Rodzima przestrzeń małego miasta w prozie bułgarskiego twórcy Stanisława Stratiewa

In the 1970’s Stanislav Stratiev wrote and published two novels: Wild Duck Among the Trees and Details of the Landscape. In these prose works the Bulgarian author describes the nature of the small town. The small town in Stratiev’s concept is a familiar space, inseparably joined to nature, where existence devoid of dynamics and variability often takes on oppressive stagnation and apathetic character. The small town space appears as an emblem of the Bulgarian province in a bygone era. The small town’s inhabitants, charged with a national stereotypical thinking, cannot overcome the cultural distance to the center of civilization and manifest serious problems with the assimilation of foreign values. People living in a small seaside town move in a familiar codes’ and symbols’ world and each change in this recognized paradigm evokes an anxiety and a fear. The main character of the novels, Sashko – maturing youth, becomes an example of a torn man: on the one hand – “fused” with the native space, on the other – saddled with inferiority complex because of his origin. A young man’s maturing process significantly changes the way of his perception of surrounding reality. Sashko wants to explore the world, and it causes the leaving of the native universe.