The Albanian and Slavic Eposes: Problems of Antiquity and Originality, Key and Debated Points

Abstract

This study will focus its work in the legendary epic songs or otherwise originally known and called by many researchers as “Kreshnik Songs”- (English: Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors), a name used by both researchers and their collectors. Hence, this song corpus is considered the Albanian national epic.We have to research this part of the Albanian folklore, by considering it as one of the most important part of it, but also as one of the most problematic in the history of research, collecting and studying of our folklore, in general. Since this epos was collected relatively late, when the epics of other peoples had already been gathered in time and studied, it brought many doubts and new questions about its origins and originality. Considering the importance of this issue we wanted to make a re-interpretation of these problems, but also to add arguments in defense of the originality of the Albanian epic, which is our thesis.

Keywords: epic songs, originality, kreshnik, heroes, etc.