The Role of Macedonian Folk Songs Featured in Macedonian Films in Amplifying the Emotions

Abstract

Macedonian folk songs, as a part of Macedonian traditions and culture, represent an integral part of Macedonian history marked by resistance, military feats, and tendencies for maintaining the Macedonian national identity. This paper is focused on the issue of whether two Macedonian folk songs With Torments I was Born and Listen Patriots created in the course of the 19th century – a period marked with active struggle for liberation and independence of the Macedonian nation – additionally intensify the emotions provoked by the storyline and action of the films, in which they have been incorporated. During the research process, the authors of the paper used the mechanism of cognitive appraisal as a model for content analysis, as well as psychological and ethnomusicological analysis of the resulting data. The units of content analysis were the sequences of scenes of the film, in which the two Macedonian folk songs were used. The selected songs and films, as well as the interaction between the sound and visual senses, clearly present the deep relationship between music and emotions in a specific, identity-related context. The findings of the study are in favor of the thesis that Macedonian folk songs, created as a result of the centuries-old struggle of the Macedonian people, when used in Macedonian films, intensify the patriotic emotions of the viewers and strengthen the concept of uniqueness in the Macedonian identity, due to the processes of repetition and revitalization of collective memories.