Venko Markovski ( Bulgarian and ), born Veniyamin Milanov Toshev (; ; March 5, 1915 – January 7, 1988) was a Bulgarian and Macedonian

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, partisan and

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

Biography

Born on March 5, 1915, in

Skopje Skopje ( , ; ; , sq-definite, Shkupi) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It lies in the northern part of the country, in the Skopje Basin, Skopje Valley along the Vardar River, and is the political, economic, and cultura ...

Kingdom of Serbia The Kingdom of Serbia was a country located in the Balkans which was created when the ruler of the Principality of Serbia, Milan I of Serbia, Milan I, was proclaimed king in 1882. Since 1817, the Principality was ruled by the Obrenović dynast ...

, (present-day

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

). Markovski completed his

secondary education Secondary education is the education level following primary education and preceding tertiary education. Level 2 or ''lower secondary education'' (less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is considered the second and final phase of basic e ...

in Skopje, later studying Slavic

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...

. Markovski was a member of the Macedonian Literary Group founded in Skopje in 1931. He is an important figure in contemporary

Macedonian literature Macedonian literature () begins with the Ohrid Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire (nowadays North Macedonia) in 886. These first written works in the dialects of the Old Church Slavonic were religious. The school was established by ...

after having published in 1938, what was to be the first contemporary book written in unstandardized Macedonian language, ''Narodni bigori'' (People's Bitterness). From 1938, he participated in the Macedonian Literary Circle in

, embracing its Macedonism. During World War II, in 1941 he was sent as a Communist activist to the concentration camp in Enikyoi by the Bulgarian police. Between 1943 and 1944 he was a

Yugoslav partisan The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian language, Macedonian, and Slovene language, Slovene: , officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odr ...

in Macedonia, together with his wife and five-year-old son, Mile. He wrote many popular partisan march songs for the major battles in Yugoslavia. Markovski participated in the Communist resistance in Vardar Macedonia and was an active political figure in Socialist Macedonia. In the period between 1944 and 1945, Markovski was present for three commissions for the codification of the

Macedonian alphabet The orthography of the Macedonian language includes an alphabet consisting of 31 letters (), which is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation. The Macedonian alphabet Standard Ma ...

which was organized by ASNOM. As he recollected many years later, he tried to include the letter '' yer'' (ъ) in the codification of the

, this letter was also used in standard Bulgarian orthography to express the

mid back unrounded vowel The mid back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Although there is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the exact mid back unrounded vowel between close-mid and open-mid ...

(IPA ) (also common in many Macedonian dialects), but its absent from the

Serbian alphabet The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (, ), also known as the Serbian script, (, ), is a standardized variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language. It originated in medieval Serbia and was significantly reformed in the 19th ce ...

. However, Blaže Koneski's point of view won, and because of that the letter ''yer'' is not present in the Macedonian orthography. Markovski openly supported the

Cominform The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist–Leninist communist parties in Europe which existed from 1947 to 1956. Formed in the wake of the dissolution ...

and was subsequently imprisoned at the

internment camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...

in Idrizovo following Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Cominform. In January 1956, Markovski was once again imprisoned, this time serving a five-year hard labor sentence at the notorious

labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...

on the island of Goli Otok in the

Adriatic Sea The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Se ...

under the name "Veniamin Milanov Toshev" for publishing—what the authorities considered—an anti-Titoist poem "Contemporary Paradoxes" in

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...

and for his leanings towards the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

(see Informbiro). In 1965, he was released from Goli Otok after pressure on Yugoslavia from

Todor Zhivkov Todor Hristov Zhivkov ( ; 7 September 1911 – 5 August 1998) was a Bulgarians, Bulgarian communist statesman who served as the ''de facto'' leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from 1954 until 1989 as General Secretary of the Cen ...

and moved to

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

. In 1968 his family was expelled to Bulgaria. Markovski was accepted by the people of Bulgaria and soon began publishing in Bulgarian. Many of his poems there were political and pro-Bulgarian. Some were dedicated to the ideal of

Communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

and he wrote a number of

sonnets A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...

, publishing three books of sonnet crowns, dedicated to various historical figures. Markovski also wrote "Saga of Testaments", a history of Bulgaria in verses (with a total of 44,444 verses). Venko Markovski was a member of the Bulgarian Writers' Union, and a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (1979), and was awarded the highest Bulgarian orders, among them ''Hero of the Socialist Labour'' (1975), and ''Hero of Bulgaria'' (1985). He was a member of several Parliaments from 1971 until his death in 1988. Because of his works written in Bulgarian, Markovski was declared a traitor of the Macedonian nation and in 1975 was under the protection of the Bulgarian secret service as it was believed an assassination was being planned by the Yugoslav secret police, the

UDBA The State Security Service, also known by its original name as the Directorate for State Security, was the secret police organization of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Communist Yugoslavia. It was at all times best known by the acrony ...

. Only seven days prior to his death, Markovski stated in an interview for

Bulgarian National Television The Bulgarian National Television ( Bulgarian: Българска национална телевизия, ''Balgarska natsionalna televizia'') or BNT (БНТ), stylized as ·Б·Н·Т· since 2018, is a public television broadcaster of Bulgaria ...

that the ethnic Macedonians and the

Macedonian language Macedonian ( ; , , ) is an Eastern South Slavic language. It is part of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of a larger Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch. Sp ...

are a result of a Comintern conspiracy. Venko Markovski died on January 7, 1988, in Sofia at the age of 72.

Works and views

Markovski had published works in both Bulgarian and Macedonian. After moving to Bulgaria, he supported the Bulgarian historiography's stance on the Macedonian Question. In his 1981 book ''Blood is Thicker than Water'', he apologized for his participation in SR Macedonia and declared Bulgarian identity. In his 1984 book ''Goli Otok: The Island of Death'', he described his experience in Goli Otok and the treatment of prisoners there. He also argued that Macedonian identity was a Bulgarian regionalism. His poetry in Macedonian was criticized by the Bulgarian

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

oppositionist of the first years after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, , with an article in his newspaper

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

"Small and small like little

camel A camel (from and () from Ancient Semitic: ''gāmāl'') is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provid ...

s", entitled "The small

poems Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

of a small

", where the poems are defined as anti-Bulgarian and created for political

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

purposes, and his appointment to the state writers' union by the communist functionary Todor Pavlov was condemned.

Legacy

His wife was Filimena and he had two children, among them the writer Mile Markovski (1939–1975) and piano teacher Sultana. His two grandsons are the Internet pioneer Veni Markovski and journalist Igor Markovski. Throughout his life, Markovski was a proponent of close Macedonian-Bulgarian cultural and political ties. After

's independence, he was rehabilitated and historians there have stated that he had made a major contribution to the Macedonian national cause, despite his pro-Bulgarian views.

Bibliography

In Macedonian

* Народни бигори (''People's Bitterness''), (1938) * Огинот (''The Fire''), (1938) * Илинден (''Ilinden''), (1940) * Луња (''Blizzard''), (1940) * Чудна е Македонија (''Macedonia is strange''), (1940) * Робии (''Prisons''), (1942) * Елегии (Elegies) * Гоце (Goce) * Гламји * Климе (''Klime''), (1945) * Над пламнати бездни (''Over flaming abyses'') * Сказна за резбарот (''Tale about the woodcarver'') * Голи Оток (''Goli Otok''), (2009)

In Bulgarian

* Орлицата (''The Eagless''), (1941) * Истината е жестока (''Truth is Cruel''), (1968) * Леганда за Гоце (''A legend about Gotse''), (1968), a play * Кръвта вода не става (''Blood is Thicker than Water''), (1981), * Предания заветни (''Saga of Testaments''), (1978, also published in Russian) * Писмо до другарката (''Letter to My Love''), (1979) * Съдбовни мъченици (''Fateful Martyrs''), (1981), sonnet crown * Бунтовни вощеници (''Rebellious Candles''), (1983), sonnet crown * Вековни върволици (''Ancient processions''), (1984), sonnet crown

in English

* ''Goli Otok: The Island of Death'' (1984)Goli Otok at the Hathi Trust Digital Library
/ref>

References

External links

Site with books by Venko Markovski and his son Mile MarkovskiInterview with Venko Markovski widow, Filimena (in Bulgarian)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Markovski, Venko 1915 births 1988 deaths Writers from Skopje Politicians from Skopje Bulgarian male writers Bulgarian politicians Bulgarian people imprisoned abroad Prisoners and detainees of Yugoslavia Members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Members of the National Assembly (Bulgaria) Yugoslav Partisans members Yugoslav emigrants to Bulgaria Macedonian writers Macedonian politicians