Beyond autochthony and through the looking glass – discussions on the “Ballad of Rozafat” and “The Building of Skadar”, and another perspective of approaching them
The “Ballad of Rozafat” and “The Building of Skadar” are the most well-known manifestations of the theme/motive/myth of the walled-up or immured woman among Albanians and Serbs. They both refer to the building of the fortress od Shkodra/Skadar and it would not be an overestimation to enlist them among fundamental texts of the Albanian and Serbian modern cultures. This high status that they enjoy has, among many other interpretations, led also to the question of authorship of the text, or to put it more blatantly: who created first the song and who borrowed from whom. This issue goes far beyond philology, or anthropology, because it strongly resonates with the problem of the Albanian, or Serbian, but also Montenegrin autochthony in this town and the surrounding areas. Therefore, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, it intends to bring some order, by analysing, albeit concisely, the main threads of these discussions during the 19th and the 20th centuries. Second, the paper will propose another perspective of looking at this topic, that goes beyond the textual/literary/historical approach in favour of an anthropological one that puts at the centre the relation between orality and literacy.
