Pleme Mrkovići in southern Montenegro: A study of marriage geography

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2020-52-4/64-82

Abstract

The article analyses marriage and marriage strategies of the Slavic-speaking pleme community of Mrkovići in southern Montenegro with special attention paid to ​​Slavic-Albanian contacts in the western Balkans. The community demonstrates the visible results of the contact in the lexical system of the Mrkovići dialect with the ethnic and social situation in the region in whole as well as in separate villages. We focus on the marriage geography of Mrkovići mapping directions and frequency of marriage contacts, their reflection on community’s endogamy and exogamy and their influence on interethnic communication practices. The marriage contacts of four settlements of the Mrkovići are analysed in detail: Dapčevići, Lunje, Dobra Voda, and Velja Gorana. The study is based on the fieldwork data collected by the authors in the villages of Mrkovići during several expeditions in 2012–2015. The study includes the family and lineage histories in the broad context of social, historical and linguistic changes. Marriage contacts of Mrkovići with their neighbours are visualized using Gephi software, which makes clear Mrkovići’s geography of marriages, the density and directions of their marriage ties. After considering the four village cases, we offer some generalizations regarding the dynamics of the community’s marriage network and specifics of ethnic and linguistic exogamy among the Mrkovići.
In conclusion, we attempt to use the results on Mrkovići marriage geography for the reconstruction of the general picture of Slavic-Albanian ethnic and linguistic interactions within the border area. The data on the marriage contacts of the modern Mrkovići families preserving their “tribal” identity and memory of several generations of ancestors, complements and clarifies the migration processes and ethno-linguistic situation in the past in the South of Montenegro. These data also expand the understanding of heterogeneity of the community itself: the distribution of marriage ties shows that, on the one hand, the tribal territory consists of several “marriage zones” correlated with the settlement of old-timers and newcomers, and on the other hand, the directions of marriage contacts reflect the development of interethnic contacts of Mrkovići with neighbouring regions.

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