The American School is pleased to welcome Dr. Silvana Blazevska as the first recipient of the Voislav Sanev fellowship. Funded by longtime ASCSA affiliate Professor Carolyn Snively, the fellowship honors Voislav Sanev (1938-2007) and provides a scholar from the Republic of Northern Macedonia the opportunity to use the resources of the ASCSA for archaeological research and publication.

Dr. Blazevska studied at the Sts. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, where she received her M.Phil and PhD in Classical archaeology. For the last 20 years, Blazevska has excavated at various sites in Bulgaria, Israel, and in North Macedonia. Her research focuses on the material culture and archaeology of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, a topic initiated by her work at the site of Vardarski Rid. 

After serving as a curator of the Hellenistic collection at the Museum of Macedonia, Blazevska now works as an archaeologist-senior curator at the National Institution Stobi, an independent organization under the Ministry of Culture. The institution is responsible for Stobi, a Roman and Late Antique site with grandiose public buildings--theater, library, synagogue, public baths, temples and many early Christian basilicas--lavishly decorated private residences and great finds. Blazevska’s first responsibilities with the Institution involved site management and conducting large scale excavations. Now, she curates the collection of marbles and during her time in Athens, participated in the third conference on Roman sculpture where she presented on three statues from Stobi.

While Blazevska is the first Sanev Fellow, this is not her first time at the American School. In 2004, Blazevska came to the School to work on Hellenistic pottery from Vardarski Rid for her Master’s Thesis and returned in 2014. It was in 2014 researching for her Ph.D. that she met Professor Carolyn Snively and was introduced to the Saven Fellowship. “I am very grateful to Carolyn Snively and Elisabeth Gebhard for the recommendations and to the Director of the School, Professor Jenifer Neils, for accepting the research proposal. The Blegen Library is a real treasure for scholars, especially if they come from a country where access to reference books is limited. In the past month, I was able to update my research on terracotta figurines, and the resources at the School were of huge help.”