Epos of Kreshniks as a grandiose lapidary of Albanian spoken culture

Authors

  • Prof. dr. Gjovalin Shkurtaj

Abstract

The article is drawn from the study “Ethnography of speaking in the Epos of Kreshniks”, held also as a paper in the scientific Conference dedicated to the Epos of Kreshniks, in Pristine, August 2010.
Epos of Kreshniks makes a wonderful lapidary of the culture of the language, a valuable heritage in which we can verify very interesting witnesses of the historic and dialectal processes of Albanian.
In this frame of the study of the language of the Epos, there are two sides closely connected with each other: on one side, the thematic mixed with ancient mythological and contextual elements, with remnants and indexes of the legendary and mentality of the past centuries; and on the other side, a language that it is not difficult to be understood, especially by the younger generations of our times, not only in the North (Gegëni) ut wider.
This testifies that the language of the Epos has had a high level processing, that is why it is justly considered as a “golden lapidary of our poetic language ”. All the poetic creativity of our people has a fine language, nice figures of speech and chosen lexicon, but the Epos of Kreshniks “strikes in the mark”, because it has a special processing and carving. This has been the reason why many Albanian and foreign researchers have admitted and strongly supported the idea that the Albanian Epos “is really a magnificent deed of the popular creators, which leaves you speechless with its beauty”.
As an artistic, popular creation, our Epos is an ancient literary subdivision that, with its contents, brings the echo of the very early times. But, at the same time, this Epos is transmitted from generation to generation and, just under these circumstances, it is obliged to adjust to the development or evolution of the language in accordance with the time and place they are sung by the rhapsod.
The Songs of the Kreshniks or the Albanian popular Epic of the North have been and continue to be as the valuable minerals that are collected and extracted out of the depth of underground and the suburbs, or from the mountainous or remote territories, but those, because of their shine, their beauty and values become immediately object of judge and liking by the wide masses of researchers, just the same as the gold or silver becomes for the craftsmen settled in the towns.
It is right what Qemal Haxhihasani assessed: “Just as the Homeric poems helped to get acquainted with the Greek antiquity, achritic songs for the complex character of the State, the songs of Nibelung and of Roland for the German and French Medieval Times, the same is also with the monumental rhapsodies of the cycle of kreshniks, which lighten the centuries of Medieval Times for our county and which stand with dignity along with the best epic creations of other people”.

By our studies, we have reached to the conclusion that in the language of epic, both innovations and conservations are more connected with the contents, with the style and with the artistic values, which causes greater motions in the field of lexicon and morph-syntax. From this view-angle we do not exceed when we say that the Songs of Kreshniks are a grandiose lapidary of the culture of Albanian language.

Keywords:

Epos of Kreshniks, language, heritage, culture, ancient mythological elements

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References

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Published

2024-05-07

How to Cite

Shkurtaj, Prof. dr. Gjovalin. 2024. “Epos of Kreshniks As a Grandiose Lapidary of Albanian Spoken Culture”. Univers 13 (13):177-91. https://albanica.al/univers/article/view/3911.

Issue

Section

Arts, Tradition and Culture