''Fakel'' (; ''The Torch'') was founded as a literary journal for

Soviet literature Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By the Ag ...

in translation in Bulgaria in 1981. Although intended as one of several publications which flooded the country with official works approved by the Soviet authorities, from the very beginning, the idea of the editors was to turn it unobtrusively into a journal for anti-Soviet literature. The name of the journal may have been a play on the famous Soviet journal '' Ogonek'' (the little flame).

History and profile

''Fakel'' was launched in 1981. The

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

n poet Georgi Borissov was first appointed as its vice editor-in-chief before becoming editor-in-chief in 1990. He is the founder and director of the publishing houses Fakel (1991–1995) and Fakel Express (1995). He has been the editor-in-chief of the magazine since 1990. Poet and translator Rumen Leonidov is another co-founder of ''Fakel'' magazine. Quite unexpectedly, the journal became very popular for it started publishing authors such as Mikhail Bulgakov,

Yevgeny Zamyatin Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin ( rus, Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ zɐˈmʲætʲɪn; – 10 March 1937), sometimes anglicized as Eugene Zamyatin, was a Russian author of science fictio ...

Andrei Platonov Andrei Platonov (russian: Андре́й Плато́нов, ; – 5 January 1951) was the pen name of Andrei Platonovich Klimentov (russian: Андре́й Плато́нович Климе́нтов), a Soviet Russian writer, philosopher, pla ...

Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...

, Boris Pasternak,

Vasily Grossman Vasily Semyonovich Grossman (russian: Васи́лий Семёнович Гро́ссман; 12 December (29 November, Julian calendar) 1905 – 14 September 1964) was a Soviet writer and journalist. Born to a Jewish family in Ukraine, then pa ...

Varlam Shalamov Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov (russian: Варла́м Ти́хонович Шала́мов; 18 June 1907 – 17 January 1982), baptized as Varlaam, was a Russian writer, journalist, poet and Gulag survivor. He spent much of the period from 1 ...

, Venedikt Erofeev,

Vladimir Voinovich Vladimir Nikolayevich Voinovich (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Войно́вич, 26 September 1932 – 27 July 2018), was a Russian writer and former Soviet dissident, and the "first genuine comic writer" produced by the S ...

, as well as poems and essays by

Velimir Khlebnikov Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov, better known by the pen name Velimir Khlebnikov ( rus, Велими́р Хле́бников, p=vʲɪlʲɪˈmʲir ˈxlʲɛbnʲɪkəf; – 28 June 1922) was a Russian poet and playwright, a central part of th ...

Osip Mandelstam Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam ( rus, Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам, p=ˈosʲɪp ɨˈmʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam; – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the A ...

Marina Tsvetaeva Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (russian: Марина Ивановна Цветаева, p=mɐˈrʲinə ɪˈvanəvnə tsvʲɪˈtaɪvə; 31 August 1941) was a Russian poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russia ...

, Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky and

Vladimir Vysotsky Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky ( rus, links=no, Владимир Семёнович Высоцкий, p=vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr sʲɪˈmʲɵnəvʲɪtɕ vɨˈsotskʲɪj; 25 January 1938 – 25 July 1980), was a Soviet singer-songwriter, poet, and actor ...

. With the

fall of communism in Bulgaria The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; bg, Народна Република България (НРБ), ''Narodna Republika Balgariya, NRB'') was the official name of Bulgaria, when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the ...

, ''Fakel'', due to its previous notoriety, served as a natural intellectual catalyst in what is widely described as the "transition period" in the countries of Central and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

. The journal published along the works of

, Nikolai Berdyaev,

Sergei Bulgakov Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (; russian: Серге́й Никола́евич Булга́ков; – 13 July 1944) was a Russian Orthodox theologian, priest, philosopher, and economist. Biography Early life: 1871–1898 Sergei Nikolaevich B ...

Daniil Kharms Daniil Ivanovich Kharms (russian: Дании́л Ива́нович Хармс; – 2 February 1942) was an early Soviet-era Russian avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist. Early years Kharms was born as Daniil Yuvach ...

Yuz Aleshkovsky Iosif Efimovich Aleshkovsky (russian: Ио́сиф Ефи́мович Алешко́вский), known as Yuz Aleshkovsky (russian: Юз Алешко́вский) (September 21, 1929 – March 21, 2022) was a modern Russian writer, poet, screenwr ...

Tatyana Tolstaya Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya (russian: Татьяна Никитична Толстая; born May 3, 1951) is a Russian writer, TV host, publicist, novelist, and essayist from the Tolstoy family. Family Tolstaya was born in Leningrad into a f ...

Dmitri Prigov Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov (russian: Дми́трий Алекса́ндрович При́гов, 5 November 1940 in Moscow – 16 July 2007 in Moscow Eduard Uspensky Eduard Nikolayevich Uspensky (russian: link=no, Эдуард Николаевич Успенский; 22 December 193714 August 2018) was a Soviet and Russian children's writer and poet, author of over 70 books, as well as a playwright, screenwri ...

Eduard Limonov Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko ( rus, Эдуард Вениаминович Савенко, , ɨdʊˈart vʲɪnʲɪɐˈmʲinəvʲɪtɕ sɐˈvʲenkə, links=yes; 22 February 1943 – 17 March 2020), known by his pen name Eduard Limonov ( rus, Эд ...

Alexander Genis Alexander Genis (born February 11, 1953) is a Russian–American writer, broadcaster, and cultural critic. He has written more than a dozen books that are non-fiction bestsellers in Russia. Genis, an American citizen, resides in the New York Cit ...

Vladimir Bukovsky Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (russian: link=no, Влади́мир Константи́нович Буко́вский; 30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Russian-born British human rights activist and writer. From the late 195 ...

etc., works by authors such as

Marquis de Custine Astolphe-Louis-Léonor, Marquis de Custine (18 March 1790 – 25 September 1857) was a French aristocrat and writer who is best known for his travel writing, in particular his account of his visit to Russia, '' La Russie en 1839''. This work ...

, G. K. Chesterton, George Orwell, C. G. Jung,

Jaroslav Hašek Jaroslav Hašek (; 1883–1923) was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian and anarchist. He is best known for his novel '' The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War'', an unfinished collection of farcical inc ...

Zbigniew Herbert Zbigniew Herbert (; 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998) was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume title ...

Czesław Miłosz Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, ...

Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are ''All My Sons'' (1947), '' Death of a Salesman'' (1 ...

, Harold Pinter,

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...

, Günter Grass,

Robert Conquest George Robert Acworth Conquest (15 July 1917 – 3 August 2015) was a British historian and poet. A long-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Conquest was most notable for his work on the Soviet Union. His books ...

Mircea Dinescu Mircea Dinescu (; born November 11, 1950) is a Romanian poet, journalist, and editor. Biography Early life and poetry He was born in Slobozia, the son of Ştefan Dinescu, a metalworker, and Aurelia (born Badea). Dinescu studied at the Faculty ...

Milan Kundera Milan Kundera (, ; born 1 April 1929) is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1981. Kundera's Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, then conferred again in 2019. He "sees himself ...

Milorad Pavić Milorad Pavić ( sr-Cyrl, Милорад Павић, ; 15 October 1929 – 30 November 2009) was a Serbian novelist, poet, short story writer, and literary historian. Born in Belgrade in 1929, he published a number of poems, short stories ...

Danilo Kiš Danilo Kiš (; born Dániel Kiss; 22 February 1935 – 15 October 1989) was a Yugoslav novelist, short story writer, essayist and translator. His best known works include ''Hourglass'', ''A Tomb for Boris Davidovich'' and '' The Encyclopedia of ...

Dubravka Ugrešić Dubravka Ugrešić (; born 27 March 1949) is a Yugoslav and later Croatian writer. A graduate of University of Zagreb, she has been based in Amsterdam since 1996 and refuses to identify as a Croatian writer. Early life and education Ugrešić ...

, etc., related in many different ways to the origins and the disintegration of totalitarian societies. In 2015 Georgi Borissov received the "Russian Award" at the International Literature Competition for publishing ''Fakel''.

References

External links

Official website
1981 establishments in Bulgaria Magazines published in Bulgaria Bulgarian-language magazines Literary magazines Literary translation magazines Magazines established in 1981 {{italic title