Othello in the Balkans: Performing Race Rhetoric on the Albanian Stage

Marinela Golemi

doi:10.18778/2083-8530.22.08

Authors

Marinela Golemi Arizona State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.22.08

Keywords:

Othello, Albania, race, ethnicity, rhetoric, blackface, performance

Abstract

This essay examines the racialized rhetoric in Fan Noli’s 1916 Othello translation and the racialized performance techniques employed in A.J. Ricko’s 1953 National Theatre of Albania production. Hoping to combat racial discrimination in Albania, Noli’s translation of Othello renders the Moor an exceptional Turk whose alienation in Venice was designed to mirror the Albanophobic experiences of Albanian immigrants. Moreover, the Albanian Othello can serve as a platform for addressing ethno-racial tensions between Albanians and Turks, northern and southern Albanians, and Albanians of color and white Albanians. Both Noli and Ricko believed there was an anti-racist power inherent within Shakespeare’s play. In the end, however, the race-based rhetoric in the Albanian language, the use of blackface make-up in performance, and the logic and rhetoric of Shakespeare’s play itself challenged these lofty goals for race-healing.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Marinela Golemi, Arizona State University

Marinela Golemi is a PhD Candidate in English Literature and a part-time faculty member at Arizona State University. Her essay is part of an on-going study about Shakespearean adaptations in post-communist Albania. She has presented her research at RSA, BSA, NeMLA, PaMLA, and RMMLA. She also has a forthcoming publication on Shakespeare and non-finito aesthetics in the journal Philosophy and Literature.

References

Austin, Robert. “Less is More: Towards a Sustainable and Reliable Media in Albania.” Ed. Marta Dyczok et al. Media, Democracy and Freedom: The Post-Communist Experience. Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2009.
Google Scholar

Bancroft, Angus. Roma and Gypsy-Travellers in Europe: Modernity, Race, Space, and Exclusion. Burlington: Ashgate, 2005.
Google Scholar

Barthelemy, Anthony Gerard. Black Face, Maligned Race: The Representation of Blacks in English Drama from Shakespeare to Southern. London: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.
Google Scholar

Belluscio, Gjovani and Flora Koleci.“Veçori gramatikore dhe strategji origjinale në përkthimin e “Othellos” së Fan Nolit nga anglishtja.” Fan S. Noli me 130 vjetorin e lindjes 1882-2012: Konferenca Shkencore Ndërkombëtare. Korçë: Fakulteti i Edukimit dhe Filologjisë, 2012. 232-244.
Google Scholar

Bhattacharji, Shobhana. “‘I Like the Albanians Much’: Byron and Three Twentieth-Century British Travellers to Albania.” The Byron Journal 38, no. 1, (2010): 39-48.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/bj.2010.7

Blumi, Isa. “The Commodification of Otherness and the Ethnic Unit in the Balkans: How to Think about Albanians.” East European Politics and Societies 12, no. 3 (1998): 527-569.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325498012003006

Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare without Women: Representing Gender and Race on the Renaissance Stage. London: Routledge, 2000.
Google Scholar

Canka, Mustafa. “Only Memories and Emptiness Remain: The History of Ulcinj’s Afro-Albanian Community in Montenegro.” LeftEast, 2013. https://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/only-memories-and-emptiness-remain-the-history-of-ulcinjs-afro-albanian-community-in-montenegro/
Google Scholar

“Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Considers the Report of Albania.” OHCHR, Geneva, 2018. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23976&LangID=E
Google Scholar

Czajka, Agnes and Jennifer Suchland. “Mapping the Margins of Europe: Race, Migration, and Belonging.” PhiloSOPHIA 7, no. 2 (2017): 205-214.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/phi.2017.0021

De Waal, Clarissa. Albania Today: A Portrait of Post-Communist Turbulence. London: I. B. Tauris, 2005.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755619740

El-Tayeb, Fatima. European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816670154.001.0001

Goldberg David. “Racial Europeanization.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 29, no. 2 (2006): 331-364.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870500465611

Hall, Kim F. Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501725456

Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108381710

Hoti, Alma. “Racial Discirmination in Albania and The Role of the Commissioner of Protection Against Discrimination (CPD) Analysis of Cases of Racial Discrimination Time Period 2010-2014.” Global Journal of Politics and Law Research 3, no.6 (2015): 67-95.
Google Scholar

Kadija, Refik. “William Shakespeare in Albania.” Linguistic and Communicative Performance 2, no.1 (2009): 36-43.
Google Scholar

Lemon, Alaina. “Without a ‘Concept’? Race as Discursive Practice.” Slavic Review 61, no. 1 (2002): 54-61.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2696981

Lubonja, Fatos. “Albania After Isolation: The Transformation of Public Perceptions of the West.” Ed. Andrew Hammond. The Balkans and the West: Constructing the European Other, 1945-2003. England: Routledge, 2004.
Google Scholar

Mudure, Mihaela. “Blackening Gypsy Slavery: The Romanian Case.” Ed. Raphael-Hernandez. Blackening Europe: The African American Presence. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Google Scholar

Noli, Fan Stylian. Trans. Tragjedia e Othello's Arapit Te Venetikut (1604). Boston: VATRA, 1916.
Google Scholar

Ohueri, Chelsea W. “Mapping Race and Belonging in the Margins of Europe: Albanian, Romani, and Egyptian Sentiments.” Diss. University of Texas at Austin, 2016.
Google Scholar

Qafleshi, Enkelena Shockett. “How Shakespeare Was Received in the Albanian Literture and Culture – a General History.” Linguistic and Literary Broad Research and Innovation 3, no. 1 & 2 (2014): 42-56.
Google Scholar

Qafleshi, Enkelena. Rikthim Tek Shekspiri: Studim Monografik. Tirana: Geeer, 2008. Sauter, Willmar. “Thirty Years of Reception Studies: Empirical, Methodological and Theoretical Advances.” About Performance 10, no. 1 (2010): 241-263.
Google Scholar

Schwandner-Sievers, Stephanie. “Albanians, Albanianism and the Strategic Subversion of Stereotypes.” Ed. Andrew Hammond. The Balkans and the West: Constructing the European Other, 1945-2003. England: Routledge, 2004.
Google Scholar

Shakespeare, William. Othello. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Rpt. Ed. E.A.J. Honigmann. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016.
Google Scholar

Smith, Ian. “White Skin, Black Masks: Racial Cross-Dressing on the Early Modern Stage.” Renaissance Drama 32 no.1 (2003): 33-67.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/rd.32.41917375

Thompson, Ayanna. Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203944332

Thompson, Ayanna. Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Google Scholar

Todorova, Mari︠i︡a Nikolaeva. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Google Scholar