Oldal 92 [92]
OCR
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 IndoEuropean 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. + 90 +
