(AB)USE OF POETRY: POLITICAL PARTIES AND KONESKI Cover Image

(ЗЛО)УПОТРЕБА НА ПОЕЗИЈАТА: ПОЛИТИЧКИТЕ ПАРТИИ И КОНЕСКИ
(AB)USE OF POETRY: POLITICAL PARTIES AND KONESKI

Author(s): Loreta Georgievska-Jakovleva
Subject(s): Macedonian Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Институт за македонска литература
Keywords: Blazhe Koneski; poetry; (ab)use; manipulation; political parties

Summary/Abstract: The starting point of this paper is the impression that Blazhe Koneski’s poetry, in one way or another, has been mentioned often by the members or fans of the political parties in Macedonia. This condition imposes the question: Why is Blazhe Koneski the author that has been constantly (ab)used in political campaigns? Identifying the reasons by looking into his authority, his broad significance and the tendency his poetry to be brought closer to the people, I ask the question: What is so wrong in the use of someone’s poetry so that it becomes abused? By analyzing three separate cases including the requirement of one of the protesters, as reported in the newspaper Republika, the former mayor of the Centre municipality to read Koneski in the campaign-related videos of two parties SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE, we can conclude that the poems “Marko’s Monastery” and “Church” were used for political parties’ reasons on the basis of shallow and incorrect interpretation, while the poems “Teshkoto” and “Prayer require a complex process of transformation where the symbolic meaning has been replaced with communication. All three cases distort the idea and the message by the author and represent examples of the (ab)use of and manipulation with poetry.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 72
  • Page Range: 11-31
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Macedonian
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