Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.50, 2018 48 The Albanian and Slavic Eposes: Problems of Antiquity and Originality, Key and Debated Points PhD. Manjola Brahaj Halili University of Tirana, Faculty of History and Filology, Street of Elbasani, Tirana, Albania Abstract This study will focus its work in the legendary epic songs or otherwise originally known and called by many researchers as “Kreshnik Songs”- (English: Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors), a name used by both researchers and their collectors. Hence, this song corpus is considered the Albanian national epic.We have to research this part of the Albanian folklore, by considering it as one of the most important part of it, but also as one of the most problematic in the history of research, collecting and studying of our folklore, in general. Since this epos was collected relatively late, when the epics of other peoples had already been gathered in time and studied, it brought many doubts and new questions about its origins and originality. Considering the importance of this issue we wanted to make a re-interpretation of these problems, but also to add arguments in defense of the originality of the Albanian epic, which is our thesis. Keywords: epic songs, originality, kreshnik, heroes, etc. 1.Introduction The focus of this study will be the legendary epic songs otherwise, originally known and called by many researchers as “Kângë Kreshnikësh” (Eng.: Frontier Warrior Songs) a label used by both scholars and their collectors. Thus, this song corpus is considered to be the Albanian national epos. We picked this part of the Albanian folkore, considering it as one of the most important one, but also as one of the most challenging one in the history or research, collecting and studying of folkolore on the whole. These problems and challenges have also occurred due to the historical and political reasons which Albania went through in that time. The difficult conditions that Albania was going through at that time, and the fact that, in this period the country of Albania was not yet independent from the Ottoman Empire, have made its language and culture to develop slower than other countries of the Balkan Penninsula, which were disbaned earlier by the Turkish invasion and which countries established its own independency sooner. Consequently, this epos was collected relatively late, its first publications were made only in the year of 1924 in the journal of ‘Hylli i Dritës’ (Eng.: ‘The Star of Light’). Meanwhile, the eposes of other people had already been collected and studied on time, starting with the Grimm Brothers. Therefore, since the Albanian epos has been collected a century later than the eposes of other people it brought many doubts and questions about its origin and originality. Considering this to be an important issue, we wanted to give an introduction of these problems, and we also wanted to add arguments for the purpose of protecting the originality of the Albanian epos, which is our thesis. In order to realize this objective we will consider and we will review some issues, namely issues that we consider to be the most important and the most delicate ones of this study. 2. Methods of Study For the purpose of the realization of this study, mainly comparative methods will be used, through which the differences between the two eposes will be highlighted, which method will further create the possibility of the argumentation of the originality of the Albanian epos, as one of the key points of our study. This comparative method will concentrate in the important elements of the two epics, elements that are related to construction, structure, the time of the establishment, etc. In addition to the comparative method, textual, semiotic and structural methods will be used which will help us to argue for the essence of the differences between these two epics, be that in the construction part of the method or the thematic one, the linguistic or the semantic one. By using these methods and through its method interweaves the analysis and the comparison of the epos texts and its ancillary literature will be more accurate, thus, the defending of our thesis for this study will be achieved easily. 3.The Time of the Collection of Songs and Doubts that Arose over Them The time of the collection of the Albanian national epos caused the debates to arise. Why? This fact can be easly understood if we take into account the time of when the first epic songs came out in the press (Hylli i Drites, 1924) with the long cycles of Kreshnik Songs. Even earlier there were initiatives to collect songs from other Albanian and foreign scholars, however, the ones above were scientifically more accurate and fuller in terms of construction and understanding. In this particular case, we refer to the publications of Visaret e Kombit (Eng: The Hoards of the Nation), the second