| More

translator

Marko Cepenkov

Marko Cepenkov (Prilep, Ottoman Macedonia 1829 - Sofia, Bulgaria 1920) is а Bulgarian folklorist from Macedonia. He is consifered in the Republic of Macedonia as one of the most important Macedonians in the first generation of Macedonian literary figures.

He was a writer and collector of folk literary works. His family moved to Prilep from Oreovec. His father, Kosta, lived in Krushevo for a while, where Marko Cepenkov was born.

Since his father was a traveler, Cepenkov got to travel a lot too. He got to live in Ohrid, Struga, and visit other places in the country by the time he was fifteen.

Cepenkov got his education in small Greek schools. In 1844 he moved to Prilep, where he attended the private school of Hadji pop Konstantin Dimkov and father Aleksa, for two years. He also became a tailor and while working in the shop he met a lot of people who would tell him folk stories. Cepenkov was also a good narrator and knew a lot of folk stories. Since then he became a collector of folk stories and other folk works.

In 1857 Cepenkov was a teacher in Prilep. After he met Dimitar Miladinov he started collecting more and more folk works: songs, stories, riddles, and others. In that time he knew more than 150 stories and wrote one to two stories per week, as he mentions in his Autobiography. He also wrote the play Cane Vojvoda, about a dozen of songs with patriotic themes, and the autobiography - "Autobiografijata". His collected folk works were published in ten books in Skopje in 1972.

A selection of his folktales have been published in English: Marko Cepenkov, 19th Century Macedonian Folktales (trans. Fay Thomev). Sydney: Macquarie University, 1991.

Marko Cepenkov's Autobiography (Bulgarian)

Selected folklore materials, collected by Marko Cepenkov and published in "Сборник за народни умотворения, наука и книжнина", Книга VIII, издание на Министерството на народното просвещение, София, 1892 ("A Collection of folklore, science and literature", Book VIII, issue of the Ministry of public education, Sofia, 1892 - in Bulgarian) in the form of text and .jpg photocopies(Bulgarian)

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marko_Cepenkov