Lisa meets the dead, and imaginary narrators, the deer, symbols of the Don Cossacks. In this way, the author fills in the gaps in the information concerning the experience of the traumatized generation and comprehends the impact of her ancestors’ experience on the present of her contemporaries. The fantastic elements contribute to the realization of the narrative as a dialog between generations and turn the neglected history of the Ostarbeiters into an emotionally accessible one. The knowledge that Lisa recovers from obscurity helps her understand the first phase of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 as a return to the arbitrariness of the Soviet dictatorship which has not been condemned for its crimes because it has silenced its victims.Item THE CONCENTRIC CIRCLES OF HELL: TOTALITARIAN PSYCHIATRY IN SEVERAL LITERARY EXAMPLES(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Mindova, LyudmilaOne of the earliest serious examples of psychiatric abuse under communism is the 150-page manuscript smuggled to the West by the Russian dissident and “imperialist spy” Vladimir Bukovsky, after being exchanged for the Chilean communist activist Luis Corvalán. The information about the so-called “latent” or “mild schizophrenia”, under which many dissidents in the USSR were institutionalized, serves as definitive proof of abuse, which the World Health Organization condemned. After 1989, numerous literary works and memoirs about repressive psychiatry emerged in the former Eastern Bloc. The article is based on several eloquent examples from post-Yugoslav and Bulgarian contexts. As psychiatrist Dr. Kiril Milenkov claims, after the Revival Process, most of the documentation of abuse in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria was destroyed, so today information about this can primarily be drawn from the memories of victims or the rare confessions of physicians. Among the key Bulgarian accounts is the book by the prominent Bulgarian intellectual and translator Vladimir Svintila, The Face of the Gorgon. In the post-Yugoslav context, the contributions of the writer Dragoslav Mihailović and psychologist Petar Kostić are significant, as they helped create a systematic account of the psychological repressions at Goli Otok.Item WHERE IS THE TRAUMA HERE?(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Panov, AlexanderThe article questions why fiction likes to talk about various human traumas. How does the reader participate in this narrative—as a psychotherapist or as a participant in group therapy? Analyzing the narrative work of Pavel Vezhinov from the period of the 1960s and 1970s - the short story collections The Boy with the Violin and Breath of Almonds, as well as the three novels The Barrier, The White Lizard and The Lake Boy - the author wants to prove that at the root of serious social traumas lies the disintegration of the traditional value system associated with the family structure, destroyed both by the shock invasion of Modernity and by the violent change in social morality carried out by totalitarian communist power.Item THE TRANSMISSION OF TRAUMA. PAGES FROM THE BOOK OF SUFFERINGS OF THE BULGARIAN TRIBE. STORIES OF LYUBEN KARAVELOV (MOSCOW, 1868)(Plovdiv University Press, 2025) Dechev, ZdravkoThe interpretation of trauma in the context of Karavelovʼs Russian collection of narratives about the sufferings of the enslaved Bulgarians has different grounds. The opening plot, entitled Among the Shadows, reveals how Karavelov's “Russian bookˮ of 1868 reached Bulgarian readers. If to the Russian public the collection presents the sufferings through the experience of their collectiveness, subjects them to a distanced perception and implies empathy, in our country the peculiar anthology of the sufferings is fragmented, disintegrates again into pages that remain (in the words of Nikolay Chernokozhev) in the “shadow of the bookˮ. In our country, suffering is not only a residual trauma that represents us, it must be both an incentive and a reason for our existence beyond suffering. The subsequent part – The “Handwritingˮ of Trauma – tries to interpret the mutually adjusting possibilities for perceiving the suffering that Karavelov offers through his texts in the collection. Our research intentions in this direction are provoked by the attitude that Karavelov's narration of the sufferings of the Bulgarians, their recognition as traumas, stems from the voice (regardless of whether it is recorded or spoken) – as an authentic address to anyone who could “hearˮ, that is, understand and empathize with what is shared. For the voice of suffering, the “notesˮ (“Turski Pasha. Notes of a Nunˮ) turn out to be a natural narrative environment. The style of the notes resembles the singularity of the voice, following the ramifications of the fable type of narration. The impact of the traumas of the suffering of the enslaved asserts its legitimacy in Karavelov's collection and in the literal highlighting of the voice as silent, telling, shouting, and singing (Bozhko, Neda). In the final plot – Around the Dead Body – naturalism in the image of the dismembered enslaved body is metaphorically linked to the decomposition of Karavelovʼs book of suffering into pages. The “bodyˮ of the book cannot remain unaffected in the Bulgarian world fractured by the traumas of the enslaved.