MANAKI JANAKI

( photographer )

Manaki, Janaki (1878-1960), Macedonian film recorder, photographer and calio-graph. After finishing his primary school he enrolled at the Romanian high - school in Bitola and since then he started to love this city. When he completed his secondary education , Janaki was allowed to work as an educational worker. He had his first professional arrangement with the art of photography in 1898, when he opened photography studio in Janina. Manaki Brothers managed to buy an empty garden space on Sirok Sokak, after a range of negotiations in 1904. Immediately they started to build the studio, according to their own project, which allowed them constant execution of their photographic activity. In 1905 Janaki moved to Bitola and he was determined to stay there forever, where together with his brother opened their own photographic studio. In front of the authorities they registered as joint owners, unlike Janina, where it was only registered on Janaki. In that and such Bitola, Janaki started his pioneer activity. Janaki had refined sense and feeling for the pulse of the great city for extinction of the old and the birth of the new time or simply he had feeling and good ear for the history. When travelling throughout the European capitals in 1905, he sent to his brother the camera Bioskop 300 from London, which in the hands of the young enthusiasts turned into an instrument of historical value. Since that moment, the film history inwhole Balkans started. Although an artist by vocation, he was prosecuted for the activities of political nature by Turkish authorities and was arrested by the Bulgarian occupational authorities in 1916. In 1921 Janaki together with his brother opened modern cinema in Bitola and there the first show was presented in the newly opened Cinema Manaki ( so-called "summer cinema").

As he knew French well, he moved into the cultural circles. For a very short period of time, Janaki managed to promote the photographic work in Bitola, so the brothers gained customers from all ranks of Bitola's society, including the diplomats. The work of Janaki Manaki is undoubtly of invaluable contribution for our national history and culture, for Balkan people culture and history and for the cultural treasury of the world in general.