The Macedonian Literary Circle (1938–1941; ; ) was a literary society created in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1938 by young and educated members of the Macedonian immigrant community, who were leftists.
History The circle was established on the encouragement of the Bulgarian Communist Party. It attempted to create a purely Macedonian literature, assembling poets, writers and journalists associated with the Bulgarian Communist Party and formerly with the IMRO (United).Roumen Dontchev Daskalov, Tchavdar Marinov (2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies, , p. 312. These intellectuals argued for a distinct Macedonian nation and development of a Macedonian literary language.Historical dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, , p. 136. Though, their by-laws and statutes were in Bulgarian.Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, Chris Kostov, Peter Lang, 2010, , p. 80.
Most active from its members were: Nikola Vaptsarov, Venko Markovski, Kole Nedelkovski, Vasil Ivanovski, Gjorgi Abadžiev, Anton Popov, Mihail Smatrakalev, Dimitar Mitrev and others. The driving force was Vaptsarov, who asserted that their task was to make the world realize that Macedonians are a separate nation and people with their own distinctive features from other South Slavs.Andrew Rossos (2008) Macedonia and the Macedonians, A History. Hoover Institution Press, , p. 171. Many members were only able to write in Bulgarian. Kole Nedelkovski and Venko Markovski who were by origin from Vardar Macedonia, then in Kingdom of Yugoslavia, wrote in the Macedonian dialects. The members maintained relations with their Vardar Macedonian counterparts and admired the Macedonian poetry of Kočo Racin, as well as the efforts of Krste Misirkov, the ideologist of Macedonian nationalism, whose tasks they took upon themselves. In 1941, the members of the Macedonian Literary Circle published their works in the newspaper Literary Critic, with editor-in-chief Nikola Vaptsarov, and this was the last place of their literary appearances.Македонска енциклопедија, том I. Скопје, Македонска академија на науките и уметностите, 2009. . с. 803. The circle disbanded itself in the spring of 1941, when most of Macedonia came under Bulgarian occupation, and its attempts to awaken Macedonian identity were abandoned.
Legacy Some former members became founders of the Association of Writers of Macedonia, the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, and the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts after World War II. However, Venko Markovski, credited with having published the first book in the Macedonian dialect while living in Sofia before the war, and afterwards with having codified the new Macedonian alphabet, switched his national affiliation back to Bulgarian and viewed Macedonian identity as a form of Bulgarian regionalism.Maxwell, Alexander. “‘Slavic Macedonian Nationalism: From ‘Regional’ to ‘Ethnic’.” in Ethnologia Balkanica, Vol. 11 p. 146, 2008.
The Macedonian Literary Circle is acclaimed by the Macedonian historiography as the most significant Macedonian cultural-literary and national-political association in the interwar period, and a successor of the Macedonian Scientific and Literary Society.Македонска енциклопедија, том II. Скопје, Македонска академија на науките и уметностите, 2009. . с. 867.
According to the Bulgarian journal Makedonski Pregled, the reason for the circle's dissolvement in the Spring of 1941, was the euphoria that overwhelmed its participants, seeing in the Bulgarian invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece a form of Bulgarian national unification.When in the spring of 1941 the political status quo of the Balkans has been changed and parts of Western Thrace and Macedonia come under Bulgarian administrative government, the members of the circle rejoice in this, seeing in it the national unification of the Bulgarian people. So they start contributing with their writings to the cultural integration of the “New lands” with Bulgaria as a whole. This is illustrated with analyses, and most of all, by following their participation in the editing and writing of the weekly newspaper Литературен критик (A Literary Critic), with which they were deeply involved for a few months. In its issue of April 20, 1941, the newspaper's editorial board, consisting of members of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia, with editor-in-chief Nikola Vaptsarov, welcomed the defeat of by German troops, and congratulated the liberation of the Bulgarians in Macedonia, Thrace, Dobrudja and the Western Outlands. The text reads: For more than a quarter of a century, the Resurrection of Christ rose over the enslaved brothers and sisters in Macedonia, Thrace, Dobrudja and the Western Outlands, hidden in our hearts. For more than a quarter of a century, the Savior of humanity was born and resurrected chained in bloody and rusty chains. For more than a quarter of a century, the freedom-loving and fighting spirit of the Bulgarian was suppressed by the “brother” Serb. Enough! In just one night, freedom shone over the entire Bulgarian land. The brother rejoices from the Danube to the White Sea and from the Black Sea to the mountains of Albania. The freedom of the enslaved Bulgarians comes together with the greatest Orthodox holiday - the Resurrection of Christ. For more see details in The Macedonian literary circle in Sofia (1938 – 1941), Ph. D. Peter Galchin, Summary in English, сп. Македонски Преглед, София, бр. 1 & 2, 2002.
See also Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian question (1934) Young Macedonian Literary Society
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