ins, 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.
             Macedonia, therefore, exists and endures by the laws of its own historic development and the logic of its relief.
             Macedonia is a crossroads where East and West meet, a territory where European and Asian civilisations unite to create new values and an area where great and mighty empires have clashed. Attractive to the conqueror, it has been crossed by foreign armies in their devastating expeditions, but also by the creative routes which carry the contributions of the world's greatest cultural centres. At the same time it is a place of permanent encounter between the past and the present.
             Looking back, the depths of the chasm of our own past open to us, depths in which the world of reality intertwines with the world of fantastic visions.
             There is almost no nation towards which destiny has been l...