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PARTISAN REVIEW
res tora ti on of the political sta te cen sorship o f Tza ri st times. In thi s case
it would be Marxi st censorship, they maintain ed; and if the censors
couldn 't find anything counter-revo lutionary in the pa rti cul ar work
under scrutin y, they could simpl y stamp it acceptabl e.
It
was thought
that tha t would guarantee young writers a t least some crea ti ve free–
dom within the framework o f Marxi st ideo logy. T his didn 't work
out, o f course, fo r wha t was in vo lved was not onl y the ideo logical con–
tro l of litera ture and a rts whi ch we had a lready, but a blind bu reau–
cra ticall y manipul a ted merry-go-round, whi ch didn 't reall y concern
the Party and Sta te bosses who were busy pl ay ing hi gh level political
checkers.
As fo r the res t of di ssenters of th e "either/ o r decade" who didn 't
give up: Tzvetan Stoyano v died from a ruptured appendix during the
last year of the decade a t the age o f forty; the poet Penev, after th ree
futil e a ttempts, fin all y succeeded in committing sui cide with an
overdose of seda ti ves; after two a ttempts, the critic M. iko lov commit–
ted sui cide by slashing his wrists. He fin a ll y succeeded by soaking them
in a tub of ho t water first. The graphic designer Dimo Popov kill ed
himse lf by putting a bullet through his head, and for some time, the
poet Fo tev was a drug addict. So much for my generation . Among the
radicals of World War II the poet Al exander Gerov went through a
long period in a mental asylum. The poet and pl aywri ght Peichev was
destroyed by alco holism . Deep in his hypochond ria the sa.tirist Ralin
now jumps over tram lines " in order to avoid electrocution ." I could go
on with such a list for as lo ng as you 'd like, but I' d better stop .
In my case, the closing of the fi eld of creati ve litera ture was
accompani ed by an opening of the fi eld of science. Actuall y, my shift
to
the theory of litera ture was an easy and na tural one, so I didn 't reali ze
a t first what was happening to me. I continued to work in tha t area as
hones tl y as I could, but then it started up aga in , for I obviously
rema ined the same old "neutral conductor" who showed no sign of
turning into the "copper wire" which the sta te machine required. So
they closed the door
to
active research , opening a t the same time before
me the grea t arch of scientific bureaucracy, under whi ch the eggs of all
the monsters devo uring Bulgarian culture a re ha tch ed . I was appointed
the organi zer o f a huge research project on the future of Wo rld Culture.
The Academy of Sciences was supposed to submit a report to the State
Council in order to aid it in its efforts to formul ate a forthcoming
decree on the boundaries within whi ch Bulgarian culture should
develop. This p roject hindered me from compl eting my doctoral
disserta tion fo r three years, but it also landed me in an exchange
program with the United Sta tes.
