МИСИРКОВ КАКО ИНТЕЛЕКТУАЛЕН РЕПЕР ЗА МАКЕДОНСКИТЕ И ЕВРОПСКИТЕ ПИСАТЕЛИ

MISIRKOV AS AN INTELLECTUAL BENCHMARK FOR MACEDONIAN AND EUROPEAN WRITERS

August 27th 2025, Skopje - The festival of European literature “BookStar”, in 2025 continues its tradition of offering a concept that will provoke thought, open dialogue, encourage a rethinking of values, and creatively connect to the broader literary and cultural context.he eleventh edition of the Festival l will be held from September 29 to October 2 at the Cultural Information Center in Skopje. The slogan "On the Writing Matters" (За писателцките работи)comes from the work of Krste Misirkov (1874 – 1926), вon the eve of the centennial anniversary of his death, which will be marked in 2026, and building on the 150th anniversary of his birth (2024) and the 120th anniversary of the publication of "On the Macedonian Matters" (2023). And it is no coincidence that at the beginning of the new millennium, Misirkov was proclaimed the most significant public figure of the 20th century in the Macedonian media, while "On the Macedonian Matters" is considered one of the most important books ever written and published in the Macedonian language. Because of all this, "BookStar" is focusing its interest this year precisely on domestic literature and the challenges it faces.

"On the Writing Matters"

- "On the Writing’ Matters" is directly inspired by Misirkov’s most famous work, and indirectly by his views and the way he presents and elaborates them. He not only laid the foundations of the Macedonian language and contemporary Macedonian literature, as well as of cultural and national self-awareness, but also displayed an intellectual and writing scale that we have rarely seen in our environment. We are not sufficiently aware of how much he, with his writing and principles, came into conflict with the dominant models of political and cultural action, both of the countries in the region and of the entire continent, but also self-consciously and openly speaking about topics that were not (and some still are not) easily acceptable to his compatriots. Calling for a thorough rethinking of inherited values and advocating for changes through cultural revival, Misirkov is a kind of "benchmark" that should follow the description of the intellectual regardless of origin: courage, visionary, (r)evolutionary and uncompromising. With a small lexical and semantic transformation of the title of his book, the slogan shifts the emphasis from ethnic and social issues to creative and literary processes, i.e. the "matters" that are crucial and significant for the art of writing both in Macedonia and in Europe - say representatives of the organizer of "BookStar".

The slogan opens a multifaceted interpretation: Literary – writing as a craft, as an art and as a personal mission; Cultural – the role of the author in shaping and transmitting cultural values; Social – the meaning of the word shared in the public space, in times of social and technological changes, but also of media noise. "On the Writing Matters" is a call to a conversation about the essence of writing, about the responsibility and freedom of the author, but also about the intimate, often invisible, work that stands behind every written work and which sometimes brings fateful changes for the writer and the environment in which he creates. The slogan is a bridge between tradition and modernity, between the Macedonian Don Quixote and today’s European literary scene as a “melting pot”, creating a context in which readers will be able to experience literature in a living, current, powerful and engaging act.

"On the Macedonian Matters" (2025)

On many occasions and in various situations – ceremonial, academic, journalistic, polemical and everyday – the book "On the Macedonian Matters" by Krste Petkov Misirkov has been discussed. Despite this, it seems to remain both insufficiently understood and insufficiently disseminated among the Macedonian audience. The main obstacle to the book’s failure to communicate with the Macedonian intelligentsia and readers to a sufficient degree is that, at least in the last few decades, it has not experienced a redaction that would be fully acceptable to the majority of readers. While reading "On the Macedonian Matters" as it could be found in publishing houses so far, we realized that the language in which it was conveyed was no longer familiar to the audience. And that this book and its theses, with which everyone will be able to further agree or polemicize, to reach its true and deserved place, must first experience a thorough reading. That is why “Antolog” will soon publish a new edition of the booka modern language edition and with a foreword by Žarko Kujundjiskiand an afterword by Blaže Koneski..

"On the Macedonian Matters" (1903)

Misirkov's most famous work crowns the Macedonian revival of the 19th century, a long and complex, but also very contested process, and on the other hand, it lays a solid ideological and cultural cornerstone of the modern Macedonian nation of the 20th century. But also, through immense erudition and a pronounced romantic flair, it speaks of events and phenomena from the more recent and more distant past of the Balkan Peninsula, and visionarily and topically defines and explains events and phenomena that happen to us again and again in the same space, already deeply penetrated into the 21st century.

Misirkov created this book at the age of twenty-eight and published it in the year that has the greatest symbolic significance for us: the year of the Thessaloniki assassinations, of the Ilinden Uprising, of the loss of Goce Delchev, Pitu Guli, Lazar Pop Trajkov, of the founding of the Kruševo Republic, of the proclamation of the Kruševo Manifesto, and with Misirkov's work we can definitely call it - "The Year of Macedonian Matters". In this entire context, Krste Misirkov is not only a significant figure in the Macedonian struggle for independence, but also a suprahistorical and supranational phenomenon that declaratively, evolutionary, unequivocally, boldly and irrevocably issued a proclamation for cultural struggle through an intellectual program.

The Festival Identity

This year’s festival poster is the work of the visual artist, graphic and fashion designer Gordana Vrencoska.. Тhe poster presents the character of Misirkov in her authentic pixel-like interpretation, based on the famous black-and-white photograph, combined with the famous page from the book where the iconic sentence “What have we done and what do we need to do in advance?” is mentioned.

The exclusive program will bring events that will have to respond to this challenge for Macedonian and European literature.

The “BookStar” 202 festival is held under the slogan "On the Writing’ Matters" and is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, "Komercijalna Banka" and the publishing house "Antolog", with individual events and guest appearances are also realized with the support of the European Union Prize for Literature, the Embassies of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, as well as the Czech Literary Center. The media sponsor of the event is the Macedonian Radio Television.