Lidia Mihova

Lidia Mihova, Rich and Poor

(Money and words in the belles-lettres of the Revival)

Summary

The article sets the focal point of its analysis on three works from the period of the Bulgarian Revival, e.g. A Student and Benefactors by Vassil Drumev and Is Fate to Blame and Hadji Nicho by Ljuben Karavelov. These works channel the conflict between the rich man and the poor man in a modern direction by overcoming, to a certain extent, the sentimental and sensational strain intrinsic of the Revival belletrism. They lead out the social aspects of the conflict setting it in a modern cultural -historical perspective.

The works have been viewed through the prism of the so-called European instructional novel. The satirical novelette Haji Nicho is analysed as a bearer of the antihero paradigm. The conclusion is that the verbal expressiveness of the heroes is the result of modern gestures and it also overlays the conflict rich versus poor with new meanings. The positive characters, erudite though penniless young men, display a strong verbal presence. Their antipodes though rich are poor in spirit, they are phoney benefactors and phoney patriots and are either devoid of verbal presence or if not their loquaciousness comes down to nothing more than deliberately learnt commonplaces.