Edith Durham

{{short description|19th and 20th-century British artist and author}}

{{Infobox scholar

| image = Edit Durham (portret).jpg

| image_size =

| alt =

| caption = Edith Durham in the 1880s

| name = Edith Durham

| birth_name = Mary Edith Durham

| other_names =

| birth_date = 8 December 1863

| birth_place = London, England

| death_date = {{death date and age|1944|11|15|1863|12|08|df=yes}}

| death_place =

| era =

| region =

| school_tradition =

| main_interests = Albanian history, Culture

| notable_ideas =

| major_works = High Albania

| influences =

| influenced = Robert Elsie

}}

Mary Edith Durham, {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRAI}} (8 December 1863 – 15 November 1944) was a British artist, anthropologist and writer who is best known for her anthropological accounts of life in Albania in the early 20th century. Her advocacy on behalf of the Albanian cause and her Albanophilia gained her the devotion of many Albanians who consider her a national heroine.

Early life

Durham was the eldest of nine children. Her father, Arthur Edward Durham, was a distinguished London surgeon. She attended Bedford College (1878–1882), followed by the Royal Academy of Arts, to train as an artist. She exhibited widely and contributed a number of detailed drawings to the amphibia and reptiles volume of the Cambridge Natural History (published 1899).{{cite ODNB | url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37379 | title=Durham, (Mary) Edith (1863–1944) | access-date=9 April 2014 | author=Harry Hodgkinson | year=2004| doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/37379 }}

Balkan expeditions

File:VALLEY OF GUSINJE Edith Durham High Albania 1909.gif

After the death of her father, Durham took on the responsibilities of caring for her sick mother for several years. It proved an exhausting experience. When she was 37, her doctor recommended that she should undertake a foreign vacation to recuperate.{{cite book | last=Elsie | first=R. | title=Historical Dictionary of Kosovo | publisher=Scarecrow Press | series=Historical Dictionaries of Europe | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-8108-7483-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pg-aeA-nUeAC&pg=PA85page=85}} She took a trip by sea down the coast of Dalmatia, travelling from Trieste to Kotor and then overland to Cetinje, the capital of Montenegro. On her return to London she studied the Serbo-Croatian language and the history of the region.

Durham travelled extensively in the Balkans in order to write her first book Through the Lands of the Serbs published in London in 1904. In 1908 she wrote High Albania after travelling through the Albanian highlands, from Montenegro to Shkodër. Over the next twenty years she focused particularly on Albania, which then was one of the most isolated and undeveloped areas of Europe. She worked in a variety of relief organisations, painted and wrote, and she also collected folklore and folk art. In 1911-13 she helped Albanian refugees in Montenegro where she raised funds for medicine, food and helped wounded soldiers.{{cite web | url= https://museums.calderdale.gov.uk/edith-durham |title= Edith Durham | publisher= Calderdale Museums |access-date=8 March 2023 | author= Calderdale Museums }}

She contributed frequently to the journal Man and became a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Her writings, however, were to earn her particular fame. She wrote seven books on Balkan affairs. High Albania (1909) is the best known and is still regarded as the pre-eminent guide to the customs and the society of northern Albania's highlands.

Controversy

After being a fervent admirer of the Serbs which saw her write Through the Lands of the Serbs, followed by an anti-Austrian and pro-Yugoslav phase, Durham came to identify closely with the Albanian cause and championed the unity and independence of the Albanian people. She was strongly criticised by the advocates of a Yugoslav state, who supported the incorporation of the Albanian-populated region of Kosovo into Yugoslavia. According to American scholars Thomas Cushman and Stjepan Meštrović, her eccentric personality and her incessant lobbying activity made her despised by the British Foreign Office.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/thistimeweknewwe00cush_0|url-access=registration|title=This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia|author1=Thomas Cushman|author2=Stjepan Mestrovic|date=1 October 1996|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-7224-9|page=251 [https://archive.org/details/thistimeweknewwe00cush_0/page/248 248]|quote=...Durham turned increasingly anti-Serbian...|access-date=30 August 2013}} Becoming increasingly anti-Serb following the First World War, she denounced what she termed "Serb vermin" for having "not created a Jugoslavia but have carried out their original aim of making Great Serbia.... Far from being liberated the bulk of people live under a far harsher rule than before".{{cite book |last1=Durham |first1=Edith M. |title=Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle |date=2008 |publisher=Book Jungle |isbn=978-1605973579}}

Other, British intellectuals who were more pro-Serb sharply criticised her views. Author Rebecca West included Durham in her description of the sort of traveller who came back "with a pet Balkan people established in their hearts as suffering and innocent, eternally the massacree and never the massacrer" (Durham sued West over this){{cite journal|last=King|first=Charles|date=4 August 2000|title=Queen of the Highlanders: Edith Durham in 'the land of the living past'|journal=Times Literary Supplement|pages=13–14}} and then went on to say: "The Bulgarians, as preferred by some, and the Albanians, as championed by others, strongly resembled Sir Joshua Reynolds's picture of the Infant Samuel".{{cite book|title=Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: The Record for a Journey Through Yugoslavia in 1937|last=West|first=Rebecca|publisher=Macmillan|year=1941|volume=I|place=London|page=22|author-link=Rebecca West}}{{cite web|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/reynolds-the-infant-samuel-n00162|title=The Infant Samuel|work=Tate|access-date=9 April 2014}} R.W. Seton-Watson commented that "the fact is that while always denouncing 'Balkan mentality', she is herself exactly what she means by the word".The Durham–Seton-Watson correspondence is housed in the Seton-Walson papers at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London.

For their part, however, the Albanians held Durham in high regard and dubbed her "Mbretëresha e Malësoreve" (the "Queen of the Highlanders)". She was given an embroidered waistcoat by the government to thank her for lobbying the British government on behalf of the occupied city of Korçë.{{cite news |last1=Judah |first1=Hettie |title=A tangled, teasing show: Unbound: Visionary Women Collecting Textiles – review |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jan/31/unbound-visionary-women-collecting-textiles-review |access-date=29 June 2020 |work=The Guardian |date=31 Jan 2020}} She was well received in the Albanian Highlands.

When she died in 1944, she received high praise for her work from the exiled King Zog, who wrote: "She gave us her heart and she won the ear of our mountaineers". She is still regarded as something of a national heroine; in 2004, Albanian President Alfred Moisiu described her as "one of the most distinguished personalities of the Albanian world during the last century"[http://www.president.al/english/pub/info.asp?id=517 Presidenti i Republikës së Shqiperisë] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927220330/http://www.president.al/english/pub/info.asp?id=517 |date=27 September 2007 }} at www.president.al She was also awarded a medal from King Zog for her support.

Collections

Much of Durham's work was donated to academic collections following her death. Her papers are held by the Royal Anthropological Institute, London, some of her collections of Balkan costume, textile collection and jewellery were given in 1935 are in Bankfield Museum, Halifax. Further gifts of mostly Balkan artefacts were given to the British Museum in 1914 and to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and the Horniman Museum, London.{{cite web|title=Miss Mary Edith Durham (Biographical details)|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=88168|work=The British Museum|access-date=9 April 2014}} Some items from her textile collection were displayed in a 2020 exhibition.

Notes

References

Bibliography

[http://njegos.org/durham/contdurh.htm Through the Lands of the Serb] (1904)
[http://www.peacelink.nu/Boker/Durham/Durham.html The burden of the Balkans] (1905)
[http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/durham/albania/albania.html High Albania] (1909)
The struggle for Scutari (1914)
Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle (1920)
[https://www.osmikon.de/Vta2/bsb00103440/ostdok:BV015385807;jsessionid=8C5091A9CCA8D47307E450407EF0D9FC.touch01?lang=en The Sarajevo Crime] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230205100237/https://www.osmikon.de/Vta2/bsb00103440/ostdok:BV015385807;jsessionid=8C5091A9CCA8D47307E450407EF0D9FC.touch01?lang=en |date=5 February 2023 }} (1925)
Some Tribal Origins, Laws and Customs of the Balkans (1928)
Albania and the Albanians: selected articles and letters, 1903–1944, ed. by Bejtullah Destani (I.B. Tauris, 2001)
The Blaze in the Balkans; selected writings, 1903–1941, edited by Robert Elsie and Bejtullah D Destani (I.B. Tauris, 2014)

External links

{{Gutenberg author | id=8806}}
{{Internet Archive author |sname=Edith Durham}}
[http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=Durham%2C+M.+E.+%28Mary+Edith&amode=words&title=&tmode=words Works by Edith Durham] at The Online Books Page
[https://archive.org/details/amphibiareptiles00gadorich Work containing scientific illustrations by Edith Durham]
[https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/72996#/sections Works by Edith Durham] at Biodiversity Heritage Library

Category:1863 births

Category:1944 deaths

Category:Painters from London

Category:Alumni of Bedford College, London

Category:British anthropologists

Category:British women anthropologists

Category:British travel writers

Category:19th-century English painters

Category:20th-century English painters

Category:British scientific illustrators

Category:19th-century English illustrators

Category:20th-century English illustrators