Serbian language "correctors" in Macedonian media!? ("Vardar", MPO-Toronto)
Serbian language "correctors" in Macedonian media!? ("Vardar", MPO-Toronto)
Posted by Vassil
on 3/2/2000, 8:40 am 139.222.99.39


I was shocked by the report in "Vardar" about the continuing presence in should-be _INDEPENDENT_ Republic of Macedonia of swarms of Serbs working as language "correctors" for many of the Macedonian newspapers and journals, and in commanding positions in the cultural life...

Just see what the paper below says.

Vassil

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http://home.istar.ca/~sdennis/web/page06.html

A top-theme for the media in the neighbouring Republic of Macedonia in the recent months is the fabricated by the former rulers (the communists) during the election campaign "Bulgarization" of the cultural life. There is no concrete evidence for such a process. The only "news" is the appearance of several Bulgarian news-papers which can be now bought freely from the news-stands (as if the Serbian newspapers were not freely sold since 1918).

All this outcry aims at concealing another very important and apparent process. And it is the new aggressive Serbization of the cultural life. Serbs have taken over all the key positions in the Republic.

Eighteen out of twenty private radio stations spew Serbian and exclusively Serbian, "kafana"-type music from rise till down.

Not more different is the situation with the private TV programmes which all day long recycle untranslated Serbian-language movies. Even more drastic is the situation with the private newspapers and journals, whose language abounds of Serbisms.

But it couldn't be otherwise. The controlling them people are mostly Serbs, wives or children of Serbs.

The Macedonian linguistic reality has one unique organisational phenomenon, which cannot be found in any other country in the world - the existence of specially appointed persons, specialists linguists, who sit in every media and additionally control and correct both the editors, and the correctors, who apparently have not been able to learn the artificial "norms" of the language ["jazikot"].

These so called "lectors" are a kind of censors, who one would suppose must be from the top of the linguistic science. However, this top is again occupied by Serbs, even if it would be logical to assume that the local Macedonians should be more fit to fill in these positions. It is outrageous when we read that the lector for Macedonian language in "Dnevnik" is Luzhica Pejovich, and in "Start" - Snezhana Orlovich. Serbs continue to sit in the editorial boards of "Dnevnik" (Milodrag Miloshich), of "Denes" (Darko Markovich).

At the most responsible positions are Juliana Pishnevska - executive director and marketing manager ("Denes"), Juliana Krtolica - chief executive manager ("Denes"), Gjuro Barga - graphics manager ("Puls"), Sinisha Stankovich - manager ("Focus"). It would be impossible to enumerate the long list of such [people] in "Puls", Jadranka Kostova ("Denes"), who also work in the national Radio and TV. As strange as it might sound, the secretary of the Union of the Macedonian writers is the Serb Olga Mirkovich, and in the Pen-centre prominent are Vlado Uroshevich and Slobodan Mickovich. With family ties to Serbs are the Pen-club activists Tome Momirovski and Milan Gjurchinov.

The Movie Archive of Macedonia wasn't spared either with its new director Vesna Maslovarovich. The director of the movie monopolist "Vardar film" is still the well-known Markovich. The "History of the Macedonian movie" is the hands of Miroslav Chevinchich, and the "History of Visual Art" - in these of Viktor Lilchich. Without enumerating all "Macedonians" with family names ending in "-ich", we would draw the readers' attention towards the boss of the Union of the Macedonian Libraries (which still continues to supply the libraries in Macedonia predominantly with Serbian books), towards the director of the newly-created Opera house in Bitolja, towards the wives of the directors of the "Struga [Literary] Festival", of the director of the Macedonian National Theatre, of the director of the Museum of Ohrid, etc., etc.

It is obvious that the word "nostalgia" (and especially "yugo-nostalgia") is too weak to describe all what is currently under way in the Republic in Macedonia. We are faced with a new aggressive, unmasked and wide campaign of Serbization of the whole cultural life of the country, starting from the top positions and ending with the low-ranks. And the legends about some "Bulgarization" ... they are just words.


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