Albanian Grave Art

The Albanians do not have a developed grave culture. The fine old cemeteries

that are to be found in other European countries are rare in this part of the

world. Indeed, there are very few original graves in Albania that predate the

Second World War. One reason for this, aside from the high level of destruction

and self-destruction that has ravaged Albanian lands over the ages, is that the

majority of Albanians converted to Islam during the Ottoman period. Although

this conversion was more formal than fervent, and religious sentiment –

Muslim or Christian – has never been strong in the country, Muslim Albanians

have until recently, for the most part, respected Islamic burial traditions. This

means that the dead are buried very quickly, if possible within 24 hours, and

that little more than a mound of earth remains to mark the gravesites. At most,

a simple uncarved stone was placed on the grave as a marker, since Islamic

custom traditionally discouraged large tombstones.

The Catholic and Orthodox Albanians often had more elaborate graves,

traditionally with Christian crosses and symbols. In Catholic cemeteries in the

northern Albanian mountains, one can still find gravestones and wooden

crosses adorned with old folk symbols such as the sun, the moon, stars, birds

and snakes. Indeed, birds were often carved on top of the wooden crosses.

However, such traditional graves embellished with folk art, as still can be

encountered here and there in the Shala, Kelmendi, Hoti, Gruda and Triepshi

regions, are now rare.

One exception to this is the amazing Catholic cemetery in Vuksanlekaj

(BCS: Vuksanlekići) in Montenegro . The village of Vuksanlekaj, on the road

between the Montenegrin capital Podgorica and the northern Albanian city of

Shkodra, is situated in the territory of the Albanian Hoti tribe, that has been

divided between Albania and Montenegro since 1913, following the

Montenegrin military conquest of the region.

The gravestones to be seen in this cemetery, an extraordinary and seemingly

unique collection of traditional Albanian folk art, cannot be dated precisely, but

they would seem to derive from the early twentieth or the second half of the

nineteenth century. Many of the motifs on the tombstones stem from a much

older age.