Many other authors have written periodically about Goran Stefanovski, just to name but a few: Aleksandar Aleksiev, Bogomil Gjuzel, Natalija Vagapova, Miodrag Drugovac, Milan Gjurchinov, Gane Todorovski, Rade Siljan, Vele Smilevski, as well as a great number of theater critics. Yet, even after reading the texts of these well respected authors, we could not find enough material that could be gainfully used for our paper.
Further in the text, we shall review essays that have been published at a later period, ones that provided us with good starting points for our further analysis of the rich opus by Goran Stefanovski.
While researching the publications dedicated to Stefanovski’s works, we came to realizethat in the period after 1990drama began to be studied with the application of new scientific and research theories and methods at the relevant departments of the Ss Cyril and Methodius University Skopje, such as the Department of Macedonian Literature, Department of General and Comparative Literature, as well as the Faculty of Drama. It is our conclusion that this has resulted in critics starting to operate with modern theoretical tools, as well as in the publication of theory-based interpretations of Stefanovski’s works in the periodical journals.
Ruzhica Janchulevska at the XXXI International Macedonian Language Seminar in 1999 presented her essay “The Khlestakovness in Tattooed Souls by Goran Stefanovski” where she establishes parallels between the character of Khlestakov from Gogol’s play The Government Inspector and the characters in Tattooed Souls. She emphasizes this link between the characters of Vojdan from Tattooed Souls and Khlestakov from The Government Inspector. According to Janchulevska, lying is the normal condition of existence for the heroes of this play. Janchulevska defines Tattooed Souls as an avant-garde drama with marked elements of the theater of the absurd in which reality is deprived of any and all sense and justification. She starts from the position that the poetics of the theater of the absurd is characterized by the dissolution of communication and relations between people, a feature she identifies among the characters of Tattooed Souls.
While researching the publications dedicated to Stefanovski’s works, we came to realizethat in the period after 1990drama began to be studied with the application of new scientific and research theories and methods at the relevant departments of the Ss Cyril and Methodius University Skopje, such as the Department of Macedonian Literature, Department of General and Comparative Literature, as well as the Faculty of Drama. It is our conclusion that this has resulted in critics starting to operate with modern theoretical tools, as well as in the publication of theory-based interpretations of Stefanovski’s works in the periodical journals.
Nada Petkovska in 1992 published in Literaturen Zborher essay “Myth and Demythologization in Tattooed Souls by Goran Stefanovski”, where she points out that the point of interest in Stefanovski’s play is not really the economic, existential or financial side of the problems faced by the Macedonian émigrés in America. In fact, Stefanovski in Tattooed Soulsplaces his characters to face the absurdity of their own existence in surroundings which they cannot call their own. According to Petkovska, in order to overcome their predicament, the characters of the Macedonians in America are compelled to create their own myths that would enable them to somehow survive. Petkovska equates these myths with the act of tattooing by stating that the conflict between the characters in the play is based on the confrontation of the various myths. As the dominant one, she detects the myth about the return to the homeland, which for the character of Koljo grows into a mythical rite. Cibra, on the other hand, represents the myth of the Messiah, while according to Petkovska Vojdan in this mythical world plays the role of the destroyer of myths. Petkovska’s essay provides us with one possible reading of this text.