Haralampije Polenaković or Haralampie Polenakovikj (; ; ; 17 January 1909 – 15 February 1984) was a Yugoslav and

Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Macedonia * Mac ...

literary historian The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment or education to the reader, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pie ...

and

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries. * The ...

Biography

Haralampije Polenaković was born on 17 January 1909 into a family of Aromanian settlers from present-day southern

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

in the town of

Gostivar Gostivar ( ; sq-definite, Gostivari) is a city in North Macedonia, located in the upper Polog valley region. It is the seat of one of the larger municipalities in the country with a population of 59,770, and the town also covers . Gostivar has ...

, then in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, where he had his elementary education. According to the Macedonian Aromanian publicist, translator and writer , he spoke Aromanian "very well". Per

Macedonian Bulgarian Macedonians or Macedonian Bulgarians (), sometimes also referred to as Macedono-Bulgarians, Macedo-Bulgarians, or Bulgaro-Macedonians are a regional, ethnographic group of ethnic Bulgarians, inhabiting or originating from the region of Ma ...

academic , Polenaković's family members were

Serbomans Serbomans (Serbo-Croatian and , ''srbomani''; ; ) is a Bulgarian pejorative term used by Bulgarian nationalists for inhabitants in the region of Macedonia that claimed Serbian ethnicity (declared as Serbs) and supported Serbian national ideals u ...

, and out of respect towards it, he retained the

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

-ić in his surname. In the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

, Polenaković was part of the pro-Serbian

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

Vardar Banovina The Vardar Banovina, or Vardar Banate ( Macedonian and ; ), was a province ( banate) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. History It was located in the southernmost part of the country, encompassing the whole of today's North Mace ...

. Around 1934, he collaborated with the academic Petar Kolendić. He graduated from the Philosophical Faculty in

Skopje Skopje ( , ; ; , sq-definite, Shkupi) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It lies in the northern part of the country, in the Skopje Basin, Skopje Valley along the Vardar River, and is the political, economic, and cultura ...

and then continued his studies in

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

, where he obtained a PhD in 1939. In the same year, Polenaković worked as an

assistant Assistant may refer to: * Assistant (by Speaktoit), a virtual assistant app for smartphones * Assistant (software), a software tool to assist in computer configuration * Google Assistant, a virtual assistant by Google * ''The Assistant'' (TV seri ...

at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, being one of the few local staff members there, due to the authorities' requirement to appoint only nationally conscious Serbian cadres there. Polenaković attempted to construct an interpretation of the Slavic cultural development in 19th-century Ottoman Macedonia, ignoring the influence of the Bulgarian National Revival. He discovered a manuscript of a

homily A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered ...

in Aromanian, written in the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...

, in

Gorna Belica Gorna Belica (; ) is a village in the municipality of Struga, North Macedonia. The village is located close to the Albania-North Macedonia border. Name The village is known as in Aromanian. History The village appears in the 1467/68 Deft ...

, after which he informed Romanian Aromanian linguist

Theodor Capidan Theodor Capidan ( – September 1, 1953) was an Ottoman-born Romanian linguist. An ethnic Aromanian from the Macedonia region, he studied at Leipzig before teaching school at Thessaloniki. Following the creation of Greater Romania at the end of ...

, who published the manuscript in 1940. During the Bulgarian occupation of Yugoslav Macedonia in World War II, a law was passed, by which all Slavic inhabitants were granted Bulgarian nationality, except, those who chose to opt for their former nationality and thus many Serbs had to emigrate. Polenaković escaped to

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

Nazi-occupied Serbia The Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia (; ) was the area of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that was placed under a military government of occupation by the Wehrmacht following the invasion, occupation and dismantling of Yugoslavia in ...

, where he served as the president of the "Society of Refugees from South Serbia". After the war, Polenaković worked as a professor at the Philosophical Faculty in Skopje. He is credited as one of the founders of Macedonian literary science. His fields of research included medieval literature, 19th-century literature and the ties between Macedonian, Serbian and Croatian literatures. Polenaković was a member and the first vice-president of the

Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts () is an academic institution in North Macedonia. History The Academy of Sciences and Arts was established by the Socialist Republic of Macedonia's assembly on 23 February 1967 as the highest scientifi ...

, as well as a member of the

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (; , SANU) is a national academy and the most prominent academic institution in Serbia, founded in 1841 as Society of Serbian Letters (, DSS). The Academy's membership has included Nobel Prize, Nobel la ...

and the

Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina The Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina (; ) is the national academy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Academy, based in the capital city of Sarajevo, is the leading non-university public research institution in the country. The ...

. Together with the linguist

Blaže Koneski Blaže Koneski ( Macedonian and ; 19 December 1921 – 7 December 1993) was a Macedonian poet, writer, literary translator, and linguistic scholar, who had a major contribution to the codification of the standard Macedonian language, for which ...

, he edited the Macedonian edition of the

Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia The ''Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia'', , , , or ''Yugoslavika'' was the national encyclopedia of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Published under the auspices of the Yugoslav Lexicographical Institute in Zagreb and overseen by Miro ...

. Polenaković's works, collected in five volumes, were published in 1973. He died in Skopje on 15 February 1984.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Polenakovic, Haralampije 1909 births 1984 deaths People from Gostivar Aromanians from the Ottoman Empire Macedonian people of Aromanian descent Yugoslav historians Aromanian historians Lexicographers 20th-century lexicographers Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Members of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina Members of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts