Year IX, July – December 2024, 3-4

Transcription as process and the case study of Taqi (Dhimitër) Deliana

Keywords: Transcription, Byzantine chant, Albanian communism, ethnomusicology, cultural product.

This article is focused on the process of transcription taking cue from a particular case-study: the transcription of a tape-recorded conversation led by the ethnomusicologist Hysen Filja with the former byzantine chanter, Taqi Deliana, dating from 1977, treasured in the Audiovisual Archive of the Institute of Anthropology (Former Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Art Studies). Centred around the Byzantine music practices in the Kala neighbourhood in Elbasan, such conversation is a subject matter rather exceptional for that  period. In fact, Albania had proclaimed itself an atheist country just a few months earlier and any form of religious activity was severely punished by the penal code. Thus, the process of turning this  auraloral conversation into a written text brings along many  implications which need a thorough consideration of the meaning of transcription as method and cultural product. Such implications have never undergone any critical revision by scholars, although transcription has been a very popular method. Driving on a number of scholarly contributions regarding transcriptions (such as Elinor Ochs, Alessandro Duranti, Mary Bucholz), the process of  transcription is being revised both on theoretical and interpretive levels.

The Gramophone arrives in Albania. The earliest recordings of traditional Albanian music on vinyl.

Keywords: Gramophone Company, Shkodër, Albania, traditional music, aheng.

Gramophone recordings are among the earliest sound documents
of Albanian traditional music. Despite their undisputed musical and cultural value, they have been almost entirely neglected as subjects to scholarly research. This article aims to shed light on the first documented expedition of 1908 in Shkodër of The Gramophone Company, a recording company in Albania. By cross-checking several sources, a catalogue of the recorded items was compiled and supplied with the pertaining discographic data. Then, a review on the performing musicians was followed by some considerations on the repertoires. Although local urban traditional music dominates, the soundscape attained is diverse and richer than expected, including songs from the highlands, a davul and zurna ensemble (a repertoire which in the meantime has disappeared from local  practice), and even the military band of the Ottoman garrison  stationed in the city – a souvenir from the last days of Ottoman rule in Albania. The essay suggests that such recordings had great symbolic value but did not circulate widely and did not have an
extensive market either.

Subjunctive: Its Distribution in Complex Sentences in Albanian

Keywords:subjunctive, distribution, selection, main verb, conjunction.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the subjunctive mood in Albanian as well as its distribution in complex sentences. It is a theoretical-analytical examination of the subjunctive, namely, of the distribution of the subjunctive in sentences with adjunct,  complement and relative clauses. In sentences with adjunct clauses there are various factors influencing the selection of the subjunctive. In some cases, the semantic properties of the conjunction require the subjunctive, or the correlation created by the conjunction with certain tense and mood verb forms. On the other hand, in  complement clauses the subjunctive is usually selected by the  semantic and syntactic properties of the matrix verb. In Albanian,  the subjunctive is consistently required by certain verbs, e.g. nis ‘start’, filloj ‘begin’, vazhdoj ‘continue’, whose semantics differ from the concept of the subjunctive. In relative clauses, the selection of the subjunctive is determined by non-referential use of the noun in the matrix clause, being connected to its indefinite form.

Kolë Kraja (1865-1948) – an apostle of the Albanian education, from National Awakening to the 1930s.

Keywords: Kolë Kraja, Shkodër, Saverian Seminary, Dudë  Karbunara, Prince Wied, Association “Vllaznia”.

Based on archival sources, this paper explores the life and  contribution of Kolë Kraja (1865-1948), a devoted teacher during the Albanian National Awakening. Kraja’s steadfast dedication to the  advancement and consolidation of Albanian schooling emerges as a central theme.
Through his educational and cultural initiatives, Kraja exemplifies the essence of a quintessential representative of the Albanian  National Awakening. The article offers insights into Kraja’s teaching career across various Albanian cities in the late 19th-century  Ottoman Empire, including Monastir, Ioannina and Berat, where he taught Albanian to young generations, safeguarding them from assimilation while instilling concern for the Albanian question. Furthermore, Kraja’s pedagogical approach, which involved teaching diverse subjects in Albanian despite the risk of persecution by Ottoman authorities, underscores his enduring legacy and the  significance of his contributions to Albanian national education history.
Additionally, the paper brings into limelight a previously overlooked aspect of Kraja’s life: his service as an Albanian teacher and later as a dragoman (translator) in the royal court of Prince Wied. This  period provides valuable insights into Kolë Kraja’s multifaceted role in shaping Albanian cultural and intellectual spheres, culminating with him becoming head of the Brotherhood Association (Shoqnija “Vllaznia”) in his hometown Shkodër in the early 1920s.

Koliqi’s “romance”

Keywords: novel, structure, themes, ideas, narrative, literary form, autobiographic pact.

Devoted to “Shija e bukës së mbrûme” (1960) the only novel by
Ernest Koliqi, the paper aims at analysing the structure, themes, motifs and the characters of such work, as well as the other textual and contextual signs in the novel.
One of the most prominent figures of Albanian literature, Ernest Koliqi synthetised in this novel Albanian cultural legacy with Albanian literature from the first half of the 20th century, making them unfold in a narrative discourse.
The novel, as the author himself defined it, is shaped as a  “romance”, imbued with little events from everyday life but which mirror wide literary themeideas such as the quest for the true love and identity or, the creation of authentic individual and national  identity. Though composed in a classical form and written in a language rich in sayings, the author leads the reader into the world of his characters by exploring their problems, considering them
as a clash amongst ideals and mindsets from the author’s time,  which is also the time when the novel was being written. The novel displays autobiographic and ideographic signs thus aiding the reader to understand and contemplate both characters and events to a deeper level.

A comparative look at some of Fr Donat Kurti’s Albanian folktales and the Brothers Grimm’s German folktales

Keywords: folktales, brothers Grimm, Donat Kurti, archetypes, motifs, functions.

As a very important genre, tales have always stoked considerable
interest amongst scholars because of their content, themes, as well as their numerous and colourful characters. Their structure encompasses a wide choice of phenomena which have contributed to a thorough understanding of elements created and displayed by different cultures. Scholars collected folktales from oral sources directly. Subsequently, they categorised and explained their types.
Fr Donat Kurti is one of such collectors and scholars of Albanian folktales. During his activity of collecting and publishing them, he pointed out certain similarities between the Albanian and the German folktales, which he painstakingly noted down in footnotes.
It is widely accepted that the Grimm Brothers forwarded the theory of mythological origin of folktales. From such theory then ensued two other theories – that of migration and polygenesis.
This essay focuses on the comparison between some of the folktales collected and published by Fr Donat Kurti and some by the Brothers Grimm by pairing them up evenly according the list of the index  established by Aarne–Thompson–Uther (ATU Index). With the framework grounded on analyses of folktales conducted by foreign
and Albanian scholars, the essay is carried out following the  morphology of tales by Vladimir Propp.