Самовилите: нишајќи се меѓу угнетувањето и слободата
The fairies: swinging between oppression and freedom

Summary/Abstract: This paper interprets the character of the fairy (vila) in Balkan folklore, and it is mainly focused on the fairy’s potential for female liberation and emancipation. The paper is divided into three sections. The first one is focused on the three interpretative lines through which the characters of the fairies can be structured: the interpretation of their roles, characters and destiny in the frame of the male dominated, mainstream discourse as purely negative characters. This interpretation is focused on the fairies seen as the Others who challenge and tempt the order of man and therefore must be ‘punished’. The second interpretative line approaches the fairies in a semi positive sense, as an object of fascination and seduction. The main roles of the acting are still male. The fairies appear as partners of the male characters in various struggles and in resistance to the broader society, like a form of helper, an inspiration, but are still kept in the shadow of legality. The third line analyzes the fairies who appear as autonomous actresses with all their capacities and integrities.The second part of the paper is focused on explaining how, and through which symbols, the character of the fairy can be connected to that of the monster. It hunts the manners through which the symbols and the narrative techniques are combined to develop a paradoxical character that is simultaneously an ideally beautiful woman and a monster. The third part analyzes the fairies through the perspective of the gothic and the monstrous. It is mainly focused on the politics and the ideology “hidden” on the body of the creature that lived in the world beyond the regulation of society and how it performs important work for us as individuals and communities, policing our boundaries, defining our norms

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