Whose Is A Song, By Adela Peeva

Adela Peeva’s award winning documentary, “Whose is this song” tells the narrative of a simple melody that has ambiguous origins. Peeva’s investigation of the song’s roots takes her on a journey to Greece, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Through her odyssey, it becomes evident how a seemingly “simple” song can highlight the factors that unites and divides the Balkan region. Due to the uncertainty of who claims the song, it presents a challenging topic to unpack because there are many perspectives to consider. However, in many ways, this complex question highlights the cultural, political, and social conflicts that shadow the Balkan region. By premising the documentary on a song, Peeva is able to take something quite simple and use it as a lens into how it has shaped the schemas and lives of everyday people living in the Balkans. One suggestion the film conveys about what both unites and divides the Balkan region would be the song itself. This is due to the fact that the song , on a surface level, is essentially the same
In her trip to Serbia, Peeva played the song in front of a group of people and they got very upset and started to yell at her. In other words, the lyrics, hold a certain spirit of the country that claims it. Each song lyric describes a different cultural aspect of the region. For example, in Skopje, the song describes the story of a girl named Pashta who runs away. In the Bosnian version, the lyrics describe a young girl. Each version holds value in the eyes of those who claim the song and by not having ownership, it is implicitly stating that another country’s culture is superior. In Albania, the people said that the “Serbs have no tradition” (Peeva, 2003). This illustrates nationalistic tones, but also the inherent concept that some cultures are superior than others and ownership of the song is merely a small gesture to exacerbate the cultural