The Role of Georgi Markov and Monica Lovinescu in the De-ideologization of Bulgarian and Romanian Literature

Authors:

Pages: 22-31
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/RFCM5730

Abstract:

The article aims to demonstrate the key role of Bulgarian writer and journalist Georgi Markov and Romanian journalist and essayist Monica Lovinescu in breaking the ideologcal constraints imposed on the two literatures during the communist era. Through a parallel reading of their reports and chronicles, a series of common themes emerges: the situation in which the writers found themselves, the importance of their membership in the Writers’ Union, as well as the issue of true literature. Common values, which G. Markov and M. Lovinescu share and seek, each in their national literature, are also revealed. These are truth, authenticity, connection to reality, and the uncompromising adherence to purely aesthetic criteria in the creative process. By commenting in the public space on the shortcomings of ideologized literature and promoting writers who attempt to escape doctrinal limitations, G. Markov and M. Lovinescu strive to preserve the idea of books as a means of free exchange of ideas and to maintain critical thinking among readers during those years.

Keywords:

Bulgarian and Romanian literature, de-ideologization, freedom of speech.

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