СРПСКА МАКЕДОНИЈА У ПРИПОВЕТКАМА ТОМА СМИЉАНИЋА БРАДИНЕ

Abstract

The essay analyzes two collections of stories by the forgotten Serbian writer from Macedonia, Tomo Smiljanić Bradina (1888–1969). These are the books On the Mountain and other stories from Macedonia (Skopje, 1924) and Stojna and other stories from Macedonia (Skopje, 1924). In each collection, there are eight stories, which are thematically related to the difficult national and social life of the Serbian people in Macedonia at the end of the 19th and in the early decades of the 20th century. National life is seen through the fight against denationalization and forced bulgarization, through the preservation of folk customs and attachment to the Serbian oral epic and lyrical tradition, and through a deep attachment to the Serbian Orthodox Church and religious rites and holidays. Social life is seen through the depiction of poverty and the painful struggle for survival, through the destiny of the migrant, but also through the plots of love. It is this constant struggle for survival that testifies to the vitality of the Serbian people in Macedonia. Narration is characterized by various artistic procedures: the intersection of narrative prospecting and retrospection, objective and subjective narration, as well as linguistic diglossia and the constant intersection of the Serbian standard language in narrating narrators with dialectal features of local Serbian dialects from Macedonia in the dialogues of heroes.