Hasan Aga’s Noble Wife and the Spirit of Her World

Abstract

The Italian scholar Alberto Fortis published his Viaggio in Dalmazia in 1774 in Venice. He included both the original text and his Italian translation of the Žalostna pisanca plemenite Asanaginice or the Sorrowful Song of Hasan Aga’s Noble Wife. It has been considered an important part of world heritage ever since. Fortis noted that the song came from a people who used both Cyrillic and Glagolitic but not who he had heard it or received a copy from. Interest in the song was immediate and it has been much translated and interpreted since. It remains shrouded in thrilling mystery, nonetheless, and any attempt to pierce that veil of mystery must start by considering the divide between Christians and Christian authorities, on the one hand, and Muslims, on the other, and of relations between them.