Inglorious past

Interesting and pseudo-touching is the desire of a certain part of the population to lament about family traditions. If we know that in this territory there was no aristocracy, there was only the smallest bourgeoisie and almost no intellectuals - the urge to try to compile a family tree, a genealogical tree of some kind of Mitrevci family is strange. Wow, they survived for a long time. Just like anyone else!

I have never had the desire to dig into the past of my biological ancestors. At least not beyond what lives in the memory of my parents (farthest to their grandparents, i.e. my great-grandparents). I have no doubt that my distant ancestors belonged to the lower social classes (serfs/serf peasants/slaves), their total ordinariness, anonymity and non-exclusivity, and I think that they too would not want to be disturbed in the eternal peace that is certainly better than their rotten life.

A random ancestor in the 17th century, for example. Even if there was a way to find out something (and there isn't), what would he find out? That he was born and died somewhere in the Balkans, lived his life within a radius of 15 km, didn't know how to read or write, struggled to survive physically and save his children from starvation, buried several of them when they were little, had some poor bride, unfortunately the poor thing was always under threat of death during childbirth and died poor, whatever he was born. One would only grieve over the many generations of ancestors who were born in pain, never saw any life and died like dogs. If it were visualized, then it would lead to the visualization of characters like those played by  crypto-actors like Vancho Petrushevski and Dzhokica Lukarevski. And of course Lazar Barakov. At best, someone like Rade Rogozharov.

I don't understand the need for self-deception and empty fantasies that there are precise genealogical trees here that go back 500 or more years. Unless it's a priestly family (and of a higher rank), that's not the case, this isn't England to have a "Doomsday Book" with a population census from 1086. The kingdom was illiterate, the Ottomans didn't issue birth certificates, and there was no aristocracy that would draw family trees. I don't know how one could find out about an ancestor from a mountain village in 1699 without any documentation.

Probably not. Which doesn't stop some people from imagining famous, rich, and powerful ancestors. And that's just a reflection of what state-run historian freaks do on a smaller, personal level.

(Roger Mortis, 148)