His major contribution was to the codification of standard Macedonian.[3] He is the key figure who shaped Macedonian literature and intellectual life in the country.[4] However, he has also been accused of deliberately serbianizing the Macedonian standard language.[5][6][7][8][9]
Biography
Blaže Koneski's birthplace, now a memorial house
Koneski was born in Nebregovo in the province of South Serbia, part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (current-day North Macedonia). His family was strongly pro-Serbian and identified as Serbs since Ottoman times, with a long tradition of serving in the Serbian army and Serbian guerrillas,[10][11][12][13] especially his mother's uncle Gligor Sokolović who was a famous SerbianChetnikvoivode.[13][14][15] He received a Royal Serbian scholarship to study in the Kragujevac gymnasium or high school.[16] Later, he studied medicine at the University of Belgrade, and then changed to Serbian language and literature. In 1941, after the defeat of Yugoslavia in Aufmarsch 25, he enrolled in the Faculty of Slavic Studies at the Sofia University. After the Bulgarian coup d'état in September 1944, he returned to his native land, before completing his higher education. Here Koneski began working in the department for communist agitprop at the Main Headquarters of the Macedonian Partisans. However, in 1945 at the age of 23, he became one of the most important contributors to the standardization of Macedonian. He worked as a lector in the Macedonian National Theater, but in 1946, he joined the faculty at the Philosophy Department of the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, where he worked until his retirement. In 1957 he received there the title of full professor. At the same time, he taught the subject of the history of the Macedonian language, and during his entire university career, he held the position of head of the Department of Macedonian Language and South Slavic Languages. In 1952/1953 he was dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, and in 1958-1960 he was rector of the University of Skopje. Meanwhile, Koneski worked as an editor and was a prolific contributor to the literary journal "Nov Den", the predecessor of the oldest-survived literary journal "Sovremenost", and "Macedonian Language", published by the Institute for Macedonian language.
Blaže Koneski died in Skopje on December 7, 1993. He received a state funeral for his distinguished literary career and his contributions to the codification of standard Macedonian.
Literary works
Koneski wrote poetry and prose. His most famous collections of poetry are: Mostot, Pesni, Zemjata i ljubovta, Vezilka, Zapisi, Cesmite, Stari i novi pesni, Seizmograf, among others. His collection of short stories Vineyard Macedonian: Lozje is also famous.[20]
Koneski was a distinguished translator of poetry from German, Russian, Slovenian, Serbian and Polish; he translated the works of Njegoš, Prešeren, Heine, Blok, Neruda, and others.[21]
Koneski is remembered for his work on codifying the Macedonian standard language. He is the author of On Standard Macedonian (Macedonian: За македонскиот литературен јазик), Grammar of Standard Macedonian (Macedonian: Граматика на македонскиот литературен јазик), History of Macedonian (Macedonian: Историја на македонскиот јазик), among other works.
He was one of the editors of Macedonian Dictionary (Macedonian: Речник на македонскиот јазик).
Criticism
Bulgarian linguists such as Iliya Talev, in his History of the Macedonian Language,[23] have accused Koneski of plagiarizing Kiril Mirchev's Historical Grammar of the Bulgarian Language because both authors analyzed the same corpus of texts.[24] In Bulgaria, he has also been accused of manipulating historical facts for political goals.[25] It has been also claimed there that the Macedonian standard was Serbianized with the help of Koneski.[26] As a young boy Koneski himself spoke a heavily Serbianized language and was ridiculed for this.[27] According to Christian Voss the turning point in the Serbianization of Macedonian took place in the late 1950s, coinciding with the preparation period for the dictionary of Koneski published between 1961 and 1966.[28] Voss argues that it contains a consistent pro-Serbian bias.[29] When he visited Chicago in 1969 and received the title of "Doctor Honoris Causa" from a local university, letters of protest were sent to the rector by two Albanian intellectuals from Bitola living in Istanbul, claiming the Macedonian language was invented by the Yugoslav Communists to de-Bulgarianize the local Slavs.[30] Today historical revisionists in the Republic of North Macedonia, who questioned the narrative established in Communist Yugoslavia,[31] have described the process of codifying Macedonian, to which Koneski was an important contributor, as 'Serbianization'.[32] Macedonian nationalists have also accused Koneski and the communist elite of Serbianizing the Macedonian standard language.[33] Similarly, Venko Markovski, who was one of the codifiers of the Macedonian standard, openly accused Koneski of Serbianizing the Macedonian language.[34] In his participation in the Linguistic Commissions of ASNOM, Koneski advocated for the full adoption of the Serbian alphabet.[35]
Bibliography
Poetry and prose
Land and Love (poetry, 1948)
Poems (1953)
The Embroideress (poetry, 1955)
The Vineyard (short stories, 1955)
Poems (1963)
Sterna (poetry, 1966), Hand - Shaking (narrative poem, 1969)
Notes (poetry, 1974)
Poems Old and New (poetry, 1979)
Places and Moments (poetry, 1981)
The Fountains (poetry, 1984)
The Epistle (poetry, 1987)
Meeting in Heaven (poetry, 1988)
The Church (poetry 1988)
A Diary after Many Years (prose, 1988)
Golden Peak (poetry, 1989)
Seismograph (poetry, 1989)
The Heavenly River (poems and translations, 1991)
The Black Ram (poetry, 1993)
Academic and other works
Normative Guide with a Dictionary of Standard Macedonian with Krum Tošev (1950)
Grammar of Standard Macedonian (volume 1, 1952)
Standard Macedonian (1959)
A Grammar of Standard Macedonian (volume 2, 1954)
Macedonian Dictionary (1961)
A History of Macedonian (1965)
Macedonian Dictionary (volume 2, edited, 1965)
Macedonian Dictionary (volume 3, 1966)
The Language of the Macedonian Folk Poetry (1971)
Speeches and Essays (1972)
Macedonian Textbooks of 19th Century: Linguistic, Literary, Historical Texts (1986)
Images and Themes (essays, 1987)
The Tikveš Anthology (study, 1987)
Poetry (Konstantin Miladinov), the Way Blaze Koneski Reads It (1989)
Macedonian Locations and Topics (essays, 1991)
The World of the Legend and the Song (essays, 1993)
^Balázs Trencsenyi; Michal Kopeček; Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič; Maria Falina; Mónika Baár (2018). A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe: Volume II, Part II: Negotiating Modernity in the 'Short Twentieth Century' (1968 and Beyond), Volume 2. Oxford University Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN9780198829607.
^E. Kramer, Christina (2015). "Macedonian orthographic controversies". The Historical Sociolinguistics of Spelling. 18 (2): 287–308. doi:10.1075/wll.18.2.07kra.
^...However this was not at all the case, as Koneski himself testifies. The use of the schwa is one of the most important points of dispute not only between Bulgarians and Macedonians, but also between Macedonians themselves – there are circles in Macedonia who in the beginning of the 1990s denounced its exclusion from the standard language as a hostile act of violent serbianization... For more see: Alexandra Ioannidou (Athens, Jena) Koneski, his successors and the peculiar narrative of a “late standardization” in the Balkans. in Romanica et Balcanica: Wolfgang Dahmen zum 65. Geburtstag, Volume 7 of Jenaer Beiträge zur Romanistik with Thede Kahl, Johannes Kramer and Elton Prifti as ed., Akademische Verlagsgemeinschaft München AVM, 2015, ISBN3954770369, pp. 367-375.
^Kronsteiner, Otto, Zerfall Jugoslawiens und die Zukunft der makedonischen Literatursprache : Der späte Fall von Glottotomie? in: Die slawischen Sprachen (1992) 29, 142-171.
^The historical rereading was accompanied by revisionism targeting the codification of the Macedonian standard language after 1944, which was described as a deliberate process of linguistic ‘Serbization’. See especially the entries on Blaže Koneski, the most important linguistic codifier, in the encyclopedic dictionaries of Stojan Kiselinovski et al., Makedonski istoriski rečnik (Skopje: INI, 2000); Stojan Kiselinovski, Makedonski dejci (XX-ti vek) (Skopje: Makavej, 2002). Cf. the critique of Novica Veljanovski, former chief of the academic Institute of National History in Skopje: “’Objektiviziranjeto’ na Stojan Kiselinovski”, Utrinski vesnik, January 27, 2003, “Kiselinovski gi politizira istoriskite ličnosti”, Utrinski vesnik, January 28, 2003. See also Victor Friedman, “The first philological conference for the establishment of the Macedonian alphabet and the Macedonian literary language: its precedents and consequences”, in The Earliest Stage of Language Planning: The “First Congress” Phenomenon, ed. Joshua Fishman (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993), 159-180, etc.
^Voss, Christian. “Sprach- Und Geschichtsrevision in Makedonien: Zur Dekonstruktion von Blaže Koneski.” Osteuropa, vol. 51, no. 8, 2001, pp. 953–67. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44921774. Accessed 30 Aug. 2022.
^Unfortunately, the attacks of the neo-nationalist, anti-Yugoslav Macedonians on Koneski did not begin in the early 21st century (p. 9). Rather, they began in the late 1980s and early 1990s, while Koneski was still alive. Risteski (1988) was an indirect attack on Koneski, but by the early 1990s, the right-wing press was full of direct attacks accusing Koneski of “Serbianizing” Macedonian. The chief focus of these attacks was the exclusion of ъ from Macedonian Cyrillic. Language Issues in former Yugoslav Space: A Commentary Victor A. Friedman doi: 10.12681/awpel.22594
^When in 1912 Vardar Macedonia was annexed by Serbian Kingdom, Koneski's grandfather (Kone Ljamević) and his father (Ordan Ljamević) became associates of the Serbian authorities and directly participated in the persecution of pro-Bulgarian IMRO revolutionaries and their families in Prilep. In 1915, after the expulsion of Serbian administration by the Bulgarian Army, because their activity as a Serbian agents both went into hiding. They managed to save themselves and hide for 3 years in Prilep, staying alive. After the First World War, the Serbs came back into Vardar Macedonia and Ordan and Kone Ljamević, were granted with administrative positions in the local municipality for their pro-Serbian activity. For more see: Драгни Драгнев, Скопската икона Блаже Конески, македонски лингвист или сръбски политработник? (Македонски научен институт, София, 1998) стр. 7-10. (in Bulgarian).
^The philologist Georgi Kiselinov, who participated in the first committee on the standardization of Macedonian in 1945, felt in severe confrontation with Koneski and was removed from participation. He wrote on that case: "I have long thought about the confrontation for which I have given absolutely no cause... In the former Turkish times for legitimacy, on every man was given a certificate. It contained various general data, and among others, the person's nationality. In my father's certificate and in mine was written a Bulgarian nationality, while in Koneski's father's certificate it was written a Serbian nationality. Here was all the reason for Koneski's hatred to me. I was educated in pro-Bulgarian spirit, and Koneski in pro-Serbian." For more see: Ристески, Стојан. Табу-темата Киселинов-Конески. Издание: „Македонска книга". Охрид. 1994, с. 99.
^Andreevski, C. (1991). Razgovori so Koneski (in Macedonian). Skopje: Kultura. p. 76. Нашето село и некои други околни села инклинираа кон српската пропаганда. За тој пресврт е заслужен еден братучед на мојот татко, војводата Глигор Соколовиќ. Тој е познат како раководител на српска чета.
^In the ten volumes of folk tales by Marko Tsepenkov, which have been republished 3 times in SR Macedonia, at the end of the tenth volume of the first edition is the folk song about Grigor Sokolovic. The song sharply criticizes his serbianization and de-bulgarization. Subsequently, the editors noticed this and as a result in the next two editions this folk song is already missing. For more see: Младен Сърбиновски, (2018) Македонизмът: триумфът на нищото. УИ „Св. св. Кирил и Методий, Велико Търново, ISBN9786192082079, стр. 234.
^Roumen Dontchev Daskalov; Tchavdar Marinov (2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. BRILL. p. 452; 461–462; 477. ISBN9789004250765.
^Dimitar Bechev (3 September 2019). Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. p. 170. ISBN9781538119624.
^Stammerjohann, Harro, ed. (2009). Lexicon Grammaticorum: A bio-bibliographical companion to the history of linguistics. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 824–825. ISBN9783484971127.
^Marinov, Tchavdar (2013). "In Defense of the Native Tongue: The Standardization of the Macedonian Language and the Bulgarian-Macedonian Linguistic Controversies". In Daskalov, Roumen; Marinov, Tchavdar (eds.). Entangled Histories of the Balkans. Vol. One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. Leiden: Brill. p. 462. ISBN978-9004250765. They (Bulgarian linguists) regarded, for instance, Koneski's History of the Macedonian Language as a plagiarism and "falsification" of the Historical Grammar of the Bulgarian Language written by Kiril Mircheva, a Bulgarian scholar originating from Bitola.
^This is eloquently formulated in May 1945 in a statement of Blaže Koneski who is later proclaimed in Yugoslavia as the "creator" of the Macedonian language – "The future is ours. And this means that the past is ours also." Political power exercised by the communist state ensures the power over the future which guarantees also the monopoly over history.Remembrance in time, Transilvania University Press, ISBN978-606-19-0134-0, Bulgaria and the Bulgarians in the ideology of Yugoslav communists, Milen Mihov, p. 272. Archived May 12, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
^The Implementation of Standard Macedonian: Problems and Results Victor A. Friedman University of Chicago Published in: International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Vol. 131, 1998. 31-57.
^"When Blaze Koneski, the founder of the Macedonian standard language, as a young boy, returned to his Macedonian native village from the Serbian town where he went to school, he was ridiculed for his Serbianized language." Cornelis H. van Schooneveld, Linguarum: Series maior, Issue 20, Mouton., 1966, p. 295.
^"The irreversible turning point of Serbianisation of the Macedonian standard took place in the late 1950s. What had happened? The political refugees from Greek Macedonia scattered in the Eastern Bloc were under the control of the Moscow-oriented Greek Communist party which undertook considerable efforts to foster a style of Macedonian identity that was anti-Yugoslav by printing books and newspapers in a language heavily influenced by Bulgarian. This culture policy of Macedonians in exile “threatened the very fabric of Yugoslavia” (Brown 2003:32). Although the authors of these newspapers were not willing to accept – in their own words – the “Vardar language”, in 1956 they were forced to give up their ethnolinguistic experiments within the framework of destalinization and political thaw. The Macedonian issue – once the bone of contention between young nation-states, in the 1940-1950s took the same role in the rivalry of the Communist parties of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Greece. The end of Moscow’s support for the contestation of standard Macedonian’s legitimacy from abroad coincided with the period of excerption for the Macedonian dictionary of Blaže Koneski. This dictionary marked the end of the initial period of implementation of the standard, which was characterized by a strong indigenous impact trying to nativize the lexicon and to avoid Serbian and Bulgarian loans as well." For more see: Voss C., The Macedonian Standard Language: Tito—Yugoslav Experiment or Symbol of ‘Great Macedonian’ Ethnic Inclusion? in C. Mar-Molinero, P. Stevenson as ed. Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices: Language and the Future of Europe, Springer, 2016, ISBN0230523889, p. 126.
^De Gruyter as contributor. The Slavic Languages. Volume 32 of Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science (HSK), Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2014, p. 1472. ISBN3110215470.
^"Group of Macedonian historians whose work has stirred controversy in the 1990s and 2000s. Famous representatives include Zoran Todorovski, the head of the State Archive in Skopje, Stojan Kiselinovski, Violeta Ackoska, and Stojan Risteski." Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN0810862956, p. 189.
^Lerner W. Goetingen, Formation of the standard language - Macedonian in the Slavic languages, Volume 32, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, 2014, ISBN3110393689, chapter 109.
