Welcome to Women’s History Month 2015, which has the theme “Weaving the stories of women’s lives”, which fits perfectly with our Cranky Ladies of History anthology project! After 18 months of work, including our successful crowd-funding campaign in March last year, we are proudly releasing the anthology on March 8. To celebrate, our wonderful authors have supplied blog posts related to their Cranky Lady, and we are delighted to share them here during the month of March. 

To get your own copy of Cranky Ladies of History, you can buy from our website, order your favourite real world bookshop, or purchase at all the major online booksellers (in print and ebook). 

A few notes on Nora by Havva Murat (“The Pasha, the Girl and the Dagger”)

Nora of Kelmendi, literally from Kelmend: a remote, mountainous region of Northern Albanian that flows into both the neighbouring countries of Montenegro and Kosovo, was born around 1630 AD. The cultural melting pot that is the Balkans, had by this time been held for around 200 years (from circa 1431) by the Ottoman Sultans and their local (in this instance, Bosnian) Pashas, taken after a series of bloody medieval wars that saw the lowlands fall into the hands of the Turks and the highlands foster and give birth to many uprisings. Nora, born into a Roman Catholic Family, became renowned as the greatest female warrior in the history of the country for killing the aforementioned Pasha in a duel (although her feats are more the stuff of legend than historical fact, but we won’t let that get in the way of a good story). It is interesting to note here that there are still many Roman Catholic families living in this region of Albanian today despite the fact that the majority of Albanians converted to Islam while under Ottoman rule – but not the Kelmend! This group were determined to hold onto their own faith and customs in the face of the Ottoman threat and thus their reputation as the most stubborn tribe in the nation grew.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR “THE PASHA, THE GIRL AND THE DAGGER” AFTER THE CUT – check out the story in Cranky Ladies of History before you read!

Continue reading “CRANKY LADIES OF HISTORY: A few notes on Nora (of Kelmendi)” →