Comparative analysis of Albanian folktales in the ATU system, with Slovenian parallels

Blažič, Milena (author), Iseni, Arburim (author)

This study combines quantitative and qualitative approaches within a comparative framework to analyse Albanian folktales in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther (ATU) classification system alongside the Slovenian tradition. The quantitative tier surveys Uther's (2011)The Types of International Folktales, identifying 282 Albanian tale types across six of the seven major categories, dominated by Anecdotes and Jokes (55.9%), with Formula Tales entirely absent. The qualitative tier analyses Robert Elsie's (2001) corpus ofthirty-two narratives, assigning five folktales to international types (ATU 510, 514, 550, 561, 425C), tracing motif correspondences from Strabo and Apuleius through the One Thousand and One Nights to Perrault and Grimm, and confirming that the ten legends lie beyond the ATU framework. The comparative tier juxtaposes the Albanian findings with Monika Kropej Telban's type indexes of Slovenian folktales (2015, 2025a, 2025b). Three conclusions emerge: the two traditions share the pan-European narrative inheritance while preserving irreducibly local mythological systems (Bukura e Dheut, Kulshedra, Zana; povodni mož, Wild Man, vile); typological identity does not entail mythological identity; and the contradiction between the catalogue's silence on Albanian Formula Tales and the presence of a cumulative tale in Elsie's corpus demonstrates that distributional figures measure the history of documentation as much as the tradition itself. The asymmetry between the systematically indexed Slovenian repertoire and the dispersedly documented Albanian one issues a programmatic call for a national Albanian type index.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Albanian folktales, Slovenian folktales, ATU classification, comparative folklore, tale types, Robert Elsie, Monika Kropej Telban
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PEF - Faculty of Education
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 11-18
• Numbering: Vol. 15, iss. 3
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-186731
• UDC: 821
• ISSN on article: 1857-8187
• DOI: 10.58885/ijllis.v15i3.11mbai
• COBISS.SI-ID: 289877507

Copyright

Podatek o licenci CC-BY je naveden na pristajalni strani članka (glej izvorni URL zgoraj). (Datum opombe: 4. 9. 2026)

• Publication date in RUL: 04.09.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Anglisticum
• Publisher: Association-Institute for English Language and American Studies, Tetovo, North Macedonia
• ISSN: 1857-8187
• COBISS.SI-ID: 114314499

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: albanske ljudske pripovedi, slovenske ljudske pripovedi, ATU-klasifikacija, primerjalna folkloristika, pripovedni tipi, književnost