PHOTO MONOGRAPHIC
»THE WORLD OF VLACHS«UNDISCOVERED CULTURE
Brief description:Director of the project: Dimitrije Vujadinović
Photography: Jaakko
Researchers: Paun S. Durlić (etnolog), Bora Dimitrijevic (arheolog), Suzana Antic (etnolog)
Time for realization: februar 2007 / februar 2008
Place: Istocna Srbija
Partners: Muzej Zajecar, Muzej Majdanpek
BackgroundEastern Serbia is situated in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula, standing on the intersection of roads and influences of the North and South, East and West since the earliest times.
Around the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, due to favorable economic circumstances, as well as for purely existential reasons, these lands were inhabited by people from the Kosovo region, the Morava-Vardar river basin, and the Dinarides, as well as people speaking the Vlach language.
There are several interpretations of historical sources regarding the origin of the Vlachs; this people is divided into two larger ethnic communities named after the areas they settled in. These are Ungureans and Carans. Geographically and culturally, the most of these people moved over the extensive Carpathian-Balkan area in different epochs and under different historical conditions; this is why the ethnic image of this part of Serbia is extremely diverse and specific, and the people here live in ethnic symbiosis. The image of a traditional way of life can be viewed in the relationship between man and nature, and through certain industrial branches. From a general historic point of view, the economic development in this part of Serbia rested on the fields of mining, agriculture, and cattle raising. The traditional cattle raising is of the type that only uses the pastures within the individual village districts. This part of the country is an area of close-set villages with stables situated on farms outside villages, where cattle were usually kept throughout the year. Mining tradition in the central Balkan zone is also very old. During a period of stagnation in mining industry in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a large number of people took up gold panning in rivers, brooks, and springs.
Houses, clothes, foodThe folk architecture offers a varied picture of both the past and present construction feats. A special place in this field belongs to the Morava type of house. The Vlach female folk wear, which includes shirt of the Carpathian type, two aprons and a wraparound type of skirt, is typical of Caran Vlachs. The main items in their folk wear suggest that Slavic elements exerted considerable influence in the formation of the original type of folk wear The female folk wear of Ungurean Vlachs is typical for the cattle breeding part of the population in Northeast Serbia, and it features very archaic elements such as a shirt of the Carpathian type, two aprons with very long fringes, a white jerkin, white heavy cloth socks, and single and tricorner hats.
In Eastern Serbia, as in other neighboring areas, corn flour and wheat flour bread remained the essential element in the people's diet. Instead of bread, Vlachs use maize porridge in their diet to a great degree, and it is a cult dish in almost every ritual. Vegetables play a more subordinate role; people consume meat a lot more. Fresh meat is either cooked or roasted. Vlachs prepare meat in the simplest possible way; they just chop it and cook it. Soups are prepared in the same manner, with the addition of carrots and onions. Apart from salt, this is the only seasoning. The Serbs do not make soups with pork, only with poultry. The presence of religious ideas and principles also has a decisive role in the diet. Highly archaic elements of folk diet have been preserved in numerous customs where we come upon ritual dishes with a sacrificial aspect, especially when the participant in a ritual is the intermediary in the process of "sending food" to deceased family members or demons that have to be appeased.
Social life, customs, folkloreVillages in Eastern Serbia each have their own territory with a graveyard, arable land, woods, meadows, pastures, farm buildings outside the villages, and lodgings for cattle breeders. Inter-kin relationships are quite developed. Blood kinship is determined both by the father and mother, though the former is considered more important. Marital cross-cousin relations are allowed after four generations. Blood brotherhood is a kind of artificial kinship that used to be made in the past in order to resist spells, restore health or deliver somebody from evil. Godfathers and best men are considered very closely related, and marital relations with them are forbidden. If it happened that children could not live to full age but kept dying, the midwife, who held a highly respected position among Vlachs, was often asked to be the godmother in such cases. She had the role of a spiritual patroness to the child from its birth to marriage.
Matrilocal ("domazet") marriage is also common in Eastern Serbia. However, in a patrilineal society with patriarchal families, a "domazet" is not on an equal social footing with men in patrilocal marriages. "Domazet" marriage has until the present day preserved reflections of ancient traditions with certain indispensable contradictions with the family system, in which this type of marriage is needed for survival. By its structure, there are two basic family types: the nuclear family, comprising the married couple and their children, and the extended family that comprises several members in the direct family line. Apart form these two types, there are also transitional family types, as well as incomplete families. The aim of every marriage is offspring; birth of a new human being is a crucial moment, important for the child's survival. This fact gave rise to a number of folk beliefs, customs and ceremonies that were performed not only at childbirth, but also a lot before that, sometimes even just after the conception.
People thought of this world as transient, and of the other world as the eternal one. The mystical fear of death, the insufficiently comprehended and explicable phenomenon of life and death, as well as the respect of the dead, preserved customs and beliefs in the afterlife in a somewhat reduced and altered form. With the departure of the deceased, the family did not sever its ties with him, but maintained them in various ways instead. It was thought that the deceased needed food and drink, heating, lights, clothes and other material goods in the world beyond, but also immaterial things such as songs and dancing, music and the like. The family would deliver these things in regular periods of time. This is done on the days when a memorial service is held, called "pomen".
The "pomen" days are: the dying day, the following Saturday, then forty days after death, half a year and a full year after the dying day. Vlachs stick to this pattern for the next seven years. Vlach ethnic groups also lit the "heavenly candle" on the Pentecost for the deceased who died without having a candle lit for them.
Archaic elements have been preserved in customs throughout the year; peoples' success in providing the life's necessities in a year depended on the outcome of economic activities in various seasons: in winter – the New Year's cycle (beginning with the Christmas Day and ending with the Shrove Tuesday), the people strove by magic rituals to secure a good yield of crop, a lot of cattle and health for the family; in spring (the customs start with "Mladenci" on March 22, when both Serbs and Vlachs make 40 "mladenčic" breads, which is a small, ritual bread coated in honey); and in summer (when Serbs and Vlachs do not perform any work on certain religious holidays, so as to prevent thunder, hail and storms from causing damage); all holidays are celebrated with feasts and rejoicing.
Apart from all agrarian-magical customs performed throughout the year, there is also the cult of ancestors which is related to the fertility cult. The cult of ancestors holds a prominent position in Vlach annual customs.
Folk music is also an indispensable part of customs. When it comes to vocal tradition, singers are mainly women and girls who sing in unison or in a diaphanous manner. Rhythm is connected with lyrics and even subordinate to it in most cases. All types of musical instruments are present in these parts: Jew’s harp, drum, beech leaf, rikalo, which is a funnel-shaped mouthpiece, fife, ocarina… Many categories of Vlach and Serbian vocal and instrumental music have similar characteristics, such as chants, dances and musical instruments; the musical tradition is imbued with a great number of similar elements.
Suzana Antic, Zajecar National Museum, Serbiahttp://www.balkankult.org/bk/files/326/en/Jako_projekat.pdf
