Why a Booktrail?
1900: Women weren’t supposed to do much on their own, let alone climb a mountain
Albania’s Mountain Queen
What you need to know before your trail
Young ladies in the Victorian and Edwardian eras were not expected to travel unaccompanied, and certainly not to the remote corners of Southeast Europe, then part of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. But Edith Durham was no ordinary lady.
Travel Guide
Albania
In 1900, at the age of 37, Durham set sail for the Balkans for the first time, and it’s a journey which completely transformed her life and those of others.
This gave her a profound love of the region which saw her return many times. She became a confidante of the King of Montenegro, ran a hospital in Macedonia and, following the outbreak of the First Balkan War in 1912, became one of the world’s first female war correspondents.
She was so popular in the region that she was given the affectionate title ‘Queen of the Mountains’ and she is still very much admired in the country even today.
Durham took the journey which is evoked in the book when she was only 37.
Her journey took her by sea down the coast of Dalmatia, (Croatia) travelling from Trieste to Kotor and then overland to Cetinje, the capital of Montenegro.
Over the next 20 years, she travelled extensively over the whole Balkans area. It was an area underdeveloped and very isolated at the time so the fact she, a woman of her time, went there is even more remarkable.
Because of her writing and cultural contributions, she was made a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Her book, High Albania (1909), is still regarded as the pre-eminent guide to the customs and society of the highlands of northern Albania.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Albania’s Mountain Queen
Destination : Albania Author/Guide: Marcus Tanner Departure Time: 1900
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