The Bagpipe Society

The Gajda in Macedonia - book overview

Borivoje Džimrevski, Гајдата во Македонија [Gajdata vo Makedonija ‑‑ The Gajda in Macedonia], Skopje, Institut za Folklor “Marko Cepenkov”, 1996, 522 pp. In Macedonian. ISBN 9989-642-09-5

Here’s a book for a specialised readership, a readership that reads Macedonian and wants an authoritative, hugely comprehensive discussion of an instrument (bagpipe/ gajda) long associated with the Balkans – a somewhat difficult-to-define region that enjoyed little independence from the surrounding great powers that meddled in its affairs. Put another way, political and ethnic or linguistic boundaries rarely coincided. One may characterise the region until recently, geographically speaking, as somewhat isolated, mountainous, with underdeveloped transportation links to Europe. The population was overwhelmingly rural and the economy agrarian until well into the 20th century.

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