MIRKA GINOVA - Synonym for folk hero 2/3

Synonym for folk hero
Mirka was the most outstanding Macedonian woman freedom fighter, organizer and leader of the Greek Civil War. She was a teacher and an outstanding fighter for national, political and cultural equality of the Macedonian people. She was the first woman to become a victim of Greek monarcho-fascism in Greece.
Mirka was born in 1916 in the village Rusilovo, Voden Region. She was not even two years old when she lost her mother to influenza.
After finishing elementary school in Katranitsa she applied to the school of home economics in the city of Voden. Later she went to Kostur and graduated as a schoolteacher. Although she enjoyed learning, Mirkas experience in school was not very pleasant.
After graduation and placing numerous applications, Mirka was unable to get a teaching job for the next six years. The reason: she was Macedonian.
Given her revolutionary family background, the Greek authorities found it very dangerous to have her as a teacher in any of the Macedonian speaking villages. Fortunately, just before the start of WW II, Mirka was finally given a teaching job in the village Kutugeri, in Voden region.
Later Mirka found a teaching job in the Macedonian-speaking village Vlkojanevo, in Voden Region. In view of the outbreak of the Greek-Italian War and later the German invasion, she felt compelled to return to her own village and together with her neighbours she joined the underground movement against the occupation.