REPRESENTATION OF THE TRAUMA FROM THE SKOPJE EARTHQUAKE IN 1963 IN THE LAMENT SONGS COLLECTED BY VASIL HADJIMANOV

Abstract

The paper is based on the recently published laments from the

Skopje earthquake in 1963 from the archival materials of Vasil Hadjimanov.

Its objective is to show the representation of the trauma from the Skopje

earthquake as a significant memory determinant of our collective identity.

Hadjimanov’s laments demonstrate the presence of trauma in Macedonian

folk culture and the implications of the catastrophic earthquake to the folkloric

memory of the immediate witnesses of one of the key traumatic events in the

history of the city and the country.

The paper presents the significant differences of motives in

comparison to the previous records of Macedonian laments. It analyzes

the representations of the trauma caused by the natural disaster that

brought sudden death to a huge number of victims. These laments

present numerous details from the biography of the victims talking about

their life before the traumatic event. At the same time, they represent

a description of the social reality as a temporal, spatial and historical

setting in which the trauma takes place. By means of reconstruction of

the event, the individual suffering is merged into the collective trauma.