In August 2017, on the day I was supposed to leave Bucharest with my American colleague for another episode of our field research in Greece, we stopped by the Museum of the Romanian Peasant to examine the original photographs taken by the Manakia brothers. That is when we realized that the exact locations of many images were missing from the museum’s catalogs. At that moment, we decided to change our route. Two days later, we found ourselves in the Republic of North Macedonia.
The photograph of Kruševo – Crușuva in Vlach – was easily recognizable and dated August 15, 1903. We just needed to identify the exact spot where it was taken.
On St. Elijah’s Day in 1903, the people of Kruševo revolted against the Ottomans, and the Manakia brothers arrived shortly after the town’s destruction to document it. With the photograph in hand, we set out through Kruševo to find its location. We found it quickly, but the position seemed approximate, as the angle was either too low or too high compared to the original photograph. We soon realized that a house now stands on the exact spot – a century can change many things.
The true moment of surprise came later when I realized that I had unintentionally taken my own photograph exactly 114 years to the day after the Manakia brothers. The Julian calendar was still in use in the Ottoman Empire in 1903. Calculating the 13-day difference revealed the overlap – a deeply symbolic coincidence for my first photograph that followed in the Manakia brothers’ footsteps.
