Risto Stefov - Articles, Translations & Collaborations

[Coolski]

Listen KO, after the Yugoslav kingdom Macedonia they changed everyone's name to -ić. After the Bulgarian Nazis occupied in WWII, they changed everyone's names from -ić to -ov/-ev. If there was a Macedonian movement to change surnames to -ski after Macedonia became a socialist republic of Yugoslavia, at least it was done with Macedonian identity in mind. Also, if it was a forced name change, then everyone from R. Macedonia would uniformly have the same name suffix system, but we don't. How is that to be explained by the heritage Nazi Bulgars and Neo-Nazi Greeks?

To me, the difference between -ov/-ev and -ski is insignificant, because both are grammatically interchangeable. My surname is officially ends with -ovski but colloquially it's -ov or just -o or even -oj.

[lavce pelagonski]

In most villages they dont even use-ski, -ov, ev but eg. КлимовЦИ или МитревЦИ if the surname is Mitreski they will put the V in with the CI at the end.

[Coolski]

yeah i forgot about that one too, and adding to the "-oj" variant it's usually preceded with a "na".. eg. "na mitrej"

[lavce pelagonski]

Or going even further, when referring to someone by their mothers name eg. Bale (son) na Magda (mother)

[Niko777]

Originally Posted by Coolski

yeah i forgot about that one too, and adding to the "-oj" variant it's usually preceded with a "na".. eg. "na mitrej"

Again, I think -oj is only found in western Macedonia because in those dialects we lost the "v" in many words (ex. glaa vs glava). -oj probably means -ovi which is a plural meaning more than one, like the members of a family. Example, someone in western Macedonia would say "Pavle na Dimoj " whereas in eastern Macedonia they would say "Pavle na Dimovi".

[Coolski]

yep that'd make sense. most of my family is from bitola and lerin regions.

[momce]

is the "o" Macedonian seems like a greekism still

[Coolski]

it's just a dialect thing... and it's not about the addition of the "o", it's about the removal of the "t" or "v" from "ot" or "ov/ev", and it's used in the whole dialect around Bitola not just for people's names.

eg. parko instead of parkot. Spomeniko instead of spomenikot.

I actually much prefer to speak and listen in my Maco dialect than the official literary version of Macedonian. It sounds too robotic to my ears.

[makedonche]

Coolski

I actually much prefer to speak and listen in my Maco dialect than the official literary version of Macedonian. It sounds too robotic to my ears.

My sentiments exactly!

BTW - my understanding of some of the traditional surnames are that they are a derivative from an important family member, for example:-
Important member = Nicholas (first name), the family subsequently chooses to be known as "Nikovci" - decendants of Nicholas- Niko for short. That is currently the case in my family and it was stressed to me that it wasn't spelt ending in "ski".

[George S.]

On the Road of Time – Chapter 19 – Part 3



By Petre Nakovski

Translated and edited by Risto Stefov

[email protected]

December 16, 2012



From time to time our ship roared its siren greeting other ships passing by flying red flags with the star, hammer and sickle. We knew they were Soviet ships. Finally we arrived in Odessa where they offloaded us and loaded us onto train cars. By now we knew that we were far away from our homeland and when the train pulled out, we realized that we were going even further. The train ride was long, very long; we could not have imagined that there could be such a great wide desert with no end. But it had an end; everything has an end, but what kind of end? They offloaded us at the end of the station. The sign read ‘Tashkent’, it was written in Cyrillic letters. But where was Tashkent? Was it near to or far from our homeland?



We were moved into barracks just outside of Tashkent. The higher-ups were given numbers and by those numbers the barracks became known as towns. There were the first, second, tenth, twelfth and so on town. They were called towns not because they were towns but because they were camps. Yes they were camps... This is where they had held the Japanese captives who they had released earlier in the year… or maybe earlier than that. Now they put us there in their place, the fighters who had fought against Anglo-American imperialism. The fighters who had fought for freedom and democracy were now housed in the barracks where they had held Japanese prisoners. Well, that was life. You never knew when you were up and when you were down.



When we arrived they bathed us and gave us clean underwear on top of which we wore our old army clothes. Every day we were soldiers but we were clean and fed. We were present and accounted for every morning after which we did gymnastics and after that we were sent to the military mess hall, following the same schedule as we were used to before, along with the same commanders and political commissars. After some time they freed us from our military uniforms and allowed us to dress in civilian clothing. We felt uncomfortable and strange suddenly being dressed in civilian clothing without our military shoes, pants, shirts, hats and without orders and commanders. At the same time we were happy, very happy to be still alive... Yes...



What about the lice? We left most of the lice in Albania. They kept cleaning us in Bureli for an entire month until we were almost free from lice. It was not easy to get rid of all the lice so we brought some here to Tashkent. Lice with two legs and with informing and denouncing voices.



Did we work? Yes we did… We did all sorts of jobs that required a shovel or a pickaxe. Not that we were educated or anything, so that they could give us office work. We mostly worked in construction. We carried bricks, concrete, hardwood, iron bars, etc., all on our shoulders. From villagers to soldiers we now became a construction force. And here in Tashkent, our leaders, those from the political side, shed new slogans upon us: ‘We will defeat imperialism by building socialism!’... and that’s how they moulded our minds in the same manner as we kneaded dough... Do you know how dough is kneaded?



In Tashkent we built our nests, created our families and kept our language, rituals, songs and dances alive. For many, Tashkent was part of our youth which we left in the factories of distant Uzbekistan, part of our freedom. For some Tashkent was the last station in life. Many waited for their wives and children to come from other countries. The ones that waited the most were the ones who had wives and children in Yugoslavia. These people were not even allowed to correspond with their families until later in the fifties after Stalin died. When Khrushchev came into power he declared war on Stalinism. In Poland the workers caused an insurrection and a revolution was started in Hungary. And we in Tashkent rebelled against one another. Tito and Khrushchev made peace with each other and all sins were forgiven. Even after the great damage that was done to us!



Those responsible for the damage were identified but the only punishment they received was their expulsion from the Party... Then, in those days, being removed from the Party was a serious punishment. It meant that you were locked out of everything, you were excluded from everything and you remained alone and nothing existed for you and all around you. The responsible were named by name at the plenums and congresses and that’s when we realized and understood that we were ruined, dispersed, let down. We were a people without a crumb of a chance of repatriation. We had become a people without roots and without veins, a homeless people. The thieves had robbed us and the liars had led us astray. We had become a displaced people... And to think that in the past these very same people had thought of themselves as the brightest heads, they held that the highest wisdom lay in the deepest kindness. Not only did they not have any wisdom but they also had no kindness whatsoever. They only sowed and planted evil...



All those who had passed through the vice of time before and after the defeat, with my greatest desire I want to leave them with their thoughts, memories and pains that are not only part of them, but part of their life. But I just can’t free myself from the questions that constantly haunt me: ‘Who is to blame?’ For every crime there is always a perpetrator. Who is the perpetrator of this crime? Has this crime expired? Is there anyone who feels remorse? And until when will they lead our people astray, until when will they ill shape their fate and destiny? Until when will they make our people’s misfortune their fortune? And how long will they divide us?...



You ask me about those in the NOF leadership? They were arrested and taken away from us. Like they say, they were ‘isolated’ from us. Moscow condemned them and jailed them in the camps in Siberia. Zahariadis had taken a hand against Macedonian organizations before but this time he used the opportunity to completely crush them along with the Macedonian alphabet and the Macedonian language. He alleged that they, our language and alphabet, were Tito’s creations. He found a semi-literate person, who I believe was from Bapchor, who attempted to create a new patchwork Macedonian language of largely Bulgarian and some Russian words.



In the southeast of Poland, in a vacant Ukrainian village called Kroshchenko, they established a kolkhoz and called it ‘Nov Zhivot’ (New Life) and there they settled two or three thousand Macedonians and Greeks. They turned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church into a cinema and named it ‘Partizan’ which was famous not so much for showing Soviet war movies, but more for gathering all of Zahariadis’s Eastern European worshipers and forming the ‘People’s Liberation and Revolutionary Organization of the Slavo-Macedonians’ called ‘ILINDEN.’ One of the main goals of this Organization was to work against Tito and Kolishevski’s clique and against the Association of Aegean Macedonians in Skopje, which worked against Zahariadis’s clique. Now as I tell you about this, a bug buzzes near my ear:



What was going on in the minds of those migrants and displaced people who obviously were the same people with the same roots? (Meaning what was going on between the Macedonians from Greece living inside Yugoslavia and those living in other communist countries?)


On one side we had the Aegeans and on the other the Slavo-Macedonians. Were they called that because someone did not want them to be Macedonians? Then and now, after more than half a century had passed, there are still many unanswered questions.



Why did the Macedonian fighters not come to the rescue of the twelve NOF and AFZH leaders? Why did they not speak in their defence? Surely there were many Macedonian fighters and, in terms of strength, they had the upper hand. Why did they not oppose the charges the Greeks levelled against them? Why? Whom did they believe more, the Greeks or their own people? Why did no one stand in their defence in Bureli when Zahariadis and his cohorts pushed them onto the stage and one by one named them traitors and spies, each by name? Why not then and why not afterwards, while they were in the Siberian camps, did no one say a word in their defence and no one asked whether they were dead or alive? And why after they were released from the camps did no one ask where and how they had spent their lives?



Now that they had been released from prison and rehabilitated as they say, why did none of the twelve go and speak with the former fighters and the people, whom they had gathered and sent into battle, telling them that not a single Macedonian man or woman should be left out from the battle lines? Why did neither side take the initiative to air out their differences and cleanse their souls and say whatever happened, happened; let us put the past behind us? Why did the battle continue in Tashkent, Macedonians fighting against Macedonians? Did no one in Tashkent ever stop for a moment and wonder why the twelve were discharged from the Siberian prisons? And on the other hand, did none of the so-called leaders find the courage to appear before the ex-fighters, now workers in the Soviet Union Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Poland and say something to console them? Why did they allow Zahariadis to manipulate them all? Why did the twelve return to Skopje before everyone else did? If they were good leaders they should have returned last!



The twelve settled themselves in Alma Ata, capital of Kazakhstan and all the time they looked for opportunities to return to Skopje. They were the first to immigrate to Skopje where they were awarded high positions in the state. Lazo (Kolishevski) did not forget them and neither did Belgrade and they in turn did not forget Lazo or Belgrade. They were back with old friends who remembered and did not forget them. That’s exactly how it was.



Here in Skopje the opponents clashed again one calling the other defector and the other calling the first traitor, thus invigorating their mutual hatred. They appointed themselves defenders of the Aegeans and began pointing fingers at each other without accepting any responsibility or feeling any remorse for their involvement in what had happened to our people. Lazo personally had to keep a careful balance between the two parties making sure that their mutual dislike did not turn into a nightmare.



Who had created this strife and why? Both parties attracted supporters with promises of better jobs, finding an apartment faster, better choice of residence etc. Anyone refusing to join one party or the other found themselves alone on the sidelines... Neither side could find common ground to stand on at the national table until judgment day when their division became permanent. Instead of working for the good of the thousands of destitute people they both chose the path of destruction and continued to throw personal insults at each other. Each group believed that they were going ‘in the right direction’ and they constantly quarrelled without even the slightest gesture of reconciliation.


Until judgment day they vilified and spat at each other from the distance and never reached out and extended a hand... Their loathing for each other was deep seated and festered in their thoughts and their behaviour boiled with strife, hatred, intolerance and disunity. Each in their own way shared some truth but no one wanted to openly share the ‘entire real truth’... And now that we are on the subject of ‘Aegeans’ I don’t want to forget this. This is what they called themselves at first when they were still soft. I am thinking of those who became Yugoslavs. So that they could be distinguished from the others they decided to call themselves ‘Aegeans’, not Macedonians from that part of Macedonia, but only ‘Aegeans.’



Was it by their own will and conviction, or by necessity that they requested from the central and local governments to register the ‘Association of Aegeans’ and to publish the newspaper ‘Glas na Egeitsite’ (Voice of the Aegeans)? They gathered in the club for the ‘Aegeans’ and cared for the ‘Aegeans’ located in villages around Skopje, Bitola and Kumanovo, even for those located in Vojvodina. Then one day Paul, the Greek king, decided to take a train to Belgrade through Skopje. Since conditions were perfect, Paul decided to visit friendly Yugoslavia, the famous Marshal, his friend, but he wanted no part of the ‘Aegeans’, their newspaper, or their clubs and societies. He wanted them all gone.



So while the train rumbled from Gevgelia to Belgrade and from Belgrade back to Gevgelia the ‘Aegeans’ were put in prison, some in Idrizovo, others in Matka and yet others in Solunska Glava further away from Skopje. Those who were not imprisoned and who remained in the villages around Skopje were ordered to stay home and sit still until the train with their precious guest and friend King Paul completed his tour. Was this done because this is what King Paul wanted or were the authorities fed up with the ‘Aegeans’ and wanted to teach them a lesson? Perhaps a bit of both? What do you think?



And Lazo, a clever man, held the balance by flattering both sides. For him neither side was more important or less important. I believe the hardest thing for him was to watch the ‘Aegeans’ continue to divide themselves in spite of the damage they were doing to their Aegean brothers and sisters. That’s how it was. And look what happened next. Both sides quickly became ‘patrons’ to the ‘Aegeans’ who came from the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary. The day they arrived and the next day they were put in prison. They spent their time in prison instead of relaxing from their long trip. They were put in prison so that the authorities in Yugoslavia could question them and rout out the ‘spies’ and ‘agents’ among them.



When we were in these countries they intimidated us looking for Yugoslav spies amongst us. There they wanted to rout out Tito’s spies. Then when we arrived in Yugoslavia they put us in prison looking to rout out the Soviet spies among us. Did they find any spies? No, but they certainly found informers, many informers; a proliferation of them. There were informers in the popular democratic countries and there were informers here in the prison. When I was questioned by the investigator, I said: ‘Well, comrade, the ones who criticized and badmouthed Tito and Kolishevski the most, you welcomed with open arms and you let them in first…’ And do you know what he said to me? He said: ‘It is true that they yelled against them there but they are yelling for them here. You, on the other hand, kept quiet there and you are going to keep quiet here…, but we are questioning you anyway to uncover the agents amongst you.’



Some of the higher-ups amongst us were employed by UDBA (State Security Bureau), perhaps because of their experience or because of their beliefs; they thought that everyone who came to Yugoslavia was an agent. Whether they themselves believed that or they were told to believe it, I don’t know. In the prison in Idrizovo more new arrivals were telling the investigator: ‘‘Well comrade, the ones who criticized Yugoslavia and swore at Tito the most, you welcomed with open arms first…’ And he said: ‘It is true that they swore and yelled against him there but they are yelling for him here. You kept your mouth shut there so you will keep you mouth shut here…’ After hearing that again, I became a permanent mute…!



That’s what he said to me so I gathered that every government all the time and everywhere has its own reasons for doing what it is doing… That’s how it was… And we, crippled, some with one leg, some with one arm, many with two and three huge scars on our bodies from wounds received during the Greek Civil War, went with one side and with the other so that they would sign our statement proving that we were participants in the Second World War and in DAG and they with their signature would decide whether we got a veteran’s pension or not. That’s how it was... Am I lying? Let someone else prove that it was not like that...” concluded Lena.