The Epic of the Kreshniks in the literature of Ismail Kadare and a description of the rhapsodes of the Albanian mountains

Abstract

In 1953, Milman Parry and Albert Lord published “Serbo-Croatian heroic songs”, to prove that the Homeric tradition of epic poetry was still alive in the Balkans of that time. The writer Ismail Kadare, seduced by this hypothesis, created the novel “The H File”, the content of which includes two fictional Irish-American researchers, Max Rothi and Vili Nortoni, who set out for the deep mountains of pre-war Northern Albania. Referring to the Epic of the Kreshniks as one of the most important artistic pillars of the spiritual culture of Albanians, the research of legendary epic songs testifies, among others, to their connection with lyrical epic songs.