The Highland Lute

The Highland Lute (Albanian: Lahuta e Malsisë, original and Gheg Albanian: Lahuta e Malcís) is the Albanian national epic poem, complete and published by the Albanian friar and poet Gjergj Fishta in 1937. It is written in the Gheg Albanian language, with 30 songs and over 17,000 verses, and is called by many scholars the Iliad of Albania.[1]

Fishta was under influence of Croatian Franciscan monks as a student in monasteries in Austria-Hungary, when he wrote his main work Lahuta e Malcís, influenced by the national epics of Croat and Serb literature.[2] However, the struggle against the Ottoman Empire became secondary[2] and as a central theme substituted with fighting Slavs (Serbs and Montenegrins),[3][4] whom he saw as more harmful after the recent massacres and expulsions of Albanians by them.[5] The work was banned in Communist Albania and Yugoslavia[6] due to anti-Slavic rhetoric.[7] The work was described as "chauvinist" and "anti-Slavic" in the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia (1950), while Fishta was called "a spy who called for a fight against Slavs".[8]

The English translation of The Highland Lute was published in 2005 by Canadian Albanologists Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck ( ISBN 978-1845111182).

References

  1. ↑ Robert Elsie (2005). Albanian Literature: A Short History. I.B.Tauris. p. 236. ISBN 978-1-84511-031-4. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  2. 1 2 Elsie, Robert. "Gjergj Fishta, The Voice of The Albanian Nation". Archived from the original on April 5, 2011. Retrieved April 5, 2011. Fishta was not uninfluenced or unmoved by the literary achievements of the southern Slavs in the second half of the nineteenth century... the role played by Franciscan pater Grga Martic whose works served the young Fishta as a model... by the writings of an earlier Franciscan writer, Andrija Kacic-Miosic ...by the works of Croatian poet Ivan Mazhuranic... the Montenegrin poet-prince Petar Petrovic Njegos... His main work, the epic poem, Lahuta e Malcís(The highland lute), ... propagates anti-Slavic feelings and makes the struggle against the Ottoman occupants secondary.
  3. ↑ Irish Slavonic Studies. Irish Slavonic studies. 1987. p. 172. Highland Lute, about the North Albanian tribesmen's wars with Montenegro, is under disapproval in Albania and Yugoslavia alike. This inclusiveness means that Elsie is very sparing in his critical judgements, ...
  4. ↑ Detrez, Raymond; Plas, Pieter (2005), Developing cultural identity in the Balkans: convergence vs divergence, Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang S.A., p. 220, ISBN 90-5201-297-0, ... substitution of the central motif of the fight against the Turks by that of the fight against Slavs.
  5. ↑ Ernesto Koliqi; Nazmi Rrahmani (2003). Vepra. Shtëpía Botuese Faik Konica. p. 183.
  6. ↑ Robert Elsie (1996). Studies in modern Albanian literature and culture. East European Monographs.
  7. ↑ Transition. Open Media Research Institute. 1998. p. 33. The first issue of the first opposition newspaper Rilindja Demokratike in January 1991 carried the scholar Aurel Plasari's reassessment of Gjergj Fishta (1871 — 1940), the author of the epic poem "The Highland Lute." Because of Fishta s fierce anti- Slav nationalist rhetoric, the Communists prohibited his works soon after the war, during a stint of official Albanian- Yugoslav friendship; the ban remained in place for more than 40 years. Fishta was surrounded with the aura of the forbidden ...
  8. ↑ Katrin Boeckh; Sabine Rutar (10 January 2017). The Balkan Wars from Contemporary Perception to Historic Memory. Springer. p. 84. ISBN 978-3-319-44642-4.
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