Reportage
 

Women from Tetovo area revitalize the folklore Tradition – power that unites all generations

 

By Katerina Bogoeva
 

On 30 September, at the Children Theatre Centre at the Old Skopje Bazaar, the project called “Support for protection of the Tetovo communities’ folklore” was presented, which is one of the seven projects supported by the Culture and Development Programme of the Ministry of External Affairs of Holland. The numerous audience enjoyed the displayed exhibits. Partners of the project, implemented by the Albanian Women Forum, were the Jegunovce Women Association and the Museum of Ethnology from Tetovo.

The Skopje citizens had the opportunity to see the exceptionally impressive exhibits, made by 60 young women and girls from six villages in the north-west of Macedonia: Vejce, Selce, Jegunovce, Gurgurnica, Brodec and Vesala, where the project started last December. The amazing exhibits which are part of the cultural heritage included: carpets, pillows, waistcoats, shirts, socks, scarves, belts, aprons, padded jackets, male and female folk costumes, jewelry, etc. Some of the women from several villages in the Sara Mountain are still working. During the summer, the project was presented in Tetovo, at an exhibition which aroused great interest among the population. Therefore, another presentation is planned for the end of November, giving a chance to people from Tetovo to enjoy the richness of tradition conveyed by the hands of the young women.

These days, during our visit to some of the participants and the educators of the project for cherishing the folklore, we could feel the joy of creation and the pleasure felt by the women from the positive reactions of the public to what their skillful hands made.

On 21 October at the Tetovo Cultural Centre, they presented their work to the guest from Ohio, USA, Ms. Beti Talbot, who taught them the necessary experiences for preparations for participation at fairs, since the two organizations will present and sell some of their creations at the Christmas Fair that will take place in December in Skopje and will be their first presentation at such an event.

The project’s goal is cherishing the traditional folklore, support to women from the rural areas, offering an opportunity for their economic strengthening, enriching the Tetovo Museum folklore collection, promotion of cultural values of the different ethnic communities for accomplishing mutual communication and cooperation, as well as raising the citizens’ awareness for cherishing the cultural values. United around these common goals, the two civil society organizations, The Albanian Women Forum and Jegunovce Women Association, are working together for the first time. Previously their members met at various workshops and training courses, and they participated together at the meeting organized on the occasion of 8 of March 2002 in Tetovo within the project “Women can do it!”

Eight women from Jegunovce, who used to work at the Tetovo companies “Jugohrom”, “Etko”and  “Medicinska Plastika”, and are now unemployed, took part in the creation and cherishing the folklore, in the making of male and female folk costumes from the country area, called “Belokrpka”. The necessary experience for making some individual items of the folk costumes was transmitted to Jagoda Topilovska, Dragica Zivkovska, Sunca Ristoska, Tanja Jakimovska. Marijana Cvetkoska, Slagjana Markovska, Irena Tofilovska and Eleonora Ristoska by their educator, Lena Petrovska, who also learnt it from her mother. Her friend and educator Vesna Sibilovska, has also gained her experience in the same way.

In the first three months, we were making the folk costume “Belokrpka” – designed for a bride and a groom, and a costume for the mother-in-law, and in the last three months, we have been making folk costumes from the villages Miletino and Celopek. We were looking for and managed to find a sample for the whole Miletino costume, which was not easy, since the old women had been quite skeptical in the beginning as regards our work. After we had convinced them in the seriousness of our work, they themselves brought sample from their houses to us so that we could work according to them. The interest grew and with the material we were receiving, we were able to make small carpets, things for rolling baked bread, covers for jugs, waistcoats, hats, gloves, etc. Since we did not want the project to be just “Macedonian for Macedonians”, the youngest participants in the project, two girls from Jegunivce municipality, made a belt, whose basis was Macedonian, but it contained motives from all communities living in the municipality territory” – said among other things, Lena Petrovska.

Women from Jegunovce worked at home, and once a week they were exchanging their experiences at meetings that took place at the primary school “Aleksandar Zdravkovski”. They are grateful to the Museum of Ethnology from Tetovo, which provided certain sample materials for them, and they also received advice from the ethnologist Valentina Gavriloska, with whom they jointly realized some of the necessary terrains. They faced with the lack of samples for the Macedonian male folk costume from the researched area, which they eventually managed to provide (even the Museum of Ethnology in Tetovo does not have among its collections). 

The president of The Albanian Women Forum, Dzane Kresova, reminds that besides the workshops, which include learning how to make and making handicrafts, as well as working on jenny and organizing exhibitions, the project also includes a web-site and a catalogue preparation – important promotional and informative materials – first of their kind. They, according to Kresova, will contribute towards approaching the folklore to the citizens, most of which will learn for the first time that such values still exist in the region of Tetovo and that they can be transmitted to the future generations.

“Providing the necessary materials for making the different products was quite difficult. However, we managed to provide wool from the “Teteks” factory, but we had to go to Prizren, Kosovo for most of the necessary materials, since in that part women still weave on a jenny. A problem came up when we had to provide original Albanian female folk costume from the region of Sara Mountain, since the garments used at wedding ceremonies and other events now, are quite modified from the original garments, being more Eastern-oriented. We found the costume we needed in the mountain villages of Gurgurnica and Sedlarevo, and that is the costume dolls are wearing at our presentations, costumes that attract attention and enchant people. We agreed with the representatives from the Tetovo Museum, to give the Macedonian male and the Albanian female folk costumes as a present to the museum after the project has terminated, thus enriching their collection” – said Kresova.

The young women from Sar Planina villages make aprons, shirts, scarves, socks. Some of them work on a jenny for the first time, and some of the jennies were open again after a long time.

Fazile Ameti. Who, together with Emire Hajdari is the educator of women from Sar Planina villages, teaches the young women how to weave and knit. She says that the interest for work and participation in the project is big.

“In the villages Brodec, Vesala and Vejce, women steal weave items for …and for use in the everyday life. Although it is hard to work on the jenny, young women are keen to make materials from their ancestors’ tradition. They are happy to present the results of their work”, says Ameti.

The interest that participants in the project show coincides with the increasing interest of the citizens in Macedonia to revive part of their tradition, and offer some of the products for sale. At the same time, in the last few years, the citizens’ interest for this type of products has been increasing. In Tetovo there is not a shop where such items would be sold. However, the project enabled the participants in it to get information from the other organizations involved in the Culture and Development Programme of the Dutch Ministry of External Affairs, thus opening future possibilities for cooperation and mutual assistance.

“The members of the Association for Cultural Promotion of the Mijaks asked for help for making the traditional Galicnik costume and for providing part of the necessary materials for work. There is a big interest among the women to work further in this field, but it is necessary to create possibilities for placing the valuable products on the market, which would eventually lead to increasing the family budget of the women. 

 

The folk costumes will enrich the museum collection

The ethnologist Valentina Gavriloska from the Museum of Ethnology in Tetovo is satisfied from the project’s realization in which the Museum assumed the role of a consultant. “We participated in the selection of materials necessary for making the costumes, we visited the workshops in the villages, we advised the participants in the project on how to work. When making the Albanian folk costume we did not face much difficulties, since it has been going through continuous modifications over the years, while the Macedonian folk costume suffered a big time gap between the time it was being worn until now. Thus, we can clearly see the difference between the old and the new. It is very important that with this project, one Macedonian male folk costume from Poselje and one Albanian female folk costume from the villages in Suva Gora, will stay in the museum, since these are the items we miss in the collection” – says Gavriloska