Venko Markovski

Venko Markovski (Bulgarian and ), born Veniyamin Milanov Toshev (; ; March 5, 1915 – January 7, 1988), was a Bulgarian and Macedonian writer, poet, partisan and Communist politician. He participated in the Macedonian Literary Circle. Markovski contributed to the creation of a Macedonian literary language and alphabet. After the Tito–Stalin split in 1948, he sided with the Cominform, resulting in his imprisonment. After moving to Bulgaria, he became active in the Bulgarian political scene and changed his national views.

Biography Venko Markovski was born on March 5, 1915, in Skopje, Kingdom of Serbia, (present-day North Macedonia). Markovski completed his primary and secondary education in Skopje, later studying Slavic philology in Sofia University. Markovski was a member of the Macedonian Literary Group for the creation of a Macedonian literary language, founded in Skopje in 1931. In 1934, as a student of a Serbian gymnasium, he was arrested due to anti-state activity. In 1937, he moved to Sofia. He signed his first poems in the same year with the name Venko Markovski. From 1938, he participated in the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia, embracing its Macedonism. He was a member of the group until 1941. Markovski also became a member of the General Staff of the Macedonian Partisans. A conflict emerged between him and Blaže Koneski, with the latter advocating for the full adoption of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. The letter yer (ъ) divided Markovski and Koneski, as the former supported it, while the latter opposed it. In his memoirs, Markovski later depicted this conflict as a national one and that he was trying to save the alphabet from total Serbification. However, the stenographic transcripts of the debates show that this opposition was not nationally based, since he, as a future pro-Bulgarian and Bulgarian nationalist, familiarized the other members of the commission with the legacy of Krste Misirkov. In the same year, Markovski also published the play "The Native Floor", which was banned from being performed after its first performance. The critic Dimitar Mitrev accused Markovski of belittling the struggle of the Serbian people and their contribution to the World War II.

After serving his full term, he was released in 1961 and allowed to return to Skopje, where he lived under virtual house arrest. In 1966, he was permitted to leave Yugoslavia. He moved to Bulgaria. Markovski soon became prominent on the Bulgarian political scene and began publishing in Bulgarian. Many of his poems there were political and Bulgarian nationalist. Markovski became a member of the Bulgarian National Assembly. He denounced the Macedonian national identity as a Serbian and Yugoslav forgery. He also argued that Macedonian identity was a Bulgarian regionalism.

Markovski wrote poems glorifying historical figures of the Macedonian and Bulgarian past "who safeguarded Bulgar nationhood." One of his poems, on the Gemidzii, was about Pavel Shatev, while another poem glorified the Ilinden uprising as a movement of the people of Lower Bulgaria.