Lidija Cvetkova is a professor of Macedonian language and literature with more than 30 years of work experience. Employed at the Technical High School “Nace Budjoni” in Kumanovo.
The interview was recorded in 2020.
Lidija Cvetkova is a professor of Macedonian language and literature with more than 30 years of work experience. Employed at the Technical High School “Nace Budjoni” in Kumanovo.
The interview was recorded in 2020.
You don’t trust anyone anymore, not even… it’s a stupid term: “our people”, but that’s true, you can’t trust nor your people neither the others. You start thinking in a different manner, you realize there’s no one by your side, you realize you’re all alone and you have to get by the best way you can, and that hurts, because we’re the kind of creatures who need friends and neighbors and people who would help us, be there for us, make it easier for us…
If they play fair, we could live together, we could all realize that we all belong here and that we can prosper together, that we could live together, that we can’t live on our own.
…And what is the truth? The truth is relative, it was different for everyone involved, some collapsed mentally, some physically. There were some people, like this guy who died of a heart attack 10 days after an armed battle, others went through nervous breakdowns, marriages were breaking apart, some people became so tough that… that… they wouldn’t blink no matter what happens, but others burst into tears for any reason.
I can never… I can’t even forgive myself, not to mention anyone else… It’s my fault, I’m thinking, why should that happen in my own homeland?
…it’s not like it used to be, like when we would go to some state office and if you can’t remember some word in Macedonian, the office clerk would throw you outside.
…people are still afraid to cross the Stone Bridge, to go to Chair, to go to Topansko Pole, because they have prejudice that god knows what could happen to them there. I mean, our people, while their people must also have a wrong idea about us. And it’s repulsing to me to say “our people, their people”, I think that, I don’t know, we should invent a different language.