Koco Racin

Who is Koco Racin?

Kosta Apostolov Solev, known by his pen name Koco Racin, was born in 1908 in Veles, then in the Kingdom of Serbia (now North Macedonia), into a poor family of potters. Largely self-educated and active in leftist and labor movements from a young age, he was repeatedly imprisoned for his political activities in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the 1930s. In 1939 he published "Beli mugri" ("White Dawns"), a slim collection of poems widely regarded as the first significant work of modern literature written in the Macedonian language, portraying the hardships of tobacco workers, miners, and the rural poor in a distinctive lyrical voice. The collection is considered a foundational text of Macedonian national literature and demonstrated the literary potential of the Macedonian vernacular years before its formal codification. During the Second World War he joined the Partisan resistance movement in Macedonia; he was killed in 1943 during fighting in the mountains near Bitola. Today he is honored as the father of modern Macedonian poetry, with the country's national theatre in Skopje and its leading literary prize bearing his name.

Sources: Koco Racin, Beli mugri (White Dawns), 1939 · Blaže Koneski, History of Macedonian literature · Macedonian National Theatre "Kočo Racin," Skopje — institutional history