In front of the 15th of November, The Day of the writers in prison
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The Writers in Prison Committee was set up in 1960 year, as a result of mounting concern about attempts to silence critical voices around the world through the detention of writers. The International PEN Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) gathers its information from a wide variety of sources and compiles it in its biannual “Case List”.
The WiPC organises events with the aim of raising awareness of the persecution faced by writers overseas who seek to exercise their fundamental right to freedom of expression, and also to raise funds. In that course, the 15th of November was selected as the “Day of the Writers in Prison”.
In front of this day, here, on the Diversity web site, we are publishing poetry by Jovan Koteski, well known Macedonian writer, who was, on the 2nd of September, 1985 year, convicted on five years long prison sentence. He was charged that he was working for the disintegration of the Yugoslavian Federation and in the constitution of the Independent Macedonian State.
You can find more information about this process in the biography of Jovan Koteski, available in Macedonian and in English language. We have also published ten poems by Jovan Koteski, four of these are translated into English.
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Biography of Jovan Koteski
Jovan Koteski (1932 – 2001) was a poet, who belongs to the so called, third generation of Macedonian writers. He was born on the 14th of January 1932 in the village of Prisovjani, near Struga. He was the fourth of five children of Petkana and Vasil Koteski. He has spent his childhood as a shepherd, servitor, keeping someone else’s stock. In 1946 he entered the Ohrid high school and he lived in a dormitory. In 1948, his father, who was working as confectioner in Bratislava, Slovakia, was imprisoned by the Slovakian Informbiro and convicted on 9 years long prison sentence. Jovan has seen his father only two times in his life, once when he was seven years old, and the second time, when he was 26 years old. For that second meeting in 1958 Jovan Koteski has written: In returning, he called one of my aunts, and she had brought him into my rented chicken coop, where I was living as a student. In the early evening, when I returned from faculty, I saw in my room – a guest. And here is one embrace of one absent, arduous life. In 1954 Jovan moved out to Skopje, he has entered the Literature Studies that he never finished. For three decades he worked as a journalist in “Radio Skopje”. In 1958 he published the collections of poetry: “Land and Passion” (“Земја и страст”) and “Smile before the downs” (“Насмевка пред зорите”).
Follow: “Time of evil” ("Злодоба", 1963), “Weight” (“Тежина” 1965), “Ash” ("Пеплосија" , 1966), “Shadows” (“Сенки” , 1972), “Green Gates” (“Зелени порти”, 1975), “Slaughter” (“Поморија”, 1981), “Wakes and Dreams” (“Бденија и сновиденија”, 1982), "Chandelier" (“Полилеј”, 1983), "Fruit" (“Плодови”, 1985), "Title Deed" (“Тапија”, 1985),"Grindstone of the Sun" ("Сончева белегија", 1990), "Mouse with binoculars” (poetry for children), ("Глувчето со двоглед" (поезија за деца), 1991), "Field" ("Ралица", 1992), "The time of evil" ("Злодоба", 1992), "Cradle" ("Лелејка" 1994), "Loneliness" ("Самотија", 1994), "Holiday" (bibliographical published manuscript) ("Празник" (библиофилско издание во ракопис), 1995), "Searcher" (poem) ("Трагач" (поема), 1995), "Grids” (“Решетки”1996), „Dowry“ (“Приќе”, 1997), "Falling" (“Одрон”, 1998), “Ruin” („Разор“, 1999), “Krtechina” (“Кртечина”, 2000).
On the 2nd of September 1985 he was arrested and convicted on 5 years prison sentence. He was charged for illegal working for the disintegration of the Yugoslavian Federation and for constellation of new independent Macedonian State that actually happened seven years later. He belongs to the last group of political prisoners, intellectuals in the former Yugoslavian Federation. Jovan Koteski goes on trial in a close process, without public access. One of the prosecutors requires a prison term of 20 years. The greatest impulse for his release from prison among the Macedonian Writers (action, that, however, never happened) in 1986 was actuated by the American writer, Allen Ginsberg, who was that year, winner of the Golden Wreath, Stuga Poetry Evenings award. After the intervention of the Yugoslavian PEN Centre (Zagreb), in july 1987, after two years prison sentence Koteski was released. For his liberation the most meritorious is the francophone writer Predrag Matveeviċ, who was in that time vice president of the World PEN Centre and president of the Croatian PEN Club. He organized petition with worldwide well known writers, declaring liberation of Jovan Koteski from prison. With letters to the District Court in Skopje and to the Federal Court of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, Matveeviċ managed to secure revision of the judgment against Koteski and fast release from prison in july 1987. Koteski started to work as a librarian in the library “Другарче” (“Friend”), where he stayed to work until his retirement. He traveled in Croatia where he met Predrag Matveeviċ. In 1995 he won the award on the Anonymous Concourse for poem. In 2000 year, there were published three books of Selection of his poetry in Macedonian language.
In November, 2000 year, seven months before his death, Jovan Koteski managed to see selective parts from his secret police file, administered by the secret services of Tito’s Yugoslavia, under the code name “Intimist”. On more than 300 pages there was registered that he was object of investigation for around 42 years from his whole 69 years long life. Jovan Koteski was taken for custody for the first time in 1948, when he was 16 years old, probably because of that, that this same year, his father, Vasil Koteski, was imprisoned by the Slovakian secret services and convicted on 9 year long prison sentence, because they had found a picture of Tito in his apartment in Bratislava, the same Marshall in whose name, for bigger irony, later, there was a successive trial on Jovan Koteski. The Yugoslavian secret services have collaborated with the secret services of the other Communist Countries from the East block and Jovan Koteski became suspect for the Services because his father was imprisoned in emigration. He was taken for custody for the second time in 1952 during one youth action in Mavrovo, in 1954 he was arrested and convicted on 3 years prison sentence for a verbal delict over Josip Broz Tito, but he was released couple days later, and so on. The police file under the code name “Intimist” where Jovan Koteski was administered in the secret service of Yugoslavia, UDBA, was opened in 1961 year. The last document in the file of Jovan Koteski was dated in 1988 year, but the most investigators think that the observation lasted until 1990, that means that it lasted for full 42 years.
Jovan Koteski spent the last decade of his life relatively isolated in his home in Skopje, suffering from paranoia. He died on the 12th of July in Skopje, in the circle of his closest family.
