This paper focuses on the death, state funeral, and national mourning for the Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha (1908–1985). This exploration of the emotional experiences and cultural strategies of coping with the death of a deathless leader aims to shed light on the performative roles of the ruling party, the workers, and the class enemies, as well as on the methods of ruling in a dictatorial system.
Cet article examine plusieurs textes importants, consacrés aux coutumes funéraires albanaises. Il présente les données de collecte, les thèmes de recherche, les interprétations et les problèmes qui y sont abordés. En les replaçant dans leur contexte historique, l’auteur étudie la conception traditionnelle de la mort, la croyance aux esprits des morts, les processus de gestion du deuil et les différentes formes de pleurs rituels ou de lamentation funèbre.
This chapter examines cultural practices of death and bereavement in Albania, with a special focus on local funeral traditions of southern and northern areas. The cluster of ethnographic facts illustrates free and disciplined, along with collective and individual, funeral wailing (kujë) as well as the crying (e qarë) of women as general cultural norms. By contrast, male funeral crying, known as shouting (gjamë) in the north and crying with words (ligjërim) in the south, constitutes only a small integral part of the funeral performance. Both female wailing and male shouting symbolize sonic images of death as catastrophe and are still used as traditional techniques for emotional discharge during the funeral ceremony and mourning period.
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