Гурбетчийската памет: примерът на Западна Македония
The Gurbet Memory: the Example of Western Macedonia

Summary/Abstract: The revelation of the reasons for labour migrations (temporary or permanent) in the various social groups, the study of migration processes and the dynamics of their progress, as well as the description how these changes have been reflected in the everyday culture of the migrants – the turbulent Balkan history poses these questions to the researchers of the migration topic. The complex (i.e. polydisciplinary) study of trans-border labour mobility in the Balkans in its historical and modern aspect shares the same difficulties with the already mentioned common tendency for international migrations – becoming a focus for political debate rather than an object of analysis in regards with their underlying dynamics and socio-cultural characteristics. The author’s fieldwork among the Macedonians in the Northwestern part of the Republic of Macedonia during the summer of 2005 is summarized in the article. The traditions of seasonal male labor migrations (pechalbarstvo) in Galichnik, Lazaropole, Vevchani and the region of Debartsa near Struga, and their reflection in the traditional culture will be presented – in life cycle rituals, in the traditional feast calendar, in the toponimy and in the social organization of these villages. The annual journeys of the men from these regions “at work” and “for gain” (pechalba) developed throughout the years specific features of the family models and marriage strategies, related to prolonging the cycle of complexity of family-kin households and the specifics of traditional gender roles, but also in the feast-ritual system and folklore in the local communities. An important change in the model of male labor migrations occurred during the 1970s, when gastarbeiters start migrating permanently in Western Europe with their families. The nostalgia for the “birthplace” remains, though, and some of these gastarbeiters at the end of their lives return from all over the world to their native villages in the Balkans in order to spend their last days “at home, with their own”. The new cultural models that they bring to their birthplace changed the everyday life in Western Macedonia, resulting in a unique mixture of traditional and modern. These specific traditions of labour mobility and the culture of gurbet show a considerable stability in a number of regions on the Balkans, a source of new waves of temporary migrants who, under the influence of the new conditions in the region after the 1990s often settle permanently in the “host” country, thus turning into immigrants. The socio-economical development of the Balkans and the geopolitical future of the individual countries in a EU-perspective will influence the pechalbars’ choice of whether to migrate permanently or to hope for an eventual return to their home places.

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