Хипертрофия на забравата: Островът на Блаженните и културата на настоящето
Hypertrophy of Oblivion: The Isle of the Blessed and the Work in the Present

Summary/Abstract: In this article I discuss Pencho Slaveykov as a theorist of Bulgarian modernity. The anthology On the Isle of the Blessed (1910), his radical project for the autonomy of literature, is actually a compendium of allegories of the present. According to Slaveykov, modernity represents work in the present. This definition is based on Nietzsche’s conception of oblivion. As a conditio sine qua non of happiness, in Slaveykov’s view oblivion expands to the dimensions of a Utopia of a collective obliteration of history. The affirmation of collective oblivion (the dystopian world of the lotophagi) emerges as the foundation of the modern individualistic project.

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