Numerous books have been written about Macedonia. Collected together in an imaginary world library, they would occupy a space which would be awe-striking in its vastness and one could easily lose one's way strolling among the shelves, through the dark corridors of this labyrinth.

Macedonian history has been interpreted in multitudinous different ways, from different aspects and viewpoints. It has been usurped, falsified, supplemented and altered. Frequently written by others, it has been adjusted to their interests. Mysterious cartographers and geographers have broadened and narrowed its borders, counted and recounted, wiped off and added place-names, measured and remeasured its mountains and rivers... The individuality of Macedonian culture has been disputed, the Macedonia word has been banned, and in the years of silence and oblivion things were given different names, difficult to pronounce and yet more difficult to remember. Statues of kings and gods have been demolished, old temples have been ruined, church walls have been smeared with thick layers of mortar and new saints have been painted on them. Old manuscripts have been burnt, the records and inscriptions on graves have bee

Surrounded by high, almost impassable mountains, Macedonia is a closed geographical entity in the heart of the Balkan Peninsula. Insofar as geography has no significance without man, one thing is certain: Macedonian geography, due precisely to the pervasiveness and the identification of man with the land, has turned into a holy thing" (Ante Poposki). Its valleys full of graves and rivers by the banks of which terrifying battles have been waged, lakes with churches and monasteries built around them, mountains with hermits' caves, gorges where one can still hear the roar of horsemen from far-off countries who departed leaving devastation behind them determine not only the geographical concept of Macedonia but do much more: they denote points where temporal and spatial coordinates meet; toponyms containing within themselves a complex of general and lasting values with the symbolic significance of holy and inalienable places in the collective consciousness even today determine our attitude towards the world. Understood as real or imaginary areas drawn on the topographical map of Macedonian culture, they enable us to comprehend the relations established between History and Geography.

Navigating against the current along the river of time, discovering buried towns and settlements in the sand, restoring ruined temples and palaces, putting together the fragments of sculptures, cleaning darkened pictures and elucidating old manuscripts means returning to our origins. If all the traces of the past were only a disorganised heap of events, images and words, if we did not believe that these monuments, objects and manuscripts were reverberations of words uttered long ago, addressed to us, the play of the gleams on a seemingly tranquil surface concealing a vast treasure and places full of secrets beneath, if we did not believe that these were signposts on our way they would not have the magic power that attracts us and in an amazing manner determines our attitude to ourselves and the world today.

Today, when we demand of art that it enable us to touch reality, when we demand of it that it restore the world's scattered image, it is indispensible that it be open to the experience layered up over centuries.

The crisis of contemporary civilisation and of its spiritual and historical categories has caused a violent severing of connections between man and nature, the individual and the community, the subject and the object, whereby the world has come to appeared as an alienated reality.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Roman Slavonic, Crnorizec Hrabar, European Asian, Macedonia Collected, Middle Ages, Macedonia Macedonian, Kukulian Cycle, Art Philosophy, Ante Poposki, Gligor Cemerski, macedonian culture, macedonian artists, cultural layers, creative achievements, churches monasteries, cultural heritage, european art, collective memory, churches monasteries built, contemporary myth, attitude towards,
Approximate Word count = 3604
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)