INTERVIEW: ANGELINA BANOVIC-MARKOVSKA - LITERATURE SHOULD CONNECT, NOT DIVIDE, SKOPJE AND SOFIA

 

Instead of being a “stumbling block”, literature should grow into a connecting force between North Macedonia and Bulgaria, says philology professor Angelina Banovic-Markovska.

Far from the political noise between neighbouring Bulgaria and North Macedonia – which these days is filled with fears concerning Bulgaria’s denial of a Macedonian identity, language and culture – students at the state philology faculty in Skopje, named after the codifier of the contemporary Macedonian language, Blaze Koneski, are busily engaging with Bulgarian literature.

Philology professor Angelina Banovic-Markovska, who teaches Contemporary South-Slavic Literature and New Bulgarian Literature at the faculty, told BIRN in an interview that the tensions between North Macedonia and Bulgaria have not diminished her students’ interest in Bulgarian authors and literature in general.

In the online interview, she spoke of the need for greater cooperation between the two academic environments in a united South-Slavic literary front, and advocated abandonment of the now current ethno-centric views on national literatures.

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 referring to the fact that, because officially Bulgaria does not recognise the existence of a Macedonian identity predating World War II, it places these authors who are regarded as playing a pivotal role in the 19th century enlightenment in Macedonia as part of the Bulgarian corpus of authors.

Contemporary Bulgarian authors from the mid-20th century onward are being studied in Skopje as part of the classes on contemporary South-Slavic literatures.

It is notable, the professor said, that North Macedonia’s “investment in studying Bulgarian literature has not met any reciprocity in Bulgarian literary science” – referring to the weak representation of Macedonian writers in studies in Bulgaria.

Asked how Macedonian literature is studied at universities in Bulgaria, she commented: “There is certainly no separate course, especially on Macedonian literature from the 19th century. Possibly some professors have somewhat more flexible views within the frameworks of some South-Slavic courses,” she opined. But generally, she noted, official Bulgarian policy “does not address our authors”.

By comparison, she observed, universities in Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia have Macedonian language departments, and treat the Macedonian language and cultural studies at a higher level.

“With Bulgaria, we do not have those kinds of relations,” Banovic-Markovska regretted.

Modern Bulgarian authors excite most interest

Her students are especially interested in contemporary Bulgarian authors, Banovic Markovska commented.

“Maybe, first of all, it is because of their attractive literary styles but also because of the quality of their works.

“I will mention the Bulgarian poet Elisaveta Bagryana, the novels of Anton Donchev and Vladimir Zarev, while the prose of the writer Georgi Gospodinov, one of the most translated Bulgarian authors, especially arouses the curiosity of students.”

She also mentioned the Bulgarian prose writer Zahari Karabashliev, who was translated into and promoted in Macedonian and whose bestseller, “18% Grey”, received a film adaptation.

“That simply ‘clicks’ with students. Gospodinov’s ‘Natural Novel’ is along the same lines. They both visited Skopje to promote their works,” she recalled.

“I recently had one student who did his diploma thesis on Anton Donchev and his work ‘The Strange Knight of the Holy Book’– which [deals with] the Bogomil question and the Crusades,” the professor added.

Of course, she said, the students’ interest was naturally greatest in Macedonian authors, but “there is no escaping the South Slavic corpus – where Bulgarian literature belongs.”

Many Bulgarian works that they study have not been translated, so the students try to read them originally in Bulgarian.

The professor has done what she can to ease this. “I photocopied a Bulgarian dictionary and left it in the library for the students, to help them when they read in the original language,” she said.

The Bulgarians, the professor noted, also have excellent websites in which all their 19th-century literature is digitized.

Students do not feel hostages to political tensions

The current political tensions between Sofia and Skopje are not reflected in her lectures to students, she said.

“They do not want to be enslaved by historical and political capital from the 19th century. They find the existence of mono-ethnic cultural spheres unacceptable,” she explained.

The professor said lectures do not only discuss literature but also the concept of neighbourhoods, which she defines as “literary communities”.

It is clear to the students, Banovic-Markovska said, that just as identities are constructs, literary identities are highly dependent on the “sociological, ideological and cultural insights into them.

“Every literary community has an awareness of its presence in the region,” she said, adding that for the same reason, minority communities, languages ​​and cultures, even within North Macedonia itself, also aspire to “overcome the dialogue with themselves”.

Literature should act as a point of contact

While terms like non-recognition and non-acceptance are common in describing relations between Skopje and Sofia, it is easy to forget excellent recent literary translations from Bulgarian, which both Macedonian students and readers in general find interesting.

Over the years, there have also been occasional literary visits, thanks to collaborations and arranged visits between big publishing houses and authors, both in the Macedonian Cultural Centre in Sofia and in the Bulgarian Cultural Centre in Skopje.

“Most often, we are talking about contemporary authors and works in which our literary scene recognizes a quality that can hold its own with trends in European literature and culture,” she said.

Talking about translations of Bulgarian authors, Banovic-Markovska recalled that, although the two languages are ​​close, they are still different.

This is especially important in translations, she said, because it is not simply about translating words but “cultural idioms”.

“In our country, for example, ‘Вредна’ [Vredna] means ‘valuable’, while in Bulgarian it means ‘harmful’. Words can have opposite meanings in both languages – so it’s important to know the language and cultural idioms of the language you are translating from.”

Instead of being a “stumbling block”, literature could become a constructive “point of contact” that could activate constant and open collaboration, she insisted.

By doing that, Banovic-Markovska said, we would confirm a joint commitment to a new South-Slavic science, unburdened by the ethno-genesis of peoples but affirming its place on the “European literary and cultural horizon, to which we absolutely, we and the Bulgarians alike, belong”.

She added that Bulgarian literary and linguistic circles are just as aware as those in North Macedonia that “English, German and French and their cultures, literatures and languages ​​are much more dominant – and that if we do not unite, we will all lose and disappear from the map.”

Fear of being pushed ‘to the end of the cultural map’

Apart from two projects of the Department of Linguistics and Literary Science of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, MANU, organised in cooperation with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, BAS, the professor could not recall any other serious literary collaborations taking place.

But, she said, “the participation of some Bulgarian philologists at the International Seminar on Macedonian Language, Literature and Culture in Ohrid [in North Macedonia], as well as ours at International Seminars in Sofia and Veliko Tarnovo [in Bulgaria] are not uncommon”.

For years, “Macedonian scientists have actively taken part in the Bulgarian international conference, “Славистични четения” [Slavic Readings], where we exchange professional knowledge and experiences.

“For other, more organised, bilateral projects, I think there has been no talk so far; if there was, it was done on an individual level.”

However, Banovic-Markovska believes things are moving forward, while admitting that cooperation with other centres in the region is not very fruitful, either.

Unequivocally, the question of the recognition of the Macedonian language, literature and culture “is still problematic and open within official Bulgarian science”, she said.

It leaves a “bitter impression”, she warned, that, as “small, ethnocentrically oriented and closed academic environments, we may remain stuck in the grey area of unrecognizability, at the very edges of the global philological map, dominated by better-organised mega-cultures”.