Academic literature on the topic 'Albanian Folk songs'

Albanian culture coexisted for a period of over 500 years with Ottoman culture, at the turn of the new century, along with the Balkan troubles that led to the continued embrace of the transition from an old culture to the ideology of the Young Turk movement, and the continuation of joint Albanian-Turkish actions, in order to protect the Albanian Vilayets from the Serbo-Montenegrin occupiers. Early nineteenth-century Turkey emerged from bloody wars on all sides of its borders and from a weak government led by Abdul Hamid II faced a new war in 1915 now in defense of the Dardanelles in the bloodiest battle "The Battle of Canakkale". The First World War found Albanians divided and occupied in some of its territories, however, from 1912 Albania had declared Independence, but Kosovo, Skopje and Bitola, Ulcinj and Bar had remained outside the borders, while Chameria - the South of Albania had been invaded by Greece. During the First World War a large number of Albanians remained in the Turkish military service, many others joined the Turkish army, mainly Albanians who had migrated to Turkey from the violence of the Serbo-Montenegrin invaders, as well as some more from Kosovo, Skopje, Tetovo, Presevo, Shkodra, Ulcinj, etc who volunteered to help the Turkish army. According to history, oral literature and written documents, many Albanians died heroically, it is said that about 25,000 martyrs had died in this battle. In their honor, the Albanian people composed songs, it is worth mentioning the "song dedicated to the Battle of Canakkale" by the most prominent folklorists of the Albanian nation. Our research was done through a semi-structured interview with: 5 teachers of Albanian literature (at the same time master’s students at the University "Kadri Zeka" in Gjilan, Kosovo); 5 history teachers (at the same time master’s students at the University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina”, Prishtina, Kosovo); 2 independent researchers from the Institute of History "Ali Hadri" Prishtina, Kosovo.

The paper discusses the continuity of Serbian folk epic poetry since the Early Middle Ages in relation to the discontinuity of Albanian folk epic poetry, in both cases determined by the historical and cultural setting. The research foregrounds the songs of Kosovo Albanians about the Battle of Kosovo, and a cycle of songs about borderland warriors (krajisniks) as well. In terms of motifs and ideological orientation, the former remained on the crossroads between the Serbian-Christian and Moslem-Turkish conceptions, whereas the latter conformed to the Moslem conception. The greatest similarities to the Serbian ?non-historical? epic poetry were demonstrated by the so-called Italo-Albanian songs, brought from Albania to Italy by the Albanian refugees fleeing the Turks. The paper is also an attempt at using scholarly arguments to refute the non-scholarly interpretations of epic techniques, characters and motifs, constructed for the purposes of political pretensions to the territory of the Serbian province as an exclusively Albanian land.

According to the pedagogue and scholar of the school textbooks, the textbook is a basic and mandatory school book, which serves as a basic tool and source of knowledge in the given field of study. Created in support of the education curriculum and didactically shaped, taking into account the psychophysical skills of the students, the subject matter of the course, the type of school, the degree and the profile of education. Students use it in all stages of the learning process and in everyday self-education. It is known that the existence of the scripture is mentioned by the old Babylonia when tile plates were used to write the textual content, as early as four thousand years ago. In addition to that, in ancient Egypt, the texts were written in papyrus, which was used even in old Greece and later in Rome. The parchment was used in the middle Ages, whereby it is believed that the texts were written two thousand years ago. The story of the proper text begins with the discovery of Jan Gutenberg's printing press in 1438. This is where the textbook as a massive book of education derives from. It was an epochal discovery. Meanwhile, while it is known that although Albanian is one of the oldest languages in Europe, it is however documented late. The first documents of the Albanian language are considered from the 15th century (Formula e Pagëzimit, Fjalorthi i A.Von Harfit dhe Perikopeja e Shen Matineut). Meanwhile, Buzuku (Meshari 1555), for us Albanians, is the starting point for text design. It was the time when the didactic reformer Czech pedagogue Jan Amos Komenski (1592-1670), with the first text in Latin, illustrated Orbis sensualium pictus (The Sensual World in Photography), arrived as the founder of the textbook theory. However, it can be concluded that the ABC book, the literature and grammar texts in particular, and the textbook in general, in Kosovo were of multiple importance to Albanians who were deprived of the right to education in Albanian language. The history of textbook design in Albanian language in Kosovo is very new. After the Renaissance, which was marked as a bright epoch in the effort to draft textbooks for Albanian schools, "The Literary Commission" (Komisia Letrare), established in Shkodra in 1916 would join to serve in the name of this cause. The aim of this body was to gather and publish the visions of Albanian folk literature such as: poetry and songs, tales, traditions, lessons, etc. Recently, efforts have been made to compile literary bibliographies in Albanian language. Nevertheless, it would be useful to continue with a bibliography of Albanian Language reading comprehension books in the school tradition in Albania, Kosovo and other areas where Albanians live and are educated in Albanian language. In Kosovo, Mati Logoreci is a pedagogue, is considered to be among the first textbook writers. This patriot and intellectual is a treasure of Albanian tradition in many fields, especially of education and school, as didactic, text analyst, organizer, controversial to highlight scientific, educational, social values. Mati Logoreci has an indisputable value in the history of the Albanian didactic thinking, in particular, the current educational values, adding to these values also some features of contemporary personality traits, traditional learning, within the learning methods. Logoreci was among the first Albanian educators in Kosovo. The path to development of the book in Albanian language in Kosovo was difficult, which at the same time is the best indicator of the situation of this group of the Albanians.

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to prove the presence of calques (loan translation) of Albanian language in the languages of minorities (Gorani community, Bosnian community) in the region of Prizren. We will make an effort to provide evidence for the role of Albanian as a donor language through daily contacts with the members of the above-mentioned communities. The corpus of this study will be the edited volume of songs and folk tales from minority areas, respectively from the population of Gorani and Bosnian ethnicity and their dialects. The research will be focused in minority areas in the municipality of Dragash (Sharr) where Gorani people live, as well as in other areas of minority language speakers, mainly in Zhupa, in the municipality of Prizren. The paper will be important in enlightening the facts of using the structure of Albanian, both in the spoken language of the minority community and that of Albanian community. The cases where certain elements of Albanian language are encountered in another language, where Albanian appears as a donor language, will be considered as important. The reason which has pushed us to conduct the research regarding the presence of Albanian elements, basically morphological, in a non-Albanian speaking community in Kosovar society, respectively in the multi-ethnic society of Prizren, is the way of speaking of this minority community and the confirmation of the impact of Albanian language and ethno-culture on this minority language since ancient times to the present.

Difficult war times and painful family events made people segregate. These events made folk singers create songs where they narrated how people recognized each other after a long time being far away from one another. This time period was known as a very dramatic process fulfilled with strong feelings. Different scops and bards created emotional songs with the motif of recognition between husband and wife (that will be explained with examples from Hind Horn and Aga Ymeri), between brother and sister (that will be explained with examples from Bonnie Farday and Gjon Petrika), and rarely between brother and brother. The aim of this paper is to make a comparative analysis with special emphasis on intersections and the dissimilar points of the English ballads and the Albanian ones which treat the motif of recognition. Since this papers goal is the comparative approach between ballads of two different literatures of different nations, our methods of analysis will be the narrative method and the comparative method. The narrative method will be used to point out the motif of recognition in each ballad particularly, while the comparative method will be used to make the comparison between ballads Hind Horn and Aga Ymeri where husband and wife recognize each other by a special sign as symbol of their true love, and between ballads Bonny Farday or Babylon and Gjon Petrika where with the help of a mark the identification of brother and sister occurs.

Difficult war times and painful family events made people segregate. These events made folk singers create songs where they narrated how people recognized each other after a long time being far away from one another. This time period was known as a very dramatic process fulfilled with strong feelings. Different scops and bards created emotional songs with the motif of recognition between husband and wife (that will be explained with examples from Hind Horn and Aga Ymeri), between brother and sister (that will be explained with examples from Bonnie Farday and Gjon Petrika), and rarely between brother and brother. The aim of this paper is to make a comparative analysis with special emphasis on intersections and the dissimilar points of the English ballads and the Albanian ones which treat the motif of recognition. Since this papers goal is the comparative approach between ballads of two different literatures of different nations, our methods of analysis will be the narrative method and the comparative method. The narrative method will be used to point out the motif of recognition in each ballad particularly, while the comparative method will be used to make the comparison between ballads Hind Horn and Aga Ymeri where husband and wife recognize each other by a special sign as symbol of their true love, and between ballads Bonny Farday or Babylon and Gjon Petrika where with the help of a mark the identification of brother and sister occurs.

The paper presents an overview and analysis of the Gjirokastra National Folklore Festival (NFFoGj), one of the most important events in the cultural life of Albania. Global transformations that have affected all aspects of life have inevitably brought changes to traditional culture, traditional values and relations with the outside world, including across the Balkans. The majority of program issues were inspired by a common European practice of holding mass folklore events and measures aimed at nurturing and preserving cultural heritage. It is deeply connected to the process of revitalisation of old ritual practices and folk costume and to the socialisation of people who have professional and semi-professional associations with ethnic culture. Having analysed the materials collected in the run-up to the festival and during the event as well as during field studies in the Western Balkans in 1992–2019, I can acknowledge revitalisation of many, if not all, elements of folk culture. In this case revitalisation does not mean following the tradition literally, but rather an attempt to preserve it while adopting a modern perspective and advances in technology. The essential part of this process is the attempt to breathe new life into the components of traditional culture, and adapt them to the here and now. The NFFoGj has also become a major attempt to museificate the cultural heritage of the Albanians. Contests that have been held regularly over the past 70 years to reveal the best examples of folk art and support independent artists have encouraged interest in the roots of national culture and helped many generations not to forget what their predecessors valued. Thus, folk dance, music, songs and costume were reproduced – at times artificially – in various regions of the country to showcase the achievements of a locality (village, district, town, region) at the national festival as the main ritual cultural event.

This article for the first time proposes a methodological bridge between comparative and historical linguistics, classical philology (on the one hand) and ethnomusicology (on the other hand). Thus, it is possible to verify the results obtained independently in various fields of humanities of the 20th century. The present article compares rhythmical patterns of songs with explicit ritual use from different ethnic groups speaking Indo-European languages (Slavic, Baltic, Greek, Albanian, Iranian, and others). In these songs, there are two main types of stable rhythm patterns (0101/0100 and 011/010) which correlate with two main types of Indo-European poetic metrical patterns independently reconstructed by Indo-European linguistics. It suggests that folk songs preserved a range of possible Indo-European rhythmic patterns, even though languages have changed prosodic properties over time. The present study follows the track of previous studies, which showed partial parallels in Baltic, Slavic-Balcan, and Indo-Aryan song patterns, which loans could not explain. Further analysis of rhythmic patterns revealed their connections with prosodic and syntactic properties of Indo-European sentence. Relative rhythmic complexity of possible Indo-European musical idiom may be correlated to the rhythmic complexity of textiles that may be connected to some Indo-European speaking ethnic groups. The parallels outside the Indo-European cultural range show possible Uralic and Caucasian components of Indo-European musical idiom, which may indicate components of ethnogenesis of Indo-European ethnic groups. Thus ethnomusicology may be regarded as an independent source for studying prehistory, along with linguistics, archeology, and genetics. Though proposed in the 20th century by B. Bartok, V. Goshovsky, G. Luko, this program of ethnomusicological research has not yet been implemented.

Resurrection, sacrifice and incest as motifs can be found in the literatures of all nations. Even though, they are at the root of any creation of folk cultures, in each culture, these motifs appear with special features. The aim of this paper is through examples to show how these three motifs were treated in ballads of two different literatures, the English and the Albanian. Our objective is through a comparative approach to find the similarities and differences between them. We decided to analyze at least two ballads for each of the motives, coming from English and the Albanian literatures. The concrete research has three main steps: a) to show the particular characteristics of each ballad, b) to find the meeting points between them, and, c) to find what makes them different. After all the analysis we did we concluded that there are some differences between them and that they have some specific characteristics. But the most specific thing is that although these ballads belong to two different nations and cultures they have some meeting points. The main method of research will be the comparative method because we explore songs of two different literatures.

An appeal to figurative representations preserved by folk tradition is an attempt to study mentality, understanding the world of a particular culture. Immersion in the world of mythological and fairy-tale formations makes it possible to reveal social representations, the specifics of intercultural interaction at the level of folk tradition. The relevance of this article lies in the possibility of identifying supra-ethnic processes of intercultural interaction in the South Slavic realm, as well as their social, cultural and ideological aspects. The symbolism of the snake in the cultures of various samples is known from Paleolithic times. According to a biological point of view, this is one of the most common groups of animals, neighboring in the past and today to humans all around the globe. Emotional perception of the quality of a snake (danger, secrecy, unusual appearance) and its mythological derivatives, make it possible to identify alternative, but common types of the snake image reflection that take place in Western and especially Eastern Slavic, Romanesque, Albanian, Germanic, Indo-Iranian, Greco-Roman and other mythological traditions. Their correct understanding of the ethical and aesthetic cultural paths of development of modern Slavic peoples, who have entered into a regulated dynamic cultural convergence with the whole world, is an urgent scientific and social task. The main sources of the article are songs, fairy tales, descriptions of the rituals of the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bulgarians, Macedonians. Perception of the image of a snake and giving it fabulous and mythological features in historical times revealing the inconsistency of Slavic ideas about the objects present, their natural, emotional coloring of images and detection with a person.