Constantine and Doruntina

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Konstantin und Doruntina ( Albanian  Kostandini dhe Doruntina ) or Konstantins Besa ( Albanian  Besa e Kostandinit ) is an Albanian ballad and legend . The legend is part of the best-known folklore of the Albanians . It has also been included as prose by modern writers:

  • A novel by Ismail Kadare from 1980 is entitled Doruntina's Homecoming ( Albanian  Kush e solli Doruntinën? ).
  • As a play with the same title, based on Kadare's novel, staged by the Albanian National Theater in 1988 in a version by Edmond Budina and Pirro Mani.

Kadare's reception continued to make the legend famous; by translating his work into around a dozen languages, the story was also spread far beyond the Albanian cultural area. Kadere had processed the legend Konstantin and Doruntina earlier: In his story, The Twilight of the Steppe Gods, written in 1972, the first-person narrator recounts the legend.

action

Doruntina is the only girl among - depending on the version - ten or 13 siblings. When a prince from a foreign country asks for her hand, nobody in the family wants to let her move into the distance. Only Konstantin, the youngest of Doruntina's twelve brothers, wants to make her happy and promises his mother that he will bring Doruntina home whenever her mother wishes. Constantine's promise moves the mother to finally agree to the marriage.

All twelve brothers agree to the wedding, but shortly afterwards die in a battle. The mother is inconsolable that she has lost all of her children and that she does not have her daughter with her in old age. Your grief is unbearably great. She laments her suffering with pathos and annoyance. Out of anger, she even curses her dead son Constantine, who has made a promise he cannot keep.

Through the curse, Constantine rises from the dead and brings Doruntina back, since being cursed by the mother is worse than anything after death even after death. Doruntina knows nothing of the death of her brothers. Constantine tells her that she has to come with him immediately and brings her home on his horse overnight. The sister notices that he is tired and that he is full of dust, but he justifies this with the long journey. She doesn't notice that Constantine is already dead. When they get home, he drops them at the door and says he still has to go to church. In reality he is returning to his grave.

It is only after her mother explains that Doruntina realizes that her dead brother has brought her home. The women are shocked that Constantine rose from the grave.

Embassy

On the one hand, the story illustrates the faithfulness of the Albanians to the promised word: The Albanians would even rise from the dead in order to keep the besa , their word of honor. Konstantin and Doruntina underline the all-encompassing validity of unwritten Albanian customary law ( Kanun ) in all areas of society and morality. The element of faith that is widespread in many Albanian legends is also taken up here, and many other themes that are widespread in the legendary heroic songs of the Albanians, such as brother-sister love, the death of the hero and the ride of the dead appear.

The moral of the story takes up the Lenore motif  and includes a warning against the sin of blasphemy ( blasphemy ). The motif also appears in other peoples of the Balkans . The originally Byzantine version is also seen as an appeal against exogamy .

Distribution and versions

The legend is everywhere where Albanian  is spoken.

Doruntina is sometimes also called Dhoqina - as passed down in a version of the Çamen from Margariti - while Constantine is also called Halil Garria in northern Albania and Ymer Aga , Ali and Hysen i vogël among Middle Albanian Muslims . Among the Arbëresh  , Doruntina is called Garantina and Fjoruntina .

Kadares thinks - based on passages in many of his books - based on the resurrection motif that the legend is pre-Christian. By comparing the Italian-Albanian ballads The Little Constantine and Constantine and Gerentina with Albanian variants, researchers showed how elements and motifs were lost under the influence of the Ottomans .

Kadares reception

Kadare's version Kush e solli Doruntinën? and the play are significantly more complicated and involve a death investigator named Stres who also acts as the narrator. This makes them a “mixture of crime and ghost story” ( Michael Kleeberg ). He analyzes all the possibilities of this strange phenomenon, since nobody wants to believe in the resurrection of the dead. Doruntina claims, however, that she rode back to Albania with Constantine from Bohemia in a single night . Both women die from the shock of events. After many interviews with numerous people, Stres comes to the conclusion that besa, the word of honor, can overcome human life and death.

Kadare's story is interpreted as - in the atheistic People's Republic of Albania - systemic criticism of religion. At the same time, the author “introduces the Besa as a 'substitute religion' with a high national, moral value” ( Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers ).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Robert Elsie: The Ballad of Constantine and Dhoqina. In: AlbanianLiterature.net. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017 ; accessed on April 27, 2017 (English).
  2. ↑ Recording of a theater performance on YouTube
  3. ↑ a b Alexandre Zotos (Ed.): Anthologie de la prose albanause . Fayard, Paris 1984, ISBN 2-213-01358-6 , Introduction, pp. 14th f .
  4. ↑ Joachim Röhm: Afterword . In: The Dawn of the Steppe Gods . Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-10-038414-0 , pp. 205-207 .
  5. ↑ Ismail Kadare: The Dawn of the Steppe Gods . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-10-038414-0 , pp. 22nd ff .
  6. ^ Refik Kadija: On the Albanian Eops . In: Mustafa Tukaj (Ed.): Faith and Fairies: tales based on Albanian legends and ballads . Skodrinon, Shkodra 2002, ISBN 99927-848-0-6 , pp. 6th f .
  7. ^ Helga Stein: Volkskultur . In: Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (Hrsg.): Albanien (=  Südosteuropa-Handbuch . Volume VII ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-36207-2 , pp. 646 .
  8. ^ Fatos Lubonja : Between the Glory of a Virtual World and the Misery of a Real World . In: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Bernd J. Fischer (Ed.): Albanian Identities. Myth and History . Indiana University Press, Bloomington / Indianapolis 2002, ISBN 0-253-34189-2 .
  9. ↑ a b Fatos Arapi: A brief look at the Albanian folk poetry . In: State Museum for Ethnology Munich (Ed.): Albania. Wealth and diversity of ancient culture . Munich 2001, ISBN 3-9807561-2-2 , pp. 137 .
  10. ↑ Michael Kleeberg: Where the legends lie on the streets . In: The world . June 8, 2002 ( welt.de [accessed April 28, 2017]).
  11. ^ Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers: Imagology and "Albanism" . In: Albania (=  Österreichische Osthefte . Volume 45, Issue 1/2). Peter Lang ISSN = 0029-9375, Vienna 2003, p. 204 .