Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors
Encyclopedia
Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors are part of the traditional cycle of the Albanian epic songs
. They took their definite form in 17th and 18th century and were orally transmitted by the Albanian bards. The songs were first time recorded in written form in the first decades of the 20th centuries by the Franciscan
priests Shtjefën Gjeçovi
and Bernandin Palaj. Palaj was eventually the first to publish them in Albanian
in 1937. The songs were translated into English
by Robert Elsie
, who published them for the first time in 2004. The Albanian bards' tradition of singing the songs from memory is the last survival of its kind in modern Europe.
milieu and were transmitted by bilingual singers to the Albanian
milieu. Research shows that the songs originate from 17th and 18th centuries, and were orally transmitted by the Albanian bards. Although they were transmitted from the South Slavic milieu of Bosnia, they are not simply translated from Serbo-Croatian, but they independently evolved in the northern Albanian highlands.
priest Shtjefën Gjeçovi, who was the first one to collect the Albanian Kanun in writing, also began to collect the Frontier Warrior Songs and write them down. From 1919 onward, Gjeçovi's work was continued by Reverend Bernandin Palaj. Both Gjeçovi and Palaj would travel on foot to meet with the bards and write down their songs. Këngë Kreshnikësh dhe Legenda (Songs of Frontier Warriors and Legends) appeared thus as a first publication in 1937, after Gjeçovi's death and were included within the Visaret e Kombit (Treasures of the Nation) book.
At this time, parallel to the interest shown in Albania
in the collection of the songs, Yugoslav
scholars became interested in the illiterate bards of the Sanjak
and Bosnia. This had aroused the interest of Milman Parry
, a Homeric
scholar from Harvard University
, and his then assistant, Albert Lord
. Parry and Lord stayed in Bosnia for a year (1934–1935) and recorded 12,500 texts.
Out of the five bards they recorded, four were Albanians: Salih Ugljanin, Djemal Zogic, Sulejman Makic, and Alija Fjuljanin. These singers were from Novi Pazar
and the Sanjak, and were able to reproduce the same songs in both Albanian
and Serbo-Croatian
.
In 1937, shortly after the death of Parry, Lord went to Albania, began learning Albanian, and travelled throughout Albania collecting Albanian heroic verses, which are now preserved in the Milman Parry Collection at Harvard University. Parry wrote the following of this endeavor:
. The establishment of the Folklore Institute of Tirana in 1961 was of particular importance to the continued research and publication of folklore at a particularly satisfactory scholarly level. In addition, the foundation of the Albanological Institute in Pristina
added a considerable number of works on the Albanian epic.
The Serbo-Croatian epic seems to have died out since the days of Parry and Lord, as there are no longer any bards to sing these songs, whereas the Albanian epic is still very much alive. There still is a good number of lahutars in Albania, Kosovo
, and even in the Albanian-speaking areas of Montenegro
. It is believed that these men are the very last traditional native singers of epic verses in Europe.
The songs, linked together, form a long poem, similar to the Finnish
Kalevala
, compiled and published in 1835 by Elias Lönnrot
as gathered from Finnish and Karelian
folklore
.
The Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors are considered to be the ultimate inspiration for Gjergj Fishta
's epic Lahuta e Malcis.
, the warrior who had nine wounds on his body and lay suffering for nine years in his house. When news come that Balozi i Zi
("Black Knight") had come from the sea and was killing people, Gjergj gets up and kills the Balozi.
Albanian epic poetry
The traditional Albanian epic poetry includes folk Albanian poetry and songs that are part of the Albanian culture. Examples of these songs are the following:...
. They took their definite form in 17th and 18th century and were orally transmitted by the Albanian bards. The songs were first time recorded in written form in the first decades of the 20th centuries by the Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
priests Shtjefën Gjeçovi
Shtjefën Gjeçovi
Shtjefën Gjeçovi born Mëhill Kostandin Gjeçi-Kryeziu was an Albanian Catholic priest, ethnologist and folklorist...
and Bernandin Palaj. Palaj was eventually the first to publish them in Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
in 1937. The songs were translated into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
by Robert Elsie
Robert Elsie
Robert Elsie is a scholar who specializes in Albanian literature and folklore.- Life :Born on June 29, 1950 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Elsie studied at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1972 with a diploma in Classical Studies and Linguistics...
, who published them for the first time in 2004. The Albanian bards' tradition of singing the songs from memory is the last survival of its kind in modern Europe.
History
Songs emerged in the South SlavicSouth Slavs
The South Slavs are the southern branch of the Slavic peoples and speak South Slavic languages. Geographically, the South Slavs are native to the Balkan peninsula, the southern Pannonian Plain and the eastern Alps...
milieu and were transmitted by bilingual singers to the Albanian
Albanian
Albanian may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to the country of Albania* Albanians, a people living in Albania, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Italy and elsewhere* The Albanian language...
milieu. Research shows that the songs originate from 17th and 18th centuries, and were orally transmitted by the Albanian bards. Although they were transmitted from the South Slavic milieu of Bosnia, they are not simply translated from Serbo-Croatian, but they independently evolved in the northern Albanian highlands.
Pre-World War II research
FranciscanFranciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
priest Shtjefën Gjeçovi, who was the first one to collect the Albanian Kanun in writing, also began to collect the Frontier Warrior Songs and write them down. From 1919 onward, Gjeçovi's work was continued by Reverend Bernandin Palaj. Both Gjeçovi and Palaj would travel on foot to meet with the bards and write down their songs. Këngë Kreshnikësh dhe Legenda (Songs of Frontier Warriors and Legends) appeared thus as a first publication in 1937, after Gjeçovi's death and were included within the Visaret e Kombit (Treasures of the Nation) book.
At this time, parallel to the interest shown in Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
in the collection of the songs, Yugoslav
Yugoslavs
Yugoslavs is a national designation used by a minority of South Slavs across the countries of the former Yugoslavia and in the diaspora...
scholars became interested in the illiterate bards of the Sanjak
Sanjak
Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...
and Bosnia. This had aroused the interest of Milman Parry
Milman Parry
Milman Parry was a scholar of epic poetry and the founder of the discipline of oral tradition.-Biography:He was born in 1902 and studied at the University of California, Berkeley and at the Sorbonne . A student of the linguist Antoine Meillet at the Sorbonne, Parry revolutionized Homeric studies...
, a Homeric
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
scholar from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and his then assistant, Albert Lord
Albert Lord
Albert Bates Lord was a professor of Slavic and comparative literature at Harvard University who, after the death of Milman Parry, carried on that scholar's research into epic literature.-Personal life:...
. Parry and Lord stayed in Bosnia for a year (1934–1935) and recorded 12,500 texts.
Out of the five bards they recorded, four were Albanians: Salih Ugljanin, Djemal Zogic, Sulejman Makic, and Alija Fjuljanin. These singers were from Novi Pazar
Novi Pazar
Novi Pazar is a city and municipality located in southwest Serbia, in the Raška District. According to the official census in 2011, number of inhabitants of municipality is 92,776, while the city itself has a population of 60,638...
and the Sanjak, and were able to reproduce the same songs in both Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
and Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
.
In 1937, shortly after the death of Parry, Lord went to Albania, began learning Albanian, and travelled throughout Albania collecting Albanian heroic verses, which are now preserved in the Milman Parry Collection at Harvard University. Parry wrote the following of this endeavor:
"While in Novi Pazar, Parry had recorded several Albanian songs from one of the singers who sang in both languages. The musical instrument used to accompany these songs is the gusleGusleThe Gusle is a single-stringed musical instrument traditionally used in the Dinarides region of the Balkans ....
(Albanian lahuta), but the line is shorter than the Serbian decasyllabic and a primitive type of rhyming is regular. It was apparent that a study of the exchange of formulas and traditional passages between these two poetries would be rewarding because it would show what happens when oral poetry passes from one language group to another which is adjacent to it. However, there was no sufficient time in 1935 to collect much material or to learn the Albanian language. While in DubrovnikDubrovnikDubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
in the summer of 1937, I had an opportunity to study Albanian and in September and October of that year I traveled through the mountains of Northern Albania from ShkodërShkodërShkodër , is a city located on Lake of Shkoder in northwestern Albania in the District of Shkodër, of which it is the capital. It is one of the oldest and most historic towns in Albania, as well as an important cultural and economic centre. Shkodër's estimated population is 90,000; if the...
to Kukësi by way of BogaBogëBogë is a small mountainous village and also a holiday resort village in western Kosovo. Bogë is located in the Prokletije mountain range on an altitude of about 1,300m - 1,400m. Closeby the village is located the peak of Hajla at 2,403m and the Pećka Bistrica which has its source not far from the...
, Thethi, AbatAbatAbat is a community in the Shalë municipality, Shkodër District, Shkodër County, northern Albania....
, and Tropoja, returning by a more southerly route. I collected about one hundred narrative songs, many of them short, but a few between five hundred and a thousand lines in length. We found out that there are some songs common to both Serbo-Croatian and Albanian tradition and that a number of the Moslem heroes of the Yugoslav poetry, such as Mujo and Halili Hrnjica and Gjergj Elez AliaGjergj Elez AliaGjergj Elez Alia is popular legendary hero of poetry and literature in Bosnia and Albania. Muslims from Bosnian Krajina modeled the poetic image of Djerzelez Alija after the image of Christian Prince Marko, based on the historic person Ali Bey Mihaloğlu...
, are found also in Albanian. Much work remains to be done in this field before we can tell exactly what the relationship is between the two traditions."
Post-World War II research
Research in the field of Albanian literature resumed in Albania during the 1950s with the founding of the Albanian Institute of Science, forerunner of the Academy of Sciences of AlbaniaAcademy of Sciences of Albania
The Academy of Sciences of Albania , founded in 1972, is the most important scientific institution in Albania. The institution includes the most distinguished scientists, also called "academics", that are involved in research centers and other organisms inside and outside Albania...
. The establishment of the Folklore Institute of Tirana in 1961 was of particular importance to the continued research and publication of folklore at a particularly satisfactory scholarly level. In addition, the foundation of the Albanological Institute in Pristina
Pristina
Pristina, also spelled Prishtina and Priština is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous municipality and district....
added a considerable number of works on the Albanian epic.
The Serbo-Croatian epic seems to have died out since the days of Parry and Lord, as there are no longer any bards to sing these songs, whereas the Albanian epic is still very much alive. There still is a good number of lahutars in Albania, Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
, and even in the Albanian-speaking areas of Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
. It is believed that these men are the very last traditional native singers of epic verses in Europe.
The songs, linked together, form a long poem, similar to the Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
Kalevala
Kalevala
The Kalevala is a 19th century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Finnish and Karelian oral folklore and mythology.It is regarded as the national epic of Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature...
, compiled and published in 1835 by Elias Lönnrot
Elias Lönnrot
Elias Lönnrot was a Finnish philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for compiling the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic compiled from national folklore.-Education and early life:...
as gathered from Finnish and Karelian
Karelian
Karelian refers to something from or related to the region of Karelia, in present-day Russia and FInland*Karelians*Karelian language*Karelian foods* Karelian pasties* Karelian hot pot* Karelian Birch, a cultivar of Betula pendula...
folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
.
The Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors are considered to be the ultimate inspiration for Gjergj Fishta
Gjergj Fishta
Gjergj Fishta was an Albanian Franciscan friar, poet, rilindas, and a translator. Notably he was the chairman of the commission of the Congress of Monastir, which sanctioned the Albanian alphabet. In 1937 he completed and published his epic masterpiece Lahuta e Malcis, an epic poem written in Gheg...
's epic Lahuta e Malcis.
Gjergj Elez Alia
One of the most well known songs of the Cycle is that of Gjergj Elez AliaGjergj Elez Alia
Gjergj Elez Alia is popular legendary hero of poetry and literature in Bosnia and Albania. Muslims from Bosnian Krajina modeled the poetic image of Djerzelez Alija after the image of Christian Prince Marko, based on the historic person Ali Bey Mihaloğlu...
, the warrior who had nine wounds on his body and lay suffering for nine years in his house. When news come that Balozi i Zi
Balozi i Zi
Baloz is a term in Albanian folklore especially within the Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors, that refers to a barbarian knight coming from the north...
("Black Knight") had come from the sea and was killing people, Gjergj gets up and kills the Balozi.