Songs about Kate from North Macedonia and Bulgaria

Kate, Kate, kaleš Kate, ajde Kate da begame!

Dorde v gora šuma ima, em po pole komuniga. 

Bulgarian folk song

The name Kate (pronounced Ka-te) is the shortened form of Katerina. Judging from the number of songs on YouTube, this is a popular name in North Macedonia and Bulgaria. 

Video #1,  Tri Godini Kate, is a dance song from North Macedonia. You can find the old, typewritten notes here. The rhythm is lesnoto 7/8 (galloping-apple-apple).

This is also a popular folk dance on Zoom.

 

Video #2 is another 7/8 lesnoto dance from Bulgaria: Kate Lichno Devojche.  It is from the southwest (Pirin) region of Bulgaria.  Notice how common the 7/8 lesnoto rhythm is in both North Macedonia and Pirin Bulgaria. 



Video #3 is Kate Katerino, from the Pirin region of Bulgaria. This is a modern version of a traditional song and it is not the entire song (maybe half of it). This is a fancy version done at a party with a lot of embellishments.

Video #4 is another Kate song from the Pirin region, Kate Kate Kalesh Kate.  The group is Cubrica from the Netherlands.  Although there is no dancing in this video, the music is a strong 9/16 (devetorka) rhythm popular in Pirin Bulgaria and North Macedonia.

The quote at the very top of this page is the first stanza of the song.  You can find the translation here:

My daughter has a variant of the name Katerina, her name is Katrina (like the hurricane) and she and her husband recently celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary.  She can run like the wind on an autumn day.

By the way, she didn't marry the teacher (like Kate in the song in Video #3 and Video #4)

If you enjoyed this you may also like:

The Women of Bulgarian Folk Songs

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Balkan Dances That Are Often Confused, Part 20: Kasapsko Oro and Kasapsko Horo

If we each had to butcher our own meat, there would be a great increase in the number of vegetarians.
Ernest Howard Crosby

First of all, I would like to mention that I am not a vegetarian. Or vegan.  I eat meat. As a child, I went on weekly trips with my dad to the butcher shop.  He saved my dad the best cuts of pork chops and steaks. His shop had sawdust on the floor and he wrapped the meat in waxed paper.

It's time for the 20th installment of "confusion, Balkan style" and it has to do with butchers, who provide carnivores and omnivores (human and animal) with a steady supply of meat.

"Kasap" comes from the Turkish word for butcher. The Balkan region was part of the Ottoman Empire for over 500 years.

In the Balkans, the butchers also danced!  Today's dances are from North Macedonia and Bulgaria. There are three different dances with similar names but different music; you have to be specific on which "Kasapsko" when requesting one of these dances. The Bulgarian ones come from two different regions which adds even more to the confusion.  You read this blog to become confused, right?

Video #1 is Kasapsko Oro from North Macedonia.



Video #2 is Kasapsko Horo from northwest Bulgaria. What adds even more to the confusion that it's the same group, Dunav, from Jerusalem, Israel. You would think that a group from Israel would be into Israeli dance, but they specialize in dances from the Balkans and the Middle East.



Video #3 is Kasapsko Horo, this time from southwest Bulgaria (Pirin).  Different music and different choreography from Video #2.  These dancers wear elaborate embroidered costumes; this time it's a performing group from Bulgaria.

The zurna, an instrument that resembles the oboe, originally from Turkey, has also become part of the music of the Pirin region of Bulgaria as well as North Macedonia. (There is no zurna in this piece, but you can read about it in the one of the posts listed below. It is an instrument people either love or hate).



Video #4 shows a kind-hearted butcher from Istanbul, Turkey who converses with a cat and offers her choice cuts of meat. She was a daily visitor to his shop .  The cat's name was Yesim. Yesim came to the shop every day for five years, and the butcher, Ikram Korkmazer, took care of her.

Istanbul is known for its stray cat population.  The cats walk into stores and people feed them. They are ferals who maintain their independence and for the most part, have passing relationships with humans. 

Unfortunately, Yesim got sick from dehydration and hypothermia from living on the street; Ikram the butcher took her to an animal hospital. Unfortunately, she passed on.

This video is a loving tribute to Yesim and the butcher. Her favorite food was liver. She asked for it by name 😺.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Balkan Dances That Are Often Confused, Part 19: (you will find a link to the rest of the never ending series at the end of this post.

The Zurna in Bulgarian Folk Music (cultural cross-pollination)

The Butchers' Dance in Balkan Folklore (includes Hasapiko, dance of the butchers' guild in Greece)


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The Travels of Maleshevsko Horo

Music goes further than any border, any language.
J. Balvin

Maleshevsko Horo is a dance popular in southwestern Bulgaria (Pirin), North Macedonia, and Greece. It's one of those border crossing dances and has different variations and different music. There are also several songs associated with the dance.

Version 1: Gergana Panova teaches Maleshevsko to the Balkanitsa Group in Haifa, Israel. This is the variation popular in Bulgaria, performed to Dve Nevesti Tikvi Brale Bre (unfortunately you can't hear the entire song here). I have also heard the song on the Bulgarian National Radio's Blagoevgrad station during their folk music broadcasts. It is about two brides harvesting pumpkins.

The Pirin region borders North Macedonia and there are nationalistic claims to certain songs, for example: Makendonsko Devojce.  The Blagoevgrad province in Bulgaria is also known as Pirin Macedonia.

This Macedonia thing is a touchy subject in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece.



For contrast, this is the North Macedonian version of Dve Nesveste Tikvi Brale (different lyrics in a different language) If you want to sing along, you can find the lyrics here:

By the way, Bulgarian and Macedonian are closely related languages.  The dance is named after a mountain that is both in Macedonia and Bulgaria.



Version 2: Same dance, different music, performed by a folk dance club in Bulgaria. The song is Sarena Gaida.  My guess is that this is the Bulgarian version of the song; there is also one in  Macedonian  listed in the Songbook For Nearsighted People. Are you confused yet? Confusion is a popular topic on this blog.



Version 3: Another version of Maleshevsko performed by a Greek group.



North Macedonian version of the music used in the dance above, and it is also called Maleshevsko. Compare the arrangement to the one used in Version 3.  This is a traditional orchestration with folk instruments: gaida, kaval, tupan and tambura.



Version 4: This was the only dance video I could find from North Macedonia. The clarinetist here is amazing.  They use the same tune as the two previous videos, however, the choreography is different than the ones from Bulgaria and Greece. I don't know if Maleshevka is the name of the music or the dance or both. More confusion!



If you enjoyed this you may also like the series Balkan Dances That Are Often Confused.
You can also read: Macedonia, One Name, Three Countries.


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