L’Albania delle donne. Immagini e studi albanesi nella letteratura di viaggio femminile (1864-1953)

Abstract

Female travel literature about Albania begins early, is rich in outstanding works, and it is just waiting to be known and appreciated as it deserves. In fact, over the last hundred and fifty years, Albanian culture, from Kosovo to Epirus to Macedonia to Montenegro, attracted and continues to attract more and more the attention of many female writers, artists and professional researchers who contributed to the advancement of studies related to a country that, despite being in the very heart of Europe, has long remained on the fringes of general knowledge. However, differently from what happened to their male counterparts, female writing about Albania is still scarcely known. This article is aimed to delineate a first and far from exhaustive survey of female travel literature about Albanian culture, through case studies selected according to different types of representation. The time frame taken into account goes from 1864 - when they were published two British travel books, namely The Eastern Shores of the Adriatic of Emily Anne Beaufort, and Through Macedonia to the Albanian Lakes of Mary Adelaide Walker - to 1953, when it appeared the German edition of the Albanian customary code of laws (also known as Kanun), translated by Marie Amelie von Godin. Particular attention will be given to Mary Edith Durham’s oeuvre, whose ethno-anthropological research tools and outcomes are still to be fully explored in their richness and originality