Angelina Banovic-Markovska – Literature Should Connect, Not Divide, Skopje and Sofia

Angelina Banovic-Markovska. Photo: personal archive

Not much reciprocity from Bulgaria

"It was quite natural," Banovic-Markovska said, to add Bulgarian literature to the corpus of South Slavic literature taught at the Philology Faculty in Skopje.

The road towards this opened up in the 1990s, when the former Yugoslav federation dissolved and the former Department of History of Literature of the peoples of Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRJ, in Skopje, was renamed the Department of Macedonian Literature and South-Slavic Literatures.

But Bulgarian literature was only added to the South-Slavic corpus that previously covered only former Yugoslav literatures in the 2000s.

In addition to Banovic-Markovska's classes, students in their third and fourth year now also have obligatory classes on several epochs of Bulgarian literature, held by a colleague of hers.

The country's move to include Bulgarian literature shows "an open and flexible approach towards the literary pluralism in the region", the professor ventured, adding that it sent a message to other regional universities - that South-Slavic literatures are all equally important and open for mutual comparisons and interpretations.

The course on Bulgarian literature, which started in the 2000s, covers the times from the 18th century to the start of the 20th century, encompassing the most important authors and books from those periods.

"Of course," Banovic-Markovska added, "not without our cultural authors from the 19th century: [Joakim] Krchovski, [Kiril] Pejcinovic, Miladinovci [brothers], [Rajko] Zhinzifov, [Gligor] Prlicev…  towards whom Bulgarian literature … has shown particular 'sympathies'".

Banovic-Markovska was...