Macedonian Representations about the Walking Dead from the 19th Century up Today

Abstract

Ideas about the dead who return after death are known to all Slavic peoples. In the Macedonian folk tradition, these beliefs are still widespread today. The most well-known are the ones about the vampires. This article aims to acquaint the reader with the language and plots of the household stories and tales (bylichkas) of dead men walking, once recorded by Marko Cepenkov, an outstanding collector of Macedonian folklore in the 19th century. For comparison, material is given from a collection of epic stories about vampires edited by L. Spirovska and T. Vražinovski, which was published at the end of the 20th century. Research by modern Balkan researchers who paid attention to this issue within the Macedonian language and culture is also examined in the article. Twenty first century field materials collected by the author are also included in this study. One can trace the dynamics of the development of the representations of the walking dead in the Macedonian cultural and linguistic territory. Over the past two centuries, the main motifs reflected in bylichkas have not changed. Among the most common are the noise and mess made at night, gluttony and dancing, sexual contact with a woman, vampire hunters, and so on. Globalisation and informatization did not cause the disappearance of such ideas from the life of modern villages. Not only is the belief in the walking dead preserved, but also the practice of exorcism. New technologies and medicines have been naturally introduced into the existing mythological environment and further reinforce the archaic representations of both the causes and ways of dealing with vampires.