Albanian epic poetry is a form of
epic poetry created by the
Albanian people. It consists of a longstanding oral tradition still very much alive. A good number of Albanian rhapsodes ( sq, lahutarë) can be found today in
Kosovo and northern
Albania, and some also in
Montenegro. Northern Albanian epic poetry is performed singing to the accompaniment of the
lahutë
The gusle ( sr-cyrl, гусле) or lahuta ( sq, lahutë) is a single- stringed musical instrument (and musical style) traditionally used in the Dinarides region of Southeastern Europe (in the Balkans). The instrument is always accompanied ...
or
çifteli
The çifteli (çiftelia, qifteli or qyfteli , sq, "doubled" or "double stringed") is a plucked string instrument, with only two strings, played mainly by the Gheg people of northern and central Albania, Southern Montenegro, parts of North Mace ...
. Within the Albanian epic poetry, ''
Kângë Kreshnikësh
The ''Kângë Kreshnikësh'' ("''Songs of Heroes''") are the traditional songs of the heroic non-historical cycle of Albanian epic poetry ( Albanian: ''Cikli i Kreshnikëve'' or ''Eposi i Kreshnikëve''). They are the product of Albanian culture ...
'' constitute the most important
heroic non-historical cycle, while the songs of
Skanderbeg form the most important historical cycle.
Documentation
19th century
During the 19th century many foreign scholars took interest in Albanian folklore. The first writer to mention Albanian heroic songs was
Lord Byron in his ''
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'' is a long narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. The poem was published between 1812 and 1818. Dedicated to " Ianthe", it describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man, who is dis ...
'' (1812–1818). In 1830
Vuk Karadžić recorded from Dovica Obadović from Đurakovac near
Peć 12 Albanian songs and one
riddle for
Jernej Kopitar. This collection constitutes one of the earliest written records of Albanian oral verse from
Kosovo. The complete collection was first published by
Norbert Jokl. The extracts of songs of this collection seems to be based on historical or legendary events. The collection contains heroic and lyric songs, including also laments.
The Albanian national awareness is likely to have been a source of the motivation to record the songs. In the late 19th century, Romanticism in Europe and in particular in Eastern Europe triggered a desire to cultivate and solidify national cultural identities. Thus, importance was placed on the Albanian epic verse because of the cultural history it contains. When in
Italy the interest in folklore prevailed, the
Arbëreshë Arbën/Arbër, from which derived Arbënesh/Arbëresh originally meant all Albanians, until the 18th century. Today it is used for different groups of Albanian origin, including:
* Arbër (given name), an Albanian masculine given name
* Arbëresh ...
writers were among the first to take the opportunity to make known their culture and folklore. In 1847,
Vincenzo Dorsa
Vincenzo Dorsa (26 February 1823 – 4 December 1855) was an Arbëresh scholar, writer and translator.
Life
Vincenzo Dorsa was born in 1823 to a prominent Arbëresh family. His father, Francesco, was a lawyer, and his mother was the granddaughte ...
published in
Naples ''Su gli Albanesi, ricerche e pensieri'', which contains three Albanian poems translated into
Italian. The songs were from the villages of
Calabria
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. German physician
Karl H. Reinhold was the first collector of Albanian songs in
Greece, who recorded Albanian folk poems from the
Greco-Albanian sailors from the islands of
Poros and
Hydra
Hydra generally refers to:
* Lernaean Hydra, a many-headed serpent in Greek mythology
* ''Hydra'' (genus), a genus of simple freshwater animals belonging to the phylum Cnidaria
Hydra or The Hydra may also refer to:
Astronomy
* Hydra (constel ...
while he was serving as a doctor in the Greek navy. He published his collection in ''Noctes Pelasgicae'' (Pelasgic Nights, with the term "Pelasgic" meaning Albanian) in 1855.
An important Arbëresh publisher of Albanian folklore was the linguist
Demetrio Camarda
Demetrio Camarda ( Arbërisht: Dhimitër Kamarda; 22 October 1821, in Piana degli Albanesi – 13 March 1882, in Livorno) was an Arbëreshë linguist, patriot of the Arbëreshë, and publisher of Albanian folklore, with scientific knowledge also ...
, who included in his 1866 ''Appendice al Saggio di grammatologia comparata'' (Appendix to the Essay on the Comparative Grammar) a great number of Albanian songs from
Sicily and
Calabria
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, demographics1_title2 ...
, some folk poems from Albania proper and a few from Albanian settlements in
Greece. In this collection there are some Arbëresh epic songs. Arbëresh writer
Girolamo De Rada, who was already imbued with a passion for his Albanian lineage in the first half of the 19th century, began collecting folklore material at an early age. De Rada published in 1866 the collection ''Rapsodie di un poema albanese'' (Rhapsodies of an Albanian Poem), which consists of 72 epic poems from the colonies of Napolitano, with also the Italian translation. The rhapsodies are divided into three parts: "Gli Albanesi allo stato libero" with 20 songs; "Gli Albanesi in guerra col Turco" with 20 songs; "Gli Albanesi vinti ed in esilio" with 32 songs. However, there is some doubt about the complete originality of this collection, since he himself admitted to have made a few changes in it.
Stimulated by the collections of the Arbëreshë writers and foreigners, the interest of native Albanians in collecting Albanian oral creations grow with the
Albanian National Awakening (''Rilindja'') in the second half of the 19th century. The first Albanian collector of oral epic songs from Albania proper was
Zef Jubani
Zef Jubani or Giuseppe Jubany in Italian (born ''Zef Ndokillia''; 1818–1880) was an Albanian folklorist and activist of the Albanian National Awakening. He is known for the publication of a ''Collection of Albanian Folk Songs and Rhapsodies'' ...
. From 1848 he served as interpreter to French consul in
Shkodra,
Louis Hyacinthe Hécquard Louis may refer to:
* Louis (coin)
* Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name
* Louis (surname)
* Louis (singer), Serbian singer
* HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy
See also
Derived or associated terms
* Lewis (d ...
, who was very interested in folklore and decided to prepare a book on northern Albanian oral tradition. They travelled through the northern Albanian mountains and recorded folklore material which were published in French translation in the 1858 ''Hécquard's pioneering Histoire et description de la Haute Albanie ou Guégarie'' (History and Description of High Albania or Gegaria”). This collection contains twelve songs in French, without the original Albanian, which were lost later in the flood that devastated the city of Shkodra on 13 January 1866. Jubani published in 1871 the original Albanian songs with Italian translation in the collection ''Raccolta di canti popolari e rapsodie di poemi albanesi'' (Collection of Albanian Folk Songs and Rhapsodies), which constitutes the first collection of
Geg
Gheg (also spelled Geg; Gheg Albanian: ''gegnishtja'', Standard sq, gegërishtja) is one of the two major varieties of Albanian, the other being Tosk. The geographic dividing line between the two varieties is the Shkumbin River, which winds ...
folk songs and the first folkloristik work to be published by an Albanian who lived in Albania. This collection contains also a number of poems sung in
Shkodra.
One of the best collections of Albanian oral tradition is ''Alvaniki melissa – Belietta Sskiypetare'' (
The Albanian Bee) published in
Alexandria by
Thimi Mitko
Thimi (Euthimio) Mitko (1820 – March 22, 1890) was an activist of the Albanian National Awakening and folklorist.
Mitko was born in Korçë, Albania (then Ottoman Empire), where he attended the local Greek school. His uncle, Peti Mitko, ...
in the year 1878. Mitko compiled and classified the material according to genres. The most important part of this collection are the lyric poems. It contains 123 heroic songs, 97 in the
Tosk dialect and 26 in the
Gheg dialect of Albanian. They celebrate the battles of the Albanians in the different parts of the
Ottoman Empire, including the heroic deeds of
beys and those of the
Souliotes.
20th century
An important collection of Albanian epic poems was published by
Michele Marchianò in ''Canti popolari albanesi delle colonie d'Italia'' in 1908. The poems of this collections maintain exactly the original form as they were found in a 1737 manuscript. In 1911 and 1912 he also published ''Canti popolari albanesi della Capitanata e del Molise'' in ''Rivista d'Apulia''. K. D. Sotiriou published in 1909 the collection "Short Songs and Tales of the Albanians" written in the
Arvanitika dialect of the village of
Markopulo in
Attica and the island of
Spetses
Spetses ( el, Σπέτσες, grc, Πιτυούσσα "Pityussa", Arvanitika: Πετσε̱) is an upscale affluent island in Attica, Greece. It is included as one of the Saronic Islands. Until 1948, it was part of the old prefecture of Argolis ...
. In 1923
Giuseppe Schirò
Giuseppe Schirò ( Arbërisht: Zef Skiroi; 10 August 1865 – 17 February 1927)Elsie, ''Albanian literature'',pp. 60–64/ref> was an Arbëresh neo-classical poet, linguist, publicist and folklorist from Sicily. His literary work marked the tran ...
published the remarkable collection ''Canti tradizionali ed altri saggi delle colonie albanesi di Sicilia''.
Franciscan priests and scholars active in the
northern Albanian mountains recorded Northern Albanian epic songs in the early decades of the 20th century by. Among the most important Albanian folklorists were
Shtjefën Gjeçovi
Shtjefën Konstantin Gjeçov-Kryeziu (12 July 1874 – 14 October 1929) was an Albanian Roman Catholicism, Catholic priest, ethnologist, and folklorist. He is regarded as the father of Albanian folklore studies.
Life
Gjeçovi was born on 12 Jul ...
,
Bernardin Palaj
Bernardin Palaj (20 October 1894 — 8 December 1947) was a Franciscan friar, folklorist and poet.
Life
Born as Zef Palaj in Shkodër, to Gjon and Marta Dedaj, originally from the mountains of Shllak. Bernardin Palaj went to Franciscan schools in ...
and
Donat Kurti
Donat Kurti (1903–1983) was an Albanian Albanian franciscan friar, educator, scholar and folklorist. Donat Kurti was born in Shkodër, back then Ottoman Empire). He studied theology and philosophy at the Collegium Antonianum in Rome and was orda ...
, who collected folk songs on their travels through the mountains and wrote articles on
Gheg Albanian
Gheg (also spelled Geg; Gheg Albanian: ''gegnishtja'', Standard sq, gegërishtja) is one of the two major varieties of Albanian, the other being Tosk. The geographic dividing line between the two varieties is the Shkumbin River, which winds ...
folklore and tribal customs. Palaj and Kurti published in 1937—on the 25th anniversary of
Albanian independence
The Albanian National Awakening ( sq, Rilindja or ), commonly known as the Albanian Renaissance or Albanian Revival, is a period throughout the 19th and 20th century of a cultural, political and social movement in the Albanian history where the ...
—the most important collection of Albanian epic verse, ''Kângë kreshnikësh dhe legenda'' (The Songs of the Frontier Warriors and Legends), in the series called ''Visaret e Kombit'' (The Treasures of the Nation).
Harvard Scholars
Milman Parry and
Albert Bates Lord began to explore the traditional Albanian songs, seeking to uncover how the
Homeric epics
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
were composed. In order to answer that question, they sought to illuminate and study first-hand the extant oral traditions. This led them to the mountainous regions of the Balkans, where reciters of the ancient songs were still around. Up until this point, documentation of any oral verse had been done by hand. Recording by hand caused the documentation to be done in an unnatural manner.
Lord's remarkable collection of over 100 songs containing about 25,000 verses is now preserved in the Milman Parry Collection at Harvard University.
21st century
A considerable amount of work has been done in the last decades. Led for many years by
Anton Çeta
Anton may refer to: People
*Anton (given name), including a list of people with the given name
*Anton (surname)
Places
*Anton Municipality, Bulgaria
**Anton, Sofia Province, a village
*Antón District, Panama
**Antón, a town and capital of th ...
and
Qemal Haxhihasani
Qemal Haxhihasani (1916–1991) was an Albanian historian and folklorist. He is regarded as a leading expert on epic and heroic verse.
Sources
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haxhihasani, Qemal
1916 births
Albanian folklorists
1991 deaths
20th-century ...
,
Albanologists published multiple volumes on epic, with research carried out by scholars like
Rrustem Berisha
Rrustem Berisha (born 2 March 1965) is a Kosovar politician and military officer. He was Minister of Defense in Haradinaj cabinet. During the Yugoslav Wars, he fought in the Croatian War of Independence and the Kosovo War. He was a commander of th ...
,
Anton Nikë Berisha
Anton Nikë Berisha (born 1946) is an Albanian scholar and folklorist. He has been teaching Albanian at the University of Calabria since 1992, and is considered an expert in Albanian oral and Arbëreshë literature.
Anton Berisha was born on Au ...
, and
Zymer Ujkan Neziri. Until the beginning of the 21st century, there have been collected about half a million verses of the ''Kreshnikësh'' cycle (a number that also includes variations of the songs). 23 songs containing 6,165 verses from the collection of Palaj and Kurti were translated into
English by
Robert Elsie and
Janice Mathie-Heck Janice may refer to:
* Janice (given name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
* '' Janice & Abbey'', a reality TV series
* Processor codename of the Samsung Galaxy S Advance Android smartphone
* Janice, Łódź Voiv ...
, who in 2004 published them in the book ''Songs of the Frontier Warriors (Këngë Kreshnikësh)''. In 2021 Nicola Scaldaferri and his collaborators Victor Friedman, John Kolsti and Zymer U. Neziri published ''Wild Songs, Sweet Songs: The Albanian Epic in the Collections of Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord''. Providing a complete catalogue of Albanian texts and recordings collected by Parry and Lord with a selection of twelve of the most remarkable songs in Albanian including the English translations, the book represents an authoritative guide to one of the most important collections of Balkan folk epic in existence.
Performance
Today, the Albanian heroic non-historical cycle – ''
Kângë Kreshnikësh
The ''Kângë Kreshnikësh'' ("''Songs of Heroes''") are the traditional songs of the heroic non-historical cycle of Albanian epic poetry ( Albanian: ''Cikli i Kreshnikëve'' or ''Eposi i Kreshnikëve''). They are the product of Albanian culture ...
'' – is still sung by elderly men called lahutars, who sing while playing a one-stringed instrument called a lahuta or
gusle
The gusle ( sr-cyrl, гусле) or lahuta ( sq, lahutë) is a single-stringed musical instrument (and musical style) traditionally used in the Dinarides region of Southeastern Europe (in the Balkans). The instrument is always accompanied by s ...
. Many lahutars can be found in Kosovo (where the majority of the population is Albanian), northern Albania, and some in Montenegro. These men are considered to be the last traditional, European singers of epic verse.
Oral epics are "performance traditions", fundamentally a complex communication of emotion, culture, and history that imbue meaning by more than written text. Because of this, these songs are not done justice by a simple transcription. A by-product of transcription is the song cannot be performed the whole way through, it must stop and start to allow the transcriber to write what they hear. Luckily, Parry and Lord were researching at the right time and had support from the right people. Doing research for Harvard, the wound up in the Balkans with audio recorders, which made the process of recording the epic verse easier and yielded a product truer to the real performance.
Accompanying instruments
The Northern Albanian epic poetry is performed singing to the accompaniment of the
lahutë
The gusle ( sr-cyrl, гусле) or lahuta ( sq, lahutë) is a single- stringed musical instrument (and musical style) traditionally used in the Dinarides region of Southeastern Europe (in the Balkans). The instrument is always accompanied ...
or
çifteli
The çifteli (çiftelia, qifteli or qyfteli , sq, "doubled" or "double stringed") is a plucked string instrument, with only two strings, played mainly by the Gheg people of northern and central Albania, Southern Montenegro, parts of North Mace ...
.
Lahuta is a one-
stringed musical instrument with a long neck and oval shaped body. It consists of a
sound box made of carved wood (usually maple as it is considered as the best material) covered with an animal skin, and a long neck which is decorated at the top, usually with the head of a goat, a ram or a horse. The string of the Lahuta is made of horsehair. The instrument is held vertically between the knees, with the left hand fingers on the neck. It is played with a
bow pulled over the string which is never pressed to the neck, creating a dramatic and sharp sound, expressive and difficult to master. In singing, the voice follows the harmonic and unique sound produced by the instrument.
Çiftelia is a plucked two-
stringed musical instrument with a long neck and oval shaped body. It is most often tuned to B
3 and E
3 (comparable to the top two strings of a
guitar, which is classically tuned as "E
2 A
2 D
3 G
3 B
3 E
4"). One string carries the
melody
A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...
, the other is usually played as a
drone
Drone most commonly refers to:
* Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg
* Unmanned aerial vehicle
* Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft
* Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone
Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to:
...
.
''The Highland Lute''
The Albanian national epic poem ''
The Highland Lute
''The Highland Lute'' ( sq, Lahuta e Malcís, original and standard language of the time based on Gheg Albanian) is the Albanian national epic poem, completed and published by the Albanian friar and poet Gjergj Fishta in 1937. It consists of 30 son ...
'' ( sq, Lahuta e Malcís) was written by Albanian Catholic friar
Gjergj Fishta
Gjergj Fishta (; 23 October 187130 December 1940) was an Albanian Franciscan friar, poet, educator, politician, rilindas, translator and writer. He is regarded as one of the most influential Albanian writers of the 20th century due to his epic ...
and published in 1937. It consists of 30 songs and over 17,000 verses. The poem has been inspired by northern Albanian oral epic poetry.
Scholarship
Albanian epic verse is a longstanding
Balkan
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
tradition that, unlike most known similar
oral traditions, is still alive today.
[Elsie, Robert. ]
Why Is Albanian Epic Verse So Neglected?
' N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2017. This paper was a part of a conference on The Albanian Epic of Legendary Songs in Five Balkan Countries: ALbania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro on August 8th, 2014 Due to the Albanian language barrier, this tradition has lacked substantial international scholarship, translation, and recognition as an important source of cultural history. Albanian literature as a whole is an under-translated and understudied material, relative to similar academic areas. This can be attributed to a few large reasons. First, the language barrier: Albanian is an Indo-European language, though dissimilar to all other modern languages. It maintains many archaic structures and its closest relative would be the very ancient Balto-Slavic languages. Dacian and Illyrian seem to be close relatives, predecessors, or ancestors.
The second impediment to scholarship of the Albanian literature is its political history. Under tight control by Stalinist leaders in the second half of the 20th century, Albania was effectively isolated from the rest of the world. The closed borders kept out outsiders and kept in Albanians who wished to leave, cutting off external study, contact, and heavily impeded the development of substantive cultural exchange and research. Albanian's lack of representation in the world literary scene is not due to quality, but to dearth of external interest and difficulty of access.
Non-English-Language Historians of Albanian Epic Poetry
*
Matthias Murko (1861–1952)
* Gerhard Gesemann (1888–1948)
* Fulvio Cordignano (1887–1952)
*
Maximilian Lambertz Maximilian Lambertz (27 July 1882 in Vienna – 26 August 1963 in Markkleeberg near Leipzig) was an Austrian linguist, folklorist, and a major personality of Albanology.
Biography
In the years 1900 to 1905, he studied comparative linguistics and ...
(1882–1963)
* Joesf Matl (1897–1972)
* Alois Schmaus (1901–1970)
* Maximilian Braun (1903–1984)
* Walther Wünsch (1908–1991)
* Agnija Vasiljevna Desnickaja (1912–1992)
English-Language Historians of Albanian Epic Poetry
* Baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873)
*
Laza Kostić
Lazar "Laza" Kostić ( sr-Cyrl, Лазар "Лаза" Костић; 12 February 1841 – 27 November 1910) was a Serbian poet, prose writer, lawyer, aesthetician, journalist, publicist, and politician who is considered to be one of the greatest ...
(1841–1910)
*
Hector Munro Chadwick
Hector Munro Chadwick (22 October 1870 – 2 January 1947) was an English philologist. Chadwick was the Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and the founder and head of the Department for Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies at the Uni ...
(1870–1947)
*
Nora Kershaw Chadwick
Nora Kershaw Chadwick CBE FSA FBA (28 January 1891 – 24 April 1972) was an English philologist who specialized in Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Old Norse studies.
Early life and education
Nora Kershaw was born in Lancashire in 1891, the first dau ...
(1891–1972)
* Milman Parry (1902–1935)
*
Clarence Manning Clarence Augustus Manning (April 1, 1893 – October 4, 1972) was an American slavicist. He worked for 43 years at the Columbia University in New York, eventually being appointed chairman of the Department of Slavic Studies. He published a number of ...
(1893–1972)
* Albert Lord (1912–1991)
* Anne Pennington (1934–1981)
*
John Miles Foley (1947–2012)
See also
*
Albanian folk beliefs
* ''
The File on H'', a novel by
Ismail Kadare about two Irish researchers engaging with the Albanian epic tradition in the 1930s
Sources
Citations
Bibliography
*
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{{Albania topics
Albanian poetry
Albanian folklore
Folk poetry
Epic poetry
Albanian literature
Poetry by country