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Image(a)nation: dance and the parapolitics of being in the Republic of Macedonia

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Image(a)nation: dance and the parapolitics of being in the Republic of Macedonia

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Content IMAGE(A)NATION: DANCE AND THE PARAPOLITICS OF BEING IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA Copyright 2005 by Gaelyn Diane Aguilar A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ANTHROPOLOGY) December 2005 Gaelyn Diane Aguilar Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. With imaginary boundaries I have outlined my fatherland I have placed milestones on all its borders and at all strategic points: on terraces, over rivers, lakes and the sea coasts where I used to sit long hours with my friends during summer nights, a glass of red wine in my hand. In market places exuberant with colour and intoxicating odours of autumnal plenty. On mountain peaks where through scattered clouds one can get a glimpse of distant domains. There where I have sown the seeds of my love, the realms of my fatherland lie. But wait a minute! What would you reduce it to in your minds?! —Blaze Koneski Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii This dissertation and the research on which it is based owe much to the generosity of various institutions and funding programs. The IREX Area Studies Development Program and the Vanja Daicova Dumas Scholarship program provided me with funding to carry out pre-dissertation research and language training. I am indebted to the Fulbright Commission for offering me an award when I needed it most. I owe special thanks both to the Department of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California for its financial and academic support over the years, and to the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at USC for entrusting me with a Graduate Research Fellowship and a Final Year Dissertation Writing Fellowship. I would be seriously remiss if I were not also to acknowledge the patient and persistent support of Rita Jones. This project has been transformed by an extraordinary circle of family, friends, and academic networks that stretches far and wide. At USC, Professor Andrei Simic has been my constant mentor, welcoming me into the field of Balkan Studies, and nurturing my intellectual growth even when doing so has meant putting all of his trust in me. Over the years, I have come to rely upon his elegant assessments of situations and people. When I returned from fieldwork in the autumn of 2001 with a cloud of confusion hanging over me, it was Andrei who reminded me that I need not lose my pleasure in the rainbow simply because I understood the laws of the refraction of light. Every graduate student should be so lucky to have such a caring advisor with whom conversation is so Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv grounded, easy, and open. I am thankful to Professor Alexander “Zandy” Moore for his patience with me when I was but a fledgling in his graduate course on ethnological theory, and for his cogent advice when I came to him wondering how to make sense of my fieldnotes. I extend my sincere gratitude to Professor Roderick McKenzie from the Department of Geography for heeding the call to duty not once, but twice, stepping in as an outside committee member for both my qualifying exams and dissertation defense. While a graduate student at USC, I had the opportunity to cross-register at the University of California, Los Angeles in order to take a couple of courses with Marta Savigliano in the department of World Arts and Cultures. Having read Marta’s Tango and the Political Economy o f Passion, I was interested in how her approach to dance scholarship could affect my own. They say that if you go through graduate school without experiencing at least once the unsettling effects of the ground shaking underneath you (or in some instances even being completely pulled out from underneath you), then you really haven’t been sufficiently challenged. I hope one day to have the opportunity to tell Marta just how much she and her seminars challenged me and opened up my world. It seems odd to acknowledge a stranger, but acknowledge her I must. Francesca Castaldi and I have never met, yet I have relied upon her intellectual force over the course of writing, picking up her dissertation of Senegalese dance from time to time when I have found myself stuck or in need of inspiration. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. V I want to thank Ionnis Manos for inviting me to present my research to his students in the Department of Balkan Studies at the University of Thessaloniki in Fiorina, Greece. I credit Lynn Maners, who “diffidently volunteered” to act as the Guest Editor for a special issue of the Anthropology o f East Europe Review on “Dance and Music in Eastern Europe,” for helping me to flesh out and publish some of my ideas. I place similar importance on Marko Zivkovic’s role in helping me to present the visual aspects of my research at the 2004 Annual SOYUZ Symposium on “Memory and the Present in Postsocialist Cultures.” My thanks to Bruce Grant, and many others at the symposium, for their feedback. I also wish to extend my gratitude to Hellen Lee and Kate Bartel for giving me the confidence to write. My fieldwork in the Republic of Macedonia would have been greatly hindered had it not been for the language training I received first at Arizona State University and then later in Macedonia. I have Ljupco Spasovski and his charisma to thank for the former; Liljana Mitkovska and my teachers at the International Seminar of Macedonian Language, Literature and Culture in Ohrid to thank for the latter. Liljana became more than a teacher; she and her husband, Blagoja, and son, Goran, were always generous with their time and their desire to include me and my family in theirs. In Arizona, Steve and Ruth Pierson deserve specially crafted halos for providing me with a home away from home while in Tempe. I also want to express my gratitude to Stephen Batalden, Professor of History at ASU and Coordinator of the university’s Russian and East European Studies Consortium. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vi The Marko Cepenkov Institute of Folklore in Skopje provided me with both academic affiliation and a spirited bevy of colleagues with whom to converse over coffee. My initial weeks in Skopje would have been far too lonely had it not been for Bone and Rodna Velickovski and Ivona Opetcevska-Tatarcevska, especially, who extended their friendship well beyond their offices and sustained me through to the end. It goes without saying that I am indebted to an entire cross-generational community of dancers, musicians, teachers, and ensemble managers throughout Macedonia. To everyone who allowed me to watch, poke around, ask questions, and join in, thank you for being gracious people and for making my research pleasurable. There are many in the Republic of Macedonia who provided sustenance; people who went out of their way to befriend my husband, Gustavo, and me, to protect us, and above all make certain that our lives were rich and rewarding in spite of what would prove to be difficult political circumstances. To Stefan Atanasov and his family, Meto Klimanov, Alen Hadzi-Stefanov, Oliver Josifovski, Elizabeta Koneska, Slavko Mangovski, Goce Naumov and his parents liv k o and Soncica, our neighbors Ratka, Bose, Ace, Ice, Blagoja and Olga, Sonni Petrovski, Bojan Rantasa, Alek Sekulovski, his family and Julia, Nora Stojanovic, Sime Stojanovski, Saso Tatarcevski, Vanco Vangel, Radmila Vis in ova, Bojan Zungulov, and many others. That I acknowledge them in a list format in no way diminishes for me the immense gratitude I feel for the ways in which they all touched my life. They are forever a part of my family. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vii Venera Novakovska, her husband Novica, and son Viktor deserve my heartfelt thanks for allowing me to roam the halls of NOVA High School and present a photography and creative writing workshop. Thanks to the students who participated with me. Maria Canavarro was a loyal friend and dance partner throughout my stay in Macedonia, introducing me to her circle of friends, taking the initiative to do research on my behalf, and filling in gaps for me by filling me in on the perspective she has gained from living in Macedonia, and indeed throughout the former Yugoslavia, for so many years. Maria’s indefatigable companionship was invaluable, and there are sections of this dissertation that could not have been written without her help. Vase Robev came to my rescue early on by providing me with dance lessons, and teaching me so many other things along the way. I regret that so few of the stories that he so graciously shared with me—and always with such humor and depth of feeling—have not made their way into my writing thus far. Toni Kitanovski came to my husband’s rescue, giving him an outlet for maintaining and, with time, enriching his career as a percussionist, composer and improviser. One of the most rewarding ways to experience another country is through the works and lives of that country’s artists. Both Gustavo and I are indebted to Toni and his wife Simonida not only for sharing their work and life with us, but allowing us to come ever so much closer to Macedonia's soul by introducing us to so many other artists. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. viii If there is a soul to this dissertation, Bojan and Maja Ivanov are inextricably a part of its essence. How do I even begin to thank two people for giving me and Gustavo so much of themselves, from the mundane to the profound, and for showing us the kind of decency of which we humans are capable when we live our lives with up-right honesty and even-handedness? I know that the next time Gustavo and I make our summer migration to Macedonia, Bojan and Maja will be there. And it will be there, perhaps on the patio alongside the cherry tree outside their home in Skopje, or maybe somewhere along the shores of Lake Ohrid, where our conversation will pick up from where we last left it. From academic networks and dear friends to kinship ties. I am blessed to have family in Macedonia—some of whom I have met just once, others who I continue to meet again and again. I want to thank all of them for making my first trip to Macedonia in 1998 an exceptionally magical one. To those in Bitola, I entrust a more expansive spectrum of gratitude for housing me, feeding me, including me in their lives, intervening on my behalf, and enveloping me with such love. Although it is hardly perfectly round, the circle I have drawn around me as yet remains incomplete. To my mother- and father-in-law, Bertha Parra Aguilar and Gustavo Alfredo Aguilar Sr., mil abrazos for your support, and my eternal gratitude for raising an exceptional son. I posthumously bestow my adoration to my maternal grandparents, Thomas Louis Thomas (Atanas Lazo Tancev) and Pauline (Para) Thomas (nee Jakimovska), Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ix for giving me the best reason to go to Macedonia in the first place. My memories of them are eternal. To my brother, Thomas Michael McCort, who allowed me to tag along when we were precocious adolescents, and who by “torturing” me as only a big brother can inadvertently taught me how to stick up for myself. My parents, Thomas Walter McCort and Diane Elaine Thomas McCort, deserve an incalculable amount of credit for helping me to become the person I am today, teaching me from an early age that experiences are infinitely more important than things, and that character and conviction trump most if not all other human attributes. It brings me immeasurable joy knowing that a part of their lives has come full circle because of the personal and professional choices I have made with my own. Finally, above and beyond, in a space where words sometimes fail to touch, I reserve my deepest gratitude for my husband, Gustavo Alfredo Aguilar Jr. I consider myself profoundly fortunate to have met a man as committed to spiriting in me the courage and resolve to go after the world as he is to encouraging the very same thing for himself. We have both acted as each other’s tugboat at various times since we first met. During this long and arduous journey of mine, as I risked being displaced out at sea with so many miles to go, Gustavo has sustained my research and writing with a constant flow of love and hope, and an abundance of thoughtful criticism and much-needed perspective that have surely been the horsepower steaming me to shore. A wise person once wrote that the reason why people marry, or become life Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. X partners, is because each of us needs a witness to our lives—someone who will take note of the details of our existence and assure us that our time on this earth has mattered. For all that Gustavo has done to be a witness to my life thus far, I dedicate this writing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. xi TABLE OF CONTENTS EPIGRAPH .....................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..........................................................................................iii LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................... xiii TRANSLITERATION GUIDELINES .......................................................................xiv ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................xv PREFACE ...................................................................................................................xvii PRELUDE: GENCEANDI .......................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: ENTERING THE DANCE (BY WAY OF THEORY AND POSITIONALITY) ........................................................................................... 12 Rings of Marginalization ..................................................................................18 Choreographing Corporealities ........................................................................36 CHAPTER 2: MACEDONIAN DANCE IN THE THEATER ................................53 Choreocritic’s Program Notes .........................................................................62 Official Program Notes .................................................................................... 64 Choreocritic’s Metanotes on the Program Notes ........................................... 66 Analyzing the Performance: Melorhythm, Fun in the Village, and the Individualism of the Majority ................................................................... 67 Back at the Theater ...........................................................................................80 CHAPTER 3: IMAGE(A)NATION ...........................................................................89 The “Macedonian Question”: Where Things Begin....................................... 96 The Modem Image of Macedonian National Consciousness ......................107 The Catachrestic Image of Macedonian National Consciousness .............. 125 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. xii CHAPTER 4: A STAGE (ACT I) ............................................................................ 143 Bodies in Transition ........................................................................................ 148 Cultural-Artistic Amateurism and the Shifting Context of Dance ............. 156 Laboring Bodies, Self-Managed Socialism, and the Dancing Class .......... 163 Tanec and the Choreography of “Brotherhood and Unity” ..........................173 The Public Image of “Macedonian Dance” .................................................182 CHAPTER 5: A VILLAGE .......................................................................................198 In Search of a Sobor, October 21,2000 ........................................................200 CHAPTER 6: A STAGE (ACT II) ...........................................................................233 Scene One: A Call to Dance ..........................................................................233 Ilinden III: “The question of whether to be or not!” .................................... 238 Learning to Limp ............................................................................................244 The Economics of Cultural Survival ............................................................ 252 Scene Two: A Scene from the Scrimmage ...................................................263 Reproducing the State: Cultural Revival, “National Culture,” Cultural Hegemony? ...................................................................................... 269 INTERLUDE: LINER NOTES FOR NEGOTIATING FREED O M ..................... 285 CHAPTER 7: A WEDDING .................................................................................... 301 The Polemics of Nostalgia ............................................................................. 301 CHAPTER 8: EXITING THE DANCE....................................................................336 Through Whose Eyes? ................................................................................... 348 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... 366 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. xiii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: Political map of Eastern Europe, 2001 ...................................................xx FIGURE 2: Detailed map of the Republic of Macedonia ....................................... xxi FIGURE 3: A neighborhood fixture ........................................................................... 11 FIGURE 4: The beautiful waters of Lake Ohrid .......................................................52 FIGURE 5: A gathering of young .............................................................................. 88 FIGURE 6: Apex of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, mid- 16th century .................. 99 FIGURE 7: The Balkans, 1878-1885 ....................................................................... 101 FIGURE 8: The “Macedonian Question” .................................................................102 FIGURE 9: And old in Skopje’s main square on Forgiveness Sunday ................. 142 FIGURE 10: A friend captured in a moment of joy ................................................197 FIGURE 11: Another one showing off his juggling skills .....................................232 FIGURE 12: A sister betrays her little brother’s hiding spot behind the flag of a foreign NGO .................................................................................. 284 FIGURE 13: Villagers gathered at a folk festival ...................................................300 FIGURE 14: Young Explorer Scouts hoping to win a rafting competition ..........335 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TRANSLITERATION GUIDELINES The transliteration of Macedonian names and terms (from the original Cyrillic) uses the following letters pronounced as indicated below: Transliteration A, a B, b C,c e ,c D ,d Dz, dz Dz, dz E,e F, f G ,g g H, h I,i J J K, k K, k L, 1 Lj,lj M, m N, n Nj,nj O, o P,P R, r S, s S ,s T, t U ,u V, v Z, z t z Pronunciation car bed hats chalk day stands jump ten few get angular loch feet young key accurate let million met not onion form pen red set shop top boot view zero pleasure Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. X V ABSTRACT This dissertation seeks to follow and disentangle the entanglement of Macedonian national and ethnic forms of identification with the “folk” dance produced and practiced by the Republic of Macedonia’s population of ethnic Macedonians. Through an analysis of the “Macedonian Question” and its critique by Macedonian intellectuals, I offer a framework within which to situate the performance of “identity,” both by the Republic of Macedonia’s State ensemble, Tanec, as well as amateur folkloric groups, within broader discussions of legitimacy and sovereignty, ideology and experience, tradition and modernity, and local and transnational/diasporic e/motions. I argue that the nation/ethnic-centered dance presentations performed by Macedonian dance ensembles labor to legitimize the enduring existence of Macedonians. Furthermore, from a national perspective, the work of Tanec fulfills the Republic of Macedonia’s vision of itself as the titular nation of the Macedonian people. I thus rely upon a conversation of images to provide an interpretive framework for my analysis of Macedonian dance and Macedonian national consciousness. From the stage of the theater, to the communal spaces of rehearsal studios, villages, and weddings, I offer an interrogation of those images choreographed by the Macedonian nation-state, and those fostered and acted upon by the kinesthetic experience of local and transnational/diasporic selves. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This writing also seeks to remain attentive and amenable to ethnographic and discursive explorations that probe and problematize bodies of knowledge surrounding the Republic of Macedonia as a field site and Macedonian dance as a subject matter. As such, this dissertation is conceived as a launching ground for encouraging explorations, interpretations, and written representations of East European folk dance practices, particularly those pertaining to the former Yugoslav republics, that are relevant to and coterminous with the sights, sounds, and bodies we encounter “out there,” and then seek to describe with some degree of resonance in our work “back here.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE xvii The fieldwork on which this dissertation is based was carried out in the (Former Yugoslav) Republic of Macedonia (also referred to as Macedonia, see FIGURE 1 below) over the course of four separate research trips: August 1998, June through September 1999, September 2000 through July 2001, and August 2002. During my primary fieldwork stay in 2000 and 2001, although I traveled around Macedonia quite extensively (especially early on), Skopje (the capital city of the republic) was my place of residence and the main site of engagement with my ethnographic project. Prior to that 11-month stay, I spent a significant period of time in Bitola, Ohrid, and Prilep. It is my hope that the detailed map accompanying this preface (see FIGURE 2) will help the reader situate these and the many other place names mentioned throughout this dissertation. My doctoral committee, perhaps concerned about the heavy presence of self in the narrative of this ethnography (a narrative that is recognizably unconventional by dissertation standards), has asked that I say a word or two about the venerable tradition of reflexivity in anthropology. Reflexivity—the self-conscious act of referring back to the self—is hardly a novel mode of ethnographic representation in anthropological circles, and one wonders, what more can be said about it that the likes of such luminaries as James Clifford, Vincent Crapanzano, Johannes Fabian, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. xviii Michael Fischer, Clifford Geertz, George Marcus, Paul Rabinow, Paul Ricouer, Renato Rosaldo, Jay Ruby, and many others haven’t already said?1 I do agree with Paul Rabinow who, in borrowing a slogan from Paul Ricouer, once wrote that ethnography is “the comprehension of the self by detour of the other” (cf. Geertz 1988:92). Furthermore, I do consider myself to have been profoundly influenced by Ruth Behar’s, The Vulnerable Observer (1996), a book in which, by weaving ethnography and memoir, Behar touches upon the importance of revealing ‘the self who observes.’2 If my dissertation is reflexive, however, such reflexivity has less to do with my self-consciously trying to be conscious about that self-consciousness, and more to do with the nature of both doing dance research and writing about the body responsibly. In short, the nature of doing dance research is that the ethnographer is often also a practitioner of the dance genre under study, thus the ethnographer becomes her own informant—and a good one at that, since presumably she already has excellent rapport with herself. The nature of writing about the body responsibly warrants a bit more explanation since writing responsibly involves a myriad of things: getting close to objects so as to capture in a sensuous way the forms, bodies, and experiences one is trying to convey; reproducing the particular dance genre, in writing, with words and phrases that do not rely upon standard explanations; and creating a 1 A good source on this subject is George Marcus’ “Reflexivity in Anthropology,” in the International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2001. 2 Behar’s approach draws upon a kind of ethnographic empathy reflected in the work of predecessors such as Barbara Myerhoff (1979). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. xix choreographic form of writing and reading that provokes alertness in both the ethnographer and the reader. Writing about the body responsibly, however, also entails being explicit about the body of the ethnographer. Subsequently, throughout this dissertation, I have tried to be explicit about my body. I have tried, that is, to position myself consciously and to address, if I may borrow Lila Abu-Lughod’s wording (1991:148), what my “ ‘will to knowledge’ about the Other is connected to in the world.” I trust that the reader is a patient one, someone who will stay with me to the end of this ethnography, and (I hope) appreciate the connections that I make between myself and my work, or at least empathize with why I have had no choice but to make them. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. X X ^ 1 - ,_ L A T V I A / N _ R U S S | A i l l A ' V GERMANY ; L IT H U A N IA ' . ro " A Vilnius ( RUSSIA ; * / " , > ' • L . s Minsk t \ BELARUS Warsaw POLAND v Prague r e p u b l i c „ T ' SLO V A K IA f Bratislava - v.- ■ Vienna s. ^A U S T R IA ' ----- A , B u d a p e st^ * - v . - _____ •< V r - “ t _ _ j < \ -L UKRAINE Kiev i U N G A R Y / * SLO V EN IA /- - v / / 4 Ljubljana, ^*ZagrebV A - ' " V 1 V V-_ ^ ITALY , ROMANIA Bucharest fs_ Sarajevc^ \ CV l t Belgrade 'v , V ' ’ * S E R B I A % <- ; -^'YUGOSLAVIA \ ^ ■ 3 > L M ONTENEGRO | ° ,ia n A I r r * *S kopje\ k^.J/V.*£^A C E D 0 N I A £ B U LG AR IA 8*V ^ Istanbul TU R K E Y FIGURE 1: Political map of Eastern Europe, 2001 Source: Hupchik and Cox (2001) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. xxi SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO Kumanovo Kriva Palanka Skopje Tearce Tetovo Katlanovo Sveti Nikole Stip Gostivar Veles •Galicnik Kicevo • Debar Strumica Krusevo Kavardarci Prilep Lake Dojran Gevgelijs Ohrid i Lake O hrid Bitola Lake GREECE ,Prespa\ Fiorina ALBANIA BULGARIA FIGURE 2: Detailed map of the Republic of Macedonia Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 PRELUDE: GENCE AND I November 24,1999 Los Angeles Flashback to: July 11, 1999, Galicnik, Republic o f Macedonia The female members of the Sarievski family are coaxing me to put on one of their village costumes. I am like an American doll, and they want so much to dress me up. I resist as long as I can of course. But out of obligation to my hosts, I succumb to the five layers of itchy sheep wool. I sense a glimpse of my friend Gence who is being redressed as well. This is our second trip to Macedonia—Gence and I. We have come this time so as to witness the Galicnik Wedding, a two-day recreation and enactment of a “traditional” week-long Galicnik village wedding. The celebration started yesterday; we came even earlier so as to spend time in the home of the Sarievski family, talking about what the village and the older wedding were like in the past. Many decades before, when Galicnik was robust and prosperous, and villagers had no choice but to ride out the harsh winter months in their mountain homes, the week-long wedding celebration signaled the arrival of St.Peter's Day (July 12) and the happy return of the pecalbari, those who had migrated away from Galicnik in pursuit of work. During this era, every engaged couple from Galicnik waited patiently for the second week in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 July, and when that week arrived, sorrow and grief—so much the hallmark of pecalbari life—were briefly exchanged for more rapturous emotions. Families were reunited; all of the numerous weddings were celebrated simultaneously with music, song, and dance, as celebratory gunshots echoed off the mountain precipices into the valleys below. This year’s celebration is now over. And here we are, back in the Sarievski home, dressed up in 100-year-old clothing with 100-year-old sweat stains around the armpit areas. “Never again will you dream about being a shepherd’s wife, eh, Gence?” I joke. Gence smiles out from under her sparkling eyes. It is a look I know. A look of longing. And even as she converses with family members around her, I am certain that Gence is imagining herself as a tum-of-the-century Macedonian village girl, flirting with a young man as she dances at the wedding celebration, walking along some foot path, on the alert lest wild bandits take her far away from the crags and cliffs of her beautiful mountain home. November 26, 1999 Los Angeles Gence has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. She is the grandchild of a way of life lived in a distant space called Macedonia—a way of life that was frozen in time, packed onto a ship with an arduous 7,000-mile journey before it, and then set free to survive in a space called America. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 I like Gence. I can hardly imagine my life before her. She and I often muse about why people like her grandparents would cross a vast ocean so as to emigrate from Point A to Point B. A person may be fleeing a political situation in which their personal sovereignty has been threatened and perhaps there is some fear of imprisonment or death. Sometimes, economic hardships are just too much to endure, so a change must come, newer opportunities must present themselves. And sometimes, the motivation behind uprooting oneself and family is merely to cure a soul that has been inflicted with a restlessness to see and do new things. No matter the motivation, origin of country, or destination, the experience for those who emigrate seems to be one potentially infused with joy, trepidation, sadness, or some odd mixture of all three. One day, everything is where it should be. The next day, even the stars above are out of alignment. Such is the kind of separation that gives birth to a longing deep enough to permanently color the emigrant’s disposition before then passing on, to the children and grandchildren raised in the new country, a sentimentality and nostalgia for an imagined place and time. By the time Gence and I made our first trip to Macedonia in 1998, it had been over 70 years since her grandparents had left, bound for Youngstown and Akron, Ohio. Seventy years is an awfully long time for sentimentality and nostalgia to brew. I have been paying more and more attention to Gence ever since deciding to do research on folk dance in Macedonia. In fact, Gence is my will to knowledge. She too shares an interest in Macedonian dance, but can not imagine why anyone Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 would want to write about it when doing it, in her opinion, is infinitely more exhilarating and meaningful. Ironically, I have called upon Gence to embark on a writing experiment. She consents, albeit hesitatingly. November 27,1999 Los Angeles Early morning. I am not quite alert. But Gence is. She is shuffling through a file cabinet, sitting amongst every research paper I have written since starting graduate school: Oscar Lewis: Family Studies, the Culture o f Poverty, and Ethnographic Realism; Cultural Translation: A Comparative Analysis o f 'The Gods Must be Crazy' and ‘ N!ai: The Story o f a \Kung Woman All the World’ s a Stage: a four-part conversation featuring Jorge Preloran and Gaelyn Aguilar; Three Women o f Ventura County; Material Forces and Exotic Cultural Logic in South Korea; Iconography in Time; The Poetic Nature o f Anthropology; Some Theoretical Considerations; A History o f the Construction o f Macedonian National Identity. What a mess that last one was to write. I decide to leave Gence alone for awhile. She picks up one last paper Culture, Macedonian Folk Dance, and Ethnic Identity, flips to page thirteen, and begins to read: Not much is known about Macedonian folk dances in past times. Fourteenth Century frescoes depicting closed-circle dances have been found in Lesnovo, Macedonia. Perhaps if we were to comb through folk poetry or travel reports from ancient times we Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 might find dance mentioned (Jankovic and Jankovic 1964:7). Systematic research on dance in Macedonia did not commence until the early 1930s when the Yugoslav sisters, Ljubica and Danica Jankovic, began collecting and cataloguing the dance traditions of Bosnia- Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Placed in the greater European context, Macedonian folk dances belong to the oldest stratum of traditional linked-chain dances (Giurchescu 1995:270). These group dances were prominent in Europe until the 15th Century when couple dances appeared on the scene. While couple dances found their way into parts of Eastern Europe, it was the linked-chain dance, with its emphasis on community, that persisted in Southeastern Europe. Giurchescu credits Turkish occupation of the Balkan Peninsula for isolating the region from the disintegration of the communal dance form, which eventually occurred in other parts of Europe (ibid.:269). Placed in the context of Southeastern Europe, Macedonian dances (referred to in the singular as oro) bear resemblance to the kolo and horo dances of Serbia and Bulgaria. There are similar choreographic schemes in terms of direction of movement, and the number and kinds of steps. Many of the dances from these countries are performed to similar melodies and even share common names. Ultimately however, the style of any dance tradition is affected by what the Jankovic sisters refer to as “the spirit and character of the people themselves” (Jankovic and Jankovic 1934:29). This spirit and character are shaped by any number of factors: geography, topography, climate, history, and social, economic and political conditions. The following passage, while dated, beautifully conveys the relationship between external influences on the human spirit and character, and dance style. [P]eople from formerly backward regions, who had to leave their homes to seek work elsewhere, use the pecalbari style, heavy and expressive of homesickness, until in the urge to dance they gradually shake it off, working up to the joyful climax; while in contrast the peasant farmers, who know nothing of this nostalgia, pass more quickly into gaiety. The Skopje region excels in this high-spirited, almost flighty manner of dancing. Around Kicevo the ‘cifcije,’ workers on the one time feudal estates, have a style recalling past obligatory subservience to Turkish masters. But the clenched fist held behind his back by the kolo [dance] leader are Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 symbolic of the ever-present resistance, and since the expulsion of the Turkish masters the people of Kicevo have held themselves ever more and more erect in the dance. (Jankovic and Jankovic 1964:8) By and large, participatory Macedonian folk dances are performed in a ring, with movement circling counter-clockwise. Often one enters the dance according to prescriptions of age, gender, or marital status. Traditionally, the leader of an oro was generally the most gifted male dancer. He gave either vocal or movement cues to signal changes in the dance. The shape of the ring was kept in check by the placement of another good dancer at the end of the chain. Even today, an oro usually unfolds in sections: the beginning is marked by a slow, gentle motion that eventually gives rise to the quick, more “animated” rhythmic movement of the middle and end sections. There are men’s dances, women’s dances, and dances that embrace both genders. The ideal stature of one’s body is “upright” and “proud.” Dancers connect themselves to one another by holding on to their neighbor’s belt strap, waist, or shoulder, or by joining hands at the side. Knees are kept soft and bear the brunt of one’s weight and balance. Male dances are distinguished by so-called heavy, slow movement, high leg lifts, and deep knee bends all calling for an extraordinary level of concentration, and vigorous, twirling syncopated steps demanding a great deal of stamina. Female dancers execute much lower leg lifts than do the men; and although their feet may be tied up in fast, complicated rhythm, women are characteristically more reserved in their movements. The individual dance steps themselves are often quite simple. There are front and back crossing steps, and closing steps where one’s foot is brought rather quickly beside the other, very often on an ‘and’ off-beat. The simplicity of many of the dance steps belies the fact that embellishments are tolerated, even expected, especially from the male dance leader. The reader may recall Alice Singer’s observation that the competency of a dancer in the Balkans is judged in large part by the extent to which the dancer improvises within a set of constraints (Singer 1974:380). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 Macedonian folk dances are performed to instrumental accompaniment. Traditional instruments include the zurla (conical-shaped, double-reed horn), gajda (bagpipe), and tapan (cylindrical, double-headed wooden drum). More recent additions to instrumentation include the clarinet, violin, accordion, and brass. While in many parts of former Yugoslavia the dancing follows the music, at times the opposite holds true in Macedonia and southern Serbia. Often, however, the dance phrase and the musical phrase do not match at all; rhythm then “becomes the important unifying element” (Dunin 1984:26). In less modem times, organized dance gatherings were the only socially acceptable context in which young men and women could come together for courtship purposes. Ora (the plural form of oro) provided the opportunity for girls to flirt, albeit respectfully, and prove their stamina and good health. Similarly, boys could show off their “moves,” and subtly communicate through motion which girl held his fancy. These kinds of village dances are a part of Macedonia’s living tradition. The sobor (festive gathering) brings community members together to eat, drink, sing, and dance as expressions of joy and social cohesion (Rice 1980:114). The structure of the sobor includes morning prayer by the women; the afternoon is set aside for secular festivities. The women and elderly men begin, performing ora suitable for their gender and age. Eventually the working men return home to the village and join in. As soon as the youth arrive on the scene, however, the atmosphere of the dance changes. Their youthful style of dancing is “as radical a departure” from the style of the older generation as could be imagined (ibid.: 125). Through the use of “ad hoc choreographic patterns and variant steps having little or no relation to traditional forms,” these young people perform with a style which, Tim Rice observes, “seems to reflect not only youthful exuberance and energy, but new values in dance performance fostered by government-sponsored amateur folklore ensembles that flourish in schools, factories, and as social clubs” (ibid.). The phenomena to which Rice alludes—presentational folk dance—is where we t . . . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 My words startle Gence. She shifts her body uncomfortably to match the discomfort she feels. She knows where my words are about to take her, and I know just how much Gence dislikes it—that “presentational style of folk dancing.” With its concern for an audience, sense of theatrics and aesthetics, and choreography motivated by individual artistic choices, that kind of dance is a real bore to a person like Gence, whose spirits become fluttered with such unfettered happiness as she is called to dance by the sound of a clarinet trilling the first few notes of an oro. On our trips to Macedonia, we have had many opportunities to see staged presentations of dance. Yet, on these occasions, Gence disappears. I have no idea where she goes; all I know is that she is not with me. Gence wonders why I pay heed to this kind of dancing. I remind her about the importance of doing responsible research. I try to tell her that tradition is not an object. It is a process that encourages human ingenuity to reformulate and reconfigure the past in ways that are meaningful for the present. Times have changed in Macedonia. The dances have changed. Presentational dancing is the new tradition. Gence is not convinced. I want so much to make connections for her; to explain the effects of modes of domination on folk traditions. We go downstairs instead. And even before the table is set and breakfast is served, Gence has seduced me into dancing Ratevka Oro—an old village dance from the north. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 November 28,1999 Los Angeles Flashback to: October 30, 1999, Los Angeles Today I have given Gence the task of writing a description of “Teskoto,” an exclusively male dance from the western region of Macedonia. I know how skeptical she is of the importance of capturing a dance in writing, but I urge her on anyway, curious not only as to how she will approach the task, but what the description will read and feel like when she is done. I give her paper, pen, and video footage of the dance being done by a group of men at this past summer’s celebration of the Galicnik Wedding. Gence pops the video into the VCR, and watches the seven-minute dance all the way through. It is not enough, so she watches it again, and again. And again. And then she begins to scribble notes, watching the dance now in shorter sequences. She goes to the table and, with clean sheets of paper before her, begins to write. It takes... ten... minutes... to craft.. .just... one... sentence. After an hour she reads out loud what she has written so far. She moans, shakes her head, returns to the video, and then sits back down at the table to write again. I catch her doing sequences of the dance herself, as if internalizing the movements will help her to describe the dance. She stops and starts, and moans some more. Wads of paper begin to accumulate beneath her feet. She cups her brow in her left hand, pen in right, staring at the scribble before her. She holds this pose for at least half an hour. (This Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 sequence of movements is repeated several times throughout the two-day writing process). Hours pass. It is getting late. We leave well enough alone. The next morning my thoughts are a bit blurry, but Gence is already at work. In fact, she’s a bit hot and sweaty. Probably Ibraim Odza again. She’s been dancing that one a lot lately. I catch a glimpse at the images she is evoking in her writing: The sheer unity with which the men executed these moves made the dance look and feel like a heavy, languid sigh; Such exertion, yet such control and poise; Men rising, and men falling, with such anticipation; Nimble and with nerves alive... Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11 FIGURE 3: A neighborhood fixture Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 CHAPTER 1: ENTERING THE DANCE (by way of theory and positionality) When the call to dance comes, you have no choice but to submit. Even if it is noX you there—in the circle—you can not remain indifferent. The dance beckons. With anticipation you wait for it to happen. And it does, almost immediately. That moment when memory’s leash yanks at your mind and floods your being with things that just can’t quite be explained. You are at once filled with unfettered happiness and a longing that aches. Macedonian dance is sometimes calm and slow, sometimes quick and sure footed, and sometimes both. It is light on its feet, proud in its posture. Nimble, with nerves alive. There is a hesitation to it. Macedonian dance moves with a limp—a sigh that seems to gesture that there is more to the story than what meets the eye. I am caught somewhere between the struggle to build cohesiveness, and the tricks I want to play to unravel it. I reach forwardfor firm ground, but leave the hesitation in place. The dance (about which) I write dances particular tales, and in its movement and form—and through the very act of doing and witnessing it—reinforces those tales. Yet, Macedonian dance is not an example. It is the main ingredient,1 a particularly apt metaphor for what it means and feels like to be part of a community. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 The very act of grasping hands to begin a dance signifies that one is committed to something larger than oneself. I humbly stake out a textual “ I, ” writing my body into a body o f histories, knowing that there is never just one interpretation, but hoping that the one I have chosen is a responsible one} From the legends of travel writers during the Middle Ages comes the warning: When you walk through Bosnia, do not sing! You will be out-sung. When you walk through Serbia, do not dance! You will be out-danced. When you walk through Macedonia, do not sing nor play nor dance! You will be out-sung, out-played, out-danced.3 Many Macedonians proudly conceive of their folklore as their patrimony—a treasure to be cherished, preserved, and passed along to the next generation. Dance gives the folk tripartite of song, music, and dance its motion of swirling bodies laboring with controlled abandon to write themselves into being. For being means having. Having a say in what stories you tell, having a place to tell them, and someone to tell them to. If only it were that simple. To start from this moment instead of the one(s) frozen inside all of those images that we have of ourselves and others. To rid ourselves of worn-out metaphors that just don’t seem to be working for us anymore. To take responsibility for the “I” in the “we.” To recognize difference without being so different that we lose our capacity to feel together. This is the movement I am trying to perfect. Don’t we all know what it is like to persevere and have hope, but fear that we are really just locked into some kind of dance that keeps choreographing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 itself right back to where it started? Or worse yet to some point before? Two steps forward, three steps back. It’s hard to progress this way. This dissertation is an “extended ethnographic essay” (Limon 1994) that seeks to contribute to the historical account of dance in the Republic of Macedonia by probing and problematizing commonly-held conceptions and paradigms surrounding the production and practice of dance by the country’s majority population of ethnic Macedonians. Some of these conceptions and paradigms will be upheld. For instance, the legs of this work will stand on the assumption that in the parlance of North American academic anthropology “Macedonian dance” or “dance in the Republic of Macedonia” operate as glosses for dance of the “folk” variety.4 For another, I will argue that the performance of Macedonian dance marks and foregrounds an essentialized Macedonian “ethnic identity,” especially when folklorized and presented on stage. Furthermore, I will assert that, in such a context, Macedonian dance fulfills the Republic of Macedonia’s vision of itself as the titular nation of the Macedonian people. Yet, even as I embrace these glosses, conceptions, and paradigms, I will simultaneously reach for ways to choreograph through them; that is, I will reach for ways: to resist habituses of conventional associations that incarcerate people in time and space, to borrow Appadurai’s imagery (cf. Abu-Lughod 1991:146); to interpolate new thoughts and ideas into a region of the world much too encumbered by parapolitics—Keith Brown’s term for “the realm in which state and non-state Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 actors compete to define the relationships between culture, politics and identity [often in ways that languish in the rhetoric of the past] and thus invest symbols with material consequence.. . (Brown 2000:123); and to expand the very locus of our investigations into territories where monikers such as “Macedonian dance” or “dance in the Republic of Macedonia” evoke polykinetic images and interpretations. In pursuit of these goals, I will, for example, argue and assert that in as much as ethnicity is “an antidote to alienation” (Cohen 1993:255), so too is Macedonian dance a coping mechanism: it guards against isolation; it provides sensuous ways of being that link generations of Macedonians to themselves and each other. I will try to build an appreciation for why Macedonians might be inclined to turn to their dance as a way to legitimize their existence. I will try to show how through dance education and involvement in dance ensembles, “the past... keeps time with the present” (Brown 2000:38) as the dance community struggles to choreograph for itself a meaningful connection to the world. In my effort to historicize “Macedonian identity,” I will hardly refer to such a phrase at all. Instead, I will choose to write about communities of identification, or better yet, I will write about being. ‘Being’ might very well be paradigmatic for “identity.” Yet, I will take the position that Jacqueline Stevens does when she writes about how the use of ‘being’ “disrupts the commonplace intuition... that a person might or might not have a particular ‘identity’ as one might or might not have an overcoat” (1999:xiii). ‘Being’ (de)naturalizes and (de)stabilizes “identity,” but more importantly it “connotes the dialects of various tensions within the self Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 consciousness of an age, a political society, or an individual.” It provides a sense of movement “between one’s certainty of a thing and its elusiveness to being named, between self-consciousness as to the ways categories may fail us and the awareness of them as still useful....” (ibid.).5 This dissertation will rely upon this kind of movement. It will be a “double sided project”: “historical and metacritical” (Miller 1988:77). I will be dialogic too: nostalgic and pragmatic, contradictory and unequivocal, hopeful and cynical. I will relish essentialism and also try to transcend it (Cooper-Albright 1997). Yet, I will always be empathetic. Images will be my Muse: “real” images such as photographs or the things that one observes; but “intangible” images too. The kind that collect in the brain, or at least in that part of the brain where experience is catalogued and memory is stored for later retrieval. Relying upon images and movement, I will do the things I have said I will do, and I will write the way that I am writing not because I have surrendered to some penchant in the academy for novelty and innovation, or to what Iro Valaskakis Tembeck refers to as a wish to be “ravished by the shock of the new” (cf. Doolittle and Flynn 2000:viii), but because I see an injury... and an opportunity.6 But I have gotten ahead of myself, allowed the dance to take off too quickly. This dissertation is conceived as two interlocking sets of dialogisms: a preoccupation with visual culture, and the images/representational practices suggested by the conceptual space of Macedonian dance as a subject matter and the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 Republic of Macedonia as a field site; and the impetus to move scholarship on Macedonian dance out from where it typically has been situated (dance ethnology/folklore) and into the methodological and theoretical sphere of dance studies. Yet, in conceiving of these interlocking dialogisms, I see in fact several interlocking rings of marginalization (Shay 2002): the marginalization of dance and of my specific choice of Macedonian folk dance as relevant or viable topics of research; the marginalization of urban-based folk dance ensembles (a nexus of my research) vis-a-vis these ensembles being either dismissed entirely and/or framed (epistemologically frozen, that is) as examples of something else; the marginalization of the Balkans in general, and the former Yugoslavia in particular, to a narrowly- defined range of images and issues largely decided upon by the posturing of outside observers, but also cultivated by actors on the inside; and the marginalization of the Republic of Macedonia within an already marginalized geopolitical space. It is to uncovering these rings of marginalization, addressing and (re)dressing them, that this extended ethnographic essay, the tone of its commentary, and the purpose of its critique are largely dedicated. By way of an introduction, I start on the perimeter and burrow my way into the heart of several key observations that will carry us into my ethnographic project. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 Rings of Marginalization North-American anthropologists have tended to neglect a performing practice such as dance, or at least treat it as what Jane Cowan refers to as the “icing on the cake of the harder structural realities” (1990:5). Historically, dance was relegated to a category of cultural frivolity, albeit a frivolity replete with beautiful sights and sounds, and bodies in motion that surely captured the imagination of the iconic Participant/Observer. If anthropologists studied dance, it was as a repose from observing and documenting the structural realities of culture, to which dance seemingly had no relevance. On the North-American continent, dance first piqued the interest of “scholar- gentlemen” for whom the study of dance was part of their more expansive fascination with “ popular antiquities,” later renamed ‘folklore’ in 1846 (Wilson 1986:21). What began as “the leisure-time activity” of gentlemen “intrigued by the quaint body of customs, manners, and oral traditions” (ibid.) of “primitives” (the peoples of Africa and of other parts of the western hemisphere) and “peasants” (the peoples populating the European continent), translated into an object of study for evolutionary anthropologists intent on mapping out societies along a continuum from primitiveness to the most-advanced civilization. Dance, though recognized as an essential activity by the likes of Tylor or Morgan, clearly was viewed exclusively as the essential activity of “lower” societies, sure to be abandoned “as a form of exercise not befitting civilized man” (Royce 1977:20-21) if and when those societies progressed through the stages of the evolutionary schema. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 As the dogma of evolutionary anthropology loosened its grip on nineteenth- century thought, cultural relativism emerged as its critique and as the foundational tenet of American cultural anthropology. Within an epistemological climate that now viewed human behavior as culturally determined, and that increasingly encouraged anthropologists to free themselves of invidious value judgments, and to strive toward understanding culturally-held beliefs and practices in light of the particular culture in which they were found, the study of dance faired somewhat better. It was reasoned that if members of a particular culture placed emphasis on their dance practices, so too should the anthropologist intent on studying them. This perhaps explains Franz Boas’ interest in re-enacting Kwakiutl dances, even if only to document and study them as cultural artifacts of a vanishing way of life. This also perhaps explains the ethnographic focus of Boas’ student, Margaret Mead, who ventured beyond the culture-trait approach of her teacher to establish a connection between dance and patterns of culture. Like her contemporary, Ruth Benedict, Mead understood that no segment of society escaped from being the object-ee or subject-or of influence. That is to say, nothing was so immaterial that it should fall off anthropology’s radar screen. Even dance—something so innocuously perceived as irrelevant—was connected to the world, and could illuminate (often better than a kinship chart) how a person viewed his or her cultural universe. Nevertheless, and still even then, anthropologists often spoke of the “difficulty of observing and collecting, analyzing and storing” dance (Royce 1977:38). Dance Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 remained by and large “shrouded in mystery,” and relegated to “the category of esoterica.” The aftermath of the Second World War gave reason to pause, as cultural anthropologists re-evaluated their traditional emphasis on small, isolated, “non complex” societies. At home, field sites once considered outside of anthropology’s proprietary sphere opened up as the conventional division of North-American sociology (the study of the West) and North-American anthropology (the study of the rest) dissolved. “Out there,” where anthropology’s “the rest” resided, the effects of post-war urbanization and industrialization—really, the overall effect of world wide encounters with the global forces of modernity—challenged anthropologists to expand their purview, and develop problem-oriented methodologies that could address issues of rural-urban migration, urbanism, social change, ethnicity, nationalism, and (later) the politics of culture and identity. These were no longer the “natives” of Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, Mead, or Levi-Strauss, but communities of people embedded in new and emerging nation-states, and often with hostile attitudes toward North American and Euro-Atlantic anthropologists. In response to this explosion of new field sites, theoretical concerns, and methods of investigation, dance took on an added significance, in large part because the use of dance in plural societies was perceived as being more complex than in “homogenous” societies. In more “complex” societies, dance could be placed within and juxtaposed against the meatier realities of urbanization, industrialization, and globalization. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 Turning to the present, the idea of “writing dancing into history” is no longer considered “revolutionary” (Doolittle and Flynn 2000:xix) thanks in no small measure to the groundbreaking work of scholars, practitioners, and the more recent category of scholar/practitioner, and the networks they have spun within the increasingly interdisciplinary fields of dance/performance/cultural studies. Yet, despite the growing status of research in dance theory and history (research that has been bolstered by the legitimizing presence of graduate programs in dance studies), despite the concomitant forging of subject-based (read dance) rather than discipline- based (read anthropology) networks, and despite the growth of literature that expands our awareness of the analytical departure points from which one can enter the dance,7 experience and grapple with its complexities, and then re-emerge with a greater understanding of specific spatial and temporal corporealities, the reception can be chilly for those within the field of anthropology transfixed on studying dance. The climate can be especially cool for those whose movement research does not readily foreground, highlight, or placate the current trends and concepts that often fuel the academic machinery and define the political-economy of foreign interest with respects to the country or region under consideration. To which ring of marginalization do I mean for my accusation to refer? My engagement with images warrants mentioning, however cursory, Said’s Orientalism (1978) for its role in the fecundation of the academic field known as imagology, which Maria Todorova (1997:7) defines as “the discipline that deals with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 literary images of the other,” but which I expand to define as the cross-disciplinary study of the representation of otherness. Said was, to my knowledge, the first scholar to make us aware, in no uncertain terms, of Orientalism as an academic designation, as a “style of thought,” and as a “trafficking” between the two for the purpose of “dealing with” the Orient “by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said 1978:2-3). Although she argues against viewing her work on Balkanism as the structural equivalent to Said’s Orientalism, Todorova has done for the Balkans what Said did for the Orient: raise the specter of a Balkan ontology. At one time, the Balkans referred almost exclusively to the landmass that fans upward from the southern tip of the Greek mainland, west to the head of the Adriatic, and east to the northwest comer of the Black Sea. The name itself (although a Turkish word) comes from a mountain range in Bulgaria. Over time, however, the Balkans also have become a concept, bom of the region’s reputation for division and fragmentation. Any good dictionary carries a definition of the verb ‘to balkanize’: for example ‘to break up (as a region) into smaller and often hostile units.’8 Todorova (1997:7) writes of the Balkans as “a geographical appellation... transformed into one of the most powerful pejorative designations in history, international relations, political science, and, nowadays, general intellectual discourse.”9 The Balkans have come to evoke the frozen image of a ‘shatter belt’; a zone of chronic political splintering and fracturing; a region of tribal, backward Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 inhabitants— “ Homo balkanicus,” Todorova proffers tongue-in-cheek (ibid.: 39)—who “do not care to conform to the standards of behavior devised as normative by and for the civilized world” (ibid.:3). The secessionist wars of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s were just further proof of what we already knew: that “conflict and division.. .is the normal mode of existence” in the region (Gallagher 1997:69); that the Balkans are a “cauldron of ancient ethnic hatreds” (quote attributed to Warren Christopher, cited in Turton 1997:33); and that it is “perfectly normal for people of different religions to murder each other—if they happen to live in the Balkans” (ibid.).1 0 Subsequently, one does not go to the former republics of Yugoslavia, for example, to study dance. Instead, one goes to the former republics of Yugoslavia to investigate: post-socialist transitions, inter-ethnic relations, conflict resolution and reconciliation, minorities in the new nation-states, strategies of inclusion and exclusion, politics of identity and difference. If one insists on studying dance, then surely one means to address dance as an example of one of these more relevant topics. But even then, dance? Folk dance? How relevant could this possibly be? “Outsiders” are not the only ones with ideas about what is or is not relevant. In the pursuit of becoming more intimate with Macedonian folk dance— precisely the subject matter I spent many months researching in the Republic of Macedonia—despite allowing myself to be taken to all of the places where one would expect to find something “folk”—villages and rural festivals—I spent a great deal of time exploring the city-based folklore ensembles affiliated with Kulturni Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 Umetnicki Drustva (Cultural Artistic Societies or KUDs). Ensembles began to form in Macedonia as early as 1900, but the ones that exist today are descended largely from KUDs that sprang up throughout the former Yugoslav republics after 1945, although—at least in the case of the Republic of Macedonia—their numbers have dwindled, and those that do remain operate under considerable financial duress. Yet, I was not alone as I visited drustva throughout Skopje. I was accompanied, in fact, by the specter of a very persistent research tradition whose roots are planted firmly in what European ethnologists used to call Volkskunde, or the romantic celebration of the rural peasantry as the repository of a distinct national identity.1 1 European ethnologists have the lingering legacy of Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) and the nineteenth-century movement of European Romantic Nationalism he advanced, to thank for their perspective. Herder, a German scholar and student of Immanual Kant, believed that a nativist national culture “was not only desirable but absolutely necessary” (Wilson 1986:23). He looked at the relationship of the environment to the independent culture types that grew out of the environment and found support for his premise that “each nation was organically different from every other nation” (ibid.). From here grew Herder’s philosophy that political boundaries should “fit the contours of ethnic bodies” (ibid.: 22), and that “the most natural state is one people with one national character” (Herder cf. Wilson 1986:24). Folklore figured heavily in these new equations, for only through the methodological study of folklore and language could man hope to uncover the one character or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25 soul—the Volksgeist—of his nation, and then work towards its revitalization, cultivation, and expression. “The elevation of folklore and language as the essence of people’s identities and as the legitimization of their existence revolutionized social thought,” writes Todorova (1997:129). In Central and Eastern Europe, Herder’s ideas sowed the seeds of a paradigmatic shift. The emphasis on national differences and “the building of nations on the traditions and myths of the past—that is, on folklore....” (Wilson 1986:23), “triggered the passionate self-interest among the nations of Eastern Europe... [,and] delineated the main spheres of research until today: language, history, ethnography, folklore” (Todorova 1997:129).1 2 Volkskunde fell into disgrace following what Kuper (1994:545) calls “its apotheosis in Nazi ethnology,” but its original intent of drawing upon the peasantry to shape, color, and contour the face of what were, at the time, emerging nations, persists to resonate in varying degrees and intensities in parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, bolstering and further entrenching the discourse of origins and authenticity, and providing national institutes of folklore their abiding raison d'etre. The gaze of the Macedonian Folklorist chastises those mining the field for folk dance outside of the “folk” context. “Foreigners come to the drustva and think that this is the real thing,” an ethnologist from the Marko Cepenkov Institute o f Folklore in Skopje once remarked to a crowd of ensemble artistic directors and fellow ethnologists. The group had assembled to discuss how the theoretical work of scholars could minister and nourish the perpetuity of Macedonian folklore, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 implication being, of course, that the “folklore” that needed to endure was not the stylized, “unauthentic” kind that drustva dance on stage. On several occasions I found myself cast as naive by local ethnologists who questioned what I hoped to find by wandering into the rehearsal studios of urban-based KUDs where people who call themselves igraorciu find pleasure and comfort in moving through the ambiguous territory of folk dance on stage.1 4 I interpreted the questioning by my colleagues as a heartfelt concern that I was wasting my time; but I remained (in silence to myself) adamantly opposed to their conception of folk dance as a stable entity, and to their assumption that survivals of folk dance’s rural antecedents could only be found in rural environments. One can remain silent for only so long, however, and there are other rings of marginalization through which to navigate. Therefore, how do I propose to proceed? What will I do to convince those who are not receptive to my concerns that the dance (about which) I write is relevant? In Chapter 2 1 respond to the subject of folk dance in the theater, and reflect on its consumption by an audience whose ambiguous makeup suggests several layers of interpretation. I begin by depicting an evening length performance given by the Republic of Macedonia’s national folk dance and music ensemble, Tanec, in order to analyze how through the parallel activities of particularization and essentialization certain communities of identification and narratives are intertwined, naturalized, and nationalized, and then made visible on stage. I abruptly slip away from Tanec, knowing that it will occupy my thoughts later, but return to the theater for a second Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 evening of performances by several amateur ensembles, lured once again by the thought that the choreographies contained within the theater both inform and are contingent upon other kinds of choreographies that will appear and re/(dis)appear with different degrees of force and relevance throughout this work. One such choreography centers around the “Macedonian Question,” the gloss for a very complex history of irredentism vis-a-vis Macedonia that has been called “one of the most intractable and difficult Balkan conflicts” (Pettifer 2001:xxxvii). In Chapter 3 I focus on two writerly interlocutors and their responses to the “Macedonian Question.” My concern will be with “decolonizing” Macedonian national consciousness. Depicting Macedonia as a colonized country (which essentially I do by stating my concern for decolonization) pushes the boundaries of textbook definitions of colonialism. Yet, I see the historical dimensions of the “Macedonian Question” as having cast a web of hegemonic power over Macedonia that has kept it and its sovereignty entangled in questions of legitimacy, and colonized in ways that resonate beyond the physical dimensions of imperialism and occupation. In the context of such a chapter, decolonizing Macedonian national consciousness means privileging the perspectives of those who seek to confront their colonizers. The Macedonian scholars I engage present two distinct fights for counter-representation: one concentrates on a modernist reading of historical events in order to build an appreciation for the historical operations that have contributed to what is perceived as Macedonia's position of subordinance; the other, however, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 recognizes the conundrum inherent in fighting the fight this way. Because “modem and colonial enterprises have always gone hand in hand” (Savigliano 1995:231), decolonization for Macedonia can only be negotiated by rejecting the modernist’s search for a re-reading of historical truth, and mobilizing one’s self with epistemes that are flexible and rise out of local hermeneutics and pragmatics. This dissertation is heavy with history, and purposefully drawn to making subtle and not so subtle references to hegemony. Bringing the two together, Joanne Nagel coined the phrase “hiccups in hegemony” to characterize those moments in history since the end of the Second World War “when the major powers shifted their grasp on land and labor, and reorganized the international system,” thus giving rise to the numerous waves of ethnic nationalism that have come to define the geo political landscape of the world since then (1998:347). For Nagel there have been two such hiccups during the past half century, hiccups that have come on the heals of the collapse of empires and have bom themselves out as windows of opportunity for the genesis of independent states: the independence movements of European colonial territories in the late 1940s and the subsequent international recognition of those territories as sovereign states; and the (re)constitution of the Soviet empire, beginning with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 (ibid.). At the risk of posturing a reductionist stance by taking the expression, “All politics is local” too literally (ibid.:345), I telescope Nagel’s “hiccups in hegemony” by magnifying what I think of as swA-hiccups in hegemony, those more localized shifts in power that have contributed to a sense of group purpose and position for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 many present-day Macedonians. At various points throughout this dissertation, I reference these sub-hiccups by conceputualizing then as permutations of the Ilinden Uprising, the August 2,1903 insurrection in Krusevo, Macedonia against Turkish imperialism in which a Macedonian Republic was established for a brief period of four days. Chapters four and six are encounters with Ilinden II and Ilinden III: the former being the historical reference to the August 2, 1944 meeting of the Anti- Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) during which the borders and language of the newly-formed People’s Republic of Macedonia (PRM) were formalized; the latter citing the 1991 date of PRM’s referendum to split from the Socialist Yugoslav Federal Republic (SFRJ) and become its own sovereign state. It is here, in the context of these two sub-hiccups in hegemony and their aftermath, that I take a step back from the assertions made at the Balkan Folk Festival in Chapter 2 in order to gain perspective and prove to myself (and to anyone else receptive to my concerns) that we do a disservice to the dance when we too dutifully succumb to those well-intentioned, but ready-made, interpretations that purport to tell us—and, in fact, assure us—that the dance means one thing and one thing only. Chapter 4— A Stage (Act I)—explores how ethnicity in the post-war Macedonia of socialist Yugoslavia configured dance, and how dance (and its staged presentation) configured ethnicity. Yugoslavia during the years following the Second World War provides a rich landscape for such explorations, given the immediate goal of the centralized state under Tito of strengthening its position and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 encouraging Yugoslavism, the idea of a united South Slav national (or supranational) consciousness that would transcend the vulnerabilities of regionalism and ethnicity. Tito and his advisors aimed to accomplish this goal by assuming the role of political and ideological intermediary for the federation’s heterogeneous cultural and ethnic constituencies, many of who lived within republics that, increasingly, would come to be defined as titular nations. While I do reference the interpretation that Tito’s cultural policies had the antithetical effect of actually encouraging the grafting of regionalism and ethnicity onto body politics vis-a-vis the configuration of dance for presentation and consumption on national and world stages, I venture beyond this interpretation to suggest that the linking of politics to aesthetics fulfilled the equally-important linkage of aesthetics to socialist labor practices and the re-configuration of social relations necessitated by the rapid industrialization and urbanization of the post-war era. Dance conveyed the physical experience of these linkages, bringing ethnic and urban/laboring bodies “into visibility as historical agents” (Franko 2002:2). My larger purpose in Chapter 4 and then again in Chapter 6—A Stage (Act II)—is to investigate the relationship between ideology and experience. As Mark Franko has most explicitly argued in the case of the relationship between American dance, labor movements, and progressive-era politics of the 1930s, “dance produced ideology but... this ‘product’ was not a commodity inasmuch as it constituted sensuous experience, which is precisely what made it ideologically effective” (ibid.). Unlike Franko, I conceive the state apparatus (in this case, the post-war governments Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 of the People’s Republic of Macedonia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and then, several decades later, the government of the sovereign Republic of Macedonia) as an agent of interpellation mediating the relationship between ideology and experience. My use of “an” (as in “an agent”) is purposeful, however, meant to quickly re-align my thinking with Franko’s through the suggestion that state agency is effective only in so far as it is coterminous with performance and movement. “[Performances are related in many cases to institutional structures at fundamental aesthetic levels,” argues Franko (ibid.: 14). “The logic linking those levels is choreographic.” Chapters four and six explore this linkage and the individuals constituted by them. In A Stage (Act I) I introduce the predominant amateur dance ensembles that emerged in Macedonia circa 1945, and address the system of patronage that forged ties between dance and industry. I follow members of these KUDs into the professional ranks of Tanec, and then out onto the world stage. I seek to explain how the “eyes of global others”(Ness 1995:11) (i.e. the Russian model of theatricalized folk dance, Western sensibilities of stage performance, and even “localized” eyes which sought to globally position Yugoslavia as an equal amongst the other, powerful industrialized nations of the world, and/or globally legitimize Macedonia as a titular nation) came to influence “the kinesthetic experience of local selves”(ibid.). A Stage (Act II) revisits this connection between ideology and experience, but now within the spatial and temporal context of post-Ilinden III, a context that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32 includes my primary fieldwork stay in Macedonia from September 2000 to July 2001. In an attempt to follow the example of my second writerly interlocutor from Chapter 3—the one who writes about discourse—I call upon my “Choreocritic’s” voice to present excerpts of interviews I conducted with dancers. These excerpts, moving in tandem with interrogations I made of the dance training of igraorci, reinforce Joan Scott’s thesis that “It is not individuals who have experience, but subjects who are constituted through experience” (Scott 1992:25-26). I seek to address to what end this constitution serves not only Macedonia’s political and economic climate at the time of my research, but more importantly the economic struggles of those for whom dance is a means by which to choreograph a meaningful connection to themselves, their communities of identification, and to their nation. In chapters five and seven, I leave the stage to follow the circulation of dance practices into the meaning-making environments of a village and a wedding celebration. Questions of connection resurface as the conceptual fulcrum for an interlude entitled, “Liner Notes for Negotiating Freedom.” I use an ethnographic fictional narrative style to cast an unexpected gaze on an art historian, a guitarist, and the friendship they develop with one another on account of a shared loved for jazz. I rely on the metaphor of improvisation—a performance practice so crucial to folk dance and music, yet by and large abandoned in the folklore that gets presented on stage—in order to insinuate a question: how can one be (or become) what one is? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 This theme carries over in to Chapter 8 where I thread the discussion in and out of music and dance, and make a cursory attempt to tie it in to something I call “new performance traditions.” I conclude by exiting the dance to pursue the considerations and ramifications of a photography and creative writing workshop I conducted with a small group of high school students in Skopje. Although the focus of this section lies primarily on the images and text produced by the workshop participants, also under review is the vexing nature of ethnographic interrogations that seek to foreground and address issues of “Macedonian identity.” Both emerging from and shaping this discussion is the question, “through whose eyes?” Ilinden IV? On January 22,2001, one officer was killed and three others were wounded when a grenade exploded at a police station in the town of Tearce in Western Macedonia. The Kosovo Liberation Army, despite having been disbanded following the NATO bombings in Kosovo, claimed responsibility for the attack. Speaking on behalf of the Albanian minority in the Republic of Macedonia, the separatist group vowed that “the Macedonian occupier will be targeted until the Albanian people are free.” The KLA—later to emerge as the National Liberation Army—kept its promise by initiating months of armed confrontations with Macedonian government military forces that ended, at least on paper, with the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement on August 13,2001. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 At issue for the NLA and its supporters were perceived patterns of inequality and human rights abuses/violation against the republic’s Albanian minority. They argued in chorus about the systematic and institutionalized discrimination of ethnic Albanians perpetuated by the republic’s constitution, a 10-year-old document in which the country was defined as “the national state of the Macedonian people.” The NLA’s pretext for fighting then was to establish constitutional parity for Albanians, thus bringing about other immediate and significant legal changes. By and large, Macedonians were unanimously and unequivocally convinced that all this talk about discrimination and human rights abuses was a ruse for what, in their opinion, the armed confrontations initiated by the NLA really signified—the fight for a Greater Albania. As one foreign observer put it, the Albanians and their lobby were “complaining about inequality in order to achieve separation.”1 5 The grenade attack in Tearce came five months in to my 11-month fieldwork stay in the Republic of Macedonia. Although tensions had been building for months prior, ostensibly half of my time in the republic was spent with the country escalating toward, and eventually on the brink, of civil war. The moral politics of doing research on folk dance in the midst of a security crisis weighed, and continues to weigh, heavily on my mind. Dance cannot compete with weapons of war and high- level political jockeying... or death. Should I have dropped everything and allowed myself to get caught up in the moment? The fighting did make it difficult for me to do research. KUD rehearsals went black for a while, performances were cancelled, and I was compelled to make Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 the personal decision to cut back on research trips that would have taken me close to where the fighting was predominantly occurring. At times, however, I could not help but get caught up in the moment, allow frustration and anger (and sadness, too) to consume my thoughts. Was Macedonia experiencing another sub-hiccup in hegemony? Or was it a portence of deeper ruptures that would swallow all of us up in ways that we never could have imagined? The world looked on in judgment, deciding for Macedonia what its next move would be. Meanwhile, I knew of all sorts of people. Anecdotally, I knew of: KLA members and supporters who were not shy about hiding the fact that they were fighting for territory; misguided politicians entrenched in nationalist fervor; recidivists seeking outright personal profit and gain who were using “the situation” to commandeer funds their way. Through casual acquaintance, I knew of people who had started their own NGOs (wanting to do some good for their country, but hungry for a source of income too) yet who, in order to get their projects funded, had to succumb to the bait and switch logic of foreign NGOs, and thus found themselves arbitrarily throwing in some kind of “multi-ethnic cooperation” component to their projects because they knew that without it their projects would be dead in the water. Then there were my close friends, some of whom were quietly working in opposition to the forces of cynicism, hoping that “the situation” would not get the best of them, but others too who would confess to me that it already had. “The terrorists are getting what they want,” one dear friend told me. “They want us to hate Albanians, and it is happening.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36 Christopher Merrill (1999), in a sweeping portrait of his journey through the Balkans following the breakup of Yugoslavia, quotes Antonio Gramsci who, in his Prison Notebooks, wrote: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be bom; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appears.” And so, I worried. I worried that my focus on the dance practices of Macedonians would replicate the division of people along ethnic lines. I worried that somehow my work would add to the morbidity; that it would “perpetuate symbolic violence” (Kondo 1986:83). Mostly, I wondered, how could I write an ethnography of Macedonian dance that accounts for, but does not get bogged down in these tensions, maladaptive strategies, ironies, and little/big battles of morality that plagued the Republic of Macedonia while I was there? I did not go to Macedonia with these confrontations in mind, and yet the exegesis of doing fieldwork in the midst of a security crisis has made them relevant to my ethnographic project. They have encumbered me with the responsibility, if not to deal with them directly (which I cannot and do not), then to at least find a way to make them and the issues they raise somehow resonate. Choreographing Corporealities Ever since reading Mary Catherine Bateson’s With a Daughter’ s Eye (1984), I have carried with me the idea that doing anthropology is all about searching for moments of insight—listening for a resonance, that is, between the inner (coded as the subjective personal response of the ethnographer) and the outer (traditionally Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37 coded as interviews, conversations, eaves dropping etc.). Bateson refers to this resonance as an echo that brings one’s attention into focus. Poets work this way as the curve of a leaf evokes the poignancy of a past moment. Therapists work this way, moving back and forth between their own task of self-knowledge and the task of understanding a patient, knowing that without double insight there will be no insight at all. (Bateson 1984:20) Inasmuch as anthropology is a double-sided project—doing it also entails writing it—how can the resonance that one listens for also resonate on the page of one’s ethnography? In the pages above, I have referred to this dissertation as an extended ethnographic essay. The original meaning of essay (or essai, to attempt) is not lost here. I do see this dissertation as an attempt to achieve resonance: to open the circle and expose the center of my own ethnographic movements toward remaining attentive and amenable not only to the instability of dance as an individual entity1 6 and to the circulation of traditional practices into new performance traditions, but also to the discursive (re)conceptualization of Balkan/East European performance in our age of ever-widening and ever-deepening transculturation. What discursive tactics have exerted their influence on me as I have sought such a (re)conceptualization? Why has paying attention to such tactics been such an important interface to my ethnographic project? Lila Abu-Lughod (1991), working out from under her concern over anthropology’s complicity in painting portraits of the Other, crafts her argument for writing against the essentializing tendencies of culture. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 Insofar as anthropologists are in the business of representing others through their ethnographic writing, then surely the degree to which people in the communities they study appear ‘other’ must also be partly a function of how anthropology writes about them. (ibid.: 149) I reference Abu-Lughod’s insight, reworking it so that I may interject my own observation. Insofar as scholars of Balkan folk dance practices are in the business of representing the movement of others through their ethnographic writing, then surely the degree to which these practices and sites of interest appear anachronistic or irrelevant to those on the outside looking in must also be partly a function of how scholars are writing about them. “Are there ways to write about lives so as to constitute others as less other?” Abu-Lughod speculates (ibid.). I follow her shadow closely and wonder. Are there ways to write about Macedonian folk dance practices and the lives o f the people who animate those practices so as to constitute them as less anachronistic and less irrelevant? Abu-Lughod answers her question, providing us compelling reasons for writing what she calls ethnographies o f the particular, which by replacing the homogeneity, cohesiveness, alterity, and timelessness of theoretical generalization with textual particularities, link stories of specific individuals in time and place with the theoretical points those stories and lives engender (ibid.: 153). I match Abu- Lughod’s movement with an answer to my question. In doing ethnography we confront people as themselves, and thus secure their de-exoticization. Yet, in our insatiable will to meaning, there is a tendency to flatten Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 our material. We forget about resonance. We rush to the depths of interpretation too quickly (Taussig 1991). Dance as a facsimile of ethnic identity set into motion. Dance as the vehicle by which people transform the intensity and/or direction of competing ethnic and nationalistic claims. Dance as an instrument of the State—a reminder of a time when Marshall Tito deliberately forged a relationship between politics and aesthetics. These interpretations may be true, relevant even. But we rush, nonetheless. We rush too quickly for the comforting fit of a cohesive model when really we ought to be lingering around in the interplay of forms, bodies, and experiences in which we ourselves are positioned and implicated. In her work on Senegalese dance, Francesca Castaldi speaks eloquently of corpography, or “writing the body.” Corpography begins as a commitment to practice “as both a form of engagement and dialogue, as well as a form of memory” (2000:288). While in Macedonia I danced three times a week, a couple of hours each time, for several months, inscribing close to 25 dances onto my body and into my memory. Yet, corpography does not end here. It extends vertically and horizontally through the written representation of dance and dance events; but rather than cowering to the Cartesian mind/body split which would have us “imposing the mind of the writer on the body of the dancer,” corpography “imposes the mind of dancing on the hand of the writer” (ibid.:290). The shift in focus is quite elegant, powerful even. Corpography reminds us that, in our efforts to choreograph corporealities, form is always present. It has Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 tactility (Taussig 1994). It transmits meaning along with content. Writing the body choreographically creates a resonance of multiple subjectivities and “sites of memory” (cf. Behar 1996:81) that, much like Abu-Lughod’s ethnographies o f the particular, works to transcend the essentializing tendencies of concepts such as “folk,” engendering in the process new words, explanations, and meanings that are in communication with the sights, sounds, and bodies that move and illuminate the worlds we seek to describe.1 7 In a sense, this entire ethnographic essay is an attempt to write the body choreographically. There are sections, however, where this attempt emerges more obviously (for lack of a better word) than others. Chapter 6, for example, begins with a section that seeks to engage the sights, sounds, and bodies that move and illuminate Skopje’s folklore ensembles. Drawing from an interview with three female igraorci (plural form of igraorec) from the Skopje-based KUD, Orce 18 Nikolov, I attempt to deconstruct and interpret the socialization process that initially calls a young novice to the dance, but then keeps her there, in the circle, over time, despite pejorative readings that devalue folklore ensembles and the labor of those involved. Yet, I present this section in the form of a dance scene in which the text is split into two columns, with narration on one side and stage directions on the other, so as to give salience to the Foucauldian idea that as one trains the body, one is also training the mind. That is, as one learns movement, one learns how to perceive—or rather how to think and feel—about that movement (Tomko 1996). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 My use of dance scenes tentatively follows the form of Marta Savigliano’s Fragments fo r a story o f tango bodies (on Choreocritics and the memory ofpower) (1996:199-232).1 9 Like Savigliano, I replace my ethnographic persona with that of a Choreocritic—the persona, that is, of someone who, unlike the modernist dance critic or the modernist ethnographer, “does not silence the political nature of aesthetic judgment” (Castaldi 2000:21).2 0 It could be argued that by aping Savigliano’s tango scenes I commit the very transgression I have just warned against above of not rushing too quickly for the comforting fit of a model. Savigliano’s work does provide a compelling model toward which to rush, but it is not so much a fixed model as it is a model of engagement that challenges both the ethnographer and the reader into becoming more alert and sophisticated in their roles as social critics. As such, there is nothing comforting about Savigliano’s model, for following it means coming to terms with the politics of interpretation, exposing the seems of ethnography, and shifting the focus away from answering “What do I know about ‘the thing’?” to “What is ‘the thing’ telling me that I should know?”2 1 In the end, however, I am concerned less with how my texts ape Savigliano’s form, and more with what I/we might learn from encouraging what Susan Foster (1996) calls “a rethinking of knowledge categories.” Writing Diapsora Corpography presupposes that one can get close to an object by transforming thought through the presence of the body. In as much as the ethnographer’s body Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 acts as a visible sign of mediation in corpography, what is there that needs to be divulged up front about the composition of my body? What dynamics will help the reader to understand how my body is “related to a body of histories that define the interaction between social subjects and the networks of power in which they operate” (Castaldi 2000:5)? Macedonia and I, we teeter together on the edge of an ambiguous relationship. Neither native, nor emigrant, nor “halfie” (Abu-Lughod 1991), but the American-born offspring of maternal grandparents who came to the United States from Vardar and Aegean Macedonia in the late 1920s and early 1930s, I nonetheless set foot on Macedonian soil for the first time with the sense of something so familiar that it made my heart pound and my skin bristle with anticipation. Dorinne Kondo (1986:74) has written explicitly about how “an anthropologist’s experience in the field is conditioned by his/her culturally and biographically mediated way of seeing.” I did not feel like much of an anthropologist on my first trip to Macedonia in July of 1998, but I was carrying with me a way of seeing conditioned and mediated not only by my grandparents’ experiences, but by my own experience growing up within a particular ‘diasporic public sphere’ (Werbner 1998).2 2 Both had taught me that dancing would be an important route for understanding how to think and feel about Macedonia. Dancing would be a constant and seductive interpretive resource. It would interpolate my will to knowledge and my will to meaning. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 Yet, so would nostalgia. Nostalgia had helped my emigrant grandparents minimize their experience of loss by protecting them from the memory of it (Lowenthal 1985). In as much as they are “communities of memory” (Behar 1996:79), diasporas help the emigrant “transform the pain and longing of exile into new political imaginaries” (Werbner 1998:13). Diasporas traffic in nostalgia by transforming themselves into a “shared space of dialogue” in which a “common ‘we’” is constituted (ibid.:25). On that first trip to Macedonia, I was certain that I was embarking on that ubiquitous journey of knowing one’s roots, not in a geographic sense, but in the sense that Neil Postman meant when he wrote: To know your roots is not merely to know where your grandfather came from and what he had to endure. It is also to know where your ideas come from and why you happen to believe them; to know where your moral and aesthetic sensibilities come from. (Postman 1993:189) I was certain too that by choosing to pursue dissertation research on Macedonian dance, by choosing to become familiar with the experiences of Macedonians bom and raised in Macedonia, I was in effect choosing to study my own community. Yet, a predilection for certain foods, religious customs, speech patterns, etc. does not a Macedonian make. Furthermore, as Todorova (1997:99) reminds us, and as I implicitly point out in chapters five and seven, there is an enormous difference between one’s “abstract affectation with an imaginary past” or an imagined space (nation), and the “active involvement with the present problems of [that] nation.” Foreunderstanding renders some things familiar, which in and of itself creates some Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. advantages for the “halfie” (or in my case, “halfie once-removed”) anthropologist. Yet, foreunderstanding also means that one’s positionality, accountability, and material relationships to and within networks of power are always already split. On my second trip to Macedonia (June-September 1999) I began my dance research in earnest. I began to do what anthropologists do. I attended the Galicnik Wedding. I met with ensemble directors, talked with dancers, observed rehearsals, and sat in theaters to watch evening-length performances of folklore. Dancing had always transported me, yet researching it, I found, failed to move me. And so I began to feel the disappointment that those of us who leam to love Macedonia from afar invariably feel when we come to Macedonia looking for the dance, but then realize that the most readily available form of it looks nothing like what we know, and that, contrary to what we had hoped for, Macedonians in Macedonia are not in fact dancing themselves silly whenever and wherever they want, but mostly between the hours of 7 and 9 p.m., on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, in the studio of some folklore ensemble to which not just anyone can join. I began to understand how nostalgia “sets in motion a dialectic of closeness and distantiation” (Stewart 1988:228). And so I wrote about that dialectic—I wrote about my growing awareness of the rings of marginalization, but mostly I wrote about my split self within the context of this awareness—in a piece I called “Gence and I.” The title itself was a misnomer, for “Gence” and “I,” far from being distinct entities, were in fact the same person, myself. I wrote “Gence and I” seeking to address and repair the Cartesian bifurcation of body and mind that I felt myself Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 experiencing after my second trip to Macedonia—a bifurcation that typically privileges the latter over the former so that “embodied knowledge” (what the body knows) is viewed as less than, different, or apart from “knowledge” (what the mind knows). “Gence,” seemingly cast as “the body” since all she wants to do is dance, not think about it, nonetheless does try to write about “T e s k o to the exclusively male dance from the western region of Macedonia. Even “I”—that is I, the ethnographer—am somewhat miscast in my role as “the thinker.” I lack scholarly acumen. My writing is by and large anecdotal. And I allow “Gence” to pull me into the dance and into the romance that I know I should be deconstructing; and I do so willingly, afraid that if I demystify the dance too much, I will lose my pleasure in and thus my connection to it. I dutifully present an exposition on Macedonian folk dance—something that a folklorist in Macedonia might very well have written—yet I subvert it as a block quotation so as to say that while this information has its value, there is something that is silenced when we fall back on old discursive models as a means to communicate information; information which itself is not quite up with the times. There are glimpses of my growing awareness with the rhetoric of nostalgia. I strip away the symbolic force of the Galicnik Wedding costumes by seeing them for what they are— 100-year-old pieces of clothing with 100-year-old sweat stains around the armpit areas. Yet, the fact that “Gence and I” is a memory-based dialogue implicates me as the author in maintaining that nostalgia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 I have included “Gence and I” as the Prelude to this dissertation for two reasons, neither of which has anything to do with collapsing the politics of ethnography into its poetics. For one, I believe strongly that anthropologists are encumbered with finding ways to write their ethnographies so that the constructive labor of their knowledge does not get buried (Fox 1991). On that note, and for another, I believe it has been incumbent on me to insinuate, even before we enter the dance, that what I am attempting to write is more than an ethnography of Macedonia, Macedonian dance, or even of images. It is also an ethnography of diaspora, or to be more precise, an ethnography that resonates with the nostalgia and iconography to which my will to knowledge and my will to meaning have been, and to some degree still are, connected. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 1: 11 have borrowed this phrasing from Marta Savigliano who questions her own use of tango “as an example to describe the political economy of Passion” by protesting that “Tango is not an example; it is the main ingredient in this project” (Savigliano 1995:16). Savigliano’s simple declaration belies a rather complex semiotic malfeasance, which conceptualizes dance only as a signifier to something else. On the contrary, Savigliano’s achievements in dance scholarship as a choreographer of what Susan Foster calls “complex and masterful textual performance[s]” (see Savigliano 1995) signal that dance can stand front and center. 2 Ann Cooper Albright(1997:120) writes about staking out a textual‘T’ in order to talk back to her audience. 3 This passage is referenced by Dusko Dimitrovski in his written liner notes to the 2002 compact disc recording of the Pece Atanasovski Orchestra. Skopje: AMANET Music. 4 My use of “folk dance” follows standard translation practices articulated most clearly by Dunin and Visinski who write: “In the Macedonian language the term “folk” (narodno) refers to those dances that are not the urban popular dances danced in pairs, that is, the “modem dances” (modemi plesovi or modeme igre) of the 19t h and 20* centuries. A further taxonomy of terms to describe types of “folk” dance include: “authentic” (izvorno) usually meaning dances from the villages, and “town” (starogradsko) usually referring to the 19t h and 20t h tum-of-the-centuiy dances (and music) from urban centers” (1995:2). 5 Many years ago Marx wrote about species being, the principle that there is “a universal moral order based on claims to a common humanity” (Cohen 1993:231). The idea behind species being was based on Marx’s hope that humans would leave behind the particularism of the ethnic state and instead build a state based on “the common features of panethnic human experience, rights, [and] duties ....” (ibid.:239). Not withstanding the fundamental problems (as we see them new) with anchoring his doctrine in the rhetoric of a universal humanism, Marx also underestimated the force of ethnicity. “Marx was wrong,” Cohen concedes (1993:240). “We don’t progress beyond [ethnicity], we can’t move forward without it.” 6 Richard Fox writes about the micropractices of the academy, revealing how knowledge is constructed by anthropologists, and then “past on within a larger scholarly workplace” where it is (re)worked with ever-increasing scrutiny, becoming intellectual fodder for the next wave of potentially ground-breaking research (Fox 1991:11). We are introduced to these micropractices early on as graduate students by virtue of the fact that funding for dissertation research largely depends on successfully convincing a committee how it is that one’s work pushes the discipline into new theoretical territories. Such an expectation certainly helps to guard against research that is purely descriptive or that merely replicates a previous study, but with just a different regional focus. At the same time, such an expectation also points to this penchant for novelty and innovation. Yet, even innovation and progress reference something precursory. Post-structuralism, for example, needed Levi Strauss’s Structuralism before it could call itself “post.” We may concede that we wish to be ravished by the shock of the new, but little do we know that “originality,” Tembeck goes on to illuminate, “is in fact also a return to origins” (cf. Doolittle and Flynn 2000:viii). 7 Elsewhere, Sally Ann Ness notes that the placement of the definite article “the” before the noun “dance”—as in “the dance”—signifies a theoretical conceptualization of dance “in which dance is understood as being essentially an institutionalized product of socio-cultural processes [rather than] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 primarily concerned with individual dancers and their dancing experience” (1996:267). My use of “the dance” envisions no such distinction, but rather serves to account for both. 8 Todorova clarifies that the word ‘balkanization’—a permutation on the word ‘balkanize’—“came into use following the Balkan wars and World War IT’ (1997:121). 9 It is precisely this designation of the Balkans as a geographical space that marked and colored the casualness with which many of my acquaintances in Macedonia used the moniker, ‘the Balkans’, to specify their region of origin and residence. Friends would react with surprise and a “Tsk!” of the tongue when I would suggest that ‘the Balkans’ referenced a complex of problematic images and discourse. “Here in the Balkans, there is no problem with it,” a colleague clarified shortly after I arrived in Skopje. The apparent absence (or dismissal) of any acknowledgement on her part that there just might be some degree of politicized overtones to ‘the Balkans’ suggested one of three things. Either my colleague was: speaking for the masses (I would come to understand that she was not); brushing aside the issue so as to avoid a conversation which would have been difficult to carry out given its polemics and my tentative language skills at the time; or revealing herself as someone who had internalized stereotypes of the Balkans as a place separate and apart from other places in the world where politically-charged stereotypes are challenged and critiqued ad nauseam. 1 0 Turton does not subscribe to this point of view, rather his use of this quote is as an illustrative example of the primordial explanations for ethno-nationalism in the Balkans. Regarding my earlier reference to “current trends and concepts.” At the risk of obfuscating the very definition of the word “current,” I would like to suggest that the current trends and concepts to which I intimate are, in fact, nothing new for the region. Todorova, in tracing the rising specter of a Balkan ontology, notes that following the Second World War, due to the persistent belief of the Balkans as inhabiting an “ ‘intermediary state somewhere between barbarity and civilization,’ ” the region was viewed as “ ‘a marvelous training school for political scientists and diplomats’ of the First World preparing to perform in the Third; they were utilized as a ‘testing ground’: ‘In the nonacademic world, for example, a significant proportion of American governmental and semigovemmental personnel at present attempting to cope with the problems of the Afro-Asian countries received its training, so to speak, for such work in the Balkans, which have thus retrospectively become the original underdeveloped area’ ” (Todorova 1997:130) (NOTE) The above comments situated within single quotation marks are attributed to Joseph Rothschild, cited in Roberts (1970:180). Also noteworthy is the work of Myron Weiner (1971) who accessed Balkan history from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century seeking a descriptive model “that might prove useful for describing, explaining and predicting the patterns of political development and international behavior” of what were then recently-independent states of Asia and Africa (Maleska 2000). Maleska quotes Weiner direcdy: “I have chosen.. to call it the Macedonian Syndrome, named after the region of the Balkans disputed by Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and that provided me with an almost pure case history with which to build the model”(ibid. :1). 1 1 See Obrebski (1976) for an account of native Balkan ethnography prior to World War Two, and Kuper’s (1994) positioning and critique of the European nativist case within the context of a “cosmopolitan anthropology.” 1 2 In Western Europe and America, however, where the humanitarian philosophies of the Enlightenment pervaded in contradistinction to the spirit of Romantic Nationalism, Herder’s revolution “did little to elevate [the] status [of East European nations] within the hierarchy of nations” (Todorova 1997:129). Instead, “it put them on the map...as folkloric groups. Though he greatly admired the Slavs, by championing them as objects of folkloric study, Herder “ ‘helped to establish Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49 the philosophical perspective according to which Hegel would exclude them from historical consideration.’ The legacy is so strong,” she continues, “that despite the general demise of evolutionary thinking in Western historiography, the Balkans still come out as the Volksmuseum of Europe even in most sophisticated discourse (ibid.). 1 3 Literally, “dancers of ora" Igraorec is the singular male form of the word. A female “dancer of oro” would be referred to as an igraorka. Ora is the plural of oro. In its usage, oro is the structural equivalent of the Greek syrtos, the Bulgarian horo, and the Serbian kolo. 1 4 One veteran ethnologist from the Marko Cepenkov Institute of Folklore who has been researching the instrumental narodna musika (traditional music) sections of ensembles which were active in Macedonia from 1900-1945, concedes that the post-1945 drustvo environment does not interest him primarily because “It’s more difficult,” he confessed to me once. “I’m leaving that for the younger generation to work on,” he added, gesturing to an ethnologist from said generation whom I knew from our conversations harbored no interest in undertaking such research either. 1 5 Quoted by Diana Johnstone in an article entitled, “Albanians in Macedonia: Facts and Fictions,” dated May 30, 2001. Accessed on August 20, 2001, the URL for this article is http://emperors- clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/fic2.htm. 161 take my cue from Francesca Castaldi who conceives of her subject matter (“Senagalese dance”) “not as a stable and individual entity, but rather an ensemble of relationships that mutually define each other and circulates across several times/spaces” (2000:13). 171 am not suggesting that we eliminate the word “folk” from our vocabulary. To co-opt the crux of James Clifford’s predicament of culture—“Culture is a deeply compromised idea that I can not yet do without” (Clifford 1988:10)—I concede that “folk” is a deeply compromised idea that I can not yet do without: “compromised” because the discourse of authenticity that the word references silences the vigor of present-choreographed “folk” dance practices done by people whose lives are displaced from rural roots; and an “idea that I can not yet do withouf ’ because, in the end, “folk” is the only word that signifies the forms, and bodies I wish to reference and describe. 1 8 Maria (21), Vesna (18), and Dafma (18) are igraorci with Orce Nikolov, a Skopje-based KUD, which was one of the first to form in the Republic of Macedonia after liberation in 1945. Housed in barracks adjacent to the old Bit Pazar on the northern side of the Vardar River, Orce Nikolov, eclipses the city’s other KUDs with an interior space that looks and feels like a museum. The whole place is a visual documentation of Orce Nikolov’ s accomplishments as a world-class ambassador of Macedonian folk song and folk dance, and in that sense, the documentation is also a testament to the ensemble’s respected position within the hierarchy of dance ensembles within the Republic of Macedonia. Maria, Vesna, and Dafina come to this “museum” three nights a week to rehearse choreographies that they first learned as grade-school-aged girls, and have been rehearsing ever since. They are led by Tofe Drakulovski, a retired dentist and former igraorec with Tanec, the Republic of Macedonia’s professional folk dance and folk song company. With over 40 years experience as a teacher, Tofe has played a commanding role in influencing several generations of dancers as they have evolved from awkward beginners to seasoned amateurs on the threshold of professional careers as folk dancers. Orce Nikolov dancers predominate the professional ranks of Tanec, an achievement attributed in large part to the seriousness of purpose instilled in dancers under Tofe’s leadership. “Even though we are amateurs,” Tofe once boasted to me, “we work even more seriously than the professional ensemble.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 191 humbly offer my modest interpretation of Savigliano’s engagement with choreocritics and corpography, but urge the reader to consult her work as the ultimate example of the sophistication and rigor her provocative scholarly proposals necessitate. 2 0 My Choreocritic, still in her infancy, operates more or less as a narrator. This is in stark contrast to Savigliano’s Choreocritic who, notes Castaldi (2000:21), “relentlessly displaces the spectacle on the stage of the theater to the stage of world politics, inserting the moves of performers, spectators, and cultural critics into a larger choreography of power.” 211 have taken the liberty of reformulating questions first posed by Marta Savigliano on October 18, 1999 in a graduate course at the University of California, Los Angeles entitled, Ethnography on the Move. Emerging out of a larger discussion on the politics of ethnography and the politics of a text, Savigliano’s original questions (“Is knowledge coming from you?” or “Is the thing telling you what to know?”) evoked a landscape of binaries equally as provocative in the way they reorient one’s attention. For example, the similarly-paired binaries: What is the essence of a dance? or What is the essence of a dance for the people who dance it?; and What does a dance have that make people want to dance it? or What surrounds the practice of a dance?/How are people taught to think and feel about it? work, literally, to rescue the Choreocritic from the quicksand of metaphysics by shifting her focus and planting her, instead, upon the terra firma of description. 221 grew up within a diasporic public sphere whose social nexus revolved around an organization called the Macedonian Patriotic Organization, or MPO. The MPO was founded in 1922 by veterans of the 1903 Ilinden Uprising who had fled to North America following the tumultuous events of the early 20* Century. In Chapter 3, the reader will have reason to look back at this endnote here and recall that the Ilinden Uprising was initiated by IMRO—the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization—and that, from its inception, IMRO was divided between those who sympathized with Bulgaria’s claims to the region and those who envisioned a separate Macedonian state. Founders of the MPO advocated a position summarized best by the slogan “Macedonia for the Macedonians.” Yet, even as its goal was an independent state, the MPO leadership envisioned that state as being dominated by a “Slavic Bulgarian population” (Nedeva and Kaytchev 2001:173). Growing up, I knew nothing of the MPO’s ideological underpinnings, although I do have vague recollections of my grandfather co-founding the Orthodox church I spent much of my life in Ohio attending because he and other supporters wanted to build for themselves a place of worship that was not controlled by the MPO, as so many of the Orthodox churches in the region were. To me, the MPO was a benevolent presence; an organization that organized small picnics and enormous conventions that I would dutifully attend with my family, and come to appreciate and anticipate as the staging ground of my ethnic persona, and the place where I would learn how to think and feel about dance and the notion of community. I did not know that the MPO even had an agenda, let alone one that I should be concerned about, until my first trip to Macedonia in 1998 when a colleague of my language instructor found out that the MPO had partially funded my travel. “You should be careful,” she said discretely. “The MPO is not liked here so much.” This was news to me, and I remember being overcome with embarrassment, feeling naive and ill informed, and worried too. Had I aligned myself, financially no less, with an organization that was looked upon with aversion by some people here in the republic? As anthropologists we are taught to be alert: to question the motives of “informants” who act too eager to help us; to investigate the politics of the cultural universes in which our subject matters are embedded; and to take a reflexive stance against our own motives and political postures—to critically examine the webs of power in which we ourselves are implicated. If, in fact, my ties to the MPO were problematic, would people understand that I was innocent of having knowingly committed an indiscretion, or would I be dismissed as being a lackey for the enemy? When I returned home from that trip, I started sifting through my personal archives of the Macedonian Tribune, the self-described ‘oldest Macedonian newspaper in the world,’ published continuously since February 10, 1927 by the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 Central Committee of the MPO. Sure enough, I did see a pattern of ideology and a revisionist reading of history that were sympathetic to an anti-communist, anti-Yugoslav rhetoric historically aligned with Bulgaria’s position toward Macedonia. Furthermore, because I now knew how to read and understand literary Macedonian, I was able to recognize that the Tribune (which from its inception has always been a bi-lingual newspaper) was printed not in English/Macedonian, but English/Bulgarian. Letting my imagination get the best of me, I could see the front-page expose back in Skopje. “Young Macedonian-American Dance Researcher, Infiltrator for MPO” the headline would read. And there would be photographs of me at a picnic, enjoying a plate of sarma and dancing a Pajdusko with the bold red “MPO—Macedonia for the Macedonians” banner in the background. I have not attended an MPO event since. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FIGURE 4: The beautiful waters of Lake Ohrid Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53 CHAPTER 2: MACEDONIAN DANCE IN THE THEATER It is a beautiful, summer evening. A full moon is hanging high like a giant silver orb, spilling light on to the ripples of water making their way to shore along Lake Ohrid, believed to be the deepest lake in the Balkans. From my vantage point halfway up the hill on the north-end of the harbor, the crowded sounds of restaurants, cafes and discos, and of vacationers swelling the charming, narrow, cobblestone streets of the town of Ohrid below are but a slight din. Bodies in silhouette promenade back and forth along the harbor’s edge. Though viewing from afar, I know the scene well: young teenagers flirting, women speaking quietly arm-in-arm, and men, gesturing more strongly, giving word of the day’s news. I turn my face into the wind coming off the lake. A celestial caress transfixes my senses, striking those very pan-human chords of inquiry which are more sonorous when left unresolved. Tonight is the second night of the 40th Balkan Festival o f Folk Songs and Dances. My husband, Gustavo, and I have arrived at the open-air Dolni Saraj theater especially early, not wanting to repeat our mistake from the previous evening. I cannot quite recall what made us late to the opening night of the festival. We were with friends, Alek and Julia. Had we walked to the theater too slowly? Eaten our Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 dinner beforehand too leisurely? Or maybe the pace of our day was off from the start? “ Ima vreme,” people like to say here, “there’s time,” and so we took it, arriving to a near capacity crowd at Dolni Saraj, with no place to sit save for a bit of space in the bleachers at the rear of the theater. Only after the MC finished with her remarks and the performances began did we realize that we had inadvertently sat amongst a horde of young teenagers, some of whom I recognized as dancers from a local drustvo (cultural-artistic society). Fidgety, gregarious, and unsupervised, the teenagers made it almost impossible to focus on enjoying the music and dance, which is why tonight we have decided to come early to secure good seats. Of the festival’s six nights of performances, this is the one that holds the most anticipation for me; the night that Macedonia's professional ensemble of folk dances and songs, Tanec, takes the stage. I have come to the end of my ethnographic project on Macedonian dance, and although I have visited Tanec’ s studio several times, watched rehearsals and spoken with company members, I have yet to see the ensemble perform live. Tonight, of all nights, I do not want to miss a thing. The theater seats about 500. We decide to sit right of center in a row of seats perched and angled in on top of a raised platform. I choose two chairs on the far-left end of a row halfway back so that I will have clear sightlines of both the stage and the audience. No one is around yet, except for the company’s soundman, some stage hands and a bevy of workers from MPTB (Macedonian Radio and Television) who, with under thirty minutes to show time, are just getting around to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55 setting up their cameras and laying down cable. With the theater virtually empty, I am able to look around and take cognizance of its setting. Dolni Saraj rests on a plateau chiseled into the side of a rocky hill rising up from the north shore of the lake. To enter the theater, one must pass through the Lower Gate of what remains of Tsar Samuil’s medieval walled fortress. The son of a Slav prince, Samuil is revered here in Macedonia as the emperor of the first state of the Macedonian Slavs, having risen against Bulgarian rule in the tenth century with the help of his father and three brothers to emerge as the leader of an empire that lasted nearly four decades (976-1014). The towers and high walls of the three- kilometer-long fortress Samuil built to protect his imperial capital still dominates the Ohrid skyline. Yet Samuil’s legacy is not the only force shouldering the weight of history here. The town of Ohrid itself is one of the oldest human settlements in Europe, a place of antiquity inscripted by UNESCO in 1979 as a World Cultural Heritage Site. Known as the “Balkan Jerusalem,” Ohrid is home to the oldest Slav monastery; its churches and museums house the most important collection of Byzantine icons outside of Moscow’s Tretiakov Gallery. Writing elsewhere about how the past is known to us, David Lowenthal (1985:249) speaks of the interconnectivity of memory, history, and relics. “History in isolation is barren and lifeless,” he argues, and relics—because they “require interpretation to voice their reliquary role”—they “mean only what history and memory convey.” For us to experience and believe the past in a significant and credible way, each route to the past “requires the other” to make the journey. “Relics Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 trigger recollection [memory], which history affirms and extends backward in time.” It is hard to say just how much financial capital local and federal government, either acting alone or with the support of foreign NGOs, have invested over the years in uncovering, displaying, and protecting all of the many “material residues” (ibid.:xxii) of Ohrid’s past. Whatever the amount, every excavation, every effort to reconstruct and restore an archaeological site has meant another shard added to Macedonia's cultural patrimony, another spot for whatever sense of collective self-awareness that Macedonians might feel to take root, grow, and deepen. Ohrid not only makes traversing the route from the present to the past immediate, effortless, and natural, but its museums and archaeological sites hold great pedagogical value. I learned of this value last autumn while spending an afternoon in Ohrid with a class of ethnology students from the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje. We were gathered at St. Pantelejmon, having just visited the Antique Theater, where workers were under deadline to complete renovation of the site by the start of the summer season of theatrical and musical performances. One of the students took out an essay he had written about the historical significance of where we were standing. Clement, one of two of the best-known disciples of the Slavic missionary brothers, Cyril and Methodius, founded the first Slavic literary school here at the church monastery of St. Pantelejmon, and educated roughly 3,500 pupils before sending them off on their own missions to spread Slavonic literacy, culture, and art. Yet, as the young man’s essay began to imply, controversy surrounds this site. “Ah, yes,” a classmate chimed in, knowing full well (from what his history Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 books had taught him) exactly where this line of thought was headed. “We are standing on ancient Bulgarian land!” The reverent, Godlike tone of his voice caused a ripple of laughter, but his impromptu, off-the-cuff remark was, nevertheless, a subtle reminder of the symbolic and political capital that is always at stake when it comes to one’s cultural property (Handler 1991). Looking out across the lake from Dolni Saraj, the sound of clanging dinner dishes and boisterous conversation descending down from the homes perched along the inside perimeter of the theater, one can try to lose sight of the historical significance of this backdrop. For me, it takes a lone elderly man, asking if the chair next to mine is free, to muffle the resonance of the past and reign in my wandering mind. Smiling, I offer the chair without hesitation, but am momentarily confused by his request. People have started to arrive, some in pairs, others in what look to be family units of three, four, and more. The teenagers in the bleacher seats are back again, too. Because entrance to the festival is free, even for tonight’s rare domestic appearance by Tanec, the theater seems destined for another capacity crowd. Yet, surely there are plenty o f seats still available, I tell myself, confirming what I suspect with a quick scan of the rows of empty chairs around us. The man plants himself down next to me anyway, and pre-empts my curiosity with an impulse of his own. “My name is Hristo,” he introduces himself, extending his hand to both my husband and me. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 There is something sweet and gentle about his manner; like Mr. Rogers, but with thick, silver hair and a meticulously trimmed moustache to match. Bom and raised southeast of Skopje in the town of Stip where he still lives with his wife, a retired nurse, Hristo, I learn, was a teacher for many of his 71 years and worked later in his career helping mentally handicapped children. “Were you ever an igraorecT I ask, gesturing toward the stage. “No. We didn’t have things like that when I was growing up,” Hristo answers back matter-of-factly, staring off into the night sky. “At home I like to put on music and dance, though. My wife tells me to stop...,” he chuckles, leaning in to me now as if to confess a secret, “... but I can’t.” We have ourselves a good laugh, but meanwhile I have lost track of the growing crowd so that now, instead of the detailed mental notes I had hoped to make about people as they walked in, I must rely on whatever fragments my senses can discern. Because I hear no other language than Macedonian being spoken around me, I am forced to assume that a majority of the audience are from Macedonia. While most are wearing everyday street clothes, some—notably older spectators—are dressed up as if Dolni Saraj were a formal theater and as if tonight’s presentation by Tanec were an event of high cultural enjoyment. Yet, who are these people? Dignitaries? Locals from the lake region? Parents, family and friends of company members? Or are they, like Hristo, vacationers getting away from the familiar rhythm of small-town life, escaping the summer heat of Skopje? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 Living in Skopje, I hear from friends and neighbors on an almost daily basis nothing but how difficult it is to get by on the average worker’s salary of $150 a month. Even for the most frugal of dual-income families, such wages can stretch only so far. Yet, somehow, these very same people are many of the ones who are here now, not necessarily at tonight’s performance, but here, in Ohrid, on vacation. Granted, much of Europe goes on holiday around this time, but how can the average Macedonian afford to be here? I have come to understand that in some instances, friends and neighbors have not been completely forthcoming, eliciting my sympathy with talk of financial duress, but stopping short of divulging too much. Although a worker might bring in only $150 from their factory job, they fail to mention the pension they receive from the grandfather who lives with them, or the rent check they collect each month from the family that now resides in the apartment where grandfather once lived. My assumption, that because I hear only Macedonian being spoken around me a majority of the spectators here must be from Macedonia, provokes other lines of thought. Primarily, it exposes the inherent vulnerability of looking to language as a marker of identification. The man in the row behind me, for example, who is to say that he is not a Canadian-Macedonian transnational who although is speaking Macedonian fluently would not necessarily identify himself as being from Macedonia? Furthermore, even if I were to eavesdrop on another language, how could I possibly know if the person speaking it were from here or not? Because Macedonia is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual country (Macedonian, Albanian, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 Turkish, Romani, Vlah, and Serbian are all spoken here), relying on language as the mark of citizenship effectively erases the diversity that exists. It also plays into what Victor Friedman (2002) labels a “West European construct equating language with nationality (and nationality with statehood)” or, in this case, country of citizenship. Such a conflation, Friedman points out, has effectively helped to “force on people [in Macedonia] the kind of choices that have led to the current conflict.” Given the current conflict, then, and the extent to which it has attracted foreign observers, diplomats, negotiators, arbitrators, humanitarian workers, NGO staff members, missionaries, and foreign service and military personnel, how accurate is my assumption about the makeup of the audience? The potential diversity of publics begs the questions: For whose benefit will tonight’s performance be? To whose aesthetics will Tanec be hoping to appeal with its dance and song selection? Were this the United States, I could explore with confidence what Francesca Castaldi (2000:33) calls “the confrontation between global [First World] consumers as world-wise spectators on one side of the stage, and local producers... on the other side of the proscenium.” Yet, here in Ohrid, because I cannot possibly delineate just one but several confrontations, I am compelled to write about a multiplicity of choreographies. My attention gets redirected to the back of the theater. Several musicians, like pied pipers, are leading a singing caravan of people in to the tune of Makedonsko Devojce, a somewhat kitschy “national anthem” of sorts, known the world over by its admirers as one of Macedonia's most beloved folk songs. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 Macedonian girl, a many-colored bouquet, gathered in a garden, given as a gift. There are no stars more beautiful, than your eyes. They light up the night sky, as though it were dawn. When you undo your hair, like silk, you are lovely, lovelier than a faiiy. When you sing a song, you out-sing the nightingale. When you start to dance, your heart dances. Not many know, however, that despite its reputation as a folk song Makedonsko Devojce is actually a novocompanirana pesna—a newly-composed song, that is, written in the modem era by an author whose name, come to mention it, I have never seen cited or heard spoken. Macedonians have a knack for doing that—transforming and making something “folk”—which is how, even though Makedonsko Devojce was probably pounded out on a manual typewriter or composed with pen and paper, people have embraced the song as if it has been around for some time. Everyone seems to know the lyrics. Even the teenagers in the bleachers are swinging back and forth arm in arm, singing the chorus at the top of their lungs. Is there in this wide world, a more beautiful girl than a Macedonian? There isn't, there isn't, there won't be bom. a more beautiful girl than a Macedonian! No lights flicker to signal the start of Tanec’ s presentation. No curtain opens. The company’s Folk Orchestra enters upstage right, I sit back in my chair, and the performance begins. Two-by-two, the dancers appear; the men from stage right, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 women from the opposite side. Dressed in folk costumes, they walk leisurely about the stage as if on a Sunday stroll. There are no props on stage to depict a village setting, yet we know this is exactly what Tanec is inviting us to imagine. Except for a few props that appear in some of the later choreographies, there will continue to be a dearth of sceneography throughout the evening’s program. Yet, the image of the village as the central place of activity will persist and serve as the backdrop for several danced scenarios: a clash between two groups of men; young maidens drawing water from the village well; a festive gathering of “youth” at the village center; two young bachelors desiring the attention of the same young girl. Choreocritic’s Program Notes The Republic of Macedonia’s professional folklore ensemble, Tanec, choreographs and presents stylized interpretations of the folk dances and music of the Macedonian people that have been collected over the years from various regions of the country, including the Aegean, Pirin, and Prespa regions of historic Macedonia. These dances are performed at domestic, regional and international festivals, at gatherings abroad in the Macedonian diaspora, and at official state functions and commemorations. Tanec thus represents the cultural patrimony of the Macedonian people as well as the national patrimony of the republic. Tanec, like the other professional, national folk dance companies of the former Yugoslavia, was formed in the wake of the Second World War amidst a burgeoning of companies throughout Eastern Europe and the former Communist Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 Bloc. The company was founded in 1949, just four years after Macedonia became a constituent republic of SFRJ. The creation of professional, state sponsored folklore ensembles in Yugoslavia was the act of a central government keen on implementing cultural policies that, on one level, would allow each of Yugoslavia’s six republics the ability to exercise a degree of cultural autonomy by showcasing their “unique” traditional folk heritage, yet on another level would actually domesticate that difference by fostering at home, and asserting and internationalizing abroad, a Yugoslav identity that could compete in the modem (Western) world.1 The choreographing of several national (ethnic) cultures into a supra-national Yugoslav one faltered, but not before establishing an indelible triangulation of local dance traditions, the creation of national culture, and the representation of such to the outside world. Reconfigured and recontextualized, dance, music and costumes were implicated as “surface markers” (cf. Shay 2002:6) of ethnic and national communities of identification. As such, Tanec became for the Macedonian people what Castaldi (2000:36) would call a “vehicle of historical memory and continuity,” a role explicitly acknowledged by the company itself in numerous pieces of promotional literature. “Tanec” is a name that for five decades has been a symbol of the Macedonian culture and arts, five decades of its existence has been an Ambassador and presenter of the Macedonian folk creation with us and all the continents of the globe. For five decades it has been a mobile museum of that which represents the most beautiful, ancient, invaluable, Macedonian folklore treasures, being an identity and history of the Macedonian people.2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 To this day, Tanec “takes ethnography in its own hands,” (Castaldi 2000:37), staging choreographies that articulate a specific vision of Macedonia's national cultural patrimony. “Choreo-graphy becomes the writing of history and indigenous traditions, and the dances so produced are to be read” as such “by ‘the public of the whole world’.” Official Program Notes Available at the Dolni Saraj theater are two programs in addition to the festival’s general brochure. For this evening’s concert by Tanec, a simple pocket- size foldout lists the order for what promises to be the company’s presentation of six dances, four choral selections, and one orchestra instrumental. A much larger, three- panel brochure provides publicity notes on the ensemble and on the new choreography, “Kopahja,” that will receive its premier tonight as the opening dance. Displayed in full color across the front and back of the program are photographs of the ensemble dancing various configurations from “Kopacija,” each one posed on a slab of concrete in front of a small pond lined with dense tree-cover. Several distinct blocks of text accompany the photographs. From Tanec’ s General Manager, Bosko Treneski, I read: Macedonia is a country with a rich and distinctive folklore that over the decades has become known in the world. That which the people have created over time and passed down through the generations, selfishly protected of foreign influences, violence and barbarity to this very day, represents authentic proof of the culture, history and tradition of the Macedonian forged through the centuries of his survival. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65 The choreographic piece “Kopacija” is made up of several folk dances and songs from the region of Kopacija (an area in the western part of the Kicevo region, Western Macedonia), worked out into a choreographic piece for staged performance by a folklore ensemble accompanied by a large folk orchestra consisting of original and traditional instruments. These dances represent a link in the chain of the rich opus of dances and songs from this region. The rich melorhythmic characteristics in the melodies of the songs, as well as the choreological elements of the dances, are accompanied by original instruments. The traditionally-transferred skill of creating folk costumes made of wool and decorated with braids, native sterling silver and beads, all epitomizing a mosaic of embroideries in various colors and forms that have adorned shirts, sleeveless jackets, socks and other elements of traditional costumes skillfully made by the hands of maidens for over 150 years, represents an extraordinary example of the harmony of materials in the ethnology. The necklaces, earrings, prayer beads and other jewelry made of gold and silver ring in the dance of the maidens and the brides. From (jrorgi dorgiev, a musicologist and professor of music at the university in Skopje, I learn that “ KopacijcT is based on the “izvornf (original/authentic3 ) folklore of a Macedonian population that immigrated to the area of Kicevo in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from the Klenje region of Albania. I read that, in spite of the adaptations that the Klenje folklore traditions inevitably underwent over the course of time, most of the elements of the dance and music “reference the wider Macedonian folk dialect and its distinguishable characteristics” such as the “well- known” odd-metered rhythms of the music and dance. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 Choreocritic’s Metanotes on the Program Notes The pocket-size foldout is in Cyrillic only, barring those who cannot read and/or understand it from knowing just what sort of information it is presenting. Transliterating the Cyrillic into Latin, and then translating the Macedonian into (presumably) English certainly would have added extra printing costs. If in fact there are “foreigners” in the audience tonight, however, are Tanec and the festival organizers at all bothered that a segment of their audience will be rendered illiterate? Granted, even for those who do read and understand Macedonian, the brochure lacks embellishment. Under the title of each dance selection, for example, is simply the word Kopeozpafiuja (choreography); and to the right, the personal names of each choreographer and music author. Perhaps the brochure was printed with only a “native” audience in mind, in which case the decision not to include more information about the selection of dances might make sense. Except for the new choreography, “Kopacija,” these dances have been around for years, so the likelihood is high that most of the spectators tonight have seen them performed before, and thus do not require program notes to guide them. Does previous viewing experience mitigate the need for guidance? Yet, what about those who are seeing these dances for the first time and thus are lacking any kind of context? What about those who do not know that these dances are choreographies—fictions, in a sense, that do not accurately portray what one would actually experience in a village—and instead mistake them for the “real thing” as Macedonian folklorists accuse “foreigners” of doing all the time? For them, these details will be left ambiguous. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 Enjoying the visual spectacle on stage will take precedence over other modes of understanding it. The larger brochure is more forthcoming in providing an interpretative framework for both the ensemble and the new choreography. Treneski’s picturesque text is in both Macedonian and English, as is the short biographical sketch of Tanec on the back cover, (jorgiev’s more academic prose, however, is not; neither for that matter are the personal bios of the three men whose collaborative efforts have resulted in tonight’s premier o f “ Kopacija.” My focus on language and its translation (or lack thereof) into a lingua franca leaves me wondering, what is the nature of the discursive energy available at the theater? Both Treneski’s and 6orgiev’s narratives, although specific to the new choreography, seem to share in the belief that through its stage presentation of folk dance and music traditions Tanec conveys a compelling sense of what they would call Macedonian identity. In the following section of this chapter I will analyze the performance of Tanec and begin to evaluate this message. What are the particular precedents that Tanec taps into? What choreographic strategies does the company employ to interweave a national biography and public narrative? Analyzing the Performance: Melorhythm, Fun in the Village, and the Individualism of the M ajority The tapandzija4 signals the call to dance with his drum, and the other instruments join in. A wall of sound overcomes the theater. I immediately feel Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 restless, trapped in by my chair and unable to do much about my sudden impulse to move. Tanec’ s cast of dancers appears. All twenty are dressed in folk costumes. The men have on: natural white, long-sleeved cotton shirts and wool trousers trimmed with braided cords of black wool; black, elbow-length home-spun wool jackets; wide red and black plaid sashes; black caps, red wool socks, and brown opanci (traditional leather footwear). The women are adorned in costumes with significantly more intricate detail: natural white cotton chemises stitched down the front and along the hem with embroidered mosaics, and along the sleeve cuffs with panels of brocade trim; embroidered, felted wool vests with filigree buttons; sleeveless, black wool coats trimmed with braided cords of red wool; long wool aprons with variegated, multi-colored horizontal patterns woven into their design; white lace-trimmed head scarves, opaque black stockings, and brown opanci. The textured colors pop under the bright white lights and drench the stage in vivid hues of red, orange, yellow, and gold. The dancers are walking leisurely about the stage as if on a Sunday stroll. The men move with a swagger and gesture gallantly with open arms, throwing smiles toward the women who demurely accept the attention as they sashay by arm- in-arm. The music crescendos slightly and, then, the ensemble breaks out in song. A beautiful melody swells from the stage and swirls out in to the night air. Angelino, mome, sto te kara majka? Angelina, young lass, why does your mother scold you? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69 The women saunter toward center stage, arriving easily and gently into an open circle. The music lilts out of the refrain as the women entwine their fingers in a high hand-hold. Quickly, though, the song comes back around. As it does, and as the women rise onto the balls of their feet, the muscular sound of the men’s voices catches the melody and lifts the women forward into the dance. The company’s timing and orchestration are breathtaking. Melody and rhythm share body and spirit with one another in both Macedonian music and dance. Of the two, rhythm is the prime interface. When a music phrase and a dance phrase do not match, for example, rhythm exerts itself as the unifying element. Its presence is a constant pulsation that interpolates what we hear and see. As the most obvious of timekeepers, the tapan marks the rhythm for both music and dance. Yet, it would be inaccurate to assume that this is all that it does. A good tapandzija should be able to play alone, to “sing” with his drum by articulating complex rhythms and improvised drumming patterns so skillfully and convincingly that a song’s melody emerges despite the absence of any melodic instrument. The addition of melodic instruments—in tonight’s case, that of kaval (long wooden flute), supelka (short wooden tube open at both ends), gajda (two- voice bagpipe), and tambura (long-necked lute)—each with its own timbre increases the layers of melodic complexity and pushes the rhythms deep into the song’s sound core. It is this sound core that overcomes the theater, that swirls out as a melody and that lifts the women forward in the shape of a dance. The addition of dance is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 breathtaking precisely because it interpolates the sound core in such a way that what we have been experiencing only aurally now gets mapped onto what we see. Malesora, the first of two male dances performed within the larger “Kopacija” choreography, calls attention to what Macedonian ethnomusicologists mean when they speak of the “accenting” and “joining” of metrical elements in Macedonian music and dance (Dimitrovski 2001). From what I can tell, the dance phrase is quite simple. Leading with the right foot, the men perform a quick series of four counter-clockwise movements—two walking-like steps forward followed by two faster-tempo step-ball-changes—out of which they simultaneously hop on to the left foot while lifting the right thigh almost parallel to the ground. As the right leg comes down, the left thigh lifts up and crosses down over the right leg. The crossing movement momentarily stops the forward progression of the dance. Dancing in place now, the men repeat two more hopping leg lifts before pivoting their hips slightly to the right so as to begin the phrase again. Tanec’ s male corps of dancers is dancing to the music, and it is exciting to watch how the men’s movements suddenly take on an unexpected shape when, for example, the tapandzija cuts through the sound core with high-pitched triple accents. Yet, the dancers, too, are striking accents and creating melodic shapes in the music as if their bodies were instruments in the ensemble. Their hops dip and swing, their forward steps steal time. They condense movements and create ghost beats. Every nerve in their bodies seems wired to access a portion of the orchestration that would be rendered silent were it not for their nimble-footed stylizations. Interlocked, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 music and dance accelerate and drag, push and pull against one another, causing each to take on the “melorhythmic knitting” accents and contrasts that give each its characteristic feel. If (as the narrative embedded in tonight’s program notes suggest) Tanec conveys a compelling sense of “Macedonian identity” through its stage presentation of folkloric traditions, melorhythm emerges as a deeply relevant initial protagonist. It stabilizes the association of Macedonian folk music—and by extension dance—with storylines that resonate far beyond ethnomusicological talk of microtonal melodies and odd-metered rhythms. [Macedonian melody] is a melody of an ancient Slavonic people installed in the heart of the Balkan Peninsula. It is a spontaneous art of one entity that always had a role of masterful bridge and of an actual spiritual link between civilization values of the Orient and Europe. (Dimitrovski 2001) And what about the rhythm? It is a combination of deep feelings, molded from the soul and cemented by the melody and harmony. It is a pure expression of one people pursued by the suffering to express themselves through the music, (cf. Dimitrovski 2001) The energy radiating from the stage is just too much for Hristo to bear. He is at the edge of his seat, humming along with the orchestra, and dancing as best as he can with the men. Tanec seems to have tapped in to some kind of precedence for him. Halfway through the evening’s performance, when the ensemble begins “ Sredselo”—a choreography that literally means “middle of the village”—Hristo leans over and recounts to me how years ago he and his friends would gather at the village center under a full moon much like tonight’s to dance and sing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 “Remember,” he adds, his tone nostalgic, “there was no electricity back then.” Throughout the performance, the village persists as the center of interaction and the focus of our attention. Woven into the dancer’s costuming, the nuances of village life find symbolic substitution. There are slight variations to each of the folk costumes, especially the ones worn by the women. No two are exactly alike, but rather reflect what would have been the inevitable differences in each wearer’s social status, economic position, and individual aesthetics. Furthermore, because each choreography will call for a different set of costumes, so, too, will each choreography reinforce the Macedonian proverb: “For every village, a different custom, a different dress.” The dancers, some of whom are well in their 40s, project a youthful, bucolic like innocence, and inform the villages we see on stage with their wholesome activities and “fun-in-the-village” antics (Shay 2002). The choreography “Solo Sedenka” (Work Bee Solo) provides a good example of this fun-in-the-village motif. At the beginning, only a young girl is on stage. She sits on a low stool, her hands spinning an imaginary spool of wool at a pace that matches the feverish time signature of the music. We take her to be the industrious type. Two curious friends saunter by, but the girl remains focused on her task. A few moments later, she places her wool to the side, brushes off her apron, and stands up. She skips around, displaying something (herself?) to the audience, skips back to her stool, sits, and resumes with spinning. As she does, a male dancer shoots out across the stage, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73 walking back into her purview with the obvious intention of gaining the girl’s attention with a show of endurance and strength. His animated, repetitive step patterns are synchronized perfectly with the musical accompaniment so that every time he lifts his thigh parallel to the ground or drops down into a deep squat, the tapan is there to catch the accent. The girl acts unimpressed. A second male suitor leaps into the scene, scuffling a bit with the first dancer before he, too, makes an attempt to wrestle the girl away from her work. His fancy footwork is similar to his competitor’s, but when he adds several spins to his display, lifting himself completely off the ground on his last rotation, landing deftly on bended knees, it is his outstretched hand that the girl accepts. They take off dancing, merrily, side-by-side with their arms crossed in front, hands clasped together. They move as a unit upstage and downstage, from left to right. Meanwhile, the first suitor continues to show his persistence, politely pestering the girl for a dance, beckoning her to at least look at him, and even trying to knock the other suitor out of the way. The music changes color. A slow, foreboding tempo accompanies the men to center stage. All three have stopped dancing. The men seem poised for a fight. The remainder of the ensemble fans out on stage. The girl looks worried, frightened even, but manages to calm the two men down long enough for them to shake hands. The music turns festive again; all is well. The three dance together. The girl breaks away for a moment to dance by herself, but then is escorted back to the rear of the stage to take her place with the other “maidens,” who stand with their arms interlocked. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 The ensemble begins to sing a song about young girls gathered at a sedenka and the young boys with whom they share a look, a laugh, and a wink. The kavali and supelki sustain a simple, two-chord tremolo to mark the end of the song. Then, in a matter of one quick downbeat, the orchestra manages to shift colors again. A beautiful melody swirls out into the night air, just as it did earlier in the evening. The sound of the song, and of the men’s deep voices singing it, releases the girl out into the open stage. She dances alone with a new center of energy that seems to lift her body off the ground effortlessly. Do you remember, dear Todorka, when we two kissed in uncle’s garden? We sat on a branch; we picked cherries. There is something melancholy about the melody, but something grand and impassioned about it, too, like the “sighs of gentle lovers” (Karakas 1995:iii). Twirling a handkerchief above her, the girl dances to the front of the female line and pulls it forward so that now all of the women are moving with her, hopping in perfect unison, gliding across the stage around an imaginary dance ring as the men continue with their serenade. We picked cherries; we took a solemn oath, That whoever marries first should become very ill, For nine years to lie ill, and go through nine changes of bed linens. A minute later, what started as a confrontation between a girl’s two young suitors turns into a harmless dance competition between two groups of men. Whistling and hollering, the first group launches itself into center stage dancing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 Kopacka. They are holding onto each other’s belts, and for good reason. Kopacka is already, surely, the fastest of all Macedonian ora, yet the staged version of the dance is even faster. With their hands gripped onto each other’s belts, the dancers at least will have something with which to stabilize themselves. Slightly stiff-legged, they shuffle their feet fast and low across the floor in front of them. They dig their left heels into the ground three times. Kopacka’ s movements, symbolic of the heavy legwork involved with digging into stubborn mountain soil, are meant to mimic what happens when, for example, the full force of one’s weight pushes down on a shovel stuck in soil that refuses to give way. The dancers lift their thighs subtly at first, then increasingly higher. As if wrestling their imaginary shovels from the earth, their knees bend out of shape and contort from side to side. Because Kopacka is performed with the dancers facing toward the center of the shallow dance arc rather than diagonally in the direction of movement, the dance looks to almost tug and lurch across the stage. Having given their best performance, the first group dances out of the way as the second group juts out right behind them. The men are in a straight line facing the audience. The choreography they are doing is a complete abandonment of any recognizable dance. They hop in place, stomp their feet percussively with the tapan, squat down on their haunches, kick their legs out in front of them, and move up and down the middle of the stage. The music modulates, and suddenly the stage erupts into a festive gathering of friends. The entire ensemble is dancing, the women in one line, the men in their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76 respective groups. Each line takes turn occupying our center of attention, shifting from background to foreground, breaking apart either into smaller dance arcs or circles that curl in at their tales. The tempo of the music accelerates, or does it just seem that way? The dance lines are moving around the stage with great speed and with such energy, changing directions on cue and intersecting like panels of latticework. The music modulates again. This time there is a definite increase in tempo. Can the musicians really play any faster than they already are? Can the dancers really dance any faster? “ Eeeeejjjjjj, o p a \f the men shout out in unison. A group of them rushes toward the audience, then immediately drops back to form one long line with the other male dancers. The women pull their line right up alongside the men’s so that now both dance arcs are parallel, the men directly behind the women. Only the two dance leaders (the girl and her suitor) and the couple at the rear hold hands. The dancers wind around the stage, moving in unison, smiling and flirting with one another as they exit from our purview. The value of choreographing to this fun-in-the-village motif emanates from the larger value of staged folklore qua a representation of a nation. The village we see on stage is idiomatic of a space that emotes positive values. It is an idealized image of bucolic life. As the geographic birthplace of the nation, the village stands in as the metaphorical marker of a naturalized, non-political nation-state entity. The village peasant—the “folk” embodied on stage by the dancers—confronts us as the flesh and blood repository of that nation’s soul. The setting of the Dolni Saraj Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 theater contributes to the illusion perpetuated on stage that these choreographies “emerge from some primordial source of the nation’s purest and most authentic values” (Shay 2002:6). The evening culminates with a medley of dances drawn from the Prespa region, aptly titled “Prespanski Igri” (“Prespa Dances”). Of the ten dances I recognize only one, Kalamatija, a dance from Greece. “With Kalamatija a woman must show what she has—her hips and her chest,” I was told when I first learned it months ago. Kalamatija’ s style came quickly and naturally to me from the start. Something about dancing in three’s with that strong Aegean accent on the down beat. I liked the way it lifted my body and made my hips swoosh. Watching Tanec perform the dance now, I am reminded that at one time those distinctively Aegean hip accents had as much to do with a man getting his short pleated over-skirt to rustle as it did with a woman showing off what she had. Yet, what of the other nine dances in the medley? And why, after such a vivid tableau of color and embroidery in the costumes, is there now so much black and such a dearth of ornamentation? I know that the Prespa region is a borderland (the region encompasses parts of Macedonia, Greece, Albania), a confluence of multiple communities of identification, but I do not know how to interpret what I am seeing on stage. Because there are no publicity notes for “Prespanski IgrT available at the theater, I must go elsewhere to fill in the gaps. The company’s website assures me that “Prespanski Igri” is neither about some “incidental event” in a village nor “some kind of artificial creation,” but rather Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 about the “mutual influences” of several dance and music traditions. Stojce Karanfilov (also the choreographer of tonight’s “Kopacija”) assembled the medley of dances to call attention to the centuries of “mutual life” amongst the region’s Macedonian, Albanian, Greek, and Vlah inhabitants. I read that I should not be surprised to hear songs of the same melody being sung in three different languages. I am told that “ Prespanski Igri” is a choreography of “one collective consciousness.” Browsing through a book on Macedonian folk costumes, hoping to find an answer to my question about the sudden lack of color and ornamentation in the costuming, I inadvertently stumble upon information that intimates a tension of contradictory associations with what Tanec’ s website has just provided me. I learn that Prespa’s once heterogeneous mix of Macedonians, Albanians, Vlahs, Roma, and a small number of Turks plowed their trade in agriculture up until the end of the nineteenth century when the soil no longer yielded them a sufficient profit. The burden of living on barren land and paying taxes to the Ottoman Begs caused many to look for work far from their birthplace in Prespa. As these inhabitants moved away on pecalba (economic migration), the region they left behind became one of the main centers of operation for IMRO (the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization), a national-revolutionary organization that counted both Macedonian and Bulgarian sympathizers among its ranks. IMRO enacted a number of prohibitions during its tenure in Prespa, the strongest and most curious of which pertained to men’s and women’s clothing. Black replaced natural white as the predominant color, and the once luxuriously-colored embroidery and ornamentation Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 so characteristic of a woman’s chemise were either toned down into darker hues or eliminated altogether (Zdravev 1991:105). Returning to Tanec 's website, I am confronted with discourse about the “authentic character” of several of the dances included in “Prespanski Ig rf’ —Potskohano, Arnautsko, Mesano, and Kalamatija—and how the presence of “original national costumes” adds to the choreography’s depiction of the regional folklore.5 In light of what my other source has revealed, exactly how far back do “authentic” and “original” imply? One-hundred years? Two-hundred? Or just far enough to stake a claim, as the website does, that what I am seeing on stage represents a “base of Macedonian elements]” influenced by the traditions of “other nationalities” (emphasis added)? How can “Prespanski Igri” be about “mutual influences” and the representation of a Macedonian “base” at the same time? Who exactly belongs in this choreography of “one collective consciousness”? Regions enlarge the geographic area from which a choreography extracts its source material. Choreographically speaking then, presenting a suite of dances emblematic of a specific region such as Prespa particularizes the narrative that Tanec (re)presents on stage. Lost in the minutiae of unique step patterns, music inflections and costuming, we come to perceive of Macedonia as a country of distinct local identities. Yet, something more essentializing is concurrently at play. Couched alongside the rhetoric of “mutual influences” and “one collective consciousness” is the belief that a choreography such as “Prespanski IgrF personifies the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 “individualism of the majority.” Such a message—in effect a microcosm of tonight’s entire presentation—offers a compellingly clear signal of two things: despite the mutual presence of other cultures, these dances are meant to be visual, aural, and kinetic representations of the dominant Macedonian group; and as the sole professional folklore ensemble representing the Republic of Macedonia, Tanec promotes a national biography in which local identities are subservient to a corporate one associated almost exclusively with the majority population of ethnic Macedonians. In Chapter 4 ,1 will explore farther how Tanec upholds both a particularized and essentialized nationalist ideology. In effect, as Richard Handler (1994:29 emphasis added) observes, “in nationalist ideology, internal diversity is always encompassed by national homogeneity.” Before leaving the Balkan Festival o f Folk Songs and Dances, however, I return briefly to the theater and to the festival’s third evening of presentations. I see this night—a night during which several amateur ensembles performed—as offering another layer of interpretation that begins to take into consideration some of the off-stage verities that a polished performance such as Tanec’ s excludes from view. Back at the Theater The third night of the festival is minutes from starting as Gustavo and our dear friends, Maja and Bojan, plop down in the seats that I have been saving for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 them at Dolni Saraj. Bojan immediately catches notice of something that I have been contemplating for awhile. On top of the stage, lining its perimeter, is a cadre of pubescent boys dressed in light body armor, stringy ankle-wrap sandals, and short, white tunics. A handful of similarly-dressed young girls (minus the body armor) are interspersed among their male counterparts. Standing at attention with guilded spears, the boys’ presence clearly evokes the ancient birthright of Ohrid if not the very image of Alexander the Great himself. Given the formality of the event (Macedonia’s Minister of Culture is in attendance) and the theater’s location amongst the ruins and remnants of Tsar Samuil’s medieval walled fortress, I brush aside the historical anomaly. Yet, Bojan is quick to point out that the appropriation of Alexander the Great (“started by the Macedonians in Australia,” he adds parenthetically) is historically very “problematic.” Problematic, I make a mental note to myself, not because it was, in fact, mid-nineteenth century Macedonians seeking inspiration for their national awakening and not Macedonians in Australia who first latched on to the appropriation, but because, despite being disproved long ago, the lingering belief in the minds o f some—no more so than in the minds o f Macedonian emigres in Australia—that Alexander and his father, Phillip, were Slavs made diplomacy between the Republic o f Macedonia and Greece difficult. I know what Bojan means, but my mind’s eye is already transfixed on the real soldiers with real weapons guarding the backstage area. On the evening’s program is a potpourri of music and dance ensembles. Oteks, a drustvo from around Ohrid, performs first, presenting a couple of standard Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82 choreographies in lackluster fashion. They are not very well rehearsed, several of the male dancers make glaring mistakes, and their painted, machine-pressed felt costumes are noticeable imitations of the embroidered, hand-made wool ones that Tanec and many of the more serious amateur ensembles wear. It feels wrong, though, to judge the ensemble so harshly. The dancers are, of course, just teenagers (perhaps experiencing a little stage fright), and it is hardly their fault that the ensemble to which they belong most likely has an operating budget too small to even pay for an adequate rehearsal space let alone adequate costumes. An ensemble from Pustec, Albania (located in the Mala Prespa region of historic Macedonia) performs next. Three elderly women walk onto the stage, and with little fanfare (and even less self-consciousness) begin to sing. One drone and two leading voices? Or is it two drones that I hear — one that stays on pitch like the fixed glow o f an unflickering candle, and one that “ trains” the speed and intonation o f the leading voice (the voice that “ cries aloud” and “ spells out” the song), but then crosses pitches? Either way the result would have been the same, like the sound of a lazy ear that has gone off pitch and is now pulling the other voices out of tune except, in this case, all three women are right on pitch, dropping in and out of semi-tone chords without so much as a hint of effort. There is a reason why these dissonant-sounding glitches (or, rather, what the uninitiated ear perceives as dissonant) are referred to here as moments of “accord”.6 The microphone that the sound engineer has set up for the women hardly seems necessary. Their voices are what folklorists here would call the real thing, “village voices,” that is, accustomed Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 to releasing sound by just throwing the voice back out, as if what were being sung had to travel across a pasture or be heard over a river’s rushing water. Really raw, I later write down in my notes. And really poor? The dancers—an equal mix of young boys and girls—take to the stage dressed in minimal costuming; simple maroon- and black-colored garments. Some are wearing opanci while others have on black, flat-footed, slip-on tennis shoes. No choreography. No stylization. Just one dance, and then another. Most unusual of all are the long braids hanging down from out under the head scarves that the girls are wearing. Typically, if they are to achieve the prevailing aesthetic, female igraorci have no choice but to attach manufactured, synthetic braids to their own natural hair. Presumably, to pass as a “folk” dancer, a girl must possess “folk” hair. Yet, these braids are made of real hair, and some of them are not even attached. Are these the ethnic Macedonians that my newspaper editor/activist friend, Slavko, had encouraged me to visit a while back? They live in isolated communities, “intermarry, ” and have “ an archaic way o f speaking. ” Are these the ones fo r whom dancing has become a passage for community organization? The audience, which again has filled the theater to capacity, lavishes the ensemble with applause after its twenty-minute presentation. Though I never did visit the Macedonians in Mala Prespa, I did spend a cold, February afternoon with some o f their brethren living along Macedonia’ s southwestern border. These brethren (whole families o f refugees) had left Albania for the shores ofLake Prespa in 1991, hoping to escape the intolerable conditions under which they were living in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 Mala Prespa. Unbelievably, despite surviving the past ten years living in an abandoned hotel complex, cooking in makeshift kitchens, and doing their best to keep warm in spite o f the cold winds that whistled through the sheets o f clear plastic doubling as windows, there was a sense among them that they were leading a better life here at the camp than the one they left behind in Albania, where socio-cultural stigmatization factored into their tough circumstances. Was the audience’s applause motivated by pity then? The kind one feels when confronted with the difficult circumstances of others? A pity driven by one’s need to be absolved of guilt? I was told that during the course o f the camp's ten- year existence, the neighboring Macedonian town has never offered even symbolic support. The artists at a nearby pottery retreat have never gone to the camp even to share their work with the young children, most o f who were born at the camp. Foreign NGOs, presumably in the business o f offering humanitarian assistance, have all but ignored these ethnic Macedonians, whose refugee status, unfortunately, was acquired during a period o f Balkan history long ago obfuscated by more recent crises. These are not refugees from Bosnia or Kosovo, mind you, and so they have y fallen through the cracks ofNGO administration and nomenclature. Or perhaps my mind speculates too much, and maybe it is just encouragement and support, plain and simple, that the audience wants to convey? At the end of the concert, several people approach the Pustec ensemble, embracing them tightly the way close friends or family members do after long periods of separation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85 Headlining the evening is an ensemble from Bitosa, Bulgaria. We are a bit stunned when five or six girls from the ensemble take to the stage dressed in revealing, pastel-colored jazzy costumes, accompanied by the infectious, pulsating rhythm of synthesized music tracks, and begin performing what can only be described as modem interpretive dance in caricature. Their young, inexperienced bodies are moving in unison, long hair brushing suggestively across their shoulders as they awkwardly gyrate their hips and throw their heads around in a circle. Talk about an anomaly. The folk dancers that immediately follow are equally as flashy in their fast- tempo, intricately patterned dances, which Maja recognizes as originating from up and down Bulgaria’s western region. The girls change costumes after every suite of dances, running back on stage each time with a different colored scarf wrapped around their heads—“one scarf for every color in the Bulgarian flag,” Maja astutely notices. The ensemble puts on a tour de force that lasts well over an hour. “The Bulgarians don’t want to leave!” Maja howls over the sound system. “That’s how it always starts!” We go for pizza afterwards at a restaurant along one of Ohrid’s narrow, cobblestone streets, which by this hour has lost its charm to the nauseating glare of neon lights and the cacophony of competing stereo systems. As we settle in at our table I make the comment that the subtitle for the Bulgarian ensemble’s “interpretive dance” could have been: “Bulgarian village girls... we aren’t who you think we are.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 Bojan’s face lights up with a huge smirk as he tells me that I am mean and much too cynical. “It’s time for you to leave,” he jokes admonishingly. “Yes. Yes,” Maja adds, equally sarcastically. “You’re really becoming much too Macedonian.” The confluence of images and narratives both available at Dolni Saraj and contained within my mediated interpretation brings us to the question that informs the next chapter. What are the wider historical and political processes that have shaped what it means to identify one’s self with being Macedonian or of having a Macedonian national consciousness? In the next chapter, I broach this topic, using an analysis of the “Macedonian Question” and its critique by two Macedonian intellectuals as a way to place dance into a broader discussion of nationalist ideology, legitimacy, and sovereignty. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 2: 1 When Tanec made its 1956 Carnegie Hall debut, the company was billed as the Yugoslav National Folk Ballet, a name (confusingly enough) that all three of Yugoslavia’s professional ensembles utilized (Shay 2002:233). The use of the word “ballet” was a bit of a misnomer, yet its appropriation challenged notions of Western cultural aesthetics by suggesting that folk culture, like ballet, was a form of high art. 2 This promotional information was accessed on April 13, 2004 from the company’s official website www.tanec.com.mk. 3 Izvoren literally means “from the spring.” It is a word that resonates well with the notion that staged choreographies are realized vis-a-vis fieldwork carried out on the very soil from which the folklore being re-presented emanates. 4 Tapandzija is the word used to designate a tapan player. 5 Notwithstanding the individual differences in costuming described earlier, on the stage as in the village (or, in this case, the region) of the past, the costumes project a unified communal identity. 6 Rodna Velickovksa has written extensively about harvest singing in Macedonia, and although I lack any kind of real knowledge about traditional forms of singing and thus can not venture to say exactly what kind of song the women from Albania were singing, I am enough of a dilettante to recognize points of mutuality between the women’s performance and what Velickovksa has described in her research (see Velickovska n.k.). I thank Rodna for tutoring me in the fine art of droning, and for humoring me all those times when I wanted to practice being the “unflickering candle flame” for her leading voice. 7 In ten years, only one foreign NGO has visited the refugee camp at Lake Prespa—the one my husband and I accompanied on that cold February day. We had been asked by a small group of Macedonians who worked in the Skopje office of a Japanese NGO to participate in an interactive music, art, and creativity program that they had developed especially for the children at the camp. At the conclusion of the program—parents having cheered their children as they paraded around the ‘community center’ (a gutted-out structure in which the wind blew unobstructed through the windowless window casings) holding paintings that they had drawn—a woman approached me and asked, “Are you from Japan?” I answered without judgment, but I found hers a peculiar question since I in no way resemble a person from Japan. I reasoned that, perhaps, because of her poverty and/or isolation, she did not actually know what a person from Japan should look like. Only later did I realize that the woman had asked quite a legitimate question. For all she knew, I was from Japan, having been bom and/or raised there by ex-patriot parents, for example. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FIGURE 5: A gathering of young... Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 CHAPTER 3: IMAGE(A)NATION1 You, that raised this question, how do you know that I am not misrepresented? —Branislav Sarkanjac The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the decolonization of Macedonian national consciousness by addressing the thought qua hypothesis that Macedonians are an “invented” people belonging to an “invented” nation. Fueling this address is the “Macedonian Question,” the moniker for a host of operations problematizing the very essence of Macedonian nationalism. My idea is to contribute to the historical accounting of the “Macedonian Question” by clearing a path (as much as any “outsider” can) for two writerly interlocutors, Blaze Ristovski and Branislav Sarkanjac, who, each in his own way, address Macedonia’s effort to sustain sovereignty over its national ‘ Gestalt Ristovski (an historian) through the observance and interpretation of History; and Sarkanjac (a political philosopher) by bringing into relief “new cognitive possibilities” (Sarkanjac 2001a:39) for understanding Macedonian national consciousness not as a fabrication, but as a “stance of displacement” (Sarkanjac 2000:37). What do I mean by the decolonization of Macedonian national consciousness? This will become clear(er) as we proceed. Yet, before launching Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90 into the body of this chapter, I am compelled to lay some groundwork by saying a word or two about my choice of Ristovski and Sarkanjac as interlocutors. With respect to my choice of Blaze Ristovski, I call upon him as a writerly interlocutor because he is a Macedonian historian writing from a Macedonian perspective of history. Why should this matter? It matters for reasons having to do with the way North American and Euro-Atlantic academics have conditioned themselves to be skeptical of historians who hail from certain “suspect” regions of Europe, and to presume, almost a priori, that by guilt of geographic association such historians are likely to be partial, polemic, partisan—in a word, nationalist. Here, “nationalist” acts as a gloss for anyone who holds onto “beliefs that are irrational and false when judged in terms of Western criteria of rationality and truth” (Chatteijee 1986:11). I find this attitude vulnerable on two fronts: as if impartiality, non- polemicicity, and non-partisanship were positions entirely impartial, non-polemic, and non-partisan; and as if the Western tradition from which many North American and Euro-Atlantic academics stand in judgment bears absolutely no responsibility for having thrust upon the rest of the world the very model of nationalist discourse that these (presumed) regional nationalists (historians, that is) uphold through their research and writing, and, yet, for which, ironically, they find themselves under scrutiny. In regards to the first front of vulnerability, Cowan and Brown (2000), writing about the contingency of Macedonia and its various resonances within popular and academic circles, make a distinction between first-order discourse (a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 discourse authored by “historians, politicians and polemicists in the region and outside,” that privileges notions of purity, whether they be ethnic, historical, linguistic, national, etc.), and the growing literature of second-order discourse (in which “authors set out to distance themselves from partisanship—and indeed take partisanship as part of the object of study—and thus lay claim to a position outside the melee”) (Cowan and Brown 2000:6-7). Blaze Ristovski does not go so far as to privilege notions of purity, but his scholarship does rely upon tracing the historical descent of the “Macedonian people,” highlighting the uniqueness or separateness of the Macedonian language, and stressing the extent to which Macedonia and its national program have, throughout history, been under constant threat—all idioms that Cowan and Brown certainly would characterize as belonging to the category of first-order discourse (ibid.:7). While I understand and appreciate the distinction that Cowan and Brown have established between first- and second-order discourse, and even though my understanding of Macedonia has benefited significantly from the second-order discourse of scholars who have offered insightful and erudite studies illustrative of how definitions of territory, kinship, and language have been filtered through the revisionist histories of opposing, regional nationalist ideologies (see Brown 2000a, Brown 2000b, Brown 1995, Cowan 2000, Danforth 1995, Karakasidou 1997, Pettifer 2001, Poulton 1995, Shea 1997), I nonetheless do see the distinction as inherently problematic. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 For one thing, I disagree that second-order discourse is necessarily non partisan, and here I do not have to go far for an example. Of the seven essays (all presumably examples of second-order discourse) included in Cowan’s edited volume, Macedonia: The Politics o f Identity and Difference (Cowan 2000), only one deals primarily with the Republic of Macedonia (see Brown 2000a). Whether Cowan intended it or not, the volume’s disproportionate number of essays on Greek Macedonia suggests an editorial positionality, which from the perspective of Macedonians inside the Republic of Macedonia would be viewed as anything but non-partisan. On a related note, I also do not agree that second-order discourse lies outside the melee. After reading the dissertation of one U.S.-educated academic, a Macedonian friend and scholar noted that a disproportionate number of bibliographic sources from outside of Macedonia had been utilized, and that, in fact, the academic in question had even confessed to distrusting Macedonian historiography given its connection to the nationalist campaign in Macedonia. “[—] doesn’t mention though,” my friend offered by way of critique, “that the sources [—] cites went through the same historiography.” In short, can any order of discourse ever really stake a claim to being non-partisan or outside the melee, no matter how objective, peripheral, or above the fray we as authors of our discourse might position ourselves? Conversely, I believe that there are degrees offirst-order discourse, so that we can talk about the difference between that which has no place at the table because it is unnecessarily aggressive, defensively primordialist, or full of a kind of “passion Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 and outrage” that leaves “no room for compromise” (Cowan and Brown 2000:7), and that which does have a place at the table because it argues its case—granted, perhaps, using “the same resources beloved of nationalists” (ibid.)—but from a position that is not altogether unreasonable. In my opinion, Ristovski’s discourse, brought into relief by the arguments he articulates in his book, Macedonia and the Macedonian People (1999), fits into this latter category.2 Regarding the second front of vulnerability—that North American and Euro- Atlantic academics judge historians from the region for utilizing a model of nationalist discourse handed down to them by the very same Western tradition from which these academics derive their authority—Chatterjee (1986) distinguishes two types of nationalism: a “western” one which, having been cultivated within the “intellectual premises” of the European Enlightenment, emerged to embrace Western Europe and other countries of the West; and an “eastern” nationalism, found primarily in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America (ibid.: 1-3). “Both types depend upon the acceptance of a common set of standards by which the state of development of a particular national culture is measured,” the defining difference being that it is the West and not the Rest who continually gets to set the “global standards of progress” (ibid.: 1). Since Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America have historically been at a disadvantageous position with respect to the West, their “ ‘Eastern’ type of nationalism, consequently, has been accompanied by an effort to ‘re-equip’ the nation culturally, to transform it. But it could not do so simply by imitating the alien Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. culture, for then the nation would lose its distinctive identity” (ibid.:2). Arguably then, to make the case for Macedonia and other countries in the region, that which North American and Euro-Atlantic academics dismiss as “nationalist thought” (all implications of some degree of amoralism intended) is, in fact, “thought” which is European (Western) in origin. Its origins are only perceived as different because “eastern” nationalism must also contend with being a manifestation of what Chatteijee calls “[t]he dilemma of choice between imitation and identity...” (ibid.:4). Even as we write “more encompassing narratives, in which wider political and economic forces play a part” (Cowan and Brown 2000:7), how do we also make room for this kind of cross-cultural understanding? How do we incorporate, for example, the perspective that, while certainly a powerful, coercive force that is frequently abused for individual power and personal gain at the expense of others, nationalism (not to be confused with imperialism) is also just “the national equivalent of the individual’s determination not to be a slave” (West 1940:1100)? Becoming “anodyne apologists for the ways of others” (Brown 2000b:40) resolves nothing. Instead, what I am searching for is another level of discourse—a third- order discourse, if it must have a name—in which “the principle of charity” (Chatterjee 1986:11) takes precedence over Western criteria of rationality or truth.3 In the end, it matters that Blaze Ristovski is a Macedonian historian writing from a Macedonian perspective of history for precisely the same reason it matters that I should address him (or Sarkanjac, for that matter) as a writerly interlocutor, rather Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 than as the (presumably) “partisan” subject of my (presumably) “non-partisan” critical discourse. And what of Sarkanjac? Why would I seek out a philosopher for guidance, especially when philosophers are notorious for their esotericism and quite often guilty of ensconcing themselves in the Socratic method of raising problems without providing the solutions we so desperately want and need? For one, I happen to agree with Tim Ingold that “Anthropology is philosophy [but] with the people in” (cf. Eriksen 2001:1 emphasis added); therefore it does not feel like much of a stretch for me as an anthropologist to engage a philosopher. For another, it is my belief that Sarkanjac’s work—both in and of itself, and in as much as it represents a body of work being authored by a sophisticated and active core of intellectuals within Macedonia—is some of the most important and significant thinking currently being produced on the subject of Macedonian national consciousness. Finally, if it is true what Hobsbawm says about Europe, that “Historians are to nationalists what poppy- growers in Pakistan are to heroine-addicts: we supply the raw material for the market” (cf. Turton 1997:14), then even as I cite and reference Blaze Ristovski’s observations and interpretations of History, I am still, in a sense, stuck at an impasse with historiographic claim and counter-claim. As I hope to make evident, Sarkanjac’s work offers a way out. Before proceeding to the work of either of these two interlocutors, however, I will briefly introduce the historical operations that have enabled us to speak of Macedonia as something to be questioned. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 The “Macedonian Question”: Where Things Begin The Republic of Macedonia’s declaration of sovereignty on September 8, 1991 did much to upset the country’s neighbors and reinvigorate the “Macedonian Question,” the appellation for a complex of conflicting territorial, ecclesiastical, cultural, and national movements and historiographies, which from the perspective of Macedonia’s traditional “rivals” (Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia) has historically called into disrepute the very idea that a separate Macedonian nation exists, yet from the perspective of Macedonians (present and past) has historically obfuscated Macedonia’s right to national self-determination. Bulgaria, one of four countries at the time to extend recognition to the new republic, did so while simultaneously raising its traditional argument that Macedonians neither constituted a culturally distinct nation nor spoke a linguistically distinct language, but rather were Bulgarian-speaking Bulgarians who had strayed from the bosom of the mother flock. Serbia, historically consumed by the idea of a “Greater Serbia,” had long ago shown its trump card with respect to the cultural identity of the Macedonian people vis-a-vis the post-WWII declaration by officials within Tito’s “new” Yugoslavia that the Slavs in Macedonia were neither South Serbs nor Bulgarians, but ‘Macedonians.’ Only by retracting past rhetoric could the Communist Party of what was to become the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) have created conditions attractive enough to encourage Macedonia’s absorption into post-WWII Yugoslavia as a constituent republic.4 Re- retracting this rhetoric, now, after all these years, was not an option for Serbia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 Instead, faced with the secessionist wars up north, concerned with its territorial integrity, and resentful of Macedonia’s refusal to participate in a truncated Yugoslav federation, Serbia chose to respond to the loss of its ‘rump’ by imposing a food blockade on the new republic. Issuing its own blockade of food, oil, medicine, and other imports, Greece exerted the most direct and hostile challenge to Macedonia’s independence, arguing insistently that Macedonia rightfully belonged to Greece in both name and territory.5 So persuasive were Greece’s vehement objections at the United Nations over the use o f ‘Macedonia’ both in the republic’s constitutional name—the ‘Republic of Macedonia’—and in international discourse that, for lack of any agreeable alternative, the awkward ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ (FYROM) was bom.6 Calling its neighbor to the north a “pseudo little republic,” Greek opposition successfully lobbied for international non-recognition of the new republic by the United States and by Europe’s leading nations, catapulting the already fragile country into a “diplomatic void” (Bums 1991). Far from a monolithic enterprise of post-independence interrogation, the “Macedonian Question” first came to dominate nationalist political affairs in the Balkans between the Congress of Berlin (1878) and the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) (see Hupchick and Cox 2001). Dissatisfied with the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano (1878) following the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78)—and with their own regional self-interests in mind—Europe’s Great Powers had met in Berlin to modify the treaty to their satisfaction. The settlements reached were an especially enormous Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 blow to the territorial aspirations of Bulgaria and Serbia. Bulgaria, still euphoric over all that it had gained following the Russo-Turkish War, was emasculated of its regional dominance and divided into four parts, losing possession of the Ottoman province of Macedonia in the process. Serbia would retain its independence, but would be dispossessed of territory, as well, and coerced into handing over Bosnia- Hercegovina to Austro-Hungarian occupation. Greece, a non-participant in the war, escaped the synergistic settlements agreed upon in Berlin, but England’s occupation of Cyprus kept Greece in the fray of the fallout that followed. After the Congress of Berlin, in one full swoop, Macedonia’s geopolitical destiny was meted out as Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia “turned toward Macedonia as compensation for their perceived losses” (ibid.). Exactly what pretensions existed at the time to lure these three regional forces into setting their sights on Macedonia? Looking back across the historical landscape, Bulgaria could date the beginnings of its strongest pretension to Macedonia to 681 when, spanning the course of two-hundred years, Macedonia was part of the first medieval Bulgarian state (if not the core of it under the rule of Tsar Samuil), and Ohrid—the center of Slavic culture and the holy seat of the Archbishopric-Patriarchate (the first independent Slavic Orthodox church)— its regional capital. Bulgaria could also substantiate that various leading intellectuals of its nineteenth-century national revival had in fact come from the territory of Macedonia, and that, irrespective of the dialect continuum linking several of the region’s languages as mutually intelligible, but nonetheless distinct, the language Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 spoken by Macedonia’s Slavic population sounded an awful lot like Bulgarian. It was, however, Bulgaria’s ecclesiastical presence in Ottoman Macedonia prior to the Russo-Turkish War that would vindicate its position of entitlement following the Congress of Berlin. Spiritual faith, according to Ottoman belief, was an index for ethnicity, so when Bulgaria managed to secure from the Turks recognition of a Bulgarian millet (religious community)—the Exarchate—over the Greek-controlled Orthodox one under which Macedonia had been undergoing a degree of Hellenization, Bulgaria by default secured the right to peremptorily extend the “ethnographic borders” of the “Bulgarian people” to claim the people of Ottoman Macedonia as its own. POLAND h ]u N a A R Y ULGARIA M ACEDONIA A / lOF NAPLES % oO , | | Territories acquires between 1505 and 1566 IE j I ; [ i I' |] Ottoman vassal clienl slales FIGURE 6: Apex of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, mid-16*1 1 century Source: Hupchikcmd Cox (2001) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 Greece could digress the farthest back, to the rule of ancient Macedon by Phillip II (359-336 B.C.) and his son Alexander the Great (336-323 B.C.). It was, however, both the grandeur of Byzantium and the lingering legacy of the religious- cultural traditions its empire established throughout the Balkans and beyond, as well as Greece’s later patriarchal control of Macedonia’s Orthodox millet from 1767 to 1872, that primarily grounded Greek claims to Macedonia leading up to the Russo- Turkish War. Subsequently, when Bulgaria began its national campaign in 1860 to win support for its Exarchate in Macedonia, it was from its position of entitlement that Greece attempted to thwart Bulgaria’s incursion. As for Serbia, it, too, was not without its own historical claim to Macedonia. The Serbian tsar Stefan Dusan (1331-1355) had ruled over an independent Serbian state whose vast lands stretched far enough longitudinally to make Skopje its geographic center and capital city. It was there, at his capital, that Dusan had himself crowned emperor of the Serbs, Greeks (Byzantines), Bulgarians, and Albanians. Thirty-four year after his death, Dusan’s empire was swallowed up by the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo (1389), but its glory would live on as the “territorial model” (Hupchick and Cox 2001) that animated Serbia’s future efforts to expand its land holdings and establish a modem state into which Macedonia and other parts of the region could be incorporated. These then were the positions that first sparked and gave vitality to the “Macedonia Question,” and which compelled the intensification of the “three-way contest” for control of Macedonia following the Congress of Berlin. In their efforts Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 GERMANY; G A LIC IA \ 'A U S T R I aV \ H U N G A R Y Cluj Belgrade R O M A N IA \ HERCEGOVINA B U L G A R I A ITALY Naples S IC IL Y G R E E C E( KILOMETERS I | Great Bulgaria ■ i ■ Borders in T reat/ of San Stefano (3 March Final border of Bulgaria, June 1878 Border of Bulgaria, 1885 :rete1 FIGURE 7: The Balkans, 1878-1885 Source: Hupchik and Cox (2001) to instill “the ‘proper’ sense of national identity” (Danforth 1995:59) among Macedonia’s Christian population, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia began sending in bands of insurgents who, under the pretext of fighting the Turks, would then stay behind to terrorize the people.7 Not until 1912, at the urging of Russia, did Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia dispense with their antagonistic rivalries long enough to form an anti-Ottoman alliance aimed at delivering Macedonia and Europe from the Turks, and settling once and for all the nationalist question in Macedonia. The alliance accomplished the former over the course of the First Balkan War (1912-1913). Bent Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 as the protagonists were, however, on reaching a solution in Macedonia that would favor their own respective nationalist positions, the alliance faltered soon after its victory against the Turks as Bulgaria—intent on securing for itself more of the spoils of Macedonia—entered into hostilities with Serbia, Greece, and Romania in the Second Balkan War (1913). The Treaty of Bucharest left Serbia with the north- central portion of Macedonia (Vardar Macedonia), Greece with the southern portion (Aegean Macedonia), and Bulgaria—largely “excluded from her ‘promised land’ ” (Darby et al 1966:152)— with a much smaller eastern portion (Pirin Macedonia). SERBIA BULGARI A K v m i e n d i l KtaK>v\ \ \ P b\4 y z h u t n a y a y y Kavall • Bitola Flonna Q Thcssalonik Kaslona % GREECE M ount C revena Komtza Current international borders MILES Historic Macedonian boundary (Bulgarian claim) 0 10 20 30 40 50 I — rH — i 1 i — r | \ \ \ \ \ \ I A p p ro x im ate S e r b ia n c la im s 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 ' ^ ^ KILOMETERS I | A p p ro x im ate a r e a c la im e d by b o th G r e e c e a n d S e rb ia jy 7Z ' / / / / \ Approximate Greek claims FIGURE 8: The “Macedonian Question” Source: Hupchik and Cox (2001) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103 Even though the Balkan Wars marked the denouement of a protracted period of intense preoccupation with Macedonia, the “Macedonian Question” persisted, albeit it now with the addition of yet another important protagonist—the Communists. The Communist Movement was well under way in the Balkans when, immediately after the First World War, it began attracting attention for its support of the national aspirations of the Macedonians. Following the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in 1918, and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, as the idea of south-Slav unity hatched and the push to establish a socialist ‘Yugoslavia’ gained momentum, so, too, did support for a ‘Yugoslav’ solution to the “Macedonian Question.” The Comintern’s official acknowledgement in 1934 of both a Macedonian national entity and language added a new dimension to the “Macedonian Question”—international affirmation of a Macedonian national consciousness. Some of the accusations hurled by Greece and Bulgaria at the Republic of Macedonia after its independence in 1991 were re-visitations of rhetoric first sparked following the victory of Tito’s Narodna Oslobodilacka Borba (the National Liberation Struggle) in the Second World War, and the subsequent absorption of Serbian-controlled Vardar Macedonia into the SFRJ as one of six constituent Yugoslav republics. Greek historiography would blame Tito for forging a false Macedonian nation, saying that he arbitrarily “ ‘baptized’ a ‘mosaic of nationalities’ (Albanians, Serbs, Turks, Vlachs, Greeks, and Roma) and with no justification at all gave them the name ‘Macedonians’ ” (Danforth 1995:33). Bulgarian mainstream Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104 public opinion would similarly criticize Yugoslav Communists for “inventing the whole idea of a Macedonian nation” (Poulton 1995:98). The existence of a Macedonian republic within a sovereign Yugoslav federation did little to quiet down Bulgarian and Greek opposition, and Macedonia's independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 only brought to the fore a new round of accusations with respect to the national “identity,” name, language, and territory of the Macedonian people. That this skeleton introduction to the “Macedonian Question” does not yet account for the agency of Macedonians serves as a potent reminder of the extent to which the “Macedonian Question” has engendered and naturalized an asymmetrical balance of power from which the short end Macedonia has chronically, throughout modem history, been left to hang. It is precisely this line of thought that serves as the prime interface between the two related yet independent preoccupations of Blaze Ristovski—who presents what his colleague, Georgi Stardelov, calls “the history o f Macedonian history in its Balkan and South-Slav context” (Stardelov 1999:x)—and Branislav Sarkanjac—who is compelled to counter the dominant ‘master narratives’ on Macedonia not with history, per se, but with the proposition that we start from scratch with a whole new discourse. In the following section, I will re-introduce the “Macedonian Question” from the former perspective, focusing specifically on how Ristovski—both directly and indirectly through the citation of others—answers back to the accusation that Macedonians are an “invented” people and nation. Ristovski himself might advise Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105 that I mine the dense historical landscape of his Macedonia and the Macedonian People for arguments that contradict those historiographies that have traditionally called into question the very existence of a separate Macedonian people and nation. In hopes of addressing, for example, the accusation that Macedonians were “created by government decree” in 1944 (cf. Danforth 1995:33), I might refer the reader to Ristovski (pages 41 and 42). Leopold I in 1690 addresses “the Macedonian people,” and in the documents of the Russian Imperial Office from the 18th century mention the following: “The Orthodox peoples, the Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians and Wallachians, want to serve Her Imperial Majesty with blood and arms....” Starting from 1751, the Macedonians were registered as a distinct people vis-a-vis the Orthodox Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, and Greeks, and were entered in the registration form as “m3 MaKefloHcxoii H aipien” (“of the Macedonian nation”). Or, to take on other examples, in reaching for Ristovski’s defense of the ethnic, spiritual, and linguistic differentiation of the Macedonian people, I might try to pique an interest with some of the points he presents. [Dimit’r Angelov] considers that “certain customs, beliefs, cults,” even before the conversion of Bulgaria to Christianity, were “spread not only among the Proto-Bulgarians, but also among the Slavs,[8 ] and they represented, as it were, one common spiritual possession of these two ethnic elements.” (Ristovski 1999:31) [W]e can conclude that the conversion to Christianity in Macedonia was completed by the 9th century [... ] before Macedonia found itself within the borders of Bulgaria, while the conversion of the Bulgarian people to Christianity was carried out only after 865.... (ibid. :20) Literacy appeared largely as a result of Macedonia's conversion to Christianity, (ibid.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106 “Thus Christianity and literacy took root among us, the Macedonians, earlier than among any other Slav people.” (Krste Missirkov cf. Ristovski 1999:18) In counter-response, the conventional scholarly wisdom of my peers might advise that I mine Ristovski’s dense historical landscape from a much different stance, perhaps one that falls more in line with Benedict Anderson’s position that a nation is an imagined community, “conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship” (Anderson 1983:7). I might try to convince the reader that no matter how far back the historical timeline stretches, what Ristovski presents as the cultural givens of language, race, religion, etc. (the very nation-ness of Macedonia for the Macedonian people), are, in fact, cultural artifacts.9 The approach I propose to take, however, circumvents both of these advisements by instead suturing them together much the way Chatterjee does when he writes, “ I f the nation is an imagined community, then this is where it is brought into existence” (Chatterjee 1993:6 emphasis added).1 0 In other words, if the Macedonian nation (like any other nation) came into being as something imagined, then let us try to form a coherent appreciation for the moments at which and the processes by which nation-ness entered into the consciousness of Macedonians, and became a vocal expression of a determination to not be a slave to the misrepresentations of others. For the purpose of my analysis later, I will interpret Ristovski’s perspective as the ideal modem image of Macedonian national consciousness from which to understand Branislav Sarkanjac’s thoroughly catachrestic one. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107 The Modern Image of Macedonian National Consciousness [It] may seem like a utopia; it may seem that we are trying to create in an artificial way something which does not exist, that we want to create an ethnic concept from the geographical concept of Macedonia, or, in other words, that we are trying to create a Macedonian nationality artificially. But matters are indeed otherwise. —Memorandum published in 1902 by the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St. Petersburg, Russia, in which the plea is made for a Macedonia free, nationally, politically and ecclesiastically. The mid-1800s marked the beginning of an era of rupture for the people of Ottoman Macedonia. The recent, romantic ‘return to the past,’ oriented as it was for Macedonians toward rediscovering their Slavic roots, had involved for many a return to the Slavonic traditions of Cyril and Methodius (the great Byzantine missionaries and founders of Slavic literacy and literature), and to their disciples, Clement and Naum (the Slavonic pedagogues and founders of the Ohrid Literary School). The specific cults that developed around these saints—that the Macedonian language was “the true legacy of Cyril and Methodius,” and that the Archbishopric of Ohrid founded by Clement and Naum was “the only institution uniting Orthodox Macedonian Slavs” (Ristovski 1999:75 and 74) in a line of religious continuity— awakened and strengthened the Slavic consciousness of Macedonians as spiritual and linguistic differentiation merged into a single idea of the distinctiveness of the Macedonian people. The Ottoman Shariah law that recognized confessional affiliation as central and coterminous with the organization of life and society at all levels both stood in the way and emboldened this idea. Subsequent to the abolition of the Archbishopric of Ohrid in 1767, the authority to prescribe and delineate the organization of life and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108 society for Macedonia's Christians rested in the hands of the Greek Oecumenical Patriarchate. Ristovski credits Macedonian teachers and priests for inspiring their students and disciples, and spreading amongst parents and congregation members, the demand for the restoration of the Archbishopric. Establishing an independent Macedonian national church would remap the spiritual, educational, social, and political destinies of Macedonians by granting them the right “to their own churches, schools, communities and a separate niifus (‘population’)” (Ristovski 1999:129). According to the testimony of one teacher from the Jordan Hacfzikonstantinov-Dzinot reform school in Veles, from 1846 onwards people began “to wake up from the deep sleep” and experience “the divine feeling for enlightenment and study which had been absent in Macedonia for so many centuries, hindered by the Greek clergy” (cf. Ristovski 1999:130). The attitude that school instruction should be carried out in Macedonian and not Greek spread to other towns. Tode Kusev of Prilep wrote of the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as “the Spark of our future,” declaring that: Not only in Ohrid, but throughout Macedonia, now everyone has woken up and is demanding their rights. Everyone is striving to open their own schools, to introduce church services in the Old Church Slavonic language, not to leave the schools and people’s matters in the hands of one or two people who have come from other places, who in every possible way try to prevent everything that is popular.[n ] (ibid.) By the 1860s, Macedonia was experiencing “a centrifugal national synthesis” (Blaze Koneski cf. Ristovski 1999:132) of many fields of knowledge—language, history, folklore, ethnology. A boycott of Bulgarian books was issued, along with a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 public declaration that “the Bulgarians and the Bulgarian language were one thing, and the Macedonians and the Macedonian language are another” (ibid.). Presumably, it was not uncommon to hear pronounced: “We are Macedonians, we are not Bulgarians” and “We have barely freed ourselves from the Greeks, should we now become Sopi [Bulgarians]?!” (ibid.: 132-133). Ristovski cites confirmation. Even the leader of the Bulgarian national revival in Constantinople [... ] in early January 1871 publicly admitted that he had heard this ideology “as early as some ten years ago from some people in Macedonia,” which had now grown into “a thought that many would like to put into effect.” (ibid.: 133) The volley of religious propaganda piqued by Bulgaria and Greece between 1860 and 1878 only encouraged the growth of this thought. As both neighbors vied for ecclesiastical control of Macedonia's eparchies and for “control and distribution of spheres of influence” (Ristovski 1999:157), plans were hatched by each to paralyze the influence of the other. Referendums were held, and rumors of secret agreements between the Greek patriarch in Constantinople and Bulgarian church authorities spread. Caught in the middle were the Macedonian people themselves. Some took sides, voting either to remain under the Greeks or join the Exarchate. Others resisted. One community wrote to the Bulgarian church authorities in 1874: If you think that our eparchy [... ] is inhabited solely by a few yoghurt and boza makers, whose [... ] rights were in your hands... you are wrong... we are not acquired property you can sell and bargain with, but a people who demands justice, (cf. Ristovski 1999:148) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 Activists who spoke of a “Macedonian movement,” did so from an orientation that adhered to the belief that the “Macedonian Question” was a question of church affiliation that could be settled only through the establishment of an independent Macedonian church. The transformation in 1878 of the Bulgarian Exarchate, however, into the “official and legal [... ] Ministry of Faith and Education’ ” in Macedonia (Ristovski 1999:157), reoriented the framework of the “Macedonian Question” from one of church liberation, to separatism on a broader, national scale. The Treaty of San Stefano and the Congress of Berlin sealed this reorientation. San Stefano “caused mixed feelings among the people,” Ristovski’s historical sources suggest: feelings of disappointment that Macedonia was being “pushed into the envisioned Bulgarian state in the Balkans under a Bulgarian name”; but of hope, too, that under the protectorship of Russia, Macedonia would be extricated from the Ottomans and incorporated as a free republic into some kind of dual or federal state (ibid.: 158-159). Disappointment set in when the treaty signed at the Congress of Berlin returned Macedonia to the Sultan and concomitantly bestowed upon the signatories the “acquired right to interfere in the internal matters of this part of the Balkans” (ibid.: 160). Macedonian activists, aiming to incite all of Macedonia, responded to their disappointment by initiating the Kresna Uprising (1878-1879) in the Pirin region of Bulgaria. Kresna, undeniably not the first uprising to have developed in response to frustrated aspirations, was certainly the first to include an Insurgent Committee and a codified position “not only as regards the [Macedonian national] struggle and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I ll liberation, but also towards Macedonia's neighbors [... ] towards the churches and towards the great powers as well” (ibid.: 159). Despite the Treaty of Berlin’s guarantee of “the justness of the struggle of the Macedonian people for effectuation,” the Kresna Insurgent Committee emphasized “the right of the Macedonian people alone [... ] to fight and control their struggle, but also to make use of their freedom” (ibid.). Kresna inspired other insurrections, and ushered in an era of “strongly pronounced resistance on the part of the Macedonian people [... ] to seek means for the further development of the Macedonian nation and culture” (Ristovski 1999:177- 178). Emigre circles outside of Ottoman Macedonia were the mainspring for this development. By the end of 1879, emigres in Bulgaria had established a Macedonian League whose basic slogan was ‘Freedom for Macedonia or Death. ’ A National Assembly of Macedonia, composed of democratically-elected delegates representing “all [of] the ‘religious-national’ entities and ethnic groups” (ibid.: 161), convened in northern Greece in 1880 to assess the political situation, and to act as the mediator between the Macedonian people/population, and both the signatories of the Treaty of Berlin and other representatives of the European powers. A Provisional Macedonian Government was formed and invested with the self- appointed right and authority to oversee the organization of military and civil administration, and to call Macedonians to arms should such a measure be necessary (ibid.: 161-162). Presumably, such measures were necessary. A Manifesto sent out by the Provisional Government in 1881 declared: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 True Macedonians, faithful to your Fatherland! Will you allow our dear country to be ruined? Look how in this slavery, she is covered with wounds inflicted by the surrounding peoples. Look at her and see the heavy chains imposed upon her by the Sultan [...]. What a sad sight it would be for you, true Macedonians, if you became witnesses of my burial. No, no, here are my dreadful bleeding wounds, here are my heavy chains: break them, heal my wounds, do everything in your power that the words ‘A single and united Macedonia’ will be written on the banner I will raise! Having done this courageously, banish from your land these murderers who carry the flag of discord in their hands and inculcate antagonistic ideas, dividing you, my children, into innumerable nationalities; then, having gathered under the banner of Macedonia as your only national distinction, raise that glorious banner high and make it ready so that you can unanimously write on it: Long live the Macedonian people, long live Macedonia! (cf. Ristovski 1999:170) As the affirmation of a Macedonian national entity “became the imperative of the day” (Ristovski 1999:187), the number of emigre societies grew exponentially. Sofia, Bulgaria was an especially active hub, and—through such organizations as the Macedonian Society (1883), the Makedonski Glas (the Macedonian Voice) Society (1884), the Makedonsko citaliste (Macedonian Reading Room) (1890), and the Young Macedonian Literary Society (1891), to name a few—a mainstay for “new currents” of national thought (ibid.: 183). So, too, were Thessalonika, Belgrade, and St. Petersburg, Russia. Thessalonika became a place of refuge for Macedonian activists fleeing Bulgaria under threat of arrest or persecution. It was there, in 1893, where the slogan ‘Struggle for the independence of Macedonia’ was first proclaimed, and where the first Macedonian revolutionary-nationalist organization—the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO)—was founded. IMRO would become the ideological impulse for the organization of other emigre societies that would go on to shape and nurture to maturity the guiding principles behind IMRO’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113 slogan for Macedonian independence. One such society, the Macedonian Club in Belgrade, began publishing its periodical, Balkanski Glasnik, in 1902. “Macedonia is the spring which pushes the Orthodox East and the Slavic Balkans toward friendship or hostility,” an editorial declared in the very first issue. All Macedonians will bless their present-day benefactors if they change the methods of their work, or will curse them, if they become the cause of the perpetuation of the present situation, curses which will sooner or later bring misfortune to them, just as the curses of our parents have brought misfortune to us, and we are now wandering undesired and unwelcome across foreign lands, seeking a remedy for an ailing soul, imperceptibly caught in their claws, returning to our fatherland not as the advocates of progress, brotherhood and freedom, but of corruption, hostility and slavery, (cf. Ristovski 1999:198) The newspaper called for the Balkan peoples “to stop sowing intrigues of discord, unrest, etc. and start conscientiously working on the neutralization of the controversial Macedonian question so that it can be resolved on the basis of equality and independence [...]” (ibid.: 198-199). As members of the Macedonian Club in Belgrade were heightening awareness of just such a resolution and advocating an “evolutionary path” (cf. Ristovski 1999:199) of gradual independence for Macedonia, meanwhile, in Russia, members of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society of St. Petersburg were pulling together what is considered by many historians, including Blaze Ristovski, as “the first complete and detailed national programme of the Macedonians” (ibid.: 193). A document produced by the Society in 1902 made several demands to the international community, including the recognition of: “the Macedonian Slavs as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114 a separate people”; “the distinct Macedonian language as literary”; and “the Archbishopric of Ohrid as an independent Macedonian church” (cf. Ristovski 1999:206-207). Believing that “the attainment of [the] idea, ‘Macedonia to the Macedonians’ ” could “prove desirable for all the actors interested in the ‘Macedonian question’ ” (ibid.:203), members of the Society, speaking through the 16-page document they hand wrote, specified for the provisional autonomy of Macedonia within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, with the eventual goal being the federation of Macedonia with its neighbors. In its heyday as the center of Macedonian culture, the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society of St. Petersburg catalyzed new research in history, ethnology, folklore, and linguistics. A young Macedonian emigre, Krste Missirkov, was the immediate forbearer of this catalyzation, researching his ideas about the unity of the Macedonian people and language as a student of history and philology at the University of Petrograd. It was while living in Russia that Missirkov began writing about the question of Macedonian nationality; and it was from Russia that he set off for Bitola to join in the preparations for an IMRO-led uprising against a small Turkish garrison in the town of Krusevo in 1903. In what would come to be commemorated as the Ilinden Uprising, 800 armed insurgents managed to take control of Krusevo long enough to establish a provisional government.1 2 The uprising failed in the end, and Missirkov, trying to make sense of the “post-Ilinden turmoil” (Ristovski 1999:205), returned to Russia to prepare his thoughts and observations about the problems and questions concerning Macedonia and its people. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115 Seized and destroyed by Bulgarian authorities when it was published in late 1903, On Macedonian Matters “provided a theoretical basis and a historical survey of Macedonian national development” (ibid.), but it also captured Missirkov’s vision of the ethos of the Macedonian people, and the pathos of their national consciousness in the aftermath of Ilinden. “Here is what one might say,” he wrote, “to those who claim that Macedonian as a nationality has never existed: it may not have existed in the past, but it exists today and will exist in the future” (Missirkov 1974:159).1 3 The national program constituted by the Macedonian Literary and Scholarly Society of St. Petersburg, though not the only one in circulation, was viewed as paramount and would remain unchanged for several years, but as war in the Balkans waxed imminent, so, too, did the necessity for adaptation to the shifting circumstances. Macedonian activists throughout the region could see the handwriting on the wall. Yes, the situation is critical: there is a smell of death in Macedonia... The victory of the Slavic alliance, if achieved, is absolutely undesirable from a Slavonic point of view, as this will be a requiem for the descendents of Cyril and Methodius: Macedonia will be divided into three parts, there will be a temporary triumph over its body, but no one will be satisfied: a fight will unavoidably break out among those who dismembered it and there will be no bright day for the Slavs, (cf. Ristovski 1999:222) A letter sent from Bitola on the eve of the First Balkan War reiterated previous demands of recognition, national sovereignty and for the cessation of Bulgarian, Greek, and Serbian propaganda, and prominently beseeched for the “Energetic intercession by brotherly Russia in favor of the Macedonians” (cf. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 Ristovski 1999:210). The emigre society in St. Petersburg took the lead, expediting an ambitious plan to secure for themselves proper legitimacy in the eyes of Russian authorities “so that they could competently and responsibly represent Macedonian interests in the expected turmoil in the Balkans” (Ristovski 1999:220). Turmoil did ensue, as did the partition of Macedonia according to the terms specified by the Treaty of Bucharest formally signed in August of 1913 following the end of the Second Balkan War. In Russia, where Macedonian activists had managed to gamer a modicum of largely symbolic support, officials sympathetic to the Macedonian cause publicly expressed their solidarity, using a tone of condemnation and argument not unlike that expressly felt by Macedonian activists themselves. A representative of the Social-Democratic Party characterized the partition of Macedonia not as a liberation from Ottoman rule, but as a “new subjugation” of the Macedonian people (cf. Ristovski 1999:233). A Cadet Party leader in the Russian Parliament called the Treaty of Bucharest an “act of violence,” and implored those involved not to pursue cutting Macedonia into smaller parts. “It is not appropriate here to dispute what the Macedonians are and who controlled Macedonia earlier or longer,” he added, for “this is a question which can be decided by simple consultation: what, at this moment, do the Macedonians consider themselves to be?” (cf.:232). “We declare unto you that we, the Macedonians, are not Serbs, we are not Bulgarians and we are not Greeks’’, a group of activists made clear in writing (cf. Ristovski 1999:251). Fervent in their conviction, but also aware that the partitioning Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 of Macedonia was a calamitous setback, these same activists reproached their neighbors for depriving Macedonians of that which Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbians already enjoyed for themselves. Bulgaria has no greater rights to Macedonia than the Serbs or Greeks who have also at one time, just like the Bulgarians, ruled our fatherland as conquerors. But conquest by force does not deprive the people of their national character, of their desire to feel as they feel and not as something else, and to fight for the recognition of their independence. (cf.:250) With a tone of benevolent reconciliation, activists appealed to Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia to rescind the borders established by the Treaty of Bucharest, and restore genuine independence to Macedonia. Furthermore, the fulfillment of Macedonian national aspirations was presented as the fulcrum upon which regional peace and stability hinged. And you whom, regardless of what we have experienced, we are still calling brothers... will you not utter the long awaited brotherly word to us, admitting the past enmity and the Bucharest partition of our fatherland as a serious mistake which should be rectified and relegated to oblivion as soon as possible? [... ] [Gjive us, the Macedonians, an opportunity to organize life in our native land in accordance with our own interests. Do not hinder Macedonia from becoming unified, autonomous and independent. The freedom of Macedonia will bring peace to you; it will put an end to the hostility between the Balkan peoples. The freedom of Macedonia is the necessary condition for the permanence and completeness of the freedom of the whole South-Slavdom. (cf. Ristovski 1999:251) In the spirit of unity, and perhaps presciently sensing that Macedonia's aspirations for genuine independence were no match especially for Bulgarian and Serbian irredentism, activists reoriented their national liberation program toward the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 idea of a Balkan federation in which Macedonia would belong as an equal member. As Ristovski tells it, federalism “was the only way and manner of achieving the unification and liberation of the Macedonian peoples and of securing peace and harmony in the Balkans” (Ristovski 1999:254), and it was toward this goal that many activists aspired in the period after the First World War. Given the history of political discord with respect to Macedonia, and fearing that Slavic solidarity was a smokescreen for Bulgarian and Serbian chauvinism, Krste Missirkov (cf.:301) cautioned that a ‘Slavic ideal’ not circumvent “a general human one” in which Macedonia's national self-determination would be respected. Let us have our own understanding of our position towards you and your dispute concerning us and our fatherland, and also of the means by which general south-Slavic prosperity will be achieved. [... ] Let us have our own, Macedonian national feelings and develop our own Macedonian culture, as we have been doing for centuries, even when our fatherland and yours did not form part of the same state. [... ] The consciousness and feeling that I am a Macedonian should stand higher than anything else in the world. The Macedonian should not merge and lose his individuality, living between Bulgarians and Serbs. We can assume that there is closeness between Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian interests, but everything must be evaluated from the Macedonian point of view. (cf.:303) The Communist Movement attracted the attention of Macedonians precisely because it was “the only movement to promise liberation together with self- determination and unification” (Ristovski 1999:337). Although class consciousness was less of an issue to them as national consciousness (ibid.:328), many Macedonian national and cultural activists joined ranks with the communists so as to “defend the individuality of [the Macedonian] movement and of [the] right to an independent Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 Macedonian state” (cf.:342). These activists and others would eventually follow Tito and his Partizani (Partisans) into war to assure that the promises of national liberation and self-determination for the Macedonian people were realized. Clearly, the “Macedonian Question” was on the precipice of a threshold, a fact no more evident than on August 2,1944 when at the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) the borders and language of the People’s Republic of Macedonia were formalized and legitimized. We have gone as far as Blaze Ristovski will allow us to take him. Macedonia and the Macedonian People ends on the eve of Tito’s war of liberation in 1941, with the joining of the anti-Hitler coalition by Macedonian activists. It seems like an improbable jumping-off point for a book dealing with Macedonia and the Macedonian people—that is, a book published in 1999. Are we to assume that the 58 years separating 1941 from 1999 were immaterial? If not immaterial, then certainly marginal to the two periods of history on which a majority of Macedonian historians seem to be fixated: the War of Liberation (1941-1944) and the preceding period of revival and activism that Ristovski’s book covers (Brown 2000b). As Keith Brown points out, when the Institute of National History in Skopje was established in the late 1940s, its aim was to promote “the distinctiveness of the Macedonian people and their struggle for freedom according to the best principles laid out by Lenin’s writings on the national question” (ibid.:36). As one of several state apparatuses, the Institute was assigned with the “mission,” in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 effect, “to narrate the history of the Macedonian nation” (ibid. :32), hence the “relatively narrow range of topics” (ibid. :36) to which even today’s historians dedicate their scholarship, despite all that has transpired over the last six decades. Hence, as well, the lingering accusation that the Macedonian people and nation are “inventions” given the extent to which the codification of the history that “proves” their distinctiveness was initiated only after the Second World War, a period of time already “widely dismissed as Tito’s invention,” and, adds Brown, “according to historiographical doctrines now easily dismissed in a broader forum as the product of socialist ideology” (ibid.:32). In the spirit of Chatteijee’s “principle of charity,” I retreat into Blaze Ristovski one last time because, in reading Macedonia and the Macedonian People, one senses Ristovski’s acute concern with answering back to this most vulnerable aspect of the “Macedonian Question” by fortifying a better appreciation for the obstacles that hindered the growth, formation, and public articulation of Macedonian national consciousness, the implication being that by accounting for these obstacles one begins to understand and appreciate the dynamics that would come to imbricate or associate the belatedness of Macedonia's national affirmation and legitimization with the accusations lodged from 1944 onward that Macedonians were an “invented” people belonging to an “invented” nation. The thrust of his concern begins in the years stretching from the incipience of Macedonia's national revival to the aftermath of the Berlin Congress, because, as Ristovski tells it, the temporal sequence of Macedonia's national revival after the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 revivals of its neighbors is deeply relevant. For one, it suggests that Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia enjoyed a head start in establishing attitudinal positions of authority over Macedonia that would complete and/or compliment their ever growing physical positions of authority. Bulgaria was still in the exuberance of its “spiritual awakening,” and already Macedonia was being “presented as the largest of the three parts of ‘Bulgaria’ ” when the first printed history of Bulgaria appeared in 1829 (Ristovski 1999:49). Two years earlier, following Greece’s independence from the Turks in 1827, the framing and presentation of the Macedonian people as “ ‘descendents’ of the Greeks” (ibid. :47) played out as one on the underlying ideologies to galvanize Greece’s Megali idaia (Great Idea), a political program of nation-state expansion predicated on restoring the Byzantine Empire’s sphere of influence. Serbia’s head start was galvanized later in the century, well after its national revival, vis-a-vis an attempt to tweak or flesh out an attitudinal position over Macedonia that would allow for or justify its territorial ambitions.1 4 From this we can infer that the head start enjoyed by Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia engendered the corollary advantage of effectively establishing for them an historical precedence upon which they could draw, and thus from which they could argue their claims to Macedonia. Here the longevity of the historical precedence was key, because longevity—not to be confused with veracity —carried with it the implication that a modicum of veracity did, in fact, exist, so long as Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia could maintain their pernicious hold on History. In short, Macedonia's national revival coincided with a period of time when attitudes toward Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 Macedonia were already very strong, and when “[tjheories on the ethnic character of the Macedonians” were already being expounded upon “without the participation of Macedonians themselves” (ibid.:51). Reinforcing his conviction that the omnipresent apparatus of timing acted as an impediment to the growth and acceptance of Macedonian national consciousness, Ristovski is compelled to fault Macedonia's geopolitical position at the European center of the Ottoman Empire for creating yet another impediment—the absence of neighboring “territorially-disinterested” states where “nationally-awakened and politically active” emigre circles could develop national campaigns and encourage action (Ristovski 1999:127). Whereas the cultural and national revivals of Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia “began and developed first in colonies outside Turkish (Ottoman) territory [i.e. border regions such as southem-Romania/Russia for Bulgaria; Italy and Turkey for Greece; and southern Hungary (present-day Vojvodina) for Serbia], where the necessary conditions had been created for the unimpeded progress of educational, cultural and spiritual life and affirmation of national thought” (ibid.:44), the case for Macedonia was otherwise. As a result of the central position it occupied in European Turkey, [Macedonia] did not have that advantage. When it tried to establish such colonies in the neighboring, already liberated states new historical circumstances had been created there in which aggressive aspirations toward Macedonia were already strong and any expression of Macedonian national thought was most closely followed and nipped in the bud. (ibid.) If indeed geopolitics undercut the progress of Macedonian national thought, we can assume that Bulgaria was ground zero in the war of maneuvers. Macedonian Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123 emigre societies in Bulgaria faced particularly incessant pressure to become unofficial instruments of Bulgarian interests. The Macedonian League, for example, following intervention by Bulgarian authorities, was forced to re-name itself as the ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’ despite the League’s focus on Macedonian autonomy from the Turks and from Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia. Working vis-a-vis the propaganda of their neighbors was certainly one way for Macedonian activists to get around authorities so as to stay in business, so to speak, but it came at a cost. Emigre societies animated Macedonia's autonomy, but they also obfuscated it with contradictory programs of national liberation. IMRO, the Macedonian national-revolutionary organization that sparked the Ilinden Uprising was—almost from its inception, Hugh Poulton (1995:54) notes elsewhere—divided between those who sympathized with Bulgaria’s claim to the region and those who envisioned a separate Macedonian state. Emigre societies in the United States were similarly divided and unwaveringly vocal in pressing their views upon U.S. foreign policy in the region. The General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland advocated military occupation of Macedonia by British, French, American, and Italian armies as a provisional, administrative solution to the “Macedonian Question.” In short, Macedonia's geopolitical position, although it did not preclude the establishment and growth of nationally-awakened and politically active emigre circles, played an integral role in the tone and tactic that Macedonia's national liberation program would be compelled to take even as it made Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124 the organized communication and transference of ideas between Macedonian emigres and their compatriots particularly complex (ibid.: 120). As I stated from the onset, the purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the decolonization of Macedonian national consciousness. I have initiated a step in this direction by articulating the reasons for my choice of Blaze Ristovski and Branislav Sarkanjac as writerly interlocutors, with a prolonged focus on my investment in clearing a path for a Macedonian historian writing from a Macedonian perspective of history given the extent to which historians such as Ristovski are often dismissed—scholarly colonized, that is—as partial, polemic, partisan, or even nationalistic.1 5 After summarizing the historical operations behind the “Macedonian Question” from the perspective of Macedonia's traditional rivals, I proceeded to initiate another step by instigating a contextual understanding of the development of Macedonian national consciousness, as well as a better appreciation for the temporal and geopolitical obstacles that hindered this enterprise. I will conclude this chapter by clearing a path for my second writerly interlocutor, Branislav Sarkanjac. Sarkanjac’s framework carries us into a dialogue much different than the one we are about to leave. Already I have alluded to their differentiation by mentioning that for the purpose of my analysis I would interpret Ristovski’s perspective as the ideal modem image of Macedonian national consciousness from which to understand Sarkanjac’s catachrestic one. What do these distinctions mean and why do I cast them, especially since, all details aside, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125 both Ristovski and Sarkanjac are trying to achieve the same thing—to sustain sovereignty over Macedonia's national ‘ Gestalt’ ? The interrogation of these questions, and their relation to the discoursive strategies Sarkanjac introduces as he himself engages the “Macedonian Question” with a new episteme, are the subjects of the following final section. The Catachrestic Image of Macedonian National Consciousness Who am I, how shall Ifight my own way in this world, these worlds o f ideas, andfind my place in them...? —Branislav Sarkanjac, Makedonski Katahrezis It was a Friday. June 15, 2001 to be exact. Roughly five months since the first armed attacks by KLA members against police forces in the Republic of Macedonia. My husband and I were making one of our pilgrimages to Vivalidi, a Skopje-based restaurant owned and operated by an entrepreneur named Vlado. Known to his ex-patriot customers as ‘Wally,’ Vlado had spent ten years in Chicago perfecting the nuances of American-Italian cuisine. He would have still been in Chicago had it not been for his wife’s insistence that they move back to Macedonia. Vlado freely admitted that their timing could not have been worse, what with the country’s civil unrest. But he was “making a go of it,” capitalizing on Skopje’s influx of foreigners sporting a taste for something other than the typical Macedonian- Italian fare of spaghetti with heaps of oily meat, and crusty, thin pizza topped with salty goat cheese and bottled catsup. Dusk was falling fast as we took our seats at a table on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. The linden trees were blanketing the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 streets with their tiny white flower buds, releasing into the air a delicately sweet fragrance that, in concert with the warmth of the setting sun, suggested the possibility of renewal. It was hard to believe that just a week or so ago a number of events seemed to converge all at once. Government military officials had just distributed weapons to army reservists living in strategic areas of Skopje under the guise that the citizens of Skopje needed protection from the armed insurgents who were roaming the streets. The weapons were recalled within a couple of days, but their initial distribution was enough to set off a pledge from KLA (now going by the name of NLA) leaders that an armed revolt would be taking place on the date of the fast-approaching quarter moon. To insure that their threat was taken seriously, the rebels also declared that if they were attacked, they would begin targeting not only government buildings, but also the international airport just outside of Skopje. Amidst this acceleration of threat/counter-threat came a call from the U.S. Embassy in Skopje informing my husband and me that if we did not leave Macedonia immediately, the embassy would not be responsible for our safety or our evacuation should such a drastic measure become eminent. Owing to this sudden sense of urgency, we began calling friends to advise us what to do. We even joined the growing number of ex-patriots who were making their way into local travel agencies and airline ticket offices to change their flight arrangements. Verica, the young agent who helped us, did so politely and efficiently, but with such a measured sadness that we should be forced to leave her country. We really took notice of her Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127 sadness, and on the short walk home reasoned with ourselves that if things escalated to the point where we feared for our safety, somehow we would be okay, with or without the help of the U.S. Embassy. As soon as we arrived home, we called Verica to cancel our re-booked reservations. She was extraordinarily happy. “Thank you for staying,” she said ecstatically. “You are heroes.” Truth be told, we did not feel so heroic, but rather depressed and sad. Not about our decision not to leave, but that we could leave. We had a choice, but what of all of those people, dear friends or otherwise? What luxury of choice did they have? Admittedly, we wanted out, but instead we settled on the hope that Vivaldi would provide us an escape—however symbolic—from Macedonia, as if chewing on rubbery mozzarella cheese and gooey, thick-crust pizza could somehow transport us to a different dimension where evil did not mingle quite so intimately and disruptively with everyday life. Just as we were about to finish eating, we spotted a friend approaching and invited him to sit down for coffee. On that beautiful, warm summer’s evening, our ensuing conversation with Branislav Sarkanjac, a political philosopher, writer, and professor at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, touched upon many subjects: from the global repercussions of democracy movements that were failing to fulfill the expectations of the governed; to how if one were to apply the six criteria of oppression to the case of the Republic of Macedonia, virtually all Macedonians regardless of their ethnicity would be considered oppressed. It was, however, our conversation about misery and happiness, and the source of Macedonian “identity,” that pressed upon me the most, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 128 and grounded deep within me the philosophical questions—the ones I posed as we entered the dance in Chapter 1—that are straining to be answered in the pages of this dissertation. Sarkanjac’s national consciousness or identification as a Macedonian is a civic one, whose genesis stretches back, before he was bom, to the first meeting of ASNOM (the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Macedonia) in 1944 when, in his opinion, the delicate process of articulating Macedonian nationhood was set in motion. Like Ristovski, Sarkanjac is compelled by the conviction that ASNOM signaled a defining moment in the history of Macedonia's national movement, yet exactly what that moment signified is where our philosopher parts company with our historian. The fact that Ristovski ends his Macedonia and the Macedonian People on the precipice of Tito’s War of Liberation, with the joining of the anti-Hitler coalition by Macedonian activists, indicates that he means to promote the perspective that ASNOM was the culmination of a 100-year-old campaign on the part of Macedonians to secure for themselves national-political maturation and affirmation. That is, ASNOM was the epilogue of the Macedonian nation-state. Not quite accurate, Sarkanjac’s work suggests. The victory achieved in the Second World War, he writes, “was not a campaign for Macedonia as a state, but rather for Macedonia as a people” (Sarkanjac 200la:58). That is to say, ASNOM was not the epilogue of the Macedonian nation-state, but rather the prologue, or, in other words, the moment at which the Macedonian nation as a social fact turned into the Macedonian nation as a potential political fact.1 6 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 129 In qualifying the victory of the Second World War, Sarkanjac underscores the idea that even though Macedonia experienced a level of national-political sovereignty within Yugoslavia, it was still “Serbia’s imperial mimesis” that “functioned as the center of power” for Macedonia from 1944 onward (Sarkanjac 2001a:65). Not until 1991, when the structural and administrative components of that Serbian-controlled center collapsed for Macedonia, would Macedonians know the full experience and consequence of being their own center of power—of being, that is, their own state. Statehood ought to have signaled a starting point of genuine independence and political legitimacy for Macedonia, just as it had for the region’s other post socialist states (those other “countries in transition”). Instead, statehood thrust Macedonia into a protracted posture of defense against the acrimonious charges, lodged at the level of international politics, that the Macedonian people possessed a national identity of dubious origins, a language of questionable distinctiveness, and a name and history that were not their own, but were rather self-conscious attempts to hijack them and pass them off as such.1 7 “At least up until now,” Sarkanjac would point out in retrospect (ibid.:61), “during all negotiations on the international recognition of some country, nobody has declared that their people, land, name, language are ‘imagined.’ ” Indeed, “encumbered by a double standard” (ibid.:62) that showed “that it is possible for someone to live in a polis (by his criteria) and not be recognized as someone that lives in a polis (by the criteria of others)” (Sarkanjac Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 2000:36), how would this new “citizen of FYROM” be able to fight his way in the world and find his place in it? In a sub-chapter of his book, Makedonski Katahrezis (2001a), bearing the title, "Dali Makedonskite sonuvaat tugi istoriski ovci?' (‘Do the Macedonians dream of someone else’s historical sheep?’), Sarkanjac draws a parallel between the allegedly invented memory of Macedonians, and the constructed recollections of the android Rachel in director Ridley Scott’s film, Blade Runner m Rachel is a near perfect human except that she lacks human identity; she has no past, that is, no recollection of or experience with a past life. So her creator takes special care to give her one, implementing into her personality memories of a past, memories of a childhood and of parents. Rachel is even given photographs of herself as a little girl, standing next to her mother and to her cousin, blowing the candles out on her birthday cake. “But they are phony photographs. Or? Or maybe not?” (ibid.: 60).1 9 Sarkanjac’s thesis—a thesis which approaches the “national question” from a post-modem standpoint in much the same way Benedict Anderson did with his “imagined communities”—is that the building of a nation’s history is (like it was for the android, Rachel) predicated on “collecting phony or forged photographs from an untrue childhood” (Sarkanjac 2001a:60). Phony, forged, and untrue not in a cynical sense, but in the sense that the building of any nation’s history is, in effect, the building of a myth of the nation’s history, and in this kind of atmosphere of constructedness “historical correctness is not very important” (ibid.:82). Was not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 Richard the Lionheart—the famous ‘Englishman’— Sarkanjac reasons, actually a Frenchman “who did not know a word of English”? Or William Tell, the ‘Swiss’ hero. Was his story not brought to Switzerland in the fifteenth century from Scandinavia (ibid.)? So why the cynicism with respect to Macedonian nation building? Why upon establishing independence in 1991 was the Republic of Macedonia “confronted with the label of the Macedonian people as ‘a people without a past’ ” (ibid.:61)? Had not Macedonian historians been demonstrating since the late 1940s that Macedonians did indeed have a past—a collection of photographs— constructed from events that had “value as ‘an attempt at nation-building’ ” (ibid.)? Indeed, but unlike others (nations or androids), Sarkanjac continues, the Macedonian must contend with an unique obstacle. The photographs from his childhood that he is holding dear as his own are the same photographs that others around him—the Bulgarian, the Greek, the Serb—are holding dear to themselves as well. “Everyone has more or less the same pictures from the same pantheon of heroes: Alexander of Macedon, King Marko, etc.,” Sarkanjac notes, which they present as evidence to vindicate their perspective claims (i.e. “The Bulgarian for language and soil, the Greek for the name, the Serb for soil, the Albanian for soil”) (Sarkanjac 2001a:61). The Macedonian thus finds himself caught in a five-way polemic of contesting motifs—“It is I, here, next to Goce Delcev,” he asserts, to use the nineteenth-century freedom fighter claimed by both Macedonian and Bulgarian historiography as an example. “No, no,” the Bulgarian replies. “It is I” (ibid.). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132 Sarkanjac’s simple allegory personifies the very impasse of historiographic claim and counter-claim in which, as I mentioned much earlier, Blaze Ristovski’s observations and interpretations of History would leave us stuck. On one level, Ristovski’s work (in as much as it represents the work of the Macedonian historical profession in general) answers back to rival historiographies with History thick with “Macedonian verisimilitude.” On another level, however, it does so by clinging to a modernist model of nationhood (the state as a titular nation) and utilizing a modernist discourse to talk about it that actually reproduces and reinforces the very antagonistic thinking responsible for casting Macedonia into its asymmetrical balance of power in the first place. “And here weaving the modem discourse is the easiest for he who has political power,” writes Sarkanjac (200la:61), because with the possession of political power comes the hegemonic authority to script the discourse that legitimizes and manifests that political power. In other words, to him who has political power “the history of a state is not a narrative, myth, etc., but rather an objective historical fact” (ibid.) And to him who has no political power, such as the Macedonian in Sarkanjac’s allegory? To him, the sovereignty of his nation’s statehood is left vulnerable to attack: his history is “reduced to myth, that which is not ‘scholarly’ established”; his language “becomes artificial”; his people “imaginary” and of “alien” descent... ” (ibid.: 5 8). If this is the impasse, then what is Sarkanjac’s way out? What new episteme does he propose for engaging the “Macedonian Question”? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133 In writing about his country in retrospect, “as a subject thrown into the pre political who [was] expected to satisfy a number of requirements in order to be accepted by the political” (Sarkanjac 2001a:36) yet who, because of historical operations and geopolitical circumstances, had nothing with which to negotiate, Sarkanjac takes up the subject of discourse as a basis for political agency, suggesting—as only someone with the wisdom of all that happened to Macedonia prior and subsequent to the republic’s declaration of sovereignty on September 8, 1991 can —that in order to fight against political attack from the outside, the “citizen of FYROM” would have to find his way out by positioning things differently or shifting them, catachrestically (ibid. :61). Catachresis directly translates from the Greek word katak.hresis to mean ‘an incorrect use of words,’ but there are relevant corollary meanings that Sarkanjac lists (Sarkanjac 2001a:37-38). 1) An inappropriate or illogical use; 2) A junction of contradictory concepts, concepts that are not joinable; 3) A lapse of speech, but also a common expression that has been accepted (for example, beautiful mourning); 4) A (rhetorical) procedure where, by means of misuse, the application of a name is spread beyond the point permitted by its first meaning; 5) An oratorical figure that consists of the awkward use of a word or an expression in an inappropriate meaning (the silence of the Moon). In short, catachresis is a rhetorical strategy whose purpose is not to violate or distort language, but to violate and distort its use2 1 Given its provocative underpinnings, catachresis is typically cast as a form of criticism, which is why some of its most vocal advocates have been postcolonial Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134 writers such as Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, for whom the transgressive aspects of seizing, reversing, and displacing language resonate so well with the trangressive aspects of postcolonial criticism in general. Sarkanjac’s evocation of catachresis in thinking about Macedonia and critiquing its position since independence depends, then, on a “tense conjunction”2 2 of post-1991/post communist Macedonia and post-colonialism, a conflation that surely would not sit well with those who warn against overestimating the applicability in the Balkans of categories like colonialism and imperialism to what are perceived as simply less- circumscribed notions such as subordination and marginalization (see Todorova 1997:16-17). It is not my place to judge whether or not Sarkanjac is justified in labeling Macedonia as a postcolonial country. Irrespective of the legalistic, or spatial and temporal distinctions that his pro arguments might violate, one gets a brief but convincing feel at least for how postcolonial hermeneutics would be useful in illuminating what Macedonian intellectuals such as Sarkanjac see as the republic's predicament: “economic neocolonialism,” the “hegemony of western knowledge,” and the “imperial stance” of Macedonia's neighbors toward Macedonia (Sarkanjac 2001a:65). “After all,” Sarkanjac argues subsequent to questioning the purpose of postcolonial criticism in Macedonia, “all of these questions regarding identity, the self-determination, the uncovering of one’s own culture, the ambivalence towards the West, being tom between imitation [the modem] and resistance [the post Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135 modern], characteristics of post-colonial discourse, are already open in Macedonia” (ibid.). In cases such as Macedonia's, “where people have to negotiate about issues like the national language, the nationality, the citizenship,” the political demands that one is compelled to make in defense of oneself are inherently postcolonial “because the so-called adequate narratives on the occurrences of such things are not written in the spaces that have de-colonized themselves, but in the spaces of the colonizers” (Spivak and Roony cf. Sarkanjac 2001a:38). In such cases, catachresis offers a basis for agency and a stance of resistance against what Sarkanjac labels as the “master narratives that falsely, incorrectly interpret the spaces that they have conquered” (Sarkanjac 2001a:63). Since all the knowledge that I have acquired from the outside and that refers to me is a surplus—this knowledge is like a bad awakening. Although I possess it, this knowledge does not present me with identity, it deprives me of my agency and maintains my difference with the others. I can say that regardless of all of the books and texts on the imagined character of the nations—I do have troubles with the defamations that I belong to a fabricated, imagined, invented nation. And this I find especially obvious in the attempts that insist on scientific neutrality and objectivity and that are full of the texts of the type “One of the new countries, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, is the small state of Skopje, which decided for itself the name Macedonia.” (Sarkanjac 2001 a:42) “I need a discourse for myself,” Sarkanjac confesses (ibid. :47); and like a nomad he goes searching. So, again, I pose the question: If this is the impasse, then what is Sarkanjac’s way out? I conclude with what I take to be his position. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136 The way out for the Macedonian—the way for him to de-colonize his national consciousness—is to take a catachrestic stance against the narratives that purport to speak for him: to uncover, expose, and counter the ones who misrepresent him and the knowledge that reduces him to a “browseable” object “for the totalizing western subject” (Sarkanjac 2001a:41); to find a discourse for himself (even if it means moving within different ones) that will enable him, when situations make it necessary, to “strike[... ] back [at the master narratives] by catachrestic fragmentation o/the [... ] master narratives, rendering them browseable as well” (ibid.: 37 emphasis added); to encourage a kind of local hermeneutics and local pragmatism so that citizens of Macedonia can “discover[... ] anew their own cultural reinvention, uncover[...] the facts about themselves, the narratives on themselves, which were hidden by or behind the dominant imagery” (ibid.:63-64). In short, the way out is to cut the Gordian Knot, and “develop a single common myth” (Sarkanjac 2001b)—a common collection of photographs—that will unite all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 3: 11 would be seriously remiss were I not to give full credit to B.J. Wray (2000) for coming up with this imaginative (re)wording of Benedict Anderson’s seminal text on nations being imagined communities. 2 By Stefan Troebst’s estimates (Troebst 2001:65), Blaze Ristovski is one “of two ‘lone fighters’ on the historical front line” in Macedonia, the other being Ivan Katardziev. “Almost everything substantial written and—in Katardziev’s case, edited—about the organizational forms and programmatic foundations of the Macedonian National Movement over the last forty years in Skopje flows through the pens of these two historians.” Considering the body of Ristovski’s scholarship, why would I choose this one book in particular? For one, published in 1999, Macedonia and the Macedonian People, is Ristovski’s most up-to-date compilation of everything that is known about Macedonia’s program of national revival and development leading up to the Second World War. For another, although penned in the Macedonian language, Ristovski’s book has been translated into English, which is not to say that I cower to the challenge of reading in a language other than my own mother tongue, or that I altogether dismiss material that has not been translated for my benefit and comfort. Rather, I think there is something to be said for those writerly contributions that get translated into today’s global language of commerce, politics, science, scholarship, art, and popular culture, as if to say, this is something that needs to enter a broader public discourse. Having made this point, I want to stress two things: Macedonia and the Macedonian People is significant irrespective of its translation; and it is not my intention to diminish the value of other works by suggesting that the translation and subsequent publication of a text are the exclusive criteria by which a written work should be measured as significant. Only select sections of Sarkanjac’s Makedonski Katahresis, for example, have been translated into English, yet I stand fast to my belief that Sarkanjac’s work strikes a timely and provocative chord. 3 Keith Brown (2000b) has written an exceptional essay, aptly titled “Would the Real Nationalists Please Step Forward,” examining the role and responsibility of the anthropologist who sets out to deconstruct the teleology of a nation-state such as the Republic of Macedonia. “What place is left for respect and sensitivity,” Brown wonders, “when for the anthropologist, people have got history wrong?” . Brown takes the reader through his post-fieldwork reflections on two situations that occurred during the course of his dissertation research on the national imagination in Macedonia. In the first situation, Brown’s eagerness to highlight several ‘invented’ aspects of a crucial moment in Macedonian national history butts up against the more tempered and reasoned judgment of a senior member of the Institute for National History in Skopje. In the second situation, Brown is “humbled” and “unsettled” by a woman “whose investment in a version of history is not about personal prestige or ideological outlook,” but about intercommunity cooperation and an even greater concern for her family’s health and well-being . In both instances, Brown’s is a charitable stance that ends on a poignant note: “The interlocutors I have described here share certain views of the Macedonian past. More precisely, though, and more saliently, they express consensus on the limits within which complex histories, in a politicized world, should be put on display. Although couched in the idiom of historical truth, their concerns are primarily with the potential political consequences of broadcasting or publicizing uncertainty before a world audience. For it could be argued that the real force of nationalism lies in the demand made by a world community of nation-states, that any people who wish to join should organize themselves and their pasts in a recognizably national way. In this sense, Macedonians—or at least some of them—force us to question our easy generalizations about nationalism in the Balkans. My conversations with Macedonians certainly had that effect on me. For with their faith in what might appear to be myths of intercommunity cooperation, they argue for a chance to build their world on a different model from the one that we tend to project into their lives. In seeking to deconstruct the bases of such different models, we may unwittingly serve the very cause Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 138 we think we are opposing. Paradoxically, then, it is not a post-Yugoslav Macedonian, but the eagerly destructive anthropologist, who is the nationalist in the story.” 41 want to thank Professor Andrei Simic for pointing out the extent to which the creation of Macedonia, in addition to Kosmet and Vojvodina, as autonomous regions had a great deal to do with Tito wanting to weaken the power of Serbia’s plurality with the “new” Yugoslavia. 5 Greece’s particular position was (is) that Macedonia’s northern border is synonymous with the border between Greece and what was formerly known as ‘Yugoslavia.’ That is to say, if one were to travel south from the Republic of Macedonia, one would not actually be in Macedonia until one crossed over into Greece. Road signs positioned along Greece’s northern border welcome visitors commgfrom the Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia. Heading north from inside Greece, a motorist hard pressed for signs to guide them to the Republic of Macedonia will find only directions to ‘ Yugoslavia.’ To Greek nationalists, not only does the Republic of Macedonia lie outside the Macedonian border, it has no right to the name ‘Macedonia’ itself (see below). Greek nationalists have been known to refer to the Republic of Macedonia as the ‘Republic of Skopje.’ See also Ioannis Manos (2002) for an excellent overview of Greece’s position—an overview written in order to contextualize the performance of dance and identity politics in Fiorina, Northwest Greece. 6 Stefan Troebst (2001:73) notes that the ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ was “a misleading name, since the Republic of Macedonia is an existing, not a former one.” Troebst refers the reader to Norman Davies who, “[wjith tongue in cheek, though convincingly,.. has opted for replacing FYROM by the historically correct, yet considerably longer, abbreviation FOPITGROBBSOSY: ‘Former Province of Illyria, Thrace, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, the Ottoman Empire, Serbia, and Yugoslavia.’” Tongue-in-cheek observations regarding this issue have never been in short supply. Accompanying a friend to a poetry reading at the university in Skopje in 2001,1 learned of a new book, This Countria, being promoted in Bitola the very same evening. Sensing that I would want to know more about the origins of this intriguing title, my friend began to explain that a few years back, when George Robertson first came to Macedonia as NATO’s Secretary of Defense, never once did he utilize the awkward FYROM in public address. But neither did he dare refer to the republic as ‘Macedonia’ or the ‘Republic of Macedonia.’ Instead, the substitute—“This Beautiful Country”—was bom (i.e. “I am so happy to be here in ‘This Beautiful Country’” or “The leaders o f ‘This Beautiful Country’...”). The joke began circulating in Macedonia that the proper name for Macedonia in the English language now appeared to be ‘This Beautiful Country’ or ‘TBC’ for short. Taking the interpretation of Lord Robertson’s choice of words a step farther, people started saying that ‘TBC’ actually stood for ‘TB [Tuberculosis] Country,’ as in “Macedonia is an ‘infectious disease country.” The book title, This Countria, was intended then as a take off of this incident, with ‘Countria’ acting as a substitute for ‘Macedonia.’ All irony aside, when the "name issue" between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia first began to fester after the Republic of Macedonia’s independence in 1991, observers sympathetic to Macedonia’s position were all too quick to dismiss Greece’s objections “as the false product of nationalist intellectuals” (Sutton 1998:193). Certainly, it is true that a particular name—like any powerful symbol of identification—is often “consciously employed by political and intellectual elites” (Turton 1997:18). David Sutton debunks this interpretation in the case of Greece’s objections for its ignorance of “potential local resonances” (1998:193). Sutton’s research on the Greek island of Kalymnos quite convincingly suggests that “local-level kinship ideologies and practices [fed] into [Greece’s] feelings....” (ibid.: 174). I include his analysis here not only because it is a very convincing explanation for Greece’s objections, but also because is serves as a reminder that it is often in the most unexpected places that one uncovers meaning. Sutton’s critical inspection of Kalymnian kinship—kinship which by and large is similar in all parts of Greece—reveals that names “are linked to notions of possession, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139 i.e. ownership through inheritance and through heritage (history)” (ibid.: 182). When a child is bom, parents carry out “the sacred duty of anastassi, or bringing ancestors back to life” (ibid.: 183) by naming the child after a grandparent. In this way, continuity between past and present is established—“an insurance that even as kin die they are continued in the presenf ’ (ibid.). In addition to establishing inter-familial continuity, naming practices also imply continuities “between the present and both a religious and national past” (ibid.: 185) in the sense that through a name, one has a relationship to unknown ancestors in the ancient past. The selection of a name is also linked to property transfer, i.e. a child inherits the property of his or her same-name ancestor. Sutton notes the friction that this creates as adult siblings in a family vie to secure their child’s material well-being by being the first to select a particular name. Selection does not ensure property transfer, however; “but it does lay the groundwork for a claim that could be made at a future date” (ibid.: 190). The parallels between the family continuity created by Greek naming practices and the use of historical names in constituting national identity are not only astonishing, but, I think, provide us the opportunity to understand why Greeks proclaim so passionately that the very name ‘Macedonia’ is a part of their soul. There is a real sense that just as the selection of a name at the familial level often implies a desired claim to property, so too did the Republic of Macedonia’s choice of the name ‘Macedonia’ imply territorial pretensions toward Greek Macedonia. “The revelation that FYROM nationalists had printed maps showing the ‘Republic of Macedonia’ extending down to the Aegean was simply a confirmation of what most Greeks already knew: that in choosing a name you have some material motives in mind” (ibid.). 7 The building of schools further aided these campaigns. By 1901, 800 Bulgarian, 900 Greek, and 180 Serbian schools existed within Macedonia. With their creation of “rival educational activities” (Darby et al 1966:146), Macedonia’s neighbors would continue to instigate and advance their own nationalist agendas. 8 Slavs, Slavini, and Sclavini; according to existing historical records, these are the name given to the inhabitants of Macedonia before such designations were either lost or obfuscated over time. 9 Adam Kuper explores how anthropology’s contemporary concern with ethnicity has succumbed to the “culturological talk o f ‘imagined communities’ ” (Kuper 1994:551). Believing that socio-cultural anthropology has focused disproportionately on revealing the constructedness of ethnic identities at the expense of generating “debates that have a resonance beyond our immediate fields of ethnographic study and avoid theoretical involution,” Kuper instead envisions a concern with ethnicity which stimulates “fresh thinking in political anthropology and kinship studies” (1994:551) (see reference to David Sutton’s work above in endote four). It is Partha Chatteijee, though, who offers a provocative penetration into the culturological talk o f ‘imagined communities’ by pointedly interrogating, “Whose imagined community?” Chatteijee objects to how Anderson elevates the historical experience of nationalisms in Western Europe, the Americas, and Russia as the models for all subsequent nationalisms: “If nationalisms in the rest of the worid have to choose their imagined community from certain “modular” forms already made available to them by Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine? History, it would seem, has decreed that we in the postcolonial world shall only be perpetual consumers of modernity. Europe and the Americas, the only true subjects of history, have thought out on our behalf not only the script of colonial enlightenment and exploitation, but also that of our anticolonial resistance and postcolonial misery. Even our imaginations must remain forever colonized” (Chatteijee 1993:5). 1 0 Chatteijee continues: “In this, its true and essential domain, the nation is already sovereign, even when the state is in the hands of the colonial power. The dynamics of this historical project is completely missed in conventional histories in which the story of nationalism begins with the contest for political power.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 140 1 1 Kusev is also cited by Ristovski as saying that “however much they [the Greeks] have struggled to prevent our advancement, they have not been able to uproot the feeling and prevent the Macedonians from being Macedonians.” Though Kusev expresses unquestionable allegiance, exactly to what he was allegiant is unclear. Not long after authoring these comments, Kusev became a Metropolitan in the Bulgarian Exarchate. 1 2 Readers interested in a more historical discussion of the Ilinden Uprising, and its metaphoric and symbolic fallout, may wish to consult Brown (1995). 1 3 Missirkov purposefully wrote On Macedonian Matters in a central Macedonian dialect (a dialect that ironically he did not use himself in everyday speech), which is why his is considered “the first standardization of the modem Macedonian literary language” (Ristovski 1999:205). “I hope that Macedonians will find their language pleasanter to the ear than the language of our neighbors which have served us in the past” Missirkov wrote in his preface (1974:35). On Macedonian Matters caused a resurgence of interest in the Macedonian language amongst emigres in Belgrade and Sofia, and throughout Macedonia, where it surfaced through the performance of new plays and the writings of new poetry and literature. 1 4 Serbia’s stance toward Macedonia was crude, but effective. “The Macedonians are either Serbs or Bulgarians,” it was heard speculated in Belgrade in the aftermath of the Berlin Congress. “If they are Serbs, we are not giving them to anyone. If they are not Serbs—we are not giving them anyway, as we need them” (cf. Ristovski 1999:239). As the turn of the nineteenth century neared, and outside observers began to refer to the Slavic-speaking inhabitants of Macedonia as ‘Bulgarians,’ Serbia countered with a strategy to refute the Bulgarian identity of the Slavs in Macedonia by referring to them instead as ‘Maco-Slavs’—a people linguistically and culturally in between Bulgarians and Serbians (Danforth 1995:64). Serbia’s gamble paid off. The existence of a ‘Maco-Slav’ group became widely accepted outside of the region when, in 1909, the “human geographer” (ibid.:65), Jovan Cvijic, printed the first map depicting the ‘Maco-Slavs’ as a distinct ethnic group. Cvijic’s maps became so influential that following the end of the Balkan Wars in 1913, his were the ones consulted to determine how Macedonia would be divided amongst Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia. 1 5 This strain of scholarly colonization is hardly new to Macedonians. A congress of Slavonic ethnographers meeting in Prague in 1924 disallowed Macedonian ethnographers to participate on the grounds that neither an independent/autonomous Macedonian state with a Macedonian capital and government nor a Macedonian university with a Macedonian academy of sciences existed. Krste Missirkov feared that Bulgarian and Serbian ethnographers in attendance would capitalize on the absence of their Macedonian colleagues, leaving Macedonia not only “bound by Serbo-Bulgarian political accords,” but now also “bound by the scholarly chains of the victor oppressors” (cf. Ristovski 1999:301). The establishment of the People’s Republic of Macedonia in 1944 provided the space in which Macedonian scholarly thought could function more normally vis-a-vis national institutes of ethnology, history, etc. Nevertheless and even today, Ristovski argues in Macedonia and the Macedonian People, Macedonian scholars are “handicapped” in their research—i.e. denied access to sources and archives—by the “incomprehensible obstacles placed in the way by neighboring states” (1999:125). 1 6 This distinction comes courtesy of the Macedonian art historian, Bojan Ivanov (see also endnote 19 below). 1 7 Leverage has always been the ‘handmaiden to domination and power’ over Macedonia (see Note #1 below). When Macedonia declared sovereignty in 1991, it was Greece that possessed a preponderance of influence this time around. Despite early signs that the United States would extend Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141 recognition to the Republic of Macedonia, first the out-going Bush administration and then the in coming Clinton one succumbed to the pressures of Greek-American lobbyists and even Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis himself, who “telephoned the White House to warn that his government would collapse if the U.S recognized Macedonia” (Greenberger 1992). Across the Atlantic, Washington’s counterparts in the European Community similarly “stiff-armed” (Talbott 1992) the newly-sovereign republic on account of Greek opposition, despite Macedonia's compliance with E C. requests to amend its constitution so as to insure the protection of minority rights and the respect of existing borders, and despite Macedonia's fulfillment of the same criteria for recognition used by the E.C. to support its quick recognition of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Unassuaged by the absence of diplomatic recognition for Macedonia, Athens used international sanctions against trade with Serbia as a ruse for blocking fuel shipments to the republic. “It’s murder without bullets,” Macedonian government minister Jane Milovski called the blockade, which threatened the republic’s very ability to provide its citizens with even basic services (Talbott 1992). Amidst Macedonia's “economic strangulation” (ibid.) came reports that Mitsotakis was holding secret discussions with Serbia and possibly Albania and Bulgaria regarding an all-too-familiar subject—the partition of Macedonia. Greek Foreign Minister Michalis Paconstantinou denied the allegation, suggesting that “a point of friction in the Balkans” would be removed when “authorities in Skopje...change their name to anything except Macedonia” (ibid.) (see Note #2 below). “As citizens of a newborn, almost defenseless nation,” Milovski told officials in Washington, “we are afraid that if we can be bullied into changing our name, we will next come under pressure to change our borders” (ibid.). From Macedonia's Prime Minister Branko Cervenkovski came a similar, but differently shaded concern. “The veiy moment we give up our name,” he argued, “the question will arise: If you’re not Macedonians, then what are you?” (Thurow 1992). Note #1:1 am adopting this phrase from Jose Limon (1994:97). Note #2: Yielding to the most expedient way out of the diplomatic void in which they found themselves, Macedonia's leaders begrudgingly accepted a change to the name under which the republic would be officially recognized internationally. FYROM was to be a temporary, stop-gap measure while representatives from the interested parties continued to whittle away at each other’s resolve. 1 8 Ridley Scott’s film is itself an adaptation of Philip Dick’s 1968 science fiction novel, Do Androids Dream o f Electric Sheep. Sarkanjac’s sub-chapter draws inspiration from both sources. 1 9 Three individuals have played a hand in translating from Macedonian into English the excerpts I cite from Sarkanjac’s Makedonski Katahrezis. Marija Hadzimitrova-Ivanova, Bojan Ivanov, and myself. Material extracted from pages 36 through 51 is the deft work of Hadzimitrova-Ivanova. All other translations are mine, although, in a sense, they, too, are products of collaboration. I want to thank Bojan Ivanov for taking it upon himself to clarify the shifting contextual meanings of words I did not know and could not find in my Macedonian/English dictionary, and phrases that from my frustrated standpoint stubbornly refused to be translated into coherent language. ‘Indebted’ is much too weak of a word to characterize the immense gratitude I owe to him for cleaning up rough spots in my translations, and facilitating my understanding of Sarkanjac’s philosophical statements. 2 0 Pettifer (2001) provides a good chronology of events. 2 1 In the words of Derrida, catachresis “does not come from the language, it does not create new signs, nor does it enrich the code; yet, it converts its functioning, it creates new rules of exchange, new values, of the same material” (cf. Sarkanjac 2001a:38). 221 have adopted this phrase from Barfield (1997:367). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 142 FIGURE 9 and old in Skopje’s main square on Forgiveness Sunday Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143 CHAPTER 4: A STAGE (ACT I) Even after all these years, Radmila (Rada) Visinova still recognizes the choreographies she helped iconocize as a first-generation dancer with Tanec. We are watching a Wednesday night rehearsal of KUD Koco Racin 's advanced ensemble, and as the dancers (ranging in age from young teenagers to young adults) put themselves through the program lineup for an upcoming concert, Rada calls out the dances to me one-by-one over the din of a live orchestra playing off to our left. In truth, that Rada remembers these choreographies is not at all surprising. She spent 21 years of her adult life performing them with Tanec, having moved to Skopje from her hometown of Kumanovo upon her acceptance into the fledgling State Ensemble back in 1949. Even after retirement, despite the discomfort of arthritic knees, she continued to dance the choreographies (or, rather, the original steps upon which the choreographies were based) at seminars that she and her husband, Stanimir Vfsinski (also a first-generation Tanec dancer), used to conduct in the summer along the shores of Lake Ohrid before his death a few years ago. Rada keeps a portrait of herself on a wall near the entrance of her Skopje apartment. It is a black and white photograph from those early years with Tanec. In the photograph, she is dancing with the female members of the ensemble, but those Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144 around her have been cropped from view. Rada alone fills the frame. Fully costumed. Eyes cast downward. Chest lifted. Lips slightly parted. Body lilting forward. There is no sign of the muscular strain that her slow, controlled movement demands. Instead, she is what has come to be accepted as the very image of a Macedonian Igraorka. Modest, yet not without a perceptible allure. Innocent, but not innocent to human suffering. She looks to be bearing the weight of her clothing as gracefully as she would have been expected to bear the joys and burdens of all that accompanied the very act of donning the layers as a cultural ambassador of her country and her people. The Koco Racin rehearsal is all but running itself. I am happy to see the dancers enjoying themselves, reacting to the infectiousness of live music by playing around with each other to the rhythm of it. There is a break in the choreography for the female dancers, so they are hanging out and chatting along the edges of the studio, dividing their attention between what the male dancers are doing and the conversations that just cannot wait until after rehearsal. Their entrance cue is not far off. When they hear it, it takes but a fraction of a second for them to re-access a posture of dancing and a demeanor of spirit influenced by Tanec decades ago. The girls have entwined their fingers in a low hand-hold, and now, balanced on the balls of their feet, are making their entrance into full view, seeming to both hover above ground and glide across it as a single unit. A few musical bars later, the female line breaks apart at the middle and separates for the male dancers, who swoop toward center stage from both sides of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145 studio. They grab hold of one another at the shoulders and adjust themselves into a straight line facing the imaginary audience. Their quick knee lifts are but vertical punctuation to the even quicker footsteps performed close to the ground. Proud, strong bodies. Vivid eyes and boundless energy. Were an old Tanec photograph, depicting what has come to be accepted as the very image of a Macedonian Igraorec, to accompany the one of Rada in her apartment, surely there would be many points of reference between that image and what we are watching in front of us now. Musings on dance in the (now former) Yugoslav republics typically trace the historical legacy of folk dance on stage to post-World War II Yugoslavia, and position its emergence as the instrumentalization or “embodiment” of a state- sponsored nationalist agenda. Josip Broz ‘Tito’ is largely credited in these musings for deliberately forging the relationship of politics to aesthetics in an attempt to strike a balance between the various ethnic groups circulating within post-war Yugoslavia, and the unavoidable impulse of the central state to strengthen its position by “inculcating a new politically-based ideology” (Simic 1991:22). Those familiar with the Yugoslav era know the story well. In the wake of the Second World War, the Soviet-modeled socialist “theory” of communist Yugoslavia called for a period of national self-expression as a way to deal with the problems associated with ethnic antagonisms.1 The Yugoslav government, betting that national unification and Yugoslavism (the idea of South Slav unity) would be best met and fostered not by discouraging the differences amongst Yugoslavia’s various Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146 peoples, but by subordinating them to a larger political agenda, encouraged groups to speak their respective languages, and create their own newspapers, societies, theaters, and orchestras. It was hoped that by permitting ethnospecificity on a cultural level, ethnically-motivated irredentism on a political level would be assuaged. Tied to this period of cultural intervention is the increasing circulation of dance practices from villages into the urban core, the growing establishment of a community of folk dance ensembles committed to theatrical presentation, and the cumulative standardization of folk dance practices into a repertoire of stilizirani ora (stylized folk dances) and choreographed tocki (new works). The purpose of this chapter is to disentangle the entanglement of folk dance in the “meaning-making practices” (Tomko 1999:xvi) of the People’s Republic of Macedonia (PRM) of post-war, socialist Yugoslavia by integrating into the above historical narrative a broader and deeper understanding of the complex relationship between politics and aesthetics forged under the leadership of Tito. My intention is not to question or refute this narrative since, by and large, it is accurate, although I would add (not entirely tangentially) that exclusively crediting Tito and the post-war time period for initiating change silences the cultural interventions shaped, crafted, and/or exercised by people who danced dances outside of their ritual and social contexts—on a stage, for an audience—at least a decade before Tito’s policies went into effect (see Dunin and Vfsinski 1995). Rather, my intention is to (re)pack the narrative so as to account for the saliency of an expanded repertoire of cause and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147 effect intervolving politics and aesthetics, and the affective relationship between them and the configuration of dance and ethnicity. I initiate this (re)packing by glancing back to pick up where the Second World War left off. It was at this juncture that Yugoslavia, attempting to advance as rapidly as possible while also transitioning to socialism, created new industrial complexes and pushed to collectivize agriculture, forever altering urban/rural landscapes by growing industry where previously none existed and driving subsistence farmers from countryside to town and city in search of opportunities for themselves and their families. By focusing on industrialization and the centripetal push-pull movement of bodies into urban centers like Skopje in reaction to changing rural conditions and the perceived promise of city life (Simic 1988), we chart the movement of folk dance into the post-war intersection of political/economic development, conflict resolution, and cultural aesthetics. From the vantage point of this intersection, I precede to offer several overlapping interpretations, all of which operate from the premise that post-war, urbanized bodies “offered potent sites for figuring identities and configuring social relations” (Tomko 1999:1). I begin by suggesting that the Skopje-based Kulturni Umetnicki Drustva (Cultural Artistic Societies or KUDs) that emerged during and immediately following the period of reconstruction, locally reinforced the very social transformations that were being worked out and implemented on a federation-wide scale, such as the stimulation of cooperation and the direct participation of the working people in the development and organization of society. The eventual Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148 professionalization of folk dance vis-a-vis the establishment of Macedonia’s State Ensemble, Tanec, raised the ideological possibility of broadening the breadth and deepening the depth of social reform (i.e. national unity and the fulfillment of Yugoslavism) via the relativisation of Macedonian national culture to the body politic of a Yugoslavia intent on establishing parity with other nations of the industrialized world. Antithetical to these pretensions, however, the establishment of Tanec actually encouraged the conflation of dance and national (ethnic) culture, and the elevation of it to the body politic of an emerging Macedonian nation-state intent on legitimizing itself.2 Bodies in Transition Trpe Cerepovski was bom in 1924 in the village of Galicnik. As a young boy growing up in a region of the country considered today by many Macedonians as the geographical and spiritual birthplace of their cultural and national essence, Trpe took a liking to singing and dancing early on. With the village schoolhouse close to home, young Trpe excelled at school recitals and reviews. “I wasn’t much of a student,” he confesses, “but when it came to singing and dancing I was always there.” But it was not there, at school, where Trpe developed his keen ear for music and his rhythmic feel for dance. Rather, like his friends, Trpe nurtured through experimentation and practice that which he heard and observed during the normal course of village life. “We were just little kids and there was no ensemble,” Trpe Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149 recalls. “We were self-taught. Whatever we learned it was by ourselves or by the elders at weddings, engagements, etc.” Circa 1924, such was the way most villagers throughout Macedonia learned and honed their practice. While those inclined toward performance organized themselves into groups, there was no organized-group system (such as the post-war KUD system) where a young child such as Trpe could go for training in the ‘folk’ performing arts. Furthermore, except for the village igranka, an occasion when neighboring villages would gather to show off the dances peculiar to their immediate, local area, no other context existed for the display of dance. Macedonia was still a decade shy of the onset of the 1935-1939 time period when village groups from Rastak, Petrovo, and Lazaropole began demonstrating their local dances (Rusalii and Teskoto in the case of the latter two villages) to festival audiences in Hamburg, London, and Yugoslavia (Dunin and Visinski 1995:5) Instead, circa 1924, musicians, singers, and dancers, through the encouragement of a local mentor, simply would gather and provide entertainment for the rest of the village. As he grew older, Trpe became one such provider. At every engagement where there was dancing and singing, I was there with the little tapan and the tambourine. After school I would gather the neighborhood, and with my sisters and brother we would sing through the night. I would give the rhythm and we would sing together. Everyone would gather as a veselba [festivity], and if it happened that we did not sing for a day or two, everyone would ask, “Where are you to entertain us?” The women weaving and stuff would ask me to entertain them while they worked. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150 The son of a milkman, Trpe followed his father on pecalba to Belgrade after completing primary school. Instead of putting Trpe to work in his delicatessen, Trpe’s father employed his son with another shop owner. Wealthy, but childless, the owner and his wife temporarily adopted Trpe, shaping him up in appearance and attitude, and working him hard. Trpe would sing as he worked, which is how it happened that one day he was overheard by another gazda (boss) who often visited the store. And he told me, “You sing very well. Why don’t you go to Radio Belgrade?” [Trpe responded] “There is no one to take me there and I don’t know where it is.” The gentleman said, “I will come tomorrow, take you, and you will sing.” I went there with him and he said to the guys at the radio, “Here, I’ve brought you a Kokalija.” Kokalija is a word of Turkish origin meaning ‘hard-working’ or ‘multi-tasking.’ Serbians used to use it to refer to Macedonians, not out of offense, but as a way to differentiate a non-Serb. “The Serbians called us Macedonians Kokalija. Us, the Mijaci,” Trpe recalls, using the ancestral name for the herdsmen who, according to archaeological records, began settling in the Bistra mountain range of western Macedonia in 1444. “The guys from the radio said, ‘Come on, another one... .You sing beautifully, so we recorded your song and you can listen to it.’ ” Trpe sings the melody he sang that day. Pure Macedonian. And after that they took me home to my master and made an appointment for the next recording. They didn’t give me money. Next time I sang another song. After they heard the song they paid me. It was a lot of money for the time. They recorded a song, played it often, and they Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 announced me on the first or second program of Radio Belgrade. “Now the Kokalija will sing. He sings beautifully. Listen to him.” Trpe spent his free time inside the restaurants of Belgrade, listening to music. He disliked working for his gazda and preferred staying away from home as much as possible. The man’s wife treated Trpe unkindly, pulling his ears when he was disobedient. “When I would come home she would say, ‘Where were you? We had lots of work to do!’ And I would say, ‘I was listening to songs. I am interested in songs. I am going to be a pop singer and earn lots of money. ’ ” And then came the war. The ‘triumph of the Communist revolution’ in Yugoslavia ushered in an era of tremendous social and structural reconstruction. The human and material losses sustained by Yugoslavia between 1941 and 1945 had been, as elsewhere in the European theater of the Second World War, considerable. Those wartime losses included, but were not limited to: Dead 1,700,000 (11% of the pre-war population) Average Age of Dead 22 years (included 90,000 skilled workers and 40,000 ‘intellectuals’) Homeless People 3,500,000 Buildings 822,000 destroyed (289,000 peasant homesteads) Ploughs and Agricultural 80% destroyed Equipment Railway Lines 50% destroyed Locomotives 77% destroyed Goods Wagons 84% destroyed (Cf. Singleton 1989.206)3 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152 Emerging in March of 1945 as the post-war “masters” of a multi-ethnic, multi religious, and multi-lingual Yugoslavia, Tito and his Marxist-dominated Partisan movement responded to the devastating losses by steering the course of reconstruction toward “socialism, social and economic reform, and industrial urbanism” (Simic 1983:206-207). The challenges facing the new administration were formidable. “ Bratstvo i Edinstvo” (Brotherhood and Unity)—the watchword for the Partisans and their liberation movement—had done little to prevent fratricidal warfare between the various groups of Yugoslavia; of the 1.7 million Yugoslavs killed between 1941 and 1945, fratricide accounted for one million of those deaths (Singleton 1989). The extensive damage to public and private property sustained during hostilities had left the economy badly crippled. And urban populations, although not an anomaly in Yugoslavia, nonetheless largely existed even in 1945 “as small islands in a vast sea of peasantry” (Simic 1988:190). The 1946 constitution adopted by the nascent Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) laid the groundwork and set the tone for reparation and reform. Yugoslavia’s national and cultural diversity were legally and politically sanctioned vis-a-vis the constitutional guarantee of civil liberties. The constitution established six administrative units—the republics of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia (including Kosovo and Vojvodina), and Slovenia—as a means (however symbolic, pragmatic, or both) to decentralize power and provide not only a degree of autonomy, but a further recognition of the right of self-determination for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153 the various national groups. ‘Sovereignty’ was given to each of the republics under the guise of autonomous cultural and political institutions, and “in return [the republics] ceded political power to Tito and the communist party” (Gallagher 1997:49).4 As the bedrock of any and all recovery efforts, the economy was constitutionally structured on the principles of socialism, with social ownership of those industries considered crucial to the national economy, and state-management of the overall economic health of the federation according to the specificities of a central economic plan (Singleton 1989:210-211). The aggressive economic policies initiated in 1946, augmented by relief aid from the United Nations and the muscle of volunteer and forced-labor work brigades—many of which were entertained by the music, drama, and folklore sections of Skopje’s KUDs (Dunin and Visinski 1995:6)—put Yugoslavia on the road to repair in what officials would later claim as “a world record for speed of postwar recovery” (Rusinow 1977:19). Rusinow and Singleton provide a convincing statistical landscape. By the end of 1946, “90% of the prewar rail network was back in use” (ibid.) and “traffic was moving freely” (Singleton 1989:218). Manufacturing outputs were rising in the newly re-opened factories and mines, pushing the index of industrial production to 79% of the low 1939 level. The agricultural sector was experiencing a similar recovery, with production back to its 1939 level in large measure because of agrarian reforms implemented immediately following the war. Furthermore, by year’s end, the national income had reached figures not seen since 1938. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154 The economic recovery of 1946 provided fertile ground for introduction in 1947 of the first Five Year Plan (1947-1951)—a plan envisioned by its architects as nothing short of a ‘quantitative leap forward’ in material and social conditions. The plan forecasted a five-fold increase in gross industrial output. New industries were proposed to support the production of items never before manufactured in Yugoslavia, such as: “trucks, tractors, heavy locomotives, heavy construction machinery, cranes, water turbines, large steam boilers, heavy and medium electrical machines, transformers, bicycles, typewriters, agricultural machinery of large type, electrical cables, coke, seamless pipe, prefabricated houses, radio sets, plastics, synthetic rubber, artificial fibres, nitrogenous fertilizers, etc.” (Hoffman and Neal 1962:97). In accordance with the Soviet doctrine of “the spatial distribution of economic activities” (Rusinow 1977:21), the plan aimed to compensate for material disparities within the federation by locating these new industries in the underdeveloped republics of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro. During their wartime campaign, the Partisans had pledged “to equalize prosperity and opportunities in all regions [of Yugoslavia], and provide[... ] ‘ jobs for the boys’ from the backwoods” (ibid.). By encouraging industrialization in the industrially- neglected republics, the Yugoslav government sought to fulfill this pledge and maintain the national goal of rapid, but evenly distributed, development. Planners ventured into the territory of agriculture, as well. The Land Reform Law, introduced by the provisional Yugoslav government in 1945 as a way to jump- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155 start post-war reparations, had provided farmers a kind of generic promise of “the land to those who till it” (Singleton 1989:216). Under the first Five Year Plan, however, the government asserted a more explicit commitment to socialized farming by commencing an aggressive drive to collectivize (nationalize) agriculture. Through a reduction in the maximum acreage allowed in individual holding and an increase in the number of Peasant Work Cooperatives, the government sought to initiate an intimate, mutually reinforcing, relationship between agriculture and industry. That is, the modernization and mechanization of agriculture, if not the industrialization of it.5 Hoffman and Neal clarify the logic of the linkage. The regime’s reasoning was that increased agricultural output was a necessary concomitant to industrialization, that increased output could come only through mechanization, that mechanization would be useful only if land were collectivized and that one important function of the new industrial economy would be to provide necessary agricultural machinery (Hoffman and Neal 1962:97). From the standpoint of this logic, the central government’s plan worked. The increase in industrial production, especially acute in underdeveloped republics such as Macedonia, fueled a demand for labor easily accommodated by rural migrants, many of whom found themselves alienated from their land and from their ability to earn a livelihood exclusively from it. Consequently, in the period immediately following the war, Yugoslavia—which at the close of hostilities had been ranked as “one of the four least urbanized countries in Europe, with under 20% of its people living in centers with populations over 20,000” (Simic 1988:190)—experienced a level of influx to its urban centers of 380,000 migrants per year (Hoffman and Neal Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156 1962:485).6 In some respects, Skopje was the epicenter of this spike in post-war urbanization, experiencing “the largest and most uncontrolled population increase of any major Yugoslav city; its rank shifted from the eighth largest city to the third (after Belgrade and Zagreb)” (Fisher 1966:55). One of those bodies contributing to the post-war population increase of Skopje was Trpe terepovski. Cultural-Artistic Amateurism and the Shifting Context of Dance Sixteen years old at the time, Trpe left Belgrade during the war and returned to Macedonia with his family, stopping first in Skopje before going on to Galicnik in the western mountains. The family did not stay in the village long though. Galicnik, despite its isolation (or perhaps because of it) had fallen under Italian occupation. The Cerepovski’s, like so many other Galicnik families, were compelled to move away. They settled down in Skopje, where young Trpe, following the encouragement of his friend, Atanas Kolarovski, became an active member of the folklore or igraorna (dance) section of a cultural-artistic society called KUD Koco Racin. Cultural-artistic societies began opening up in earnest simultaneously throughout all of Yugoslavia after the war. Local governments encouraged unions, factories, and student associations to sponsor KUDs with folklore sections. In Skopje, drustva fell under the umbrella of the City Syndication of Cultural-Artistic Societies, and enjoyed patronage from such sources as the Postal Workers Union (KUD Kuzman Josifovski-Pitu), the Metal Workers Union (KUD Metalec, later to be Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157 re-named Orce Nikolov), the Railway Syndicate (KUD Vlado Tasevski), and Ss. Cyril and Methodius University (KUD Mirce Acev) to name a few. While Skopje had the largest concentration of KUDs, drustva formed as well in other major urban areas of Macedonia such as Bitola and Kumanovo. The repertoire of these urban ensembles relied heavily on the dance experience brought to rehearsals by individual members. Though diverse, since membership was based primarily on an ability to dance (or sing, or play an instrument), this experience was rooted, by and large, in rural traditions still not yet so far removed from the daily lives of ensemble members. It would take a period of shifting adjustment for the dance repertoire of these ensembles to reflect the use of village dances, not as they were danced by villagers, but as they were danced by villagers who were now engrained in the urban experience. This shifting context of dance was not, however, an exclusively urban phenomenon. Throughout the countryside, from as far south as Macedonia to all points north, pre-war Sokol gymnastic halls were retrofitted as post-war cultural halls where village groups could gather to conduct various political, social, and cultural activities (ibid.:6). Within the course of two years, the folklore sections of these village groups had caught up to their urban counterparts, and were already demonstrating their programs at reviews and festivals supported by the Macedonian Parliament of Education (ibid.: 7). Animating the philosophical content and intent of Yugoslavia’s newly- formed KUDs was the century-long tradition of cultural-artistic amateurism, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 158 moniker for a complex of cultural activities originally conceived as an integral component of the international workers’ movement during a moment in history when much of Europe and the Balkans were being swept up in the spiritual awakening of nineteenth-century romantic nationalism. Trade union movements, aiming for “the ideological emancipation of workers” in preparation for their class struggle (Dedic 1981:122), progressed alongside cultural movements in poetry, prose, drama, and music that were keen on mobilizing people for political aspirations of liberation and national independence (Majstorovic 1972:14). Guided by the principle that the development of an individual’s creative abilities, political consciousness, and cultural needs were the responsibility and reward of a just society, cultural-artistic amateurism inherited its ethos from the belief in the “interdependence of revolutionary action and culture” (Dedic 1981:121). Majstorovic traces the antecedents of this interdependence as far back as “time immemorial” to a Balkan Peninsula under the influence of empires and invaders who, “[i]n their efforts to achieve cultural and political assimilation and ensure the permanency of their domination,... despoiled and carried off objects of cultural value, prohibited the use of national languages and written literatures and suppressed creative activity” (Majstorovic 1972:14). Majstorovic invites us to imagine the peoples who populated the peninsula, living as they did at this extraordinarily diverse point of intersection between Orient and Occident, but absorbing out of the necessity of their circumstances the lesson that one’s cultural imprint had value as “a means of struggle for national existence and survival” (ibid.). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159 Perhaps this explains the tenor of Goce Delcev’s call to freedom and independence for Macedonia at the turn of the last century: Nie go razbirame svetot edinstveno kako pole za kulturen natprevar megu narodite. We understand the world only as a field for cultural competition among peoples.7 Or why Krste Missirkov, through the conscience of prose written in the literary Macedonian language he fervently defended, should have drawn upon ethnography, history, and culture to make his argument in 1903 for the unity of Macedonians and the integrity of their territory. Here, perhaps, we have found the impetus for the Communist Party of Yugoslavia’s (CPY) widespread development during the Second World War of cultural activities such as partisan theaters, choirs, and orchestras.8 Or the impulse for young artists such as Gorgi Dimcevski—a son of Macedonia and a lover of her folk music, poetry, and dance—to join the ranks of the National Liberation Army as a Partisan combatant and cultural activist. But then again, perhaps this is precisely why some Macedonians risked imprisonment and death rather than accept what they considered as the CPY’s disingenuous “gift of national recognition” following the war (Palmer and King 1971:116), while others, despite Macedonia’s weak support of the communists during the war,9 found it “expedient to go along with Tito” if it meant that they could enjoy “the basic elements of equality” (ibid.: 113-114): to work within the framework Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160 of a new Yugoslavia, to have the chance to build national institutes of history, literature, language, philosophy, folklore, science, medicine, and law, and to put an end (or provide their own answer) to the pernicious questioning of their existence. Or, perhaps in the end, all we have done is stumbled upon a clue to understanding why Macedonia’s post-war drustva, searching for what to call themselves, turned to the pantheon of Macedonian artists and heroes for their names: KUD Orce Nikolov, KUD Koco Racin, and later KUD Mirce Acev. When Tito came to power after the war, one of his first and greatest efforts was encouraging the establishment and growth of organized drustva. What were the particular features of folk dancing that made it particularly suitable for addressing Tito’s primary concerns of restricting conflict, ensuring the federation’s progress, and encouraging Yugoslavisml This question will resurface later, but here I want to suggest that dancing’s “movement vocabulary” (Tomko 1999:196) induced mass participation and mass spectatorship.1 0 The numbers alone for Macedonia are astonishing. Dunin and Visinski (1995:7) recount the momentous occasion of Macedonia’s first major festival of folk dance and songs that occurred simultaneously in Bitola and Stip over the course of three days in October of 1947. Some 3,500 performers from 44 villages and towns competed in pre-festival reviews (Petrovic 1947:4). One hundred thirty groups were invited to participate, while more than 5,000 people attended these festivals; groups from western Macedonia met in Bitola and groups from eastern Macedonia met in Stip (Nov den 1948:77)[n ]. These groups were transported by trucks into the two urban centers from villages near and far via dusty, unpaved roads. This was a tremendous organizational undertaking that displayed the variety of dance, music and costume from throughout Macedonia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In 1948, Skopje organizers undertook an even larger festival. 161 Preliminary programs [smotra] were held in 8 cities: Skopje, Bitola, Kumanovo, Tetovo, Ohrid, Kicevo, Titov Yeles and Stip. The review in Titov Veles had 88 groups from the surrounding region and from the areas of Sveti Nikola, Tikves, Kavardarci, and Rusalii from a village in the Gevgelija region. The Bitola review included 38 dance groups. In Stip 32 groups performed from the areas of Stip, Radovis and Strumica. In Tetovo 29 groups participated. In the Kicevo review, 40 dance and singing groups participated. In Skopje, 28 dance groups from the city and the local region participated... .The final four-day Festival in October included 394 groups with 7,200 participants from all parts of Macedonia (Peric 1948:203). If national unification built around a common Yugoslav identity was Tito’s ultimate goal, why encourage an intermediate social space of cultural-artistic societies where regional cultural capital could accrue and take on symbolic value (Shay 2002:3)? For one, any nation, in this case the Yugoslav one, unifies its people “not by suppressing all differences, but by relativizing them and subordinating them to itself in such a way that is the symbolic differences between ‘ourselves’ and ‘foreigners’ which wins out and which is lived as irreducible” (Balibar cf. Sutton 1998:44). Yugoslav integration, as Fisher (1966:6) points out, was pursued through policies of “controlled difference” or “ordered diversity.” That is to say, difference and diversity were tolerated, so long as they did not detract from the CPY’s larger goals of strengthening awareness of “common” interests, and fostering “unity” and “togetherness.” As cultural-artistic societies flourished at “home” vis-a-vis intra- republic reviews and festivals, and as festivals calling for inter-republic co-operation became more commonplace, it was the social camaraderie experienced by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162 participants as well as their shared loved for folklore that won out and which was lived as irreducible. For another, cultural-artistic amateurism spoke to the shifting contours of social and work realities, especially in urban areas. KUD Koco Racin, a Skopje city group since 1944, had only recently established its folklore or igraorna (dance) section when Trpe terepovski joined it after the war. Skopje’s pre-war cultural groups, with their emphasis on theatrical drama, and modem instrumental and choral groups, had “catered to urban-based youth” (Dunin and Visinski 1995:6). The addition of folklore sections into post-war cultural groups, however, was an explicit acknowledgement of the changing character of urban demographics brought on by the increasing presence and saliency of village migrants. Cultural-artistic amateurism addressed the physical toll that increased automation exerted on the health of workers “forced to adjust to a world of machinery” (Dedic 1981:127). KUDs—factory-based or otherwise—proffered workers an outlet for unburdening themselves of accumulated tensions. At the same time, because it was believed that increased automation would result in more leisure time—leisure time that would have to be meaningfully fulfilled lest a worker’s personal and collective interests suffer—cultural-artistic amateurism was expected to rescue workers from “the [presumably] negative effects of idleness” (ibid.: 128). To read it written about in retrospect, the role and significance of cultural- artistic amateurism was almost primal. Dedic seems to suggest that cultural-artistic amateurism allowed for the exertion of a creative instinct—a “human impulse”—so Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 163 intrinsic to a person’s biological and spiritual being that if left bridled and suppressed, would stunt the very formative development of “an all-around and free personality” (1981:127). Cultural-artistic amateurism emphasized the dynamic relationship between free and fully-human individuals and the building of an humane socialist community. As individuals gathered to satisfy their need for creative activity, fellowship and solidarity would be encouraged and strengthened. KUDs lived and thrived under the suggestion that “[i]n amateur collectivities class differences disappear, frontiers between nations are erased, [and] differences between physical and intellectual work are abolished” (ibid.). Laboring Bodies, Self-Managed Socialism, and the Dancing Class Thus far, I have presented the emerging Yugoslav socialist system and its post-war policies in positive terms. While it lies outside the scope and intent of this chapter to juggle a detailed discussion that both recounts this emergence and exposes the gaps between the promises and realities of post-war policies, circumventing such a discussion entirely is altogether impossible because the post-war matrix that Yugoslav leaders superimposed over the federation was not always practical, successful, or met with widespread accord. Tito’s “quantitative leap forward” was not necessarily a qualitative one, an “outstanding symbol,” notes Rusinow, “of the naivete of the leadership and their ‘ecstasy of big ideas and goals’ ” (1977:21).1 2 Optimism was high, for example, when Lazar Kolfsevski (the government head of the Macedonian republic and the leader of the Communist Party of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 164 Macedonia) presented the first Five Year Plan to the inaugural meeting of the CPM congress with the pledge: The development of the national economy in the MPR [Macedonian People’s Republic] is progressing with a much faster development than Yugoslavia as a whole or the other more advanced people’s republics. Thus, with the help of all of the advanced, brotherly republics, our people’s republic is to be changed, by the end of the Five Year Plan, from an extremely backward region to an industrially developed and electrified country to a great extent, with a consolidated agriculture in which industry will have an important place, (cf. Palmer and King 1971:145) By all accounts, Macedonia fit Kolisevski’s description of a “backward region”—landlocked, mountainous, predominantly agricultural, and with virtually no transportation system. Yet, despite the undeniable presence of these variables, Macedonia’s industrial production, according to the first Five Year Plan, was to increase in value by 1951 to more than 26 times its 1939 value, putting the projected level of output for the republic at an even par with levels boasted by Croatia in 1939. The added emphasis here is intentional and meant to make explicit the nature and degree of the above-mentioned gaps between promise and reality. Communist Party leaders in Macedonia admitted in 1947 (when the first Five Year Plan went into effect) “that Macedonia in 1939 had almost no industrial production—hence the actual output even 26 times greater would still be modest” (Palmer and King 1971:151). Despite these confessions, it still comes across as unrealistically optimistic that the industrial productivity of Macedonia—one of the poorest of the republics at the time—would have been calibrated against the pre-war productivity and prosperity of a republic such as Croatia, which (along with Slovenia and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165 Vojvodina) had passed through centuries of foreign domination under the Austro- Hungarian Empire and thus was economically, technically, and educationally more advanced than its neighbor to the south, which had lived under Ottoman rule.1 3 Similarly, that the drive toward socialized agriculture was “aggressive” does not mean that it was a success, either quantitatively or in the hearts and minds of the people.1 4 To this day, Galicani (people from Galicnik) and their descendents refer to the Agrarian Reforms of 1948 as “The Plague.” What made the campaign aggressive were the methods used to persuade farmers to join a Peasant Work Cooperative—withholding welfare and taxation benefits, and outright coercion, among other techniques (Singleton 1989:225). Although the percentage of farmsteads belonging to a collective was reportedly quite high in Macedonia—as high as 94 percent according to some claims (but as low as 25 percent according to others)—opposition to both the campaign and its methods of persuasion existed in Macedonia. One report confirmed that, as a result of forceful measures, speculators and enemies of socialism tried to undermine the cooperatives and actually induced many farmers to apply for permission to withdraw. The Macedonian peasants were also accused of retaining the best part of their land for personal use, of keeping up to 80 percent of their pigs and of avoiding work in the cooperatives to which they belonged. (Palmer and King 1971:147) The promise of “the land to those who till it” belied other agendas in Macedonia, where the aim “was not so much to produce more food,” Palmer and King explain, “as to reduce agricultural overpopulation and thereby make available additional labor Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 for industry and to break down subsistence farming by encouraging the production of agricultural products of use in industry” (ibid.). Faced with the shortcomings of its first Five Year Plan, the Yugoslav Communist Party initiated “a new chapter in Yugoslavia’s post-war development” (Singleton 1989:226) in the Spring of 1950 with the nation-wide introduction of ‘workers’ self-management.’ The “anti-bureaucratic and anti-etatist implications” of ‘workers’ self-management’ resonated with members of the Yugoslav Politburo who, in the aftermath of the party’s expulsion from the Soviet Cominform in 1948, were resolved in their belief that Stalinism was bad for Yugoslavia (Rusinow 1977:50-51). In ideological terms, ‘workers’ self-management’ “was expected to turn Stalinism on its head” (Prychitko 1991:91). In practical terms, ‘workers’ self management’ stripped individual capitalists and state socialist bureaucrats of ownership, putting it instead “into the hands of ‘society’ ” and into the hands of workers who assumed the responsibility of managing the means of production (ibid.: 90). Workers were promised an end to the alienation caused by massive state bureaucracy. Power and control promised to shift from the state to the workers, with the LCY (the League of Yugoslav Communists) serving as their guide. Society was to be rationalized by making the workers’ democratic council the fundamental planning unit. Rather than centralized, command planning, Yugoslav society was to be planned from the bottom up. Ultimately, the state was expected to wither away. (ibid. :91) With its emphasis on emancipated labor and the development of a ‘true’ workers’ democracy, ‘workers’ self-management’ bespoke of the Yugolav Communist Party’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167 on-going commitment to the international workers’ movement, and helped to establish Yugoslavia as unique among the Communist regimes of post-war Eastern Europe. ‘Workers’ self-management’ was, however, a dialogic component of Yugoslavia’s interpretation of the quintessential^ Marxian principle of social self management. Spurred on by the “inalienable right among people to manage social resources,” Yugoslav leaders began to implement in 1950 a system of self-managed socialism that would go “beyond workers’ self-management to include self-managed decision-making councils in every walk of life—social, political, and economic. Not only were production processes to be self-managed. So, too, were all aspects of civil society....” (ibid.). Youth brigades, student unions, village communes, apartment block councils. The neighbor of a friend recalls her days as a garment worker in the western Macedonian town of Debar. As a member of the factory’s ladies’ auxiliary, she and her colleagues were provided with transportation, food, lodging, and material, and in return, every month, over the course of a four-year period, they would gather to re plant and re-forest the bank along the entire 45-kilometer circumference of Debarsko Ezero (Debar Lake). This very same friend lived for a time in a naselba (settlement) of Belgrade where every household was expected to manage a certain aspect of the settlement’s development and upkeep—everything from the overall planning of the settlement (lighting, canalization, street layout) to the actual physical labor (in this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168 case, preparatory digging that needed to be completed before the State would step in to finish the work).1 5 Self-managed socialism operated under one sweeping objective: “the establishment of a novel relationship between the individual and society”; a relationship where an individual’s “dissatisfaction with the world” could act as an incentive “to do away with the existing state of affairs, create new social relations, lay down and promote new individual and social values” (Majstorovic 1972:26-27). And if the goal of self-managed socialism was to create “a more humane and equitable society,” than culture was to be the means by which “to promote and popularize [that] vision” (ibid.: 15). Already I have introduced the historical antecedents of this belief in the linkage of revolutionary action and culture, and have tracked the carriage of its tradition, vis-a-vis cultural-artistic amateurism, into the KUDs of post-war Yugoslavia. Macedonia’s railway drustvo (zeleznicki KUD), however, stands apart in our discussion from other drustva sponsored by the City Syndication of Cultural- Artistic Societies in Skopje after the war for articulating the role and significance of cultural-artistic amateurism in a way that also resonated with the principles of self managed socialism. The construction of Macedonia’s rail network had been a project of national importance following the war. The Railway Syndicate employed thousands of workers from all walks of life, offered them steady, well-paid jobs, and in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169 process brought progress and technological development to Macedonia. At the time, Europe’s railway lines were a kind of national border. “Countries were as large as however far the rail went,” a friend once offered by way of explanation. In this sense, the reach of any one nation’s railway network was synonymous with the reach of that State’s influence and power. Not surprisingly, then, although operating with a great degree of autonomy symbolic of the republic’s new sphere of independence and authority, Macedonia’s railway embodied certain nuances attributable to the influence and power of the Yugoslav State as it pursued its policies of social transformation. The eclectic pool of human resources drawn upon by the Railway Syndicate to fill its employment needs—from degreed engineers to ticket takers—resulted in a social fabric and an organic structuring tantamount to a State within a State. Railway workers were, in a sense, privileged citizens of a self-managed micro-community, and the Syndicate spared no expense to keep its workers happy and involved. Attractive perquisites awaited those employed by the railway. Employees and their families received discounted railway tickets. During times of hardship, railway workers were among the first to receive aid. Similarly, during times of rationing, they enjoyed easier access to deficit goods. The railway operated its own secondary school and health clinic system, and fulfilled its workers’ spare time by providing entertainment and access to company vacation spots and by facilitating worker participation in sports clubs and cultural activities. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170 Macedonia’s railway drustvo was started in 1950, amidst the auspicious circumstances of Yugoslavia’s new chapter in development, per a directive from Belgrade, with financial backing from the Railway Syndicate and the Yugoslav Ministry of Culture. Consistent with the practice at the time of naming a KUD after an historic figure, the railway drustvo took as its eponym, Vlado Tasevski, a leader from within the ranks of the Macedonian Railway Syndicate who had championed for worker’s rights following the Second World War. KUD Vlado Tasevski was open to all railway workers, but it was not unheard of for the folklore (dance) section to accommodate a good dancer from outside the Syndicate ranks by finding that person a position within the railway system. Tofe Drakulovski, a young economics student at the university, did not work for the railroad, but he lived nearby and loved to dance. He joined Vlado Tasevski and began attending practices three days a week in the KUD’s very own building, located across from the offices of Nova Makedonija (New Macedonia, newspaper) on a parcel of land where a karate center now stands. Because the zeleznicki KUD had its own built-in transportation system, it was convenient and affordable for the Railway Syndicate to send ensemble members on performance tours. Tofe remembers traveling by railway to festivals throughout Eastern and Western Europe, sleeping in train cars on site when necessary. Touring cultivated kinesthetic empathy between KUD members and their counterparts abroad, and fostered the very kind of cultural interchanges considered crucial to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171 opening up Yugoslavia and its constituent republics to the rest of the world and visa versa. The very establishment of KUD Vlado Tasevski lent a palpable presence and a contemporary relevance to Milan Vnuk’s pronouncement following the creation of the Community o f Workers' Cultural and Educational Societies in 1938 that, “A worker must not be satisfied with being just a passive, albeit discriminating and conscientious receiver of existing cultural values. He must actively enter cultural life, participate in it, and continue his own part to its building” (cf. Dedic 1981:123). In keeping with this spirit, the drustvo indulged a measure of creative freedom within all of its sections. Tofe evokes a folklore section that articulated its freedom by remaining detached from the pressure to duplicate the success and increasing stylization of some of Skopje’s other dance ensembles. “The purpose of the ensemble was more to keep the workers happy than to research and become world-class dancers like Koco Racin, or become a breeding ground for Tanec dancers like Orce Nikolovf he remembers. Not until 1965, when, after an eight-year hiatus, Tofe returned to the zeleznicki KUD as a choreographer, did the ensemble begin to learn and perform any of the dance choreographies popularized by Tanec and by now en vogue with other drustva. Prior to that year, the ensemble rehearsed mostly dances that its members knew, irrespective of ethnic affiliation, creating a community of dancers whose very communal movement practices matched and invigorated the implicit expectation of cultural policy under Yugoslavia’s new Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 system of social self-management—that of developing a culture of and for the masses. Anthony Smith has tethered together an intriguing argument connecting railway systems and the increased mobility their construction engenders in developing areas, with what he has characterized as “the heightened saliency of ethnicity in the city” (1973:93). Smith cites Karl Kautsky in singling out the railway as “a powerful spur to national hatreds” in the sense that railway networks grease the machinery that builds the modem city; and it is the modem city (to follow the logic a step farther) that incenses an urban anomie that “isolates individuals” but then “binds them afresh into competitive ethnic groups” (ibid.). Listening to Tofe talk about the camaraderie he experienced as an ensemble member, however, one would never suspect such misanthropic connections. “If you loved to dance, it didn’t matter whether you were a director, engineer, caboose man, coffee server... ” his voice trails off. “It was how well you danced. Men, women, children. Anyone sixteen and up.” Tofe’s recollections, like the zeleznicki KUD itself, are a reminder of the ideological efficacy of Yugoslavia’s cultural policies following the war. “We all considered ourselves working, middle-class.” Tofe’s emphasis on inclusion and collectivity resonates as a meta-statement on a socialized, self-managed environment that labored to transcend provincialism and ethnic division by fostering the democratization of culture and the assertive role of working people as producers and mediators of that culture. The ingression of ‘workers’ self-management’ and self managed socialism into cultural-artistic amateurism held promise as a rehabilitating Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173 force capable both of repairing the “division of culture from the life, work and interests of the broadest strata of the people” (Majstorovic 1972:28), and of bridging ethnic experience with class consciousness (Franko 2002:41). Tanec and the Choreography of “Brotherhood and Unity” The dancers and musicians at Koco Racin’ s rehearsal have reached a frenetic pace, signaling the finale of the choreography that Rada Visinova and I have been watching. The finale comes with an abrupt ending cadence, and with the male dancers down on one knee, their arms outstretched as if to say, “Ta-daaaaa!” In her understated sort of way, Rada seems to be impressed. “This would be a good place for you to learn,” she leans over to tell me, knowing that we have come to tonight’s rehearsal because I am looking for an ensemble where I can practice dance. “They have the key to unlock everything for you.” I am caught off-guard by Rada’s comments, pleasantly surprised that someone not only of her age, but of her experience and status as a first-generation Tanec dancer, could look upon Koco Racin's stylized dancing and not brush aside its value. Many of Rada’s contemporaries do just that, painting the present with traces of cynicism by saying that today’s dancers have the steps, but they do not have the soul, or that today’s musicians play the notes, but they do not have the feel. These more typical comments are indicative, perhaps, of a nostalgia for a static ideal. Every generation conceives its own baseline of stability and constructs its own yardstick of “normative” thinking and behavior by which change is measured and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174 judged (or even perceived as change). That is why, a few days later, I am not at all surprised when nostalgia’s pernicious hold finally, but subtly, surfaces in Rada. I am walking home from another Koco Racin rehearsal. Tonight was my first attempt at joining in the dance. I barely made it through the warm-up exercises, so oafish was my coordination. Even though Viki, the young dancer charged with looking after me, assures me that I have done well, the embarrassment I feel is unrelenting. All I want to do is make it home, undetected. An impossible feat in a city like Skopje. My apartment stands opposite to Rada’s, in a quiet neighborhood not far from downtown. From her balcony, she sees me rounding the comer of my building and calls down. “ So prajs, Gaelyn?” Her voice is flush with affection. “What are you doing?” Rada invites me up for a snack. I recount my discouraging evening and speak of my disappointing effort to dance as she pops a frozen pizza into the microwave. “All of the changing footsteps, moving back and forth... .And they dance so fast!” “I know... I know,” Rada consoles me with sympathy, tilting her head and shaking it in agreement. Her nose wrinkles. Her brow furls into a look of disapproval. She pauses, and then. “I don’t like the changes,” she confesses with a sigh. “You can’t see the footsteps let alone figure them out.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175 In the short time I have known her, Rada has never been one to scorn change. Why fight the inevitable? She is much too pragmatic for that. Rada’s confession, however, incites a complex of positions at odds with one another. The aural and kinetic taste and experience enjoyed by Koco Racin’ s dancers and musicians may push her threshold of acceptability. Yet, for Rada to view today’s aesthetics disquietly puts her in contradictory relation to her own place in history, for she, too, was once a handmaiden for change—change so far-reaching that even now, decades later, Rada can sit to watch a Koco Racin rehearsal and still recognize what she helped to iconocize as a first-generation dancer with Tanec. Tanec was one of three professional companies founded in Yugoslavia amidst a post-war burgeoning of state-sponsored ensembles throughout Eastern Europe and the Communist Bloc. Although their very establishment was predicated on showcasing the “unique” traditional folk heritage of their respective states, ensembles from this latter geographical grouping shared one, not-so-unique characteristic. Each, to varying degrees, modeled itself after the Moscow-based Moiseyev Dance Company (the State Academic Ensemble ofFolk Dances o f the Peoples o f USSR). Known for creatively elaborating on folk traditions and choreographically translating those traditions into “scenic folk dances,” Igor Moiseyev, the company’s ballet-trained artistic director, took his ensemble on tour shortly after the war, giving audiences throughout the region’s Slavic countries their first exposure to his modem vision of choreographed folk dance: “straight and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176 extended torsos, outwardly rotated leg gestures, pointed toes, open arm and hand gestures, frequent changes in spatial formations from an audience perspective, and other stage techniques” (Dunin and Visinski 1995:8). Moiseyev’s innovations spawned a “cottage industry” throughout the USSR and its satellite states of newly-formed ensembles vying to imitate the Moiseyev stage aesthetic (Shay 2002:64). Closer to home in Yugoslavia, however, severed diplomatic ties between the Yugoslav Politburo and the Soviet Cominform prevented would-be choreographers from traveling to Moscow to leam from the master himself (Dunin and Visinski 1995:8). Imitation would be all but unlikely—a welcomed improbability, perhaps, given Tito’s growing cult of personality, his predilection for governing on his own terms, and his strong conviction that Yugoslavia’s uniqueness would be her strength in the eyes of the world. Granted, following the success of the Moiseyev Dance Company, “the creation of a state dance company... became de rigueur” for socialist governments in the region (Shay 2002:116). Yet, rather than imitate the Russian model of theatricalized folk dance presentations step-for-step and note-for-note, Yugoslav ensemble leaders were “left to their own vision and devices” (Dunin and Vfsinski 1995:8) to figure out not only how to develop professional ensembles that could meaningfully emulate this new gold-standard of staged folklore, but where to even begin to address the intricacies of such an endeavor. Macedonia’s State Ensemble of folk dances and songs (later re-named Tanec in 1953) was founded in May of 1949 under the immediate authority, leadership, and supervision of the republic’s Education Ministry with three specific mandates. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177 1) To care for, develop, and elevate the artistic value of folk dances; 2) To care for, cultivate, and re-work folk songs; 3) To build up a program of folk dances and songs, and present that program at public, artistic events. Months prior to the ensemble’s official establishment, Emanuel (M ane) Cuckov (an ethnologist who had been appointed as Tanec’ s Director) and £ivko Firfov (a folklorist and composer who had been designated as the ensemble’s Music Director), visited Macedonia’s major cities—Prilep and Bitola to the south and southwest, Titov Veles and Gevgelia to the near and far southeast—auditioning dancers and musicians. Rada’s husband, Stanimir Visinski, became one of two dancers initially accepted into the ensemble as a result of these auditions (Dunin and Visinski 1995:8). Within a short period of time, more followed: a young Rada Visinova, dancers from Bitola city-groups, migrants to Skopje from the western region of the country and from Belgrade, pecalbari returning from Bulgaria, and emigrants to the republic from Aegean Macedonia. Fifty dancers in all, nearly half of who were selected tout ensemble from Skopje’s KUD Koco Racin—Trpe terepovski’s drustvo. “They went all over Macedonia, but found only beginners,” he recalls. “[But] we were already experienced, already made.” For Trpe, who had spent the last few years gaining stage experience as a folk singer and dancer with Koco Racin, 1949 was the year his love became his paid profession. As the professionals they now were, ensemble members rehearsed five day a week, with three to four hours of dancing in the morning followed by an hour of vocal training in the afternoon. “I developed pain in my ankles,” Rada remembers Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 fondly, but dismissively. “My husband told me to stop dancing... but I didn’t.” To provide the underpinnings of Tanec’s initial repertoire, Cuckov first looked to his dancers, many of whom were already well adjusted to the idea of sharing dances with one another and making changes for the stage, having spent time together as members of Koco Racin or as dancers with the Bitola Teacher’s School. Ensemble members from Bitola brought with them such dances as Bufcansko, Berance, and Nevestinsko. KUD Koco Racin’ s former sub-group of male dancers from Lazaropole, Gari, and Galicnik contributed Lazaropole dances such as Teskoto and Lesnoto. Others introduced Skopje-area dances from the village of Rastak such as Crnogorka, Postupano, Adana, Baba (jorga, and%ensko Krsteno (ibid.:9). tuckov would encourage invited guests “from all parts of Macedonia,” Trpe reckons, to demonstrate dances to ensemble members, who would then slightly adapt them for the proscenium stage. Cuckov and Firfov worked their dancers, musicians, and singers for thirteen months, molding them into a unified collective. “No other professional ensemble in Yugoslavia was comprised of this particular kind of raw talent” (Dunin and Visinski 1995:11). Tanec's inaugural program premiered June 24,1950 at the Macedonian National Theater in Skopje. An international debut quickly followed in July at the prestigious World Folk Festival in Llangollen, England. Tanec received a perfect score and the coveted first-place prize for its performance of Teskoto and Lesnoto, an accomplishment never before achieved by a Yugoslav folk ensemble. This historic event caused a “ripple of excitement” (ibid.) that carried the ensemble into its first Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179 multi-city tour through Yugoslavia. It did not take long for the excitement to spread, and for the Tanec organization to grow. By 1953, the ensemble’s repertoire had expanded to include more than forty dances, its collection of original costumes had multiplied to represent not just a few, but many of Macedonia’s geographical regions, and its music section had taken a sonic turn toward a “folk” orchestra of mixed instrumentation. How could the very existence of an ensemble such as Tanec have raised the ideological possibility, as I assert, of broadening the social reforms that Tito and the CPY were already encouraging and implementing throughout Yugoslavia? Tanec took root just as Tito’s ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ was ostensibly on the decline (Singleton 1989:226), and the political and cultural centrality of self managed socialism was on the rise. Operating as an homogenous system of local administration—“superimposed over the country’s heterogeneous cultural and economic matrix” (Fisher 1966:xix)—self-managed socialism was the “common denominator” (Majstorovic 1972:29) of several Yugoslav complexes, one of the most abstract of which was the idea of “Brotherhood and Unity” (Bratstvo i Edinstvo). “Brotherhood and Unity” had been a fundamental principle for Tito and those who fought alongside him during the People’s Revolution of 1941-1945. In post-war Yugoslavia, sounding the clarion call of “togetherness” proved of enduring relevance as the country re-built its infrastructure, re-gained its economic composure, and people adjusted to life within an emerging socialist democracy. Theoretically, when Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180 applied within a pluralistic society such as Yugoslavia, democratic socialism, in fact, is “intrinsically a negation of nationalist narrow-mindedness” (ibid.). Therefore, if self-managed socialism was to be the corporeity of this negation, then “Brotherhood and Unity” would be its ethos, and in pursuit of their indiscemibility, many things were done. Neutral things, such as the addition of the category ‘Yugoslav’ on national census forms. Positive things, like the empowerment of school-aged children through their involvement with the Young Pioneers work brigade. And draconian things, too. Inter-ethnic agitation was prohibited and punishable by jail. General political opposition, specifically directed at the system of governance or the authoritative power of top leadership, was met with harsh treatment as well (Hoffman and Neal 1962:396-397). Even showing disrespect for Tito had unpleasant consequences, as a friend’s uncle—a journalist—found out for himself while covering a local visit by the Yugoslav leader. Tito was on, what seemed like to many, an endless tour of the countryside, prompting someone in the audience to wonder out loud why Tito was traveling so much. The uncle’s response, “Obviously he’s studying geography,” earned him a trip to the Yugoslav Gulag. He emerged three years later, slightly mad, before making his way to Detroit, Michigan, where he lives to this day. And what of dance? Even before the establishment of Tanec and Yugoslavia’s other professional companies, amateur ensembles were required—whenever they performed outside of Yugoslavia—to present their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181 programs as ‘Dances from the Republic of of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,’ a subtle reminder, perhaps, that the autonomy which each of the republics enjoyed co-existed with and derived legitimacy from a greater authority. By 1950, the “moral and political cohesion” (Majstorovic 1972:29) of Yugoslavia’s multi-national community assumed greater global significance. Hoping to popularize the image of Yugoslavia as a just and equitable society, by opening up the country to a broader world culture and promoting Yugoslavia as the flower of Eastern Europe, Tito required that every ensemble learn dances and musical traditions from other republics. For a drustvo like Koco Racin, this meant incorporating new material into their performance programs and including an addendum in their promotional material that read: ‘... so pesni i ora niz Jugoslavia’ (‘...with songs and dances from across Yugoslavia’). With the establishment of a professional touring company such as Tanec, however, Tito now had at his disposal a singularly-focused means to assert and internationalize an identity and a political consciousness steeped in a corporeal vision of pluralism and unity. John Martin’s observations in his New York Times review of Tanec’ s 1956 Carnegie Hall debut are no accident. The Yugoslav National Folk Ballet, “Tanec,”... part of a national movement toward the revival of the folk arts, comes from Macedonia, but its dances and songs come also from Serbia, Croatia and Dalmatia. There are influences in them, however, from farther afield than that—from Albania and Greece, modem and ancient, from across the Bosporus and the Mediterranean. Over everything, to be sure, is a Slavic cast, and the “kolo” is a virtually constant theme, cropping up in even the dances with the strongest Turkish background. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182 But if in this country, regional differences are not to be detected, there are far more important matters that cannot be missed. Among them are the endless vivacity and the tremendous skill of a thoroughly ingratiating company and some brilliantly spectacular and wonderfully unfamiliar dances. To be sure, they possess all the qualities common to folk dancing, but they have great individuality and a wide variety besides. (Martin 1956) Difference is noted, exoticized even, but then lost in the pallor of a unity characterized, interestingly enough, precisely as the literal translation of the word ‘Yugoslavia’ suggests— ‘Land of the South Slavs’ (i.e. “over everything... there is a Slavic cast”).1 6 Judging from Martin’s review (see also Lloyd 1956), this choreography of a natural, apolitical “Brotherhood and Unity” worked. And judging from the lingering memories of those involved as first-generation Tanec dancers, this choreography was ideologically effective in influencing their kinesthetic experiences. A 60-city tour of Germany; first-class transportation, food, and accommodations throughout; watching cowboy movies on the television during two months of performances in the United States; adoring audiences; these are the things that Trpe remembers as if it were yesterday. And Rada? To this day, Rada maintains that folklore is without borders, and without place or purpose in the political life of any country. The Public Image of “Macedonian Dance” With respect to Skopje’s post-war population increase, no one factor alone can account for the spike in numbers. Certainly, the expansion of Skopje’s employment opportunities, juxtaposed with the lower standard of living symptomatic Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 183 of life in Macedonia’s rural, outlying areas, figured prominently as reasons to migrate to the city. However, if economics alone had been the motivator for migrants, why remain in Skopje when the more lucrative, northern cities of Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana beckoned as well? What could Skopje have offered Macedonians that the north could not? The newly-created Macedonian Republic provided Macedonians with something they had never possessed—“cultural and economic individuality” (Fisher 1966:54). As the republic’s capital city, Skopje figured in as the material organ and metaphysical heart center of that individuality. Skopje offered a chance to procure work, but it also offered Macedonians substantive proof that William Gladstone’s appeal for a “Macedonia for the Macedonians” was no longer just a tum-of- expression. What is the relevance of this for our interpretation of dance, and for my assertion that, in the post-war, socialist era, ethnicity configured dance and dance configured ethnicity? The post-war tableau I have assembled evokes moving images of rural and urban transition and interaction, with Skopje as the kinetic magnet for the “centripetal movement of Macedonians toward their capital,” matched only by the “centrifugal movement of some non-Macedonians out of the Republic” (ibid.:55). Changes in physical, economic, and political infrastructures aligned with changes in social ethnoscapes to decisively impact the folk tripartite of song, music, and dance. The population shifts from rural areas to the urban core of Skopje meant that regional folk traditions, once somewhat isolated in their respective villages, were Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184 now free to intermingle and influence one another within close proximity; within the close proximity, that is, of a capital city whose bureaucracy and government were under the leadership of the republic’s majority Macedonian population. Writing about the retuning of musical values in Macedonia, Timothy Rice follows the migration of music into the milieu of Skopje’s State-run radio ensembles. Radio Skopje’s naroden orkestar (folk orchestra), founded as a part of Tanec in the 1950s for the purpose of presenting “village music,” brought together village instruments that, in their natural setting, had never before played together: “the gajda [two-voice bagpipe] of Slavic Macedonian village dance-music; the kaval of Albanian shepherds; the tambura of urban-rural interaction with Muslim townspeople and their songs; and the tapan of Rom professionals” (Rice 2000b:981). Macedonian musicians, such as Pece Atanasovski from the village of Dolneni, were hired alongside Rom professionals, the musical result of which was the creation of “a completely new sound that simultaneously referenced the present and the past....” (ibid.). Radio Skopje’s calgija orkestar traversed a similar path of reconfiguration. Prior to the war, calgija—technically the name for the Ottoman-era ensembles that played urban music “based in Ottoman musical culture” (Rice 2000b:979)—attracted an urban listening patronage as heterogeneous as the music was heterophonic. Rom musicians eventually surpassed their Turkish counterparts as the music’s main practitioners. Under their influence, calgija ensembles covered an astonishing expanse of musical territory, and became synonymous with experimentation and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185 innovation. Radio Skopje’s calgija orkestar, however, although a mixture of Macedonian and Rom professionals, effectively put an end to “the changeability and heterogeneity” of the music (ibid.:980), ostensibly re-casting it in a new, post-war light. By playing in tempered rather than microtonal tunings, minimizing the heterophonic texture typical of pre-war calgija ensembles and playing mainly a village rather than an urban repertoire, calgija on the radio was effectively reconfigured as a Macedonian, rather than a Rom or Ottoman, and a traditional, rather than an innovative or modem, ensemble, (ibid.)1 7 Radio Skopje’s naroden and calgija orchestras became the projected example for ensembles throughout the republic, and their brand of “folk music”—“with [its] affective, traditional references yet emblematic of a new social consciousness”—the projected sound (ibid.:981). Just as Radio Skopje “increasingly defined the public sound of Macedonian music” (Rice 2000b:980), so too did Tanec and its repertoire come to define the public image of Macedonian dance. Under tuckov’s watchful eye and artistic vision, Tanec’ s first programs represented an accumulation of dances and music that would be “attractive to an audience and yet project Macedonian character” (Dunin and Vfsinski 1995:11). What exactly did this mean? In the beginning, this seems to have meant that insignificantly little if any dance stylization would make it to the stage, so centrally focused was the company on a definition of “attractive” that meant presenting dances as a single unit. As to the projection of “Macedonian character,” this seems to have meant little more than that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186 the men were to project “a robust, strong, earthy quality to their dancing, demonstrating individuality in their unified dancing,” the women were to exude “a wholesomeness, an understated physical strength, a quiet demeanor, with a capacity for dancing as a synchronized unit,” and there was to be no “frivolous character in their on- or off-stage behavior” (cf. Dunin and Visinski 1995:11).1 8 Tanec had mounted its premier engagements in 1950 with dancers and musicians who recently had been accepted into the company from KUD Jeni Jol, a Skopje-based Turkish ensemble formed in 1948. Tour programs from this period note the inclusion of the Albanian dance, Grbac, and of Turkish dances such as Cupurlika and Osman Pasa, and the accompaniment of at least one Macedonian dance—Nevestinsko (Bride’s Dance)—by Turkish calgija musicians (Dunin and Visinski 1995:9). Given these variables, it seems likely that the company’s premier engagements would have left audiences, beholding the sight of a disciplined ensemble made up of some of Macedonia’s most talented dancers, musicians, and singers, with not only a vision of Macedonian folkloric traditions (modestly- mediated, but still fairly close to their “original” form), but an overall aural and kinetic image inclusive of the republic’s multi-national character. Tito’s directive in 1951 mandating that Yugoslavia’s touring ensembles learn and include in their programs material from other republics, however, signaled a portence of changes to come. Cuckov ventured into the unfamiliar territory of choreographing narrative structure, basing his 1952 creation of Rusalii, for example, on the ritual dances performed by sword-bearing groups of young men during the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187 twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. Drawing on the legendary encounter of rival teams who fought to determine which would leave the area in submission (V.S. 1956:16), Cuckov’s stage version pitted two opposing lines of dancers that squared off with one another in “sword-clashing” confrontations between pairs of men (Dunin and Visinski 1995:221). Other narratives such as Zaecka (Rabbit Hunter) and letvarka (Harvest) were choreographed by Cuckov and other lead dancers, and then performed by Tanec along with longer sequences or representational “sets” or “suites” of dances, songs, and costumes from particular geographic regions of Macedonia. tuckov baptized himself and the company into Igor Moiseyev’s choreographic techniques by initiating the creation of new, “creative” choreographies and “dance scenes” that called for hardly any dancing at all. Baranjska Humoreska, one such crowd-pleasing choreography, utilized step patterns from northern Croatia to depict the jealousy between two women, who upon discovering that their shared suitor has been unfaithful to them, band together to exercise revenge by beating the two-timer with their fists. Nineteen-fifty-three marked the significant departure of three principal dancers—ex-Jeni Jol members—who had been responsible for leading the Turkish and Albanian dances performed by Tanec (Dunin and Visinski 1995:65). We can only assume that more of Tanec’ s ex-Jeni Jol contingent followed. The company’s roster of performers absorbed an almost 50-percent reduction of its 90-member peak, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188 and examples of Turkish and Albanian dances and songs were all but “discontinued” from the ensemble’s roster of repertoire (ibid.:204).1 9 These departures and discontinuations effectively marginalized Tanec’ s performance of Macedonia’s heterogeneity, and left Tanec with two viable cultural performances of “identity”: a ‘Yugoslav’ one of “Brotherhood and Unity”; and a “Macedonian” one dominated by representations of rituals and cultural history as lived and experienced by the republic’s Macedonian majority. Tanec's cultural performance of “Brotherhood and Unity” would prove temporary, but its choreographic interpretations of “Macedonian identity” would endure and undergo further refinement. Attending to stage aesthetics and theatrics proved an attractive allure away from previous concerns with retaining the shape and the simple, repetitive step patterns of original source material. Heavy on theatrical stylization, the artistic vision of Tanec’ s fifth director, Trajko Prokopiev (1957-1962), changed the course of the ensemble toward a touring program that utilized a full ensemble of dancers (that is, men and women), a full orchestra, and stylized costumes. Dances, songs, and music were no longer singularly presented as distinct entities, but were combined and re-arranged into suites. Prokopiev resurrected some of Cuckov’s step patterns only to put them into new, more difficult combinations. “Footwork and floor patterns [were] created with little semblance of the traditional dance characteristics” (Dunin and Visinski Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189 1995:13). “Nevestinsko,” already a well-established piece in Tanec’ s repertoire, was re-orchestrated and re-choreographed utilizing new step patterns, changing spatial formations, and theatrical motifs such as a scenario with lead characters. The 1958 “ Sedenka” introduced gestural movements, facial expressions, and purposeful interaction between men and women as a way to encourage the audience to view the performance as a “folk scene.” Trpe Cerepovski’s friend and fellow Tanec dancer, Atanas Kolarovski, re-arranged Skopje-area dances to create “Dracevka,” a scenic narrative full of character roles such as a flute-playing shepherd and his young friend, and young maidens and bachelors. The tempo of the accompanying orchestral music was increased for this piece, thus calling on the men to execute their difficult leaps and squats at breathtaking speeds (ibid.: 14). Tanec set the standard in Macedonia of what an ensemble could be. Subsequently, it was Tanec’ s repertoire—the form, style, and content of it—that filtered out to other ensembles around Skopje and beyond. Some of the stylized suites introduced by the company during its most artistically active period (1958- 1979) are performed “almost intact” by ensembles today (Dunin and Visinski 1995:11). So pervasive was Tanec's influence, its signature versions of old dances (as re-configured as they now were), were “re-introduced to the geographical areas from where the original dances were danced spontaneously” (ibid.: 16). With the contraction of time and space—new lines of communication, better transportation, and paved roads— Tanec’ s repertoire diffused even farther into the programs of other Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190 dance ensembles, as Tanec dancers could now more easily travel from place to place to teach dances or lead rehearsals. In writing about the entanglement of folk dance in the meaning making practices of post-war Yugoslav Macedonia, I have tried not to rush too quickly to the pervasive interpretation that the movement practices of this era were chiefly concerned with embodying a state-sponsored national political agenda, as if the bodies who animated these movement practices were mere vessels of ideology. Instead, I have taken a circumspect approach, one that accounts for these bodies more experientially and that does not rhetorically erase the fact that the burgeoning of drmtva, for example, was a coping mechanism for dealing with post-war reconstruction and Yugoslavia’s transition to socialism. Ironically, despite these insertions, my circumspect approach has actually brought us full circle. What began as a cautionary appeal not to assume a certain monolithic interpretation has ended up precisely reinforcing this very interpretation. How so? The “tidal wave of modernization” that Chatteijee (1986:4) writes about elsewhere has been deeply relevant to our discussion here, as has the awareness of what he calls “man’s ‘capacity to contribute to, and profit from industrial society’.” Having started the argument, Chatteijee obliges us to follow it farther, “to describe the erosion of the ‘structure’ of traditional society, conceived as a system of role relationships, and its replacement by the ‘culture’ of industrial society, in which the classification of people by culture is the classification by nationality.” In other Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191 words, once the tidal wave of modernization hits, “nationalism is the natural accompaniment to industrialization” (Cohen 1999:26 emphasis added). Cohen, addressing Yugoslavia’s post-war response to modernization and to the exegesis of fostering a new supra-national identity, points out how “[institutions that were designed to be ‘nationalist in form and socialist in content’ through unintended consequences gave nationalism the chance to take on a life of its own” (ibid.:44). On its way to becoming “a symbol of Macedonian culture and arts” and a “mobile museum” of the “identity and history of the Macedonian people” (Trenevski 1999), Tanec established that even an institution as innocuous as an ensemble of performers could, through unintended consequences, do the very same thing—flip the paradigm so that what was initially conceived as ‘nationalist in form and socialist in content’ was now ‘socialist in form and nationalist in content.’ In the next chapter, we leave the stage to follow the circulation of movement practices out into the village. Contrary to “the village” depicted on stage, where everyone is a dancing peasant, and “where even work is a game” (Shay 2002:9), the ones I present offer us the opportunity to re-evaluate this depiction. Certainly, one of the perceptions we are left with from this chapter is that agrarian societies make for weak national identities (Cohen 1999), the idea being that, in the interest of nation building, traditional forms and meanings have always had to be broken down in order to mobilize people to make way for new, “higher” forms and meanings that are in concert with the needs of modernization. This perception will be up for re- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192 evaluation too as I begin to explore the continuities between the village and the Macedonian tradition of economic migration or pecalba. As I will show, pecalba is very much a part of Macedonia's national consciousness, despite its historical ties to villages and agrarian experiences. I also intend to begin to touch upon the subject of iseluvanje (permanent emigration) and the imaginaries of the diasporic public sphere. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193 ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 4: 11 am circumspect in my use of the word “theory.” Questioning whether theory was ever the strong suit for the communist leadership in Yugoslavia, Singleton writes, “They have been pragmatists and men of action rather than philosophers. They operate within a Marxist framework of reference, but often the theoretical justification for a particular course of action comes after the decisions have been taken on pragmatic grounds” (Singleton 1989:227). 2 Although my interpretations are focused on Macedonia, one could speak in parallel terms of the entire Yugoslav region. KUDs opened up simultaneously throughout all of the republics, and Tanec, not the only State Ensemble, was joined by LADO in Croatia and Kolo in Serbia. 3 Figures are taken from Rusinow (1977). In terms of wartime human losses, Singleton notes that the statistics account neither for those who fled abroad seeking refuge from wartime hostilities nor those who voluntarily decided never to return to post-war Yugoslavia after having been forcibly removed. 4 In a May 1945 speech, Tito clarified the meaning of sovereignty under a federalist system. “Many people still do not understand what Federal Yugoslavia means.. .that [it] does not mean emphasizing the borders between this or that federal unit... The borders of the federal states in federal Yugoslavia are not borders which divide but borders which unite. What do the federal units mean in today’s Yugoslavia? We cannot consider them small countries, they have a more administrative character, the freedom to govern oneself. This is the character of the independence of the federal units, full independence in the sense of free cultural and economic development” (cf. Palmer and King 1971:136). Ironically, the methods used by the new socialist system to achieve its goals were very reminiscent of the methods used by the Ottoman Empire during its 500-year reign over parts of the region and its people. The Turkish system of government, much like the nascent Yugoslav one, was a centrist bureaucracy, or what Moore labels “a social device enabling the one or the few to rule not just the many, but multitudes” (Moore 1992:376). The Ottomans expanded and extended their patrimonial rule through the millet system of communities based exclusively on religion. The different millets acted as administrative centers somewhat independent from the larger Ottoman state, an arrangement that allowed each millet to retain a degree of control over its internal affairs and systems of education. For example, each millet retained its own local leaders who supervised the collection of taxes and the maintenance of order on behalf of the imperial government. 5 See Simic (1988) for a discussion on the modernization of the Yugoslav countryside. 6 Post-war emigration gained new momentum as well, especially in the 1960s when workers from South Eastern Europe were invited by West Germany to emigrate north to help alleviate its labor shortage. According to reporter, Verica Janeska, Yugoslav authorities, hoping to ease pressure on the federation’s domestic labor market, encouraged its workers to accept these invitations (Utrinski Vesnik, January 8, 2004. Skopje). 71 first came across this quote while looking through the promotional brochure of KUD Orce Nikolov, and have vague recollections of it being used in similar contexts linking cultural activity with Macedonia’s national interest. 8 Dedic (1981:123) writes that “each partisan unit—company, battalion, brigade, division and even higher, had committees for cultural and educational work, or cultural teams, composed of amateurs and cultural workers. Their task was to spread culture not only among the combatants of their own units, but also among the civilian population in the areas they crossed.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 194 9 In 1940, the Macedonian Communist Party had but 300 members, not including the 400 members of the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (Palmer and King 1971:113). By September 1944, only 66,000 Macedonians had joined the Partisan ranks. 1 0 At its peak in 1953, cultural-artistic amateurism sustained a membership base of almost 190,000 active participants spread throughout Yugoslavia amongst 4,000 societies. Macedonia supported 115 of these societies with 5,460 members (Dedic 1981:125). 1 1 Dunin and Visinski’s citation here is inconsistent with its bibliographic reference. Most likely, they meant to cite a 1947 article entitled, O k t o m 6 p m c k m t 6 <J>ecTHBajiH b o B H T O Jia h b o IIlTHn [October festivals in Bitola and Stip]. Hoe ffeu [Nov den] 4-5:63-64. Skopje: Kultura. 1 2 In the interest of fulfilling it constitutional responsibility of showing equity to each of the six republics, the government would seemingly ignore the feasibility and viability of projects it supported. Fisher illustrates this point with a clear example: “Before the war not a single factory for the production of refrigerators existed in Yugoslavia. The first one was established at Maribor, a major industrial city in the North, in the Republic of Slovenia. The location was within the potential market area and in direct proximity to a well-developed transportation network. The quality of the labor force was high and the final product was therefore of a standardized quality. Under political pressure, another factory was built at Cetinje in Montenegro and yet another at Bitola in southern Macedonia. The quality of the Bitola product has continued, at least by reputation, to be very poor, while the cost of shipping the products of both of these southern factories to market is extremely high. For example, the Cetinje factory, which operates under an Italian license, imports raw material which reach the coast by ship and then must be transported by truck over mountainous terrain and unpaved roads. Cetinje has no rail connection. The final product must be sent to the coast by truck, then shipped to a northern port which has rail connections to Zagreb or Sarajevo” (Fisher 1966:11). 1 3 Kolisevski’s pledge to Macedonia proved difficult to fulfill as economic development began to bypass the educated and working-class Macedonians who had hoped for it. Party planners had not anticipated the inherent shortcomings of economic policies based on evenly distributed development. Start-up costs were high in underdeveloped regions such as Macedonia, and largely fell to the responsibility of the industrially strong northern republics of Croatia and Slovenia. As the wealthier and more advanced of the republics, Croatia and Slovenia in effect, subsidized the industrial development of the poorer republics by contributing a major share of the capital investment. Although in its mind the government thought that it was acting “to remove the consequences of uneven development” (cf. Palmer and King 1971:145 emphasis added), it was on its way to accomplishing just the opposite. Furthermore, after 1948, Yugoslav trade relations with the Soviet Union were cut off. Yugoslavia, now pressured to hold the economy steadfast, circumvented its own policy of equal distribution, and resorted to concentrating investments in the already advanced northern areas of the federation. “These areas.. .had raw materials, adequate transportation facilities, skilled labor and marketing opportunities which Macedonia and the southern republics were lacking. With inadequate federal resources to follow the plan, the ministries invested relatively more in the areas where certain productivity could be expected in a reasonably short time rather than in those like Macedonia, where the reaping of purely economic rewards would at best be years away” (ibid.). Party leaders, fearing a Soviet invasion in retaliation for breaking ties with Stalin, continued to divert investment, but sought to appease the increasingly dissatisfied Macedonians. “Macedonians were told that when the ‘conditions of direct danger of war’ from the Cominform [Soviet] countries had passed, the goals for economic development would be fulfilled and would ‘secure a new increase of industrialization in our republic and its transformation into a powerful economic region of the FNRJ’” (ibid.: 146). Nevertheless, ten years on, nearing the end of the second Five Year Plan (1957-1961), Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195 and the value of Macedonia’s industrial productivity had increased only to a mere 8.6 times the 1939 level (ibid.: 151). 1 4 Singleton clarifies the actual, less than impressive, figures for the federation: “When the collectivization drive began, 94 percent of the land was privately farmed. At the height of the campaign, in the autumn of 1950, 78 percent still remained in private hands” (Singleton 1989:225). 1 5 This kind of self-managed decision-making perhaps resonated well with the communal solidarity associated with the traditional zadruga system (see below), but it often precluded the individual from ever acting solely on his or her own behalf—a hindrance that did not escape notice. “My next door neighbor would invite me over for coffee, get up to close the windows so no one could report her, and begin to complain about all of the forced organization,” my friend remembers. “Her husband’s family came from Hungary, and her husband was always railing about the system stifling individual initiative and growth.” At the heart of Yugoslavia’s old patriarchal order was the zadruga, or patrilocally extended-family, corporate household. A hallmark of the South Slavs, the zadruga was found in all Yugoslav regions of the Balkans (except Slovenia), and even in some parts of Bulgaria. Only in the Slavic-influenced areas of northern Greece could one find a zadruga-type arrangement with two or more married brothers conjoined under one household. In the majority of Greek villages, only the eldest son inherited and occupied the ancestral home (Sanders 1962:174). In a zadruga, conjugal families were joined into one inward-oriented communal unit with a “whole subsistence economy developed inside it” (St. Erlich 1966:32). Except for clothing and small personal items, there was no private property. Male members of the zadruga never left the common unit. Upon marriage a young man would bring his wife into his zadruga, daughters, then, upon marriage, left their natal zadruga to become a permanent member of their husband’s zadruga. Zadruge (plural of zadruga) were governed by a strict hierarchical system in which every member, male and female, was ranked according to age and sex, with sex being most important. The domakin (dom is ‘home’) or staresina (from start, the old one) planned the zadruga’ s economy, represented the zadruga to outside authorities, conducted money transactions, and arranged marriages for children inside the zadruga. While the domakin was the “final arbiter,” he was in no sense the “absolute master over family and property (ibid.:33). A democratic principle was upheld in the zadruga, all married men could exercise their opinion in the decision-making process. Domestic matters of the zadruga were administered by the domacica (female head), who also served as hostess to visitors. As the overseer of all domestic matters, the domacica doled out specific kitchen and household tasks to other wives and unmarried girls. New wives in the zadruga usually enjoyed an initial period of reprieve from strict domestic duties—a situation that often created conflicts between the young bride and her already-established sisters-in- law. Children had their tasks as well—usually that of keeping the livestock fed and pastured. Children belonged to the entire zadruga as much as they belonged to their respective parents. In fact, widowed or divorced mothers often could not take their children away from the zadruga. Variations of zadruga rules and characteristics existed according to socio-religious and historical influences. In regions of the Balkans under Austrian influence, the zadruga was more democratic (the domakin’s authority was not conferred for life) and more developed (Austrian-controlled areas were predominantly lowlands, thus requiring a unit such as the zadruga to cultivate and harvest the fields). In the military frontier regions of Vojvodina, the zadruga took the form and function of a military unit, and thus was especially strong. The zadruga never flourished in Muslim areas of the Balkans. “The intimacy of the married couple and the apartness of the wife are important Muslim principles” writes Erlich (ibid.:35), “and these did not quite fit into the zadruga institution.” Neither did the zadruga fit well with life in the Dinaric districts, where, because of the little available land for agriculture, economic prosperity was based almost entirely on flocks of sheep. In these regions, a tribal set-up predominated. See Brown (1995:157-167) for both a review of literature that has challenged the zadruga as a static entity, and a review of several life stories that historically contextualize the zadruga within Macedonia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196 1 6 It was widely believed that this conflation was Tito’s surreptitious intention all along, and that “Brotherhood and Unity” was just a euphemism for the subordination of the federation’s national minorities to the Slavic majorities. 1 7 See also Seeman (1990a). 1 8 These observations were made by Roska Dileva in an informal interview she granted to Elsie Ivancic Dunin, November of 1988 in Skopje. 1 9 Cupurlika, a Turkish female dance, survived the cut, but showed up in the 1956 U.S. tour having undergone a costume change from a “ ‘Turkish’ style salvare to translucent and narrower type pantaloons,” for apparently no other reason than “because Americans like to see more of the legs” (Dunin and Visinski 1995:127). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FIGURE 10: A friend captured in a moment of joy Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198 CHAPTER 5: A VILLAGE Atanas Kolarovski does not live in Macedonia anymore, not since sometime in the mid- to late-60s when he was “kicked out” of Tanec, he claims, “for returning to Macedonia seven days late.”1 I am at a Skopje cafe, sitting across the table from the aging icon of Macedonian dance amidst one of his frequent sojourns to Macedonia from his home in Seattle, Washington. With us is my friend, Ivona Opetceska-Tatarcevska, a 27-year-old ethno-choreologist from the Marko Cepenkov Institute of Folklore in Skopje. Ivona jumped at the chance to meet Atanas when I presented it to her. Before this moment, Ivona (like me) knew of Atanas and of his years as a lead dancer and formative choreographer with Tanec back in the 50s and 60s only anecdotally through writings, hearsay, and photographs. Being here feels like a coup to both of us, and we are excited to pay our respects. Since emigrating to the United States with his wife and two daughters and becoming a dance teacher, Atanas has become for much of the world outside of the republic the embodiment of Macedonian folk dance.2 “I go everywhere,” he tells us. Japan supports the largest contingency of Kolarovski disciples, we are surprised to learn. “I have five-thousand students there alone” Atanas boasts, proud of his accomplishments as a teacher. “When the tradition dies out here in Macedonia, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199 people will have to go to Japan to see the dances,” he jokes.3 Ivona and I wince at the thought. As a folklorist, Ivona can hardly endure the stylization and theatricalization inflicted upon Macedonia's folk dance tradition by Macedonians themselves, let alone bear the thought of that tradition being outsourced to some other country entirely. As the American-bom grandchild of Macedonian emigrants, I want the dances to stay here in Macedonia too; in fact I need for them to remain in their “proper” birthplace if my images and memories are to make sense geographically. I know that by joking with us, Atanas means to call attention to just how much the world loves Macedonian dance, but I can see a look of regret on his face even as he smiles. “My students come here to Macedonia to find dance,” he continues, “but they always come back home disappointed.” Ivona and I nod our heads quietly in agreement, both of us believing in our own way that we know the disappointment to which Atanas is referring. “People here don’t dance unless there is a reason to dance,” Atanas clarifies for both of us, taking a jibe at what all three of us would agree is a regrettable state of affairs here in Macedonia. As we say our goodbyes following a very long conversation, Atanas invites us to a village near his hometown of Dracevo. A new church is being dedicated there on Saturday, Atanas informs us, providing just the kind of celebratory pretext that Macedonians seem to need for dancing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200 In Search of a Sobor, October 21,2000 It is an early Saturday morning as Ivona, Gustavo, and I head off from Skopje on a crowded bus. The ride is sleepy, past apartment buildings and factories, and into open fields of pasture and farmland. I am thinking of Laurel Kendall. When she began researching Shamans in South Korea, she set her sights on a village which, although less than an hour’s bus ride outside of Seoul, was sufficiently rural enough she reasoned “to vest my accounts of shamanic practices with ethnographic authenticity”(1998:66). Only later did Kendall realize the irony of her logic. “The very fact that my observations were made in a rural setting undercut my insistence on the contemporary vigor of my chosen subject” (ibid.). I am constantly reminded by people around me in Skopje that this is the direction in which I should be headed too; away from the city, out into the countryside, toward authenticity. Like Kendall, however, by centering my sights on urban-based ensembles, I have been choosing not to live exclusively within the landscape of the past. To do otherwise strikes me as condescending and altogether shortsighted. Besides, I could spend ten, twenty, twenty-five years or more in the countryside and still not find what I am looking for. Yet, I cannot ignore this landscape. Along their passage from the Old World to the New, my grandparents and their generation brought this very landscape with them. In their effort to map an intermediate space between the lives they left behind and the ones they were trying to build in the United States, these open fields of pasture and farmland became their “sites of memory” (cf. Behar 1996:81). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201 One of the most vivid memories I have of my grandparent’s house in Akron, Ohio is of a large, black and white photograph my grandfather kept prominently displayed in the dining room. “This is my village. Navoljiani,” he would tell my brother and me about his natal home in Northern Greece where he was raised as an ethnic Macedonian. I can still hear my grandfather enunciating the name loudly and slowly—“N- a-v-o-l-j-i-a-n-i”—as if to make certain that we would remember what to tell our own grandchildren. Taken from the opposite side of the valley in which the nearby town of Fiorina (or Lerin, as it is still referred to by Macedonians) was located, the photograph was a panorama and so showed little detail of the village itself. But no matter. I remember staring at the photograph, staring back at me as I ate. My grandfather’s place of refuge became for me my link to a peasant past and a rural landscape that fueled my imagination. A streak of alabaster turns my attention out the window just in time to catch the last few mezari (grave markers) of a Muslim cemetery, hugging the road with its rows of obelisk-shaped, marble headstones aligned toward Mecca. We continue riding southeast through Atanas’s hometown, Dracevo, and unload ourselves at what we think is our destination—a village called Taor. No doubt the gaze of the Folklorist is looking down on me now with approval. A woman from the bus directs us up a hill toward the village. We start to walk. The autumn air is crisp and clean. We pass a small child with its mother, a woman just like Rebecca West described over a half-a-century ago during her travels Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202 through Macedonia; young in age, but with a face that looks a weather-beaten fifty. Fowl are feeding on trash strewn along the banks of the Vardar. Other than the crowing of roosters and the sound of the occasional car or bus passing along the main road behind us, our surroundings are quiet. We remark to each other that it is odd that a village, supposedly hosting such an important event as a church dedication, should be so still and hushed. Back in 1995, a sociologist at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius commented that if Macedonia wanted to save herself, “to be free of her economic crisis,” then the revitalization of her villages would be paramount. “Macedonia was made for agriculture,” he had said. “Agriculture and farming are, in the final analysis, her traditional industry.”4 Ironically, just a few weeks ago my friend Slavko was advocating a similar position, saying that one of the solutions for Macedonia's problems was “to give Macedonians incentives for going back to the villages to work the land.” We stop alongside a house with a wooden porch covered with jars of ajvar (a roasted pepper relish), canned and ready for winter storage. Ivona asks two women out front about the sobor (festive gathering). They shrug their shoulders and invite us inside instead, but not before showing off their still for making rakija (brandy). Inside, we take our seats in the kitchen, and I wonder, just how lucrative will these incentives have to be to attract people to this? The room is sparse and filthy with food droppings and dirt tracked in from outside. A swarm of flies follows our every movement. Two small children are on the floor playing with some kittens. Ivona, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203 Gustavo, and I try to conceal our reaction when the play turns abusive and the kittens start to cry. We hear some wrestling noises coming from outside the entryway. The family patriarch passes over the threshold to welcome us. He sits down, offers us cigarettes, and then fetches his wife to pour us each a shot of his homemade brandy. “My rakija is strong! Fifty-five percent,” he boasts, adding with a chuckle, “Ha! It’ll really warm your belly.” We can really use something to warm our bellies right now, but 9 a.m. is much too early to imbibe. Ivona and I manage to wiggle our way out of obliging the man’s gesture of welcome, but Gustavo does not escape so easily. We all watch him as he takes a swallow, but it is our host who savors the pleasure of listening to Gustavo cough and wheeze as the alcohol evaporates up his esophagus. Ivona inquires again about the church dedication. Neither the man nor his wife know of any such sobor. In lieu of letting us go, they wrestle their son out of bed to give us a tour of Taor. Taor is a village of some 150 people spread out over five and a half square kilometers of good farmland. Over half of the village’s 504 hectares of arable land is worked to some degree. Marijon walks us through the main settlement area of the village, past the ruins of a Roman-era wall left to lie partially buried because no money exists for excavation. We follow a dirt road up a hill to the small village cemetery, where tall grasses are grazing against a mix of modest headstones and shiny marble tombs intricately etched with the visages of ancestors. I ask Marijon Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 204 about his immediate plans. He is on his way to the military soon. And after that? Find a job, marry a girl, start a family, and work the land. “I have no desire to leave the village,” he admits to us. “I want to help my father with our land.” Marijon’s wish to remain on the land catches me off-guard. Did I not grow up hearing stories of an opposite desire, and of exodus away from Macedonia's villages and their economic uncertainty? Am I not the product of a desire to leave? In Chapter 4 ,1 followed a young Trpe Cerepovski from his village home in Galicnik to Belgrade where he worked for a wealthy shopkeeper and his wife. Were Marijon, like Trpe, to leave his village no one would think it odd or question his decision to go in search of economic stability. He would simply be following a time worn path that thousands of Macedonians have traveled on at one time or another; some to return, others not. Macedonia’s tradition of pecalba began long before either Marijon or Trpe, before the end of the nineteenth century in fact, and involved mostly bachelors, although it was not unheard of for married men and even entire families to migrate (Herman 1979:78). Towards the end of the nineteenth century their numbers increased until pecalba was an important factor in the socio-economic organization of the area and a main source of income for many Macedonian families. It became so widespread and so institutionalized that some authors actually referred to it as an occupation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205 Pecalbars from the same village or region often migrated together and found jobs in the same occupation so that they could support one another more effectively (ibid.:79). Originally, pecalba was temporary (i.e. seasonal or for a specific number of years). Yet, as economic and political conditions worsened in Macedonia leading up to the Balkan Wars, “pecalba assumed a permanent character” and pecalbars (especially the ones who had gone to the United States, Canada, and Australia) became “emigrants in the true sense of the word” (iselenici) by settling down and planting new roots (ibid. :79-80).5 In its original Slavic usage, pecalba meant sorrow, sadness, melancholy, or grief. It was an appropriately chosen word for a life that was difficult for everyone effected, regardless of how temporary or permanent the separation, and irrespective A v of whether one were the e/migrant or the family member left behind. Pecalba resulted in “anguish, homesickness and anxiety about the future,” and it created an overpowering burden that effectively “left its mark on the whole of Macedonian culture” (Herman 1979:79). An entire genre of folk songs (“songs of separation”), for example deals with the pecalba complex from the perspective of both temporary and permanent e/migrants (Kalicanin 1998, Karovski 1979). Foreign lands should be damned God should punish the one Because they separated me from Who first mentioned pecalba my loved one, whom I loved for three years. in foreign lands. Foreign lands, America. Three years without a job, Without a job and without Hey, you, young pecalbars Have you seen my loved one coming home from pecalba? Money. —(cf. Herman 1979:79) —(cf. Herman 1979:80) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206 Similarly, an entire genre of folk dances {teski ora or “heavy/difficult dances”) is marked by the pecalba experience too. Men used to dance teski ora while they were away on pecalba-, and when (or if) they returned home, it was customary for them to dance them again. The slow heaviness of the dance style was meant to express their homesickness. Supporting one another—the way they had to so far away from home—they executed moves meant to convey the difficulty of their life, until, in the urge to shake off the burden, the men moved their dancing into a joyful climax. Were one to attend the Galicnik Wedding nowadays, one would see “Teskoto”—the name for the consistently-performed arrangement of a tesko oro that has become perhaps Macedonia's most iconic dance—being danced as much as five times more than any other dance. Indeed, the pecalba experience is etched deep into Macedonia's national consciousness. Once, while waiting to speak to the director of Tanec, I passed the time away chatting with one of the company’s wardrobe mistresses, Jana, as she worked on embroidering a costume. Oliver, a young dancer with the company, was there too and looking a bit sullen. “I want to go to America... work at one of the hotels or cruise ships in Clearwater, Florida,” Oliver suddenly said out of the blue, staring off into space and speaking to neither of us in particular. “I have friends there already,” he added for good measure, as if he knew, historically, that this alone might be enough to make the likelihood of his working in Florida at some point in the near future all the more plausible. “I could go... make a lot of money... then come back to Macedonia.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 207 Oliver’s plans made me think about a cousin of mine from Skopje who works for a cruise line based in Florida. I never met Igor, only saw photographs of him on the job: dressed in his cruise ship uniform, in front of an enormous table of food, showing off his cramped living quarters. “Your brother is the new generation ofpecalbari,” I told Igor’s sister Natasa, who nodded her head in agreement as we thumbed through the picture album that the family had put together in dedication to Igor’s adventures abroad. “Though by the looks of it,” I added with a chuckle, stopping to focus on a snap shot of Igor spreading his wad of money out like a deck of cards, and others of him sipping tropical drinks by the pool in Cozumel and Jamaica, “his life seems to be much easier than it was for the previous generations that went away.” The emigres I knew from back home were of the generation that had taken jobs together in the auto factories of Detroit, the steel mills of Bethlehem and Youngstown, or the rubber companies of Akron. “Oh, no,” Natasa corrected me in a serious tone, “Igor works very long hours and gets only one day off a week.” I reminded Oliver that although a life in Florida would reap many benefits, it would be a hard life, and he would miss Macedonia too. “I know if I left, I would feel nostalgia for Macedonia,” he told me before sinking deep into thought again. Jana, trying to lighten the mood, offered Oliver some words of encouragement. “You should go,” she told him, “see how things are in a different place.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 208 The room fell silent. I empathized with Oliver’s restlessness, but wondered if he were aware of the conundrum he would be setting himself up for were he to follow through on Jana’s suggestion. Many a Macedonian has gone abroad to work—“to see how things are in a different place”—never again to return to Macedonia to live as a permanent resident. One season abroad turns into two and then three. Before one knows it, a shift has occurred. Parents no longer speak in terms of this being their son’s “third time in Florida” but rather “his fourth time back to Macedonia for a visit.” “People always want to be where they are not,” I ended up saying to break the silence, although for whose benefit I am not sure. “That’s who we are,” Jana added matter-of-factly. “We are people of *7 migration.” Marijon’s desire to remain in Taor and draw his livelihood from the land surprises me precisely because it is a reversal of a trend that in addition to causing the abandonment of so many of Macedonia's villages and leaving such an indelible mark on Macedonian culture, continues to be regarded even by today’s generations as a viable alternative to what is perceived as a stagnant life in Macedonia, or at least Q one with very few of the right kind of opportunities. On our walk back down through the village settlement, Gustavo points to a BMW parked in front of a large, well-kept home. “Is this the home of a city guy?” he asks, waiting for me to translate. “No,” Marijon curtly responds. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 209 I know that Gustavo has asked the question with no intended offence, but the young village son and future full-time farmer is visible irked by what he wrongfully assumes is the question’s implication: that the life of a farmer precludes affording, or perhaps even desiring, such luxuries as a German import and a beautiful, spacious home.9 An hour passes in Taor before we finally fully accept that we are in the wrong village. “Perhaps it’s Badar that you want,” one man speaks up amongst a small group of people Ivona is questioning as they walk past the gate of Marijon’s home. “They’ve just built themselves a new church.” Nestled in a foothill just across the valley from where we are standing, Badar we learn is accessible to us by one of two ways. “You can return to Skopje and catch a bus back out to the village,” someone explains (a trip that will cost us a couple of hours if not more) “or you can travel by tractor through the fields” (a scenic route across the valley that will get us to our destination much faster). As luck would have it, a farmer headed in the latter direction lumbers by in his tractor and offers us a ride on top of the flatbed trailer hitched behind him. We climb aboard, waving good-bye to Marijon and his family, and head for the fields. It has rained recently; the farmland is saturated with puddles of water, and carved out in some places with deep tractor marks. Riding roughshod, we start laughing and crying simultaneously. The tractor’s enormous tires have started kicking up mud and hurling it in our direction. We are giddy, trying to dodge the mud pies, but Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210 uncomfortable too, using our own bodies to stabilize us against the agitating force of riding over terrain gouged with furrows deep enough to cast any unanchored object overboard. The tractor ride ends at the mineral water spigot in the small town of Katlanovo. We are still a few kilometers from Badar, and laugh at our luck when the only motorists to pull over and offer us a ride point to the 5’x4’ trailer attached to the back of their car. It is a repeat adventure, except that now we are traveling on asphalt and have something to hold onto—ironically, the tethered-down engine of a tractor. As the car speeds down the road and the driver takes the curves without slowing down, I point out to Ivona and Gustavo the trailer’s visibly corroded hitch. We shake our heads and wait for this leg of our journey to end. It does; at the bottom of a hill, next to a sign marked “Badar.” Now this is what the entrance should look like o f a village holding a sobor, I tell myself as we hop down from the trailer and thank the couple for giving us a lift. Cars are parked along the roadside in every direction. We start walking up the hill. The atmosphere is reminiscent of a fair, with vendors selling costume jewelry and plastic toys. Children are scurrying around, buying trinkets. The sound of live music echoing in the distance turns our eyes farther up the hill slope toward what must be the new church. “Do all these people actually live here?” I ask Ivona, incredulously as the three of us squeeze through the crowd. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 Census figures from 1994 list only thirteen people as residents of Badar, but the numbers gathered in the vicinity of the church alone are easily over 100. Ivona laughs at my question, tucks her hand under my arm, and steers us into the line filing through the small church. We have missed the official dedication, but the officiating bishop is still inside, holding a cross for people to venerate with a kiss. We go inside, help ourselves to Antidoron (in the Orthodox Church, Antidoron is a small piece of bread that has been blessed but not consecrated), add two ten-denar bills to the collection plate, and walk back out into the courtyard. Standing underneath a canopy outside are a man (dressed in a suit and tie) and a woman (wearing heels and a sequined dress), singing duets to the accompaniment of clarinet, keyboard, drums, and bass. “These two are old radio artists,” Ivona remarks. I gather from the relatively youthful appearance of the singers that what Ivona means by “old” is really “out of style.” A large group of people has started to dance. Mothers and daughters, senior citizens, and grade-school-aged children (costumed dancers from the local KUD Goce Delcev) have all joined hands and have started dancing Lesnoto. Lesnoto is the name of a particular dance, as well as a genre of light and easy dances, hence the name Lesnoto (lesno meaning “light”, “easy”). The step pattern is so basic that Corgi Dimcevski refers to Lesnoto as “letter A in the complete dictionary of Macedonian dance” (1983:46). One would be hard-pressed to find a person in Macedonia (or anywhere in the Macedonian diaspora) who has not danced Lesnoto at least once if not dozens of times. Even the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212 teenage boys who are hanging out along the perimeter of the courtyard, too cool to join in, maybe waiting for something less easy, or perhaps just altogether disinterested in dancing, most likely have all had some experience with the dance. Ivona and I have been itching to move. We tuck our backpacks into the fold of Gustavo’s lap and enter the dance. Facing diagonally, one begins Lesnoto with the right foot, taking two steps counterclockwise. Right. Left. The right foot steps again, but this time the hips pivot so that the body is facing center to the inside of the circle. It is here that the sexes know to go their separate ways. A man will lift his left knee parallel to the ground and then return it to its starting position. A woman will raise her left foot slightly, simultaneously tapping her toes lightly on the ground in front of her, and then return her leg to its starting position. The lifting/raising and lowering movements are repeated on the right side. Then the entire sequence begins again. In theory, Lesnoto is quite simple. So simple in fact that when people dance it, they sometimes do so as if on auto pilot; as if the movements existed for the purpose of preoccupying the body so that the mind can engage in other activities such as singing or talking, or just taking note of one’s surroundings as I am doing. I cannot help but smile watching the really young children dance. Social gatherings such as this are their point of first contact with dance. The looks on their faces are measured and serious. Their eyes are cast down and to the right as they double check to make certain that they are doing the steps correctly. Is this the way I used to look when I was learning to cut my teeth on Lesnoto? Occasionally, one of them Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 loses balance, drops a step, or falls out of line. They have not yet learned how to control their bodies. When the time comes in the sequence of dance steps for each of us to lift our left leg and then our right, the children all but relinquish whatever control they have over their little bodies, and simply throw their legs out in front of them like sharp blows low to the ground. Within the dance circle, one of the advantages of youth is that the rules of gender comportment do not yet apply. It is refreshing to watch the children’s innocence. At some point, however, either on account of accumulated experience with dancing in a social context or because of formal dance training with an ensemble, they will learn to carry themselves differently; come to understand the boundaries of just what is or is not appropriate, acceptable, and expected behavior. A boy will learn to have attitude and project manliness. A girl will know to keep her demeanor well-composed. When she leads a dance, though she might feel the impulse to perform the buoyant acrobatics available to her male counterpart, she will learn to find subtler ways of constituting her gender identity. The song ends. People shuffle around, deciding what to do next. Some of the crowd leaves to go down to the sred selo (village center). Almost immediately the band starts a new song; new melody, new lyrics (minus the radio artists singing them), but the same dance steps. This time an elderly gentleman in a rumpled suit casually assumes the lead. Dangling a kerchief from his right hand, he stretches his arm out in front of him, and with lithe control steps into the dance. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214 Lesnoto may be quite simple in theory, but in practice it is perhaps the most difficult of all of the dances to execute with conviction, and to do so while avoiding the pitfalls of placing measured rhythm where none should exist, or exaggerating downbeats at the expense of the subtle, lilting syncopation shared by both dance and music. The elderly gentleman who has started the dance has made himself the leader of a dance circle made up almost entirely of a generation of Macedonians whose style of dancing exudes proof that they understand these pitfalls, and are aware that it takes experience and commitment on the part of a dancer to transform what appears to be just a simple stroll to the right into an actual dance that does what it is supposed to do: move without seeming to move at all. The body slows down with age, but the man and his friends, now joined by their female counterparts, have hips like shock absorbers. Nothing is throwing any of them off balance: not the rocks scattered across the lumpy grass surface that they keep stepping on; nor the bulging purses that the women dancing have slung over their shoulders. Their placement is perfect. They are circling around so locked into what they were doing that they seem not the least bit disturbed when a car suddenly appears out of nowhere, insisting with its horn that it needs to get through. One of the dancers—a stout, mustached elderly woman dressed entirely in bright purple—catches my attention. Her hips are particularly sweet, and she acts especially oblivious to everything that is happening outside of the dance. She hardly flinches when the sound system begins to distort with feedback and the musicians, struggling to keep time only to lose it again and again, enlist a young boy on tapan Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215 whose addition is a sweet gesture, but whose technique does little to help the band recover. I had noticed the woman earlier, milling around the crowd, initiating spurts of conversations with people here and there. I had assumed that she had come to Badar with friends or because she had some kind of connection to the village. When the dance ends, she stands alone, looking around, calculating what to do and where to go. The musicians decide that it is time to empty the courtyard and send the crowd away. After the calmness of several slow dances such as Lesnoto, it is typical for a band to choreograph a transition by playing faster, more animated dances like Eleno Mome or better yet Pajdusko, perhaps the most loved dance throughout Macedonia and in its diaspora. Also found in parts of Bulgaria and northern Greece, Pajdusko is a fast five that gets its name as much from the spirited skipping and rollicking weight displacements of its step pattern as from its venerable use as a climax to the merrymaking of a wedding or a sobor.1 0 After Pajdusko, people are supposed to “sit down, wipe off the perspiration and enjoy everything immensely” (Dimcevski 1983:46). The band starts playing Pajdusko’s instantly recognizable melody, laying down a dozen or so moderately paced measures to allow people enough time to negotiate the moment and juncture of their entrance. A group of men has initiated the lead, but others—women entering two-by-two or squeezing in one-by-one between friends, teenaged girls, children too embarrassed to enter alone so they are prodding either their companions or their mothers to take the first step, Ivona and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216 I—quickly fall in line behind them, hesitating long enough to quickly discern which step we need to engage first. The band holds out until enough of us are in place before giving us the signal that the dance is about to be pushed to the next level. We are already moving at a good pace, skipping around in a circle, crossing our right legs back and forth, front and behind our bodies. The young man on keyboard pulses a chord with his left hand, his right hand hinting at a metric modulation. We know what to expect next. The drum set player fires off a short fill on his tom-toms, shifting the tempo in the process. The whole band drops back into the song at a faster speed. The man leading the dance responds by hastening his steps, causing a chain-reaction of adjustments as people dancing at the middle and end of the line start to bunch up to accommodate the tempo change. One of the other male dancers lets out three sharp whistles, charging the atmosphere with excitement and encouraging the dance circle to pick up the pace and sustain it. Just as we are settling into the new speed, the kink having worked its way out, the band pushes the song just a fraction of a beat faster. “Ssssssss,” hiss a few of the dancers. Sometimes, Pajdusko can be a real perspiration producer; the movement phrase dances over the musical phrase, allowing no time for the body to rest. Sometimes people have to exit the dance if the pace becomes too difficult to sustain. Hissing and whistling are techniques used to let off steam and relax the muscles. “ A/del” someone shouts. Let’s go! Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217 I know that the musicians can ratchet it up another notch if they want. Gauging from the looks on people’s faces and from how I feel, we are not entirely spent. Yet, to go any faster would defeat the intent of Pajdusko ', to leave everyone feeling satisfied and exhilarated. We know the band’s next move. Almost intuitively, we match the final beat of the music with a collective, “Aaahhh!,” clapping our hands in appreciation as the band finesses a strong ending cadence. The scene is petering out in the church courtyard. Ivona decides for us that we should go see what is happening down at the sred selo. We get there and activity is already abuzz. Everywhere I look I see mostly women, some hovering over enormous steaming kettles in a makeshift kitchen, others scurrying around with bottles of mineral water and beer lodged in between their fingers, all of them shouting out orders and requests to one another. I notice that most of their attention is focused on a community center off to the side of the kitchen. Live music is seeping out the door. I peek in and catch sight of the bishop and other dignitaries enjoying meze (appetizers). Their conversation is lively even over the din of the music. On the kitchen’s opposite side, a long narrow tent enclosed on three sides with canvas flaps has been erected for the remaining guests. There is absolutely no space left amongst the people who are already squeezed into the two long rows of tables. We have no choice but to remain outside, watching and listening. A tapandzija and the two zurla (zurlii) players have been hired to provide musical entertainment for everyone inside the tent. Even from where we are standing, the high-pitched, nasal sonority of the zurlii is tickling my eardrums, so I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218 cannot imagine how deafening it must be for those inside the tent where the sound has no space in which to move around and dissipate a bit before striking a listener’s eardrum. Sensing that their instruments are too overpowering, the tapandzija and one of the zurla players step outside the tent while continuing to play. As they do, all of the energy coming from inside the tent immediately goes flat. “Hey! Get back in here,” a group of men insists, raising up their glasses of zolta rakija (yellow brandy) and twisting around to locate the musicians. One gentleman takes notice of us, and calls out to anyone who can hear that “there are guests” (a euphemism for foreigners, in this case) in their midst. “ Imame gosti,” he announces. No one pays attention, so the man escorts us inside anyway and does his best to find space for three. It is an impossibly tight fit. No one can make room for us even if they wanted to. Some older folks at the far end of the tent call out, and motion for us to join them. It takes some shifting around, but we manage to squeeze in and sit down. We express appreciation for their kindness. Gustavo even manages to say “Zdravo” (“Hello”) on his own, much to the delight of one woman seated directly across from us whose eyes I catch darting back and forth between Gustavo and me. “Where are you from?” she finally speaks up. “I’m from Macedonia... ” Ivona starts in with a smile and a chuckle, hesitating long enough from me to finish her sentence with a “... and we’re from America.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 219 “America!” the people within earshot chime in like a chorus. A litany of questions begins: “Where did you say you’re from?; This is your husband?; Is he really Mexican?; What are you doing here?; How is it that you speak Macedonian?” “Ah... your grandparents were from here.” Macedonia's attitude toward its ex-patriots and their offspring is often a paradoxical one. On the one hand, many Macedonians concede to feeling a spiritual and cultural closeness with those in the diaspora, either because they themselves have a history of e/migration in the family or because, after 120 years, the tradition of e/migration is as strong and ingrained in the national consciousness as stated previously. “ Nasa krv” (our blood) people often say about me when they find out that my grandparents were from Macedonia. Thus far in my work, only on a few occasions have I been made to not feel as though I were part of a shared space of community identity. On the other hand, Macedonians know that their diasporic communities, especially the older ones, are breeding grounds for perspectival visions of Macedonia that are stereotypic and often completely out of touch with the republic’s contemporary landscape. One popular past television episode of Skopje’s comedy sketch group, K -l 5, poked fun at the patronizing attitudes that Macedonian emigres in Australia, for example, have about their brethren back in the “homeland.” As the episode begins, a man in Macedonia has just received a package from relatives in Melbourne. Inside the package is a video. The man puts the video into his VCR and up pops his cousin on the TV screen. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220 “This is a television,” the cousin begins in his effort to show off his household possessions, oblivious to the irony that without a television of his own, how else could the cousin in Macedonia watch the videotape? “This is a refrigerator. You put food in it, see?” The camera pans as the relatives move their television into the next room. “Look, we have a television in every room of the house.” Though they might handle it with humor (“it” being what I have heard people in Macedonia refer to as the “village mentality” displayed by many emigres), deep down many Macedonians find this mentality completely belittling. Our friend Alek has a cousin in Australia who, after a 20-year absence of communication with the family in Bitola, one day sent Alek, his two brothers, his mother and stepfather the equivalent of $10 so that they could “buy a couple months worth of food for themselves.” Alek and his family returned the $10 to their cousin along with an additional $10, scribbling off a note that obviously he needed the money more than they did. Back under the tent in Badar, a couple of the people around us tell me that they have relatives abroad. Yet, I do not ask, and they give me no way of knowing, on which side of the paradox their attitudes might fall. They are curious, but not overly so. Every answer I give inspires more questions. Yet, with the musicians so close to our comer, it is difficult to carry on any kind of conversation. We tire of trying, and instead sit and smile, saying a word or two when we can. Some of the ladies around us begin clearing the table and filling it up with apples, chocolate Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 cream-filled donuts, and leblebija (roasted chickpeas). They bring us forks for the communal dishes of sliced tomatoes and shredded cabbage salad. They offer us beer, rakija, homemade wine, and then wonder why we want only water to drink. Ivona is wedged in between me and a friend of Atanas Kolarovski’s, a slender, elderly man from Dracevo who has in his possession the strangest-looking gajda any of us has ever seen. The mev (bag) of a Macedonian gajda is generally made from the tanned skin of a goat, turned inside out so that the hair of the animal faces inside. Yet, the mev of this man’s gajda has been left in its natural state with the short, course hair of the goat still attached to the hide. “I made this one myself,” the man tells us, obviously proud of himself. We smile and nod, but truth be told we are more than just a little fascinated with the instrument, and perplexed by the unique feature that the man had taken the liberty of attaching to the joint where the mev and the gajdarka (chanter) connect. Typically, nothing is attached. The animal skin simply slips over the base of the wooden gajdarka, a strip of leather tightly wrapped and tied holds the connection in place. Yet the man, with the precision of a taxidermist, had mounted, like a fancy car hood ornament, the preserved head of a homed animal, which appeared to be that of a goat, but a goat unlike any species we had ever seen—with ears long and stiff like a rabbit or a donkey, and with blue-colored glass inserted into the hollow eye cavities. “I made it myself,” the man tells us again, lifting up the gajdarka as if to play. His motion causes the animal head to move freakishly and stare back at us. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222 We have arrived to the tent too late for getting good seats, but just in time to watch the unfolding drama of men teetering on the edge of sobriety. Many of the men down at our end of the tent are singing so loudly that their voices are still audible despite the piercing sound of the zurlii and the deep, short-pitched thwacks of the tapan. Every now and then, two or three of them stand up, grab a hold of each other at the shoulders, and dance. Each time they do, they set off a renewed round of shuffling about as the musicians adjust to the dancers’ movements. A group of younger men near the entrance of the tent are irritated that the musicians are neglecting them, so they order up a song. The lead zurla player saunters down the aisle toward the most boisterous man in the group, and presses his horn’s sound hole against the man’s eardrum. This is a common duet, initiated by the one who has ordered the song as a way for him to both mark his exclusive rights to it (Cowan 1990) as well as display his mettle vis-a-vis his ability to withstand, imperviously, without even the slightest flinch and almost with an air of coolness, the deafening shrill of a zurla blowing dangerously close to the folds of cartilage protecting the delicate eardrum. The young man cups his ear and leans in closer. “Come on! Is this the best you can do?” he gestures mockingly, sitting back in his chair, shaking both his head and his pointed index finger. The man leans in again for another listen. His composure and fortitude are impressive. Amidst the commotion, another man approaches the tapandzija, and after a brief exchange of words, slips the drum off of his shoulder. The young Rom musician, apparently content to be unburdened of his heavy instrument, walks Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223 outside for a smoke. The zurlii continue to play, although the leader is visibly angered by what has just occurred. The tapan, like the zurla, is the proprietary sphere of Macedonia’s Rom population, whose ancestors carried it and other instruments along the trails of migration from Turkey and points south/east into the Balkan Peninsula. There was a time when no Macedonian would have dared pick up a tapan to perform on it in public. Instead, if there were a gathering of Macedonians wanting to dance, a Rom tapandzija would have been searched for in the crowd and invited to play. This is not to suggest that Macedonians do not play the tapan. A Macedonian can not hope to be a good dance teacher if no drumming skills are possessed. There are plenty of Macedonians who have learned to play the tapan quite skillfully, often from Rom teachers, and are now enjoying measurable success in ensembles or folk orchestras. These inroads, however, are mediated depending on performance context and with whom the Macedonian is collaborating. Amateur dance ensembles rely almost exclusively on a non-Rom tapandzija for rehearsals, but come performance time, if the selection of dances calls for it, and if the ensemble is a reputable one and can afford it, a Rom tapandzija will be hired to perform. Similarly, a Macedonian tapandzija may put his skills to use within an ensemble of fellow Macedonian musicians, but would almost never perform publicly in duet with a Rom zurla player. Questions of where and with whom matter, which partially explains why the Macedonian man’s gesture of stripping the Rom tapandzija of his instrument is taken by the lead zurla player as such a bold breech of etiquette. Yet, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224 when the song ends, it is not the Macedonian to whom the zurla player directs his words of anger, but the young tapandzija, who by relinquishing control of his instrument not only revealed a streak of laziness, but mitigated his one and only economic leverage within the larger society. Large servings of hot lamb stew and loaves of sliced bread finally reach our end of the tent. The food does little to absorb the alcohol from the bloodstream of the inebriated. Two men nearby begin a round of song requests. They are singing and dancing, rolling up 100-denar bills and sticking them into the finger holes of the lead zurla. The young Rom tapandzija has possession of his instrument again. A well- dressed gentleman in a white suit begins dancing uninhibitedly on top of one of the benches. As he does, he folds money into the ropes of the tapan. A gray-haired man, looking to be in his late 50s and dressed in a sweatshirt imprinted with the Australian flag and the words ‘Melbourne’ and ‘My Country is Australia,’ stumbles up from out of his seat and fires a pistol into the air. He must see the terror in my eyes. “No bullets!” he cries out laughing. I am terrified, but not just because of the pistol. I do not know if this man is a Macedonian emigre from Australia, and he is too far away from me to ask, but his behavior triggers thoughts of someone I know back in the United States. Nick Dimoff (not his real name) is a third-generation ‘Macedonian- American’ who I first met in the spring of 1999 at a social gathering in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. In his mid-40s at the time, Nick had never been to Macedonia, yet Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225 desperately dreamed of going. A year later, the war in Kosovo coming to a close, Nick fulfilled that dream if not physically than viscerally. In a letter published in the Macedonian Tribune (a newspaper published by the Central Committee of the Macedonian Patriotic Organization of the United States and Canada [see Chapter 1, endnote 22]), Nick (now going by the name, Kole) wrote that after a ten-year hiatus from his particular diasporic public sphere, Kosovo had mobilized him to assume “a semi-active role in the Macedonian political arena.” He wrote of being certain that “the fire of our Macedonian heritage” was “bum[ing] brightly in all of our hearts,” and of being excited to hear and see for the first time in his life Macedonia assuming such a prominent position within global news media events. I could understand Nick’s renewed interest in Macedonia, even empathize with what was clearly for him the fulfillment of what Mary Waters (1998:275) calls “this particular American need to be ‘from somewhere’.” Yet, his zeal frightened me. Kosovo was not a particularly exciting event for Macedonia. The 350,000 refugees that poured into Macedonia put an enormous strain on the country’s resources as it struggled to maintain its composure while absorbing what amounted to 17% of its population—the statistical equivalent to the United States suddenly having to deal with 50 million refugees clamoring to pass through the Port of New York. “Looking back on this year,” Nick wrote, “again stokes the flames of freedom that burned in my ancestor’s blood, for a united, independent Makedonia.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226 Yet, what did Nick know about the flames of freedom, especially from his home in Cleveland, Ohio where with the luxury of distance he could romantically imagine himself part of a struggle that people in Macedonia were actually forced to live through? “Yours for a united Makedonia,” he signed off his letter. “So pushka na ruka i Makedonia na srste! (with a gun in my hand and Macedonia in my heart).”1 1 I know that the gray-haired man here under the tent in Badar is intoxicated, and that firing off a gun (thankfully not loaded) is a celebratory tradition, but a weapon-wielding emigre is not what this country needs right now. Up to this point, Ivona, Gustavo, and I have been merely spectators, feeding on delicious food and the antics of those around us. One of the elderly men dancing catches me admiring just how much he seems to be enjoying himself, savoring every moment of Lesnoto’ s slowness, raising his knees high and stretching his arms up and out like a grounded eagle unfolding and lifting its wings. The man steps toward me rhythmically (but out of time with the music), grabs my right hand, and pulls me into a duet. I have danced Lesnoto many times, but never under such circumstances: to the accompaniment of zurlii and tapan ' , with an inebriated male stranger over twice my age; and in front of a predominantly male crowd, many of whom are now watching us with interest. I remember the elderly woman in purple from back up at the church. She had such an air about her as she danced, as if she cared little for what people thought. I try channeling the attitude behind her buoyant movement—a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227 kind of tempered bravado. It is my best defense against my mounting self- consciousness with the left side of my body. Usually, when dancing, if my left hand is free, like most people I tuck it behind my waist. Yet all of a sudden, my usual practice feels stiff and out-of-place. Coaxed into doing something against my will, I let my arm go, stretch it up and out in an attempt to mirror the shape of my partner’s right arm. The sudden openness of my chest makes me feel all the more vulnerable. I am the only woman dancing, and while the dance circle is forgiving of those females at either end of the age spectrum, I cannot help but think that as a married, 31-year-old woman of child bearing age, I and my actions are on the verge of being misconstrued. The music goes quiet in my brain. A few measures pass like an eternity. Step right, left, right... tap... tap. I feel someone slip his right hand into my left. It is my partner’s friend. His eyes are glazed over and he is wearing a devilish grin on his face, but I do not care. Sandwiched in between them both, I feel relieved to be protected on both flanks. Slowly making our way around our end of the tent, we last until the song ends, thank each other, and sit back down. Sunset is a little more than an hour away, and people are already leaving. We gather our things, and step out into the fresh air. A small dance circle has formed outside the tent. In the center, accompanying the dancers with a song, is the elderly man with the gajda. We wait around to say good-bye to him. He shows us his instrument again. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 228 “The mouthpiece should be all one piece so as to represent all one soul, but mine,” he shrugs his shoulders matter-of-factly, “mine has two or three pieces.” The man breaks out into song again, playing his instrument and singing at the same time. His voice is rich with expression. We are transfixed, if only for a moment. Out of nowhere, the woman in purple appears like an eager party girl looking for some fun. “What’s this?” she interrupts the moment, pointing and laughing at the animal head mounted on top of the gajda. Before Ivona can answer her, the woman has started dancing around. Trying to get our attention, she stops and starts again. It is a short-lived moment. The man lets the air run out of the mev. “I make gajdas,” he points out, picking up our conversation again. “And tapans, too,” he adds quickly, knowing that Gustavo is a percussionist. “You can come to Dracevo anytime for a visit.” We wave good-bye, and walk down the hill to find a ride back to Katlanovo. We pass what looks to be the band from the community center, now playing in the backyard of someone’s house. “What’s this?” I ask Ivona. “Oh, just some owner trying to show off by hiring the band for everyone to hear.” Gustavo and I stand around and listen while Ivona goes looking for a ride. The woman in purple is sticking to us like glue. She needs a ride to Katlanovo too, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 229 and keeps bugging Gustavo to take care of our situation. I tell her repeatedly that Gustavo does not understand Macedonian, but this does little to assuage her demands. Ivona tells me later that it is common for people, especially those from the older generations, to show up at a village sobor despite having no connection to the village, its residents, or even the event being celebrated. Down in Katlanovo, the bus stop begins filling up with these folks, returning to Skopje after a long day in the village. The woman in purple begins peppering Ivona with questions. Ivona turns to me and whispers, “All these people do is think of themselves. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Eat.” The questions do not stop until after we board the bus. It is a lonely, sleepy ride out of Katlanovo, through the rich valley of open farmland, past factories and apartment buildings, and into the early Saturday evening quiet of Skopje. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 230 ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 5: 1 A mutual friend of Atanas and mine filled in the details of his story with her version of events. When recreational folk dance became popular (and for some, quite a serious endeavor) in the United States in the 60s, an American dancer by the name of Richard Holden came to Yugoslavia to recruit dancers. Holden (a disciple of Igor Moiseyev) invited Atanas, who himself was well familiar with the Moiseyev model of theatricalized folk dance from his pre-Tanec experience as a performer with the Yugoslav Army Ensemble (Dunin and Visinski 1995:115), to participate in a summer U.S. tour. Holden kept luring Atanas to stay longer, meanwhile Atanas kept collecting his salary with Tanec despite not being there. Atanas’s wife, also a dancer with the company, staved off the director of Tanec for as long as she could, but at some point her husband’s position could no longer be held for him and so Atanas was let go. 2 Atanas is Macedonian dance as far as the rest of the world is concerned, and for that, people here in Macedonia who he once considered colleagues now consider him a sellout. Some say that Atanas leads his workshops abroad by teaching dances that do not exist anywhere in Macedonia yet that he promotes as “original” Macedonian dances. Likewise, he has drawn criticism for selling whole sets of traditional costumes to his admirers in Japan. Still, Atanas has done a great deal to promote Macedonia beyond the borders of the republic. Likewise, he has done a great deal of research on folk dance and music that people here, he claims, just want to take from him. “It’s true,” Ivona tells me later in private, “people want what Atanas knows, but he is bitter.” 3 Reportedly, there are Japanese who know more about Macedonian traditional folk customs than many Macedonians. During one Macedonian KUD’s tour of Japan a few years ago, the local organizer greeted the ensemble dressed in full costume. He stayed in the heavy wool garments all day, despite the heat, declaring with his wife that they both felt like real Macedonians. 4 These comments were taken from the transcript of videotaped interviews conducted sometime between April and May of 1995. I want to thank my friend, Maria Canavarro for making the transcript available to me. 5 Even those who went to the United States, Canada, and Australia emigrated together. A few years ago, my mother and I made an emotional pilgrimage to Ellis Island. Searching the passenger arrival records on the computers at the museum’s American Family Immigration History Center, we found the names of two of my great grandfather’s brothers, Milan and Dimko, listed in sequential order with the names of other people from Prilep that my mother recognized as the emigre descendents of families she grew up with in Ohio. 6 The first time I visited Galicnik in 1988,1 heard a legend about a man who went onpecalba, leaving his wife to care for their house and children by herself. Thirty years passed with little contact. One day, the man returned to the village bearing gifts: coins of precious metal, jewelry, tapestries, bolts of expensive fabric; so many gifts that they filled an entire room in the couple’s house. When the woman returned home from doing chores, her husband was there to greet her. “I have returned,” he said triumphantly. “Are you not happy to see me? Look, I have brought you gifts.” As the legend goes, the woman—unimpressed—walked into the room where the gifts were splayed out and proceeded to defecate all over them. “What are you doing?!” the husband cried out. “Why do you shit over everything I have brought you?” “This is for the thirty years you have shit on me,” she responded before walking away. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 231 7 A writer for Macedonia, an illustrated review for ex-patriots from Macedonia, places Macedonians along with the Jews as being “among the most migrated nations in the world” (Tanaskova 2000:38). Drawing a similar parallel between Macedonians and Jews, an outspoken Macedonian emigre who lives in Germany, but returns often to Macedonia, has suggested that a repatriation city be established in Macedonia so that emigres can return and thus reverse the effects of the exodus away from the republic. 8 From 1990 to 1997, 50,000 predominantly young, skilled workers and university graduates emigrated from Macedonia. In a 2004 opinion poll, 80% of graduate students surveyed planned to emigrate after receiving their diplomas. 9 Macedonia’s agricultural sector suffered challenging setbacks following independence in 1991. The transition from state-managed to market-oriented production proved formidable enough without the further negative impact caused by Macedonia’s loss of former markets in Yugoslavia. By 2003, however, the agricultural and processing industries accounted for 25% of Macedonia’s overall GDP. Slavko Petrov, the Republic’s Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy at the time these statistics were reported, went on record stating that there was a direct correlation between the agricultural sector’s rising strength and both the reduction of the poverty rate, on the one hand, and a concomitant improvement of living standards in rural areas and the weakening of social tensions throughout the country. Efforts to increase the visibility and viability of Macedonian agricultural products on the world market have made their way onto the Internet, where local farmers can enhance their contact and collaboration with domestic and international associations. 1 0 Some say Pajdusko means ‘The Drunken Dance.’ u Pnina Werbner’s work amongst British Pakistani Asian Muslims suggests that members of diasporic public spheres react as they do in response to global media events precisely because the diasporic public sphere they have created is perceived as a sphere of freedom that “does not have a direct impact on world affairs” (Werbner 1998:17). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FIGURE 11: Another one showing off his juggling skills Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 233 CHAPTER 6: A STAGE (ACT H) Scene One: A Call to Dance Cast: Choreocritic, 3 female igraorci, ensemble o f musicians The back wall o f a dark stage suddenly falls under dramatic lighting, revealing a gallery o f photographs. Not snapshots, but gorgeous, large-format portraits o f dancers in motion from ten, twenty, thirty years ago or more. Trophies are stacked on top o f display cases filled with medals, letters o f invitation, certificates o f congratulations, and all sorts o f other paraphernalia collected over the years from across Europe, Asia, and North America. The musicians enter upstage right and set up in the corner. The dancers walk onto the stage, dressed for rehearsal. Workout pants, t-shirts, flat-footed, black Chinese slipper shoes, etc. A tight plastic garment peaks out from underneath the heavier girl’ s sweat pants. All three have cinched their waists with leather straps just in case they need to grab one another as they dance. The clarinet player trills the first few notes o f a suite o f dance songs, and the rest o f the ensemble joins in. Their playing is lively, quick, and merry. MUSIC UP: Clarinet, accordion, acoustic guitar, double bass, and tapan The girls meet each other at center stage and go to join hands, but there is some confusion as to who will dance in which position. Each has her favorite spot. The older, more experienced o f the three enjoys the freedom o f being last, keeping the line in check by curling the tail in and out. Because she is a soft dancer, the others want to be next to her. They settle on an order. The long- haired brunette with the dreadlock draped delicately around the nape o f her neck takes the lead. She begins circling the open line counterclockwise into a series o f warm-up exercises. As they dance, the girls react to the Choreocritic’ s text. Choreocritic’ s voice on tape, “ reading” Dancers in Chorus: her text: Despite the idiosyncrasies of personal life histories, remarkable consistencies entwine the stories dancers tell about what Yes, we are entwined... Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. led them to the dance. For some, encouragement came from a parent or grandparent who, remembering fondly their own experience as a dancer, gently prodded their child or grandchild to attend a folklore section for beginners. For others, the prodding was not so gentle nor necessarily directed to an involvement with ‘folk dance’ per se. The mothers of these dancers just wanted their children to escape the confines of their boredom, and get involved with something. So they signed up for ‘folklore’ because their first choice was already full. Others came to the dance, encouraged neither by family nor by accident, but because they followed a friend. When you ask an Igraorka about her experiences with dancing in an ensemble, many things will come to her mind. She will remind you about the rehearsals and the friendships. This is where it all begins. She will tell you that she dances a lot, and that already the music is in her blood. Something digs into her to dance when she hears it. By locating the origins of her kinetic impulse to dance in the bloodstream, she seems to be hinting at the suggestion that Macedonians are pre-dispositioned to their music from the moment of conception. Such a reading, however, would not be accurate. Although she phrases her metaphor in the language of biology, she means to address a metaphysical process of socialization. This process, far from being inclusive, stable, or a given for that matter, begins at birth and continues through adolescence into adulthood (to various degrees, at varying intensities, or even not at all) through 234 (as the girls repeat the word “ entwined” they step across their hopping/balanced right legs with the balls o f their left feet. They shift their weight and repeat on the other side). You could say that we are entwined... but we did not understand this at first. We began to dance without knowing. Let us tell you where it begins. (The tapandzija hears his cue to accentuate a different rhythm. The girls dig their heels one at a time into the ground in front). The more you learn! (Dig right) The more you know! (Dig left) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235 one’s exposure to music on the radio and television, and at weddings, village gatherings, parties, state-sponsored events, etc. An Igraorka stands apart from others in this paradigm in the sense that the process of socialization is supplemented with years of participation in dance rehearsals and performances both set to live musical accompaniment. When she hears music, that “something” which digs in to her to stand up and dance is her additional experience with music. It has infected her with an almost innate understanding of how to respond to music when she hears it being played. The Igraorka is loyal to her calling, especially amongst friends who laugh and tell her that folk dancing is “peasant.” Despite the young age of these friends, their comments expose a lineage to a strain of thought, which had its genesis in the early 70s as the communist system began to disintegrate, incapable of effectively or efficiently competing in the emerging global economies. Faced with a flood of media communications, the easement of travel restrictions, and the encouragement of international collaborations in the arts and sciences, many Yugoslavs struggled with convincing themselves and the outside world that they were not (as their folklore suggested) villagers. Almost overnight, folkloric practices and the people who animated them with their involvement were shunned as embarrassingly archaic, stupid, and uncouth. In a word, “peasant.” Drustvo membership declined. Disco clubs held more allure than the dance halls of folklore ensembles. Rock-n-roll superceded an interest in traditional music. (The girls release hands and twirl their bodies 360 ° with out losing step with the music). The more you learn! (Dig right) The more you know! (Dig left) Mmmmm... peasant... (the clarinet player shifts the mood into a new song. As they think over the word ‘ peasant, ’ the dancers come down o ff the balls o f their feet and start dancing flat-footed. Village style). (Still not happy with the word ‘ peasant, ’ the girls go back up on the balls o f their feet, dancing faster/more intricately. They hardly notice the strain on their ankles and calves). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 236 The Igraorka is aware that folkloric practices continue to be conflated with the pejorative usage of “peasant,” evidential in the remarks of others that “intellectuals are not interested in folklore,” “folklore is a venue for the lower and middle classes,” and “the kids who join [drustva] are first- generation urbanites.” By deploying the word “peasant,” the Igraorka references these connotations and conflations. But it is clear that she is uncomfortable not only with the suggestion that she is involved with something archaic and uncouth, but how such a suggestion positions her vis-a-vis her own socio-economic status. Contrary to persistent stereotypes, a large majority of Skopje’s ensemble dancers are not first-generation urbanites, nor—if their parents’ occupations as economists, lawyers, dentists, nurses, restaurant owners, and engineers are any indication—are they coming to folklore exclusively from the lower- to middle- classes. The Igraorka is sure to divulge that the opportunity for travel, while not her sole reason for initially joining an ensemble, presents an irresistible incentive for her to stick with it, despite practicing the same handful of choreographies week after week, year after year. Because of her involvement, she has been “everywhere” by her estimation, confronting the world outside of Macedonia, developing friendships and crushes, and picking up (along the way) something to brag about to peers who question the importance of what she does. She is a consummate performer, drawn to the stage and to the ritual of Lower class?... (they giggle). First-generation urbanites?... (more giggles). Archaic and uncouth? (the dancers dismiss the barrage o f insults with a wrinkle o f the nose, a stomp o f the foot, and a shake o f the head. They continue to hop up and down, pivoting right and left, unfazed). Ah, the trips!... (the girls punctuate the Choreocritic's text, running after her words with the beginning step pattern ofPotrcano. Bearing weight, shifting ground. Transmigratory moves not to be denied travel, geographic interaction, or history). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237 preparation. She speaks of the pleasure she experiences applying makeup before a show. But it is clear that some stages are coveted more than others. She admits that performing for an audience of Macedonians at home does not leave her with the same visceral reaction— “THAT feeling” she calls it—as does performing for an audience abroad. As a foreigner amongst foreigners, she uses her cloak of anonymity to inspire her dancing to a level where the audience is encouraged to look at her and her ensemble and say “WOW! Where are these people from?” This kind of reaction is hard for the Igraorka to provoke from audiences back home, doting parents and grandparents notwithstanding. The deference that she expresses for Macedonian folklore is in large part conditioned and bolstered by the admiration bestowed on her by audiences abroad. She implicitly acknowledges this when she divulges, “When people tell us they like our folklore and that our folklore is rich, that gives us strength to respect more what we have.” The Igraorka imagines herself as more than a cultural ambassador. She stands as an intermediary. Her body labors to legitimize the enduring existence of Macedonians, and to provide sensuous ways of being which link the generations by keeping them in communication with one another. As she has trained her body, so too has her mind been trained. The Igraorka knows that the red and black threads woven into the costume she wears are not colors of joy or happiness, but colors of blood and slavery, darkness and suffering. She speaks of what her ancestors bore in the past. She We admit, a stage is not a stage. (On hearing the word “ anonymity” the girls swell their chests, lift their heads, and smile). If not us, who else will continue the tradition? (The ensemble changes into a beautiful melody, full o f longing. The girls are gliding across the floor, dancing as if on air, with their bodies fully efforted). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 238 knows the names of her peoples’ old conquerors. She knows the shapes of those forces which threaten her now, and she can not remain indifferent. There is something that she can not explain. Something there, deep within her diaphragm. Simply she finds herself in a place, next to someone—a dancer like her—with whom she can share the secret. Dance is an antidote to alienation. LIGHTS OUT/MUSIC OUT Entire cast moves off stage Ilinden III: “The question of whether to be or not!” The Republic of Macedonia’s split from Yugoslavia began to mobilize in ‘the Macedonian spring’ of 1989 as the spread of pluralism throughout Eastern Europe and the initiation of economic reforms within Yugoslavia threatened the legitimacy of the federation’s top-down hierarchy (Mircev 2001:203). When Macedonia joined Croatia and Slovenia in boycotting a special congress of the Yugoslav League of Communists in May 1990, the effect on the Macedonian public was “cathartic” in the sense that it “caused an immediate discharge of the party elite,” a “massive conversion and migration of the membership to... newly established parties,” and “a reconsideration of the position of Macedonia in the federation” (ibid.:204). Multi-party elections held in Macedonia in November 1990 resulted in a new parliament and a new president, Kiro Gligorov, and the unanimous adoption of a Declaration on the Sovereignty o f the Republic, a document that stressed that We know, and yes, it is true... We can not remain idifferent. Sshh... (the girls come to a halt). Dance is an antidote to alienation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239 ‘Macedonia is a sovereign state that autonomously decides on the future relations with the states of the other nations in Yugoslavia.’ In other words, if inter-nation relations were to turn un-democratic or Macedonia's sovereignty were to be threatened, the Macedonian parliament could peremptorily adopt full constitutional independence for the republic (Mircev 2001:206). Perhaps presciently sensing that Macedonia's complete independence from Yugoslavia would be wrought with serious challenges—an independent Macedonia would be a small country, land-locked, and without a military to defend itself—Gligorov worked in concert with the president of Bosnia-Hercegovina to preserve Yugoslavia. Many Macedonians believe that if Croatia and Slovenia had not voted to secede as they eventually did, Macedonia would have been content to remain under the status quo. That status quo was, of course, violently challenged as Croatia and Slovenia, and later Bosnia-Hercegovina, became the bloody battlefields for Yugoslavia’s secessionist wars. Already grappling with the question of whether to be or not, Macedonia now had to worry about how to keep itself out of the wars up north while also maintaining peace at home. Still a constituent republic of Yugoslavia, Macedonia continued to send its sons into service with the Yugoslav People’s Army. Because Yugoslavia was at war, and because military service during the Yugoslav period was always fulfilled in a republic other than one’s own,1 army conscripts from Macedonia were finding themselves fighting along the frontlines, and being singled out and ordered by their commanding officers from Belgrade to perform “suicide missions.”2 The high cost Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 240 of remaining tethered to Yugoslavia hit home by May 1991 when Saso Gesovski, a young soldier from Kavardarci, Macedonia, was killed by a crowd of rioters who were demonstrating against the Yugoslav army in the city of Split along Croatia’s Adriatic coast. Macedonians watched the images on their television screens, as the tin coffins carrying the bodies of 34 other soldiers killed along the frontline began arriving to Skopje every two to three days. Gligorov cancelled a trip to Toronto in order to attend Gesovski’s funeral. Also present that day was a colonel from the Yugoslav army who had been sent by Belgrade to address the mourners. “Yugoslavia must be defended... Everyone will be defeated,” the colonel began (cf. Gligorov 2002:186). “Later,” Gligorov recalls, “the officer turned to the [Gesovski] family with the following words: ‘Don’t be sorry that you have lost a son, he fell in order to save Yugoslavia.’ ” Neither the mourners nor the general public were convinced that day. By the summer of 1991, in an unified tenor of disapprobation, the mothers and sisters of Macedonian soldier’s stationed up north organized a protest meeting in front of the government Assembly in Skopje. Three- to four-thousand protesters gathered that day, demanding just one thing. “Return our children to us!” they shouted in unison, over and over. Gligorov recounts their act of resistance almost with an air of pride. “It was really an exciting scene... ” (2002:192). Gligorov sent his vice-president, a young Ljupco Georgievski, to assure the women that their sons would no longer be sent to the frontlines, and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241 that, in fact, never again would a son of Macedonia be conscripted into the Yugoslav army. “Return our children to us!” the crowd continued unabated. Not until Gligorov himself emerged from his office and gave his word to the thousands gathered, did the message and tone of the protest shift in consolation. “Hooray!” the crowd began to yell. Faced with two choices—one of which was to push for a re-grouping of Yugoslavia into a newly-formed commonwealth of republics; the other, to outright resist the Serb-dominated powerbase in Belgrade, bringing war to Macedonia just as sure as it had been brought to Croatia and Bosnia— Gligorov exercised an alternative, go-it-alone stance from which there would be no turning back. Georgievski, together with fellow Macedonian and SFRJ President, Vasil Tupurkovski, dispatched to Belgrade to deliver news of Macedonia’s disagreement with Serbian policies, and to order that Yugoslavia relinquish its hold on Macedonian soldiers. Georgievski and Tupurkovski returned to Skopje, having succeeded on both accounts. With the Macedonian people behind him, Gligorov ordered the Yugoslavs out of Macedonia.4 “Take whatever you think is yours, and just leave,” he said. And the Yugoslavs did just that, over the course of a long withdrawal that lasted into the spring of 1992, several months after Macedonia's September 8, 1991 referendum on sovereignty and the Sobranje ’ s (Parliament’s) Declaration of Independence on September 18. As the 40,000-member Yugoslav army garrison Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 242 withdrew personnel and equipment from Skopje, military barracks were smashed up and stripped of their belongings, right down to their light sockets. Yugoslav soldiers had their weapons cocked and pointed in a defensive posture as they left. “At the slightest provocation, the Yugoslavs would certainly have started a war,” a friend remembers. “But in place of provocation, we lined the streets, and waved the soldiers good-bye.” Macedonia's independence sparked a paradigm shift in politico-economic and socio-cultural realities. In chapters two and five I dealt with some of these shifting verities by calling attention to how independence re-awakened the “Macedonian Question,” destabilized the legitimacy of Macedonian national consciousness, and threatened the republic’s right to self-determination. All too aware of how the history I highlight and the issues I raise narrowly conform to the experiences and perspectives of ethnic Macedonians, I have qualified from the start that, in writing about Macedonian dance practices and the “culture” that surrounds them, I would privilege this interpretation. My singular focus is meant neither to rhetorically-erase the presence and vitality of Macedonia's national minorities nor to replicate any of the inequalities that often emerge when grafting a homogenous cultural community onto a territorially-bounded political unit as Macedonia's political leaders consented to doing when they drew up the republic’s constitution in 1991. Many of Macedonia's ethnic Albanians boycotted the 1991 referendum, for example, believing that an independent Macedonia was not in their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 243 best interest (Mircev 2001:223), so the post-1991 paradigm shifts to which I refer shifted much differently from their perspective.5 Rather, because I spent months developing rapport with the experiences and perspectives of people who identified themselves as Macedonians in the ethnic sense of the word, I want to stay as close as possible to them by remaining singular in my focus. With one eye glancing toward European political structures, Macedonia's new constitution established the country as a parliamentary democracy with a market economy. With the other eye focused on what Chatterjee (1993:11) calls “the old forms of the modem state,” the constitution—while providing for the protection of human rights and civil liberties for all citizens of Macedonia—surrendered to the titular nation as a source of legitimacy, designating the country as “the national state of the Macedonian people” based on “the historical, cultural, spiritual and statehood heritage of the Macedonian people and their struggle over centuries for national and social freedom, as well as for the creation of their own state.”6 Excessively nationalistic many noted at the time, especially the country’s ethnic Albanian population for whom co-existence with the Macedonian people as a national minority on even par with the Turk, Vlach, and Rom minority populations was insufficient recognition, the constitution’s excesses were, as one outside observer noted in retrospect, the intemperance of “a numerically small nationality that [had] been officially recognized for little over half a century and thus [felt] the need to assert itself.”7 Were ethnic Macedonians justified in asserting their majority status vis-a-vis the framework of the 1991 constitution? Ten years on, would ethnic Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 244 Albanian political party leaders, in consonance with the war of maneuver and position initiated by members of the NLA in 2000, be justified in demanding constitutional parity with the majority Macedonians? Would they be right to call for political reforms, to resort to violence as the means to resolving such grievances as the under-representation of ethnic Albanians in state administrative bodies? Rather than pursuing these questions, surely plunging myself into an entirely different field of inquiry, I want to probe into how independence affected the movement practices of folk dance ensembles, bearing in mind something that a friend impressed upon me: when Macedonia declared sovereignty, “all of a sudden Macedonians could no longer just compare themselves or situate themselves within a greater Yugoslavia, but now had to compare themselves or, say, Skopje, with, say, New York City. That is, they could no longer hide behind the great power of Yugoslavia in order to have a position in the world.” Learning to Limp Sunshine poured through the windows of the dance studio at the Children’s Cultural Center, Dom Karpos. For the first time in months, I can actually feel the cold of winter leaving my bones. It is the end of March already, but not since winter began has there been enough heat for my comfort. Government bureaucrats regulate Skopje’s heating grid, turning it off and on at their discretion (off when it is assumed that residents are sleeping or away at work, on at all other times), and even projecting when the “heating season” begins (October 15) and ends (April 15). My Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 245 cousin’s fiance calls it “government taking care of the people.” I call it a recipe for long, steamy showers, and far too much time spent sitting on the living room floor of our apartment with my back up against the radiator. It has not helped that during these coldest of months, I have been spending three mornings a week practicing dance at KUD Koco Racin’ s rehearsal space. To cut down on operating expenses, Koco Racin’ s director, Dobre Manasievic, turns on the studio’s electric space heaters only at night when the ensembles gather to rehearse. Dobre was kind enough to offer me the space for free, but after months of dancing and sweating in indoor temperatures cold enough to condense my breath, I am chilled to the bone, suffering from rheumatism and a lingering case of bronchitis. Thankfully, the children rollicking in for rehearsal at Dom Karpovs will experience no such discomfort. Whoever designed the studio annex knew the simple virtues of active solar heat. As the last dancer to arrive closes the door behind him, the space begins to heat up like a solarium. The folklore sections of Dom Karpos rehearse from 9 a. m. to 12 noon on Saturdays and Sundays. I have been invited to today’s Saturday rehearsal by Tofe Drakulovski, who in addition to directing Skopje’s KUD Orce Nikolov, volunteers his time on weekends to lead the grade-schoolers at Dom Karpos. The youngest of the dancers are rehearsing first. While one of Tofe’s assistants works with the girls in the hallway of the main building, Tofe is here in the annex teaching the boys a thing or two about how to find their love for Macedonian folklore. “Are you sleeping?!” Tofe growls, lurching out from his chair. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 246 At the moment, rehearsal is running with no orchestra, just Tofe on tapan. Somehow he is able to simultaneously thwack out the dance rhythms, shout out instructions, and yell at the dancers every time one of them makes a mistake. Feigning anger, Tofe walks over to a few of the boys, and with his pracka (thin tapan stick) gently “hits” them over the head or rear-end. “Do you understand?! What language do you understand?!” The boys flinch more at the sound of Tofe’s imposing voice than out of any real fear that he might hurt them. “Do you want me to speak another language? French? Italian? American?!” “Italian!” one brave, little boy blurts out. “How ‘bout the language of the stick?!” Tofe snaps back with a poker face that quickly melts into a smile and a wink. The boys burst out laughing. Tofe has special affection for his work at Dom Karpos. Long before dancing with the railroad drustvo, long before leaving his career as an igraorec with Tanec to begin his career as a dentist, and long before dedicating his spare time to teaching future generations of igraorci, Tofe danced at Dom Karpos. This is where he got his start as an eighth-year-old, just two years after his parents brought the family to Skopje from the village of Lazaropole where Tofe was bom. Though now in his sixties, Tofe comes across as being able to relate to what it is like to be young, rhythmically undisciplined, and learning to dance for the first time. He keeps his Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 247 expectations simple: hold the childrens’ attention long enough to teach them some basic dance elements; and get through the morning. Two boys at the end of the dance line have really caught my attention. They are the smallest, but they pack a lot of personality. Ivan keeps wanting to klekni when he should not. No sooner does he squat down onto the back of his heels then he realizes that no one else is doing the same move. He makes the mistake over and over, laughing at himself every time. Ivan’s friend, Toni, is just as unintentionally entertaining to watch. Unable to control the speed of his turns, Toni exists from them and immediately falls to the ground giggling. His recovery skills are splendid, though. Somehow, using the torque of his fall, he bounces right back up without missing a beat. The remaining dancers are dealing with their own issues. Though many of them have their eyes glued on the lead dancer’s every move, they do not appear to be benefiting from it. Something happens to the movement from the time it takes for them to see it, and then copy it with their own bodies. A few of the boys completely forgo looking at their leader at all, preferring instead to take their chances on another fellow dancer; the problem being, that this boy is off to their left. As the dancers rubberneck their heads back, breaking their forward momentum, the dance line drags, bunches up, and then pulls apart. Ivan ends up being blamed for the train wreck. Tofe scolds him for not doing his job at the end. Ivan looks down, the smile disappears from his face. Rehearsal continues, but Toni, noticing Ivan’s disappointment, tugs at his friend’s hand hoping to cheer him up. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 248 After a while, the door to the studio opens up and the girls come running in to join the boys. Tofe does his best to make order out of the commotion. “Slusajte, decata, slusajteY’ Listen up, kids! “Ajde, sakam site zaedno.” Come on, I want everyone together. The children join hands and make an attempt to dance a simple dance together. I blink and rehearsal is over. With the studio in chaos again, a sweet girl with pale-blue eyes and long, light-brown hair catches Tofe’s attention. Cupping her chin in his hand, he makes certain that I notice her, too. “Look how beautiful she is!” he adds for good measure. The adorable, young children are whisked away by their parents and replaced with slightly older children on the brink of middle school. The new batch of girls segregates itself to the far end of the studio. The boys congregate to the right, snapping each other with their leather dance belts and fidgeting with the flat tin trays that are used as props in the choreography that Tofe apparently wants to concentrate on this morning. “Bam!” One of the trays slips from someone’s grip and crashes to the parquet floor. Martin, a small but stylishly dressed boy, breaks away from his peers to try his luck with the girls. What a tiny flirt. After high-fiving each of the girls, Martin settles on three of them in particular, each with at least six inches on him, talking to them and tickling their ears. “ Ajde da igrameV’ Let’s dance! Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 249 Tofe hollers out for rehearsal to start on “Kalajdzisko,” Atanas Kolarovski’s 1956 guild dance about women who deliver damaged pots and pans to tinsmiths, who, under the watchful eye of their cane-bearing boss, repair the household goods. The female leader-—in her position only because she is the tallest—dances with little enthusiasm. The boys are much livelier, especially as they negotiate the choreography’s tricky, iconic movement phrase, jumping with both feet onto the trays, swiveling their hips first left, then right, jumping off and then back on again. A few of the boys from the previous rehearsal have stayed for this one and are doing much better dancing with the more experienced group. Toni has taken Ivan’s position at the end. By now used to my presence, he catches my eye from time to time, and watches me intently as he reaches past me for his water bottle during breaks in the choreography. Lele, Boze. Oh, my God. Something startles me in my peripheral vision. Out of nowhere, Toni has broken into an air guitar solo and is now slapping his hands furiously over an imaginary tarabuka. I cannot imagine what music he is listening to in his head. There is still no orchestra for rehearsal. Only a guitarist, who plays very little on his instrument, and an accordion player, who knows none of the songs that Tofe asks him to play. “ Ajde, begajV’ Tofe growls at the duet. “Go on, get out. And go learn some songs!” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 250 Those Macedonians both involved with folklore and old enough to remember the events that started to snowball from 1989 on, speak of independence as having sparked a revival of pride in all facets of their ethnic and cultural heritage. A friend, clarifying and paraphrasing a pervading sentiment, determines that “it wasn’t a time for finding an identity, but with the referendum the time had come to re-confirm and re-affirm to the world who and what we were.” There is evidence here that as Macedonia fought on the political front to assert itself—to “have a position in the world” as a political fact—Macedonians, following the history lesson that they and other Balkan peoples had learned long ago, once again looked to the value of “their” cultural imprint as “a means of struggle for national existence and survival,” to re quote Majstorovic (1972:14) from Chapter 3. In the field of linguistics, a concerted effort to rid the Macedonian language of Serbianisms developed. Publishing houses “sprang up overnight” as thousands of new books on Macedonian history, art, and culture were introduced to the reading public. The Macedonian Orthodox Church, although still to this day officially unrecognized by the Eastern Orthodox communion of churches, regained control of its churches and monasteries after decades under the Serbian Church’s “smothering big brotherly hug” (Clark 2000:110). Macedonian Orthodox chant was researched and revived. Within the span of two years, forty priests were confirmed, and two hundred monks and nuns were established throughout the country. In the arts, choral ensembles and the national philharmonic began exclusively presenting the works of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 251 Macedonian composers. A similar movement exerted its influence in theater with the presentation of new works by Macedonian playwrights. What was the affect on dance? I see two relevant ways in which independence affected, if not the actual movement practices of folk dance ensembles, then certainly the general framework in which they operated. For one, ensembles turned in on themselves. Tanec, for example, removed from its repertoire any remaining minority dances, including those from the other Yugoslav republics that it was previously mandated to perform, and re-focused its efforts on presenting only Macedonian choreographies. The company’s refocus trickled down to amateur drustva who followed suit by performing an ethno-centric repertoire. For another, the economic duress that followed independence severely limited the financial support that ensembles received and thus forced ensembles, if they wanted to continue their activities, to assume a role previously unfamiliar to them: that of being “commercial organizations.” In the next two sections of this chapter, I follow these affects of independence into a context of debate and reflection contemporaneous with the time of my fieldwork stay. I begin by emphasizing the economic challenges of maintaining a driistvo in an economic (and some would argue, political) climate that seems hostile to such an endeavor. Strapped for money, how do ensemble directors assess the value of their work let alone the value of upholding Macedonian cultural identity through folk dance and music? Then I turn to a consideration of the impulse(s) that fueled the exclusion of non-Macedonian dance and music Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 252 choreographies from Tanec's repertoire. Was it the ethos of cultural revival or cultural hegemony that swayed the decision? How does the presence and activity of a national ensemble such as Tanec stand in juxtaposition to what were, in 2000 and 2001, cultural policies that stressed multiculturalism? The Economics of Cultural Survival In the two years I have known Dobre Manasievic, I have never known him to sit still for very long. Managing one of Macedonia's premier KUDs is hard work, and Dobre by necessity is a consummate multi-tasker: running rehearsals for Koco Racin’ s advanced ensemble, overseeing the other two, working the phones, holding meetings, writing letters, sending faxes and e-mails. I have never been able to pin down Dobre for more than a few minutes, so the fact that he is motionless, almost pensive, is an uncharacteristic experience for me. “I should be learning these dances with you,” he finally speaks up, addressing me, my friend Maria, and our dance teacher Vase Robev. For close to three weeks now, Vase, a folklorist, former igraorec/KUD director and friend to Dobre, has been teaching me and Maria some of the original dances upon which so many of the choreographed ones are based. I can hardly believe that Dobre would need to join our class. Although we have been picking up on the dances fairly quickly, Maria and I are still beginners. But Dobre? Dobre has been involved with Koco Racin for thirty years, first as a dancer, then as an instructor and choreographer, and now (since 1985) as the managing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 253 director of the drustvo. During the Yugoslav era, Dobre would go to Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia to teach Macedonian dances, his circle of influence growing considerably wider as the years passed. These days, Dobre holds seminars in Japan, England, or wherever Koco Racin is on tour. He travels on his own, too. Just a few months ago Dobre was in France for four weeks, presenting twenty-one traditional dances from Macedonia under the official title ofpoznavac (connoisseur). Now, after all this experience and involvement with Macedonian folk dance, does Dobre really mean to be suggesting that he should be spending a chilly November morning here with us at Koco Racin’ s studio, learning dances that he most likely already knows? “I should be learning these dances,” he repeats, “but I can’t.” I have already made reference to how Macedonia's independence in 1991 engendered a re-naissance of cultural pride for Macedonians. As a result, there was a push for inclusion into new worldwide networks of cultural institutions. The Society of Folk Ensembles of Macedonia (SOFAM), for example, was formed by 1992 to act as the intermediary between drustva and CIOFF, the UNESCO-backed International Council of the Organization of Festivals, Folklore and Traditional Arts. SOFAM membership assured that Macedonia's ensembles would have access not only to CIOFF’s network of 137 recognized international festivals, but to its various other activities, too, such as conferences, seminars, and action programs. The aim was to help Macedonia affirm its cultural identity, project and further it through international exchanges. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 254 Yet, dancing in parallel with these positive advances were some harsh negative setbacks. After independence, “the heart” may have returned as one friend puts it, but “the pocketbooks were empty.” When President Gligorov ordered Yugoslavia to take what it thought belonged to it and just leave, not only did the Yugoslav army strip the military barracks down to their light sockets, but banking officials seized money from the state-owned banks, ostensibly confiscating the republic’s storehouse of economic capital and divesting thousands of Macedonians of their savings. Vase lost around $20,000, the equivalent of eleven years of salary for a general worker or seven years of rent on a typical two-bedroom apartment.8 Serbian and Greek blockades cinched the noose even tighter, and pushed Macedonia's industrial sector into a whirlpool of declining economic strength that either capsized or sank everything in its wake. Subsequently, Macedonia's cultural sector, which had always relied upon the government in partnership with industry for its support, experienced the country’s “economic strangulation” as a decrease in funding. Especially hard hit were the country’s KUDs. Prior to independence, the annual budget for a drustvo the caliber of KUD Koco Racin made allowances for one paid director/manager such as Dobre at $150 a month plus whatever else the ensemble requested for the year depending on: the ensemble’s touring schedule of festivals; costume and instrument needs; maintenance, reconstruction and/or expansion costs for the physical premises occupied by the drustvo. “No budget under $10,000 was ever denied,” according to two ensemble managers, even in the 1980s as the Yugoslav system began to lose Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 255 strength, and a patina of nostalgia began to gild people’s memories, causing them to speak about the present as something far and away removed from those bygone years that for them represented the Golden Age of drustva. After independence, KUDs found themselves re-categorized as “commercial organizations” and having to shoulder the displacement of financial burden virtually on their own.9 By 1995, the country’s continuing economic crisis forced the government to severely curtail its subsidies to ensembles even more. Only Skopje’s primary drustva—KUD Koco Racin, KUD Mirce Acev, and KUD Orce Nikolov—continued to receive funding, yet even this financial support amounted to only one $150 a month salary. No sooner did Macedonia slowly begin to recover, then the country was faced with other crises: the NATO bombings of Kosovo in 1999, and the influx from Kosovo of Albanian and Rom refugees. In 2000, the Ministry of Culture reorganized its budget and stopped providing even the $150 a month subsidies, leaving the big three, in addition to the dominant three minority drustva— Emin Daraku (Albanian), Pralipe (Rom), and Adana (Turkish)—with upwards of only 100,000 denar (roughly $1500) per year (if requested) for specific festivals or projects. Invariably, this money gets devoured by day-to-day operating costs: utility bills, building maintenance, office supplies, payments to musicians, things that Macedonia's industrial sector used to cover. Yet, as manufacturing plants have been privatized, liquidated or sold off, so too has sponsorship dwindled or dried up entirely, leaving ensembles no recourse but to come up with other means to scrape by. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 256 Some ensembles have to scrape by more than others. The first time I visited Skopje’s KUD Goce Delcev, the ensemble’s rehearsal studio at MKC (the Mladenski Kulturen Centar) reeked of beer and cigarettes. It was a Monday evening. An all- night rave concert held over the weekend had left the studio—a cavernous, multi purpose space shared by a host of organizations housed at MKC—defiled with garbage, broken glass, and even some used needles. I stood, visibly shocked, with Vaska, one of the KUDs teachers, who herself was visibly shocked and embarrassed too that this would be my first impression of the drustvo. “What a place for these kids to be,” she sighed as the young members of her second ensemble began trickling in for rehearsal. When Vaska’s colleague, Dimitar, arrived about a half hour later to run rehearsal with his advanced ensemble, he immediately started complaining about how the director of MKC keeps taking space away from the KUD. “We used to have a studio with a nice, bouncy wood floor,” Dimitar assures me. “But now we have to deal with this place upstairs, and with the uncertainty that comes with not having a stable place to rehearse.” Vaska and Dimitar would no doubt consider themselves and “their kids” quite fortunate were they and KUD Goce Delcev to receive what little Dobre and KUD Koco Racin receive. In the hands of the right manager, even a small amount of support can reap a snowball effect of benefit and reward. Like KUD Koco Racin, KUD Goce Delcev has access to CIOFF so long as the ensemble is a member of SOFAM. Membership, however, costs roughly $300 a year, and access to CIOFF Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 257 (vis-a-vis membership in SOFAM) does not necessarily pay off in the form of immediate dividends. Only CIOFF qualified ensembles can participate at CIOFF festivals. The only way to become a CIOFF qualified ensemble is to receive a high rating at a CIOFF festival. The only way for an ensemble to receive a high enough rating is to be sufficiently funded at home so as to be an ensemble that is well- managed and well-rehearsed. Because Koco Racin is just such an ensemble, SOFAM sends a majority of CIOFF invitations its way, thus creating a kind of cul- de-sac of financial support and physical preparedness that is hard for less fortunate ensembles to break into. Still, even for the fortunate ones, the loss of funding has lead ensembles away from researching material for new choreographies. Instead of growing and enriching their activities, they are merely surviving and recycling the same handful of stylized dances.1 0 Furthermore, just as the government has shifted financial burdens onto the drustva, so too have KUDs had to pass along costs to its members. KUD dancers pay to be involved; they pay to attend rehearsals and to perform at festivals abroad. Public concerts have to be organized domestically to raise money through ticket sales. Hence the Koco Racin concert just a few nights ago. Dobre had seemed so happy the morning after, picking up the thick wad of tickets that had been collected at the entrance door. “This,” he said, flipping through the wad and no doubt calculating in his mind how much “money” he was holding in his hand, “this is the key to financial Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 258 success—having these children’s ensembles perform—because the whole family buys tickets.” Yet now, watching Vase, Maria, and I enjoying ourselves immensely as we dance, telling us “I should really be learning these dances with you” (when really what he means to say is “Why can’t I enjoy myself with a little dancing, too?”), Dobre is wondering at what cost financial “success” comes. The concert the other night was not what one would call a review of Macedonian folklore. Rather it was a kitschy blend of theatrics—part dance recital, part variety show—with appearances by Aleksandar Sarievski (a Macedonian folk singer and cultural icon), a female singer in a tight black nightclub-like dress, and a comic who entertained the crowd in between acts with political jokes and imitations of Vaska Ilieva (another Macedonian folk singer and cultural icon). When Dobre goes to France or Sweden or Germany to teach traditional dances and choreographies to Macedonian emigre dance ensembles, he goes to keep his activism alive, to hand down his knowledge, and pass along his love for Macedonian folklore. Yet he goes also with something much heavier on his mind—keeping Koco Racin alive. To teach abroad means to be paid according to the host country’s standard of living, which is to say that when he goes abroad Dobre is paid well for his efforts. Similarly, when Dobre says “yes” (which he does at least three times a year) to some ministry of the government to take a few of his dancers to some international gathering and, in effect, exhibit them as Macedonian culture, he Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 259 does so in order to make enough money so that more of his dancers will have a chance to go on Koco Racin's next big performance tour of, say, Canada. “I am doing what I think is right by teaching kids, finding concerts to make money so that we can tour and share our work with others,” Dobre tells Vase, Maria, and me. “But is it worth selling my soul?” Ironically, despite the security crisis, this year’s operating budget for the Ministry of Culture is the highest that it has been in years. So why does the government allow the country’s drustva to struggle economically? “I don’t know,” concedes Blagoja (Blaze) Jovanoski, the director of the university’s KUD Mirce Acev. “We have discussed this in many places, and we can’t explain it. To run away from those of us who exist. To run away from something national?” My friend, Bojan Ivanov, has an intriguing theory. A few years back—after 1998, when Prime Minister Ljupco Georgievski was newly elected—Georgievski declared that he was going to “destroy everything.” There was, of course, a relationship between his choice of words and the idea of getting rid of the communist system once and for all vis-a-vis greater decentralization and deeper economic reforms. Yet there was some relevance, too, to a renouncement of the Titoist infrastructure that had “genetically manipulated” (Troebst 2001:61) Macedonian nation-building, and had helped to encourage and legitimize Macedonian national consciousness. Georgievski, a member of VMRO (the ruling political party), harbored political persuasions that leaned east, toward Bulgaria. His election to the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 260 office of Prime Minister gave him access to the means by which to exercise his persuasions, to push Macedonia toward Bulgaria. “Georgievski got the hubcaps off,” Bojan explains, implying that prior to Georgievski’s election, there was a palpable structural force driving the country in its own direction: one of political equi-distance from its neighbors. Georgievski got the hubcaps off of that force, perhaps just by getting himself elected, “but was faced with having to unfasten by hand hundreds and hundreds of separate screws.” One of the first screws he dismantled was the one holding together Macedonia's various associations. “These societies, not only for dance but for any aspect of social life, these societies are Macedonia's identity,” Bojan argues emphatically. “No one has an individual identity in the public sphere. Always it is through a society that things are taken care of.” Bojan had used this explanation on me once before. Frustrated over recent rumors that suggested sabotage and treason as the highest government levels, I had gone to him to help me make sense of things, not the least of which was why the general public was so publicly passive in the face of so much criminal activity on the part of politicians.1 1 One of the most disturbing rumors was that the recent push to re-write the constitution was part of a larger deal, orchestrated by Georgievski and Arben Xhaferi (head of PDP—Party for Democratic Prosperity—the largest Albanian political party in Macedonia) and drafted by MANU (the Macedonian Academy of Science and Art), to re-draw the borders of the republic, giving a large swath of Western Macedonia (Tetovo and Gostivar) to Albania, and leaving the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 261 remainder of the region (Ohrid and Prespa) with the rest of Macedonia to unite with 1 ? Bulgaria. “Why aren’t people on the streets protesting?” I asked incredulously.1 3 “Because,” Bojan answered, “there is not such a strong tradition of individual dialogue here, but rather dialogue between institutions.” In this sense, by single-handedly cutting off government funding to societies, Georgievski was able to commandeer a break in that dialogue. In the midst of the ensuing decay (made even worse now with the present chaos), and without a government-supported outlet through which citizens could organize themselves and dialogue with one another, other structures could take root and possibly grow. I never did pose this theory to ensemble directors. Vase, however, believes that the decrease in funding to KUDs signifies a motive far less egregious than the one Bojan’s theory suggests. For Vase, the decrease is purely an economic response to the challenging circumstances in which Macedonia finds itself. “The Minister of Culture won’t give money to all of the folk groups because they want the ensembles to get away from that stuff and do something more modem,” he figures, the idea being that something “modem” will have more commercial appeal domestically and internationally. I am a little surprised by the conciliatory tone with which Vase speaks about a subject that tends to arouse such concern for many of his colleagues. Like his colleagues, Vase believes that Macedonian folklore—dance and music especially—is the best ambassador for the country. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 262 “If you were the Minister of Culture,” he posed to me once, “and had to make the decision between giving $5,000 to Koco Racin so that the ensemble could go to the United States on tour, or giving $10,000 to the Macedonian Philharmonic so that it could go to Vienna to perform the music of Viennese composers, to whom would you give money?” 1 4 Were he the decision maker, Vase knows where his cultural priorities would lie. Still, he concedes to the value (in the long run) of the government’s shifting priorities. “Groups are upset that money is being taken away. But I think that if we have just a few groups, then the quality will be better, and the Ministry of Culture will be able to support them the way they should be supported.” A week after my initial visit to KUD Goce Delcev, I return to a much cleaner studio and a much happier Vaska. The children seem happier, too. Vaska recognizes an unfamiliar face, and is really sweet and gentle in the way she asks the young boy who he is and why he has come. He has “danced somewhere before,” he says, and has come here tonight with his friend, a slender but athletic boy who turns out to be one of the better dancers in the group. Though this is not his first attempt at dancing, the chubby newcomer is clearly not familiar with the moves at KUD Goce v IS Delcev. He laughs at himself every time he makes a mistake, but eventually bows out of the circle. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 263 “/gray !” Dance!, Vaska yells out to him encouragingly as she thwacks on the tapan. Like a good learner, the boy heeds his teacher’s order and jumps right back into the dance alongside his friend. “I can see my character in the kids I have taught,” Vaska tells me later. “In the beginning, all they are doing is copying, and since I am the one they copy, well... ” she laughs, her words trailing off. “I yell at them and they discipline themselves, but they know that I care about them.” Caring—about the children they teach, about their roles as keepers of Macedonia's patrimony and as cultural benefactors to the next generation—is the pervasive sentiment amongst ensemble directors when pressed for reasons why they continue to persevere with their work despite the financial difficulties. “When rehearsal days come, I don’t know where else to go but to Goce Delcev,” Dimitar confesses. “We have to find a way to continue,” Tofe says in his gruff voice. “We will not allow the groups to die.” Scene Two: A Scene from the Scrimmage BLACKOUT: CHOREOCRITIC (voice over) This is a true encounter with a surreal story. The Choreocritic apologizes, clears her throat, and begins again. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 264 CHOREOCRITIC (voice over) This is a surreal encounter with a true story. FADE IN: INTERIOR: TV STUDIO IN SKOPJE, MACEDONIA Props are set up for taping of latest skit by the K-15 comedy troupe.1 6 As CAMERA tracks away from wide-shot of several men, we see five of them: THE MACEDONIAN, THE ALBANIAN, THE SERB, THE TURK, and THE ROM. All are wearing their national costume and seem to be awaiting instructions from: BIG MAN—corpulent, local figure. Sits behind a desk. Looks to be the kind of man who hangs on to his fading, largely symbolic importance in society by creating the illusion that he’s in charge. Does this mostly by talking the loudest. Recently known as “The Stooge” by... WESTERN CHOREOGRAPHER—dangerous looking, stone-faced. Wears dark, designer sunglasses. The full view of his presence is blocked by the red and gold flag of the Republic of Macedonia. Also known as “The Secret Weapon.” A SIGN READS: Today Only! Open Auditions for New Folk Dance Ensemble! Big Man barks first at The Macedonian. BIG MAN What do you do?! THE MACEDONIAN I dance. BIG MAN What dance do you do?! THE MACEDONIAN I don’t know. I don’t know what dance I do. But we’ve been doing it for 500 years! Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 265 BIG MAN Okay! Okay! Let’s see the dance. MUSIC UP: The Macedonian dances an oro. Simple steps. Open chest. Arms raised in a proud position. The oro ends. MUSIC OUT: BIG MAN Okay! Okay! What can you tell me about this dance?! THE MACEDONIAN (really intent) Well. It’s two steps forward... BIG MAN (leans in closer) Yes, yes! Go on! THE MACEDONIAN ... and then three steps back. Big Man snaps. BIG MAN So basically you’ve been standing in one place for 500 years!! Okay! Okay! Go stand there and wait! Big Man scribbles some notes on a pad of paper, and without glancing up shouts: BIG MAN Neeeeext! The Albanian steps forward. Big Man looks up. BIG MAN What do you do?! THE ALBANIAN I dance. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 266 BIG MAN What dance do you do?! THE ALBANIAN I dance the Sota. BIG MAN Okay! Okay! Let’s see it! MUSIC UP: The Albanian begins the Sota. He crouches forward. Moves cautiously. Bobs up and down. There’s a cell phone in his hand. It dislodges from his grip and goes hurling across the room.1 The Serb lunges to catch it. BIG MAN (waving his arms impatiently) Okay! Okay! I’ve seen enough! MUSIC CUTS OUT: Big Man calms down. And continues: BIG MAN What can you tell me about this dance?! THE ALBANIAN This dance is Sota. It comes from the Old Days when we had big families and were uncivilized—not like the way we are now—and the father, late at night when he had to go pee, he had to tiptoe and squat and crouch over all the sleeping bodies, and duck if someone woke up and caught him. Suddenly The Serb steps forward out of turn. He’s got his thumbs stuck up underneath his armpits. BIG MAN (looking irritated) Take your thumbs out! The Serb takes his thumbs out. An unbearable odor is released into the air. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 267 BIG MAN Put your thumbs back! The dancers wait for their next instructions. BIG MAN Okay! Okay! Everybody in a line! You dance together now to see who will be “Leader of the Oro”! Everybody lines up and holds hands. Big Man starts the music. It’s a big mess. No one is dancing the same dance. BIG MAN Stop! Stop! Big Man is angry. BIG MAN (continuing in a threatening voice) If you don’t shape up... I’m gonna have to call in “The Secret Weapon”! The dancers fidget and look around at each other nervously. BIG MAN Okay! Okay! Again! Everybody lines up like before. They hold hands. Big Man puts on the same music. It’s still a mess. They’re all over the place. The dancers still can’t get it together. A shadowy figure shuffles around in the background. He steps forward into the light. WESTERN CHOREOGRAPHER What seems to be the problem? Big Man makes room for his buddy, AKA “The Secret Weapon.” BIG MAN These guys are worthless! They can’t dance together! Western Choreographer brushes aside Big Man. He swaggers toward the dancers, and in a John Wayne voice says: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 268 WESTERN CHOREOGRAPHER The problem is... you’re not playing... the right music... Everybody!! Ears perk up. Everybody snaps to attention. WESTERN CHOREOGRAPHER Okay! Everyone now! Assume the Staying Alive Position!! The men quickly hop to it and strike the position that John Travolta made famous in Saturday Night Fever. Left hip pushed to the side. Right arm pointed up and out. WESTERN CHOREOGRAPHER Music! MUSIC UP: A THUMPING, INFECTIOUS DISCO BEAT WESTERN CHOREOGRAPHER One! Two! Ready! Go! On cue, the men have started shaking their hips feverishly, reaching up and down diagonally across their bodies with their right arms. WESTERN CHOREOGRAPHER One! Two! Three! Four! One! Two! Three! Four! The dancers are hypnotized by the music and by Western Choreographer. Even Big Man. The music swells. Like Pavlovian dogs the dancers follow their new “Leader of the Oro” into the song’s familiar chorus: ENTIRE ENSEMBLE (singing and dancing in unison) Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Staying alive. Staying alive. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Staying aliiiiiiiiive! Staying alive! LIGHTS OUT Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 269 Reproducing the State: Cultural Revival, “National Culture,” Cultural Hegemony? As I write this section of my dissertation, taking up for consideration how Macedonia's independence affected the decision by Tanec to perform an ethno centric repertoire, I am re-visiting the transcript of a lengthy conversation I had with Vase Robev when I returned to Macedonia in August of 2002 after a one-year absence. Much had transpired in that time. Vase had suffered a mild stroke, and per doctor’s orders was having to watch his diet and refrain from smoking. “I’ve had to change my life around to keep myself ‘happy’,” he chuckled, somewhat begrudgingly, as I gave him a hug. Macedonia was attempting to change its life around too. The Ohrid Framework Agreement, which had put an end (at least on paper) to seven months of fighting between ethnic Albanian insurgents and Macedonian security forces, was already almost a year old. A package of minority-rights bills had recently been ratified, and the country was doing its best to imagine a different kind of community for itself. Yet, sporadic shooting continued in some parts of Western Macedonia. September 11th had happened, too, creating both new ruptures and challenges for Macedonia, and fresh insights and indictments regarding the events of the previous year. During these events, Macedonian authorities had maintained that Islamic militants from outside of the Balkans were fighting alongside the ethnic Albanian separatists. Western officials had dismissed these claims, despite evidence to the 18 contrary, raising the specter that there was something going on beneath the surface. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 270 Since 1996, U.S. oil giants, Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco, had been envisioning a trans-Balkan pipeline that could carry oil from the Caspian and Black seas westward to the Adriatic through Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania. In order for the “AMBO” pipeline to be built, the corridor would first need to be secured and cleansed of competing European interests. Could last year’s security crisis have been a ruse, a covert war instigated by Washington to militarize the corridor and gain geopolitical control of the region? I did not arrange my meeting with Vase in order to discuss these things, but rather to talk about Teslcoto, and Vase’s experience with dancing it over the years in different contexts. Yet, it is clear from the transcript, and from the trajectory of our conversation, that the events of last year were still fresh on our minds. Reading over our conversation has furthered my reflections on both the post-1991 impulses that fueled the exclusion of non-Macedonian choreographies from Tanec’ s repertoire, and the disjunctive of “national” culture and identity. While a full “reading” of our conversation would bring up topics that lie outside the purview of my research project, I nonetheless do want to initiate some preliminary thoughts. Our conversation was conducted in English and in the presence of my husband, who quickly became an active participant. I pick up on our conversation about halfway through, and begin here with an excerpt that touches upon the pervasive idea that folklore is the ideal ambassador for Macedonia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 271 August 7 , 2002, an apartment in Skopje’ s Aerodrom neighborhood Gaelyn: When I would talk to people last year, well people involved with folklore at any rate, many of them would tell me that folklore is the best ambassador for Macedonia. Vase: It is. Any other thing that you do to represent Macedonia is an imitation. For example, we have ballad groups, we have the Kameran Orkestar [Chamber Orchestra], the Violin Philharmonic. They go to festivals for that kind of music. And ballet, it goes there. What do you do? What do you show? You show Strauss to the Austrians. So you imitate. So you are not doing something that is yours. It is not uncommon to come across metaphors of possession when one speaks of what separates his or her “community” from another. “Nations and ethnic groups prove their existence and their worth by cherishing their property,” writes Richard Handler (1991:67), “hence the proliferation of museums and historic-preservation legislation, as well as the competition among nations, including relatively impoverished ones,[1 9 ] to demonstrate that they have truly ‘world-class’ cultural monuments and museums”; world-class folklore, too, in the case of Macedonia.2 0 “Wherever we go in the world, we are the best,” I heard unfailingly from ensemble directors and dancers alike. Why jeopardize this standing in the world by simply imitating something that some other nation already possesses for itself? Vase cannot imagine a better ambassador for Macedonia than folklore (dance and music), because Macedonian folklore—arguably the most visual, kinetic, and aural form of expression to constitute the Macedonian nation—is one thing that Macedonians can do better than anyone else. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 272 G: Well I have a question about that then. In light of everything that happened last year, and how the Constitution was changed, if folklore is the best ambassador for Macedonia and if groups—say Tanec or KUD Orce Nikolov—are going outside of Macedonia showing dances that purportedly represent the country, yet are pretty much just representative of dance traditions from the Macedonian ethnic group.... I mean Tanec is not doing any Serbian dances on behalf of the Serbian people who live here. Same for the Albanian or the Roma populations. So how can Tanec and these groups go abroad and claim to represent Macedonia when it is not representing all of Macedonia? V: The reason is more political than artistic. I remember very well [when I was a member of] Orce Nikolov in the 50s we had in our repertoire some Albanian dances, some Turk, Gypsy, Serbian, and Croatian dances. But now after independence on our stage and in our performances you can’t see anything but Macedonian dances. That you can explain only as some political decision. We never had our independence. We were always under some command. ‘Do that, do this, because of that, because of this.’ Now we’re free, we’re independent and we can do what we want. And this is the only explanation. There is no other. It’s difficult for the Western world to see the way we see that, but it’s a feeling that we have in us. We never felt free. In writing about national folk dance ensembles in newly-independent states, Shay (2002:11) calls attention to how a dominant ethnic group, though itself “earlier marginalized by colonial powers,” to some extent will “replace the colonial project of hegemony by further marginalizing an array of ethnic groups in the newly reformed, postcolonial state.” In as much as “Serbia’s imperial mimesis,” to re-visit Sarkanjac (2001a:65), “functioned as the center of power” for Macedonia prior to its independence, it would seem true, as Shay suggests, that in constitutionally defining post-Yugoslav Macedonia as “the national state of the Macedonian people,” Macedonians were in fact displacing their own previous marginalization onto others in the republic’s new post-1991 framework. Within Shay’s paradigm, a national folk Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 273 dance ensemble has all the potential of becoming a vehicle by which exclusionary state priorities and prejudices can be manifested. Is it plausible, then, to interpret the post-1991 exclusion of non-Macedonian dances from Tanec’ s repertoire as a choreographic strategy intended to marginalize minority ethnic groups? Judging from Vase’s emotionally emphatic charge that independence engendered a feeling of freedom for Macedonians that they now could do what they wanted, so to speak, it would seem more than plausible to exert such an interpretation. I want to open a parenthesis—insert a footnote, rather, into the body of my text here—and elaborate on what I take to be a relevant dynamic suggesting just such plausibility. On one of his first visits back to Macedonia after independence, Atanas Kolarovski noticed that Tanec had changed its promotional materials to read ‘Ansambl zaNarodni Igri i Pesni—Tanec’ (Ensemble of “Narodni” Dances and Songs—Tanec). He recalls being concerned with the word narodni, which in certain contexts means “national,” and confronted the director of the company at the time with questions regarding why Tanec was no longer performing Albanian, Turk, and Rom dances. “They are part of the nation as well, are they not?” Atanas argued. “So, why do you just show Macedonian?” Narodni (naroden in singular form) is a perniciously stubborn adjective to translate into English. A standard dictionary, Zoze Murgoski’s English Macedonian, Macedonian English Dictionary with Grammar, for example, defines naroden as: 1) national, folk; 2) public, popular; and 3) vernacular, and suggests to translate such Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 274 phrases as narodno oro and narodnapesna as “folk dance” and “folk song.”2 1 Murgoski’s translations follow standard translation practices, and are therefore accurate in the sense that the adjective “folk” most clearly signifies in the English language the forms, bodies, sights, and sounds we wish to reference and describe when referring to narodno oro or narodna pesna. Where Macedonian use naroden, we translate it as “folk.” If only it were that simple. Vase cautioned me once that it was not; for the adjective we take to mean as “folk”—naroden—signifies for citizens of Macedonia a much more complex etymology. Keith Brown (2000:128-129) elaborates on how groups of people during the Yugoslav era were categorized and hierarchised. “Macedonians, as a Slavic-speaking group who constituted the majority in one of the republics, were classified as a narod, or people, one of the constituent peoples of the federal republics.” Conversely, for a group such as the Albanians, “[bjecause they were perceived as having a ‘kin-state’ outside of Yugoslavia, they were classed as a narodnost, or nationality.” Post-1991, these hierarchical categories persisted, much to the dismay of those who argued that equal status should be conferred to all citizens of the new republic. While ethnic Macedonians continued to categorize themselves as a narod, non-Macedonians experienced a semantic slippage in the word used to describe them. After independence, “[m]any ethnic Macedonian translated the old term narodnost straightforwardly into malcinctvo, or minority,” Brown continues, “thereby appropriating a term from standard Western ethno-national discourse, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 275 which allowed them to preserve a conceptual scheme” that “Macedonians were arguably more ‘at home’ in the Republic of Macedonia” than anyone else. I have gone through the exercise of cursorily tracing the etymology of narod in order not to rhetorically erase the plausibility that in changing its promotional material to read ‘Ansambl za Narodni Igri i Pesni’ and dropping non-Macedonian choreographies from its repertoire, Tanec re-affirmed a differential status that invidiously marginalized ethnic minorities. Undoubtedly, this is precisely what concerned Atanas. Yet, as plausible as this interpretation is, I would like to also argue that such an interpretation is concomitantly misleading. How so? Atanas knew to translate narodni, not as “folk,” but as “national.” Yet, ironically, in voicing his concern to the director of Tanec that non-Macedonians are part of the nation as well, and should be represented on stage, Atanas revealed that his life abroad in the United States had impressed upon him a more Western-centric definition of discourse whereby “national” tends to mean belonging to a nation, and a “nation” is not so much an ethno-national group as it is a people inhabiting a country under the same government. According to Atanas’ adopted logic, Tanec—for all its talk of being an ensemble of national dances and songs—surely was not doing its job to represent the country. Yet, this is precisely the point. From the vantage point of local ethno-national logic, Tanec was doing its job: presenting the dances and songs of the narod—the Macedonians. Furthermore, after 1991, because Macedonia was now a sovereign republic, its folklore ensembles were no longer beholden to the Yugoslav mandate requiring Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 276 them to include a cross-section of dances in their repertoire. This is to say that after 1991 all ensembles in Macedonia— whether they were Macedonian, Albanian, Turk, Rom, professional or amateur—turned in on themselves by focusing on their own dances.2 2 Therefore, on some level, to interpret Tanec’ s exclusion of non- Macedonian dances from its repertoire as an invidious marginalization means to interpret the exclusion of non-Albanian dances from the repertoire of, say, Emin Daraku (an ethnic Albanian ensemble) as an invidious marginalization as well. The point is, in neither case can we assume that invidious marginalization was the intent. Of course, marginalization looks much different depending on one’s relationship to the center or periphery of it. For a majority group to exclude a minority group means to engender a kind of marginalization that will always be perceived as more hegemonic than were a minority group to exclude a majority group, or rather, marginalize itself, for example, by not fully participating in civil society and contributing to its enrichment as many Macedonians accuse ethnic Albanians of doing since 1991. In the next part of our conversation, my husband broaches the subject of inter-ethnic cooperation, foreshadowing a host of questions that I will raise, but then leave unanswered, at the close of this chapter. Gustavo: And now that Macedonia is independent, I don’t know maybe it already exists, is there an inter-racial dance company? Vase: Inter-racial? Do you mean, ah... G: That there’s Albanians, Macedonians, Roma dancing together and just... V: No. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 277 G: Could there be one? V: No. There were and there still are Albanian groups in Macedonia. Emin Daraku, for example. In their repertoire twenty years ago there were Macedonian dances. They had Albanian dances, but also Macedonian dances. Not now. Now they only have Albanian. G: And what would prevent there being such a company? V: No control. G: ... by one individual... ? V: Sorry? Gaelyn: Gustavo means that the Macedonians in the group would want to do Macedonian dances, the Albanians in the group would want to do Albanian dances... V: There are no members. Before there were, not now. No dancers. Gustavo: Yes, but that’s what I mean. What prevents there from being? Gaelyn: Yes. Why not? V: Why not? We do not believe them, and they do not believe us. Vase’s words intimate toward a complex reality in which ethnic cooperation, an ideal so fundamental to Macedonia's stability and growth as a multi-ethnic sovereign republic, hinges on there being a modicum of trust shared by all citizens toward one another. Since 1991, one of the greatest challenges for the cultural sector has been fostering cultural policies that facilitate this trust, and provide some kind of “neutral ground” on which all ethnic groups can coexist. In a May 29,2001 interview with Makedonija Denes (Macedonia Today), Minister of Culture Ganka Samoilovska Cvetanova confirms that for the past ten years, however, “practical, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 278 objective, and subjective” factors, in addition to a lack of legal regulations, have kept culture “in a state of lethargy” with no particular long-term strategy in sight. The present security crisis has diverted funding away from culture, yet it seems to have helped the Minister and her administration to focus on lingering priorities such as the “support of multiculturalism.” One wonders what “multiculturalism”(as a cultural policy and a form of rhetoric) means in the context of a republic that has always lived multi-culturally, and yet for whom that richness of difference is now such a source of internal rivalry. One of the criticisms of multiculturalism is that it thrives on homogenizing cultures; it thrives, for example, on the assumption that “for each identifiable group there is a single culture” bounded and closed (Modood 1997:10). Is this not exactly what an ensemble such as Tanec thrives on too?2 3 One would have to wonder then, what multiculturalism means in the context of a government that sends a professional state folk dance and music ensemble such as Tanec throughout the world to represent Macedonia (the country) when what the ensemble really represents is Macedonia (the narod, people). Does multiculturalism mean institutionalizing difference? Vase has been trying to bring Emin Bedri, the director of Emin Daraku, into the fold of SOFAM for a couple of years now, trying to convince his colleague that membership is important if Emin Daraku is ever going to participate in reputable festivals abroad. Instead of joining an already-existing organization, however, Bedri has formed his own NGO with the goal of coordinating all present and future ethnic-Albanian ensembles into an Albanian SOFAM. He is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 279 hoping, also, to professionalize Emin Daraku, to build up its quality to match that of Tanec. “Separate, but equal.” Is this Macedonia's “multicultural” destiny, its only viable option for organizing society and fostering trust? Is separateness necessarily a degenerative framework with which to accommodate a host of “national identities”? Is separateness anathema to building a civil society in which citizens, regardless of their ethnic communities of affiliation and identification, have the capacity to feel together? Can diverse identities be strong, but not politicized to the breaking point of civil unrest? How does a government conceive for itself and foster for its citizens a kind of multiculturalism that will allow cultures to be with one another instead of opposed to one another? How does a country, founded on the principle of the titular nation, pry itself open to allow for what Modood (1997:7) calls “insertions and new syntheses”? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 280 ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 6: 1 Mary Kay Gilliland (1995:210) points out that this military practice, by increasing mobility, effectively altered the region’s social landscape. Fulfilling one’s military obligation in a republic other than one’s own “was partly responsible for more intermarriage,” Gilliland concedes, adding “[m]obility and intermarriage mean that there are individuals scattered throughout the southern Slav territories who do not ‘ethnically’ belong where they live.” 2 For example, being the first soldiers to patrol hotspots or to enter into suspected hideouts. I heard these accusations on different occasions from several independent sources. 3 Some months prior to Tito’s death in May of 1980, Yugoslavia adopted a system of communal governance whereby such positions as the presidency would be chaired from year-to-year by party leaders from a pre-determined rota of the six republics. 4 Gligorov’s orders were made knowing that the United States, Bulgaria, and Turkey would come to Macedonia's defense against Yugoslav aggression. 5 See Ortakovski (1998), Poulton (1995), but especially Neofotistos (2002) and a promising new book by Zidas Daskalovski, Walking on the Edge: Consolidating Multiethnic Macedonia 1989-2004, for more encompassing perspectives. 6 This surrender to the titular nation was previously established in the post-war constitution of socialist Macedonia. 7 Cited from Diana Johnstone, “Albanians in Macedonia: Facts and Fictions,” (May 30, 2001) accessed on August 20, 2001 at http://emperorscl othes. com/arti cl es/Johnstone/ fic2.htm. 8 The banks in Macedonia are still trying to pay people back. Compensation has come in the form of allowing people to “buy” the state-owned apartments that they could previously only rent. Vase accepted such a deal, yet in doing so has recuperated only about half of the savings he lost in 1991. 9 This reorganization permeated most spheres of culture as state government, local city councils, business entrepreneurs, interest groups, and individuals squabbled about how Macedonia should best manage and utilize its culture, the idea being that the country could benefit spiritually and economically from its heritage. One of the ideas discussed suggested a path of commercialization, whether it be the commercialization of culture for outright profit or the commercialization of culture in order to save it, which of course is not much different from the former except that the profit it seeks is motivated by far less crass and infinitely more socially redeeming values. The Galicnik Wedding is a perfect example of the types of changes that were made in pursuit of the latter type of commercialization. For decades, the weddings were a staple of the Galicnik way of life, a reminder of a time when the village was vibrant with people, including migrant workers making their way home for the annual celebrations. The economic hardships that accompanied WWII, coupled with Tito's nationalization of private land and property, forced most of Galicnik's residents to migrate away from the village permanently. Soon after the war, Galicnik was all but abandoned and was to remain so for another 15 years. It was not until the early 1960s that the city-dwelling council leaders of Galicnik decided to bring Galicnik back to life. Their plan was to restore and rebuild the village in the old style of architecture, and resurrect, through re-creation and re-enactment, the week-long wedding celebration. They knew that this renaissance would attract some tourists, but their more important goal was to encourage Galicnik families to return to the village. As the fulcrum of this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 281 renaissance, the Galicnik Wedding (as it came to be called, and, after 1991, marketed) was meant, according to people with whom I spoke in the summer of 1999, to be more than a cultural manifestation performed for the delight of urbanites and other outsiders; it was supposed to be a way for Galicnik community members to keep their traditions active in a manner respectful of the past. Dostana Stankovska and her family spoke to me with such sentimentality in 1999 as they recalled their memories of how the wedding “used to be.” Their memories turned a bit sour, however, as they detailed how the Galicnik Wedding has changed since 1991. Since 1991, events that used to play themselves out more spontaneously over the course of a week are now condensed into a two-day weekend; and in response to waning participation by Galicnik community members, the organizing committee has had to bring in Koco Racin to "fill in the gaps." While Dostana lamented that the members of Koco Racin wear a hodge-podge of traditional clothing from regions outside of Galicnik, and perform stylized dances that have little or no relation to “traditional” dance forms from the region, Mitre Adzievski, a former president of the Galicnik Wedding, did not seem to mind the inclusion of these kinds of changes when I spoke with him in 1999. At that time, the performed articulation of what people like Dostana might consider authentic Galicnik traditions seemed to be secondary to his vision of bringing economic prosperity and independence to the village once again. For the people of Galicnik then, memory, mortar and performance surely came together in a myriad of ways and for many different reasons post-1991. 1 0 Even when ensembles are able to do field research (Dobre and one of his dancers/teachers regularly go to Kriva Palanka in Eastern Macedonia for example) and create a new choreography, other expenses can stand in the way. Tofe Drakulovski confirms that KUD Orce Nikolov has a new choreography ready to be performed, yet there is no money for pulling together the appropriate costuming. “So, probably we’re going to dance it with other costumes. That’s not the way it should be done. Pity, but that’s the way it is. We’ll do our best to hang on somehow.” 1 1 The passive character of Macedonians is a stereotype to which even Macedonians admit. The Macedonian equivalent for the phrase “he has no balls” is “he has no ass.” 1 2 During the country’s security crisis, Georgievski made an agreement with Bulgaria promising not to recognize or help the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. Some Macedonians believe that this agreement both signified Georgievski’s concession to the idea that all Macedonians are Bulgarian and exposed him as a puppet for Bulgarian interests. 1 3 People did, however, take to the streets in Bitola after the deadly ambush of several Bitola soldiers. Public protests escalated into mob violence as the storefronts of purportedly Albanian-owned businesses were smashed and burned in retaliation. It did not take long for the “real situation” to clarify itself. According to several Macedonians with whom I spoke, not only had Bitola soldiers been deliberately targeted by rebel forces, but the riots actually were orchestrated by Georgievski and his coalition government, VMRO-DPMNE, as a way to deflect attention away from the government’s complicity in the country’s instability. 1 4 Vase’s question presents a unique scenario in which sending the folkloric group would actually be the prudent choice from a budgetary standpoint. I think the idea that Vase was trying to make, however, is that despite being half the cost and despite more palpably representing Macedonian cultural “identity,” KUD Koco Racin would most likely not be chosen for funding over the Philharmonic. 1 5 Vase Robev and a friend started KUD Goce Delcev in the late 60s. From its inception, the ensemble has always specialized in dance and music from Aegean Macedonia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 282 1 6 This screenplay is an adaptation of a K-15 skit broadcast on May 22, 2001. K-15 is a comedy sketch ensemble whose schtik is political and social satire. No subject is so sacrosanct as to be off- limits for the writers/cast members of K-15. A number of years ago, K-15 took on one of Macedonia's most venerated heroes, Goce Delcev, by playing off of the known fact that Delcev never made it to the Ilinden Uprising in August 1903 because he was ambushed and killed three months earlier while visiting his mistress. The particular episode I have adapted took on more recent events. A couple of weeks prior to the broadcast, the Macedonian government, under increasing international pressure led by NATO Secretary General, George Robertson, and EU Foreign Policy Chief, Javier Solana, backed down from its sovereign and legal right to declare a state of war against the Albanian rebel forces, and agreed to form a national unity government between the main ruling and opposition parties. 1 7 This is a cryptic reference to an infamous incident that occurred early May 2001. The details for me are sketchy. A car had been stopped at a police (or military?) checkpoint in Tetovo. The driver and passenger, both Albanian, were asked to step out of the car when weapons were found in the trunk. It surely must have been a moment of tense uncertainty for everyone involved. In the end, one (or both?) of the Albanians had been shot. The checkpoint guards claimed that the men had emerged from their car holding grenades, and that one of them was about to pull the pin on his when he was shot, sending the grenade flying out of his hand. A photographer’s camera captured the incident. The two men pleaded their innocence, claiming that they were holding cell phones, not grenades. Everyone weighed in on the photograph, trying to make heads or tails of the small, dark, grainy object. Was it a grenade, as the guards claimed and as Macedonians believed, or a cell phone? The photograph showed up on a pro-Albanian website, re-touched so that there was clearly no doubt that it was a cell phone. Internet hackers (pro-Macedonians?) responded with some creative touch-ups of their own, putting cell phones in everyone’ s hands and adding, just for good measure, the caption, ‘Nokia... connecting people. ’ 1 8 In late June of 2001, insurgents bombed Aracinovo, a small community roughly six kilometers due east of the outskirts of Skopje. Amongst the insurgents were Muslim fighters from the Middle East. Two days after the attack, 5,000 rioters stormed the government building in reaction to news that President Boris Trajkovski had actually kept Macedonian security forces at bay while a U.S. lead KFOR operation evacuated the insurgents to another village. Two convoys of buses were sent out as decoys to divert attention away from what, in the minds of many, was clearly a U.S. orchestrated operation. If this was not sufficient proof to Western officials that Islamic militants were using Macedonia as a field of operation, then maybe the events of March 2, 2002 gave reason for them to change their posture. On that day, Macedonian police shot and killed seven members of a suspected terrorist cell that Macedonian authorities had been tracking for over a month. At least five of the dead were Pakistani or Middle Eastern. The men were planning to attack the U S, German, and British embassies in Skopje. 1 9 One would assume that metaphors of possession would hold more value for “impoverished” nations, yet it is Western nations, Brett Williams (1991:5) points out, that have “exported the metaphor” of “bounded uniqueness through shared property.” “Possessing” history or culture has value then either way, impoverished or not. 2 0 On a somewhat related note, Eli Kongas-Maranda (cf. Handler 1988:80) has suggested that whereas “colonizing countries have anthropology museums.. colonized countries have folklore archives.” For me, this is a round-a-bout reminder that in places such as Macedonia, where “nationalism and folklore scholarship have flourished together among people seeking political independence” (Handler 1988:79), a focus on folk society—the importance of collecting its survivals and reinforcing those survivals as the public face of a nation—remains an important aspect of the cultural politics of identity. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 283 2 1 Dunin and Visinski (1995:2) offer a further taxonomy in order to distinguish narodno oro that is izvorno (from the source, i.e. “authentic”) from that which is stylized (stilizirano narodno oro). 2 2 When Dobre Manasievic took over as the managing director of KUD Koco Racin in 1985, he began teaching Macedonian dances to Albanian and Rom drustva. After 1991, his services were no longer needed as these ensembles, just like their Macedonian counterparts, shifted their focus. Even in the countryside, many village ensembles that had long absorbed Tanec's repertoire turned away from what was de rigueur, and began to take another look at their own dance traditions. 2 3 See Georgios Agelopoulos (2000) for an interesting discussion on how “multiculturalism” relies on the homogenization and commodification of cultures. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 284 FIGURE 12: A sister betraying her little brother’s hiding spot behind the flag of a foreign NGO Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 285 INTERLUDE: LINER NOTES FOR NEGOTIATING FREEDOM How does one become? How do men become when bound up in tragic machines in which the calculations of probabilities offer no salvation? Who survives the game? —Pietro Clemente (cf. Vereni) The first time Trajce Hristov heard the rough mix of Miroslav Andreevski’s CD, Negotiating Freedom, the inversion was already into its third week. Not since the winter of 1999, when it stuck around for ten days, had such a heavy thick cloud draped itself over Skopje, blocking out sun, moon, and stars, and making it impossible for snow to fall. From his house up on Vodno mountain, Trajce puffed on a cigarette and gazed down upon the city through the picture window in his living room. The weather was enough to drive one crazy, he thought to himself. But Trajce had figured out a long time ago how to cheat the Inversion Blues: don’t go outside. Instead, stay at home as much as possible. Read, write, bake bread, play the guitar. Listen to music. Andreevski’s CD spun to a halt. It took a few moments for Trajce to realize that a lump had lodged itself at the base of his throat. He went to swallow and was surprised by the feel of a warm tear staining a trail down his cheek. • • • Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 286 Trajce was the name his mother had given him. It was a difficult birth and he almost died. But after 27 hours of labor, and with the help of several doctors and some surgical equipment, little Trajce emerged into the world. He struggled for breath without so much as a cry, and even before the nurse could wipe the slime from his face, Trajce, undaunted by the new sensation of glaring light, opened his eyes and took a look around. Doctors were concerned. Such a tiny, little thing. Trajce passed the first few weeks of his life under close supervision at home, suckling on breast milk and growing stronger by the day. So it came to pass that Trajce’s mother named him after her father, Trajko, for he, too, had endured a difficult start in life, hung up in a bam and left to die because there were already too many children in the family. Only after proving that he was strong enough to survive on so little food was Trajce’s grandfather brought into the house to take his place alongside his nine brothers and sisters. From his father—a novelist and thinker who prospered intellectually and financially under the Yugoslav system of state patronage which cared for the country’s best and brightest artists—Trajce learned to be a voracious reader with an equally zealous appetite not just for ideas themselves, but for the privileged pursuit of their very genesis. From his mother—a ticket agent for a Belgium airline who often took her only child on tour packages with an eclectic melange of patrons and destinations—Trajce nurtured his ear for languages and grew to understand what the Cuban troubadour, Silvio Rodriguez, meant when he sang: To have is not a mark o f wickedness/Neither is not having proof o f one’ s virtue. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 287 Over the course of his life’s 45 years, Trajce had ripened into a Gramscian “organic intellectual.” Only with Trajce could a home-cooked spaghetti lunch turn into an afternoon soliloquy on the connection between “Macedonian national identity” and tomatoes. Trajce was a man of quick wit. But he was also a vulnerable observer, sensitive to the pains and problems of the world. Prone to self- recrimination, Trajce took responsibility for the current crisis facing the Republic of Macedonia. As a patriot who loved his country because he was bom there and knew its rivers and mountains, Trajce was saddened that the world was witnessing Macedonia as a country of idiots. As of late, his sadness was expressing itself more and more as indignation, as it did not too long ago while watching television with some friends from out of town. Confronted with a commercial linking images of Orthodox churches, government soldiers marching, and the dancing of “Teskoto” with rhetoric propagating national unity and strength, Trajce was quick to shape his feelings of wrath into words. “I am sick. Terminally ill,” he spoke out. “Can you understand how separate I am from all of this? I am the church. I am the frescos. But I am also the mosque. I am also the dzamija.” Trajce often found himself at the center of moments like this, where he would open his mouth and a muse would speak in a voice of truth that spared no one, not even its bodily host. Trajce was proof that when one is thoughtful and thorough about things which others are perversely dogmatic, one becomes the enemy. How ironic then that, through no fault of his own other than the strong conviction that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 288 peace and stability are not ideals that individuals, communities, or nations deserve, but things that require labor from everyone, for everyone, Trajce found himself dressed in his old army fatigues, standing guard outside a military facility in some undisclosed region of Macedonia. It was late July already. 2001. Trajce was a day away from completing the month-long service for which the army had called him up. He hadn’t seen much action. None at all, really. Patrol duties were more like windows of meditation. Before going away, Trajce had been hard at work articulating the concept of Historical knowledge. He was certain that he had stumbled across the perfect metaphor for explaining how reality and actuality are cast to fit the contours of what eventually becomes History. Like the double helix—that beautiful spiral of DNA which, despite carrying two to three billion nucleotide pairs of information each capable of creating life in an astonishing number of ways, ends up contributing a mere ten percent to the blueprint of one’s biological history—the History we end up knowing, addressing, and quoting masks a much larger, metaphysical one. Out in the wilderness, as Trajce walked, or sat, or guarded some military site, he would scribble thoughts down in a thin journal that he kept tucked away in the breast pocket of his uniform. -Tuesday, July 10th , 2001 What is to be done? What am I doing? As a practicing art historian I do repairs on and maintenance o f the Macedonian Identity Codebook. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 289 -Monday, July 16th, 2001 What am I to say about my own complex reality—o f being myself, o f being Macedonian, o f being FYROM-ian, o f being from the West Balkans, o f being from South-Eastern Europe, or o f belonging to the Eastern Mediterranean cultural circle. -Saturday, July 21st, 2001 The here-ness resembles the dialectics o f coincidence and synchronicity. Encouraged by the light duties that had kept them out of harm’s way thus far, many of the men in Trajce’s unit were electing to extend their stint as soldiers so that they could continue collecting a paycheck. But Trajce wanted to get home. He missed his wife and kids. Stojan and Svetlana were typical teenagers; but for a father who found himself with ever increasing frequency melting into a gushing puddle of pride as he watched his children tiptoe into the world without him, one month was an eternity. • • • Miroslav Andreevski began playing guitar at an early age, eventually studying with one of Macedonia’s most respected jazz guitarists—an open-minded, creative man who helped his protege cut his teeth on everything from Brazilian Bossa Nova and African-American Blues, to show tunes and Big Band music. While his peers around him sought to emulate the successful style of Vlatko Stefanovski, the Macedonian guitar shredder whose superimposition of rock idiom onto folk music had earned him and his band, Leb i Sol, considerable fame throughout Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 290 Yugoslavia as champions of ethno-rock, Miroslav dreamed of making a different, but no less self-indulgent, connection. “I hate ethno-rock,” he would boast to friends in a tone of voice befitting any cocky teenager whose natural talent had seduced him into thinking that his road was the high road. Then what is the shape o f your heart, Miroslav? To this question, the young guitarist did not yet have an answer. There are moments in the lives of all of us—moments too numerous to count—when the deck is cut, the cards are set, and it’s up to us to decide how we are going to play out our hand. Even if pushed really hard, Miroslav wouldn’t be able to recall the hands dealt to him prior to 1987, not because his childhood and adolescence were uneventful or without choices and responsibilities, but because the deck of cards were never cut so egregiously as they were at two specific moments in his life, the first of which occurred in 1987. It was a gray, rain-slicked afternoon, while driving home from work, that Miroslav’s father was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Two years later, unable to shake the tremendous despondency that had wrapped itself around her since her father’s death, Miroslav’s younger sister used their father’s old pistol to put a bullet through her head. It was Miroslav who heard the shot and rushed to find Aleksandra lying in a pool of blood on the family’s bathroom floor. Barely twenty when his father’s life was cut short, Miroslav quit college and began his period of obligatory service with the military. He thought that distancing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 291 himself from Skopje would distance him from his sorrow. The military is strange that way, providing a haven for men who, consciously or not, long for stability, or long to be insulated from a life that scares them and offers no proof or hope that alternatives exist. Miroslav’s plan worked for a while. He traded in his sorrow for grunt work, developing along the way an appetite for nicotine and a thirst for liquor. Yet, at some point he had to go home. When he did, Miroslav glued himself to his guitar and hardly noticed his sister’s depression. He blamed himself for Aleksandra’s suicide; felt trapped by his failure to protect her. The second cut of the cards had been made. Who couldfault him fo r playing out his hand the way he did? Miroslav married his girlfriend in 1990, and with the help of a government scholarship moved to the United States to attend the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston. Miroslav’s first year of studies at Berklee was everything he had imagined it would be. Working side-by-side with some of the greatest names in jazz performance and composition, and learning from teachers who themselves were respected and prolific professionals in their fields. When he lost his scholarship in the fall of 1991 as a result of Macedonia’s break away from the Yugoslav Federation, Miroslav cut back on his course load, and even took a full-time job in construction just so that he could stay in Boston and remain entrenched in the music opportunities around him. Progress was slow. Losing the scholarship was a major setback. Miroslav’s mother begged him to just forget about it all and come home. It would have been so Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 292 easy to accommodate her wish. Two years in Boston turned into four and then five. It was hard for Miroslav to watch friends graduate, and break into the studios as session players or take off on tour with Big Name So-and-So. He never begrudged their success. He just couldn’t quite duplicate it for himself. Miroslav returned to the Republic of Macedonia in the spring of 2000. It had taken him ten years to earn his degree, but he was able to come home with a level of musicianship that eclipsed that of his old teacher and mentor, and with an enviable treasure chest of experiences and connections that catapulted him into the spotlight as a returning hero. Eager young musicians, and people just craving a strong injection of something new into their lives, flocked to hear him perform in clubs and theaters. Miroslav liked the adoration. In fact, one could say that he liked it almost as much as he adored being the person that others expected him to be. He quickly grew into his role as Guitar God, letting his thinning, black hair sprout down past his shoulders. A full beard took root and began to thicken and spread. He dressed in black, and wore flashy silver shoes and a giant belt buckle. When the story broke that Mirolsav knew Sting—a photograph was published to “prove” it—Miroslav didn’t do much to clarify that just because the pop-music mega icon had handed him his diploma as he walked across the stage at Berklee’s graduation ceremony didn’t necessarily mean that Miroslav knew Sting. Yet, beneath the urban legend lurked an anomaly. The years spent an ocean away in America had sidelined Miroslav from one of the most turbulent periods seen Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 293 in the Balkans since World War II: the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1989; Macedonia’s shaky but successful transition in 1991; the devastating wars in Croatia and Bosnia; the NATO bombings of Kosovo in 1999. Miroslav missed it all, which is to say that he was dispossessed of an important chapter in the history of being/becoming Macedonian. In his own mind, he had experienced the turbulence with an equal presence of force. “What a moment,” he recounted to friends in Boston shortly after the events leading up to the 1991 referendum. “That we could defy the Serbs the way we did and become our own country.” But news reports and telephone conversations are, in the end, poor substitutes for being a physical witness to and participant in the actual events. That’s why when Miroslav returned in 2000, the images and perceptions of his homeland that he had cultivated and accumulated over the course of a decade betrayed him into expecting that Macedonia would be something other than what it apparently had become— tired, run down, and on the verge of its own civil unrest. Whether it was to counteract the dissonance, or to protect himself from falling into a cycle of obsessive rumination concerning Macedonia’s future, Miroslav walked around town and flowed in and out of cafe conversations casually calling himself “Yugoslav.” But had he thought it through, he would have been more sensitive to the implications of using a moniker that was—for those too young to remember or not yet bom—devoid of meaning, and—for those old enough not to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 294 have forgotten—a slap in the face to all that they had endured to gain independence and survive the consequences. Boston had given Miroslav the miracle of renewed happiness, optimism, and self-worth. But he felt none of that in Skopje. Your neighbor has a cow and you want to kill it, right? Isn ’ t that the way it is here in the Balkans? The harder Miroslav tried to do otherwise, the easier it was for promoters and club owners to play him for a fool before spitting him out the other end of his waning honeymoon period. One needn’t have scratched far below the veneer to reveal a man at his wit’s end to find his place not just in the world, but in the country he considered home. • • • It was around this time, early fall of 2000, that Miroslav Andreevski and Trajce Hristov finally became friends. Trajce had been following the spectacle of Miroslav from afar, attending some solo shows and listening with interest to the two self-financed group CDs that Miroslav had recorded in Boston and brought back with him to sell in Macedonia. Trajce’s critical ear and observant mind’s eye left him suspecting that Miroslav’s career path was paradigmatic of Macedonia’s political path. Both seemed to exhibit a penchant for taking shortcuts rather than risk the more difficult kind of journey that turns a musician into an artist, or a piece of real estate scattered with diverse inhabitants into a nation of fully-committed citizens. Given the generosity of his spirit and his natural inclination toward being a father figure, Miroslav had opened up a jazz school on the third floor of a house that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 295 had been converted into office space for a friend’s NGO. As the school’s main educator, Miroslav taught jazz history and harmony, and gave private lessons to anyone whose desire to learn was strong enough to rouse themselves up and out of bed every Saturday morning. Improvisation, in a musical and organizational sense, would be a crucial goal and strategy. The group that met was small. There was: a tall, lanky drum set player named Branko; Milan and Pavle on guitar and bass, who together with Branko were three-fourths of a local band called “Conspiracy Theory”; Goran, The Long-Haired One, whose enchantment with all things Native American was on equal footing with his obsession with all things percussion; a painfully-shy adolescent named Kole who had taken up guitar without really knowing what to do with it; Igor, who was about to graduate from one of Skopje’s exclusive high schools, and dreamed of following Miroslav’s footsteps to Berklee; Dusko, the confident but polite double bass player whose talent had already earned him acceptance into Sofia’s prestigious Music Academy; Zora, a visual/performing artist and zealous promoter of youth culture; Miroslav’s energetic advocate, Ljupco; Milan, a student of theology whose pale, cherubic face and thick mane of fiery red hair made him look like an angelic devil behind his guitar; Marko, the archaeology student who dabbled in percussion, but whose mind was sometimes far away in Egypt where he hoped to study; and an 18- year-old, classically-trained pianist named Katerina—the school’s lone scholarship student—who in exchange for private lessons with Miroslav taught little Daniela how to play the piano. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 296 Thirteen jazz school students in all—plus one. Trajce Hristov. There was something slightly off kilter, albeit wholly democratic, about Trajce’s presence at school on Saturday mornings—the visual oddity of a 45-year- old man seated next to a fidgety nine-year-old classmate whose legs barely dangled past the edge of her seat. Truth was, Trajce often commented that he didn’t particularly like jazz, although if one were to stop by his house any given evening odds were that something akin to jazz would be playing on the old stereo sound system that he had pieced together from parts found at the Gypsy Flea Market across the river. Trajce loved walking through that market, partly because he loved the thrill of stumbling across a bargain—like the time he found a 1940s Russian viewfinder camera in mint condition for the equivalent of $15—and partly because he believed that the Roma were the most vital element in Macedonian society, capable of adapting better than any other community in Macedonia. Trajce admired how Skopje’s Roma community went after the world and appropriated it for themselves. Back in the early 80s, when Breakdancing exploded throughout African-American communities, Roma teenagers, sensing a kindred connection to the otherworldliness of ghetto living and to the energy of street performance, quickly caught on to the dance. Trajce remembers that the young kids really had a feeling for it, and would walk around town in baggy shorts, carrying large pieces of cardboard that doubled as portable dance floors. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 297 Looking at Trajce and Miroslav together in the same room, one would never suspect that a friendship could exist between them. They were as different as two planets. Yet, just as two planets orbiting within the same solar system share a common gravitational force, so too did Trajce and Miroslav share the same pull toward the discovery of music that could fill them with a sense of wonder. They would sit down after class on Saturdays, just the two of them. Miroslav would patiently divulge the secrets of the guitar to Trajce, helping him to build a runway of technique so that Trajce could finally fly and play what was in his head. Along the way, Trajce awakened Miroslav to the significance of making a deep investment in one’s craft as Artist and Human. It was a damp December day when Miroslav finally sat down to record. Just him and his guitar. The Inversion was at full force, casting its languid shade of melancholy over Skopje. Gray. Quiet. Miroslav could feel the pull of failure. But it didn’t scare him. On the contrary, for the first time in his life he felt a commitment to it. A commitment to fail! The very idea was laughable were it not so clearly mapped out in his mind. Miroslav imagined himself as a kid again, behind one of those pinball machines that he used to spend hours on at the arcade. How he used to love to hit the ball and release it into the craziness, concerned not with where the ball bounced, but with the very idea of sending it back out again. Miroslav worried for Trajce the entire month he was away on active duty with the army. He waited every day for news of his friend’s safe return. And it Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 298 came one day early August. Late afternoon. A phone call. No. A letter. A single sheet of paper. A single sheet of paper with the type-written words: (Liner Notes for Negotiating Freedom) As a practicing art historian, I do repairs on and maintenance of the Macedonian Identity Codebook. While interpreting illegible passages, restoring forcibly ripped out pages, or amending the sequence of chapters, I seek to rebuild a consistent body of values containing the key to hidden context, pretext, and subtext offered by the Macedonian contemporary art(ists). Or on some occasions (such as these very liner notes for instance) I transpose the messages into a higher key; that is I transpose them into a higher pitch of elocution hoping that the increased loudness will provide for a farther reach and a deeper understanding of the transmitted contents. I have been asked by my dear friend Miroslav Andreevski to compose liner notes that speak to the transmitted contents of his latest CD recording, Negotiating Freedom. I am hardly an expert on these matters. Some of the signposts left by writers of liner notes before me suggest that I should reveal direct connections between Miroslav’s music and his own complex reality— of being Macedonian, of being FYROM-ian, of being from the West Balkans, of being from South-Eastern Europe or of belonging to the Eastern Mediterranean cultural circle, or.. you are most welcome to continue. But what are these direct connections other than placations to current trends and fashionable concepts? The Macedonian artist in the eyes of the Other. Does “Our Boy Genius” Miroslav project the appropriate image? That particular edge of social and political commitment; a drop of embittered anti-communism; the shyness of someone oppressed as well as the guilty look of a victimized person? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 299 Points A, B, C exist. But how do we travel to and from these points of reference when we are not interested in going down pre-fabricated roads that someone/something has already determined? How do we travel to and from these points of reference when we are not interested in destroying or forgetting what has come before, but rather interested in continuing to build and expand on contemporary notions of art? In search of answers to these questions, many contemporary musical artists have turned to improvisation at one time or another. For Miroslav Andreevski, that time is now. If it is really so, than what are the consequences of negotiating freedom? Are there implications to be faced or some conclusions to be drawn? I can not tell. The only thing I think I understand is that it is so easy to adopt in one’s own identity the illustrious traditions of the Balkans, while it is so hard to incorporate in it the uncertain, clouded future of this navel of the world. —Trajce Hristov Skopje, August 2001 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FIGURE 13: Villagers gathered at a folk festival Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 301 CHAPTER 7: A WEDDING In Chapter 5 ,1 resolved to re-evaluate “the village” depicted on stage by presenting the reader with a day spent searching for a sobor in two villages. In the process of representing the movement practices within a village context, I began to trace the link between the village and the Macedonian tradition of e/migration (temporary economic migration, or pecalba, and permanent emigration, or iseluvanje), and tried to call attention to the extent to which both are ingrained in Macedonia's socio-cultural psyche. I also introduced the paradoxical attitudes that Macedonians have regarding their ex-patriots, and briefly intimated toward the imaginaries that can take hold of people in the diaspora by referring the reader to one particularly zealous Macedonian-American. In this chapter, I once again step away from the stage, this time to follow the movement practices that mark the space of a day long marriage ritual. I also return to the subject of emigration to reflect more on the meanings and consequences of return. The Polemics of Nostalgia Gustavo and I have been invited to my cousin Liljana’s wedding in Bitola. We have remained in Macedonia as long as we have, despite the wishes of our Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 302 families back home, just so that we can attend. After almost a year of involvement with dance practices largely unfamiliar to me, I am looking forward to being in a familiar milieu. The day started with a migraine, but the very thought of missing an event that I have been anticipating for months was enough to will me into feeling well enough to shower, put on makeup, and get dressed. We have been instructed by Liljana and her parents, Koco and Paca, to be at the family’s apartment by 4 pm. Having spent a month in Bitola two summers ago, I know the town and the apartment well. As we ring the doorbell of 13 A, it feels like I am returning to an adopted home. In her essay, “The Costs of a Costless Community”, Mary Waters (1998) asks, “What does claiming an ethnic label mean for a white middle-class American?” When given a choice, “whites will choose the most ‘ethnic’ of the ancestries in their backgrounds,” she writes, because doing so, as I cited in Chapter 5, “fulfills this particular American need to be from somewhere” (ibid. :280,275). The photograph of my grandfather’s village, that always stared back at me as I sat at his dining room table in Akron, Ohio, fueled my imagination precisely because it proved that I was “from somewhere.” That my grandparents came from far-away South East European peasant societies was even better. It for certain guaranteed that I was a different kind of American than any of my friends. To actually come to Macedonia to live and work, however, has added a self-revelatory dimension to the imaginations I carried with me from childhood on into my 20s. What was once purely an existential Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 303 connection to Macedonia has become a sober attachment to real people and real places. Koco answers the door with his characteristic style of greeting. “Ehe! Dobredojdovte. Ajde, vlezete” Hey! Welcome. Come on, get in here. Paca comes out of the family room into the hallway to greet us. I am stunned to see her looking as beautiful as she does at this moment. Ever since we first met in 1998,1 have known Paca for her incredible stamina in running her bustling dukan (grocery store), ‘Kopanki,’ near Bitola’s old At Pazar, all the while keeping up with her day-to-day household responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, washing, and maintaining her role as the protective matriarch of a nuclear family that extends outward from Bitola to Serbia and Australia where the two eldest of three daughters live with their families. During the agricultural season, Paca helps Koco maintain a rather substantial fruit and vegetable garden on a plot of land just down the road from where her childhood home in the village of Dragos still stands and functions as a weekend and holiday retreat. Paca leads a full and active life, but it comes at a cost: high blood pressure, aching, swollen feet, and eyes so bloodshot by the end of the day that it is difficult to look at her straight on without wincing. My efforts to offer even the slightest gesture of support by clearing a dirty coffee cup from a table have always been met with Paca’s stem but loving order to “sit down and relax.” After all this time, I have yet to discern whether Paca still views me as a guest (in which case her orders to sit down and do nothing would make some sense) or as an inept American woman who could not possibly know Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 304 how to wash a dish. On one of my visits to the family I sought to assuage my guilt by presenting Paca with a little ‘relaxation kit’ of foaming bath beads, luxurious oils and lotions, and one of those wooden foot massagers. Everyone howled when I urged Koco to allow his poor wife some time to soak in a hot bath and then surprise her with a nice foot massage. That Paca looks relaxed and radiant on the most joyous occasion of her youngest daughter’s wedding, with her hair freshly coifed and a taupe-stained chiffon gown flowing over her 52-year-old body, brings me immeasurable joy. We know to expect my grandfather’s sister, Tasa, and her husband, Chris, and there they are, seated on the living room sofa, looking as I remembered them, but with just a few more wrinkles and a bit more thickness around their midriffs. Tasa and Chris live a modest life in Florida, and every five years or so return to Macedonia, and to the homes and relatives that they left in Northern Greece over 48 years ago. By the measure of some emigrants’ experiences, Tasa and Chris have been fortunate to return so often. My grandmother and her family never set foot inside Macedonia after they left in 1931. My grandfather, for all his success as an accountant, property owner, and state representative in the Ohio legislature, only returned twice: once as a young man on the prowl for a Macedonian wife (he came home empty-handed); then for a second time as a cantankerous 68-year-old who probably knew that this was his final chance to return to Navolijani, and meet Koco and his other first cousins in Bitola. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 305 I am happy that Tasa and Chris are here. Both of my grandparents died before the thought of entering a doctoral program in anthropology and dedicating my Ph.D. research to folk dance in Macedonia was ever a figment of my imagination. How I wish I had paid more attention when they were alive: asked more questions, shown more of an interest in going beyond the symbolic aspects of my ethnic heritage. Of course, before anthropology, how was I to know to distinguish the symbolic from the real? I like to think that my grandparents would be proud of my choice to be here in Macedonia, proud of my decision to do something very few, if any, of my generational peers in the North-American Macedonian diaspora will ever do: go beyond what Pnina Werbner (1998:12) calls “the aesthetic and experiential dimensions of diaspora.” In lieu of my grandparent’s actual presence, I hug Tasa and Chris tightly. They look tired from traveling, and seem a bit preoccupied with thought, saying that this would most likely be their last trip to Macedonia. I cannot help but recall what some of the Macedonians I met in Zagreb had told me a few months back. They liked their lives in Croatia for many reasons, not least of all was their physical distance from Macedonia, which for them gladly translated into a substantial decrease in the pressure they felt to remain ensconced in what, for the emigrant, often turns into a stress-filled network of social and financial obligation to those back in the country of origin. Of course, emigrating 400 miles north to Zagreb is much different than a transatlantic relocation to the United States, the land of opportunity (both real and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 306 perceived). Tasa whispers to me later on that Koco’s nephew, Goran, has already asked her and Chris to help him secure a visa to the United States. Goran’s request does not surprise me. He is a resourceful young man who has refused to allow the dearth of jobs in Bitola to discourage him from carving out some kind of niche for himself. On and off for the past few years, Goran has been working as a truck driver, importing leather from Turkey (through the Black Market, if I have understood our conversations correctly) that seamstresses in Bitola turn into jackets for the wholesale market. The discomfort on Tasa’s face as she tells me about Goran’s request for help is palpable, and I know from experience that part of what consumes her is her immense embarrassment to come clean with the family, and confess to them that there is absolutely nothing she can do. I wonder, however, if she is not also feeling a tinge of guilt. It was on account of my grandfather’s persistence and the sacrifices he asked of my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt that Tasa, then a 27-year-old wife and mother of three, arrived to Akron in 1952 with her children, husband, and mother (Baba Mitra). For six months, five adults and five children lived in my grandparent’s two- bedroom, one-bath, little brick bungalow. Tasa’s two older sons would urinate in the front yard. Baba Mitra, who cast a stem figure in her full-length black woolies that she wore even in the dog days of summer, would chase away my mother’s friends with a broom. Though Chris took work as a bartender at a local, Macedonian-owned establishment, it was my grandfather who had to assume primary responsibility for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 307 supporting both families, eventually helping Tasa and Chris purchase their first home. Chris never liked the idea of his brother-in-law as the family’s patriarch, but he accepted my grandfather’s money anyway. Sixteen years later, both men having wedged the two families apart on account of their Old World pride, the Zoley’s sold their house, and took leave for their new life in Florida. When I talk to Goran later on in the day, I discover that Tasa’s distress was largely self-inflicted. Goran knew right away that she and Chris could not help him; in fact he had already found someone to assist him in getting a visa to the Netherlands. Liljana is fully dressed in her wedding gown, and holed up in the back room waiting for her fiance, Igor, to arrive with the musicians and his half of the wedding party. Liljana and Igor have been a couple for many years, although it was not too long ago that Liljana thought for sure that she was not the marrying type. “Sure, I’d like to have a child,” she told me one afternoon while strolling through Bitola’s city park, “but I think I want to live alone.” Despite my cousin’s reservations at the time, I knew as everyone else has known for years, that this day would eventually arrive. Liljana comes out to have a quick look around, and to walk off some restless energy. “ DoagaatH They’re coming!, someone inside shouts at the first sound of music. There is a collective gasp and a rush toward the balcony. Six stories down in the courtyard, Igor and the couple’s kumovi (godparents) are leading a crowd of 40 or 50 in a lesno oro. The dancing lasts but a few minutes. Igor looks up toward the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 308 balcony and smiles before following the musicians into the stairwell of the apartment building. Liljana scurries back into the bedroom. Her 17-year-old nephew, Vlado, closes the door behind her and plants himself firmly in front of it. Today, it is Vlado’s job to guard the bride, a symbolic role that, as an aspiring security agent, he assumes with great seriousness of purpose much to the amusement of his younger sister, Kristina (Tince). Everyone else has roles to assume as well. Koco, Paca, Mirjana (Liljana’s middle sister and the mother of Vlado and Tince), 6orgi (Koco’s brother and Goran’s father), Tasa, and Chris form themselves into a receiving line on the landing outside the family’s apartment. The trio of musicians—accordion, clarinet, and tapan—are the first to make it up the six flights of stairs. I cannot imagine how difficult their job must be, climbing stairs and playing at the same time. And it is mid-July. Beads of sweat are rolling off their foreheads as they pass into the apartment. Next to follow are Igor and his kum, both of whom appear utterly absorbed in their own private party. They are singing and clapping their hands, feeding off of eachothers’ energy. Quite frankly, Igor looks a little toasted already. As he reaches the top of the landing, he cuts his song short, reaches out to Koco, and gives him a quick but heartfelt handshake/bear hug. Igor is more delicate with Paca, who kisses him motherly, and Miijana, who motions for him to cross the threshold into the apartment. I am worried about Miijana. Just a few days before, she, Koco, Vlado, and Tince had gone off to nearby Lake Prespa to cool off with a swim. Miijana returned Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 309 home with a second-degree bum and a swath of oozing blisters across her shoulders and chest. She shrugged it off, telling me that it happens to her all of the time and that in a few days the bum would not be so red. It is now a few days later and her open soars are still giving off a perceptible heat. I can see Mirjana wince and pull back every time someone takes her by the shoulders and pulls her close affectionately. An elderly neighbor in the adjacent apartment stumbles out into the hallway behind Mirjana, and merges into the steady stream of people filing through the receiving line. Tasa, sensing that most of the guests have absolutely no clue who she and Chris are, leads Chris out of formation and over to where I am standing. I can tell that she has something on her mind. “Gaelyn, what’s this kissing three times?” she asks in a loud whisper, referring to how people are greeting the family with three kisses on alternating cheeks. “That’s what’s done here, Tasa,” I pause. “It’s an Orthodox thing. Everything three times.” Tasa is not convinced with my matter-of-fact response, and I am, quite frankly, a little bit surprised that she should wonder about this. It is such a common sight to see. “But, we never did that. All that kissing,” she scowls incredulously. “Three times? We only kissed two times. And we never came to the house with a band... and all this....” My great aunt’s voice trails off, her tone the audible Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 310 yardstick by which I could measure her discomfort with variance and change. Tasa looks so much like her brother, my grandfather; but how she acts like him too! My mother was a veteran of the second generation’s struggle to differentiate themselves and their lives from the portraits their parents often thrust upon them with no explanations given because they, like Tasa, did not know what to make of behavior that deviated from what they knew. Whereas I could hunger for the warmth of a close community and choose to be “Macedonian-American” without much risk, my mother had no choice. The ways in which ethnicity was “flexible and symbolic and voluntary” (Waters 1998:282) for me, were the very ways in which they were not for my mother. For decades, she struggled to reconcile that part of her upbringing that had often been embarrassing, confusing, and maddening, but always stubbornly patriarchal and uncomfortable with variance and chance, with that part which she would eventually accept as having undeniably carved out a sense of place for her in the world. The apartment is soon so swollen with perspiring bodies that the shifting around of one person is enough to set off a chain reaction of accommodating movements in others. I squeeze my way through the hallway toward the direction of the loudest excitement, and find Igor and his kum at the center of it. The clarinet player has his sound hole pressed up against the side of Igor’s head. Igor’s kum finesses the moment by sticking 100-denar bills both on the clarinet player’s sweaty forehead and into the bellows of the accordion, all the while shouting out with strong gestures to keep everyone’s juices going. On a bridegroom’s wedding day, the kum Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 311 is equal parts wingman and gregarious emcee, helping the groom negotiate where he is supposed to be while simultaneously charging the atmosphere with a life-of-the- party-but-not-the-focus-of-attention energy. Speaking from experience, a dear friend once confessed that it is possible to be a lousy kum. Yet, Igor’s friend is playing his role perfectly, moving around as well as anyone can in such cramped quarters, feeding Igor shots of liqueur, and taking an occasional drink himself. With much back slapping and encouragement, Igor and his hum make their way to the door behind which Liljana has been waiting all this time. Vlado, the sentinel, stands his ground without so much as a smirk as Igor and his kum negotiate not once, not twice, but three times to be allowed through. I look around for Tasa to catch her reaction. This being Orthodox Macedonia means that the third time is the charm. Vlado accepts a token bride price, opens the door, steps aside, and allows for his aunt to be taken by her new family. Truth be told, Igor could have whisked Liljana away from her family long before this when a few years ago he was offered a job from an American company in Texas. It was a great opportunity that together they decided to turn down. When I first heard the story, I remembered being bothered by their decision, irritated not only because they had kicked a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak, but because in doing so they had quite possibly passed up the opportunity of a lifetime to expand their world view. How many young Macedonian adults did I know who were craving for just such a chance? Liljana had told me that she was interested in visiting other places, but not emigrating, which certainly would have happened she Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 312 feared had Igor accepted the job. “I know Macedonia is a poor country,” she reasoned with me, “but I love it.” Still, I was incredulous and perplexed as to why two intelligent people would knowingly and unnecessarily limit their capacity for growth. “But Igor, you could have gone, gotten some experience, and then came back to Macedonia,” I told him, obviously assuming on Igor’s behalf that the thought had never crossed his mind. My friend Eleni and her husband had done just that. They had accepted visiting faculty positions at Arizona State University in Tempe. They could have remained in the United States, but they did not. “Exile is very difficult to live with,” Eleni had told me, “so we came back.” Indeed, exiles “live in the bodily realization of knowing one life and also another that displaces the first,” writes Stewart (1988:236). “Theirs is at each moment a double vision—two cultures differentiated through a lived experience of loss.” Had Igor intuitively known this? “Okay, I could go to America,” he responded to my scenario, “become—I don’t know—a rocket scientist, and then come back to Macedonia, but then what? There are no jobs here for rocket scientists.” Ultimately, Igor rejected the job offer in Texas because he already had a secure university position in Bitola that in a few years would turn into a faculty position. Perhaps he and Liljana were passing up an opportunity of a lifetime, but leaving would have de-railed Igor from a path that had taken him years to carve out. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 313 Any professional gain that would have come out of leaving was not worth it, especially if it meant taking Liljana away from her family and her country. Igor leads Liljana out of the bedroom and into the hallway for their first oro. The musicians start with a slow 3/5 rhythm—the kind of song that will allow for a lesno to be danced. The Balkan three-step. Anything more and the stagnate air and roasting temperature inside the apartment would be unbearable. Step right, left, right, kick left, kick right. One, two, three, kick, kick. As Igor brings the line to the long end of the dance space—the apartment’s 3’x l2 ’ L-shaped hallway—he rounds off the comer, and pulls the dance line into a charming but squatty oblong. Just like that, everyone is dancing face to face in quite intimate proximity. The music does not stop for a good thirty minutes or change its tempo, even as the responsibility for leading the dance shuffles from one honored guest to the next, but always with Liljana and Igor in the second and third positions. I step out for some fresh air, and inadvertently miss something I have never seen before. It is time for the wedding party to move on to the next part of the ritual festivities, but before Liljana can leave her family home she must break a small wineglass with her foot. Cheers erupt as she crushes the glass beneath her wedding shoe. Everyone immediately vacates the apartment, following the musicians downstairs and outside for more dancing. As we stand watching the dance move with so much more freedom now that it is outside in the shaded courtyard, Tasa looks at her watch, turns, and tells me that neither she, nor her family, nor anyone she has ever known for that matter, have ever done anything like this. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 314 We scurry to find a ride across town to what used to be the Greek Consulate up until sometime between the Balkans Wars and the First World War, but is now the Bitola Town Hall. We are riding with Goran and his friend, Meto, in an amorphous caravan with some cars following each other, and others venturing alone, taking streets less traveled. Though grown men in their twenties, Goran and Meto are like two adolescent teenagers on a joy ride, drunk with excitement, alcohol, or maybe both. Goran honks his car horn repeatedly, setting off fits of honking by the drivers of other cars. We reassemble outside the Town Hall, but literally have to wait in line behind a wedding party with an earlier appointment. The holdup is fortuitous for an elderly woman who is sitting on the steps underneath the building’s thick, white colonnades. Dressed in black from head to toe, her presence is a familiar sight to residents of Bitola. “That old lady there waits every day for wedding parties to arrive,” Goran explains. “Then she walks through the crowds and collects money from the men in exchange for good luck.” The woman approaches us and quietly shuffles by. Sticking a coin into her hand, Goran addresses her with a term of endearment that I cannot quite make out. Inside now, it is standing room only in the small room where the civil ceremony is being held. After a brief service, the kumovi bear witness to the signatures that Liljana and Igor are asked to place in the registry book. We applaud and then begin filing past the couple to offer them congratulations. Within minutes of entering the building, we find ourselves outside again. The wind has begun Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 315 whipping through the narrow, white cobblestone streets and corridors of the neighborhood. A cameraman corrals us all together for a group photo. Goran, Meto, and their car have disappeared, so we ride to the church with Igor’s parents. Once gathered, we enter the church as a group through the rear doors. For one accustomed to the eastern church in North America, where pews are spread out across the central area of the church, the interior architecture of Orthodox churches in the Balkans creates an atmosphere that can seem disorderly and somewhat irreverent, what with the absence of neat rows of pews to organize the bodies of worshippers (Ware 1997:270). Instead, as we enter, people start moving around freely, clumping together or standing apart depending on their sense of personal space. The informality of it all lends an air of homeliness to the Wedding Service, perhaps not surprising given that Orthodox worship in these parts is, to put it in non- theological terms, “a family affair.” People, whether they be from the clergy or the congregation “are at home in their church,” writes Ware (ibid.), “not troops on a parade ground, but children in their Father’s house.” Tasa, perhaps sensing this homeliness or, as is more likely the case, unaccustomed to standing for an entire service, takes a seat in one of the wooden stalls along the walls. I smile at her and suddenly feel an odd sense of camaraderie between us. I wish my mother were here. It was I who had acted as her compass in 1998, leading her here to Macedonia so that she could stand in good faith with a promise she had made to herself to one day see with her own eyes the land from where here Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 316 parents had come. Yet, once here, it was she who became my guide. Armed with photographs, mementos, memories, old names and addresses, she made certain that we followed every possible lead in finding her parent’s surviving relatives—people who were our kin but who were unfamiliar to us nonetheless. Were it not for my mother, I never would have met my two dozen or so cousins in Prilep. Without her, I never would have known to come to Bitola and introduce myself. Liljana gives me a wink. I hope she knows that I am grateful to be in her presence, to be part of this day. Yet, it is my mother’s presence that I am wishing for now. “Women think back through their mothers,” writes Behar (1996:94). Were my mother here, maybe I would not feel like such a stranger to the unfamiliar interpretation of rituals that are nonetheless still recognizable to me. The service seems neither long enough nor sensuous enough. I glance back at Tasa instead. She gives me one of those “What can we do?” looks, and I realize that what I had previously interpreted in Tasa as an intolerance for variance and change now appear to me as a hue of sadness that another’s reality could fall so short of one’s ideal. We leave for the reception with (jorgi and his wife, Maria (Goran’s mother), laughing along the way about their size-challenged car. Gustavo and I are sitting in the back seat with our knees up to our ears. We must look like a near-to-term pregnant cow on wheels, loaded down as we are with the weight of four adults, the suspension hanging low. Somehow the car engine is strong enough to carry us along the road leading out of Bitola and curving up into the green foothills of Baba Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 317 Mountain, (jorgi turns off the car when he can—on a downward slope or at a stoplight—to conserve a bit of fuel. Our conversation turns to Goran and to their concern that unless he leaves Macedonia soon he stands a good chance of being called up by the military to serve in the present conflict. Although Goran long ago put in the nine months of service required by law of all male citizens of Macedonia, chances are greater that he will be drafted now precisely because he has already gone through training.1 And the rumors, if true, are surely doing nothing to alleviate Gorgi’s and Maria’s fears for their only son. In the fighting thus far, the greatest percentage of soldiers killed have been soldiers from Bitola, leading people here to suspect that their young men are being selectively targeted. Just a month ago, regular and elite soldiers alike (regardless of their hometown) had started refusing orders from above, convinced that military superiors from their own government were deliberately “leading them to slaughter” by sending them into ambushes that had been orchestrated in advance with the assistance of the terrorists themselves. 6orgi and Maria speak nothing of this, only of their hope that Goran finds refuge and opportunity elsewhere. We are the first to arrive to the banquet hall at Nize Pole. It feels good to stretch our legs with a small walk through the complex, which from the number of young teenagers running around with sketchbooks in hand, looks to be doubling as a summer art colony. The temperature is a few degrees cooler up here than down below, cleaner and fresher under the dusky sky of twilight. We peek into the hall and catch the restaurant staff putting the finishing touches on the setup. We wait Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 318 outside for the wedding party to arrive, following behind Liljana and Igor who pose for a photographer on their way in. The reception hall is large and circular, made mainly of wood inside, with heavy columns and rafters supporting a vaulted ceiling that slopes down like an inverted cone. Bulbous chandeliers hang from above and the floor space is organized into two halves with the guests’ tables to the left, and the band, kitchen entrance, bar, and tables for the wedding party/family to the right, (jorgi, Maria, Chris, Tasa, Gustavo, and I choose a table on the far end of the building near to the wedding party. Tasa and Chris, tired of drinking carbonated mineral water, take my assurance that regular tap water will do them no harm. I go to the bar for a large pitcher of ice water. Koco meets up with me there, and excitedly tells the bartender that I am from the United States. “Ah... America,” the bartender says with a smile. I know from experience what his next question will be. “Which is better,” he obliges, “America or Macedonia?” For me, there is just no way of answering this question without offending the person asking it. “They’re the same, really,” I respond with a shrug. “Sometimes I like Macedonia better....” The bartender smiles. “But sometimes... sometimes I like America better.” The man looks at me kind of sadly, but seems to understand. I thank him for the pitcher of water and turn around to head back. I get to the table and find a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 319 discussion brewing. Plates of meat and cheese have been placed in front of every other place setting. “But we were all hungry, not just every other one of us,” Tasa and Chris argue. We steal the appetizers from the seats that are still unoccupied, leaving the wait staff upset with our behavior. People start arriving in droves: families with young children, groups of married couples who are obviously old friends with one another. The young, single women who at the church were dressed in casual wear, are now in more festive evening attire. The single men, including Goran and Meto, have changed as well and now have beautiful women at their sides. Someone once mentioned to me that people from Bitola are known for their sense of style. “Bitolceni are doterani luge (well-dressed people),” he had said. One stunning young woman has costumed herself elegantly in tailored silk chiffon pantaloons and a sheer blouse that drapes over her lace brassier and hugs her tiny waist with an effortless knot. Friends of Koco and Paca arrive and sit down with us at our table. Dimce, like Koco, is a retired bus driver, and Mare, like Paca, runs her own business—a beauty shop just a few blocks down from Paca’s dukan. I first met Dimce and Mare in the summer of 1999, spending a significant part of the Ilinden holiday with them and the family at Paca’s childhood home in the nearby village of Dragos. While the country officially commemorated the anniversary of the Ilinden Uprising in what has become almost formulaic fashion, with politically-postured speeches and the performance of national song and dance, we passed the day in Dragos less Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 320 ceremonially and with barely a mention of the event whose solemnization had given us all a day off. Around midday we walked through the mountain pastures up to the village church, Sveti Ilija, where an amplified band was already playing. It was well-known in our small party of ten that I had come prepared to dance or, at the very least, to see other people dancing, considering that we were in the very kind of bucolic, rural setting from which folk dances had come. Yet, no one was dancing; and none of us initiated anything. Instead, like everyone else—man, woman, or child—we took turns sitting, talking, observing, and then walking around, entering the church long enough to light a candle and offer a prayer. Sveti Ilija was once much larger and had a monastery attached to it. But situated as it is, on the precipice of the Macedonian and Greek borders, the church was literally split down the middle when the borders were redrawn to their current position after the Balkan Wars. Sometime thereafter, Greece destroyed its half of the complex, leaving only one wall standing on the Macedonian side. That wall was salvaged, taking on great symbolic value in the process, and was now being used as the cornerstone around which the new Sveti Ilija was being rebuilt. With both the Macedonian and the Greek border patrolmen in our sight, we headed back to the house to gorge ourselves on lamb, pork, potatoes, peppers, cabbage, bread, soda, rakija, and watermelon. We cleaned up and rested in the cool, upstairs bedrooms, awakening from a dull stupor to the sound of the band starting up again. We got up and walked down to the sred selo. A group of young boys were Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 321 assembled, clumped together like loitering gang members. They began fidgeting as soon as the girls made their entrance in miniskirts and high heels, skillfully dodging clumps of mud and cow manure along the way. Adults were gathered, as well. Yet, still no one danced. Koco shrugged his shoulders when I asked him why. Perhaps people were shy. Perhaps they were tired from the earlier church activities or even groggy from eating and drinking as we were. I walked away disappointed. By the time we reached the house, the clouds had opened up and released a gentle rain shower. We could hear the drum set player down below hitting his snare and giving one final kick to his bass drum. The band was officially done for the day. Later on as the sun was going down Koco and Dimce, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling from hours of drinking, came to my rescue. With everyone gathered around watching in amusement, Koco turned on his car radio and popped in a cassette. “Here you go, Gaelyn. Music to dance!” Dimce, his lead arm outstretched high, took my right hand into his left, and lifted us forward into an oro. It must have been a funny sight. Koco, laughing encouragingly, stepped around to grab my free hand. An elderly neighbor from Serbia, who had been standing around with his wife watching and giggling like everybody else, joined the circle. Back at Nize Pole, dinner has not yet been served, but people are already couple dancing to Evergreen Music (music that never dies). The band does a few waltz-like arrangements of popular songs such as “Biljana Platno Belese” and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 322 “Jovano, Jovanke,” a sentimental favorite from the Yugoslav era. Having initiated the dancing, Igor and Liljana begin making their way from table to table greeting guests and snapping photographs. As soon as dinner is over, the mood inside the reception hall shifts dramatically. The band switches from slow, Big Band arrangements to Macedonian wedding music, and almost immediately the tables begin to empty out. Within minutes, an open ring of 75 to 100 people or more is circling the perimeter of the dance floor counter-clockwise. This first dance is a lesno, steady but slow. So slow that as more and more people enter the dance ring, the chain of dancers starts to snake around tables and curve in on itself to accommodate the beveled bunching that always happens when people enter the dance at various links in the chain. Calmly and effortlessly, the band modulates straight away into another easy dance. This time people start singing to the melody of the song along with the band’s vocalist. Bitola, my birthplace, I was bom in you, you are dear to me. Oh, birthplace, who could possibly Say farewell to you and not cry? The song is a popular one with the crowd for obvious reasons, and people are singing it with conviction. I have walked around in you, naked and barefoot, I grew up in you, you are not my guest. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 323 I have passed through many towns and cities, Nowhere have I found one more beautiful than you. Bitola, my birthplace, I want you with all my heart. Bitola, my birthplace, I want you, I sing of you. With so many of us on the dance floor, we are pressed close together, smoothly surging forward, heating up our bodies. I notice a group of younger dancers across the room who are pumping their arms in unison like a turbine, their tempo faithful to the rhythm of the downbeat. I think back to the first time I saw people dancing like this, with their hands clasped together and their arms pumping forward in a clockwise motion. It was at a social gathering in Southern California where many of the Macedonian emigres are more recent arrivals than back east where I grew up. We were doing a lesno, and at some point I noticed that there were groups of dancers at several links in the chain who were doing this extra motion. And with an obvious sense of enjoyment. It was later explained to me that what they were doing was something that had developed out of the introduction of Turbo Folk music—the fusion of synthesized beats with traditional Romanii rhythms. Originating in Serbia, Turbo Folk increased in popularity during the Milosevic era, and grew to epitomize the seedy underbelly of the regime’s criminal circles. Macedonian Turbo Folk is more kitsch than criminal, yet still one either loves it or hates it. Watching the young dancers in Southern California, I could certainly understand their impulse to pump. Wanting to relax the torso and shoulders, and to increase the feel of the downbeat by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 324 accentuating it at different points up and down the entire length of the body. I had brought a friend of mine from Serbia to the gathering so that I would have someone with whom to dance, and there was Brana, next to me, pumping her arms as well. Before I knew it, I was infected too. It was kitschy, but it felt so good to be loose. Back here at the wedding reception, however, I am dancing alone, sandwiched in between people who I do not know and who do not know me. Though my body wants to, I will most definitely not give in to the downbeat here and now. Still, I feel shut out and forced into gazing enviously at the young dancers across the room. After twenty minutes of non-stop dancing and singing, the band finishes its medley of songs. Taking advantage of the pause in action, Igor grabs hold of a microphone and starts serenading Liljana a cappella. I cannot make out Igor’s words. He has pressed the microphone right up under his nose and against his lips, and is not so much singing as panting into the windscreen. Liljana likes it though, as do their friends standing around them who cheer madly when the serenade comes to an end. We are ready for something stronger and the band is itching to give it to us. The clarinet player lifts his horn and, cutting through the din of the crowd, trills the first few notes of an oro. People start putting down their drinks and leaving their conversations to coalesce on the dance floor again. I am not familiar with the dance that has been selected, but I make a go of it anyway, quickly figuring out the steps before jumping in. The band has made the right decision to start off fast. As the bass player lays down a bouncing thud, the drummer rolls his sticks over his tom- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 325 toms, using the snap of the snare as a propeller. Together they create a galloping bass and drum march that animates the dance floor and gets us breathing heavily. The band moves quickly from song to song. We do Pajdusko and Eleno Mome. By now, there is not just one main dance ring circling around the perimeter of the reception hall, but several smaller ones that have taken shape, filling out the center space of the dance floor. Varying in size, some are so small as to be the exclusive domain of an intimate group of friends. A circle inside a circle that no outsider can penetrate. We pass a compact group of seven or eight. Despite the up-tempo of the song, the woman are dancing with grace and finesse. Self-involved yet non-chalant. How I love to watch them move, even as I myself am dancing. The accordion player cues a tempo change by pulsing the bellows of his instrument. His suspended modulation is met by a series of sharp whistles from a couple of the men in the circle. The men straighten up and take in some air even as they continue to dance. The sweat on their brows is glistening under the lights. When the accordion player kicks back in with a run of finger flourishes, the men dig down with such a lightness of force. To know the rhythm of an oro wholly and correctly is one thing, but to pursue it, as these men are, is quite another. Improvisation distinguishes the best of them. It transforms their bodies into instruments capable of producing and performing their own ghost beats—bodily accents that play against and through the musical ones. With such a small circle, more than just the lead dancer can improvise: changing the height of the leg as it is lifted; skokanje (hopping) back ever Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 326 so slightly, dragging the ball of the support leg’s foot across the floor with a quick upward flick of the body at the end. The women are improvising too, embellishing on the dance phrase by adding a quick extra step here and there. This circle of friends looks like it has been dancing for years. To share a history, to know each other’s secrets, to be locked into a world of common recognition and experience. These are the bonds that spark the dance within the dance. This is the way good dancing feels. This is what it feels like to belong. The band starts to play the song for a dance that I have never seen before, yet practically everyone seems to know. Even people who have not been dancing non stop as I have, rush to the floor to get in. I knew I should have asked Liljana or Paca for dance lessons in anticipation of this moment. Liljana had laughed at me back in December when I told her that I had learned 23 dances. “No, no, no Gaelyn,” she howled shaking her head. “All you need to learn is four or five. That’s it!” It is true. Everyone knows that off the stage, away from the glaring emphasis on performing folklore, one need know only a handful of dances. What I know already will be enough to get me through the night, I had told myself. Isn ’ t that the extent o f what we ourselves know and do back in the United States? Four or five dances, over and over. Stopped in my tracks, tripped up by what is obviously a regional dance, I am too tired to even make an attempt at learning the dance on the spot. Besides, I am hot and sweaty; my dress glued to the skin around my abdomen Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 327 and back by a large swath of perspiration. I dart back to the table, grab hold of Gustavo, and go outside to dry off in the cool mountain air. For me to come to Macedonia has not been without its risks. “Anthropology is constantly about displacement,” Behar (1996:43) reminds me, and the longer I am here the more displaced I feel. I have been thinking more and more about nostalgia. To what extent am I feeling increasingly displaced on account of it? The nostalgia that one feels for a “homeland” one knows only second-hand does not die unless, of course, one comes to know that “homeland” first-hand. For me, coming to Macedonia has been like it was for Manhattan-raised Rosario Morales, who had this to say about returning to Puerto Rico and to her father’s native village: “Ironic. On the plane down I’m conscious only of my soft tropical core. Here I’m only aware of the North American scaffolding surrounding it, holding it up” (cf. Behar 1996:150). Because nostalgia’s “forms, meanings, and affects shift with the context” (Stewart 1988:227), the longer I am here the less nostalgic I feel for actually being here. Ironically, the longer I am here, the more nostalgic I am for recovering the sentimentality that brought me to Macedonia in the first place. A leisurely stroll around the complex, and we are pulled back inside the reception hall by a different wall of sound. The dance floor has thinned out of people. Only Igor, Liljana, and their friends remain. In crisp, clear, staccato tones, a synthesized tarabuka finger-snaps a two-bar intro, landing with nimble agility right on top of the full force of the band, the resonant reed of the clarinet crescendoing into a sinuous scale that evokes erotic images of harem courts. The dance floor starts Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 328 to bend and breathe with rhythmic flexibility. Igor lifts Liljana onto a chair that has been placed in the middle of the open space. Perched precariously in her sleeveless wedding gown, she thrusts her hips forward, and with raised arms rolls her fingers over imaginary castanets, contracting her abdomen “ala Turka” into an improvised belly dance called the cocek. “Ala Turka” denotes a projection of style that evolved in Macedonia as a result of the Ottoman Empire’s lengthy five-century stay. Macedonian music and dance is richer for this prolonged occupation, despite the irony that Macedonian musicians took Turkish rhythms and put them into threes as a way of resisting the Ottoman presence.3 Cocek music derives its sound, feel, and (largely) improvisatory nature from calgija, certainly the most popular and, perhaps, the most influential genre of music and style of performance to come out of the Ottoman era. There are many types of cocek: Ciftatelli, improvised Cocek, fixed melody Cocek, Arapski Cocek and Grcki Cocek (fast tempo coceci), and Indijski Cocek (a moderate tempo cocek) to name just a few (Seeman 1990:43). I do not know which cocek Liljana is doing, and it hardly seems to matter. The slinky movements of the dance—once the proprietary sphere of professional dancers hired to perform as entertainers in urban kafeana (coffeehouses) and at weddings—have dispossessed my cousin of her normally quite reserved character. Shaking her shoulders, leaning the weight of her body on one leg, she flirts with her open hip, sending it out and back with a gesturing percussive caress. Offering their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 329 support, Liljana’s girlfriends dance below her like a mosh-pit of concert goers at the foot of a rock star.4 Cocek has introduced a generic Turkish theme that the band continues with its next selection—Ibraim Odza—a song from Titov Veles about a well-known Robin Hood figure who robbed the Begs of their wealth and then redistributed it amongst the people.5 My ears can hardly believe it, but my body knows what to do. I burst forward out of my seat and toward the dance floor. A couple of years back, while listening to a recording of the song by Decata od Bouf (The Boys from Bouf), a Toronto-based Macedonian wedding band lead by one of Paca’s cousins, Paca attempted to teach me the step pattern that goes along with the song. I tried to match the sweetness in her hips and that grounded, fluid bounce that gives the dance such a graceful look on a woman’s body. But all I could manage to put out was a gangly, stilted cadence. A lump of affection that was completely wrong. I fell in love with the dance after watching three young men—Aegean Macedonians—perform it. I had only ever dreamt about men like them: light on their feet, proud in their posture, young and cocky, improvising with such controlled abandon. Theirs was a charismatic style that stole my breath away. Dancing as if on air, swooshing their hips with that distinctively Aegean accent on the downbeat. And they moved with such an urgency (funny how exile works that way). As if everything depended on this one dance being danced. Here and now. When one of the men, Dimitri, showed me the steps later on, I felt a rush of embarrassment to take his hand. But I gave it to him anyway and discovered that it is true what they say. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 330 An accomplished dancer Ju st by virtue of the fact that he is at your side, with his hand in yours, will help you to feel what it is that you are supposed to feel. And now, two years later and with less than 24 hours to go before getting on an airplane to fly away from Macedonia, I want to feel that feeling again. I want to recover my sentimentality. Paca begins the dance. Perfect. A place of honor. She wears it well. Friends of hers fall in line behind faster than I can catch the tail. D on’ t be so anxious. I am forced to squeeze through the crowds of people, but am trapped between the backside of the dance line and the wall Poleka, poleka. Slowly, slowly. No! Get going or you 1 1 miss your chance. I double back around toward the front of the line and realize that I have no choice but to cut in. Seconds passing by. Pve cut in before. No problem. Pveeven waited much longer than this. Passing me by like the dancing bodies before me, settling into their space and to the lilt of the rhythm. But I ’ ve always known. My mother. Her sister. A cousin. A close friend. Pve always known the link where I was breaking the chain. People who would welcome me with a smile or a squeeze o f the hand, and disregard that they had missed a beat in the music fo r want o f accommodating me. But this? This is different. A potential breach of etiquette. I know no one and no one knows me. But I just have to get in. I see the face of a woman my age, who has been a part of the day’s festivities since they began. Yes. Yes, o f course. She will Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 331 recognize me. She will know that I am part o f the family—part o f the circle—and thus grant me entry. I lean in close behind her (here goes nothingj and take a chance. “May I...?” Dancer friends from one of Skopje’s KUDs tell me later on that it was not my fault. “The lady was rude,” they assure me. “Yeah, Gaelyn. Don’t be sad. You just didn’t know what to say or how to say it.” “No,” the woman answers back curtly. I am shocked; and then. My heart sinks. A loneliness lonelier than lonely. Why must this melody be so beautiful? That calgija style of merakliski, filled with longing and nostalgic sentiment. May God strike down that Ibraim Odza, That real bandit-warrior, on Melnik Mountain. I scramble to find the end of the line; an older man enjoying the freedom of being last, curling the tail in like a question mark so that he can steal a few moments dancing face-to-face with his friends. He reopens the circle and is startled to be met by my outstretched hand. It is nice of him to take it and all. But I dare say that there is some love lost. Is this what it feels like not to belong? To finally know the consequences of traveling thousands of miles to Macedonia with the expectation of “feeling linked to lost worlds, dreams, and affections” (Behar 1996:158) only to have my closeness to that link desert me? And on account of a song and a dance? They are just musical notes and step patterns, are they not? So why do I care so much? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 332 Theo Angelopoulos’ 1995 masterpiece, Ulysses ’ Gaze, traces the journey of a Greek-American film director (Mr. A) across an unraveling Balkan peninsula in search of three lost reels of film shot by Yannakis and Miltos Manaki. The Manaki brothers were pioneers of cinema in the Balkans, credited for registering the first moving images of the region as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth.6 From the opening scene, we know that Angelopoulos has created a protagonist whose journey will be, like the man himself, marked by the very same ambiguities, contrasts, and conflicts reflected in the work of the Menaki brothers as they too moved throughout a region undergoing profound change, recording its landscapes and local customs, its revolutions and battles. Mr. A’sjourney begins on a cold and rainy night in northwestern Greece, 17 km. south of the Macedonian border, in the town of Fiorina near to where my grandfather was bom. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” he calls out to a woman who walks past him as he is about to get in a taxi. Mr. A follows after the woman, who neither responds nor looks his way. Is she for real? Maybe someone he once knew: a childhood friend who does not recognize him; a scorned former lover perhaps? Or is she a ghost, a memory, an aberration, a metaphor? Mr. A has been away from the Balkans for 35 years. Thirty-five years is an awfully long time for sentimentality and nostalgia to brew. At the end of a mystical film that consumes almost three hours of screen time, Mr. A finds the three missing reels in a bleak and shell-shocked Sarajevo. Yet, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 333 has he really found that which he was expecting to find? As the final scene unfolds, the blank frames of a film flicker across the projection screen inside the charred remains of the Sarajevo Cinematheque. A broken Mr. A sits slumped over, and we are left wondering about the source of his apparent grief. Is he grieving for the Cinematheque’s archivist—the caretaker of the lost Manaki reels—who together with his family has just been senselessly murdered down by the river’s edge? Is he grieving because he has come all this way to find the films blank? Or does he grieve because he has seen the Manaki images—the first glance of a new era, a new century—yet realizes that those image are but the first glance of a lost glance, a lost innocence that perhaps was never there in the first place? “Nostalgia is like a daydream in reverse,” writes Lowenthal (1985:8), “like thinking we loved the books of our youth, when all we love is the thought of ourselves young, reading them.” Gustavo and I leave the wedding reception well before it is over. We are tired, and tomorrow is the start of a long journey back to the United States, dorgi and Maria are tired too, and offer us a ride. 6orgi is in luck. It is all downhill from Nize Pole. He puts the car in neutral, and lets gravity do its thing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 334 ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 7: 1 Back in Skopje, I know of several men who, similar to Goran, have been in danger of being drafted because of their previous military service. Most have been in hiding at various times, not sleeping at their home addresses to avoid being contacted. Apparently, the actual type of training one might have had as a former member of the military mattered little to the government. “Never was I a foot soldier,” Dobre Manasievic exploded one day in his office at KUD Koco Racin after receiving notice that the military wanted to call him up for active duty. “And now, after 20 years they want me to fight?!” 2 A similar moniker, “ala Franka,” references Macedonia’s brush with Francophilism, although the reference is most likely a trope for the ambiguous imprint of “western” style in urban dress and music, most notably in the introduction of polka and waltz meter, of which such endearing songs as Biljana Platno Belese are representative (Seeman 1990b: 10). 3 Vase Robev made me aware of the correlation between the Christian trinity, and the rhythm in music, dance, and language. “Everything is done in threes due to the influence of Christianity .” 4 Cocek informs contemporary dance practices in Macedonia without shame or stigma attached to it. Conversely, back in the United States, I have come across people who deride its practice. Once, after presenting a talk on Macedonian dance to a group of Macedonian-Americans, an older emigre approached me. “What about that stuff that they do at weddings, Gaelyn?” she whispered loudly, her bowed head tilted with eyes askance. “Have you seen what they do?” she asked, feigning disapproval toward the “scandalous” information she was about to divulge. “They get on top of the tables and start....” She stopped mid sentence. The woman would not dare give her body over completely to the movement she was trying to evoke. As a small crowd of her contemporaries gathered, she made a modest effort to thrust her hips forward, drop her shoulders down and back, and shake her decolletage. “That’s not dance!” she concluded, punctuating her resolve with the customary, old- world tssk! of the tongue. 5 A Beg (sometimes rendered in English as Bey) was a provincial governor or other high official, or even just an aristocrat, in the Ottoman Empire. 6 Known to Macedonians as Janaki and Milton, the Manaki brothers were bom in Greece, but made Bitola (at the time referred to as Monastir) their home for many years after establishing a photography and film studio in 1902 in a building that still stands along the town’s historic promenade boulevard (Sirok Sokak). Most of the brothers’ films are housed in the Macedonian Cinematheque in Skopje, where they are protected as part of the republic’s cultural heritage (Koneska n.d). An international film festival is held each year in Bitola in honor of the brothers’ achievements and contributions. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 335 FIGURE 14: Young Explorer Scouts hoping to win a rafting competition Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 336 CHAPTER 8: EXITING THE DANCE For the ethnographer, one’s insatiable will to meaning can take on an urgent, if not at times neurotic quality. Was it not an ethnographer, Clifford Geertz, who once opined (1973:29) that anthropology “is a strange science whose most telling assertions are its most tremulously based, in which to get somewhere with the matter at hand is to increase the suspicion, both your own and that of others, that you are not quite getting it right”? An ethnographer does what she does presumably because she possesses a hardier-than-average inclination to weather such suspicion so as to at least try to get things right—to find meaning, that is, in something as untenable and compromised as culture. Over these many years of trying to find meaning in Macedonian folk dance, images have been my muse. My head has been full of them in fact, images thirty-six years in the making, although there is nothing linear about them. They are like my memory: broken, interrupted, deserting, stained, and stiff like an icon with a face that seems to mean one thing. I have strained to make my images vivid and tenacious, yet upon further review I see them for what they really are: nostalgic approximations wrestling with the responsibility of remembering and re/(un)remembering, and of finding a way to write this dance into being. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 337 In writing this dance into being, I have been guided by two overarching goals. First and foremost, I have set out to elaborate on where, and how, dance and dancing fit into the cultural universe of Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia, and to create a performative framework through which to understand how Macedonians are socialized to think and feel about their dance practices. Taking a historical and metacritical approach, I have tried to disentangle the entanglement of dance in the meaning-making practices of Macedonians at specific spatial and temporal points of reference. In taking this approach, I have been compelled to disentangle the entanglement of national and ethnic forms of identification with the “folk” dance produced and performed by the republic’s population of ethnic Macedonian. Subsequently, given the protracted history of geopolitical contestation over Macedonia, and in deference to the exegesis of doing fieldwork during a period of security crisis, I have also been compelled to write about “the dance” that people do to survive culturally, politically, and economically. In following the threads I have followed, I have thus found my ethnographic project propelled forward by a second goal—that of performing what Jose Limon (1994:125) calls “an archeology of subjugated knowledges and practices.” In an effort to develop an “alternative but critical understanding” of Macedonian national identity, for example, while calling attention to the fact that “identity” is a tenuous thing, full of marginality, uncertainty and ambiguity, I have also paid close attention to the fight for counter/self-representation being waged by Macedonian intellectuals. Specifically, I have tried to build an appreciation for the reasons why Macedonians Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 338 might embrace the need to speak back—on their own terms—to a body of knowledge and discourse that has historically questioned Macedonia's right to national self-determination. Another prominent concern of this archeological unearthing has been the reconceptualization of Macedonian folk dance not as a stable entity, but as a multi-sited performance practice that evokes polykinetic sights and sounds. In the end, two prominent concerns have unified these goals. It has been deeply relevant to me and my ethnographic project not only to write about the body responsibly, but to remain open and attentive to ethnographically exploring new ways of seeing old things. Because I cannot help but remain open and attentive to the end, I cannot help but wonder, is there another way to begin my exit from the dance? Allow me to try again, this time with a more progressive muse. What would a world look like in which one could be what one is, at any given moment, without any particular obligation to what one was before that moment? Would it be possible for any of us to start from there, not necessarily so that we could escape from who we have been (none of us can really de-link ourselves from that person), but so that we could break the Gordian Knot of antagonisms that have kept us from also becoming? What would such a break look like? Exactly how would such a break come about for a Macedonian? Trajce Hristov and Miroslav Andreevski, two Macedonians to whom I introduced the reader in the Interlude entitled “Liner Notes for Negotiating Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 339 Freedom,” are pseudonyms for two individuals I met and became quite close to over the course of doing fieldwork. Although many of the salient personal and larger historical events that I describe as having animated the lives of Trajce and Miroslav are verifiable fact, I have taken artistic license with certain details. Neither the CD recording, Negotiating Freedom, nor the accompanying liner notes, for example, exist as physical entities. Instead, the recording is a metaphor meant to interpolate the space between a Macedonian musical artist’s organic self, and his efforts to articulate himself anew in a region of the world where the images that groups of people have of themselves and others are often monopolized by state and non-state actors who continue to compete to define the relationship between “culture,” politics, and “identity” often in ways which languish in the rhetoric of the past (see Brown 2000:123). The liner notes further move this metaphor to text in the form of a dialogue between myself and my close friend, the Macedonian art historian, Bojan Ivanov, who joins me as a co-author, aiding the expansion of contemporary notions of performing arts in the Republic with excerpts taken from his own writings on “Macedonian national identity” and the contemporary artist (see Ivanov 2001, Ivanov 2002). Upon first reading “Liner Notes for Negotiating Freedom,” one might question what relevance it has in a dissertation dedicated to folk dance. Certainly, as I believe I have shown throughout, one cannot write about folk dance in Macedonia without to some extent also writing about music. “Liner Notes for Negotiating Freedom” is about music, yet it is not quite the music that comes to mind when one Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 340 thinks about folk dance or even about Macedonia. Not one zurla, gajda, or tapan makes its physical presence known in this story. There is no mention of wedding bands, no analysis of those complicated rhythms for which “Macedonian music” is famous. Instead, so it seems, I spend my discursive energy simply narrating the careers of two men whose lives intersect and intertwine because of a shared love for music. “Liner Notes for Negotiating Freedom’ ’ ' was written in the Autumn of 2002, just weeks after I arrived home from the return visit to Macedonia I alluded to in the closing section of Chapter 6. While on that return visit, I had been hearing rumblings of there being a young woman, a classically trained dancer, who had been abroad working with and learning from modem choreographers, and who in a manner befitting her given name—Iskra (spark)—was now sparking a contemporary dance movement back home in Macedonia.1 I had often wondered why there were no modem dance companies in Macedonia like there were, for example, up north in Zagreb. Like Macedonia, Croatia has a strong tradition of folk dance. It experienced the same post-WWII burgeoning of driistva. It too has a professional folk ensemble, LADO, that was in fact formed a few years before Tanec. So why did Croatia have a thriving contemporary dance scene while Macedonia did not? No one in Macedonia was ever able to answer my question, which in itself always left me wondering, were Macedonia to have a modem dance company, what would the choreography look like? Branislav Sarkanjac conceives of Macedonia as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 341 a “sediment culture” in which “influences from various sides stream” (Sarkanjac 2001b). Were a modem dance company to exist in Macedonia, would there be traces of this sediment in the choreography? Would there be traces of traditional folk dance in the movements? Would there be lines to the body that would trigger a recollection of something that maybe even I had danced before? Or would the choreography be a complete break from those lines and recollections? I left Macedonia before I could find out anything more on Iskra, but I did have a chance to follow my curiosity with Vase Robev. I want to return to our conversation from Chapter 6, and pick up on an excerpt initiated by my husband. Gustavo: There’s a company in the United States called the Doug Elkins Dance Company. They have taken very traditional elements of American street dancing that are now, well, when you see this kind of movement you know that it is this kind of dancing. They’ve studied this kind of dancing, but have created from it another kind of dance. And they use all the movements at random—well it’s not random because somebody has decided what follows what, so it is a choreographed idea—but they have developed a modem dance company out of it. No body knows what to call it, so somebody decided to call it modem dance! Do you feel that Macedonia could have such a dance company, using traditional Macedonian dance as its basis, but almost breaking... Gaelyn: A company. A modem company that uses the form of traditional dance, but they create... Vase: But they destroy it. Gaelyn: They destroy it, but then build something new. Vase: No, not here. There is something else [going on here]. I’ll talk about myself, my [folk] choreographies. In “Grozdobar”, for example, and in any other choreography I always do the same. I want to show on the stage the original way of dancing without any changes. The audience should see how the dance is originally. But because it’s a choreography, I also do some modification. Mostly in the movements on the stage. Not the steps, not the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 342 patterns. But you can’t say that I changed the dance itself. You can see as a public that I created something. I’m not hiding that. I want you to see my creations. ‘So this is the original... and now here is the author, this is what he did with some modification to make it for the stage.’ This is what I accept. This is what I do and I accept for others. It is clear that Vase is not on the same page as my husband and me. He is focused on modifications made within the context of folk dance, while we are trying to reference an altogether completely different context. In retrospect, I should never have agreed to Vase’s use of the word “destroy.” Perhaps he would have understood more clearly and responded differently had I taken the time to find a more appropriate word or cluster of words to describe the process by which a creative artist learns to negotiate within a certain tradition, but then puts that tradition aside so that he or she can go somewhere unexpected or unimagined. Is it not possible for to embrace the need for continuity and the impulse to go outside of the box? At any rate, Vase’s answer was enough to inspire “Liner Notes for Negotiating Freedom.” At the time I wrote the interlude, my conceptual impulse was to express opposition to several things, not the least of which was my opposition, as I mentioned in Chapter 1, to habituses of conventional associations that incarcerate people in time and space. Traditions do have a life beyond the squares that we put them. One need not be dressed up in national costume, playing national music, to carry on a nation’s traditions. I refracted my opposition through the prism of music, not dance, because during my fieldwork stay in the Republic of Macedonia, it was the musical world, not the dance one, which was presenting itself as more tolerant, open, and available to pursuing the kind of experimental practices Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 343 that would expand the circulation of traditional practices into “new performance traditions.” Before its breakup in 2002, the Bitola-based quintet, Foltin, sonically exemplified best what I mean by “new performance traditions.” Foltin’ s debut recording, out re-mer, immediately foregrounded the band’s penchant for experimentation when it was released in 1997. Combining vocals, acoustic guitar, contrabass, clarinet, percussion, and kaval with mandolin, harmonica, tapan, tarabuka, bells, tins, a plastic hose, and “lots of toys”, out re-mer plays like a six- track contrafactum of 20th Century New Music meets Middle Eastern quartertones meets Byzantium dirge meets Brazilian Nueva Tropicana meets Lounge Jazz, all filtered through a creative curiosity as quirky, whimsical, and unrefined as the crayon and colored-pencil drawings covering the compact disc inside and out.2 By the 2000 release date of its second recording, archimed, Foltin had acquired a new drummer on trap set. Aleksandar Sekulovski’s rhythmic acumen and flexibility (equal parts hip-hop, drum-n-bass, and traditional Macedonia) freed the band to explore—acoustically—those quick, drop-of-the-hat time shifts that many, more prominently-recognized pop music groups abroad realize only with the assistance of programmable drum machines. Although obviously a better rehearsed and less improvised recording, archimed nonetheless still captured Foltin’ s playfulness, with vocalist and mandolin player, Branislav Nikolov, mimicking a muted hom with his mouth and lips, whistling, and singing out la-la-la style in his Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 344 role as the album’s archetypal “modem time man, a traveler through the ancient and hot Mediterranevs, who falls in love with a local woman.... ”3 Any effort to fully elucidate Foltin's unique sonorities would be incomplete, however, if it failed to mention the latitudinal and longitudinal environs into which Foltin's founder and contrabassist, Oliver Josifovski, was bom and raised. Oliver’s family home clings to the edge of a densely populated slope in the heart of Bitola’s Roma quarters. From the balcony, one looks down and out over a large swath of open space—the hard-packed dirt center of the community—which, on the day that Aleksandar Sekulovski, my husband and I visited Oliver, was overrun with people dancing in celebration of a wedding. Standing out from the crowd of hundreds circling around in an enormous dance ring were the young bride (dressed in a mint green gown), and the bride’s girlfriend (costumed with a tiara and a royal blue dress), whose job it was to keep the trail of her friend’s gown from touching the dirt as she danced. Outside of the main circle, young teenagers danced alone in their own little circles of two or three, while others found enjoyment from playing on top of the corrugated metal roofs of storage houses bordering the open space. Oliver took us right up alongside the band. The electric bassist was laying down a fat bass line, so full-bodied that it rattled the snares of the kit player whose arms and legs were having to pump extra hard to produce enough groove to cut through the rest of the din: a horn section with a funky, warped sound; a vocal microphone and guitar patch set on extra, extra echo; a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 345 synthesizer player wailing on his pitch bender as if it were just another key on the keyboard instead of a sound effect for occasional use only. We headed back up the hill and out onto Oliver’s balcony. “Almost everyday there are weddings,” he explained, “and you can’t hear anything else but music.” We looked down at the festivities continuing below as we munched on chips and sipped from small bottles of Coca-Cola. It was easy to imagine Oliver growing up: eating at the kitchen table, watching television, taking a shower, listening to his Michael Jackson albums, finishing his homework, practicing his bass, talking on the telephone, trying to find some quiet time alone (or perhaps not). “So this is where Foltin’ s sound comes from,” I mused out loud. Oliver, flashing one of his affable smiles in affirmation, started to dance around excitedly, his voice trailing off in remembrance of time spent on the balcony. He used to sit there for hours and hours, listening, before locking himself in a room full of instruments, with a room-full of possibilities. By highlighting new performance traditions, and trying to expand the very locus of our investigations into territories where monikers such as “Macedonian music” or “music in Macedonia” evoke polyphonic sound images, I do not mean to suggest that emerging performance practices ought to be assigned a position of merit above “folk” practices. Such a paradigm reversal would do little more than reinforce vertical hierarchies rather than realigning configurations horizontally. Neither do I mean to imply that Macedonians should abandon their folklore, or that we ought to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 346 abandon our field sites of interest simply because they look and feel suspiciously “folk.” What I do mean to suggest, or wonder about rather, is why has folk dance, despite its theatricalization and stylization over the years, remained as impervious as it has to those forces of modernization and globalization that have spumed its companion—folk music—into other sonic landscapes? Why folk dance? Indeed, what would be one’s reason for continuing to dance this dance at all? Returning one last time to my conversation with Vase, I ask for him to explain why. Gaelyn: Vase, I want to ask why is showing dance the way it used to be done—the original dance—so important, especially now? This is 2002 and you’re dealing here with dances that have been around for how many years? Vase: Maybe 200 years. So why? G: Yes. V: That’s our treasure. Without roots you’re not a tree. How can you build if you have no root. We have to keep that, and we also have to leave a traga, a trace of this time and of this life. So if I don’t leave anything from this time for the next generations, did we exist or not? During one of our first dance lessons together, Vase teaches me to control where and how my body moves, suggesting that I must dance as if there is a small box around me. “Your legs are your own, and you should not disturb the space of others,” he adds. Dancing within an imaginary box forces my movement vertical, which is precisely what Vase is looking for, yet it runs counter to my American-bred impulse to cover space—devour it, really—until I am breathless and sweating, even from the palms of my hands. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 347 As I write, I am incited to explore the parallel between these contradictory movement dynamics, and the comparison Richard Gaughran (2000:14) draws between American fiction and Macedonian fiction published since independence in 1991. The United States, “a nation virtually founded on the myth of movement across space,” produces literature in which “characters go places, whether on rafts, by train, by car, or on foot.” But in Macedonia, a land-locked country where “a border is never far away, and sometimes... difficult to traverse for political reasons,” literature dwells on movement that is “not across space but up and down.” Within a single anthology of contemporary Macedonian short stories, Gaughran discovers both “vertical movement or vertical vision” (images of flying, climbing, and ascending), and “commensurate images of descent and digging.” Unsure of their intended significance, Gaughran concedes that these literary images of vertical movement perhaps suggest a vision of being Macedonian that is more dynamic than he had given it credit. Living in Skopje... I take some habitual walks, one of which takes me past the small fenced-in yard of a house, perhaps ten meters by ten meters, next to a tire-repair shop—hardly an expansive estate. In the yard, however, is a pigeon coop, and on a few occasions I’ve watched the owner of the pigeons as he releases his birds, stretches out his neck, and strains his eyes to watch the pigeons circle high above the neighborhood. There is imagination at work there, a vicarious release from everyday concerns, a surmounting of limitation. I think of these stories in a similar way: they defy boundaries, take flight over limits, challenge notions of what is real or possible. (Gaughran 2000:15) I am compelled by the conviction that despite its similar stress on vertical movement, Macedonian dance engenders a similar release from concern and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 348 surmounting of limitation, irrespective of the form that such concern or limitation might take: advancing age; the aftermath of a world war and the need for social transformation; youthful exuberance (in need of an outlet), or youthful boredom (in search of some connection); not knowing what else to do with one’s life but dance; or even the unintended consequences of a country’s political independence—“finally being free,” yet realizing that one is still free from nothing. And so: what at first feels like an old body, reverts back to something infinitely more pleasurable while dancing around the courtyard of a village church; what begins as friendship and physical activity, with time turns into something more, something larger than one’s self; what begins as a hobby, turns into one’s life profession. Perhaps Macedonia's drustva find themselves struggling financially because they are relics of a system that wants to die. Perhaps Tanec does thrive on the reification of “Macedonian national culture.” Yet, how do we know where to go if we never lay tracks? What more can a group of people do but dance, and hope that in doing so it will have left evidence of itself, a traga, a trace of its existence. Relishing essentialism and also trying to transcend it, I exit the dance so as to choreograph one last movement. Through Whose Eyes? During the late winter and early spring months of 2001,1 conducted a photography and creative writing workshop with a small group of students at NOVA High School in Skopje. The goal of the workshop, which culminated in a public Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 349 exhibition, was for participants to address, through visual images and text, the question, “What does Macedonia mean to me?” The conceptual impulse for the workshop was dialogic. On the one hand, as a documentary film maker who, because of an interest in ethnographic film had decided to put film making on hold so as to pursue a doctoral degree in anthropology, I was keen to bring some kind of visual element to my research project. On the other hand, as a young anthropology student, concerned with the politics of representation, I was keen on finding a way to challenge assumptions and nurture new insights. The use of subject-generated imagery in general, and subject-generated photography in particular (subject-generated photography is the term used within the field of visual anthropology to describe what I would eventually propose to do with the high school students), is not a very novel methodological tool for ethnographers looking to expand the potential of doing fieldwork that challenges assumptions and nurtures new insights. Ever since the late 1960s when John Adair (an anthropologist) and Sol Worth (a communications researcher) taught a small group of Navajo living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Arizona the mechanics of filmmaking and editing, and then set the group free to shoot and edit their own films, anthropologists have often turned to subject-generated imagery as meditations on specific spatial and temporal corporealities (see Worth and Adair 1997). Just as Worth and Adair concluded that the ways in which the Navajo sequenced film events, depicted motion and rituals, and represented space and time made for films which were “distinctly Navajo,” I, too, envisioned scrutinizing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 350 images produced by my workshop participants for visual imprints of corporealities which I could earmark as “distinctly Macedonian.” Despite the host of dilemmas that utilizing visual research in this capacity engenders (i.e. issues of consent, the dominating eye of the camera, the gaze of the viewer), I reasoned that my project would be an inexpensive and enjoyable way to investigate and deconstruct the representational practices of a segment of Macedonian society not directly associated with the circles in which I was moving as I researched the culture surrounding folk dance.4 Yet, would the visual practices of the workshop participants be the only representational politics that my project would be addressing? Curiously, my choice of prompt—“What does Macedonia mean to me?”—paralleled a line of inquiry to which I was personally beholden. Ever since deciding to conduct my dissertation fieldwork on Macedonian folk dance (did I choose it or did it choose me?), I have had to contend with this question on several levels, many of which have been pleasurable, but some of which have left me ambivalent about my subject matter in particular and the ethnographic process in general. Furthermore, in light of the rapidly deteriorating security situation inside Macedonia and just north of the border in Serbia’s Presovo Valley, I was beginning to think that perhaps my disdain for placating to the concepts and ideas that often fuel the academic machinery with regards to the former republics of Yugoslavia was perhaps naive, and that maybe there was/is just one singular complex of reasons for North American and Euro-Atlantic scholars to come to this part of the world; that being to investigate: post-socialist transitions; inter-ethnic relations; conflict Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 351 resolution; reconciliation; minorities in the new nation-states, strategies of inclusion and exclusion; politics of identity and difference. Given the workshop’s starting date—just fifteen days after the grenade explosion in Tearce—the prompt I chose possessed timely and acute resonance not only with events that were about to unfold around us, but with those very concepts and trends which have come to define the political-economy of foreign interest in the former Yugoslav republics. I began the Through Your Eyes Creativity Workshop just as NOVA High School was moving from its cramped offices and classrooms downtown to a new, three-story, state-of-the-art facility nestled in a quiet residential area just three kilometers from the city center. The facility’s award-winning structural and design features (over twenty modem classrooms and laboratories, a technology center, art, drama and music studios, an auditorium, a library, a physical fitness center, a full- service cafeteria, custom-made furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows, and prominent use of Italian marble) were, at the time, as dramatic and idiosyncratic for a Macedonian school as the pedagogical and cirricular transformations initiated at NOVA from the moment of its inception in 1997. Although NOVA receives a portion of its funding from the Ministry of Education, it operates independently from the public school system, which is to say that NOVA’s character, philosophy, and mission are the brainchild of its cosmopolitan creator and principal, Venera Novakovska. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 352 Instruction at NOVA is primarily in English. Coursework is college preparatory, modeled after secondary education in the United States, which Venera has studied extensively. Academic rigors are complemented with extra-curricular activities and a mandatory component of community service—something unfamiliar to many citizens of the republic, where altruistic volunteerism does not have a tradition of strong support at the level of the indivudual. Venera’s explicit goal with the school is to prepare and encourage students to further their education abroad, a perfect recipe for brain drain were it not for her parallel goal of actually reversing the trend by motivating alumni to eventually return home to Macedonia, assume positions of leadership, and take responsibility for Macedonia’s well-being. There is a reason why Venera and her husband, Novica, have sunk everything into creating NOVA, with an eye toward encouraging similar educational environments for all Macedonians. They are betting that students will come to understand that being both a citizen of the world and a true patriot— someone who loves their country not because of some perverse dogmatism but because they were bom there and know its rivers and mountains—are not mutually exclusive. Fifteen different nationalities were represented at NOVA during the time I was there. There were: children of foreign diplomats, embassy workers, and NGO employees; children of Macedonian politicians, business owners, and entrepreneurs; sons and daughters of parents who could afford the school’s $4,000 a year tuition, and sons and daughters of parents who relied on one of NOVA’s scholarship opportunities to provide their child the privilege of attending. At one of our Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 353 meetings together to discuss the workshop, I asked Venera to leave foreign nationals out of the picture, and instead encourage a diverse socio-economic mix of Macedonians— that is, kids bom and raised in Macedonia—to join the after-school workshop. Twenty-one students—two of whom looked suspiciously like foreign nationals—showed up at the first meeting. My excitement was hardly containable as I distributed to each participant a sheet of paper on which a short description of the workshop and a tentative schedule were written: Through Your Eyes creativity workshop “Through Your Eyes Creativity Worshop” is a six-week extra-curricular program intended to encourage creativity through photography and writing. The goal of this workshop is for participants to capture through visual images and text what Macedonia means to them. The workshop will culminate with an exhibit of each participant’s work. Tentative Schedule: Week One The first meeting will be for introductions, discussion of the project, and discussion of what will be expected of participants. Week Two Guest artist. Discussion will center on how to respect both the subject of a photograph and one’s self as an artist. Week Three Participants will return to workshop with their exposed film ready for processing. Workshop time will be spent talking about the process of generating text that gives movement and life to an image or set of images. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 354 Week Four Photo prints will be shown, and each participant will be asked to give their initial reactions to their own photographs. More strategies for answering the question, “What do I do now?” Week Five Turn in rough/final drafts of written work. Set up individual meetings so as to review written work. Begin discussion, organization, and installation of public exhibit. Week Six Continue working on exhibit. Week Seven Exhibit! By the end of our second meeting, as time drew near for those that remained to go out and actually take their photographs, we had become a compact, yet focussed group of eight—seven students and myself. If I assume the role of contemporaneous viewer of the work produced by the seven workshop participants, this is what I see.5 I was very impressed with freshman, Mihaela Stojanova. Her photographs were mounted without text, but they were conceived and arranged quite thoughtfully into themes including: a collage of perspectives (two images, for example, capture the photographic principle of depth-of-field); and a collage of contrasts (a sidewalk covered in filth/one that has been spit and shined; a shot of Skopska tarsija [a Skopje market from the mid 1600s whose shops still function today]/a scene from one of Skopje’s modem shopping malls [Bunjakovic]; efforts to preserve Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 355 architectural motifs/development projects blind to the rich, historical remnants their work demolishes. At the center of Mihaela’s display was a pastel-colored pencil drawing of Kamen Most, the 15th century stone bridge that has seen better days, but nonetheless still spans the width of the Vardar River, and continues to provide a footpath connecting the old and newer parts of the city. Fifteen-year-old Simona Kicurovska—tag sign “Smurphy”—paid homage to Skopje’s tag culture with photographs showing the work of friends as well as scaled- down versions of her own designs. In general, tag art tends to be directed against authority, although it is not always clear what face the mask of authority wears.6 Simona corrected me when I called it graffiti. Unlike someone who does graffiti, a tag artist takes ownership of his or her defacement of public property. The tag—the brightly-colored designs one sees spray painted onto walls or telephone booths—takes the form of the artist’s personal signature. The multiple layers of viewing that Simona created by fastening photographs of tag work from around Skopje onto colored construction paper that she painted to look like a wall, showed the young freshman’s familiarity with the concept that symmetrical attention paid to what one displays and how one displays it makes for art which is in communication with itself. Sophomore Amy Tseng—one of the foreign nationals—contributed a beautiful composition of images and words. She accompanied a photograph of the Vardar River and the ruins of Kale (a fortress) with words that spoke of the importance of passing down through the generations an appreciation for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 356 Macedonia’s cultural heritage. Though just fourteen, Amy offered an ironic twist on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution—a harsh critique of the general lack of environmental awareness in Macedonia. Despite the efforts of a new government campaign to re educate citizens by doing such things as placing inviting, eco-friendly receptacles throughout the city, someone’s garbage did not quite make it into the inside of the container photographed by Amy. Amy writes, “Sometimes... Darwin’s Evolution Theory might be quite correct,” because (apparently) she thinks that improper waste disposal is a genetic mutation. Ironically, it was Amy—a Taiwanese national—whose work addressed the question, “What does Macedonia mean to me?” with signposts easily projected by the mind’s eye of the eager foreign viewer as representative of the reality encircling a Macedonian. Amy included a photograph of a German Shepherd, with its paws perched on top of a chain-linked fence, and the short poem: I longed for freedom Glancing into the air Not to be restrained With this chain And a locked up gate Sloboda! [Freedom!] Figuring prominently in her display were the words “Gloom” and “Uncertain” boldly framing a photograph in which the rays of a setting sun are eerily slicing through a pitch of dark clouds. Amy was aware of the on-going national crisis. Eight soldiers, all from the southern town of Bitola, had recently been ambushed and killed while on a routine patrol, troops were continuing to barrage NLA supporters in village Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 357 hideouts, and in a reversal of the exodus from Kosovo to Macedonia created by the 1999 NATO bombings, ethnic Albanians were leaving Macedonia to seek respite across the border to the north. The Macedonian government, on the verge of declaring a state of war, had just backed down under increasing international pressure, and was in the process of forming a national unity government. In light of this reality, what was Amy trying to say vis-a-vis the juxtaposition of image and text? Is it the ominous clouds that are about to devour the sun and snuff out its light? Or is it the brilliant orb that means to announce that the darkness is only temporary, and that we should look for light to position itself in the sky again tomorrow? v i L Aleksandar Pesev, an 11 grader from Struga, a beautiful town on the shores of Lake Ohrid, was the only one out of a group of four young men who attended the workshop’s first meeting to see his project through to completion. Perhaps he secretly enjoyed being the lone maverick. If he did, it never showed. Aleksandar was always respectful and mindful; sometimes quiet. His moments of insight were not “light-bulb moments” where he would rush to articulate an idea or thought. Instead, Aleksandar handled his insights casually and without sentiment, much the way he approached his image making. In his display were four photographs: a junkyard down the street from NOVA; a parked car; a construction lot behind a new apartment complex; and a misty panorama of Skopje from atop Vodno mountain. On a sheet of ruled notebook paper, which Aleksandar crumbled so as to give it urban texture, he typed the poem: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 358 The streets are becoming old and worn And more shoes are getting tom But still They are part of my city The clouds are getting bolder And the nights are sometimes colder But still They are part of my city Everyday is a new beginning And my hopes and goals are always winning Over my fears and anxieties That’s my life in my city During the short time that I knew her, 10 grader Nora Aliti struck me as an old soul. Although Nora interacted easily with the other students, she was a loner. She lived away from her parents and extended family, visiting them in Tetovo on the weekends. When she was not in class, Nora spent her time with a fellow NOVA student—a girlfriend from back home—who was also Nora’s roommate in a nearby student dorm. Nora had a gentle face and demeanor, and I could tell that she was blessed with enormous empathy. Yet, the greater one’s empathy, the greater the likelihood that one will suffer, as did Nora, from occasional bouts of enormous disappointment that we humans should treat each other as egregiously as we do at times. Nora gave me goose bumps when, during one of our last after-school meetings, she explained to us all the connections she intended to make between her chosen photographs—a flock of sheep at pasture in the beautiful mountains of Western Macedonia, a winter scene from a ski resort near her hometown, a stretch of new highway connecting Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 359 Tetovo and Skopje, and the blurred motion of a passing car—and the question of what Macedonia meant to her. “We are bom with some inalienable rights,” she would go on to write and display with her images, “among which are life, liberty, and death.” But in between we grow and change through the interaction with others and the nature. I experience the same everyday on my way to school. So, all we do is move with a purpose or without it. Even if we stop for a minute or two, staying absolutely in one place not turning left or right, we still move. The Earth moves around the sun and so do we. Staying in one country is a similar process. As a unique individual we grow, mature, develop together or independently from our country’s pace of evolution. Our country’s past, present, and future constitute an inherent part of us that reflects in our intertwined existences. The public opening of the Through Your Eyes Creativity Workshop was timed to coincide with NOVA’s long-delayed official open house on May 22,2001. Not many visitors made it up to the third-floor art studio to view the exhibit. Mainly, they stayed downstairs, listening in on a poetry workshop, a chemistry contest or a meeting of the Cyber Club, trying their hand at ping pong, aerobics or basketball, catching a short scene from a new school play, or drinking refreshments in the cafeteria. Not surprisingly, of all the workshop participants, Nora was the one most visibly disappointed that our weeks of hard work were failing to draw a larger, more meaningful turnout. She stubbornly kept watch over the studio for two hours, perking up when people entered for what usually amounted to a quick walk through the space. I remember distinctly though that it was Nora’s parents who were the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 360 exhibit’s greatest admirers, driving in from Tetovo just in time to look around, and absorb what their daughter had to say about her own contribution. John Berger and Jean Mohr embrace the notion that “An instant photographed can only acquire meaning insofar as the viewer can read into it a duration extending beyond itself’ (Berger and Mohr 1982:82). In light of this embrace, what conclusions are to be drawn? What “distinctly Macedonian” corporealities have imprinted themselves into the photographs of the workshop participants? What direct connections exist between the image-maker and his or her own complex reality—“of being Macedonian, of being FYROM-ian, of being from the West Balkans, of being from South-Eastern Europe, or of belonging to the Eastern Mediterranean cultural circle, or... you are most welcome to continue”? (Ivanov 2002). I position my ego in the shadows and turn, as I have at various times throughout this dissertation, to writerly interlocutors—the first of whom (Bojan Ivanov) I have just quoted—to aid the interpretive process. Ivanov, an art historian and former manager of the Museum of Macedonia, recounts the disappointment of foreign curators who began descending on the Republic of Macedonia after 1991 with an interest in exhibiting recent works by Macedonian artists. He writes: There were gross misunderstandings involved as the offered, suggested or proposed works seemed to bear no relevance to current trends and fashionable curatorial concepts. Macedonian artists, in the eyes of the Other, were lacking that particular edge of social and political commitment; they were lacking a drop of embittered anti-communism, the shyness of someone Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 361 oppressed as well as the guilty look of a victimized person. More often than not, following a brief inspection, the works of Macedonian artists would be declined by the curator due to the all-too-evident absence of true thematic involvement in the events of gloomy everyday life: the war at the doors, the trade blockades and sanctions, the closed borders, the ethnic conflicts in the neighborhood or the imminent spillover of theirs, etc. (Ivanov 2002) For the young Macedonian artists, the identity coveted by foreign curators— “totalitarianism, isolation, oppression, post communist misery”—simply was an ' i “unbefitting misnomer.” Fast forward a decade, position me as a foreign curator, of sorts, and Ivanov’s insights become a fresh indictment of the themes and concepts to which my exploration partially placated. Should it come as a surprise that it was a Taiwanese national, not a Macedonian, whose work bore the coveted identity, not necessarily of totalitarianism, isolation, oppression, or post-communist misery, but of that thematic involvement in the events of gloomy everyday life: the uncertainty of the Republic’s future, or the interminable efforts on the part of the Macedonian—disguised as a German Shepherd—to breach the structural integrity of that which has him fenced in? I have waited until now to reveal that I too contributed to the workshop exhibit an exploration of what Macedonia meant to me. I took photographs from my growing collection of new images: A neighborhood fixture; The beautiful waters of Lake Ohrid; A gathering of young; And old at Skopje’s main square on Forgiveness Sunday; A friend captured in a moment of joy; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 362 Another one showing off his juggling skills; A sister betraying her little brother’s hiding spot behind the flag of a foreign NGO; Villagers gathered at a folk festival; Young Explorer Scouts hoping to win a rafting competition. Then, I mounted and suspended them off three ends of a four-ended mobile. From the mobile’s fourth end—to give my exploration the balance I wanted it to have—I hanged a triangular arrangement of three photographs (images brought from home of the “Macedonia” I had grown up with) whose space I interpolated with a text I had composed three years earlier about why people such as my grandparents would cross an ocean so as to migrate from Point A to Point B, especially when doing so means that one day everything is where it should be, and the next, even the stars above are out of alignment. “The citizen from FYROM is unbearably defined by what others think of him,” writes Branislav Sarkanjac (1999). In my opinion, it is this confrontation that lurks at the confluence of the past and the present in the Republic of Macedonia. But what I want to know is this. Is it possible to get rid of all those worn-out metaphors that just don’t seem to be working for us anymore? Is it possible to start from this moment, instead of the one(s) frozen inside all those images that we have of our selves and others? I offer four young Macedonians whose creative outputs suggest such possibilities. Mihaela, whose careful study of contrasts renders a youthful take on Keith Brown’s observation that in the Republic of Macedonia, “the past... keeps time with the present” (2000:38). Simona, who by wrapping herself in the cloak of a tag Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 363 artist, shows that she has found her own personal antidote for the alienation we all experience when we are young and searching, with fully-efforted bodies, to find our place in space and time. Aleksandar, who casually accepts his city’s rough edges, and expresses reliance on having hopes and goals. Nora, who has discovered movement and growth, despite living in a country whose pace of evolution often matches neither the velocity nor the depth of one’s personal development both as an individual and citizen. Sarkanjac writes: The path to sovereignty, to one’s own foundation, is the path that breaks the ties with the world, with the world of others in which I exist with my false self... .The needs of the citizen of FYROM for transcendence is a need to reject definition that the other gives for him and to reach his own definition—to overcome the bad faith. (1999) This is the movement I am trying to perfect. I reach forwardfor firm ground, but leave the hesitation in place. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 364 ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 8: 1 Serendipitously, in 2003 I met one of Iskra’s mentors, Allyson Green, along one of the stops of a multi-week, multi-venue, multi-city U.S. festival of East/Central European contemporary dance theater that Green had organized. Since the early 90s, Green, a dancer and choreographer who for many years was based in New York but now resides in the same West Coast city as I, has been dedicated to expanding the performance experience of artists throughout Eastern and Central Europe. Her collaborations with members of the National Ballet of Macedonia began in the late 90s, and have continued thanks in large part to Iskra’s involvement and leadership. 2 The design layout included: a blue, stick figure riding high on the wave of a blue ocean; one half of what appears to be Bitola’s Isak Mosque; a hi-hat on a stand, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee with a clarinet dressed in a red necktie; the same clarinet playing Pied Piper to a hose snaking out from the top of an open basket; and a dancing contrabass strumming a guitar. 3 This quote comes from notes on the inside jacket of the recording. 4 The original idea that I pitched to my department at the University of Southern California for funding was grander in scope. I originally thought to distribute disposable cameras to a much larger cross section of Macedonians—housewives, university students, folk dancers, businessmen—to see just how they would visually respond to the question, “What does Macedonia mean to me?” I do not remember why I abandoned this idea, but I did. 5 This chapter discusses the work of only five of the seven participants. I have left out the other two, an American girl (the daughter of Texas missionaries) and her best friend (a 17-year-old Macedonian who had spent a considerable amount of time in the United States), because it was hard to discern where the one began and the other ended, even with respects to their creative contributions to the workshop. They photographed similar landscape scenes from the city park, and wrote similar texts drawing parallels between nature and humans. “Actually,” the American whispered to me calmly and leisurely the day we hung the exhibit, “— didn’t write her composition. I did.” 6 In the case of Macedonia, Nora Stojanovic might have a clue. She blames Macedonia's “socio cultural situation” over the course of the country’s “so-called transitional period” for having pried open the generation gap far wider than normal, thus creating an atmosphere ripe for rebellion and for the kind of marginalization that she says many of Macedonia's youth are feeling. “This [ten year] period of transition has made such a big difference in how people think that it’s really amazing,” Stojanovic reasons. As a result, teenagers and young adults “don’t see a way out,” she concludes, so they turn to some very unhealthy ways of dealing with their circumstances: substance abuse, mainly, which in turn has affected a rise in the number of HIV-AIDS cases. A zealous promoter of youth culture, Stojanovic sees the grafting together of art and culture as a starting point for fostering a change of attitude for Macedonia's youth. Herself an international artist, Stojanovic is part of a regional network of artists and activists who are crossing borders and trying to encourage interculturalism in their home countries through transcultural experiences and exchanges. 7 Ivanov explained to me once that of Macedonia's roster of roughly 400 visual artists, the ten or so who are really dedicated to their work care more about finding their own personal voice than they do about making a political statement with their art. Why? Ivanov credits the lingering effects of what he calls “the 1968 phenomena.” Back in the 60s, because there was no art school in Macedonia, Macedonian artists had to go elsewhere for their training and education—mainly Belgrade or Zagreb. When the Civil Rights Movement exploded in the United States and mushroomed out to other parts of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 365 the world, there were no artists in Skopje through whom the wave of change could filter and develop into a homegrown social and political movement. Those Macedonian artists who were in other parts of Yugoslavia were just too detached from the movement there for it to have had any kind of profound effect on them. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 366 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1991. "Writing Against Culture," in Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present. Edited by R. G. Fox, pp. 137-162. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Agelopoulos, Georgios. 2000. "Political Practices and Multiculturalism: The Case of Salonica," in Macedonia: The Politics o f Identity and Difference. Edited by J. K. Cowan. London: Pluto Press. Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread o f Nationalism. London: Verso. 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Asset Metadata

Creator Aguilar, Gaelyn Diane (author)

Core Title Image(a)nation: dance and the parapolitics of being in the Republic of Macedonia

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Anthropology

Degree Conferral Date 2005-12

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag anthropology, cultural,dance,folklore,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Simic, Andrei (committee chair), McKenzie, Roderick (committee member), Moore, Alexander (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-602147

Unique identifier UC11341158

Identifier 3220080.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-602147 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3220080.pdf

Dmrecord 602147

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Aguilar, Gaelyn Diane

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA