Kosta Apostolov Solev, also known in the macedonian literature as
Racin and Neven Pejko, was born on December 22, 1908, in Velese, in the
family of the poor potter Apostol Solev. He had a poor childhood, full
of work and studying. Looking at the misery of his family, early in his
life he understood the suffering of the macedonian people. That is why,
since his early ages, he hated the exploiters of the people.
Because of lack of money Racin had to stop his schooling in his second year of lower gymnasium and, with thirteen years of age, he had to lock himself in his father's pottery workshop. So, pottery became Racin's life too.
But, Kosta Racin, apart from the physical work, was still interested in his education. As a child he left an impression with his curiosity and his closeness to himself. He talked a little, but he thought a lot and he read a lot. The misery of his family and the hardships of the conquered macedonian people led him, since his childhood, to follow the path for fighting for the "brightly lightened day". He used every free moment to read, and each night he spent hours and hours studying only with candle light. That is how he managed to continue his education in his own way. He read the works of the most distinguished marxists, sociologists, and writers.
Veles, in the time between the two world wars, was one of the centers for the workers' movement in Macedonia. In that time, Racin, who was already on the side of that movement, first became a leader of the Veles branch of SKOJ, and then became a member of the illegal Communist Party of Yugoslavia. That is when his path towards becoming a poet of the suffering people was certain. He started writing about everything he felt and saw around himself. He wrote with the language and the word of the working class, with its great protest and even greater hope for the free life in the future.
In 1939, in the small town of Samobor, by Zagreb, was published, in macedonian, the most important Racin's work, the collection of poetry Beli Mugri (White Dawns). The book, although forbidden, was secretly spread among the people and had a big revolutionary impact. With this collection and his other work, the period from 1936 to 1940 is the most important and most productive period in Racin's short life.
After the capitulation of Yugoslavia in 1941, Racin was a railroad worker in Sofia, but, after the tragic death of Kole Nedelkovski, and with the Bulgarian police looking for him, he had to come back to Skopje. In Skopje he was employed in the National Library, and was living illegally. But he was arrested by the Skopje police and was taken to the village of Kornica, by Nevrokop. After he was released he joined the partisans in the fight against the Fascist occupator. So, with a gun and with a pen in his hands he practically went against the Fascists, especially after publishing the paper "Ilindenski pat". He was working as a partisan publisher and was preparing to publish a new book. But the literary and revolutionary life of Kosta Racin ended on June 13, 1943, on the mountain of Lopushnik. On that day, the road of a big macedonian poetry ended. On that day, the macedonian literature lost one of its rarely produced national son and poet.
Page maintained by Dusko Koncaliev koncadu@earlham.edu