THE NARRATIVE PROSE OF ZIVKO CINGO IN A LITERARY AND CRITICAL CONTEXT

In this paper, a historical and comparative method was used while studying the genetic, genealogical, and poetic framework of the literary creativity of a Macedonian writera Zivko Cingo, in order to present his prose chronologically and transparently, attempting to determine the traditional roots crucial for his literary moulding. In accordance with the goal, this paper largely highlights the great contribution of Marko Cepenkov, one of the most important collectors of folk artefacts in Macedonia and, in general, Macedonian folklore and mythology, in creating a picture of the world through the stories and novels of this author. Bearing in mind the existing critical reception, without even neglecting the writer's views expressed in a small number of interviews, in the second part of the paper, the analogies between Zivko Cingo and writers of the Latin American literature of magical realistic provenance and Russian hired writers, that is, Soviet in the first place. The aesthetic valorisation of the literary values of Zivko Cingo's prose led to the comparison with the Serbian writer Miodrag Bulatovic and the Macedonian authors Blazo Koneski and Petret M. Andreevski, with the intention of determining the place, role, and significance in both the Macedonian and the wider Southern Slav literary context.