In the Land of Vendettas That Go On Forever
November 20, 2017 3:23 AM Subscribe
I had flown to the Balkans in late July 2017 to learn about blood feuds, or the ancient oaths of vendetta sworn between warring families and passed on from one generation to the next. The killing is concentrated in northern Albania—in the rural, often unreachable villages of the Accursed Mountains, and in the modern city of Shkodër, one of the oldest municipalities in southeastern Europe. Here, justice works like this: When a man is murdered, his family avenges his death by similarly executing either the killer himself or a male member of his clan. Sometimes, after a killing has been successfully vindicated, the feud is settled. Other times, the head of the family that initiated the feud, while admitting both sides are now ostensibly “equal,” nonetheless chooses to perpetuate the cycle by killing a second male from the avenging family.
I had a lovely week in Shkodër with some of the most welcoming hosts of over two years of travel. That said, my hosts were young, inclusive and expansive people, kind funny people, but they all knew which of their neighbors were honest-to-goodness murderers -- walking around unimpeded and unmolested by the law, their transgressions an open secret.
We drank plenty of rakia and talked about other places.
posted by twooster at 5:27 AM on November 20, 2017
We drank plenty of rakia and talked about other places.
posted by twooster at 5:27 AM on November 20, 2017
This was a great read but left me wondering if it is even possible for someone to get a sense of this in a short trip like this journalist did. I turned to the academic literature for a much more nuanced reading.
posted by k8t at 6:22 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by k8t at 6:22 AM on November 20, 2017
I'm brought to mind something I read somewhere about how rural areas are usually much more murdery than urban areas, that urban areas feel more dangerous because there's more people hence more murders, but your actual chance of getting murdered is much higher outside of cities.
Also, years back, doing volunteer work in southern rural Chile, people would tell us to 'not walk along that path over there, because the Perez live there and they've killed three people', and this was said in the matter of fact way a city dweller would tell somebody not to buy food a certain restaurant because you got sick there once, like a reprehensible but fairly normal occurrence, just part of the social landscape.
posted by signal at 6:23 AM on November 20, 2017 [15 favorites]
Also, years back, doing volunteer work in southern rural Chile, people would tell us to 'not walk along that path over there, because the Perez live there and they've killed three people', and this was said in the matter of fact way a city dweller would tell somebody not to buy food a certain restaurant because you got sick there once, like a reprehensible but fairly normal occurrence, just part of the social landscape.
posted by signal at 6:23 AM on November 20, 2017 [15 favorites]
in the rural, often unreachable villages of the Accursed Mountains
That sounds like the level before you enter the final boss's castle in a volcano.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:26 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
That sounds like the level before you enter the final boss's castle in a volcano.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:26 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
This article is fascinating, thanks. This bit from the early-19th-century travel writer seems to really sum it up: “It is the fashion among journalists and others to talk of the ‘lawless Albanians’; but there is perhaps no other people in Europe so much under the tyranny of laws.”
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:29 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:29 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
It's interesting, she speaks of people's lives being ruled by this ancient code that maybe goes back the the Bronze Age. But it was a succession of emperors from Illyria that took power and save the Roman Empire from collapse during its worst period of crisis. Strange to think that a place now regarded as eternally remote, eternally barbaric could have produced some of the most successful emperors of one of the most cosmopolitan empires in history. Diocletian's the only emperor to have retired of his own volition, to grow cabbages, or so the legend goes. His palace was in Croatia.
posted by Diablevert at 6:38 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Diablevert at 6:38 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
I'm pretty sure this is my favorite article I'll read today. Thanks.
posted by thivaia at 6:45 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by thivaia at 6:45 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Diocletian's the only emperor to have retired of his own volition, to grow cabbages, or so the legend goes. His palace was in Croatia.
Was? It's still there!!
Diocletian is probably my favorite emperor, that's despite his persecution of Christians*, and even though the Tetrarchy collapsed after his death. He took an Empire in dire straits and put it on a much firmer footing. Shame about his successors.
*it wasn't his idea! The Oracle told him to do it!
posted by leotrotsky at 6:57 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
Was? It's still there!!
Diocletian is probably my favorite emperor, that's despite his persecution of Christians*, and even though the Tetrarchy collapsed after his death. He took an Empire in dire straits and put it on a much firmer footing. Shame about his successors.
*it wasn't his idea! The Oracle told him to do it!
posted by leotrotsky at 6:57 AM on November 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
The thirst for revenge must be buried deep in our DNA, societies like Albania have existed since the Trojan wars and before. The best refutation is still Francis Bacon's brief essay, Of Revenge (1625), wherein one of his many points: "This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well."
posted by mono blanco at 7:03 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by mono blanco at 7:03 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
It's interesting, she speaks of people's lives being ruled by this ancient code that maybe goes back the the Bronze Age. But it was a succession of emperors from Illyria that took power and save the Roman Empire from collapse during its worst period of crisis. Strange to think that a place now regarded as eternally remote, eternally barbaric could have produced some of the most successful emperors of one of the most cosmopolitan empires in history.
To elevate a society from rule-by-clan to rule-by-law takes someone who is extraordinarily skillfull in managing a clan-ruled society, with the will and a leverage to force N clans to end N*N feuds. So it's not too surprising that an Illiryan would be the guy to emerge from an imperial crisis.
posted by ocschwar at 7:15 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
This was a really well-written article (I also enjoyed the author’s book Do Not Sell At Any Price), but the older I get the more I find stories like this just so incredibly fucking exhausting. People fighting and killing each other over stupid bullshit, which begets more stupid bullshit to fight and kill over, from the whole of the human organizational spectrum from the individual to the family to the nation to the empire. And it will never end until we finally manage to fight and kill ourselves into extinction.
What’s the point of human life? Securing as much happiness as possible for the largest number of people possible under the conditions, or crushing your enemies and hearing the lamentations of their women, etc.? If it’s the latter, what’s your end game? Once you’ve killed all your enemies you have to invent new ones, or fight the ones you created on your way to the top until someone kills you. Like I said, exhausting. As an unwise man once said, “You double-cross once - where's it all end? An interesting ethical question.”
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:19 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
What’s the point of human life? Securing as much happiness as possible for the largest number of people possible under the conditions, or crushing your enemies and hearing the lamentations of their women, etc.? If it’s the latter, what’s your end game? Once you’ve killed all your enemies you have to invent new ones, or fight the ones you created on your way to the top until someone kills you. Like I said, exhausting. As an unwise man once said, “You double-cross once - where's it all end? An interesting ethical question.”
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:19 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Stupid Bullshit to some, Traditional Family Values to others...
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 7:47 AM on November 20, 2017
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 7:47 AM on November 20, 2017
A Canadian government issue paper on the matter.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 7:53 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 7:53 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
This story really makes me want to eat dinner at Le Bistro de Lagarde. A tiny restaurant, in a tiny village, in a tiny department of southern France. A long drive from Avignon, especially in the Mediterranean sun. A long drive from anywhere, really, with insects buzzing and the last radio station just slowly fading out.
But then, I suppose there are some who would say the place isn't terribly remote at all. There must be plenty of such folks, still - cold-eyed men, with livers turned patchy with vodka, and memories that stubbornly refuse to follow suit. This little bistro, you see, was once part of the launch complex for a French S3 intermediate-range ballistic missile. Not the most impressive missile of the Cold War, really - not the furthest-flying, not the fastest, not the highest. But - geography is what it is, and the S3 would have set Russia to burn. So the cold-eyed men in Russia watched this not-yet-bistro, from satellite and spy-jet, and the men in the not-yet-bistro watched their teletypes, and everyone waited for the end.
The end didn't come. A bistro came! And then a Michelin star came to the bistro.
My family doesn't quite understand why Le Bistro de Lagarde is on my bucket list. Stories like the OP are why. Frankly, Donald Trump is why. In a world that seems built on madness as unyielding as any granite bedrock, it's nice to see that sometimes things really do get better.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 9:06 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
But then, I suppose there are some who would say the place isn't terribly remote at all. There must be plenty of such folks, still - cold-eyed men, with livers turned patchy with vodka, and memories that stubbornly refuse to follow suit. This little bistro, you see, was once part of the launch complex for a French S3 intermediate-range ballistic missile. Not the most impressive missile of the Cold War, really - not the furthest-flying, not the fastest, not the highest. But - geography is what it is, and the S3 would have set Russia to burn. So the cold-eyed men in Russia watched this not-yet-bistro, from satellite and spy-jet, and the men in the not-yet-bistro watched their teletypes, and everyone waited for the end.
The end didn't come. A bistro came! And then a Michelin star came to the bistro.
My family doesn't quite understand why Le Bistro de Lagarde is on my bucket list. Stories like the OP are why. Frankly, Donald Trump is why. In a world that seems built on madness as unyielding as any granite bedrock, it's nice to see that sometimes things really do get better.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 9:06 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
I graduated high school in the US right after we got involved where Serbia was fighting Kosovo, and in college I had a class with a couple foreign girls, an Albianian and a Serbian, who had come to The US right after the war and become best friends.
More than once I made some sort of “only in America can two blood enemies become pals” comment, ignoring the fact that two people from The Balkans have much in common, enemies or not.
However, the first time I said it, Enada (the Albanian girl) yelled out: are you talking about the Kosovars??? Fuck those guys! HAhAHAha! Both of them laughed and laughed. See I had assumed that the genocide of fellow Albanians might mean something to her, but apparently the people of Kosovo were a bunch of dicks and if the Serbians wanted to slaughter a whole of them, that was fine with her.
posted by sideshow at 9:16 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
More than once I made some sort of “only in America can two blood enemies become pals” comment, ignoring the fact that two people from The Balkans have much in common, enemies or not.
However, the first time I said it, Enada (the Albanian girl) yelled out: are you talking about the Kosovars??? Fuck those guys! HAhAHAha! Both of them laughed and laughed. See I had assumed that the genocide of fellow Albanians might mean something to her, but apparently the people of Kosovo were a bunch of dicks and if the Serbians wanted to slaughter a whole of them, that was fine with her.
posted by sideshow at 9:16 AM on November 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
I read articles like this and other work by anthropologists about cultures with similar issues, but the overwhelming theme seems to be isolation. Modernization has many downsides, but without exposure to other cultures and ideas, societies seem to get stuck without an ability to imagine different rules to run the place.
posted by herda05 at 9:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by herda05 at 9:17 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
However, the first time I said it, Enada (the Albanian girl) yelled out: are you talking about the Kosovars??? Fuck those guys! HAhAHAha! Both of them laughed and laughed. See I had assumed that the genocide of fellow Albanians might mean something to her, but apparently the people of Kosovo were a bunch of dicks and if the Serbians wanted to slaughter a whole of them, that was fine with her.
I still think about some graffiti I saw in Greece 10 years ago, where someone had crossed out a weathered FUCK USA scrawled on the side of some random apartment building and written FUCK ALBANIA underneath.
posted by Copronymus at 9:55 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I still think about some graffiti I saw in Greece 10 years ago, where someone had crossed out a weathered FUCK USA scrawled on the side of some random apartment building and written FUCK ALBANIA underneath.
posted by Copronymus at 9:55 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I still think about some graffiti I saw in Greece 10 years ago, where someone had crossed out a weathered FUCK USA scrawled on the side of some random apartment building and written FUCK ALBANIA underneath.
A college classmate of mine spent a summer during college working in a kitchen in Italy so that he could improve his Italian. This classmate is small, swarthy, and has a dark complexion, with jet black hair. His employer treated him very shabbily until it came out in conversation that the classmate was American.
"Why didn't you say you were American! I thought you were one of those damn Albanians!"
He responded, to his credit, "Oh no, I'm not Albanian. ...my girlfriend is Albanian."
He was single at the time.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:10 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
A college classmate of mine spent a summer during college working in a kitchen in Italy so that he could improve his Italian. This classmate is small, swarthy, and has a dark complexion, with jet black hair. His employer treated him very shabbily until it came out in conversation that the classmate was American.
"Why didn't you say you were American! I thought you were one of those damn Albanians!"
He responded, to his credit, "Oh no, I'm not Albanian. ...my girlfriend is Albanian."
He was single at the time.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:10 AM on November 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
I read articles like this and other work by anthropologists about cultures with similar issues, but the overwhelming theme seems to be isolation. Modernization has many downsides, but without exposure to other cultures and ideas, societies seem to get stuck without an ability to imagine different rules to run the place.
There is an incredibly long history of cultural exchange in the Balkans. Calling them (and other cultures) isolated or not modern obscures the fact that they are part of the globalized world community, and that not only have people imagined different rules in this region, people have had different rules imposed upon them as part of a long history of militarized intervention in the area. It's very easy for those of us in the dominant global culture to shake our fingers and tsk and sigh over Those People with their ancient clan warfare and whatnot, but it's interrogating our own assumptions about the proper set of rules to run places, and how we contribute to inequities and violence and vendettas.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:27 AM on November 20, 2017 [19 favorites]
There is an incredibly long history of cultural exchange in the Balkans. Calling them (and other cultures) isolated or not modern obscures the fact that they are part of the globalized world community, and that not only have people imagined different rules in this region, people have had different rules imposed upon them as part of a long history of militarized intervention in the area. It's very easy for those of us in the dominant global culture to shake our fingers and tsk and sigh over Those People with their ancient clan warfare and whatnot, but it's interrogating our own assumptions about the proper set of rules to run places, and how we contribute to inequities and violence and vendettas.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:27 AM on November 20, 2017 [19 favorites]
I have a Serbian buddy who goes into Albanian-run stores and squeezes all the loaves of bread to ruin them.
Just his little effort to carry on the blood feud.
posted by disclaimer at 10:54 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
Just his little effort to carry on the blood feud.
posted by disclaimer at 10:54 AM on November 20, 2017 [4 favorites]
In 2011, Hinter Records released a compilation of traditional Albanian folk songs and improvisations, recorded in the 1920s and ’30s and remastered from the original 78 rpm records, called Don’t Trust Your Neighbors.
I got curious about this passage in the article and went looking. Here's the album cover...
...and here's a sample track.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:16 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
I got curious about this passage in the article and went looking. Here's the album cover...
...and here's a sample track.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:16 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
when will zombie reanimated diocletian save us from the christian fundies
posted by poffin boffin at 11:21 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 11:21 AM on November 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
Yeah, it's kind of hard to argue for continuity of tradition when the Balkans were literally the crossroads of Eastern Europe for most of the first Millennium.
Just off the top of my head, Romans, Goths, Huns, Gepids, Slavs, Bulgars, Serbs, Venetians, Franks, and Ottoman Turks all invaded or settled in what is now Albania at one time or another.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:24 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Just off the top of my head, Romans, Goths, Huns, Gepids, Slavs, Bulgars, Serbs, Venetians, Franks, and Ottoman Turks all invaded or settled in what is now Albania at one time or another.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:24 AM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
3000 km away from Albania and 60 years ago, in Iranian Kurdistan:
There was still talk about what had happened three years previously in the Bukan valley. The men of two rival families assembled in a house in the village, with their respective mullahs, to sort out a case that had set them at odds for several generations. For a whole afternoon the parties feasted, smoked, and discussed the matter without once raising their voices, but without coming to a solution. So they had banished the priests and everyone under fifteen, bolted the doors and windows, lit an oil lamp in order to see each other’s faces, and settled the quarrel with daggers. There were six survivors out of thirty-five guests. The two equally diminished families could no longer watch over their herds, which had promptly been stolen. (from Nicolas Bouvier's The way of the world, 1963.)
posted by elgilito at 12:52 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
There was still talk about what had happened three years previously in the Bukan valley. The men of two rival families assembled in a house in the village, with their respective mullahs, to sort out a case that had set them at odds for several generations. For a whole afternoon the parties feasted, smoked, and discussed the matter without once raising their voices, but without coming to a solution. So they had banished the priests and everyone under fifteen, bolted the doors and windows, lit an oil lamp in order to see each other’s faces, and settled the quarrel with daggers. There were six survivors out of thirty-five guests. The two equally diminished families could no longer watch over their herds, which had promptly been stolen. (from Nicolas Bouvier's The way of the world, 1963.)
posted by elgilito at 12:52 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Kinda reminds me of one of Saberhagen's Swords books.
One of the Twelve Swords, Farslayer, had an almost nifty power; think of the name of whom you want dead, spin around with it, let it fly, and it would zoom through all obstacles via magic and lodge itself in your enemy"s heart. Which was great... Until someone next to the victim picked it up and had a pretty good idea of where it came from.
Two warring family-clans made substantial use of Farslayer. By the time the Sword was done flying, the only ones left alive were those whose names and identities were carefully disguised so the enemies wouldn't know they were related.
posted by delfin at 1:32 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
One of the Twelve Swords, Farslayer, had an almost nifty power; think of the name of whom you want dead, spin around with it, let it fly, and it would zoom through all obstacles via magic and lodge itself in your enemy"s heart. Which was great... Until someone next to the victim picked it up and had a pretty good idea of where it came from.
Two warring family-clans made substantial use of Farslayer. By the time the Sword was done flying, the only ones left alive were those whose names and identities were carefully disguised so the enemies wouldn't know they were related.
posted by delfin at 1:32 PM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
The USA, of course, also has a history of blood feuds.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:48 PM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:48 PM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
There's an excellent, if not exactly cheerful, novel about this topic from Albanian author Ismail Kadare, Broken April. The basic plot is almost exactly what is described in the article: a young man's brother is killed, so he is sent off to kill a man from the other family, which he does, and then prepares himself for being killed in turn after a month long truce.
It's a bleak, but moving work that does a good job of getting into the head of someone who doesn't want to commit a murder, knows that it will probably lead to his own death, but feels he had no choice and therefore tries to find fulfillment in the month he has before being murdered.
posted by Panjandrum at 4:01 PM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
It's a bleak, but moving work that does a good job of getting into the head of someone who doesn't want to commit a murder, knows that it will probably lead to his own death, but feels he had no choice and therefore tries to find fulfillment in the month he has before being murdered.
posted by Panjandrum at 4:01 PM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Related movie: The Forgiveness of Blood (2011)
posted by cadge at 4:30 PM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by cadge at 4:30 PM on November 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, you were probably thinking of the Infernal Mountains. Totally different.
They're just past the Abhorrent Mountains, over by Diabolical Valley.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:39 PM on November 20, 2017
They're just past the Abhorrent Mountains, over by Diabolical Valley.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:39 PM on November 20, 2017
Welcome to Tirana
Rakia, Vengeance
and more Vengeance
posted by Zarkonnen at 2:42 PM on November 22, 2017
Rakia, Vengeance
and more Vengeance
posted by Zarkonnen at 2:42 PM on November 22, 2017
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