Title: Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit, The Code of Lekë Dukagjini
Original: Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit, The Code of Lekë Dukagjini
Category: Heritage
Language: English
Albanian text Collected and Arranged by: Shtjefën Gjeçov
Translated, with an Introduction by: Leonard Fox
Publisher: Gjonlekaj Publishing CompanyNew York
Weight: 0.971 kg
ISBN: 0-9622141-0-8
About the book
This is the first English translation of the customary laws, still followed to various degrees, by Albanians in northern Albania, Kosova/Kosovo, Montenegro, and Macedonia. That these laws have survived, and often replaced, the impositions of the Ottoman Empire and the Albanian Communist and Yugoslav governments, attests to their importance.
The forward, the introduction, and the note on the translation, which precede the Code, and the Code itself are highly readable. Each page of the Code in English is preceded by a page of the same text in Albanian. The dust cover is red with the black Albanian eagle, duplicative of the Albanian flag, and the book itself has large illustrations of both Leke Dukagjini, an Albanian national hero to whom the laws are traditionally attributed, and his coat of arms.
This work would not only make a fine present for Albanians living in English speaking countries, but is a necessity both for non-Albanians attempting an understanding of Albanian society, and, with the present situation in the southern Balkans, for the reference collections of all academic and larger public libraries.
