Pece Atanasovski — Gajdarsko oro

Petre Vasilev “Pece“ Atanasovski was born on October 25, 1927, in the village of Dolneni (near Prilep), Macedonia, the son of Vasile Atanasov Todorovski. (It was the tradition until World War II for a male child to have his second name his father’s, and his last name his grandfather’s. Thus Pece is “Petre, son of Vasile, son of Atanas.“ Since the war, however, custom has changed and everone in a family has the same last name. Pece grew up in Dolnani, in a household with nine other children, and lived there until 1944. As a child, he was a shepherd and attended school only through the fourth grade. After that, he would have had to go to Prilep to continue his schooling and his parents would have had to pay. Even so, he was probably more fortunate than many other boys his age, who never learned to read and write. He began playing instruments at the age of 5 or 6. Many of the men in his family were good musicians on the gajde, kaval, or šupelka, and Pece learned to play all o