Balkan Heresy of Love

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Balkan Heresy of Love

The following generations of Macedonian drama behaved towards this play as if it had never been written: their preoccupations, as the author’s preoccupations became different. Their formal (the invention of the so-called fragmentary drama), as well as their thematic ones. Until the appearance of Saško Nasev (1966) and his melodramas “Whose Are You” (1991) and “A Sin or a Sparkling Wine” (1991), in Macedonian dramatics there weren’t any plays that dealt solely with love. We must note that the love that Nasev theatralises is again – relatively speaking – of the manner of everyday life type. Male love. Love in which the woman – because she wouldn’t or couldn’t respect the archetypal matrix virgin-mother-saint has to be reduced to a sinnerand a woman who repents. The female characters of Saso Nasev always generate great misfortunes and have, therefore, to be unhappy. And they are created in such a way that they have to be content with their secondary, supporting role.
His professor and instructor of dramatic skills, Goran Stefanovski (1952), in all of his plays (without an exception) follows Prlicev’s cult of the Great Mother – the Impeccable Mother of God. Stefanovski seldom creates female characters that attempt to deal with the crucial issue of their different identity – if they ever dare (reveal their passion!), they will be labeled not only as sinful, but also as fatal losers. Aware of the fact that the passion of a woman is always fatal in the patriarchic world, Sara from “Wild Meat” (1979) – one of the rare females in Stefanovski’s work – employs her passion with the intent of “spending” it. To destroy it, before it destroys her.
It does not surprise me at all that the youngest Macedonian drama writers, those who are usually referred to as postmodernists (whatever this characteristic means), Zanina Mircevska (1967) and Dejan Dukovski (1969) retain an identical relation towards femininity (i.e. love!). Apart from the fact that the ‘cult’ Goran Stefanovski was their teacher as well, they – as personalities, not only writers – have been brought up in a world in which the relation towards love seems to be based on different foundations. Searching for it through the seven exhausting stages (circles), which should represent a test for its valour, in the play “M.M.E. Who Started It First” (1997) Dukovski is near the belief that the myth of love is hazardously jeopradised. That it is completely melted. That we live in a world in which love is impossible.
It seems that Jordan Plevnes (1953) is the only authentic author in Macedonian drama who appreciates and employs in his plays the traditional, sentimental, noble relation towards love, believing in its mystical/magic power. It goes without saying that the writing of this last troubadour of Macedonian dramatics is eminently male, but freely expresses his own emotions. Or, the emotions of his characters, both male and female.

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The question posed in the very beginning of this text – do we really think and speak of the same thing when we speak of love? – is obviously a rhetorical one. I have not, therefore, attempted to answer it, but only suggest it by dealing with several related issues, logically emerging from its interrogative structure. Or, are they logical only in the context of a female view, female interpretation of its implications?
The female view, as well as the female writing primarily signifies the alternative of the approach. Assuming the right to be different, it invites others to conversation.
Perhaps all of us today are in a need of conversation on love!
Especially us, on the Balkan!

2018-08-21T17:23:39+00:00 March 1st, 2002|Categories: Reviews, Literature, Blesok no. 25|0 Comments