Professor Zymer Neziri’s book, “Wild Songs, Sweet Songs,” has recently been promoted at Harvard University, shedding light on the centuries-old tradition of Albanian epic poetry. Lahutian Ise Elezi was also there and performed the songs by conveying extraordinary emotions through the sounds of centuries-old memory.
The professor’s 20-year-long work includes 300 expeditions, covering 15 to 500 kilometers each, in five Balkan countries. Neziri recorded 148 lahutars and 197 rhapsodes, both Muslim and Christian, who keep alive the legendary epic of the Albanian nation through the sounds of the lahuta with the head of a goat or a snake, symbols of ancient Illyria.
The professor’s promotion of the book at Harvard University, the same institution where renowned scholar Milman Perry collected examples of Albanian epic poetry in the 1930s, highlights the importance of preserving this valuable cultural heritage. Neziri expresses his pride in the fact that the Albanian heroic epic is the only one that is still active at the beginning of the 21st century. For two decades, the professor has studied “The Epic of Kreshniks” in Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Presheva, documenting the tradition of epic poetry with financing initially provided by the Kosovo Ministry of Culture, and later, by his family.
Professor Neziri’s work serves to strengthen the ethnic identity of Albanians, but also to promote respect for human creativity. The professor is concerned about the lack of attention paid to the epic in Tirana and Pristina, stating that neglecting this heritage will lead to its death. The Finnish epic tradition, which is comparable to that of Rugova in Kosovo, has been documented, published, and translated into 51 languages, including Albanian. Meanwhile, the “Epic of Kreshniks” has 600,000 collected verses, yet it lacks the attention it deserves.
The professor likes to share an anecdote, in which a Chinese scholar mistakenly assumed that the verses were 60,000, not 600,000. The epic Gesar of China, one of the greatest in the world, has one million verses, and it is being studied by a group of scholars at Harvard. Professor Neziri’s work is an important contribution to the preservation of Albanian epic poetry and a reminder of the need to value and promote cultural heritage.
