Over a thousand years ago, the villagers of Vevčani, North Macedonia, began dressing up as ghouls and devils to ward off evil spirits, birthing a long-standing pagan festival that’s evolved into a hotbed of political satire. Writer Jamie Fullerton and photographer Matjaz Tancic find out how the village’s rebel spirit has shaped one of Europe’s most intriguing carnivals.
“It’s important to preserve these traditions,” says Bozhidar Dejkoski, a 25-year-old micro-electronics researcher who has spent the day dressed as a ballistic missile. ‘The Army of the Republic of Vevčani’ is written on the side of his silver fiberglass projectile costume.
Nearby, children in red mud-streaked outfits, face coverings and cone hats are flailing a newly-shorn pigskin, causing little flesh lumps to patter against the bonnet of a beat-up Mercedes. A bemused-looking dog is in the driving seat, wearing a military hat.
The annual carnival in the North Macedonian village of Vevčani is in full, boozy swing. Since it started around 1,400 years ago, it has developed from pagan roots into a modern political satire event, showcasing the village’s fiercely independent spirit—and an attitude that nothing controversial is off limits.
“There isn’t another carnival in the world like this,” a man in fluffy white trousers, making him look half-man, half-lamb, tells me.
Carnivals featuring garish costumes, often with pagan backgrounds, are relatively common in Balkan villages. Vevčani, however, is not a common village. For countless generations before Macedonia split from Yugoslavia in 1991, Vevčani had a reputation as being proudly, often angrily, autonomous in spirit.
“We’re stubborn, we’re different,” says Aleksandra Velkoska, who works in Vevčani’s cultural center and is a carnival organizer. “When we want something, we know how to get it.”
“It’s freedom of spirit. We express whatever we want, and nobody will say anything about it.”
- Zoran Radinoska, Vevčani local
Most Vevčani residents are Orthodox Christian, despite many neighboring villages being majority-Muslim. When Macedonia was under Ottoman rule from the 14th century through to 1912, most Vevčani locals refused to convert to Islam. The carnival, timed around Orthodox New Year on January 13-14, continued as an expression of this aspect of identity.
After World War II, with Macedonia under communist rule, religious events such as the carnival became officially banned. “But no-one could stop it,” says Velkoska. “Kings, emperors, communists… no-one. My grandma told me that people hid in their yards, still doing the tradition. They kept it going non-stop.”
Today, the carnival is a complicated mash of rituals. I’m invited into a house to watch Velkoska’s brother Darko don red lipstick and a traditional white dress complete with patterned waistcoat, to become a carnival bride. Played by men in drag, brides pair with grooms to knock on every door in the village, asking for money.
Pies with coins baked into them are made. The zurla, a double-reed wind instrument, constantly parps. Children take on the form of Stupid August, a sinister red-clad clownish character, who whips onlookers with a cow tail and swings pigskins willy-nilly.
These ancient practices dovetail with the modern depictions of political satire that make the carnival an ever-evolving event. “It’s freedom of spirit,” says Zoran Radinoska, a Vevčani-born lawyer, sipping a 10 am glass of rakia. “We express whatever we want, and nobody will say anything about it.”
However, the claim that “nobody will say anything” about the village’s “freedom” carnival, isn’t entirely true. In 2012, Macedonian Muslim organization the Islamic Religious Community, known as the IVZ, threatened to sue Vevčani villagers after seeing a video of them dressed in costume burqas at the carnival, appearing to mock the religion.
This freedom goes beyond religion and masks. Outside a konak—a house used for costume prep, adorned with grotesque statues and Stupid August murals—a moustachioed man hands me a red ‘Republic of Vevčani’ passport. While they’re given to tourists as a keepsake, they also represent the village’s various attempts at autonomy: Vevčani also has its own flag and unofficial money notes.
Vevčani, which today has a population of around 2,400, tried to become independent from Yugoslavia in 1987. In 1991, just after Macedonia became independent of Yugoslavia, the village held an unofficial independence referendum.
While it hasn’t been successful in becoming a certified micronation, authorities gave the village its own small municipality. Driving in, I pass under a stone arch with signage declaring that I’m officially entering Vevčani.
The carnival climaxes with a raucous parade; pagan melding with politics and pop culture, fuelled by unending rakia. A man in a Biden mask shakes a rattle at a doll wearing a Putin mask, its stroller pushed by a girl dressed as Hitler. A ghoul-faced man clops by on an oatmeal-colored pony.
As onlookers congregate in the village center, a man dressed as the late Yugoslavia leader Josip Broz Tito regails the crowd from the sunroof of the battered Mercedes. The dog is in the back seat, still wearing its hat, still looking bemused.
“But there are people who say, ‘This is tradition, we should be allowed to do everything’. We [as outsiders] are judgmental towards some practices, but people born into it have accepted it as it is.”
- Nikola Gjelincheski, teacher
Many of the costumes are obviously designed for political criticism. Some villagers are dressed as North Macedonian politicians wearing blindfolds. I spot a portly man in a suit, messy blonde wig and kneepads. I assume they represent Boris Johnson’s susceptibility to carpet burns, rather than his love of skateboarding.
As we move through the crowds, we spot the Queen looking surprisingly chipper in a pink dress. There are Ukrainian soldiers, plus Russian troops waving ‘Z’ flags. A group of white men in blackface hold Black Lives Matter signs and pose with raised fists.
As the villagers dance around a burning car chassis and chuck their costumes into the blaze—the official end of the carnival—I chat to Nikola Gjelincheski, a teacher in his mid-30s who is with the ballistic missile group. Gjelincheski is not from Vevčani, but has visited the carnival for years, as his in-laws are from the area.
We discuss our shock at seeing the men in blackface, parading among others dressed as Nazis. And how earlier someone nipped out of the konak to warn me, “Everything you see today, it’s just for fun, please understand!”—perhaps pre-empting an outsider’s opposing perspective on such costumes.
Gjelincheski too has felt uncomfortable about past carnivals, such as the time he saw villagers parading a dog corpse on a stick, after they found it in the road. A photo of that canine corpse is displayed in Vevčani’s cultural center.
“That really bothered me,” Gjelincheski says. “But there are people who say, ‘This is tradition, we should be allowed to do everything.’ We [as outsiders] are judgmental towards some practices, but people born into it have accepted it as it is. The people born in Vevčani don’t have a problem with smearing ashes on their faces, pretending they’re Black. I would [have a problem with it], so maybe that’s the outsider aspect you mentioned.”
I don’t see signs of kickback against the really offensive costumes—which are very much the minority—at this year’s carnival, beyond my own conversation with Gjelincheski. If other visitors are uneasy, they’re keeping quiet about it. I ask carnival organizer Velkoska about the men dressed in BLM costumes. She has no comment and says she didn’t see them.
Indeed, Vevčani carnival has never been about good behavior or avoiding controversy. “This fighting spirit is our way of expression and fighting injustice,” says Radinoska, now many rakias in.
I ask if he’s annoyed that his village hasn’t got the independent status it strived for. He shrugs. “We do have independence. Our spirit is our independence.”
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Jamie Fullerton is a British freelance writer based on the road, most of the time. Formerly features editor of NME (when it was a magazine as well as a website), he has written for titles such as The Guardian, The Times and The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, CNN and Atlas Obscura. He once had a Top Tip published in Viz.
