Ljubčo Georgievski was born on 17 January 1966 in Štip, SR Macedonia, SFR Yugoslavia, where he had primary and secondary education. In 1988, Georgievski graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, specializing in comparative literature.[4][5][6] In his twenties, he promoted anti-communism and advocated for Macedonian independence.[7][8][9] He was a member of Movement for All-Macedonian Action (MAAK) and he said in the 2012 TV documentary "Twenty years of independence" (Macedonian: 20 години независност) that he participated in the founding meeting of the party where he stated that MAAK has to be a movement for a confederation.[10][11] In the circles of the party he met with Boris Zmejkovski and Dragan Bogdanovski. After he left the party he intended to create a new political movement.
Georgievski, Bogdanovski, Zmejkovski, and a few other activists agreed to make a party for independent Macedonia.[12] The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity was founded on 17 June 1990 in SR Macedonia. Georgievski was elected as the party's first president in the constituent assembly.[13] In the first multi-party elections in 1990 Georgievski with his party had won the biggest number of seats in the Macedonian Assembly. Refusing to make a coalition with the ethnic Albanian parties Georgievski had failed to make a government and a non-partisan government came to power.[13] After a new constitution was adopted in November 1990 he was elected as Vice President by the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia on 27 January 1991. Georgievski resigned from the position in October 1991.[14] He was a member of parliament from 1992 to 1994.[5]
In 1998 Georgievski won the parliamentary elections and became Prime Minister of Macedonia with a coalition government with the Democratic Alternative party and the Democratic Party of Albanians. He contributed to the improvement of Macedonia–Bulgaria relations.[15] On 22 February 1999, he signed an agreement with Bulgarian prime minister Ivan Kostov to normalize relations.[16] During this period, he was accused by the opposition of implementing pro-Bulgarian policies.[4][17] In the 1990s, Macedonian historians, such as Ivan Katardžiev and Krste Bitovski, also accused him and his party of pro-Bulgarian sentiments due to the party's opposition to the pro-Yugoslav interpretation of Macedonian history.[2] He led the republic during the Macedonian insurgency in 2001, as well as a government of national unity (which was formed under international mediation).[13][18] Georgievski supported a military solution for the conflict.[19] He was among the people who signed the Ohrid Agreement on 13 August, which ended the conflict.[20] In the same year, in Luxembourg, Georgievski signed the EU-backed Stabilization and Association Agreement. The International Crisis Group published two reports called Finance Peace in Macedonia, Not Corruption and Macedonia's Public Secret: How Corruption Drags the Country Down in September 2002 regarding corruption during his rule, before the elections.[14] Georgievski resigned from the party's leadership on 24 May 2003 after he lost the 2002 elections and was succeeded the next day by the former finance minister in his government, Nikola Gruevski.[21] In 2004, he left the party and was followed by his supporters, establishing the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – People's Party (VMRO-NP) on 4 July.[15][22] He initially was the honorary chairman of VMRO-NP before becoming its president on 26 February 2012.[23] In 2006 Georgievski acquired Bulgarian citizenship,[24][25] declaring Bulgarian descent.[26][27]
Literary works
He is the author of a poetry collection Apocalypse (Macedonian: Апокалипса),[28]verse novelCity (Macedonian: Град) and a collection of short stories Direct Interventions with Short Stories into the Anatomic Structure of History (Macedonian: Директни интервенции со кратки раскази во анатомската структура на историјата).[5] In 2007, Georgievski published his book Facing the Truth (Bulgarian: С лице към истината) in Bulgaria. In the book, he urges Macedonians to accept their Bulgarian heritage.[26][29]
In 2012, Georgievski published his autobiographical book It is me (Macedonian: Тоа сум јас).[30] There he revealed a range of new things about the unknown history of the country, including the fact that he together with his Serbian counterpart Zoran Đinđić, discussed the exchange of territories between Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. The book confirms that in 1999 he was summoned to the White House, where former U.S. Secretary of StateMadeleine Albright, sought permission from Macedonia ground forces of NATO to attack Serbia from the territory of the country. Among other things, he wrote that he had spent fifteen minutes talking to former Serbian and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević while he was visiting former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski in the Scheveningen prison. Regarding the state-political situation of the country, Georgievski concluded that "the Macedonians are the biggest counterfeiters of the Balkan history".[31]
According to him in 2012, the present development of the VMRO-DPMNE was his personal failure and he claimed that it was a fake party without any ideology.[32] In North Macedonia, Georgievski has a reputation as a Bulgarophile but has also self-identified as one.[30][33] It is a stigma in the country.[6] On 27 February 2021, he made a five-point proposal on Facebook to improve North Macedonia–Bulgaria relations, which was criticized by VMRO-DPMNE and Pavle Trajanov from the party Democratic Alliance.[34][35] He opined that Bulgarian and Macedonian people have a common history, but the process of separation of the Macedonians cannot be limited to 1944. It lasted at least 130-140 years, starting with linguistic separatism, followed by political one and finally ended with national separation.[36] In a TV show in 2021, he stated that he could not identify as anything other than as a Macedonian.[37][38] He claimed that except Macedonian and Bulgarian, he also has a third citizenship but did not reveal it.[39] Per him, the Macedonian state is the subject of heavy Serbianization.[36]
References
^Georgievski wrote in his 2001 book Realization of the Immortal Dream (Остварување на вековниот сон; ISBN9989-610-06-1) that the reason why his name is spelled Ljubčo and not Ljupčo (Љупчо), in breach of regular Macedonian spelling rules, is because it should follow Bulgarian spelling. From 1996 he stopped writing his first name with p, but with b, according to the Bulgarian etymological spelling.[1][2][3]
^Roumen Dontchev Daskalov; Tchavdar Marinov (2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. BRILL. pp. 482–483. ISBN9789004250765.
^Christian Voss (2001). "Sprach- und Geschichtsrevision in Makedonien: Zur Dekonstruktion von Blaže Koneski". Osteuropa. 51 (8): 958–959. Ljubčo Georgievski hat bereits 1994 die Richtung vorgegeben, als er eine grundgende Abrechnung mit der historiographischen Nationaldoktrin veröffentlichte und seit 1996 seinen Vornamen nicht mehr nach serbischer und makedonischer (phonetischer) Orthographie mit -p-, sondern nach bulgarischer (etymologischer: von "ljub") Orthographie schreibt. (Ljubčo Georgievski had already set the tone in 1994 when he published a fundamental reckoning with the historiographical national doctrine and since 1996 he no longer writes his first name according to the Serbian and Macedonian (phonetic) orthography with -p-, but according to the Bulgarian (etymological: from "ljub") orthography.)
^ abWojciech Roszkowski; Jan Kofman (2016). Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. Routledge. pp. 282–283. ISBN9781317475941.
^P. H. Liotta (2001). Dismembering the State: The Death of Yugoslavia and why it Matters. Lexington Books. p. 301. ISBN9780739102121.
^Mieczysław P. Boduszyński (2010). Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States: Divergent Paths toward a New Europe. JHU Press. p. 153. ISBN9780801899195.
^Janusz Bugajski (1994). Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe: A Guide to Nationality Policies, Organizations, and Parties. M.E. Sharpe. p. 111. ISBN9781563242823.
^ abDimitar Bechev (2019). Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. pp. xi, 124–125. ISBN9781538119624.
^Sharon L. Wolchik; Jane Leftwich Curry, eds. (2011). Central and East European Politics: From Communism to Democracy. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 270. ISBN9780742567344.
^Sten Berglund; Joakim Ekman; Kevin Deegan-Krause; Terje Knutsen, eds. (2013). The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe (3rd ed.). Edward Elgar. p. 644. ISBN9780857935373.
^"Любчо Георгиевски търси духа на Гоце Делчев" [Lyubcho Georgievski seeks the spirit of Gotse Delchev] (in Bulgarian). Standart News. 28 August 2007. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 29 August 2007. Защо се срамуваме и бягаме от факта, че всичко това, което е позитивна македонска революционна традиция, произлиза тъкмо от екзархийския дял на македонския народ. Няма да кажем някаква нова истина, ако споменем факта, че и Гоце Делчев, и Даме Груев, и Гьорче Петров, и Пере Тошев – трябва ли да редя и броя всички – са били учители на Българската екзархия в Македония. (Why are we ashamed and running away from the fact that all that is a positive Macedonian revolutionary tradition, originates precisely from the exarchate's part of the Macedonian people. We will not tell any new truth if we mention the fact that Gotse Delchev, Dame Gruev, Gyorche Petrov, and Pere Toshev - should I list and count them all - were teachers of the Bulgarian Exarchate in Macedonia.)
