Albanian Burrnesha: From Girls to Men

In the 1400s in the mountains of Albania a tradition began to be practiced where young women and girls chose to live as men; these individuals are known as burrnesha. Laws in the Balkans were based on a system called Kanun, a set of laws that dictated legal and societal norms.1 Though Albanian law does not follow the Kanun closely, “the importance of the Kanun to the ordinary life of the Albanians of Kosvoa and Matësi can hardly be exaggerated […] It still influences the entire area.”2 The Kanun dealt with things such as landownership, debt settlement, conflicts, the role of the church, family, and honour. In Albanian culture, honour remains at the heart of family structures. Within this system only men could own or inherit land, travel long distances, carry a gun or handle finances; the Kanun made no exceptions for widows or unwed women to take care of themselves. In this system, women were effectively property. This is evident in the tradition of a father giving a symbolic cartridge to his new son-in-law to use on his new bride if she was unhospitable or adulterous.

Given the potential for brutality many girls would choose to take the oath to become burrnesha.3 The modern burrnesha do not share such dramatic reasons for taking the oath; most mention the lack of boys in their family or their desire to live as a man. Once the oath is taken in front of twelve elders in either the local church or mosque, these young people cut their hair short, adopt male names and clothes, and spend hours with older men learning their masculine mannerisms.4 Once taken, the oath gives them the legal status of a man. From the point of taking their oath, burrnesha men are men in every legal and social way. There are still burrnesha living in Albania today, but the consensus is that this practice will continue to die out as women gain more rights throughout Albania.

Within the current view of gender as a spectrum, it is difficult to categorize burrnesha, because they do not fit comfortably within the gender binary. Third-gender identities are understandings of gender that exist outside of the binary, when it is difficult to categorize a person or practice to solely male or female.

Typically, a colonized culture’s distinct way of addressing gender nonconforming people or queer people becomes classified as a third gender in western scholarship. This is how most western scholars describe burrnesha. Understanding gender is difficult because identities develop without interference from scholars but then gender theory must attempt to categorize people based on existing structures. This is a major complication in scholarship of burrnesha as is seen in existing work documenting burrnesha that repeatedly misgenders them by insisting on using female pronouns, sometimes in the same sentence as an acknowledgement that burrnesha themselves use male pronouns.

Jeta Luboteni, an Albanian writer and burrnesha themselves, highlights this issue saying that feminist discussions of the practice focus too much on the role of the patriarchy, to the point of mourning the loss of the feminine, they do “not mourn the burrnesha themselves, but they mourn the female.”5 If patriarchy is centered in discussions of burrnesha then it makes sense to see the slow disappearance of burrnesha as a natural end to an archaic practice, but this is not what burrnesha themselves focus on. When interviewed, burrnesha are largely happy with their lives. They discuss how proud they are to have been able to help their families, or how comfortable or correct their gender is to them. Burrnesha do not victimize themselves, so why is western scholarship so insistent on doing so on their behalf?

Given the circumstances associated with becoming burrnesha it would be easy to see burrnesha as victims of their culture forced into an impossible choice, but Jeta Luboteni, says that this is harmful and reduces these men’s autonomy.6 “In my heart and soul I feel like a man, I am very happy I chose this way and I will live it with pleasure until my last breath” says Bedrie Gosturani, who chose to take the vow as a child.7 The burrnesha interviewed all agree on this point; it is an honour to live as burrnesha.

Victoria Spencer (she/her)

Political Science major