A few days ago, on our Facebook and Instagram profiles, Serbian Times published a video of a Serbian family from Preševo, specifically a mother and daughter, who were distributing dyed Easter eggs on Orthodox Easter to Albanian children they encountered while driving along a village road.
Following this story, we reached Nevena Pavlović, the aforementioned daughter, who recorded this unusual event on her phone. Unusual, according to her account, only for those who do not live in Preševo, which Nevena points out is a peaceful small town where Serbs and Albanians live as neighbors, without tensions…
– The video that was made on the first day of Easter and attracted great public attention was created spontaneously, during our family trip to the Serbian village of Slavujevac, where we headed for a traditional Easter lunch at my grandmother’s, my mother’s mother. Passing through the village of Ašane near Preševo, which is now majority Albanian and where my grandmother on my father’s side is from, we met a group of Albanian children who were standing by the road waiting for cars to pass, Nevena Pavlović begins her Easter story.
She further says that the children waved at them as they passed, and they decided to stop and treat them to the red Easter eggs that she had dyed together with her mother.
-We stopped to give them eggs, because we know they look forward to it particularly. During that short encounter, my mother handed out eggs to them through the car window, and I recorded that moment, not hoping it would cause an avalanche of reactions among people who are not from here and who do not know how we live here in Preševo. And for us, to tell you the truth, it is a completely normal thing, both for our holidays and for theirs. The children were overjoyed because of the eggs they received and politely thanked us several times.
NORMALCY ABOVE ALL: Nevena Pavlović and her mother
Regarding our observation that only bad things can be heard in the media about the relations between Serbs and Albanians in southern Serbia, Nevena denies this:
-As a Serbian woman from Preševo, where I was born and raised, I want to emphasize that scenes like this are not an exception, but a part of everyday life in our region. Despite frequent different representations in the public, there is no intolerance between Albanians and Serbs in Preševo, but rather normal coexistence, mutual respect, and understanding. Preševo is a peaceful and specific town precisely because of its ethnic population structure, it is just sad that there are fewer and fewer Serbs, less than 5%. The video was not made with the intention of causing any divisions, nor to carry a political or provocative message, but represents a moment of our daily lives, concludes the wonderful girl, Nevena Pavlović, at the end of our conversation.
ART IN THE PAVLOVIĆ HOUSE: Easter eggs like from a fairy tale
Author: Antonije Kovačević Photo: Privatna arhiva