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Artifacts of the Past As Traces of Memory. the Aromanian Cultural Heritage in the Balkans Artefakty Przeszłości Jako Ślady Pamięci

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Artifacts of the Past As Traces of Memory. the Aromanian Cultural Heritage in the Balkans Artefakty Przeszłości Jako Ślady Pamięci RES HISTORICA 41, 2016 DOI: 10.17951/rh.2016.41.1.159 Ewa Kocój (Jagiellonian University in Kraków) Artifacts of the Past as Traces of Memory. The Aromanian Cultural Heritage in the Balkans Artefakty przeszłości jako ślady pamięci. Dziedzictwo kulturowe Aromanów na Bałkanach I wish I could become a chronicler of places which never existed on the map, and events of which history never took any notice1. STRESZCZENIE Celem tego artykułu jest odpowiedź na kilka pytań: (1) jakie ślady materialnego dzie- dzictwa kulturowego Aromanów (Wlachów) odnajdujemy na terenach dzisiejszej Albanii, Grecji i Republiki Macedonii; (2) co mówią one o społeczności lokalnej, jej historii i znacze- niu w kulturze europejskiej; (3) czy istnieje współcześnie aromańska pamięć zbiorowa do- tycząca miejsc, w których zachowały się ślady tego dziedzictwa? W tekście dokonano opi- su regionów, które zamieszkiwali Aromanie, zaprezentowano wstępne kryteria podzia- łu ich dziedzictwa kulturowego na grupy, przypisując im wybrane przykłady zabytków, a także wskazano, jakie wybrane znaczenia i sensy związane z kulturą aromańską odkry- wamy, traktując owe zabytki jako tekst kultury. W artykule wykorzystano jakościowe metody badań terenowych, w tym wywiady i obserwacje związane ze śladami tego dziedzictwa w wybranych miejscowościach Grecji, Albanii i Republiki Macedonii, wraz z wykonaniem dokumentacji fotograficznej. Badaniu poddano także źródła zastane (historyczne i etnograficzne) oraz zasoby dostępne w Inter- necie – przeanalizowano narracje dotyczące odpowiednich zabytków w źródłach etnogra- ficznych (dawnych i współczesnych wspomnieniach Aromanów) znajdujące się w nowych mediach, w tym na blogach i portalach internetowych. W analizie posłużono się paradyg- matem historyczno-porównawczym i interpretatywnym, co pozwalało na badanie ukry- tych znaczeń i kodów kulturowych związanych z dziedzictwem aromańskim. Badania pokazały, że na terenie Bałkanów zachowały się liczne artefakty dziedzictwa kulturowego Aromanów, z którymi związane są rozmaite sensy i znaczenia (m.in. organi- zacja przestrzeni, przestrzenie realne i mityczne, wielokulturowość i konflikt). 1 J. Maurer, The Doubles, transl. A. Topornicka, Kielce 2002, p. 180. 160 EWA KocÓJ Słowa kluczowe: Aromanie/Wołosi, Bałkany, dziedzictwo kulturowe, pamięć kultu- rowa, miejsca symboliczne, cerkwie i monastyry, ikony, budownictwo, wielokulturowość i konflikt 1. InTroduction Who were, or rather who are Aromanians? Where do they come from? What is their history and what were the directions of their migration? How long did they live in their original areas and then in the areas they subse- quently inhabited? Although these questions have been asked for years, to this day no researcher has managed to provide exhaustive answers. What is more, the existing scientific findings concerning the Aromanian issue, which largely reflect the national aspirations of different Balkan peoples, are already mostly outdated and in many aspects simply untrue. Blank pages in historical and ethnographic sources about Aromanians, their dif- ficult history, and the common practice of erasing and/or appropriating their heritage by majority communities, all indicate that the phenome- non of this vanishing ethnos requires appropriately impartial and inde- pendent research that would lead to reliable answers to the above-men- tioned fundamental questions. These questions concern issues, which are extremely topical in today’s united Europe – Europe that is seeking its common heritage and rediscovering traditions that have almost sunk into oblivion. The domains which have not yet been thoroughly explored by resear- chers include the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the Aroma- nian minority inhabiting European territories. Although information abo- ut sites being part of this heritage has been emerging in European studies since the beginning of the 20th century, we still lack a general, comparative and interdisciplinary perspective on the issue. In the meantime, we should first ask ourselves the following question: has the formerly strong Aroma- nian ethnos – once scattered throughout many European countries by hi- story, divided into distinct social groups, performing a variety of profes- sions, and undergoing the varying degrees of integration and assimilation with the majority communities with which it lived – left any artifacts that could now be regarded as its cultural heritage? If so, what kind of traces of the Aromanian cultural heritage can be found in Europe of today (ty- pes, dating, function, symbolism) and what do they tell us about the local community and its history, and significance in European culture? Is there today any Aromanian collective memory of these artifacts? Are they a fac- tor which contributes to integration in any way? Can we use them to draw Artifacts of the PAsT As Traces of MeMory. THe Aromanian CulTurAl Heritage... 161 conclusions about the specific features of Aromanian culture and its tangi- ble and intangible heritage, and what conclusions could there be? Searching for the traces of the Aromanian cultural heritage in contem- porary Europe is not an easy task. It is worth noting that at the current sta- ge of research, it is impossible to provide a comprehensive description of the problem of the said heritage, because there are no exhaustive histori- cal and ethnographic sources that could fill the numerous gaps in this re- search area. What makes it even more challenging is the fact that the to- pic has to be explored contextually, i.e. we need to factor in different per- spectives, including, first and foremost, the point of view of Aromanians themselves – those who admit to belong to this minority today as well as those who have lost the memory of their roots – but also consider the way the Aromanian heritage functions in the memory of aliens, including scien- tific outlooks on the problem. Furthermore, it is necessary to discover re- gularities that govern the Vlach heritage, taking into account monuments which have survived to this day as well as monuments which only live in our memory. As I have already indicated, it will require broad interdisci- plinary studies2. My research work is guided by the conviction that the tangible evi- dence of the Aromanian cultural heritage constitutes the text of culture which can be read on many levels. What is particularly important to me is exploring the discourses associated with this heritage, which are found among Aromanians themselves and also among the majority communities inhabiting the areas where the relevant monuments are located. We also touch upon the question of the real and imagined identity, as well as of the relationship between the tangible heritage site and its associated intan- gible sphere: beliefs, customs, rituals, religious cult, ancient professions, mythology, and specific local stories that comprise the so-called cultural 2 The difficulties of historical and cultural studies in the Balkans have been written about by i.e.: N. S. Balamaci, Can the Vlachs Write Their Own History?, “Journal of Hellenic Diaspora” 1991, 17, January, pp. 9–36, http://pl.scribd.com/doc/46327940/Can-the-Vlachs- Write-Their-Own-History#scribd [accessed on: 31 October 2015]; N. S. Balamaci, The Vlachs in Albania. A Travel Memoir and Oral History, http://www.farsarotul.org/nl14_1.htm [acces- sed on: 31 October 2015]; T. Czekalski, Perypetie historyka – o specyfice badań nad przeszło- ścią w krajach bałkańskich, in: Tematy trudne. Sytuacje badawcze, ed. I. B. Kuźma, Łódź 2013, pp. 143–154; T. Czekalski, Zarys dziejów chrześcijaństwa albańskiego w latach 1912–1993, Kra- ków 1996; E. Kocój, Heritage Without Heirs? Tangible and Religious Cultural Heritage of the Vlachs Minority in Europe in the Context of Interdisciplinary Research Project (Contribution to the Subject), “Balcanica Posnaniensia. Acta et studia. Ius Valachicum I” 2015, 22, 1, pp. 137–147; E. Kocój, Dziedzictwo bez dziedzica? Materialne i religijne dziedzictwo kulturowe mniejszości po- chodzenia wołoskiego w Europie w kontekście projektu interdyscyplinarnych badań (przyczynek do tematu – I), „Zarządzanie w Kulturze” 2015, 2, pp. 137–150. 162 EWA KocÓJ memory. I am aware that researching the cultural heritage of Aromanians is all the more difficult due to the fact that their culture was not literate for a long time (although it has preserved old tangible artifacts) and was mar- ked by a significant predominance of oral transmission, resulting in a scar- ce number of surviving written sources from the past centuries. Therefore, my attempt is to reconstruct that culture based on the fragments of histori- cal and ethnographic records, and complement it with the available recol- lections of Aromanians – the recollections which are part of their collective memory. I repeat: I consider a cultural heritage site to be the text of cultu- re and also the starting point for reading Aromanian culture, which exists primarily in the world of oral history. I realize that similar attempts doom the description of the researched cultural reality to a certain kind of sub- jectivity and, moreover, that the elements researchers regard as part of the heritage they study are often arbitrary and have no confirmation among the community involved. Moreover, that community itself is not always interested in preserving the memory of their own tradition. All this, howe- ver, is typical of reconstructing the cultural heritage, the dominant feature of which is orality and lack of written sources. On the other hand, I belie- ve
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