Обществото и певецът
Society and the Singer

Summary/Abstract: The article studies the conflict between Ivan Vazov and the Bulgarian society during the 80s of the 19th c. This conflict is to be seen in Ivan Vazov’s articles in the then Press. It is poetically revealed in his books of poems “Rebec” (1881) and “Fields and Forests” (1884). During the Bulgarian National Revival Ivan Vazov finds it worthy to deny himself, searching identity with the collective body, servicing to the society with the Word and lyric poetry. These are times of ideals and national ideology, through which the Bulgarian society lives its life. During the 80s of the 19th c. the idealism of the Bulgarian Revival thought stays in the past. The remnants of the National Revival theocentrism are substituted by the anthropocentrism of the new times. The mentality of Bulgarian society changes. It aims at gaining money and social success. This new mentality makes the society alien to Ivan Vazov. In his lyric poetry of that time - “Rebec” (1881) and “Fields and Forests”, first, we read the conflict with the society, and then - the drama of the poet’s break of relations with this society. Ivan Vazov seeks an individual sense of being. At the end of “Fields and Forests”, after the dramatic breakoff with the society we find a new program for the meaning of life and creativity. A poet should not serve the collective values. He is an elect. His talent is a gift of God. A poet should not go down with the others. They should go up to him. His life is in the world of the ideal things. For Ivan Vazov the new meaning is a life within culture, art, creativity, to overcome solitude, sadness, grief, lack of sense, i.e. anthropocentrism again, but being a world of ideas.

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