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Since the time of the first Balkan dramatic heroine who was, as we believe, so magically called Genoveva, the Great Sufferer, and whose theatrical hagiography which stands in the beginning of all the national theatrical histories in this area, has become the matrix, “the mould” for creating all other dramatic women characters, hardly anything has changed in any direction. Throughout the long decades in which the mimetic, sentimentally constructed so-called ‘theatre with motives of the everyday life’ functioned as the only medium for mass communication (somewhere between the middle of the last to the middle of this century), the fictional “life” and the didactic instructions of this Genoveva-the great sufferer, the “sacred” god-like mother, correspond perfectly with the so-called “collective structure of the sensibility” (Williams, 1968; 13-18). The so-called “horizon of expectations” on the part of the audience, accepts melodrama as a new, “unusual”, self-contained, natural genre: apart from telling nice stories, incites simultaneously the strong feelings. A genre that is part of a new/different situation – citizen-like.
Melodrama thus becomes the magical passage through which we can escape folkloristic (rural) tradition and begin with a new one – the citizen tradition: the American theatrologist James Rosenberg calls it a “protoplasm from which great art came to be” (Rosenberg, 1964). The Balkan society, only lately characterised by relatively big cities, in the effort to find/establish, but also prove/confirm the adequate new identity, uses the melodrama to affirm its own – southeasterneuropean! – variant of a dramatic expression – a little suffering, a little exotic decoration, a little kitsch, spiced with sentimentalism (tears, laughter) and approximately the same quantity of “controlled tension” (the one that leads to the inevitable happy end) – and, this goes without saying, it is all concentrated around the suffering of a young, beautiful, unprotected, fragile and (undoubtedly) honest woman. The little boy in her arms is also an inevitable element!
“The model” according to which the story of Genoveva, this peak of the melodramatic heroines, has been created is not very different from those (models) that form the basis of many ‘soup operas’ nowadays, and not only the Hollywood ones. That is why the events in it are worth narrating; I must note that I will paraphrase only one of the virtually numberless versions (in Europe a whole “Genovevianne” has existed for centuries) which, except for the “decorative” details and the number of episodes, are practically same. The paraphrase I offer takes the German version of “Genoveva”, dating from a century and a half ago (1856), “bulgarated” by the teacher Kretju Pisurka, called the “father of Bulgarian theatre”; it is with its performance (1856 in Shumen) that Bulgarian theatrical history begins. The supposition that this was the version that reached Macedonia seems logical to me: in the year of 1875 the Veles teachers-exorcists will make a performance of “Genoveva” and play it with great success for two seasons in a row.
Make an effort – on the basis of the paraphrased plot – to understand the reasons for this great success:
A kind-hearted and honest Count, happily married to a Countess with the same properties (Genoveva), is suddenly summoned to an important war. Being a patriot, he immediately accepts the war invitation. Not only that the tears and begging of his young beloved wife will not prevent the Count in his firm determination to serve his motherland, but neither will her telling about “what she carries under her heart”.
Left in a desolate discomfort, Genoveva has yet to suffer real pain. The man the count has left his beloved wife to, certain that he will take a good care of her, will immediately break his promise (betrayal – a point all melodramas are concerned with). And he will attack the holiest: the woman’s honour. Rejected – of course! The traitor continually tortures Genoveva (the torments resemble those of Christ’s when carrying the cross). Not even her deliverance softens him – he orders that she be exiled in the mountains, so that the wild beasts tear her apart (exile = a classical mythic element). The major turning point of the play occurs in the green woods: instead of becoming a prey, Genoveva and her newborn child will be recognized by the wild beasts for their kind-heartedness and love – all that the count and the traitor were unable to see! The animals will feed and dress them for years, as well as take care for their well being. Until the count – at last! – returns from the important war. And, one day when he went hunting (enjoyment = is only the privilege of men), he accidentally found his wife (the faithful Penelope) and the son, now grown up. Extremely happy, the count decided to build a monastery on that spot. Together they go and live happily ever after, for honourremained holy. Curtains.
All can be realised from “Genoveva”: the patriarchic model of living, the moral codices, the relation between sexes, the treatment of subtle issues (for instance: the issue of love!), the place and status of the woman in society… And, of course, a conceptupon which the Balkan theatre will develop further on.
We will not be wrong to call this concept male, i.e. chauvinistic.
The only serious task that this concept imposes on women – the only task a woman could possibly have, to retain her honour and sacrifice herself for it (motherhood is only part of that sacrifice) – Genoveva fulfills, we could say, even more than paradigmatically, perfectly. No man in the world could have any remark for her behavior – if one could, then Genoveva would not exist. Namely, her melodramatic mould functions exclusively as a “chauvinist play”: in all the existing variants we can easily detect the principle upon which it is imagined, written, played. The chauvinist principle. The gentlemanliness fixed in the title may fool only the naïve and ignorant ones: both her dramatic and narrative point of view is absolutely male. The best argument supporting this thesis is precisely the treatment of the ostensible main character: Genoveva is precisely the kind of woman as any patriarchic man (men, macho) would wish for, she is an ideal woman; I have never noticed that anyone has ever asked whether the count is the type of man any woman would wish for/choose; in fact, I have never noticed that anyone wondered whether Penelope had any remarks for her heroic husband, although it has been clear for centuries now what use she could have of him.
That “Genoveva” was truly imaginedand structuredas a play with a male point of view is confirmed by its text, in the discourse of which there is no trace of at least the simplest love expression, enclosed in the three simplest words I-love-you!
Not only was the popularity of thisGenoveva enormous till the middle of this century, but it also surpassed the “narrow” theatrical frames. There was almost no decent house which was not decorated with the sculptures of Genoveva, pictures with motives from the play, and the kitchen rags had on them Genovevian scenes and “messages”. The instructions of some of the Macedonian plays (those by Vasil Iljoski, Kole Čašule), state that the dramatic scene should be decorated with several such “Genovevian” details. It is said that they had been sold on the market and manufactured in many versions. Generations of people on the Balkans who have patiently been going through the complicated journey from patriarchic to urban way of living (this journey lasts still!)were establishing not only the aesthetic, but also the ethic norms of their own behavior on the basis of these Genovevian motives: on one wall there hung a picture of Genoveva (with long loose hair, a child in her arms, and a deer beside them), and on the opposite wall a fresco of the Mother of God! These coordinates have determined not only the model, but also the archetype – the female archetype– that later, all way to the present will appear in similar variants in all kinds of art on the Balkan. Literature included!
The Balkan writer that came directly out of those first generations of citizens, will create all their female characters following this archetype! In all literary genres the female characters will serve to personalise (illustrate?) the two traditional values of the patriarchic world: motherhood and honour. Would it sound too ‘Freud-like’ to say that all Balkan men – even those who are writers – look for and wish to find in every woman (even their own wife!) their mother? Taking this into consideration could we say that the Balkan writers – when creating their female characters – best describe those who resemble a typical mother?