За провокативността на „Иванко“
About the Provocative Character of “Ivanko”

Summary/Abstract: The image of the traitor takes a specific, intermediate place in the system of values, presented by the dramatic play literature of the Revival. The traitor is not a positive hero, neither an enemy of Bulgarians, because he himself is a Bulgarian. The otherness (the characteristic of difference) in the historic dramas is to be read as difference from the moral required (when the traitor is concerned) and as ethnic difference, combined with the inherent lack of morality (when the enemy is concerned). The dramatic play literature of the Revival presents the image of the traitor in an up-going scale. The most hesitant of them is the hero Mortagon of Voinikov. Ivanko of Vassil Droumev and Mitra of K. Velichkov illustrate next grades in the development of this character. The inner discrepancy of the Droumev’s hero, as well as the moral problem of the duty to the motherland, of the liberty to make choices, turn Ivanko into the most commented drama of the Revival. The elaborate review, conducted here, of the critics’ opinions and elated evaluations, of the various readings of the main hero’s image, prove his provocative character. The efforts of the critics seemed insufficient to comprehend Ivanko and literature further developed his image during the next decades. Ivan Vazov’s drama “Borislav” and Tsv. Minkov’s short novel “The death of the regicide” put in other situations and give other solutions to the hero of Droumev.

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