There are many reasons that regularly return me to Anton Pavlovich's work. The most important of them is its contemporaneity. The most popular Russian writer and playwright in France is known as a realist. Modest and a workaholic, he never gave up, even after the Russian Academy of Arts awarded him the “Pushkin” award for the short story collection “At Sunset”.
The prize consists of 500 rubles, which is a breath of fresh air in his thin family budget. After the award, Chekhov was recognized as a worthy follower of Gogol and Dostoyevsky. Despite the pleasant surprise, he did not change his view of the Russian reality, nor of the pack of writers hungry for fame, for honors, ready for compromises and plotting intrigues. To the vanity of most of them.
„I will continue to write without giving political instructions. Everyday life is my world and that of my characters. They are the common people. I will describe - how they are born, how they fall in love, marry, have children and die.“ This modest giant of world literature published 900 works in just 26 years!
Recently, the French Academy of Arts awarded Georgi Gospodinov for his work. The French followed the English, an action for which the Bulgarians say “ after the rain hood“. Why “Old Democracies” showering honors on Gospodinov, which, in my opinion, are without coverage compared to other Bulgarian authors is an interesting topic. Georgi Gospodinov's presumptuous statements about “historical memory” of the Bulgarians are in complete contradiction with Chekhov's appeal against the dizziness of some members of the literary elite.
I admit to being intentional about “Time Asylum” after stopping halfway through the first page. I flipped through the entire book diagonally and concluded that this kind of fantastic – pessimistic literature, without names and dates, is not for me. There must be people who think otherwise. That is their right. The translator Mari Vrina – Nikolov deserves congratulations because the text is anything but easy.
Rumyana Ugarchinska has published 4 books in France in the last 20 years, in the original French language, without the help of a translator. Their content is neither fiction, nor tourism, nor kitchen recipes. The books contain dates, names and facts. The most famous of them is dedicated to the kidnapping against the Pope – John Paul II. Ugarchinska took the risk of "uncovering" Claire Stirling's fabrications and Ali Agja's lies. Her book refutes all suspicions of Bulgarian involvement in the attack. I bet “Time Asylum” will never achieve the spread of the “Truth about the assassination of John-Paul II", because it avoids the geopolitical knot in which we are all entangled, wherever we are. Rumyana's book has another advantage. A film was made about her, which was screened 8 times on the French TV channel "Canal Plus". BNT from "Godfather Shame" released the film only once. Gospodinov's books are not suitable for movies. Or as he himself says, they can be used for “neurosurgery”.
The honors that the Bulgarian writer received are in line with the appointment of Kristalina Georgieva as director of the International Monetary Fund. Here is a woman with degrees but no accounting experience from even a “cheese dairy”. However, she assumed the fate of half the world's money. How does this happen? Just like Gospodinov and Miglena Kuneva. There are different levels in the world we live in. There are visible and invisible layers. In those that are under the spotlights, QUOTAs are played. After Emmanuel Macron appointed the president of the European Commission – Ursula von der Leyen and the European Bank – Christine Lagarde, the Poles raised their voices. Why are the seats only for people from Western Europe?! Then someone whispered to Macron the name of Kristalina Georgieva and he placed the Bulgarian in the prestigious position.
The fate of Miglena Kuneva is similar. Together with Kristalina, the two were “selected“ for female commissioners of the year. How come “chosen“ without anyone voting for them? In reality, they were not chosen, but “selected“ from the circles of lobbyists in Brussels.
Bulgarian society is right to ask questions about Bulgaria's full membership in the European Union. Why are we not in Schengen after so many years? People like Kristalina Georgieva, Miglena Kuneva and Georgi Gospodinov are basically our representatives? They could ask how long we have to wait, but they don't. Their emphatic servitude to foreign virtues means only one thing – we didn't choose them. In society, the feeling that someone from outside is leading us by the nose and "rewarding" is growing more and more!