The November Holidays

Alrica and I went to a performance yesterday, one that honored Albania. This is the time for such performances, because we are in the middle of the November Holidays.

In Ancient Rome, the year began in March. This meant September, October, November, and December were the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months. That's how they got their names, with sept being seven, oct being eight, nov being nine, and dec being ten. These months in Albanian also literally means "seventh month," "eighth month," "ninth month," and "tenth month." We are currently in Nentor and the word for nine is nentë.

Nentor is a significant month in Albanian history. In a span of eight days, there are three holidays.

The first of these is November 22, Alphabet Day. Yes, this is literally a day to celebrate the Albanian alphabet. Why? Well, the year is 1908 and a congress has been called to deal with the alphabet problem. Albania wants to improve its literacy and communication, but there's a huge problem. People in different parts of Albania are using different alphabets to write Albanian words. For the most part, people write the words phonetically in those alphabets, when they can. But there are a variety of sounds in Albanian that aren't in the languages which those alphabets were invented for. Some people were using the Arabic alphabet which runs right to left. Others were using the Cyrillic alphabet, some using the Latin alphabet, and groups also used the Greek alphabet.

Albania realized they had a two-fold problem. You can't have people using four different alphabets or communication and education are going to be terrible. Also, you can't let every community decide on its own way to represent the sounds they use that aren't in the alphabet. Thus, the Congress of Manastir was called to deal with the problem.

The Congress decided against the Greek alphabet as it was only used in Greece. They wanted an alphabet used in more of the world. Albania wasn't particularly pro-Russia in 1908, and they felt the Cyrillic alphabet was tied up with Russia. So they decided against that. In the end, they chose the Latin alphabet as it was associated with the West and with progress. That was only half of the work the Congress had to do. They now had to decide which letters or letter combination made which sounds. For example, they decided that the DH would make the voiced th sound of "this" whereas TH would make the unvoiced th sound of "thin". They didn't need C to make a k sound since K made a k sound. So they used C to make the tz sound.

The Independence Monument in Independence Park (and random people who happened to be there)

November 28 is Independence Day. On November 28, 1912, Albania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire. This was done by Ismail Qemali in Vlorë, Albania. There is a park here in Vlorë called Independence Park with the Independence Monument and the mausoleum of Qemali. This Thursday, while the United States is celebrating Thanksgiving, Alrica and I will be checking out the Independence Day celebrations.

The Independence Day Flag in Independence Park (and other random people)

Then November 29 is Liberation Day. This commemorates events in World War II. Italy conquered Albania during the war, but many Albanian resistance fighters took to the mountains to reclaim their land. Italy fell, but Nazi Germany took over. In 1944, the Nazis had a lot of trouble. The Normandy landings were in June of 1944. The Nazis declared that they recognized Albania as an independent neutral nation and in September 1944 they put in place their own puppet government of Albania. Yes, they were Albanians, but under the control of the Nazis. On November 29, 1944, the resistance fighters ousted this puppet government and restored Albania to true independent rule.

Mausoleum of Ismail Qemali (random people is a running theme)

So its a busy week, right? In celebration, there was this performance that we attended at the Petro Marko Theater here in Vlorë. The theater is named for Petro Marko, an Albanian novelist of the communist era, post World War II. He is considered by many to be the father of Albanian prose.

Petro Marko (no random people, are you happy?)

Alrica had read about this performance which promised a variety of dance in celebration of Albania's independence. We thought it would be interesting to see. And it was, though it wasn't at all what we expected.

Teatri Petro Marko from the outside

When the curtain rose, there was a backdrop of red cloth with the black double-headed eagle symbol of Albania on it in several places. There were over a hundred children on stage, ranging from four or five year olds to teens. They were all in red, and each waved little Albanian flags. The children were 98 percent girls, there were only a couple of boys. Some patriotic song was playing. I don't know a lot of words but it definitely mentioned Albania many times. And in the audience, dozens of arms shot up with cell phones, recording video of the event. All of a sudden, Alrica and I knew what we had arrived at. A dance recital for children's dance classes. We may have been the only non-family members there. But we decided to stay for a bit, see what we could see. We ended up staying through the whole performance.

Teatri Petro Marko on the Inside

In many ways, this was exactly like dance class recitals in America. There were unified costumes not all of which fit everyone perfectly. There were way more girls than boys. The dances were split into various age groups with the little ones being adorable but having very simple moves and most of them getting those wrong. The teens were excellent with much more sophisticated dances, great synchronization, and some beautiful artistry. My favorite piece of the event was an interpretive dance by the teens to instrumental music. The girls were all dressed in black, except one who was in red. I am sure the dance represented Albania's struggles against the many conquerors who came through this land, with Albania always holding on to its own character and yearning to be its own free, independent land. The beauty of instrumental music and interpretive dance is that you don't have to speak the language to glean the meaning.

There were some aspects which were quite different from similar dance recitals in the United States. Between some of the dance acts, these grown men would come out and perform songs or raps. Apparently to be a rapper in Albania, you have to dress like you are outside in the winter. Big puffy coats and stocking caps are the appropriate attire.

Another big difference was the declamations. There was an emcee and she came out a couple times and said something in Albanian. Then girls of many different ages would walk up one at a time. The emcee would hold the microphone before them and the girls would declaim a poem. How do I know it was a poem? Well, there were rhyming words and meter. The poems were again patriotic. Was each girl reciting the next part of the same poem or was each reciting a different poem? I don't know. I have very little idea what was being said.

What was surprising was how good these girls were at reciting the poems. Even the young ones were loud and clear and had great stage presence. None of that mumbling into the microphone I might have expected. They were proud to say whatever it was they had to say. Alrica and I sat at the back and we probably could have heard some of those girls even if there had been no microphone.

So we stayed for the whole thing. I didn't particularly love the heavily jacketed rappers, who were rapping to prerecorded tracks which also had the words being rapped. So you were hearing the recorded words and the words in the microphone on top of each other. But we very much enjoyed the performances by the kids.

Another key difference is in audience behavior. There was a lot of talking in the audience during the performance. And that seemed to be okay with everyone. Sure, in America audiences talk, but other audience members shush them. Here, nobody shushed anybody. Also, there were children, presumably siblings of the ones on stage, who were running laps around the seats. Again, nobody seemed to care. There was even one point when one of the rappers was on stage that a little girl, maybe three, ran up on stage from the audience and then crossed the stage and went backstage, maybe looking for a sibling. Nobody laughed, nobody seemed to think anything of it. Just one of those things that happens in a theater, I guess.

We enjoyed these differences too. It is fascinating to see another culture, and experiences like this, not planned, not part of a package tour, they show you a great deal about the character of the people.

Today, we will have some more chances to experience Albanians in their everyday lives. We're going to a football game. (Of course, I mean soccer.) And tonight we are going to a polyphonic music concert, again as part of this week of celebration. I don't know what an Albanian polyphonic music concert entails. And that's all right with me. The fun is in the discovery.