BRYLLUPPET I KRANI: Noter om rites de passage på Balkan

Abstract

Jonathan Schwartz: Wedding in Krani:

Notes on Balkan Rites of Passage

This retrospective essay, inspired by the

Biblical wedding in Kana, looks as well

towards the future. Its topics are drawn from

twenty years of periodic visits to and field

work in the Prespa Lake region of

Macedonia, bordering on Albania, Greece,

and the Republic of Macedonia. Studies of

labor migration (pechalba) are orchestrated

by weddings, in which villagers are married

away to spouses in the metropoles. This is a

Virtual rite de passage, especially for the

bride. Since the collapse of communism, the

breakup of Yugoslavia, and the violence of

ethnic cleansing, new imperatives for

anthropology have appeared. If once we

could direct our interest to the dramatic rites

de passage, we now must pay attention to

guarding the everyday rights of passage,

especially in regions with several ethnic,

religious, and linguistic communities. The

Prespa Lake village of Krani, half Albanian

and half Macedonian, with half its population

abroad in diasporas, is an exemplary

site for this sort of anthropology.