Milan Gjurčinov (b. 1928) is a retired professor at the Department of Slavonic Studies and the Department of Comparative Literature at the Blaže Koneski Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, Macedonia. Graduated in 1951 in Slavonic Studies from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, specialised in new Russian Literature at the Lomonosov University in Moscow (1957). Specialist studies in Comparative Literature at the Sorbonne University in Paris (1960 - 61). From 1965 to 1971 head of the Department of Slavonic Studies at the Faculty of Philology in Skopje and from 1980, when he founded the Department of Comparative Literature at the same faculty, its first head of department up to his retirement in 1988.

      Doctoral dissertation: "The decisive years in the life and work of A. P. Chekhov" (1960). Lectured in theory of literature, Russian literature in the 19^th and 20^th centuries and ran several courses in the field of Comparative Literature. Participated in all the International Slavistic Congresses from Prague (1968) to the most recent one in Ljubljana (2003) at which he was elected President of the International Slavistic Committee and organiser of the forthcoming (XIV) International Slavistics Congress in Macedonia. Has participated in a large number of international symposia and delivered lectures in the fuelds of Slavonic Studies and Macedonian Literature at numerous universities (Blegrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Oslo, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Rome, Naples, Oxford, Lisbon, Toronto, Washington, Chicago, Columbus - New York, Harvard, Munich, Innsbruck and Leyden).

      Milan Gjurčinov is a full member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, a member of the Mediterranean Academy in Naples, was a member of the International Association for Comparative Literature (AILC), a member of the International Association for the Study of Dostoevsky, a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society of Culture (S.E.C.). He was president of the Macedonian Writers' Association (1963), president of the Struga Poetry Evenings Festival and is one of the founder-members of the Macedonian PEN Club.

      Behind Milan Gjurčinov there stands a rich activity in the field of literary criticism, and on the scholarly and cultural planes. In the course of the past 50 years he has built up a large body of work consisting of over 650 bibliographical units, including 30 published books, monographs and anthologies. Texts of his, as well as several of his books, have been published in various European languages. More than 120 authors have written about his works in Macedonia, in the former Yugoslavia, and in France, Russia, the U.S.A., Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, etc.

      His activities have developed in three directions:
      1. As a literary critic and essayist on contemporary Macedonian literature, he was the author of the first volume of criticism and essays in Macedonian literature titled Time and Expression (1956), as well as of ten other volumes devoted to the 20^th century Macedonian literature.
      2. As a Slavonics and Russian scholar, he is the author of over 100 articles on Russian literature of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, and of five books: Chekhov on Literature (1960), Dostoevsky (1981), Pasternak (1988), Humanity's Conspirators (199?) and, most recently, Harmony in Chaos (2004) and The Young Chekhov (2004).
      3. As a scholar in comparative literature studies in Macedonia, the first head of the Department of General and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Skopje (1980) and the first president of the Society for Comparative Literature in Macedonia.

      As an interpreter of the 20^th century Macedonian literature, he is one of the best-known Macedonian literary critics who have contributed most to the recognition of contemporary Macedonian poetry and prose both at home and abroad. He was a leader of the 7-year scholarly research project title Comparative Study of Macedonian Literature and Art in the 20^th century, in which project both Macedonian and foreign scholars participated, and is currently working on two new scholarly research projects. He is the recipient of several Macedonian and foreign awards.