Monument of Dimitrija Chupovski (Skopje) | sculpture

 monument, sculpture

Dimitrija Čupovski
Born: November 8, 1878
Papradište (Čaška), Ottoman Empire, (now Republic of Macedonia)
Died: October 29, 1940 (aged 61)
Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Russian Federation)
Occupation: Lexicographer and philologist
Dimitrija Čupovski (Macedonian: Димитрија Чуповски) (November 8, 1878 – October 29, 1940) was a Macedonian textbook writer and lexicographer.

Early years

Dimitrija Čupovski was born in the village of Papradište (now part of Čaška Municipality) in the Ottoman Empire, (now Republic of Macedonia). Before Čupovski was born, his father had been killed by Albanian mercenaries. When he was 10 years old his village was burned, and he and his family then settled in Kruševo, the birthplace of his mother. After learning the painting trade, he and his brothers left for Sofia in search of work. In the capital of the newly established Kingdom of Bulgaria Čupovski worked during the day and visited the school organized by Dame Gruev, Petar Pop Arsov and other students.
However after that he continued his education in Belgrade and Saint Petersburg. By the replacement of the Bulgarian Exarchate bishop of Skopje, when the Serbs managed to get a Serbian bishop with the backing of the Russians in 1901-1902, he supported the Serbo-Russian side. The pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) revolutionary Hristo Shaldev, who lived during 1899 - 1903 in St. Petersburg described him also as sharing pro-Serbian and pro-Russian views. When in 1905 Čupovski tried to organize a pan-Macedonian conference in Veles, he was expelled from the town by a local pro-Bulgarian chief of IMRO Ivan Naumov Alyabaka.
He was one of the founders of the Macedonian Literary Society, established in Saint Petersburg in 1902, and served as its president from 1902 to 1917. He was also the author of a large number of articles and official documents, publisher of the printed bulletin of the Macedonian Colony, and organiser of several Macedonian associations. He wrote verse both in Russian and Macedonian. He also produced the first Macedonian-Russian dictionary, worked on a Macedonian grammar and an encyclopaedic monograph on Macedonia and the Macedonians. He also drew up an ethnic and geographical map of Macedonia.
In the period 1913-1914, Čupovski published the newspaper "Македонскi Голосъ" (Macedonian Voice) in which he and fellow members of the Petersburg Macedonian Colony promoted the existence of a separate Macedonian people which is different from the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs, and were struggling to popularize the idea for an independent Macedonian state.
Dimitrija Čupovski is considered one of the most prominent ethnic Macedonians in history and one of the most important actors of the ethnic Macedonian awakening.