Образът на „героичната младеж“ в българската лява поезия от 30-те – 40-те години и изкуството на социалистическия реализъм от първото десетилетие след 1944 г.
The Image of the “Heroic Youth” in the Poetry of the Bulgarian Left From the 1930s and 1940s and in the Art of Socialist Realism from the First Decade after 1944

Summary/Abstract: The article shows how the heroic image of the “revolutionary” and “democratic” youth is constructed in socialist poetry and artworks. The analysis is based on a study of partisan and revolutionary poetry from the 1930s and 1940s and poetry from the period of socialist realism, describing the socialist construction in the late 1940s and 1950s, as well as of artworks – painting, graphics, sculpture, created in the 1950s (also in the style of socialist realism), but depicting the partisan movement in Bulgaria and socialist construction. The period of creation of the researched works is situated on the border of two political epochs, when idealism and romanticism of revolutionary creativity (until the mid-1940s) was transformed into a dogmatically structured method of socialist realism after the establishment of the socialist rule in Bulgaria. The research finds a connection between the language and the imagery in poetry and art from that period and Georgi Dimitrov’s addresses to the youth in the 1930s and 1940s. What is common to all the works subject to analysis is their content, representing the young people in a heroic light. The image of “fighters for peace” and “fighters against fascism” is built on the notions of (silent) martyrdom, sacrifice and immortality of the heroes. The “builders of socialism” or the so-called “heroes of the labor front” are represented by their basic features such as enthusiasm, youth energy, eternal youth, unity. Other aspects of the heroic image of the young people are their being perceived as “avant-garde”, as “eternally young”, and as eternally aspiring for self-improvement.

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