Edith Durham in North Albania, 1913

Mary Edith Durham (1863-1944) was a British traveller, artist and writer who became famous for her anthropologist accounts of life in Albania in the early 20th century. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Year 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Year 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Anthropology (from the Greek word άνθρωπος = human) consists of the study of humankind (see genus Homo). ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999...

Early life

Durham was the eldest of eight children; her father, Arthur Edward Durham, was a distinguished London surgeon. Educated privately, she developed a talent for illustration and watercolouring and attended the Royal Academy of Arts and Bedford College in London. She exhibited widely and contributed a number of detailed drawings to the amphibia and reptiles volume of the Cambridge Natural History (published 1899). This article refers to an art institution in London. ... Bedford College was founded in London, England, in 1849 as a higher education college for the education of women. ... Year 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ...

Balkan expeditions

After the death of her father, Durham took on the responsibilities of caring for her sick mother for several years. It proved an exhausting experience; when she was 37, her doctor recommended that she should undertake a foreign vacation to recuperate. She took a trip by sea down the coast of Dalmatia, travelling from Trieste to Kotor and then overland to Cetinje, the capital of Montenegro. It gave her a taste for southern Balkan life that she was to retain for the rest of her life. Dalmatia, highlighted, on a map of Croatia. ... For other uses, see Trieste (disambiguation). ... This article is about the city of Kotor. ... Coordinates Mayor Milovan Janković (DPS - SDP) Municipality area 910 km² Population (2003 census)  - city  - municipality  - density 15,137 18,482 20. ... This article is about the country in Europe. ...

Durham travelled extensively in the Balkans over the next twenty years, focusing particularly on Albania, which then was one of the most isolated and undeveloped areas of Europe. She worked in a variety of relief organisations, painted and wrote, and collected folklore and folk art. Her work was of genuine anthropological significance; she contributed frequently to the journal Man and became a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Her writings, however, were to earn her particular fame. She wrote seven books on Balkan affairs, of which High Albania (1909) is the best known. It is still regarded as the pre-eminent guide to the customs and society of the highlands of northern Albania. The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) (founded 1871) is the oldest anthropological society in the world. ...

Controversy

Durham came to identify closely with the Albanian cause and championed the unity and independence of the Albanian people. She earned a reputation as a difficult and eccentric person, and was strongly criticised by - and criticised in turn - advocates of a Yugoslav state, who supported the incorporation of Albanian-populated Kosovo into Slavic Serbia. She became increasingly anti-Serb, denouncing what she termed "Serb vermin" for having "not created a Jugoslavia but have carried out their original aim of making Great Serbia .... Far from being liberated the bulk of people live under a far harsher rule than before." Yugoslavia (Jugoslavija in the Latin alphabet, Југославија in Cyrillic; English: South Slavia, or literary The Land of South Slavs) describes three political entities that existed one at a time on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century. ... For other uses, see Kosovo (disambiguation). ... Not to be confused with Republika Srpska. ...

Other, more pro-Serb British intellectuals sharply criticised her views. Rebecca West described Durham in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon as the sort of traveller who came back "with a pet Balkan people established in their hearts as suffering and innocent, eternally the massacree and never the massacrer." The distinguished historian R.W. Seton-Watson commented that "the fact is that while always denouncing 'Balkan mentality', she is herself exactly what she means by the word." Dame Rebecca West, DBE (December 21, 1892–March 15, 1983), whose real name was Cicely (she later changed it to Cicily) Isabel Fairfield, was a British-Irish feminist and writer famous for her novels and for her relationship with H. G. Wells. ... Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is an 1,181-page classic of travel literature written by Dame Rebecca West, published in 1941. ... Robert William Seton-Watson (August 20, 1879–July 25, 1951), commonly referred to as R.W. Seton-Watson, he also used the pseudonym Scotus Viator, was a British historian who also played an active role in encouraging the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during and after World War I...

Albanian views

For their part, however, the Albanians held Durham in high regard. They dubbed her "Kralica e Malësorevet" - the "Queen of the Highlanders." She was well received in the Albanian highlands and passed unmolested despite being a lone female traveller. She benefited from the Albanian tradition of insuring a guest's safety, and from an ancient Albanian custom, the tradition of "Albanian virgins" - women who wore men's clothes and were regarded as protected individuals. When she died in 1944 she received high praise for her work from the exiled King Zog, who wrote: "She gave us her heart and she won the ear of our mountaineers." She is still regarded as something of a national heroine; in 2004, Albanian President Alfred Moisiu described her as "one of the most distinguished personalities of the Albanian world during the last century" [1] A sworn virgin is a virgin who adamantly refuses to ever have sexual intercourse. ... King Zog of Albania King Zog (October 8, 1895–April 9, 1961) was an Albanian politician and the first king of Albania from 1928 to 1939. ...   (born December 1, 1929, in Shkodër) is the former President of the Republic of Albania, a post he held from July 24, 2002 to July 24, 2007. ...

Much of Durham's work was donated to academic collections following her death. Her papers were held by the shortlived Museum of Mankind (part of the British Museum) and the Royal Anthropological Institute in London, while her collections of Balkan jewellery are held by the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and the Bankfield Museum in Halifax. Bankfield Museum holds the collection of textiles and dress which Durham made during her travels throughout the Balkan region. At the museum there is a permanent exhibition about her life and work.[2] The British Museum in London, England is one of the worlds greatest museums of human history and culture. ... Pitt Rivers Museum interior The Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford. ... This article is about the city of Oxford in England. ... For other uses, see Halifax. ...

References

• "Queen of the Highlanders: Edith Durham in 'the land of the living past'", Charles King, Times Literary Supplement, 4 August 2000, pp. 13-14

Bibliography

• Through the Lands of the Serb (1904)
• The burden of the Balkans (1905)
• High Albania (1909)
• The struggle for Scutari (1914)
• Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle (1920)
• The Serajevo Crime (1925)
• Some Tribal Origins, Laws and Customs of the Balkans (1928)
• Albania and the Albanians: selected articles and letters, 1903-1944, ed. by Betjullah Destani (I.B. Tauris, 2001)

See also:

• Edith Durham : një zonjë e madhe për Shqipërinë, Kastriot Frashëri (Geer, 2004)
• The Durham Collection of Garments and Embroideries from Albania and Jugoslavia, Laura Emily Start (1939)