Robert Elsie Bücher

Die vorliegende Sammlung albanischer Volksmärchen stellt mit über hundert Märchen die bisher größte Zusammenstellung albanischen Erzählgutes in deutscher Sprache dar. Sie beruht auf frühen Sammlungen und Anthologien deutschsprachiger Gelehrten, viele davon Sprachwissenschaftler, die unverfälschtes schriftliches Material für ihre Forschung der albanischen Sprache benötigten und aufzeichneten. Hierunter befinden sich auch die frühsten fremdsprachigen Übersetzungen albanischer Märchen.

Das Handbuch zur albanischen Volkskultur stellt zum ersten Mal in deutscher Sprache eine Vielzahl von bisher unbekannten bzw. wenig bekannten Informationen zur Volkskultur auf dem Balkan zur Verfügung und hofft, hiermit als Handbuch für Forscher und Interessierte aus den verschiedensten Fachbereichen nützlich zu sein. Es befasst sich in erster Linie mit dem albanischen Volksglauben im weitesten Sinne: Figuren der albanischen Mythologie, religiöse Vorstellungen und Aberglauben, Glaubensgemeinschaften, Orden und Sekten, die in Albanien tätig waren oder sind, Heilige, die für den Volksglauben von wesentlicher Bedeutung sind, Kultstätten, Kalenderfes-te und Rituale. Eng verwandt mit der Welt des Glaubens sind auch Volkssitten, Gebräuche und kulturelle Besonderheiten, die mit aufgenommen wurden, etwa: Brauchtum bei Geburt, Eheschließung und Tod, sexuelle Gebräuche, Blutrache und das albanische Gewohnheitsrecht. Die Einträge sind in den meisten Fällen mit bibliographischen Angaben versehen, um weiterführende Forschung zu erleichtern.

In some senses, Albania is a living museum of the past. Originally a small herding community in the most inaccessible reaches of the Balkans, the presence of Albanians in southeastern Europe has been documented for over a thousand years. Albanian traditional folk culture, which evolved over centuries of relative isolation, is surprisingly rich. Yet despite recent events this culture remains little known to the Western world. Due to the lasting effects of a half century of Stalinist dictatorship, very few individuals even in Albania know much about their own popular traditions. The Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture makes available for the first time a wealth of knowledge about Albanian popular belief and folk customs. Alphabetical entries shed light on blood feuding, figures of Albanian mythology, religious beliefs, communities, and sects, calendar feasts and rituals, and popular superstitions, as well as birth, marriage, and funeral customs, and sexual mores. This unique volume will stand as the standard reference work on the subject for years to come.

The present volume endeavours to throw light on a corner of Europe which is often ignored by historians. The book is not a history of early Albania, but rather a collection of important historical documents and texts from the 11th to the 17th centuries, which will add to an understanding of the early history and development of Albania and its people. The vast majority of these works has never been published in English before. The first section of the book focusses on the emergence of the Albanians as a people and provides the reader with the earliest documents which make reference to them. The second, and main section of the volume provides a broader view of history and geography and, in particular, of life in Albania from the 12th to the 17th centuries. It relies primarily on the reports of travellers and chroniclers, many of whom offer fascinating, firsthand information on what they saw and experienced during their travels in the country.

The Bektashi dervish order is a Sufi Alevite sect found in Anatolia and the Balkans with a strong presence in Albania. In this, his final book, Robert Elsie analyses the Albanian Bektashi and considers their role in the country's history and society. Although much has been written on the Bektashi in Turkey, little has appeared on the Albanian branch of the sect. Robert Elsie considers the history and culture of the Bektashi, analyses writings on the order by early travellers to the region such as Margaret Hasluck and Sir Arthur Evans and provides a comprehensive list of tekkes (convents) and tyrbes (shrines) in Albania and neighbouring countries. Finally he presents a catalogue of notable Albanian Bektashi figures in history and legend. This book provides a complete reference guide to the Bektashi in Albania which will be essential reading for scholars of the Balkans, Islamic sects and Albanian history and culture.

Stalinism, that particularly brutal phase of the Communist experience, came to an end in most of Europe with the death of Stalin in 1953. However, in one country - Albania - Stalinism survived virtually unscathed until 1990. The regime that the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha led from 1944 until his death in 1985 was incomparably severe. Such was the reign of terror that no audible voice of opposition or dissent ever arose in the Balkan state and Albania became isolated from the rest of the world and utterly inward-looking. Three decades after his death, the spectre of Hoxha still lingers over the country, yet many people - inside and outside Albania - know little about the man who ruled the country with an iron fist for so many decades. This book provides the first biography of Hoxha available in English. Using unseen documents and first-hand interviews, journalist Blendi Fevziu pieces together the life of a tyrannical ruler in a biography which will be essential reading for anyone interested in Balkan history and communist studies.