Marsida Gjoncaj
What does poetry have in common with ethnography? Everything, as poetess Luljeta Dano would say. “Heinrich Schliemann discovered the ancient Troy out of his love for Homeric poems. Probably for the same reason I identified in the first place goddess Athena and later on, all the symbols that accompanied her in mythology. So I concluded that there must be as much language and text in embroidery of women clothes as in poetry”.
Her passion for ethnology and especially for xhubleta is an early one and nourished by Lujeta’s grandmothers. She proudly presents her rich ethnological collection, concerning of national costumes of North Albania mostly from Mirdita. Luljeta says that taking care of such a rare collection requires a lot of sacrifices, especially financial ones since she had to buy most of the costumes. “But I’ll never sell them, even if I end up broke. They belong to some special museum”. As a matter a fact a very rare type of xhubleta is already exposed at the Musee de l’homme (Museum of Man) Paris. “I totally love what I’m doing now, because the traditional clothes of Albanian men and women represent our country’s history and as a very famous scholar said: “Albanians were the princes of Europe in terms of clothes”. Another reason I started studying the symbols of xhubleta is that I find really amazing how this very ancient and distant symbols could reach this young women’s mind” Luljeta explains.
Early this year, Dano opened up an exhibition, as a tribute to Fred Williams, American ambassador in the Balkans, an old friend of the Albanian people, where she showed off part of her private collection of xhubleta. The exhibition, opened due to the support of the American Embassy in Tirana and especially of H.E. John L. Withers, was thought as a meeting where people could talk about the symbolic elements of xhubleta and its importance in the Albanian history.
Luljeta Dano and Prof. Agim Bido have fought and still are fighting to make xhubleta subject of the UNESCO protection programme. “We expect the minister of Culture, Ylli Pango to submit a proper request file to the UNESCO valuation commission to take under protection xhubleta as the oldest clothing in the world. If Mr. Pango will save xhubleta from disappearing, this will be the second trophy in his career, following the entrance of the Ancient city of Berat under the UNESCO protection programme”, Dano says.
