By granting the prestigious award "Golden Wreath" to the great Croatian poet Slavko Mihalic and the international poetry reading "Bridges", this year's manifestation has ended Sunday evening.
Around 79 foreign poets from 41 countries and 39 domestic writers took part at the poetry manifestation. The former winner of the "Golden Wreath", Spanish poet Husto Horhe Padron, also participated at this year's manifestation. For the first time this year, participants from Faroe Islands and Sudan were present at the Festival.
The special award of "Miladinovci Brothers" for the best collection of poems for the year 2002 was presented to the renowned Macedonian poet Radovan Pavlovski for his poetry collection "Shield."
The festival's program abounded with poetry readings, meetings with the participants at the festival as well as promotions of books, among which the 8th editions of Struga Poetry Evenings for this year.
The 41st edition of the Struga Poetry Evenings festival was formally opened with reciting of the poem "Sorrow for South", lighting of the festival flames and with grand fireworks. Macedonian Minister of Culture Ganka Samoilovska Cvetanova formally declared the festival for open.
"The poetry is one of the greatest human and spiritual treasures, its estetic value comes from the deep intimacy of the poetic feeling," she said, adding that "the poetry today is perhaps the last bastion in the defense from the process of globalization."
She stressed that the poetry has another power - to bring the people closer together and to build bridges among them. In that context she pointed to last year's festival when besides the "vandalism" that Macedonia faced with the SPE marked its 40th anniversary.
"I believe that the poetry besides all challenges that the modern information society offers, still has its future, because its mission is nobel, same as the word pronounced by the poets," Minister Samoilovska-Cvetanova said.
At the opening, a greeting note from Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski was red, whereat he expresses his regret for not being able to attend this formal moment.
"May the festival flames remain forever, in honor of the Struga Poetry Evenings festival, a bridge that connects the poets from all over the world," reads the note from the Prime Minister.
Struga mayor Romeo Dereban and president of the SPE Council Bratislav Taskovski also hailed the present at the opening of the festival.
The poets' gathering in the past 40 years had for a goal, as Taskovski said, "to make the world simpler and more bearable."
He stressed that so far the festival was attended by almost 5,000 poets from 140 countries. "It is a small army of miracle workers, but also of friends of Macedonia," Taskovski said, recommending "may the love and reason prevail among the people. Everything else will mean defeat."
At the traditional poetry reading titled as "Meridijani", poets from 16 countries red their lyrics in their own languages. The audience had a chance to hear lyrics red by poets from Spain, Macedonia, Sweden, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Serbia, Turkey, France, Germany, Russia, Romania, Morocco, Great Britain, Croatia and Latvia.
The festival gathers thirty-nine poets from Macedonia, while seventy-nine foreign poets from 41 country have been invited. Among the previous winners of the Golden Wreath Award of SPE, the poets Adfonis from Lebanon and Husto Horhe from Spain will participate. A participant from the Faroe Islands and from Sudan will attend the festival for the first time.
Most prestigious international acknowledgement, the Golden Wreath of SPE will be given to the modern Croatian poet Slavko Mihalic. He is born in 1928 in Karlovac. The decision for this year's winner of the Golden Wreath has been brought by the SPE Board comprised of Bratislav Taskovski, the President, and the members Paskal Gilevski, Slave Gjorgo Dimovski, Blaze Minevski and Resul Sabani as well as the director Bogomil Gjuzel.
This year's Golden Wreath winner, Croatian poet Slavko Mihalic emphasized at Thursday's press conference that had been coming to Struga for the last 42 years and was one of those who joyfully and with optimism participated in the creation of the poetry festival.
The Struga Poetry Evenings is the best poetry festival in the world thanks to the "lovely landscapes of Struga and Ohrid Lake, which matched the poetic dreams."
"I feel incredibly free here," Mihalic said, speaking of Struga that reminded him on Gaza and Struga villages near his native Karlovac.
Welcoming his friends, the Macedonian poets, Bogomil Gjuzel, Mateja Matevski, Ante Popovski, Gane Todorovski and Jovan Strezovski, Mihalic promised that the Macedonian poetry would be translated into Croatian language as an anthology.
Emphasizing that he was in a country where "everything was a poetry, both the people and the lake," where every stone spoke the poetry language, Mihalic added that no matter who won the Golden Wreath "all poets were faithful to this area, as they all became spiritual there."
"We come here, have a good time, read songs but the books remain because they are precious and we leave them to the future times and generations," Mihalic said.
He welcomed the Macedonian Government for supporting such manifestation, which is a characteristic of the Macedonian spirit. He said that the history of the Macedonian nation was a school for future Europe, which according to him "did not pay much attention to the small nations."
Speaking of his poetry before the guests, including the Croatian Ambassador Aleksandar Milosevic, Mihalic stressed that intimately he believed that he succeeded to say what he wanted to say.
This year's winner planted a tree in the Poetry Park in Struga, which is a traditional event during the Struga Poetry Evenings. The poets Ante Popovski and Kama Kamanda from Congo read homage for the poets of the 20th century Aco Sopov and Leopold Segar Sengor.
Calling him "the key figure of the contemporary Macedonian poetry," Popovski said that Sopov made the first step amid the romantic obsession after the revolution and embedded the Macedonian modern poetry. He was also direct inspirer of Struga Poetry Evenings, which are an attribute to the civilization.
"The man is born free," poet Kamanda said, quoting Sengor, the first President of Senegal and winner of the Golden Wreath from 1975. On behalf of the African people, he thanked to the Macedonian poets for "the nice gesture to present the Golden Wreath Award to one African."
In the homage for Sengor, who died earlier this year, Kamanda pointed out that "he was great and universal poet who assisted the liberation of Senegalese nation from the colonization." Kamanda emphasized that Senegal was the only African country that avoided the civil war.
In 1961, on the occasion of the centennial of the publication of the Collection of Folk Songs compiled by the Miladinov brothers, a literary reading was held in Struga on July 15th by a group of Macedonian authors. It was then that the idea was born: a poetry festival.
Since then, the festival is held every third week of August, when poets from whole world are gathered, which is one of the oldest poetry gatherings of the 20th century.
Among the most prominent participants, following poets have so far taken part: S. Heaney (Ireland); E. Sanguineti (Italy); P. Neruda (Chile); W. H. Auden (USA); L. S. Senghor (Senegal); E. Montale (Italy); J. Brodsky (USA).
Blaze Koneski is the only Macedonia poet who was the winner of the SPE Golden Wreath in 1981.
A new poetry area - the summer stage at the Drim River will be promoted this year where promotions and literary readings will be held. The programme of SPE includes presentation of the Macedonian love poetry, awarding of Brother Miladinovski prize to the poet Radovan Pavlovski at "Sveta Bogorodica" monastery in Kalista, marking of the anniversary of the death of the poet Aco Sopov and the French poet L. S. Senghor, one of the winners of the Golden Wreath of this festival, who died this year in Paris.
Publishing activity of the SPE for 2002 besides the anthology of the laureate includes several other editions - "The Thirsty God" anthology of poems of 13 modern poets from Morocco. Morocco Minister of Culture is expected to attend the festival. In the publication "Constellations" SPE published two editions, collections of poems "Inheritance" by Tom Pecinis and "Voices above the Field" by Catharine Frostenson. Macedonian poetry will be represented through the anthology "Body and String - an open book of love and erotic motives in the Macedonian lyrics" in Macedonian and English language, written by Slave Gjorgo Dimovski. A poem book "A Bit of Blue under my Eyebrow" includes poems for Macedonia by foreign poets, participants at the SPE in the past years. Anthologies of the Macedonian poetry published in Tirana, Moscow and Podgorica, on Albanian, Russian and Serbian language will be promoted at the festival.
Macedonian Ministry of Culture provided Denar 4,7 million for holding of this international poetry manifestation in Struga.
