INTRODUCTION BY PROF. ALEKSANDAR ANCHEVSKI PhD.
The life of Atanas Bliznakov began on December 15, 1901 in the famous revolutionary village D’mbeni, Kostur Region in the Aegean part of Macedonia. It is the village where a pleiad of Macedonian pre-war revolutionary freedom fighters and intellectuals were born; such as Lazar Pop Trajkov, Lazo Moskov, Lazo Trpovski, Tasko Karadza and others who fought for the affirmation of Macedonian ideals.
Atanas was only twenty months old when the Turkish soldiers (asker) entered the village and his mother Doča, holding him in her arms, took him to the mountains to save him from the Turks. Meanwhile his father Ivan, along with other villagers joined the revolutionary detachments which were fighting for the freedom of their native country.
As a result of the carnage during the Balkan Wars and World War I and the economic hardship and terrible political conditions, a huge number of Macedonians, especially from the regions of Kostur, Lerin, Bitola, Prespa, Voden and other districts of partitioned Macedonia, sought deliverance elsewhere in the world leaving their hearth and their closest and dearest.
Atanas at age 19, in the prime of his youth, was one of those who had tasted the bitterness of life as an emigrant. In 1920 he left his native soil in search of a better life in the world. From his parent’s home he developed awareness that poverty made him leave home, but he also had a distinctive feeling that he was Macedonian, that he was going to remain Macedonian no matter where he would go in the world and that one day he would return to Macedonia.
A new page in the interesting life of Atanas was turned on December 16, 1920 when he arrived in Madison, Illinois, U.S.A., where a Macedonian colony was already established. He became a factory worker there without knowing the English language.
After year and a half he moved to Gary, Indiana, a city located near Lake Michigan which was developing into an industrial center. He worked there for 34 years, until he retired, at the Railway Company which was one of the larger companies in the region.
The village of Dmbeni
During his entire life in the USA, the Bliznakov’s business activity consisted of buying real estate and shares. For that he needed knowledge and skillfulness to invest wisely, as well as persistence in monitoring all economic development; qualities which he developed.
Time passed quickly and, after fifteen years working in this foreign country, he returned to his motherland where he met Slavka, his other half; a beautiful young girl from D’mbeni. They went back to Gary together, this time forever, never to return to their birthplace D’mbeni. Atanas said goodbye to all the good and bad days spent in his birthplace, where more than one thousand Macedonians used to live.
He spoke with sadness about D’mbeni, remembering how the children’s hustle and bustle and the activity of village life were later replaced by wasteland and eagle owls. Slavka was his real soulmate for sixty-three years and was always by his side, encouraging and sharing his ideas and longing for Macedonia.
Although Bliznakov spent almost all of his life abroad, he remained connected with the problems of his fatherland till the end of his life. He proved not to be an ordinary migrant worker, but a person who invested effort to delve into the essence of Macedonian freedom. He took a strong and serious approach to things in general and in that way raised himself beyond the time in which he lived.
During his life, Bliznakov saw the partition of Macedonia as a tragedy and disaster for the Macedonian cause. Therefore he was convinced that, by establishing the “Atanas Bliznakoff” Foundation, he would make a valuable contribution to the University of “Sts Cyril and Methodius”, to the Macedonian people and, at the same time, would be an incentive and inspiration for future generations of Macedonians in the diaspora and beyond.
The goal of this monograph is to shed light on the life of Atanas Bliznakov, with special emphasis on his donations. This work, which consists of five chapters, each having several parts, is written chronologically and thematically and each part complements and supplements the other.
The first part, which describes the path this donor took in life, has five topics. In the beginning, it gives a short historical account of his birth country, Aegean Macedonia, the country of upheaval, beauty and mystery; at the crossroads of civilizations, cultures, religions, languages and peoples in the past.
The village D’mbeni, the birthplace of Bliznakov, is located in Kostur Region which belongs, administratively, to the region of Koresta, where 34 villages are spread out along the eastern and western banks of the river Bistrica. In addition, this biographical review describes Bliznakov’s origin, childhood, student life and departure for the U.S.A.
To be continued
