By Sonja Methoxha
A debate recently stirred Albanian people’s sentiments over the heredity of the musical instrument lahuta (lute). This came after Serbia managed to successfully submit to UNESCO its candidature of ‘’singing to the accompaniment of the gusle’’ as an intangible cultural heritage.
Panicked media in Albania rushed to conclusions that this successful submission means that the lute is not Albanian after all but Serbian. However, Serbia merely nominated in safeguarding the practice of singing using the gusle (Serbian lute), the instrument and its epos, but in the paperwork submitted it didn’t dispute that this practice is present in other Balkan countries, one of them Albania.
Academic and musicologist Vasil Tole has said that the lute is not Albanian, nor Serbian, but a Balkan instrument. Its origins are said to have no distinct provenance. A team raised by the Albanian Ministry of Culture in which Tole participated, managed to complete its own documentation concerning this practice, our Eposi i Kreshnikeve (Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors), and other relevant practices, as intangible cultural heritage to UNESCO.
According to Tole, the five-thousand page documentation is supposed to have been submitted two years earlier than Serbia, but nothing has been done so far due to failed lobbying from the Albanian Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That is especially strange as the Albanian lute won the prize Europa Nostra, before the team submitted its paperwork to UNESCO.
If then Albania won the Europa Nostra for the lute, submitted its paperwork to UNESCO earlier than Serbia, and Serbia itself didn’t dispute the tradition in the Balkans, why did the latter country manage to submit its paperwork earlier than Albania? What is the known heredity of the Albanian lute, except the Eposi i Kreshnikeve?
Renowned ethnomusicologist Ramadan Sokoli, who passed away in 2008, published a book in 1991 titled ‘’Musical instruments of Albanian people.’’ He writes in the book that the earliest known testimony of stringed instruments in Albanian regions dates from 1335 in a painted fresco in the Desan monastery (located in Desan, Kosovo).
The fresco depicts a group of men dancing under the sounds of the lahuta, glariska, tambour, and what Sokoli writes ‘the balloon,’ which might be something of a mousette. Sokoli writes that this fresco is the earliest evidence of stringed instruments in the Balkans. In his studies, Sokoli names the various lutes in various areas, along with the similarities and differences, where the main difference is the sounding.
The north Albanian lahuta is a one-stringed lute made of horsehair which is played with a bow. The south Albanian llahuta, might have a similar name but is a four-stringed instrument played with a sort of feather. These instruments are built and sound differently. A variation of lahuta is laurija which is made with more than one string and is used in central Albania. These instruments are also inherited by Arbereshe Albanians in Italy and Arvanitasit, the Albanians of Greece.
These musical instruments, especially the lahuta, are used in the north to accompany songs depicting traditional epic stories of bravery or ballads based on Albanian oral legends. Except the renowned Eposi i Kreshnikeve, the north also has pagan songs sang with the lahuta for Kershendella (Christmas). Such songs are ‘’The night of Buzmi,’’ ‘’The returning of Sun from summer feast,’’ ‘’The night of the great Mother Earth.’’ These pagan songs sang with the lahuta are millenium-long heritages dedicated to nature’s rebirth.
In his book Sokoli also lists other nations which use variations of the lute. The southern Slavs from the Dinaric Alps use the gusle; India uses the ravanahatha; Kazakhstan use the kobyz; Armenia and Uzbekistan use the kamancheh, which is related to the rebab used in Arabia. Other similar instruments are the komuz in Kyrgyzstan, the erhu in China, the masenqo or chira-wata in Ethiopia, etc.. In Greece there is a variation of laurija known as lyre, and in Bulgaria and Macedonia they have the gadulka.
All these instruments are built and used similarly, but convey different musical expressions and sounds. These instrumental ‘cousins’ are descended from Middle East and Persia, countries which Sokoli and other scholars convincingly admit as the first to have adapted and used stringed instruments. These instruments then spread in the Balkans and Europe through the Byzantine Empire from VIII to IX centuries, and the Arab invasion in Spain.
Yet, apart from the 14th century fresco, there are scarce evidence about how early Albania adopted this instrument and its practice. Nevertheless its tradition and influence is notable, especially in education.
‘’It deserves to be noted the pivotal ethic and didactic role that the lahutars played in the life of our society, by preserving, developing and carrying through generations their repertoire. During the centuries-old captivity, the rhapsode songs which exalted the virtues, activity and freedom-loving spirit of the braves, bred the desire to follow the example of the finest in the listeners,’’ wrote Sokoli in his book, which clearly implies the intangible cultural heritage Albania and its people have garnered from the practice of this instrument.
