Lecture by Elizabeth Gowing
From the early Kosovan silver mines that are mentioned in Dante, through the twentieth century politics over Kosovo's mines which resulted in both a war and a golf course, a silver thread winds through Kosovo's history. It's most intricate tanglings are in the country's cultural capital, Prizren, where a seventh generation of filigree artisans make magical, lacy creations from dull sticks of raw material, resulting in boxes, buttons, jewellery, religious ornaments and the talismans of superstition.
THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER
Ms Elizabeth Gowing
Studied at Magdalen College Oxford before training as a teacher and working in Lambeth, Hackney and Islington. Moved to Kosovo in 2006 and there worked with the Ethnological Museum in Prishtina and co-founded ‘The Ideas Partnership’, a charity working on education and cultural heritage projects. Speaks fluent Albanian and has translated two books (the unauthorised biography of Yugoslavia’s longest-held political prisoner, Adem Demaci, and the memoirs of one of the leaders of the 1912 uprising). Also the author of four books about Kosovo – Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo (2011), Edith and I; on the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo (2013); The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife; an unlikely friendship in Kosovo (2015) and The Silver Thread; a journey through Balkan craftmanship (2017). Regular contributor to Radio 4 (Saturday Live, Excess Baggage, From Our Own Correspondent) and the BBC World Service. Member of the advisory board of GuideKS, the NGO for Kosovan tour guides, and of the board of Faktoje, the Albanian fact-checking organisation.
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