The Photo Collection of Edith Durham

Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo, 1903 - 1913

ED009_RAI 400.13140 Albania. Shkodra. Slavic women from the village of Vraka north of Shkodra, with cowries in their hair (Photo: Edith Durham, 1913). “Vraka, the only Orthodox Serb village in the district, lies an hour and a half north of Scutari on the plain. The people were highly delighted that I could speak with them, and at once started cooking me a meal. It would be a disgrace, they said, for me to eat my own food in their village… The people complained greatly of Moslem persecution. The houses were full of rifles. ‘Vraka,’ said my host, ‘is made up of various families that had fled, because they owed blood, from Bosnia and Montenegro about two hundred years ago.’ They number now some one thousand souls… Were it not for the Moslems they could live very well, but not one of the Vraka men could now go into Scutari. They would be shot on the way. The women had to do all bazaar business. He added philosophically, ‘the Moslems have killed a great many of us, but, thanks to God, we have shot plenty of them.’” (Edith Durham, High Albania, 1909).