Prof. Alberto L’Abate, from the University of Florence, a well-known Italian peace activist, spent two years in Kosovo (1995-96) with his wife Anna Luisa Leonardi, researching the Albanian nonviolent movement and working to expand it into a process of inter-ethnic reconciliation. He founded the Embassy of Peace in Pristina.
In 1997, he edited a volume of the Italian journal Religioni e Società (29), and dedicated it to the memory of two intellectuals and peace activists, who helped him and his collaborators understand the potential for peace in Kosovo: Anton Çetta and Vladan Vasilijević.
In this volume, he published a traditional Albanian folktale, which Anton Çetta is reputed to have told President Ibrahim Rugova to strengthen his choice of a nonviolent resistance.
An Albanian knight who had won many duels bragged that he was the strongest of all the knights. But someone told him, “But you have not met Hivri. He is the strongest, and he will beat you, for sure.”
Touched in his vanity, the knight obtained the address of Hivri and set out to find him. But as soon as he met him, Hivri said that he had not been the prince of all knights for a long time, and another knight, Tigran, had taken his place. And that fighting a duel with him was not worthy, because it would have meant nothing. He should fight Tigran instead.
Persuaded, the knight obtained the address of Tigran and went to find him. But the same thing happened there, and he was sent to Victor. And so on, until they gave him the address of Vigan.
The knight, persuaded that he was finally about to fight and beat his rival to show that he was the strongest of the entire kingdom, took two traditional Albanian single-shot guns, climbed his horse and rode, looking for Vigan. When he arrived at Vigan’s house, a woman opened the door and said Vigan was not home, he was working the fields. The knight found him in the fields and asked him to fight a duel, because he wanted to show that he was the strongest. But Vigan said, “Why should I fight you? You have not done anything to me, and I don’t like to fight without a reason.”
Then he knight cursed Vigan’s mother. But Vigan laughed and said his poor mother was dead and also that a real knight would never insult a poor woman he did not even know, and who had not done anything to him. Then the knight cursed Vigan’s sister. But Vigan again laughed, and said he did not have sisters, and that a real knight would never be so vulgar and thus he was not worth a fight. Vigan was working the land with a plow pulled by two oxen.
Then the knight took one of his guns, pointed it to one of the oxen and killed it. Then Vigan said, “Well, now I am about to get really angry, but you are not worth a duel because only a brainless fellow would kill a poor animal for no reason. I will continue to work with one ox.” Than the knight took the second gun and killed the second ox. But at this point the knight had run out of ammunition, and for Vigan it would have been easy to show that he was the strongest, but the knight would not have been intelligent enough to take Vigan’s place.