Shkodra literary tourism

While Tirana functions as Albania’s political and economic centre, Shkodra has long been recognised as the country’s foremost literary and cultural capital. For centuries, the city has served as a cradle of Albanian letters, nurturing writers, intellectuals, publishers, and cultural institutions that played a decisive role in shaping national literary consciousness. This literary prominence is inseparable from Shkodra’s broader historical development, which has positioned the city as a key political, economic, and cultural hub since antiquity.

Founded around 400 BC (Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë, 2009, p. 2470), the city’s enduring significance is rooted in its political, economic, and cultural prominence across millennia. As the former capital of the Illyrian Kingdom under King Gent (181–168 BC), and later an important Roman stronghold, Shkodra developed into an urban centre with its own currency as early as 230 BC, and advanced institutional and judicial traditions, as evidenced by the recently rediscovered Statute of Scutari. In addition, its natural heritage — comprising the Alps, lakes, rivers, and proximity to the Adriatic — makes it an exceptional site.

Beyond its geographical and historical attributes, Shkodra has cultivated an extraordinary cultural legacy, marked by numerous national “firsts.” It was here that Albania’s earliest document in the Albanian language, Pal Engjëlli’s Formula e Pagëzimit (1462), was written; the first printing activity emerged shortly after; and the first photograph in the country was taken in 1858. Shkodra also hosted Albania’s earliest musical band, a synoptic station, and museum initiatives. By 1911, it was among the first cities in the region to screen films (Bushati, 1998, p. 107). More than 120 cultural monuments, ranging from Rozafa Castle to the Marubi National Museum of Photography, ethnographic houses, religious buildings, and folk heritage, mark the city’s extensive tangible and intangible cultural wealth.

Within this broader cultural landscape, Shkodra’s literary heritage stands out as perhaps its most distinctive hallmark. As Ndriçim Kulla (2010) asserts, Shkodra “for centuries was exclusively the only city to have a literary tradition,” a claim also supported by scholar Robert Elsie (2004, p. 5) who recognises this and highlights the special role of the city in terms of literature: “Even though the first literary writings appeared in the 1600s, it’s only in the first two decades of the 20th century, after the country’s declaration of independence in 1912 that a real tradition of Albanian prose started. The hub of such a tradition was Shkodra, the cultural capital of Albania”. Early Albanian writers such as Marin Barleti, Marin Biçikemi, and Dhimitër Frangu were either born in the city or educated there, contributing foundational texts to Albanian historiography and literature. During the National Renaissance and the Realism period, Shkodra flourished as the intellectual birthplace of some of the most important literary figures in Albanian culture. Among these are Gjergj Fishta (often considered Albania’s national poet), Ndre Mjeda, Filip Shiroka, Pashko Vasa, Migjeni, and Ernest Koliqi. These authors not only shaped the modern Albanian language and literature but also solidified the status of the city as a literary centre. Later diaspora writers, including Martin Camaj and Arshi Pipa, further reinforced the city’s intellectual aura, maintaining long-distance cultural ties through poetry, philology, and critical thought. The legacy endures through the works of numerous contemporary local writers. The city is equally shaped by the impressions of foreign travellers, with Edith Durham being the most prominent.

The relationship between Shkodra and its writers is reciprocal and interdependent. Writers are shaped by the places they inhabit, but they also contribute to the cultural and symbolic construction of those same places. Scholars have long highlighted this dynamic interplay between authors, texts, and landscapes (see Reijnders, 2015). In the case of Shkodra, place and text are intrinsically connected: when scholars or readers reflect on figures such as Migjeni or Fishta, they inevitably invoke Shkodra’s urban and social landscapes; conversely, Shkodra’s cultural image — its neighbourhoods, streets, social dynamics, and natural surroundings — is often filtered through their literary representations. This symbiosis is central to the city’s identity as a literary site.

Yet, Shkodra’s literary potential remains vastly underutilised. Writers’ houses are often inaccessible, cultural events lack visibility, and translations of local authors are minimal, reducing international reach. Additionally, research on how literature influences tourist perceptions and motivations in the Albanian context is limited.

However, despite these limitations, Shkodra is still a promising candidate for the development of a structured literary trail. It possesses what Herbert (2001, p. 315) terms general and exceptional qualities: it is a major urban cultural centre and simultaneously the home, workplace, or setting of key literary figures and texts. Many literary sites are located within or near the historic centre: writers’ houses, educational institutions, the castle, the lake and rivers, and local neighbourhoods referenced in canonical works. These coincide with existing tourist routes, making literary integration feasible. In addition, as Hoppen et al. (2014, p. 43) argue, literary destinations with multiple exceptional qualities are more easily developed and marketed. Shkodra meets this criterion. The city’s dialect, distinct cultural ethos, and its symbolic connection to Albanian identity further reinforce its literary appeal. For domestic tourists, a literary trail could provide opportunities to engage with authors and rediscover their cultural heritage. For international visitors, particularly those interested in cultural and heritage tourism, it could serve as an introduction to Albanian literature, a field that remains under-translated and underrepresented globally. Destination managers could adopt a range of strategies (see Erkoçi, 2022), including digital storytelling (Semley, 2025) and immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality (Monteiro, 2025; Wang, 2025), to enhance the visibility, accessibility, and experiential depth of Albanian literature and its associated tourism offerings.

In 2014, the author of this entry created a Google Maps literary itinerary in Shkodra (see https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1urDuR0SCKOFG2Ha6MfK1opCj8SE&femb=1), which could be the first step in inciting interest. It is an amateurish, simple form of digital heritage practice, which could be further enriched by experts with contemporary tools such as multimedia narratives, user-generated content, or AR/VR layers to align Shkodra’s literary heritage with evolving digital tourism and heritage engagement strategies:

How to cite this entry: Erkoçi, I. (2025). Shkodra literary tourism. In R. Baleiro, G. Capecchi & J. Arcos-Pumarola (Eds.), E-Dictionary of Literary Tourism. University for Foreigners of Perugia. https://doi.org/10.34623/zdg2-hn59.