Poetry
White Dawns
Бели мугри
Kosta Racin · 1939
Synopsis
A dozen poems on the fate of poor Macedonians between the two wars: days of toil, the hardship of the fields, tobacco pickers, labourers, the farewell of those who leave, a ballad to the unknown, elegies, the dream of a shop in Struga. Beneath the harshness of social conditions comes the call to rise against the exploiters, and the morning dawning upon them.
Context
The collection was printed illegally in Samobor, near Zagreb, by Dragutin Špuler, on 25 November 1939, in four thousand copies, under the name K. Racin and with a title in red. The poems were banned by the Yugoslav government and circulated in secret. It is the third poetry collection to appear in contemporary Macedonian. A French adaptation by Djurdja Šinko and Jean-Louis Depierris appeared in Skopje in 1975.
Who it is for
A slim collection of poems in Macedonian, which the French reader can find in the 1975 adaptation.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the founding book of modern Macedonian poetry; a delegation comes every year to pay homage to the original copy in Samobor.