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NIKOLA TUTEK
Finally, the story contains a whole Albanian sentence, "Per guri e per
kruch”* pronounced and then explained by the Franciscan as “By the stone
and by the Cross”. The standard Albanian sentence is “Pérguri(n) dhe pér
Kryqi(n)” (For the stone and for the Cross), which used to be a vow in the
Albanian language, where stone symbolizes home and the cross faith. In
spoken Albanian, dhe could be changed for e, but quri for stone (stone is
guri; quri, pronounced ‘churi’ actually meant turkey in old use) is a clear
misspelling, while kruch seems to be an anglicized version of the exiting
word kryg, and the word per simply ignores the existence of the Albanian
semivowel é (pér). I believe all this points to the usage of partially incorrect
and anglicized Albanian words and expressions, and together confirm that
Munro used tourist books and Durham’s writing as her sources.
“The Albanian Virgin” provides a correct description of the most important
economic activities in the region, these being tobacco crop harvesting,
production of wool and clothing, cattle breeding, and production of cheese."
Northern Albania is famous for all of these activities, especially tobacco and
cheese production. This is a common knowledge, and it is available in all
tourist guidebooks and traditional depictions of the region, and that again has
an effect (positive or not) on the credibility of storytelling. Munro is famous
for the passages on the geography of her literary settings in many of her short
stories. “The Albanian Virgin” is no exception; Munro describes mountains
and mountainous roads, hills, woods and streams. But more importantly, she
provides a passage on Canadian geography, which is used to contrast the two
worlds (and that will be discussed in further passages).
There is an interesting issue regarding faith, raised by the Franciscan priest
in “The Albanian Virgin”. When the Franciscan realizes that the otherwise
Catholic village was planning to marry Lottar to a Muslim Albanian from
Vuthaj, he is outraged and he refers to that man as “a pig of a Muslim”.
Further in the text, the Franciscan refers twice to the Muslim man as infidel.
While it is correct that Christian Albanians regard their religious affiliation
highly, especially in northern Albania and Kosovo, Albanians are also well
“ Calvert Watkins writes the following in his book How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo¬
European Poetics: “... a passage in Durham [first published 1909]: 103 relating to the customs
of the North Albanians at the beginning of this century: ‘Priest of Rechi... told us of oaths
which, if very solemn ones, are always sworn in Rechi and among all the Pulati tribes on a
stone as well on a cross: “Per guri e per kruch” (By the stone and the cross)’. Read perhaps in
modern orthography pér guri e pér kryqi.” 163. Alice Munro has taken the idea of this oath
directly from Edith Durham and perhaps misspelled guri as quri (or this is just a matter of
the version I had the chance to read).
“ Possibly interesting for Hungarian readers is the A Földgömb Magazine, 2008, No. 3, a
thematic issue subtitled Balkan (The Balkans). On pages 52-58, there is the article titled
“Alban-Alpok: Bjeskét e Namuna — az elátkozott hegyvidék" by Attila Kovács. The article
brings up many of the common place knowledge about the region, construction of kullas and
the production cheese being just some of them.
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