Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians

Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians[1] (Serbian: Народне песме Македонски Бугара, Bulgarian: Народни песни на македонските българи,[2] Macedonian: Народни песни на Македонските Бугари)[3] is an ethnographic collection of folk songs collected by Stefan Verković, considered to be his most valuable contribution to the field of Bulgarian folklore.[2] It was published in Serbian in 1860, in Belgrade.[4]

Content

The book was published in Belgrade in 1860 by Stefan Verković. Its subtitle is "Book One: Female Songs". It contains 335 folk songs that are lyrical, sung only by women and were therefore called female by Verković. 270 of the songs were collected from the singer Dafina of Serres region, who was praised by Verković as the "Bulgarian female Homer".[5] The songs were collected by him during his time as a Serbian ethological agent in then-Ottoman town of Serres (today in Greece). The collected material was from the eastern parts of the Macedonian region.[6] The title, preface, notes and explanations of the songs are in Serbian, while also containing a dedication to Julia Hunyadi, who was princess consort of Serbia. At the end there is an explanation of unknown words in Serbian.[5] However, the songs are in their original form. In the preface, Verković states that he called the songs "Bulgarian" as opposed to Slavic because "if you ask a Macedonian Slav "What are you?", he will immediately answer to you: "I am Bulgarian and I call my language Bulgarian".[4][7] He also clarifies that the Macedonian Bulgarians were called Slavs in the books of Cyril and Methodius and their disciples (9th century), and later they did adopt the name "Bulgarian", which was a political, rather than an ethnic name.[4][8][9]

Publications and reception

Verković states that he was planning to publish a second volume of the collection. Due to his involvement in the Veda Slovena debate, he was unable to publish the second volume and the materials he collected were published as "Сборникъ Верковича. Ι. Народныя пѣсни македонскихъ болгаръ" (Verković's Collection. Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians) in 1920 in Petrograd.[2]

In 1961, the book was re-published by Macedonian folklorist Kiril Penušliski in Skopje under the title "Македонски народни песни" (Macedonian Folk Songs),[10] although Verković did not describe in his collection any presence of Macedonian national consciousness then.[11] All references to 'Macedonian Bulgarians' and the original foreword explaining the Bulgarian ethnicity of the Macedonian Slavs were omitted from the publication.[10] According to Bulgarian sources, its goal was "the obliteration of the Bulgarian historical and collective memory and building a new Macedonian national identity in its place."[12]

The book was re-published for the second time in Bulgarian by Bulgarian literary historian and folklorist Petar Dinekov in 1966. In addition to the original text, a translation into Bulgarian of Verković's preface was made and an introductory study was added.[13]

The collection is regarded as Verković's most valuable contribution to the field of Bulgarian folklore. Dinekov criticized the book for having too many inaccuracies, irregularities, inconsistencies in the recordings of the songs and the language being often corrupted; a number of materials being unfinished; the size of the poetic lines often changing; numerous individual verses being incomplete or elongated, disrupting the metrics and rhythm due to carelessness and haste in recording (perhaps also due to a lack of musical sense), and because the songs were mostly spoken, recited, and not sung; the absence of a clearly expressed melody led to metrical instability in the reproduction of the text.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Veda Slovena". National Romanticism: The Formation of National Movements: Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe 1770–1945, volume II. Budapest: Central European University Press. 2007. ISBN 9786155211249.
  2. ^ a b c Делчо Tодоров (1989). Българската етнография през Възраждането (in Bulgarian). Sofia: Издателство на Българската академия на науките. pp. 129–130.
  3. ^ Stojan Pribičević (1990). Makedonija: nejzinite luǵe i istorija. Viduvanja na Makedonija. Makedonska kniga (in Macedonian). p. 128. ISBN 863690126X. Стефан Верковиќ ја издал во Белград, истата година, својата помала збирка македонски народни песни под наслов "Народни песни на македонските Бугари", истакнувајќи го во предговорот отсуството на македонска самосвест во тоа време. [Stefan Verković published in Belgrade, in the same year, his smaller collection of Macedonian folk songs under the title "Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians", highlighting in the preface the absence of Macedonian self-awareness at that time.]
  4. ^ a b c Stefan Verković (1860). Народне песме македонски Бугара. Скупио Стефанъ И. Верковићъ. Кньига прва Женске песме. Belgrade: Правителственомъ кньигопечатньомъ.
  5. ^ a b c Petar Dinekov (2007). "Делото на Стефан Веркович". LiterNet (in Bulgarian).
  6. ^ Dimitar Bechev (2019). Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 116. ISBN 9781538119624.
  7. ^ Ivo Banac (1988). The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics. Cornell University Press. p. 310. ISBN 0801494931.
  8. ^ Bulgarian researchers of ethnonyms reasonably assume that during the First Bulgarian Empire the ethnonym "Bulgarian" developed a social meaning of "master", i.e. "nobleman", opposite to the ethnonym "Slav", which meant "peasant", and so "Bulgarian" became a political name. (Веркович 1860, XIII). сп. Български език, Том 48, Институт за български език. Издателство на Българската академия на науките, 2000, стр. 40.
  9. ^ Hugh Poulton (2000). Who are the Macedonians?. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 19–20. ISBN 1-85065-534-0. By the middle of the ninth century, Bulgaria had extended its control over Macedonia, and in 864, under the direction of their leader Boris, the proto-Bulgarians converted en masse to Christianity, which greatly helped them to coalesce with the already Christianised Slavs; by the end of the ninth century they were as one people speaking a Slav-based language. Some Bulgarian historians claim the ancient Thracians as a third element of the Bulgarians. In the legacy of Cyril and Methodius—carried on by Clement and Naum—the development of Slav literacy was crucial in preventing assimilation of the Slavs either by cultures to the north or by the Greek culture to the south. Thus as Crampton notes, the legacy helped the Bulgarians develop a national consciousness which, though far from that associated with modern nationalism, 'was strong enough to preserve the concept of Bulgaria and the Bulgarians as a distinct religious, cultural and, perhaps, political entity'.
  10. ^ a b Chris Kostov (2010). Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996. Peter Lang. p. 94. ISBN 3034301960.
  11. ^ Stoyan Pribichevich (1982). Macedonia, Its People and History. Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 111. ISBN 0271003154.
  12. ^ Ana Kocheva (2020). On the Official Language of the Republic of North Macedonia. Publishing House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. p. 32. ISBN 6192450811.
  13. ^ Petar Dinekov, ed. (1966). Народни песни на македонските българи. Събрал Стефан Веркович (in Bulgarian) (2nd ed.). Sofia: Bălgarski pisatel.
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