The village of Vratnica in northwestern Macedonia has evolved and developed with each generation since it was founded over 500 years ago. For over half a millennium, it existed as a farming community within the Ottoman Turkish Empire. The nationalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries brought many changes and had a great impact on the village and its people. Many migrated to the United States and Canada, where they established cohesive immigrant communities, a process known as “chain migration,” whereby the newcomers continued to identify themselves with the village more than they did with the larger national or ethnic community. This was a unique phenomenon in the immigration experience of Vratnica, and it can still be felt in the ethnic and religious orientations of Vratnica people, whether they inhabit the village or faraway adopted homelands.
Location and Orientation
Vratnica is located in the northwest of the Republic of Macedonia, 22 km northeast of the city of Tetovo and 5 km southeast of Jazince, the border crossing point with Serbia on the Kosovo border. Vratnica is on the Polog Plain, at the foothills of the northern part of the Sar Planina mountain range, under the Ljuboten peak, about 750 meters above sea level. The Rakita River flows through the village from the mountain range under a bridge outside of the village. There is a ski and resort lodge located on this mountain range called Ljubotan. In the nearby village of Jegunovce, there is the “Yugo-Chrome” factory where many from Vratnica worked.
Today, Vratnica village is the center of a community which consists of seven interconnected and interrelated villages: Belovište, Vratnica, Staro Selo, Rogachevo, Jazince, and Gorno and Dolno Orašje. This community consists of a population of 3,500. Vratnica itself has a population of 1,000 to 1,500.
History and Prehistory: Early Origins Up to the Present Day
Slavic groups began settling the Balkan Peninsula in the sixth century AD, populating the areas of Macedonia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro. In the fifth and sixth centuries, a large Slavic tribal population occupied parts of central Europe north of the Danube river. The two major Slavic groups in the Balkans, the Serbians and the Croatians, had been based in the Czech region (later Czechoslovakia) and in Saxony.
These Slavic groups had earlier migrated from the north and north-east region of the Black Sea. After the 586 siege of Byzantine Thessaloniki, Slavic groups settled the Praevalitana and the region south of the Shkumbi River, where Slavic place-names predominate.
The two major Slavic groups that emerged in the southern Balkan Peninsula were the Serbians and the Bulgarians, which established powerful and expansionist rival dynastic empires. Serbs developed small tribal territories called a zupa, which were ruled by tribal chiefs known as zupani. By the middle of the 7th century, Serbs were moving from the coastal land in Montenegro and were settling northern Macedonia, Albania, and Kosovo. The Serbs were agricultural tribes, and settled in river valleys and plains where they could grow crops and harvest the fields near an abundant water source.
Vratnica rests in the folds of Sar Planina, in Macedonia’s northwestern corner. (Photo: collection of the author)
By the 11th century, “almost all arable soil in the northernmost part of what is now Albania and in the region of present-day Kosovo was in Slavic hands,” according to Miranda Vickers in Between Serb and Albanian. The original homeland or base area for the Serbian population in the Balkans was the Raska region, or Rascia, a region just north of Kosovo. Since Vratnica lies in a region referred to as Old or Ancient Serbia (Stara Srbija), which included the regions of Kosovo, Metohija, and present-day northern Macedonia, the background and historical roots of the Vratnica families cannot be understood without an understanding of the medieval history of the region.
By the end of the 12th century, the Serbian population moved south and settled the area of what is present-day Kosovo and northern Macedonia. In fact, many Vratnica families trace their ancestral origins to this region, present-day northern Macedonia, on the border with Kosovo. For almost a millennium, Serbians, Bulgarians, Albanians, and, later, Turks, settled and fought over this volatile region.
Vratnica: Population and Immigration
Vratnica was first recorded in Ottoman Turkish registries in the 15th century. In the earliest Turkish population census registry or defter, 59 families were recorded as living in Vratnica. In the defter labeled 4 for the years 1467/68 the number of houses had increased to 66, while in 1545 there is a record of 76 houses, and in 1568 there were 84 houses registered.
The village underwent migrations and settlement until the 18th century, and in the 20th century, there was extensive chain migration to the United States. In 1914/1916, the total population of Vratnica was 1,131 with 131 houses; in 1948, there were 1,299 inhabitants and 197 houses; in 1953, there were 1,387 inhabitants and 214 houses; in 1961, the respective numbers were 1,384 and 227; in 1968, 1,240 and 225; and, in 1971, 1,082 inhabitants and 266 houses.
Thus, the number of houses doubled over the 50-year period, but the total population remained about the same. It has declined since the 1960s due to emigration to the US and elsewhere. For example, by the early 1980’s there were over 200 households with Vratnica origins in the Detroit area alone.
Many from the village migrated to the US during the boom decades following the end of World War I in 1918. This migration was heaviest during the 1920s, before the Great Depression. Most of the immigrants were economic refugees, fleeing the poverty of the Balkans. However, the US Immigration Act of 1924 placed restrictions and quotas of the level of immigration from Eastern Europe. Orthodox Slavs in particular were seen as subhuman and alien to the Anglo-Saxon Protestant tradition of mainstream American immigrants. Many migrated to Canada instead.
The Yugoslav Communist regime under Josip Broz Tito allowed emigration to Western Europe to relieve political opposition and to benefit the Yugoslav economy. Up to a third of the Yugoslav economy depended on guest workers who lived abroad. In the 1950s and 1960s, a new wave of emigration from Yugoslavia resulted. Many from Vratnica immigrated to the US and Canada during this period. In agrarian, rural societies like Vratnica, the family was the only socializing institution. The extended family was known as the chelat. When they migrated to the US, the family continued to play a dominant role. Thus the typical immigrant family from Vratnica tended to be cohesive, functional, and nurturing of the individual.
The most prominent family groups in Vratnica include: Stepanovci, Siskovci, Dlabocani, Koecevci, Stanisovci, Vasilevci, Golomevci, Danecevci, Dobrocevci, Peovci, Todorovci, Kostanecevci, Madzicevci, Maskocevci, Mojsicevci, Dabocevci, Papudzini and Kraguljevci.
The Kostanecevci family resettled in Vratnica from the Kosovo village of Kamena Glava, literally, “Stone Head,” approximately 500 years ago The earliest recorded member for whom records exist of this family is Kosto Kostanechev, from the end of the nineteenth century, who had a brother named Uros. Kosto had four sons, Stojko, Stolje, Simon, and Stojan. The procedure for last names was for a son to carry as his last name a form of his father’s first name. During the medieval period, persons were known by a first given name and the by the village or clan from which they came. Many were named by the occupation they were in: “Carpenter,” “Miller,” “Fisher,” “Goldsmith,” and “Baker.” In the eastern Slavic countries of Europe, it was more common to have a last name that carried the name of a grand-father or great-grand-father.
Also significant in the history of Vratnica is the village of Moravce, located 800 meters to the northwest. Moravce is regarded as the original settlement. Because of pressure from the Ottoman Turks, the inhabitants of Moravce were forced to search for a more secure area of settlement. They migrated to the north, towards Kosovo and middle Serbia, but they were eventually forced to abandon those areas as well. They finally migrated back and formed modern Vratnica on its present location, together with the descendants of the original settlers.
Cultural Affiliations and Language
Although Vratnica is in Macedonia, a Macedonian ethnic and cultural identity, as distinct from the Serbian or Bulgarian ones, did not emerge in a dominant way until the late 19th century, when nationalist ideologies were at their peak in Europe. So a Macedonian national consciousness and identity is of relatively recent origin, and in Vratnica people even today differentiate themselves according to their perceived Macedonian or Serbian backgrounds.
The medieval ancestors of the present-day inhabitants of Vratnica spoke a language that has elements of Bulgarian and Serbian and which is distinct from both, but is similar to Bulgarian and modern Macedonian. Vratnica family ancestors observed a “slava,” that is, an Orthodox patron saint was celebrated by the family. This was unique to Serbian Orthodox families, not to Bulgarian families. Histories of Vratnica, the village where the Savich ancestors had lived for over 800 years, claim that the original settlers migrated from the north-east, from the region of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Metohija. The name of the village is derived from the word for “return” or “returnees” (vrati, return) and the suffix –ica, meaning “village of.” Vratnica thus means “village of those who returned” in reference to their expulsion and migration from Kosovo.
Under Turkish rule, the Albanian minority and Turkish settlers gained dominance in the region of northern Macedonia where the Savich family ancestors lived. During Ottoman rule, the Orthodox population became second-class citizens and faced religious discrimination and persecution. The Ottoman Empire was organized on the basis of religion and not on nationality. Thus by converting to Islam, one could obtain privileges and status not available to non-Muslims. By converting to Islam in mass numbers, Albanians were able to gain, social, political, and economic dominance in the region. So under Turkish Muslim rule, the ethnic makeup and demography of the region changed.
Vratnica was located in a region that was part of the Turkish Empire for half a millennium until 1912, which was known as “Turkey in Europe.” As a result, there is a schizophrenic or split nature to ethnic, national, and religious identities in Vratnica and Macedonia as a whole. Some segments of the Vratnica community identified culturally and politically and religiously with Serbia. Some parts of present-day Macedonia identified with Bulgaria and Bulgarian culture. But Serbian culture and influence was dominant in the region. And some member of the community identified with the unique Macedonian identity. For their part, the Albanian minority in the region identified with Albania and Albanian culture.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of the population adopted and identified with Macedonian culture and national/ethnic identity. Vratnica is unique in that it is part of a region of Macedonia where segments of the population have retained a Serbian cultural, religious, and ethnic/national identity.