Education

The education system in Albania is secular. The literacy rate for the total population, age 9 or older, is about 94%. Elementary education is compulsory (grades 1–9), but most students continue at least until a secondary education (grades 10–12). Students must successfully pass graduation exams at the end of the 9th grade and at the end of the 12th grade in order to continue their education. There are about 5000, mostly public, schools throughout the country and the academic year is divided into two semesters. The school year begins in September and finishes in late May or early June.

Folklore

Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

n myth

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

s can be divided into two major groups: legends of period and pads and historical legends. Some of the best known legends are: Rozafa, Besa e Kostandinit, Gjergj Elez Alia

Gjergj Elez Alia

Gjergj Elez Alia is popular legendary hero of poetry and literature in Bosnia and Albania. Muslims from Bosnian Krajina modeled the poetic image of Djerzelez Alija after the image of Christian Prince Marko, based on the historic person Ali Bey Mihaloğlu...

, Ymer Agë Ulqini, Cikli i Kreshnikëve.

Sport

The most popular sport in Albania is soccer and the most followed sports event is the World Cup. , Albania was ranked 50th by FIFA

FIFA

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...

. Other played sports include basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

, volleyball

Volleyball

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

, and gymnastics

Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...

.

Dress of Muslim shkodran bride

The dress of the Muslim bride is characterized by its elegance and transparency, in that of the Catholic one can see full colors. The Catholic bride's dress is characterized by its picturesque effects and harmony.

There are two types of Muslim wedding dresses. One is worked on a "shajak" (large piece of wool) and with floral motives worked with "gajtan" (kind of rope) black cotton, sometimes mixed with green. The other one is worked in the same material but with red color. Different from the first here the motifs are enriched with full colors. The difference between this two dresses that at the first dress the motifs occupy all the area, at the second it occupies a little part in the front and back. These dresses have a belt worked with gold and grain necklaces in red, rose, orange creating all together a warm surface. Here the motifs are very small.

This gallery of costumes, richness of colors, sentiments are a big experience of lots of years of a population like ours, not only for the ability to conserve alive the tradition, inheriting it generations after generations, but also for conserving the high technique of elaboration or the high artistic level.

Dress of Catholic shkodran bride

The dress is tripped from the transparent white, shiny, soft, which spreads all over the body, and is intended to suggest tranquility and a warm purity. This game is achieved through the white of the base material and the gold thread over. This dress is composed by the "barnaveke": some kind of very long pants which seem a skirt. In the upper part is worn a shirt and over it a "jelek" (waistcoat).

Paja

Ritual songs name various elements which contain "pajen" of the girl, which are the goods parents give to the daughter to wear, to furnish the house, gifts for her husband and the intimate cousins.
The preparation of the "paja" for the parents of the bride is a pleasure which means also accomplishing the obligations toward the daughter. This is also an expression of the love of parents, but is connected with the economical conditions of the family.

Dhuntia

"Dhunti" in Shkodra means the gifts that the groom prepares for the bride during the engagement, mainly clothes, jewelry, gold ornaments and tricks, which are sent to her a few days before the wedding.
In addition to those received by the family of his father, the bride takes many gifts from the groom and his family. "Dhuntia", which had a considerable monetary value, was prepared with great care by the family of the boy, because in some way embodied respect and love for his young bride, to whom these gifts were made, love for their son that he married at the same time was also a representation of the family in its economic and aesthetic. In "dhunti" there were enough clothes and items for use at all times, in joy and in sorrow, which expressed particular attention to the role of women.

Kole Idromeno and "Dasma Shkodrane"

In 1924 Idromeno drew the picture Dasma Shkodrane ("Shkodra wedding"), which immediately became known to the general public and was an accurate description of the original customs of the country. The environment is characteristic of Shkodra, the houses enclosed by high walls, windows, trees, chimneys, and minarets.

See also

• Albanian language
  Albanian language
  Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
  
  
• Albanian folklore
  Albanian folklore
  Albanian mythology comprises myths and legends of the Albanians. The elements of Albanian mythology are of Paleo-Balkanic origin and almost all of them are pagan....
  
  
• Cinema of Albania
  Cinema of Albania
  The cinema of Albania had its start in the years 1911—1912.-Early years:The first public showing to occur in Albania was a little known title, Paddy the Reliable; a comical story detailing the afterlife events of a man who was so distracted by trivial matters that he was unable to attend his own...
  
  
• Albanian art
• Albanian music
• Albanian rock
  Albanian rock
  Albanian rock describes music in Albania, Kosovo, and other Albanian-inhabited areas closely related to western rock. It has a wide variety of sub-genres like heavy metal, punk, alternative and death metal...
  
  
• Albanian comics
  Albanian comics
  Albanian comics, though not well known internationally, were produced mainly by comic-authors from Kosovo. Until recently there was no comic tradition in Albania where comics were seen as junk literature known as fumeti supposedly because pop art was prohibited by the dictatorial communist regime...
  
  
• Tourism in Albania
  Tourism in Albania
  Tourism in Albania is characterized by the archaeological heritage inherited from Greek, Roman and Ottoman times, unspoiled beaches, challenging mountain ranges, Cold War artifacts, unique traditions, unequivocal hospitality, delicious traditional cuisine, and the wild and peculiar atmosphere of...
  
  
• Cuisine of Albania
  Cuisine of Albania
  The cuisine of Albania is uniquely influenced by Turkish, Greek, and Italian cuisines. Every region in Albania and Kosovo has its own unique dishes. Albanian cuisine is characterized by the use of various mediterranean herbs such as Oregano, Black Pepper, Mint, Basil, Rosemary and more in cooking...
  
  
• Music of Albania
  Music of Albania
  Albanian music displays a variety of influences. Albanian folk music traditions differ by region, with major stylistic differences between the traditional music of the Ghegs in the north and Tosks in the south. Modern popular music has developed around the centers of Korça, Shkodër and Tirana....
  
  
• Religion in Albania
  Religion in Albania
  The most common religions practiced in Albania include Islam and Christianity. There is a strong unifying cultural identity which has been solidified historically by the common experience of struggling to protect their culture in the face of various outside conquerors...
  
  
• wikiquote:Albanian proverbs
• List of Albanian writers
• Radio Televizioni Shqiptar
  Radio Televizioni Shqiptar
  Radio Televizioni Shqiptar is the public broadcaster of Albania, founded in 1938 in Tirana....
  
  
• Albanian sworn virgins
  Albanian sworn virgins
  Albanian sworn virgins are women who take a vow of chastity and wear male clothing in order to be viewed as men in the patriarchal Northern Albanian society...
  
  

External links

• Ministry of Tourism, Culture, Youth, and Sports of Albania
• The History of Albanian Literature (Website in English)
• Cultural Heritage of Albania Brochure
• National Library of Albania
• Books about Albania and the Albanian people (scribd.com) Reference of books (and some journal articles) about Albania and the Albanian people; their history, language, origin, culture, literature, etc. Public domain books, fully accessible online.