Linguistics, Interpretations, Concepts (LInC)
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p-ISSN: 3033-0181 / e-ISSN: 3033-0599
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Item THE CINEMATIC DE-EPICISATION OF THE EPIC NOVEL. THE CASE OF TOBACCO 1962(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Penchev, BoykoThe article analyses the film adaptation of the 1962 novel Tobacco, comparing the cinematic decisions of the director Nikola Korabov and the cinematographer Valo Radev with the processes of "deepicisation" in Bulgarian fiction of the 1960s. Particular attention is paid to the negative assessment of the film by the new generation of film critics, who believe that the adaptation sought epic scale rather than psychological depth and thus reinforced the weak rather than the strong aspects of the novel. The paradox is that ten years after the discussion of the novel Tobacco, a new discussion is taking place, now on the film Tobacco, in which the film is accused of the opposite of what the novel was criticized for. On the basis of the comparison between the narrative strategies of the novel and the cinematic decisions in the film, the paper claims that Nikola Korabov's Tobacco demonstrates a different, modern film poetics that is commensurate with the radical changes in Bulgarian fiction of the same decade.Item LONGING FOR PERSONALITIES – THE TESTAMENT OF BORIS YOTSOV(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Damyanova, RumyanaThe text follows Boris Yotsov's idea of the personalities who should lead the Bulgarian people forward – the optimistic forecast for the right choice and the explanation of the failures on the historical path that are due to wrong choices. In its aim to present the main moments of the scholar's life and creative destiny, the text is based on aspects of Boris Yotsov's article “Longing for personalities”.Item NARRATIVES ABOUT MIGRATION FROM BULGARIA AFTER 1944(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Endreva, MariaBased on the concept of loyalty by A. Hirschman, the text tries to define and schematically to analyze the various narratives about emigration from Bulgaria after 1944. The thesis is that socialism fails to build loyal citizens, which leads to a mass migration from the country after 1989. In the period up to 1989, the official strategy of power to demonize the West and those who fled to it and the heroization of the defenders of socialism, as well as the subversive narrative of free and wealthy society, which becomes a object of desires, are examined. After the Cold war, the narrative of the idealization of the West manifested two aspects: cultural and economic, and motivated millions of people to leave the country. A relatively underdeveloped discourse on the silence of negative experiences abroad is also examined.Item WOMEN'S CELIBACY – CURSE AND/OR SENTENCE (OBSERVATIONS ON BULGARIAN PERIODICALS AND LITERATURE BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS)(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Ichevska, TatyanaThis text tries to trace how in the interwar period public attitudes on the topic of old maids change, which factors increase sensitivity to the issue of female celibacy, what perspectives for its understanding articles in the periodical press set and how ideas about the old maid, already formed in the public space, are (re)reconsidered in Bulgarian literature when they are integrated into certain stories. The authors' assessment of female celibacy is different – for men it is a pathology, producing “monsters“, “hermaphrodites“, “camel birds“, ugly creatures; a sentence more terrible than death (Achchiiski, Mutafov, Ferrero); from a female point of view, celibacy is an “undesirable condition“ (Zlatareva), and insofar as some pathological deviations in the behavior of old maids could be seen, they are precedent and should not be used to build a typology of the phenomenon. It is evident from the articles and artistic works reviewed that for women to remain old maids is as much a compulsion imposed by unconquered patriarchal prejudices against them as it is a choice born of an unwillingness to accept compromising roles in society and in the family. And while celibacy may seem like a dangerous defect of emancipation, it can also be seen as an effect that allows a woman to spin the threads of her life according to her own rules and patterns.Item ANDREY PLATONOV: BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOTEXTUALITY(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Kiossev, AlexanderFollowing a methodology developed by Radosvet Kolarov, which relativizes „the death of the author“ and turns it into an inner-textual mechanism, this article deals with the complex and dramatic biography of the great writer Andrey Platonov. An attempt is made to analyze it as an organizing auto-poetic principle of his creative work. The transformations of enduring ideological and emotional motives that start from the early Platonov and reach his late works are traced; the principles of auto-citation, transformation, and auto-polemics are analyzed. The conclusions comment on the special phantasmal core present in every ideology and the possibility of it being manipulated politically.Item POISONOUS BOOKS(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Freise, MatthiasBooks can be poisonous in a literal, metaphorical, metonymical or symbolic sense. Literally, for protection; metonymically, in fiction, for killing; metaphorically, in metalepsis, as revealing reality as being fictitious; symbolically, as a danger to readers. The article examines examples of all four possibilities. Often metaphor, metonymy and symbols are used to convey a metapoetic message about the relationship between fiction and reality, about the political, social or psychological power of literature, about literature as temptation or a narcotic, or about the ambivalence of a literary message, and thus fundamentally different modes of reading. In particular, the article argues that David Damrosch’s reading in What is World Literature? of Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars, which he declares to be poisoned by Serbian nationalism, is subverted by the book itself which differentiates a poisonous from a non-poisonous copy of itself, meaning alternative modes of reading.Item THE INFINITY-POINT. GENESIS OF SOME CONCEPTS IN JULIA KRISTEVA’S EARLY WORK(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Nikolchina, MiglenaThe study traces the continuity and transformation of some of Julia Kristeva's major concepts between her first book published in French Semeiotike (1969) and her early magnum opus Revolution in Poetic Language (1974), while taking into consideration the further vicissitudes of these concepts. Kristeva's work in its entirety is focused on the restless “revolutionary” frontier between the non-human and the human, between the inanimate and the biological, and between sensoriality and code: the network of (in)human connections, from which the subject's “infinite point” emerges. Exploring the genesis of Kristeva's conceptual apparatus is motivated by the conviction that it is especially vital and relevant vis-à-vis the challenges of contemporary technological developments.Item 45 YEARS IS NOT ENOUGH: AN IDEA THAT SHOOK THE WORLD OF LINGUISTICS(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Dagnev, IvayloConceptual metaphor theory emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s and viewed the process and product of metaphorization as a complex interrelationship between language and thought. A central claim of this theory proposed by Lakoff & Johnson and subsequently developed by numerous researchers is that the apperception of the unknown takes place through a special process of construction in semantics – metaphorization, which results from the complex interaction between embodied experience, the conceptual system and its linguistic representation. The evolution of the theory problematises many essential issues of semantics such as the meaning and use of words, the relationship between literal and figurative meaning, between the conceptual character and the lexical expression in language. Like any significant idea, the theory of conceptual metaphor has become the target of numerous criticisms on all its aspects, which, after all, are the necessary driving force for its development.Item ON THE INTERACTION BETWEEN THE LEXICAL MEANING OF THE RUSSIAN VERB TANCEVAТ’ AND VERBAL PREFIXES WITH SPATIAL MEANING(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Slavkova, Svetlana; Zangoli, GiuliaThis paper analyses the prefixal encoding of spatial orientation in one of the few Russian ʿstrongʾ verbs of manner of motion, i. e. the verb tancevat’ (to dance). Our study relies primarily on the conceptual framework presented in the works of V. A. Plungyan (Плунгян / Plungyan 2002; 2011). Following the approach adopted by the author regarding verbs specializing in expressing only the manner of motion (in the author’s terminology, “strong verbs of manner of motion”), we focus our attention on the behavior of the verb tancevat’ (to dance) and on its prefixed forms in order to determine which ʿlatentʾ components of its semantics are activated when prefixed. Attention is paid as well to the interaction between the spatial meaning of verbal prefixes and the lexical meaning of the verb tancevat’ (to dance). Except for a few cases the material we analyse is taken from the Russian National Corpus. Exam-ples are intentionally given with a broader context in order to provide a more detailed analysis of prefixed forms of the verb tancevat’ in their context of use.Item THE LANGUAGE OF DIDACTIC LITERATURE TRANSLATIONS DURING THE BULGARIAN REVIVAL (ANTON NIKOPIT’S LESSONS FOR CHILDREN)(Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski", 2024) Ivanova, DianaThe purpose of this article is to analyse Anton Nikopit’s idiolect in his translation of the first part of the four-volume Μαθήματα διὰ τοὺς Παίδας (Les-sons for Children) (1850), an encyclopaedia written by Kōnstantinos Vardalachos, an eminent scholar of the Modern Greek Enlightenment. The impressive size of Nikopit’s textbook (359 pages) pertains to the didactic discourse in the context of the Bulgarian linguistic situation in the 1850s. The focus of the study is the linguistic features of the translator’s idiolect with the aim to widen our understanding of the process of standardization of the language and the gradual solidification of the New Bulgarian trend of language codification. The study points out Nikopit’s contribution to the standardization of the New Bulgarian literary language, clarifies the character of his idiolect, and his achievement in introducing several grammatical norms as well as his approach to modernizing the writing norms. It underlines the practical use of the textbook regarding the European methods at that time and their practical application in children’s education. They entered Bulgarian schools via the Greek didactic literature.Item CLASSIFICATION AND VARIATION OF FIXED EXPRESSIONS IN BULGARIAN(Plovdiv University Press “Paisii Hilendarski”, 2024-04-27) Zidarova, VanyaFixed expressions comprise a large, specific and diverse group of linguistic units which makes them a serious theoretical and lexicographical challenge. This article offers a review of the existing classifications. There is also a new model proposed – one which distinguishes between a core and a periphery. Manifestations of structural variability are also considered in two directions: in language and in speech. The observations are based on the corpus in one of the Bulgarian phraseological dictionaries.Item THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE OLD BULGARIAN TITLE ЦѢСАРЬ/ЦЬСАРЬ(Plovdiv University Press “Paisii Hilendarski”, 2024-04-21) Saldzhiev, HristoThis article deals with the etymology of the Old Bulgarian (Slavonic) title цѣсарь/цьсарь which has been a matter of discussion and different hypotheses for а long time. In the second half of the 20th century most authors accepted the Gothic hypothesis according to which the title appears to be a Gothic loan – from Káisar. It is attested in the Gothic transcription of the New Testament made by the Gothic bishop Ulfilla in the 4th century in Moesia. However, this hypothesis is problematic too – it cannot explain the different phonetic variants of the title in the Old Bulgarian (Slavonic) records and modern Slavic languages as well as the lack of labialization of the final short -a in Káisar. The article introduces a new hypothesis insisting on the connection of the title and its variants with the Late Latin vernaculars spread in Moesia and modern Western Bulgaria and Eastern Serbia and attested in a relatively big number of inscriptions dated back to the 5th and 6th century. A large number of anthroponyms, toponyms and some of the Romance loanwords in the Old Bulgarian language, whose phonetic structure indicates contacts between South Eastern Slavs and the Late Antique Latin speaking population in the Balkans are examined. The Old Bulgarian (Slavonic) variants of the title are explained in the context of the phonetic changes in the Late Latin vernaculars.Item THE HIDDEN RULES OF WORD ORDER VARIATIONS(Plovdiv University Press “Paisii Hilendarski”, 2024-04-21) Cinque, GuglielmoThe present article addresses the question of cross-linguistic word order variation, considering the partial regularities found in the languages of the world and the non-existence of certain expected orders. It proposes that movement is at the basis of a restrictive theory of word order variation.Item FRANKENSTEIN AND POWER DYNAMICS: FROM TEXT TO CONTEXT(Plovdiv University Press “Paisii Hilendarski”, 2024-04-21) Kostadinova, VitanaThis paper traces aspects of the dynamic power hierarchies in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818) and in Richard Brinsley Peake’s stage adaptation Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein (1823). It close-reads these two as interpretations of Satan challenging the omnipotence of the Maker and touches upon the Victorian burlesque Frankenstein, or the Model Man (1849), which features education as a civilizational tool. The discussion then moves to the realm of newspaper publications in the nineteenth century that make use of the Frankenstein metaphor. The power dynamics between the creator and the creation getting out of control may be wavering but monstrosity soldiers on. In the final instance, a recent tendency in the Bulgarian political discourse of inscribing the speaker into the inherent tension produced by the power hierarchies demonstrates that different contexts bend the metaphor in different ways.Item LITERATURE, POWER AND IMAGINATION: THE QUEST FOR DYSTOPIA IN THE BULGARIAN NOVEL OF THE 21st CENTURY(Plovdiv University Press “Paisii Hilendarski”, 2024-04-21) Kirova, MilenaThe study opens with the question: Why wasn't there a powerful wave of satire in Bulgarian literature in the first two decades of the 21st century, even though the situation of the Transition closely resembled the situation that spawned the satire of Ivan Vazov, Aleko Konstantinov and Stoyan Mikhailovsky a hundred years earlier? The answer to this question is found in the compensatory emergence and rapid rise of a genre that had been virtually absent: the dystopian novel. This article traces the process in which two dozen dystopian works were published in twelve years; their number helps defining an already remarkable phenomenon in Bulgarian literary history. Among the authors discussed are famous writers such as Georgi Gospodinov, Zahari Karabashliev, Emilia Dvoryanova, Vasil Georgiev, Vladislav Todorov, Georgi Tenev... The article concludes with a synthesis of the genre specificity and thematic diversity of Bulgarian dystopian literature of the early 21st century.Item THE MYTH OF SAN STEFANO IN BULGARIAN EXILE LITERATURE AFTER 1944(Plovdiv University Press “Paisii Hilendarski”, 2024-04-21) Mikulecký, JakubThe following article focuses on various aspects of the myth of San Stefano and the image of “Great Bulgaria”, realized in the period 1941 – 1944. The article focuses on various literary texts (mainly poetry and prose) and memoirs as a very important field for the manifestation of cultural memory. The nationalistic exile after 1944 as a collective bearer of pre-communist national ideas can be considered as an alternative model of thinking, opposed to the socialist discourse established in The People's Republic of Bulgaria. Not even the establishment of the communist regime could get rid of the national desire for “Great Bulgaria”. The myth of San Stefano continued to be an important aspect of the nationalist discourse in the exile; the myth was present not only in journalistic texts and political literature, it can be found also in poetry (D. Gabenska, A. Enev, Zh. Zaimova, H. Ognyanov, I. Bankovski), prose (D. Zagorski, I. Bankovski), and also in exile memoirs (S. Popov, V. Spasov). The San Stefano desire for “Great Bulgaria” is nostalgic, not only as a longing forа lost homeland, but also a longing for lost national ideas, which became an important part of collective identity within nationalist exile.Item 1922 – 1925 in BULGARIA – LITERATURE, LITERARY CRITICISM and POLITICS(Plovdiv University Press “Paisii Hilendarski”, 2024-04-21) Protohristova, KleoThis text aims at analysing literary life in Bulgaria between 1922 and 1925. The analysis is motivated by the dominant impression of its extraordinary intensity and draws upon the assumption that the chronological stretch is self-contained as a distinct micro-period in national literary history. The goal of this research is to endorse the hypothesis that the projection potential in the dynamics of the examined time span is meaningful. Observations have been carried out in the mode of H. R. Jauss’s “synchronic cross-sections” and include contextualising parallels with the respective literary years in Western European literature.Item AUTHORS AND FIGHTERS, ROMANCES, COFFEE-HOUSES: SOME POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS PRECEDING THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE NOVEL “UNDER THE YOKE”(Plovdiv University Press “Paisii Hilendarski”, 2024-04-21) Zlatanov, BlagovestThe article reconstructs and analyses in detail previously unknown events, statements, and interrelations in a series of political developments preceding the English translation of Ivan Vazov's novel “Under the Yoke”, published in London at the very end of 1893. Two main issues fall into the focus of research interest. First, for what reason was the author Ivan Vazov considered an immediate participant in the struggles for national liberation of Bulgaria? And secondly, why are efforts being made to define “Under the Yoke” as a “romance”? As a final accent, the article answers the question why the novel includes a coffee-house that afterwards became so famous in Bulgarian literature and cultural history.