“ … for me the festival represents true celebration that fills me up with joy and pleasure and spiritually feeds me. By everything I see I experience the hard times in the past for my beloved Macedonia. It’s beautiful; a great treasure which thanks to the festival “Ilindenski denovi” will be saved and never be forgotten or cease to exist. It’s the soul of our people. We, the Macedonian people are proud that we created such priceless treasure.”
Alekso Kotevski Alek
Macedonian immigrant in USA
Bulletin of the festival, 1980
The festival “Ilindenski denovi” is a pillar of the spiritual bonding of the Macedonian throughout the world. On the festival scene that represents a significant connection to the motherland in the past years there have been around 81 groups of Macedonian immigrants temporarily employed abroad as well as 36 groups of Macedonians from the neighboring countries, 24 groups from Pirin, Bulgaria, 8 groups from Aegen region, Greece and 4 groups from Albania.
All of them, through the preparation of their presentations, they keep the connection with their motherland and give an immense contribution in saving their identity as well as the culture and tradition of the people they belong to.
