Blood feud through the historical imagination of Ismail Kadare
An analysis of Broken April
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1215Keywords:
Blood feud, Conflict management, Ismail Kadare, law and literature, la longue durée, deuda de sangre, gestión de conflictos, derecho y literaturaAbstract
This paper explores the practice of the blood feud refracted through the prism of Ismail Kadare’s Broken April (1978), which is set in early 20th century Albania. Analysis of emerging themes reveals some important insights for Law and Literature. We examine the relationship of the blood feud with a number of themes, which fall under the structural headings of socio-political conditions, social ethos and values, and mechanisms of conflict management. Situating the author’s agenda within a perspective of historical imagination, between history and epic, past and present, suggests the perspective of la longue durée in relation to customary laws and feuding. That insight in turn prompts reflections about the survival and continuation of blood feuding as a form of life in contemporary societies.
Downloads
Metrics
Downloads:
PDF_11_6S_Pali_Mackay_OSLS 1457
XML_11_6S_Pali_Mackay_OSLS 770
References
Arsovska, J., and Verduyn, P., 2008. Globalization, conduct norm and “cultural conflict”: Perceptions of violence and crime in an ethnic Albanian context. British Journal of Criminology [online], 48(2), 226–46. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azm068 [Access 4 June 2021].
Auerbach, E., 1953. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality on Western Literature. Trans.: W.R. Trask. Princeton University Press.
Avdyli, M., 2019. Mythical symbols in the poetry of Ismail Kadare. Linguistics and Literature Studies [online], 7(4), 164–167. Available from: https://doi.org/10.13189/lls.2019.070406 [Access 4 June 2021].
Bloch, M., 1963. The Historian’s Craft, 2nd ed. Trans.: P. Putnam. New York: Knopf.
Byron, B., 1984. Albanian folklore and history in the fiction of Ismail Kadare: A review of two French translations. World Literature Today [online], 58(1), 40–42. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2307/40139641 [Access 4 June 2021].
Cara, A., and Margjeka, M., 2015. Kanun of Leke Dukagjini customary law of Northern Albania. European Scientific Journal [online], 11(28), 174–186. https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/6383 [Access 4 June 2021].
Çelik, A.B., and Shkreli, A., 2010. An Analysis of reconciliatory mediation in Northern Albania: The role of customary mediators. Europe-Asia Studies [online], 62(6), 885–914. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2010.489253 [Access 4 June 2021].
Cozzi, E., 1910. La vendetta del sangue nelle montagne dell’Alta Albania. Anthropos, 5(3), 654- 687.
Evans, J., 2005. Living with ghosts: Julian Evans talks to the controversial Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare. The Guardian [online], 17 September. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/sep/17/featuresreviews.guardianreview8 [Access 20 November 2020].
Fischer, B.J., 1999. Albanian highland society and family structure in the process of twentieth century transformation. East European Quarterly, 33(3), 281–302.
Gjeçov, S., 2001. Kanuni i Leke Dukagjinit. Lezhe: Shtepia Botuese Kuvendi.
Grutzpalk, J., 2002. Blood feud and modernity. Journal of Classical Sociology [online], 2(2), 115–34. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X02002002854 [Access 4 June 2021].
Guynes, S., 2012. The Albanian Kanun in Ismail Kadare’s Broken April. Valley Humanities Review [online], spring, 1–8. Available from: http://portal.lvc.edu/vhr/2012/Articles/guynes.pdf [Access 4 June 2021].
Hasluck, M., 1954. The unwritten law of Albania. Cambridge University Press.
Izikovich, G., 2015. Jerulasem prize-winning author doesn’t bow to pressure. Haaretz [online], 11 February. Available from: https://www.haaretz.com/life/books/.premium-prize-winning-author-doesnt-bow-to-pressure-1.5304720 [Access 20 November 2020].
Jones, T., 2007. Feuds’ corner, London Review of Books [online], 29(17). Available from: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n17/thomas-jones/feuds-corner [Access 20 Nov 2020].
Kadare, I., 1990. Broken April. Trans. New Amsterdam Book and Saqi Books. London: Harvill Press.
Kokobobo, A., 2018. Translator’s Preface. In: I. Kadare, Essays on World Literature: Aeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare. Trans. A. Kokobobo. New York: Restless Books, x–xi.
Kolsti, J., 1993. Broken April by Ismail Kadare. International Journal of Middle East Studies [online], 25(1), 153–155. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/S002074380005827X [Access 4 June 2021].
Krasztev, P., 2002. The price of amnesia: Interpretations of vendetta in Albania. Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture [online], 1(1), 33–63. Available from: https://doi.org/10.51151/identities.v1i2.38 [Access 4 June 2021].
Llewellyn, R., 2009. Review of Broken April. Booklore Review [online], 18 October. Available from: http://www.booklore.co.uk/PastReviews/KadareIsmail/BrokenApril/BrokenAprilReview.htm [Access 20 November 2020].
Lugaj, A., 2018. Albania, a place where long-standing traditions devised a nation: The Kanun of Leke Dukagjini is alive and kicking [online]. MA Thesis. University of Udine/University of Uppsala: Euroculture Programme. Udine, 31 July. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1251319/FULLTEXT01.pdf [Access 4 June 2021].
Mackay, R., and Pali, B., 2021. Imaginings and reproductions of blood feud: Sir Walter Scott’s The Fair Maid of Perth. Mediares: Journal on Conflict Transformation, Restorative Culture, and Mediation [online], no. 1. Available from: https://www.mediaresrivista.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/imaginings-mackaypali.pdf [Access 2 December 2021].
Mahtab, M., 2020. Living and dying by the code: Broken April by Ismail Kadare, The Daily Star [online], 5 May. Available from: https://www.thedailystar.net/star-weekend/literature/living-and-dying-the-code-1400518 [Access 20 November 2020].
Mitgang, H., 1990. Books of the times; An Albanian tale of ineluctable vengeance. New York Times [online], 12 December. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/12/books/books-of-the-times-an-albanian-tale-of-ineluctable-vengeance.html [Access 20 November 2020].
Morgan, P., 2006. Ismail Kadare: Modern Homer or Albanian dissident? World Literature Today, 80(5), 7–11.
Morgan, P., 2010. Ismail Kadare: The writer and the dictatorship 1957–1990. Abingdon/New York: Legenda/Routledge.
Mustafa, M., and Young, A., 2008. Feud narratives: Contemporary deployments of Kanun in Shala Valley, Northern Albania. Anthropological Notebooks [online], 14(2), 87–107. Available from: http://www.drustvo-antropologov.si/AN/PDF/2008_2/Anthropological_Notebooks_XIV_2_Mustafa.pdf [Access 4 June 2021].
Operazione Colomba, 2017. Descriptive document on the phenomenon of “hakmarrja” and “gjakmarrja” to Raise awareness among Albanian and international institutions [online]. 3rd ed. December. Available from: https://www.operazionecolomba.it/docs/Report_ING-2017.pdf [Access 4 June 2021].
Raducanu, A., 2020. Myth, history and literature: Reading Ismail Kadare’s “Essays on World literature” through Giorgio Agamben’s “The coming community”. World Literature Studies [online], 4(12), 20–34. Available from: https://fenedebiyat.yeditepe.edu.tr/sites/default/files/myth_history_and_literature.pdf [Access 4 June 2021].
Ruggiero, V., 2003. Crime in literature. London: Verso Books.
Sadiku, M., 2014. A tradition of honor, hospitality and blood feuds: Exploring the Kanun customary law in contemporary Albania. Balkan Social Science Review [online], vol. 3, 93–115. Available from: https://js.ugd.edu.mk/index.php/BSSR/article/view/861 [Access 4 June 2021].
Schwandner-Sievers, S., 1999. Humiliation and reconciliation in northern Albania: the logics of feuding in symbolic and diachronic perspectives. In: G. Elwert, S. Feuchtwang and D. Neubert, eds., Dynamics of Violence: Processes of Escalation and De-escalation in Violent Group Conflicts. Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, pp. 133–152.
Scott, W., 1998. Waverley or ‘Tis Sixty Years Since. London: Penguin.
Tarifa, F., 2008. Of time, honor and memory: Oral law in Albania. Oral tradition, 23(1), 3–14.
Vickers, M., and Pettifer, J., 1997. Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity. London: Hurst and Company.
Villari, S., 1941. Le consuetudini giuridiche dell’Albania nel Kanun di Lek Dukagjin. Rome: Società editrice del libro italiano.
Voell, S., 2003. The Kanun in the city. Albanian customary law as a habitus and its persistence in the suburb of Tirana, Bathore. Anthropos, 98(1), 85–101.
Weitzman, E., 2016. The File on H. and the comedy of epic. The Modern Language Review, 11(3), 818–839.
Yamamoto, K., 2008. The Ethical Structure of the Albanian Customary Law. Tirana: Almera.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Brunilda Pali, Robert E. Mackay
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
OSLS strictly respects intellectual property rights and it is our policy that the author retains copyright, and articles are made available under a Creative Commons licence. The Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution No-Derivatives licence is our default licence, further details available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 If this is not acceptable to you, please contact us.
The non-exclusive permission you grant to us includes the rights to disseminate the bibliographic details of the article, including the abstract supplied by you, and to authorise others, including bibliographic databases, indexing and contents alerting services, to copy and communicate these details.
For information on how to share and store your own article at each stage of production from submission to final publication, please read our Self-Archiving and Sharing policy.
The Copyright Notice showing the author and co-authors, and the Creative Commons license will be displayed on the article, and you must agree to this as part of the submission process. Please ensure that all co-authors are properly attributed and that they understand and accept these terms.
