Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors

Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors (Albanian: Këngë Kreshnikësh or Cikli i Kreshnikëve) are part of the traditional cycle of the Albanian epic songs. They took their definite form over 400 years ago and were orally transmitted by the Albanian bards. The songs were collected in the 19th and 20th centuries by the Franciscan priests Shtjefën Gjeçovi and Bernandin Palaj. Palaj was eventually the first to publish them in Albanian in 1937.The Albanian bards' tradition of singing the songs from memory is the last survival of its kind in modern Europe.



Research work before World War II
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Franciscan 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 Rev. Bernandin Palaj. Both Gjeçovi and Palaj would travel on foot to meet with the bards and write down their songs.Këngë Kreshnikësh dhe Legenda (English: 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 (English: 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 the Harvard University, and his then assistant, Albert Lord. Parry and Lord stayed in Bosnia for a year (1934-1935) and recorded 12,500 texts.

Interestingly enough, four out of five of the bards they recorded 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 traveled 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 gusle (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 Dubrovnik 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 Shkodër to Kukësi by way of Boga, Thethi, Abat, 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 theYugoslav poetry, such as Mujo and Halili Hrnjica and Gjergj Elez Alia, 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.


Research work after World War II
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Research in the field of the Albanian literature resumed in Albania in the 1950s with the founding of the Albanian Institute of Science, forerunner of the Academy of Sciences of Albania.Especially the setting up 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 (Albanian: Instituti Albanologjik) 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 and kicking".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.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


1. Mujo's strength
2. The marriage of Gjeto Basho Mujo
3. Mujo's oras
4. Mujo visits the Sultan
5. The marriage of Halili
6. Gjergj Elez Alia
7. Mujo and Behuri
8. Mujo's courser
9. Young Omeri
10. Zuku Bajraktar
11. Arnaut Osmani and Hyso Radoica
12. Ali Bajraktari or the word of honour
13. Arnaut Osmani
14. Zuku captures Rusha
15. Mujo's wife is kidnapped
16. Mujo and Jevrenija
17. Halili avenges Mujo
18. Omer, son of Mujo
19. The death of Omer
20. Ajkuna mourns Omer
21. The death of Halili
22. Mujo wounded
23. After Mujo's death