Heinrich Heine and Zahari Stoyanov. Notes on the Problem of the Western European Influences on the Formation of Zahari Stoyanov as a Historian and a Humanist

The functionaries in the political and cultural life during the epoch of Bulgarian Revival learned a lot and adopted the Western European achievements in every field of knowledge and culture. It was this process of active influence which determined Zahari Stoyanov’s adoption of the German poet Heinrich Heine’s Ideas. In the article an attempt was made to find out the available data – including indirect ones – evidencing such an influence. Zahari Stoyanov had been familiar in some degree with Heinrich Heine’s works, and amongst the most famous confirmation of this knowledge is the citations of Heine’s words in the introduction of “Notes on the Bulgarian Uprisings” [“Записки по българските въстания”]. The study permits to find out that the both authors expressed an intensified awareness of history and that the Zahari Stoyanov’s awareness of history, regardless of these influences, had his own specificity. The awareness of history of both Heinrich Heine and Zahari Stoyanov shares the characteristics of the XIX-century humanism. Moreover, their awareness of history achieved a perfect harmony of an exact vision for the spirit of their epochs, on the one hand, and a precise objectivity in historical factuality, on the othe