Vevcani (Вевчани, Vevchani) - a village in the Drimkol area, near the city of Struga, in the southwestern part of Macedonia and the seat of the municipality of the same name, the only one in Macedonia with only one settlement.
Origin of the name
The name of Vevcani comes from the Old
Slavic word ves, which means village. Adding a suffix to a demon
gives the name of the village - Vescani. In the 17th century it was
also called Vescani, and in the 20th century the name Vehchani was
used to finally accept the official name of Vevcani today.
Geography and location
The village is located in the Drimkol
area, in the western part of Struga Field, whose area on the eastern
side of the mountain Jablanica, rises on its ridge where it touches
the state border line with Albania. The village is hilly, whose
houses rise at an altitude of 820 to 980 meters. From the city of
Struga, this large village is 13.5 km away, and from the regional
road Struga-Debar about 7 km.
Vevcani is located at the foot
of the eastern slopes of Mount Jablanica, at an altitude of 800
meters. Specifically, the village is located on the border, ie the
contact between the mountain slope of Jablanica in the west and the
plain of the valley bottom in the east.
The area of Vevcani
is located northwest of Lake Ohrid on the west side of the Struga
Field on the east side of the mountain Jablanica. It stretches in
the east-west direction, from the foot, through the hilly terrain,
all the way to the ridge of the mountain Jablanica. It borders the
Municipality of Struga, and in a narrower part it touches the state
border line with Albania.
The localities in the lower part of
the area of the village have the following names: Suvo Pole,
Pelvec, Petrushin Red, Vrbice, Popoi Kostenje, Buklej Kostenje,
Sadoj, Crveni Bregoj, Nistorchinja, Velkova Koshara, Kalanova
Koshara, Ljushkova Koshara, Ma Pot, Durakor, Tumbulka, Sredorci,
Ilaja Vodejnca, Mali Log, Sv. Petka and St. Dimitrija.
The
localities in the mountainous part of the area of the village bear
the following names: Varvara, Gjonec, Kalajdzina Koshara, Mivko,
Branejnca, Sv. Spas, Smolejca, Golema Livada, Gropa Ќat, Popov
Kutel, Sredni Rid, Shkala Vevchanska, Bacila Vevchanski, Golina, Crn
Kamenj, Chuma, Izvor Vevchanski, Gjorejca, Cvetkov Kostenar,
Popadina, Leleci, Peshtinski Kushta Raven, Mitrina Glava, Partaloj
Kutli, Suva Cesma, Surbanovsko, Lazarov Mev, Kula, Dupni Dol and
Grdanova Cesma.
An asphalt road leads to Vevcani, which
passes through Struga through the villages of Vranishta and Velesta.
Vevcani is a large village similar to a small town ("Palanka") and
it is quite well urbanized, arranged and regulated. The main street
passes in the middle of the settlement in the east-west direction,
where most of the shops, hotels, restaurants, trade and craft shops,
the house of culture and the open stage of the amphitheater and the
Health Center are concentrated.
Vevcani is the seat of the
municipality of the same name and it is the only case in Macedonia,
only one settlement to be a separate municipality.
Neighboring villages of Vevcani are: Podgorci in the north, Oktisi
in the south, Velesta in the east and Gorna Belica in the southwest.
History
Traces of the settlement exist from the III century
BC. Its first location was not today Vevcani, but it was located
just below the foot of the mountain Jablanica, in the place that
today is called Selishte. It is possible that there was some merging
of the ancient Macedonian settlement located in the area of Vajtos
which is located directly above Vevcani, with the mentioned
settlement Selishte, thus forming it at today's location (between
Vajtos and Selishte).
The first legends and writings about
Vevcani say that it is an old settlement, and its beginnings date
from the end of VI, ie the beginning of VII century, when the tribe
Berziti (Brsjaci) flooded the Struga region and settled the location
of today's Vevcani, southeast of the mountain Jablanica. There is a
small inconsistency here again, because today Vevcani is mostly a
Mijak settlement.
Middle century
Since the settlement of
Vevcani is recorded in the documents, there are several original
documents over the centuries. One of them is Kaliman's letter, as
the oldest research document so far. It says that Vevcani as a rural
settlement is evident from the end of the IX century and how highly
developed, economically strong and obliged to pay taxes in kind to
the Bulgarian prince Boris I, and after him to the emperor Simeon
the Great. The next written record where the village written under
the name Vescani is found is found in the XIV century, ie from
1342-1345 when Tsar Stefan Dusan presented it with a letter to the
church of the Holy Mother of God Perivlepta in Ohrid.
Somewhat later in the 16th century, in the Ottoman tax registers of
the non-Muslim population of the province of Ohrid, according to the
Turkish census of 1509, there were 208 homes, and in the second
census in 1519 there were 223 homes and it was a larger settlement
than Struga, which then counted. 176 homes.
At the beginning
of the XVII century in 1633-1634 the settlement was registered under
the name Veschano with 154 households.
XIX century
During the late period of the Ottoman Empire, the
inhabitants of Vevcani were characterized by great courage,
fearlessness and heroism, disobedience, freedom-loving, patriotism
and devotion to the Orthodox Christian faith and Macedonia,
characteristics with which Vevcani today defy the surrounding Muslim
and are known throughout Macedonia and beyond.
At the end of
the XIX century, Vevcani was a village within the Struga nahija, in
the Ohrid kaza, of the Ottoman Empire.
There are numerous
examples from the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth
century. A mayor of Vevcani, named Tase, was forced by the Turks to
convert to Islam, but after he refused he was hanged in Vevcani.
East of Vevcani is a locality called Ramov Grob which got its name
because there an Albanian Ramo from Velesta illegally took water
from Vevcani and released it in his village because of which he was
killed by Vevcani. The priest Pop Nahum, also known by the nickname
"Mal Oxha", is remembered, who opposed a rich resident named
Grozdan-pasha from the village of Gorna Belica who wanted to
appropriate the Vevcani pastures on Jablanica, which is why priest
Nahum even went to seek justice. to Constantinople.
In the
middle and at the end of the XIX century, inhabitants of Vevcani (of
the Velkoy genus) who were for profit in Romania, participated and
gave their lives as soldiers - volunteers fighting on the side of
the Russian army against the Turkish army in the Crimean War in 1856
and the Russian the Turkish war on the Balkan Mountains in 1878.
During the national liberation and revolutionary struggle
against the Ottoman slavery from Vevcani were two dukes of the
Struga company of VMORO - Jakim Alulov and Stavre Gogov who from the
summer of 1904, after the murder of Jakim Alulov, became the leader
of the Struga company of VMORO. In April 1907, Stavre was staying at
the house of his uncle Trpe Shekutkov in his native village of
Vevcani, about which the Turks found out and with a regular army
together with a bashibozuk from the neighboring villages Oktisi,
Labunista and Podgorci surrounded the house. Stavre Gogov together
with the hosts heroically lasted over 20 hours in the unequal
battle, while his fiancée Kota Hristova managed to pass the siege
and bring them bombs and cartridges. After the bullets were fired,
Stavre Gogov committed suicide. Trpe Shekutkov and his brother
Kuzman Shekutkov also died with him. The daughter-in-law Andrica and
the three grandchildren of Kuzman Shekutkov were wounded, and 27
people died from the attack of the asker and the bashibozuk. The
Turks will burn the house. After the murder of Stavre Gogov, his
fiancée Kota Hristova kills the traitor and joins one of the VMORO
companies.
World War Two
In 1943, in the locality of Sveti
Spas, near the village of Vevcani, a NOPO "Drimkol" was created by
about twenty fighters, mostly of Albanian nationality.
The
case of Vevcani
At the end of the 20th century, at a time when
Macedonia was still part of the SFRY, protests took place in the
village of Vevcani over the water supply plan of the neighboring
village of Oktisi with water from Vevcani Springs.
The
Vevcani case is a case from 1987, when the then government intended
to capture the Vevcani Springs, under the pretext of bringing water
to the residents of the neighboring village of Oktisi, and in fact,
intended to use the water for the elite weekend settlement Ellen
Kamen, where the villas of the then heads of government were
located. The residents of Vevcani opposed this by setting up
barricades and the water pipes were not allowed to be laid. Despite
the consent of the two local communities of Vevcani and Oktisi, the
night connection of the water from the Vevcani springs to Oktisi on
May 25, 1987 was not done because there was an organized and violent
opposition of the population of Vevcani.
Despite the efforts to overcome the situation, the spread
information that the water from Vevcani Izvori will be supplied to
Struga and the tourist settlement Elen Kamen, and Vevcani will be
left without water, discounts were the efforts of the authorities in
reassuring the population and construction activities were
withdrawn. After the assessments and preparatory activities of the
authorities and the inclusion of the possibility of using force by
the law enforcement agencies, if violent organized resistance
reappears, it was decided to start the water connection activities
in the village of Oktisi from Vevchani Izvori on August 6, 1987.
However, on the same day, the construction workers at the entrance
of the village of Vevcani were greeted by 500-600 inhabitants who
made a barricade with wood and stones and carrying sticks,
agricultural tools and other objects, despite calls from members of
the SIA Struga to leave the place, they did not they did. During the
day in Vevcani there was a great movement of residents and their
grouping at the place where the construction works were to be
performed, and several times the church bell rang in order to call
the citizens to gather and obstruct the construction works.
The riots culminated on August 7, 1987, when special police forces
intervened, when "electric batons" were used for the first time in
then-Yugoslavia. Namely, the next day, August 7, 1987, around 10 am,
23 workers were again obstructed by a group of 500-600 inhabitants
of Vevcani, who set up 5 barricades from the entrance to the center
of the village, during which the police had to intervene with
electric and rubber truncheons. which led to a clash with residents,
injuring 23 residents and 11 police officers, 19 residents of
Vevcani (of which 3 women) were detained. Despite the gathering and
the hunger strike of a group of young people and the telegrams sent
to the governing bodies at the national and federal level, as of
August 18, 1987, the construction works were completed and the water
from Vevcani to Oktisi finally flowed. These events shook the wider
Macedonian and Yugoslav public and society, and gained (unusually)
wider dimensions and political implications. The local community of
the village of Vevcani received telegrams in support of the
demonstrated resistance, a delegate question was asked about these
events to the Assembly of SFRY, and a protest letter was written by
the Association of Slovenian Writers to the organization and
participants in the 26th Struga Poetry Evenings. for all this the
then authorities blamed the organized action of groups of
individuals from Vevcani from the village itself and some who lived
in other republics (especially in Slovenia).
Some analysts
consider these protests in Vevcani as a kind of expression of
dissatisfaction and dissent towards the then socialist regime and
the struggle for democratic reforms. In addition to the glorious and
disobedient history of Vevcani from the time before and for Ilinden,
after these events comes the symbolic protest self-proclamation of
the "state of Vevcani" (republic) with its passports and money
(so-called personalities) which today is a tourist attraction known
for Vevcani. In the village of Vevcani even today there is a plaque
where the names of all the leaders of that time are written with the
inscription "God kill the traitors".