MODULE 1, UNIT 3
Construction of Meaning: Narrative

The Stories People Tell Help Them Make Sense of the World and Their Place In It

Goal: To understand the role narratives play in the construction of meaning and identity.

Majlinda Kelmendi was still in elementary school when she joined a judo club in the small Kosovan city of Peja. Her teacher, Driton Kuka – one of the best (male) judo athletes in Yugoslavia – had just created the club after the 1998-9 Kosovo war. It was a hard time for the brand new country, and girls were not typical judo students, but Majlinda worked hard and was exceptionally talented at throwing, pinning, and using her energy efficiently. Her successes mounted. When she won Kosovo’s very first gold medal at the 2016 Olympics in Tokyo (and eventually every title in the sport), she became an emblem of Kosovo perseverance: Kosovans cheered her on as she put the entire country on the map. Her face was everywhere: billboard, TV, social media. A statue was erected in Peja signaling her status as a New Kosovan. But her story had perhaps the most significance for Kosovar women.  

Judoka star Majlinda Kelmendi in 2013. This photograph is in the Public Domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majlinda_Kelmendi#/media/File:Memli_Krasniqi_meeting_Majlinda_Kelmendi_(cropped).JPG

In a country where gender-based discrimination is still a norm, Kosovo girls followed Majlinda’s story and saw hope and opportunity for themselves, both in sport and in life. They began to fill judo schools, win more Olympic medals for Kosovo, and succeed in other sports. “It’s very inspiring and it’s really good to know that women are now entrusted with this big responsibility, meaning that they can handle it and be successful,” she told the International Olympic Committee in 2021.^[1] Now working as a judo coach, Majlinda continues to inspire Kosovo girls to achieve judo prominence. And, women are breaking barriers in other domains: In 2021, Kosovans elected a new president, Vjosa Osmani, a woman.

Stories Matter

This example illustrates a number of themes in this unit. Stories matter: which stories, who tells them, who hears them. Stories are so important, some people do not want them told. People are storytellers and use a range of media to tell those stories. Stories come in a variety of forms: story books, news stories, personal narratives, as well as the overarching narratives people use to make sense of the world. Stories matter to individual identity and to community identity.

Whether you are talking with a friend, streaming a movie, watching a series, reading a book or graphic novel, listening to music or a podcast, or reading the news, you are engaging with stories. This unit seeks to help you understand how those stories are constructed and what they do.

The composition of stories

Stories, or narratives, are a ubiquitous symbolic structure. Obviously, not all communication is a narrative. A purely descriptive statement (e.g., the sun rises in the east), a command (e.g., open the door), or an argument (e.g., a claim supported by data) are not narratives. So, what distinguishes a story from other symbolic forms?

Professor of romance languages Gerald Prince defines narrative as “the representation of at least two real or fictive events or situations in a time sequence, neither of which presupposes or entails the other.”^[2] Stories, as a symbolic structure, organize experiences by identifying relationships between events and across time, and in doing so, creating a sense of relationship between events. Because they identify relationships, stories help people make sense of their experiences and articulate their values.

Every story has the same components: characters, actions, scenes, tools, and motives. News stories follow the formula of who, what, where, when, how, why. Movies introduce you to heroes and villains, have a sense of rising action, set the scene in space and time, show how the characters take action, and give audiences a sense of why the characters act the way they do. Video games make sure to provide the lore, or the story behind why characters, whether your character or NPCs (non-player characters), do what they do. When you tell a story to a friend, you likely set the scene, describe the relationship between the people (if not already known), and highlight some series of actions.

When analyzing media narratives, particularly fictionalized stories, two key things receive focus: Plot and character development. Plot refers to the main events, as devised by the narrator, to create a sense that the events are interrelated. A good plot tells the audience how to make sense of how the various events are related to each other. Most narratives rely on a plot that reveals information in a chronological manner, and so creates a sense that one event led to another. Sometimes, though, a plot might develop in a way so that the connection of the events may not be understood until the end of the narrative, like the recent      Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story where each episode jumped back and forth between when Charlotte was a young wife and a mature queen with grown children. Character development refers to the process of describing the actors within a story in such a way that they are as complex and nuanced as actual human beings, multi-dimensional instead of one dimensional.

When you meet a friend and ask them “how did your day go today?”, you are asking for a story. When the person asked responds with “fine” or “ok,” it doesn’t mean that nothing happened to them. It just means they haven’t developed a story about their day, or they don’t want to share that story. But, typically, you will hear an answer that puts events in relation to each other. Similarly, when people start a conversation by saying “You’ll never guess what happened to me this morning,” they are reconstructing their reality by putting it in narrative form: the scene (this morning), the action (what happened), the characters (me).

The language of visual storytelling

Different media call for different techniques of storytelling and offer different tools to develop plot and characters. In particular, narratives in film and video are propelled forward through editing: the juxtaposition of long shots, medium shots and close ups. You can think of individual shots as sentences, and sequences of shots as paragraphs. Each shot should deliver a new idea that fits into a cohesive storyline and moves it forward.

A long shot (sometimes called an “establishing shot”) sets the scene, the where and when of the events of the story. A medium shot draws attention to a particular character or object, the who and how of the action. A close up describes that character/object in terms of emotions, actions, or other details, the what and the why of the story.

Think about movies you started to watch. Were there some that immediately grabbed you and kept you watching, and others where the opening sequence of shots made you quit watching? You likely quit watching because your attention and interest were not piqued. You kept watching because the narrative elements were made clear and presented in a way that left you wanting more.

Analyzing shot construction in 117, which was one of the first Kosovo documentaries produced in 1979, or Saving Private Ryan

117: The movie represents the 24/7 daily life of a 117-member family, filmed in Kosovo, which back then was a community society with big families living under one roof. Filmed with a big 35 mm camera, the first shot is a long shot (LS) focusing on the family head who narrates his family story. The second shot is a medium shot (MS) showing the man who begins telling the story about his family. The third shot is a close up (CU), where the camera zooms in to take the close up shot to capture the moment when the man is not able to remember all the names of the kids who have been born recently. The opening sequences shift between the men sitting in a room to tell the family story and others in the yard chopping wood for winter, featuring long, medium, and close up shots of a life of a family.

Saving Private Ryan: Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) is considered to have one of cinema’s best opening sequences with its recreation of U.S. troops storming Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion of World War II. What made the sequence powerful? Critics describe it as “a masterpiece of cinematography and story that captures the horrors of war in the most visceral way.”^[3] Lasting 25 minutes, the opening sequence of shots tells a story that is an “immersion of its audience to a time period and historic moment that could never fully be understood in words alone.”^[4] The visuals and the way they are shot and edited create a powerful story.

The first shot is a long shot (LS), focusing on waves washing up onto a beach covered by hedgehogs (large crossed steel beams meant to puncture the bottom of landing vessels). The second and third shots are medium shots (MS) showing helmeted soldiers in Higgins boats being buffeted by waves, with some vomiting over the side of the boat. The third shot is a close up (CU) of a hand, shaking, then opening a canteen from which a soldier drinks; after the canteen lowers, the audience sees a close up of Tom Hanks’s character’s face. The camera then pulls back to a medium shot, where you see Hanks standing amongst many more soldiers, swaying in the waves, as another soldier vomits. The opening sequence shifts between close ups of soldiers and medium shots showing the tumult of the scene, until eventually (at two minutes in) there is a wide LS to offer more explanatory context.

A fully edited film can be broken down, shot by shot, into the visual language of LS, MS, CU, ECU – extreme close up – and more contextualizing long shots to form a scene.  Pacing (how long each shot lasts and how long each scene lasts) combined with shots (long, medium, close-up) can dramatically affect meaning. Although the opening sequence in Saving Private Ryan lasts 25 minutes (which is long for a movie), the work it does for the story and the pacing of the shots capture and keep audience attention. The opening sequence creates both the rapid pace of action during a battle (everything seems to be happening all at once) while the 25-minute length of the sequence recreates the feeling that the carnage will never end.

Power through editing and juxtaposition

Quickly edited shots and sequences accelerate tension, especially if the shots are all close ups, conveying a feeling of entrapment or suspense. In contrast, numerous slow-paced long shots side by side slow down the narrative and give room for reflection. Because timing is everything in visual narratives, film and video editors are cognizant of the visual rhythm they create between each shot, and also the visual beat within a single shot (e.g., a dog’s a wagging tale, a person walking a dog, blinking human eyes, a mad rush as the dog breaks loose after a rabbit. All these audio and visual rhythms within every shot play a role in the decisions an editor makes to add or release tension. Sometimes an editor will slow a shot down to better control the visual beat as it transfers the rhythm to the next shot. In choosing when to cut to the next shot, film and video editors will also factor in how the forms within a shot are positioned, the horizontal or vertical orientation of whatever is framed, and additional motion created by the camera (see Unit 1: Picture Composition).

Finally, the juxtaposition of extreme shots – long shot to close up; slow-paced to fast-paced; moving to still – is a chance to create a jarring scene in the narrative, one where the viewer has to work to figure out what the story is. Indeed, juxtaposition is a way to induce meaning, not through the actual content of individual shots, but through the coupling of two or more shots.

Although developed to describe camera shots, the idea of ECU, CU, MS, LS, and ELS (extreme long shot) can also describe the points of view in novels, a verbal form.

Consider the opening lines of Anton Pashku’s Kulla, a well-known writer and journalist from Kosovo.

Read the excerpt in the original version which is in Albanian and then translated in English.

Profesori po i jipte fund rrojës, kur këtij i duel gjumi. Ndejti edhe pakëz në shtrat, me sy gjysmë të mbyllun e dorë ndër krye e dikur, përtueshëm, u kthye ne krahun e djathtë, muer cigaren dhe mbasi cakriti nja dy a tri herë shkrepsën e ndezi dhe e thithi me andje të madhe. Lëshoi pastaj nji nga nji disa rrotulla tymi, që më shumë shpejt tretshin në ajrin e kabinës mjaft të vogël.

I vërente ato rrotulla që ngjiteshin përpjetë gjithnji tu e u zgjanue, tue u tëhollue dhe në fund tue humbë në atë hapësinë gadi katrore, e cila ishte e ngushtë, prnadaj jo aq e kandshme për këtë që ishte mësue me dhomën e vet të madhe plot dritë, nëpër dritaren e së cilës gjithmonë sheh disa rrema të degës së manit, e nëpër to edhe qiellin e kaltërt ose bashkat e reve të murrme. Këqyr se po e djeg bataninë,- ndjeu profesiorin që e kishte heqë shkumën e sapunit prej njanës faqe. Atë e shihte në pasqyre. Edhe flokët e tij të thime. Rrudhat nëper fytyrë.

— Profesor, — filloi me e pyetë papritmas, — katri javë që udhtojmë bashkë, por megjithate shumë pak të njoh? Profesori sëpari e largoi briskun e rrojës prej faqes dhe, tue e ishi, qeshi. Ishte hera e parë që qeshte. Gjatë tanë udhëtimit me këtë anije turistike asnjiherë deri më tash nuke kishte ndie këtë qeshje kumbuese të këtij njeriu me petka të vjetra, i cili prej çdo limani i dërgonte kartolina grues së vet. 

The professor had just finished shaving when he woke up. He stayed a little longer in bed, with his eyes half-closed and his hand on his head. At some point, lazily, he turned to his right side, took the cigarette, and after striking the match two or three times, lit it and inhaled deeply. Then, one by one, he exhaled several puffs of smoke, which quickly dissipated into the air of the rather small cabin.

He observed the puffs that rose upwards, becoming thinner and longer, curling and eventually vanishing in that almost square-shaped space, which was narrow and, therefore, not as pleasant for someone used to his large, well-lit room, through the window of which he could always see some remnants of the tree branches, and beyond, the blue sky or the scattered dark clouds. “Watch out, you’re burning the blanket,” — he heard the professor say, who had wiped the soap foam from one side of his face. He could see him in the mirror. Even his gray hair. The wrinkles across his face.

“Professor,” — he suddenly began to ask, — “we’ve been traveling together for four weeks, yet I still know very little about you?”

The professor first moved the shaving razor away from his cheek and, looking at him, laughed. It was the first time he had laughed. During the entire journey on that tourist ship, until now, he had never heard the resonant laughter of this man in old clothes, who from every port sent postcards to his wife.

If you were going to think about each sentence as a shot, would it be a close up, medium, or long shot?

Read the Albanian and English version below:

Profesori po i jipte fund rrojës (CU-plan i afërt, në storjen për profesorin që po përfundon rrojën e mjekrës dhe plani kthehet te personazhi tjetër që është gati të ngrihet nga shtrati).

Ndejti edhe pakëz në shtrat, me sy gjysmë të mbyllun e dorë ndër krye e dikur, (LS-plan i gjerë, i personazhit kryesor i shtrirë për një kohë në shtrat) përtueshëm, u kthye ne krahun e djathtë, muer cigaren dhe mbasi cakriti nja dy a tri herë shkrepsën e ndezi dhe e thithi me andje të madhe (MS -plan i mesëm,  dhe Extreme CU – plan shumë i afërt, kur personazhi zgjohet dhe fillon ta pijë cigaren e tij të parë).

Lëshoi pastaj nji nga nji disa rrotulla tymi, që më shumë shpejt tretshin në ajrin e kabinës mjaft të vogel (storja vazhdon me një seri MS të dhomës së vogël të personazhit, duke u fokusuar tek ai duke krijuar rrathë nga tymi i cigares).

I vërente ato rrotulla që ngjiteshin përpjetë gjithnji tu e u zgjanue, tue u tëhollue dhe në fund tue humbë nw atë hapësinë gadi katrore, e cila ishte e ngushtë, prnadaj jo aq e kandshme për këtë që ishte mësue me dhomën e vet të madhe plot dritë, nëpër dritaren e së cilës gjithmonë sheh disa rrema të degës së manit, e nëpër to edhe qiellin e kaltërt ose bashkat e reve të murrme, (CS në fytyrën e personazhit derisa ai mendon për dhomën e tij më të madhe (LS), pamja nga dritarja e dhomës së madhe, një LS e pamjes me shumë dritë, qiellin, pemët dhe retë (një seri LS).  Këqyr se po e djeg bataninë,- ndjeu profesiorin që e kishte heqë shkumën e sapunit prej njanës faqe (MS i profesorit në pasqyrë derisa ai ende po rruhe). Atë e shihte në pasqyre. Edhe flokët e tij të thime. Rrudhat nëper fytyrë.

— Profesor, — filloi me e pyetë papritmas, — katri javë që udhtojmë bashkë, por megjithate shumë pak të njoh (MS i dy burrave) ? Profesori sëpari e largoi briskun e rrojës prej faqes dhe, tue e ishi, qeshi (CS i profesorit duke qeshur). Ishte hera e parë që qeshte. Gjatë tanë udhëtimit me këtë anije turistike asnjiherë deri më tash nuke kishte ndie këtë qeshje kumbuese të këtij njeriu me petka të vjetra, i cili prej çdo limani i dërgonte kartolina grues së vet (WS i detit nga anija me të cilën po udhëtonin dy burrat).

The professor was finishing his shave (CU, in the story about the professor who is finishing the shaving of the beard, and the shot coming back to the other character who is about to get up from the bed).

He stayed a little longer in bed, with half-closed eyes and his hand under his head and after some time, (LS of the main character laying for some time in bed) lazily, he turned to the right side, took the

cigarette and after striking the match two or three times, he lit it and inhaled it with great pleasure (MS and Extreme CU when the character wakes up and starts smoking his first cigarette).

Then he released, one after another, several circles of smoke, which quickly dissolved into the air of the rather small cabin (the story continues with a series of MS of the character's small room, focusing on him making circles created by the smoking).

He observed those circles rising upward, constantly widening, thinning out, and in the end disappearing into that almost square space, which was narrow, therefore not so pleasant for someone who was used to his own large room full of light, through the window of which he could always see some branches of the mulberry tree, and through them also the blue sky or groups of dark clouds, (CS on the character’s face where he is thinking of his bigger room (LS) from the window of a bigger room, a LS of the view with lots of light and the sky, the trees and the clouds (a series of LS).

“Watch out, you’re burning the blanket,” — he heard the professor, who had removed the soap foam from one side of his face (MS of the professor in the mirror who was still shaving). He could see him in the mirror. Even his gray hair. The wrinkles across his face.

“Professor,” — he suddenly began to ask, — “we have been traveling together for four weeks, yet I still know very little about you” (MS of the men)?

The professor first moved the shaving razor away from his cheek and, looking at him, laughed (CS of the professor laughing). It was the first time he had laughed. During the entire journey on this tourist ship, until now, he had never heard the resonant laughter of this man in old clothes, who from every port sent postcards to his wife (WS of the sea from the ship where the two men were traveling).

Constructing implied meaning through shot juxtaposition

Russian film theorist Lev Kuleshov demonstrated the power of shot juxtaposition by coupling the same expressionless head shot footage of a prominent actor, Ivan Mozzhukhin, with three completely different film segments: first a bowl of soup; then a coffin in which lay a dead child; and finally, a woman laying on a couch. You can watch the original film here.

Kuleshov and his colleagues presented the three juxtapositions to an audience, who commented on Mozzhukhin’s superior acting ability: “the heavy pensiveness of his mood over the forgotten soup,” “the deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead woman,” and “the light happy smile with which he surveyed the girl.”^[5] Even though the head shot never changed, Kuleshov concluded that “with correct montage, even if one takes the performance of an actor directed at something quite different, it will still reach the viewer in the way intended by the editor, because the viewer himself will complete the sequence and see that which is suggested to him.”^[6] 

[Note: Another early version can be found here–this one features a girl playing]

When visual editors, meme creators, graphic designers, or artists connect two or more different elements and ask viewers to construct the narrative, as with the Kuleshov experiment, people can create meaning. Visual theorist Gretchen Barbatsis explains that “The challenge is to theorize, study, and create visual narrative in ways that we appreciate its sense-making function as a way to better understand disordered, raw experience; as a powerful way of constituting reality and not a way of merely recording it.”^[7]

An excellent (and very famous) example of juxtaposition in film is found in the final climactic scene of The Godfather. Newly appointed mafia boss Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is in a Catholic Church with his family amidst candles, a priest, and a baby. He is attending the baptism of his baby niece and has been asked to be her godfather. Meanwhile, intercut with this placid religious scene of family, candles and baby are extremely violent images of various mafia henchmen kicking down doors and killing all of Corleone’s enemies (on Corleone’s orders), as he solidifies his power. The larger meaning, through juxtaposition, is that Corleone becomes a godfather in two senses – to his niece, and to his mafia family.

The Function of Stories

The main function of narratives is to help make sense of the world. As the acclaimed novelist Joan Didion aptly began The White Album (1979), a remarkable collection of essays, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”^[9] This is why communication scholar Walter Fisher named human beings homo narrans, or the storytelling animal.^[10]

The way stories make sense of the world are diverse and complex. Sociology and history professor Margaret R. Somers summarized the vast range of functions research has identified:

…that stories guide action; that people construct identities (however multiple and changing) by locating themselves or being located within a repertoire of emplotted stories; that “experience” is constituted through narratives; that people make sense of what has happened and is happening to them by attempting to assemble or in some way to integrate these happenings within one or more narratives; and that people are guided to act in certain ways, and not others, on the basis of the projections, expectations and memories derived from a multiplicity but ultimately limited repertoire of available social, public, and cultural narratives.^[11]

Stories operate at the individual and cultural levels. They teach people how to act and how to understand others’ actions. They help people make sense of themselves and the world.

You might have memories of listening to your parents’ stories as children. You may remember being read to before going to sleep, or sitting on the floor of your second grade classroom as the teacher read a classic like Charlotte’s Web or Captain Underpants. like Captain Underpants (Kapiten Brekushi in Albanian, Kapetan Gaćeša in Serbian, Kaptan Düşükdon in Turkish language)  or Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Ditari i Gregut ne in Albanian, Dnevnik Slabaka in Serbian). School children learn stories in social studies and history classes, like the story of declaring independence, flag day and founding of the nation. People continue to share and exchange personal stories, news stories, and media narratives every day. Humans crave connection and build relationships with others through the stories they tell each other. Storytelling is an essential part of bringing meaning to people’s lives and their communities.

Stories and culture

Stories and culture also have a synergistic relationship. As stories make sense of the world, they then form culture. Culture, in turn, informs the stories told. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined culture as the “historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men [and women and people] communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.”^[12] Embedded within this definition of culture are multiple references to stories: stories are a form of transmission, are symbolic, form knowledge, and influence attitudes. Thus, stories influence who and what is valued. They define community and, so, they define who is and is not included.

For example, what stories define what it means to be Kosovan? Is it the story of the Declaration of Independence in 2008 or the story of the constantly changing “New Born” monument as Kosovo grows older each year?  Is it the story of boundaries and borders?  Is it the story of the Kosovan War (1998-1999)? Similarly, what are the stories that define Albanians, Serbians, Bosnians, Greeks, or Bulgarians? What stories unite and separate these nations that live close by and have cultural commonalities but, at the same time, threaten each other militarily? Are these stories about land? Buildings? Cultural heritage, historical monuments, or language? People?

As writer Sundus Al-Bayati notes on the stories emanating from the Sarajevo cityscape, “It’s hard to walk in Sarajevo without remembering the war, because eventually you’ll step on a ‘red rose’ or walk by a bullet-scarred wall.”^[13] 

“Sarajevo Roses” in Sarajevo were markers to designate where mortar shell explosions killed more than three people–these spots were filled in with a red resin for a permanent remembrance. Photograph taken by Superikonoskop, CC BY-SA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Markale_1.jpg.

Stories entertain (think of all the shows and movies you watch and games you play). Stories teach (Aesop’s fables are lessons on how to live; religious stories offer a similar function). Stories persuade. If you want to change a person’s mind, you need to not just present a compelling argument. You need to tell a good story. And, sometimes, for some arguments to begin to matter, people need to change the story.

Myths as master narratives

     Stories can range in scope: the simple story of how your last project went, to short stories, to novels (e.g., Doruntinë by Ismail Kadare and its film counterpart Kush e Solli Doruntinën), to epic series (e.g., The Lord of the Rings book and films), to overarching structures for understanding the world. Bigger stories whose themes, plot, and characters appear across multiple stories are called myths – the archetypal stories a society constructs to help bring order to the conflicts and contradictions of everyday life. Myths can be as old as the society itself, and endure as they are constantly retold in new forms, not unlike how the most popular stories of novels and movies get remade and reinterpreted over and over.

Communication scholar Martha Cooper defined myth as “a dramatic vision that serves to organize everyday experience and give meaning to life.”^[14] Myths are dramatic because they contain a story of conflict. Myths offer a vision that organizes life because they explain people’s relations to one another and justify particular actions and hierarchies.

Cultural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009), who studied myths in a number of global cultures, said “The essence of myths . . . is to revive a forgotten past, to apply it, like a grid, to the present in order to discover here a meaning where the two faces of history and structure coincide.”^[15] Myths are powerful because they are dramatic. Myths tell stories of conflict with heroes and villains, and offer a grid to help people organize information in a way that gives the events, people, and objects in the story a deeper layer of meaning. Rhetorical critic William Balthrop described how myths give meaning because they provide a “cultural image of perfection,”^[16] an ideal against which to judge current events. Myths enable an audience to visualize and understand what is good or evil, right or wrong, heroic or villainous.

Calling something a myth does not mean it is false. The events in a myth may never have happened, but the lessons of the myth still hold the power to teach. Writing from the perspective of communication studies, Professor Waldo W. Braden summarized political and literary theories of myth, writing:

the myth draws upon memory and imagination, that it results from a collective effort over a considerable period of time, that it represents an over-simplification of events, persons, and relationships, that its substance is more emotional than logical, and that it combines both reality and fiction. In other words it results from considerable abstracting on the part of many persons.^[17]

Sociologist A.J.M Sykes explained, given the emotional power of myth, “The actual truth or falsity of the story is irrelevant; what is important is that the story and the ideas it embodies are accepted and believed to be true.”^[18] Myths contain what become social truths.

What are some examples? Media scholar Jack Lule analyzed U.S. news stories published throughout the 1980s and 1990s and found seven recurrent myths or meta-narratives: the hero myth, the victim myth, the flood myth, the good mother myth, the scapegoat myth, the trickster myth, and the other world myth. Each myth had a set of characteristics that spanned across stories and, in the process, organized stories in a particular way. Here are three of the most common myths:

The hero myth, with its archetype of Odysseus, is characterized by the main character, the hero, coming from humble origins and the plot revolves around the hero being sent on a quest (sometimes with help), facing apparently insurmountable odds that lead them to doubt themselves, but eventually overcoming obstacles and triumphing. Lule “found the Hero myth in stories of sports stars, politicians, and corporate executives, and in other ‘success stories.’” You likely encounter this mythic form in video games.

The victim myth, with its archetype of Jesus, is characterized by stories that attempt to reconcile the randomness of the human condition. Life iinjustice of the calamity, and how either a) the victim recovers from it (in sometimes heroic fashion, tapping into the hero myth), or b) the person’s death is a sacrifice. In that case, the myth elevates the victim’s death into some greater meaning – they died for a reason. Lule found “the Victim myth narrated in accounts of senseless shootings, tragic auto accidents, and other misfortunes.”  

The flood myth, with its archetype the biblical Noah’s flood, is characterized by a calamity – a flood or some other natural or god-imposed catastrophe – that destroys an entire group of people or culture. The flood myth can sometimes be used to impugn a culture or nation (i.e., they in some way deserved it); they sometimes also become a defining moment in which a group of people came together in the face of great adversity, and can become a founding myth for a culture. Lule found “the Flood myth in stories of swollen rivers, storm-battered coasts, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.”^[19] Think about stories you have heard of small towns recovering from floods or tornados and how they participate in this narrative form.

How Myths Define Culture

Myths help a culture define people, organizations, and social norms. More concretely, myths help people define what is considered “common sense” in the culture. In other words, common sense is constructed through myths, the big stories we tell ourselves – not unlike the myths ancient Greek and Roman civilizations created.

The stories a society constructs are particularly powerful because they are taken as common sense, a given, as “the way things are” or “the way things should be” and so it becomes difficult to critique them. When these stories become widely accepted, and reinforced in official and unofficial forms, they become dominant narratives or myths and validate certain behavior above others as natural and reasonable. The fact that they are deemed “common sense” tends to quickly foreclose a discussion before there is any reasoned assessment about the ways in which societal structure, social norms, cultural traditions, or political hierarchies are not natural and given, but constructed by dominant groups. These dominant groups have the power to write, promote, and maintain the common sense stories that inform people’s lives. And it’s from these stories that ideologies are born.

Mediated myth analyzed: The Battle of Kosovo (June 15, 1389) 

Let’s consider, as an example, the story of “The Battle of Kosovo”

What do you know about that event?

What happened?

Why did the battle happen?  

Who started it?

Where did the battle happen?
Who was Lazar??  

Is Lazar known for any significant exclamations?  

What weapons, if any, did he carry?
What lessons are taught by this story?
Who was he fighting?

What weapons did they use?

Who is Millosh Kopiliq/Obiliq and where is he from?

How do you know these things about the story?  Where did you hear them?  Learn them?

Are there any other famous battles you know of in the region?  

Have you heard of Teodor Muzaka and what could have been his role in Lazar’s army?

Why, of all the battles that have been fought, is this one almost everyone has heard of?

The story of The Battle of Kosovo illustrates the fact that stories do not just happen, that myths do not materialize out of nowhere. So, how was the narrative created and what media circulated the story?

Here are the basics of what, when, and where. In 1389, on the morning of June 15 or June 28 (according to different calendars),^[24] a fierce battle occurred in the area of Fushë Kosova, a few miles to the northwest Prishtina. The Ottoman/Turkish army (an estimated 27,000-40,000 troops^[25]) headed by Sultan Murad I and his two sons, battled a smaller Serbian army (an estimated 12,000-25,000 troops), headed by Serbian Prince Lazar and supplemented by various Balkan forces. The powerful Ottoman Empire had already conquered the Central Balkan region four years earlier, so it was just a matter of time before they moved further North to conquer more of the Balkans, marching through Kosovo. At the time, the area was under control of Serbian nobles who were allied with a Bosnian king.

During the 1389 conflict, both Ottomans/Turks and Serbs suffered enormous casualties, and by the battle’s end, the Turks possessed the field. Both Sultan Murat and Prince Lazar were killed, but factually, we don’t know how and who killed them.  Indeed, everything else about the battle is uncertain, including whether the battle should be characterized as a victory or a draw. There is not a single description of the battle by any of its participants since most of the people were killed.^[26] And yet, Lazar is remembered by Serbians as a hero. Why?

Artists have memorialized the Battle through paintings like this one by Adam Stefanovič (1870). Prince Lazar is depicted on the white horse. This image is in the Public Domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kosovo#/media/File:Battle_of_Kosovo,_Adam_Stefanovič_1870.jpg

Not surprisingly, Serbian and Ottoman/Turkish accounts of the battle differed greatly. But, over the centuries, a Serbian narrative took hold to reinterpret and mythologize the Battle of Kosovo that reframed Prince Lazar and another knight as Christian heroes.

Lazar, as the myth goes, could have won the battle (and perhaps was just about to). However, instead of “an earthly victory” he “chose to die” as a Christian martyr and secure a place in the “heavenly kingdom”. The myth thus characterized all Serbs as a “chosen people” who had forged a covenant with God. Over centuries, the Battle of Kosovo’s spiritual “victory” was passed along through ten cycles of folk ballads created between 1390 and 1419, literature from the Serbian Orthodox Church (which no doubt added further references to Christianity), and oral epic poetry.

Other characters in the story were mythologized as well. In most accounts, the legendary knight Milos Oblilic/Millosh Kopiliq left the front lines, pretended to be a deserter, entered the Sultan’s tent and stabbed the Sultan to death (he was himself killed shortly afterwards).^[27] Other accounts suggest the stabber was Hungarian,^[28] and yet others say he was Albanian but it was Kobiliq who captured the Serbian imagination and was memorialized in both narrative and art throughout many centuries. It is worth mentioning that in Serbian narration, his name is Milos Obilic, in Albanian he is Millosh Kopiliq, and he is a central part of the Albanian epic songs, portraying him as a Christian Albanian and served as a source for Albanian identity in Kosovo.^[29] We can find narrations about this battle also in the famous book “Three Elegies About Kosovo” written just before the war of 1998-1999 in Kosovo by the Albanian writer Ismajl Kadare. Millosh Kopiliqi is also portrayed in media stories as an Albanian hero who comes from a village named after his last name Kopiliq, and as a hero of Kosovo who killed Sultan Murad during the Battle of Kosovo. On this topic, local historians/professors like Muhamet Mala say that in medieval times, Millosh was a typical Albanian name; it is believed that he was an Albanian noble coming from western Kosovo.^[30] 

Excerpt from the book “Three elegies about Kosovo” written by Ismail Kadare

“There were times when the peninsula seemed truly large, with enough space for everyone, for different languages and faiths, for a dozen peoples, states, kingdoms, and principalities, even for three empires, two of which, the Serbian and the Bulgarian were now in ruins, with the result that the third the Byzantine Empire, was to its disgrace, and that of all Christianity declared a Turkish vassal. This is what happened in that spring of 1389 when right after the nest that there would be a very special peace, there came other news that there was to be war, and that this war would be very special indeed.

It was said that the Albanian princes had allied themselves with Lazar of the Serbs and Tvrko of the Bosnians”.^[31]

In this 16th century painting by Nakkaş Osman, Milosh Kobiliq is getting killed by Sultan soldiers, immediately after he stabbed the Sultan“ by Nakkaş Osman”, 1584-1588, Hünername Minyatürleri ve Sanatçıları, 1969, p. 6. CC-BY-SA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Death_of_Milos_Obilic.jpg

In this 1887 painting  by Pavle Čortanović and Adam Stefanović, Milosh Kobiliq is at the tent of Sultan Murad, pretending to have just deserted his army. Attribution: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Milo%C5%A1_Obili%C4%87_posle_zavere_pred_%C5%A1atorom_Muratovim,_Pavle_%C4%8Cortanovi%C4%87_i_Adam_Stefanovi%C4%87.jpg

And in this 1989 TV drama directed by Zdravko Sotra, the characters in turbans represent Ottoman soldiers; the character about to be beheaded, played by Zarko Lausevic, is Milosh Kobiliq  This film was made for Serbian audiences. Screenshot from the 1989 TV drama Battle of Kosovo, directed by Zdravko Sotra and featuring Dusan Janicijevic, Zarko Lausevic (playing Milosh Kobiliq), Branislav Lecic, Radoslav 'Rale' Milenkovic, Ras Rastoder, Ljubo Skiljevic, Ljuba Tadic, Josif Tatic, and Velimir 'Bata' Zivojinovic.

So the 600-year-old battle, which happened in present-day Kosovo, is never told as it may have happened. Serbian narratives have glorified the battle, and this glorification culminated in 1989 when Slobodan Milosevic, then President of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, gave a speech in Gazimestan in Kosovo – the memorial site of the Battle of Kosovo. Using memory created for years by ballads and epic songs, Milosevic argued that it was the 1389 “victory” against the Ottomans, and the noble actions of Prince Lazar, that gave Serbs the honorable right to the territory. It was this meeting that mobilized people for war in the Balkans, which also led to the dismantling of Yugoslavia.

The narrative continues to define Serbian Christian nationalism and has justified more recent Serbian claims to the Kosovo state. Serbia celebrates the Battle of Kosovo every year on June 28 as a national and religious holiday.^[32]

Meanwhile, Kosovo Albanians have mythologized this story as well and have even claimed Milosh Kobiliq as their battle hero. Indeed, historians note that Albanians were more oppressed by the Turks than the Serbs under Ottoman rule.^[33] Albanians fought against the Turks in the Battle of Kosovo, and today, they take pride in the heroism of Albanian fighters (like Millosh Kopiliq). During the June 28 commemoration and ritual gathering of Serbian minorities in Kosovo, Albanians respond to the powerful Serbian mythology in the news media with opposition commentaries and competing myths. They argue that the Serbian historiography has manipulated the Battle to justify Serbian land rights, and that the true identity of Milosh Kobiliq was Albanian.^[34] However, the cultural strength of the Serbian mythology, for Albanians, can be overwhelming.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Why do stories matter? In other words, how are stories part of our dominant symbolic structure?
2. What are the main components of a story?
3. In film and video, how do long shots, medium shots, and close-ups work together to tell a story? How is this construction similar to a written story?
4. How does juxtaposition work to create additional meaning?
5. How do stories help us make sense of the world?
6. What are myths and how do they work in a culture?
7. What are some examples of myth archetypes?
8. How was the Battle of Kosovo myth created and what media continue to circulate the story?
9. How does the example of the Battle of Kosovo inform us about the always-evolving nature of myths?