THE PRINCE MARCO CYCLE
The Prince Marko cycle is well-rounded both thematically and content-wise, as Koneski himself says in the conversations with Cane Andreevski. It was developed over a period of 20 years, during which the poems were created gradually, “following stimuli that led to the creation of other texts in that cycle with the same spontaneity as the first ones.” (Andreevski, 1991:286) It consists of 5 separate poems (“The Breaking of Strength”, “Sterna “, “The Fortress”, “Prince Marko’s Monastery” and “The Dog’s Hill “) inspired by certain motifs in the folkloric legends about Prince Marko, written down by Marko Cepenkov indicated in the epigraphs at the beginning of each poem. However, these 5 poems depict only fragments of the story of Prince Marko, and that fragmentation corresponds to the fragmentary nature of the elements from which Macedonian history is built, but also to the very fragmentary nature of history as a text that can never succeed in perceiving and representing the overall historical reality. The fragmentary nature also showcases the process of composition of history as a text that includes and combines various other texts in order to build its narrative and its point of view. That fragmentation is embodied as an external feature of the poems, through the visible delineation between the epigraphs and the integral text of the poem, as well as in the internal structure through the presence of the various discourses that construct Macedonian identity: folk tales, historical events and monuments, historical and mythical characters, the biblical and epic discourse. What unites them all is the contemporary style and language as a discourse that actualizes them and serves as the framework for the dialogue with other identity-building discourses. This actualization of the historical intertextual material, as Kjulavkova points out, “has a higher function: to be a projection not only of the authors, but also of the ‘expanded’ centuries-long, collective, symbolic, mythical and ethical memory of the Macedonian people” (Ќулавкова: 2001, 308) .
THE DRAMATIS PERSONAE OF PRINCE MARKO
In our analysis we will look at the micro-context of the poems and their motifs through the macro-context of history, while this connection and interaction is established through the medium of the narrative character and voice of Prince Marko. The poems in the Prince Markocycle are written in the form of dramatic monologues in which Prince Marko assumes the role of the dramatis personae.
The features of the dramatis personae are expressed by Prince Marko, who is at the same time a narrator, a participant in the events, but also a modern lyrical subject. As Mickovic points out, “the poetic narration rests on a model used through antiquity, so that the idea of the past gains depth”, while “the legend about a historical person from the past gives that past a dimension of the wonderous”, while “it provides the poetic narration with a credibility of a higher order”, “but also frees him from the obligation to the historical original” (Мицковиќ, 1986:148). This parallel reference to the historical original, but also to the legend about him, allows Koneski to make a complex character out of Prince Marko. Yet, it also allows to move him away from the limitations of the epic character and the epic discourse. Prince Marko in Koneski’s cycle still keeps his mythical characteristics from the folk legends and epics songs, but in Koneski’s treatment he goes beyond the two-dimensional heroic frame of the epic genre and gains subjectivity and psychological depth. Mickovic further points out that “Koneski places Prince Marko at the center of the narration, he is now Marko, the lyrical subject”, and “the past is spoken through the subject – the participant and the witness.” But Prince Marko is not only the subject of the past, he is also the subject of the present, of modernity in whom the “inner human drama” is articulated. The discourses of history, the past, myth and legend, as well as the present are interwoven in him, which enables expression and strengthening of the elements of the Macedonian identity, but also their integration into a contemporary framework.
In the last 4 poems of the cycle, the voice of the common man, which is also the symbolic voice of the Macedonian people, can be heard and transmitted only through the voice of the character of Prince Marko. This is made possible by the format of the dramatic monologue, the main feature of which is the fact that the narrative and all the characters are conveyed through the voice of the dramatic persona. But unlike Browning, where the voices of other characters or discourses are retold or imitated, Koneski in this cycle goes further and deeper in this process. The voice of the common man and the Macedonian people literally penetrates into the consciousness and the speech of Prince Marko himself, as we can see in “Sterna”: ” Sterna’s rumbling in my ears as never before /As if it had streamed over into me / Here, in my breast / Through my temples / The dark underground waters are in spate / Restlessly” (Koneski, 1990: 294). That voice is internalized in the speech of Prince Marko, so that from that moment it appears only in his consciousness and subconsciousness, as a memory that is kept and torments him.
In “The Fortress”, he sees and hears the pains and sufferings of his people in his dream: ” The dead children scream in my maddening dream and scold me like sad angels” . They blame him for his failure to defend them and for the sacrifices they have made individually and as a collective: “You did not see how we perished, Prince Marko, how we died.” (Koneski, 1990: 299). In “Prince Marko’s Monastery”, they appear in the phantasmagoric revival of the saints from the frescoes, they are “the apparition of my consciousness” (Koneski, 1990: 299), and the only voice he hears is the sobbing of Rachel weeping over her dead infants. That voice of the common people occurs as an interference in his speech, in his dialogue with evil, whereby to protect and save them takes on the same importance as the universal fight against evil, which is the basis of every legend. The discourse of real history thus enters into the discourse of legend and poetry, modifying and adapting it so that it can adequately express the historical narrative of the emerging society.