E-mail: njual@mail.ru Tel.: +7 (812) 328-08-12
3, Universitetskaya emb., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
PhD in History, Chair, Center for European Studies, Leading Researcher, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences
This article presents the results of a long-term study of the phenomenon of the evil eye among Albanians of the Balkan Peninsula (mainly Albania and Kosovo, as well as North Macedonia). Drawing on folklore stories and relying on his own field materials collected from 1990 to 2024, the author analyzes the persistence in modern society of archaic ideas about intentional or unwanted damage to people, livestock or property by those who have certain imaginary or real physical characteristics, secret knowledge and abilities. The preservation of stable ideas about the evil eye is studied using data from various religious groups of Albanians: Sunni Muslims and Catholic and Orthodox Christians. A special focus is aimed at highlighting the “antidotes” of such third-party negative influence on life and destiny, health and well-being, common in the Western Balkans. In addition to traditional apotropaia, which include ram horns, fangs and claws of a bear and wolf, mercury, garlic, precious metals, images of eyes, sacred texts, etc., the purchase of various toys and children’s art items became widespread at the end of the twentieth — beginning of the twenty-first centuries. Innovations occurring in the last three decades in the fight against the evil eye demonstrate the amazing stability of traditional beliefs and the active resistance to cultural integration in the era of globalism.
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