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The rare story of ballet icon Isadora Duncan: In Saranda, after the death of two children

The rare story of ballet icon Isadora Duncan: In Saranda, after the death of two children

Prepared by: Leonard Veizi

She had two sacred things and she forgave both of them to Albania. A braid once played by her two unfortunate children and a mother's locket were the most precious gifts Isadora Duncan left in the hands of the women of Sarandio in 1913.

While all the media wondered where the dance icon disappeared to after the family tragedy, the superbalerina was rebuilding her life on a battlefield. From despair to death, staying for five months on the Albanian coast, Isadora managed to find a motive to move forward. The misery and so much effort of Sarandio women to raise children gave her a divine strength to live, which she reflected in the autobiographical book years later.


Below are some passages of Isadora's memories from her days in Albania.

Albania in 1913 lived in a great chaos. Independence had just been declared. While in Paris there was talk of another tragedy. The newspapers announced the event that had taken place in the Seine, the drowning of Isadora Duncan's children, Patrick and Diedre, the governess, as well as the incessant cries of the injured driver who had not been able to save them, seeing that death directly before his eyes his…

On the cover of the magazine "Illustration" was published her photo, sitting in the room, with Patrik leaning on her and Didi naked, folded over her chest.

She stayed alone for days. He walked by the Seine, while his brother Raymond (Rajmond) followed him from afar, lest he jump and drown.

"Now I am no longer needed for anything", she said to Raimondi and her friends. I'm waiting for death to come and take me!"

Isadora then returned to her studio in Neilly.

"I thought of ending my life. How could I go on living after losing my children? The children of the ballet school I had raised surrounded me saying: "Isadora you must live for us!" Aren't we your children?... Raimondi and Penelope left for Albania, where they would work among refugees. They convinced me to go there too..." - says Isadora.

Meanwhile, on the shores of the Adriatic, the horizon glowed with warships.

Even before that, she had been through the Balkans. She had traveled along the Albanian coast, through the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea, landing in front of Preveza, this "Turkish city", as she calls it, and then towards Athens, where she was applauded so much by the Greeks and Albanians. Years had already passed.

Isadora had become one of the famous ballerinas of Europe. But this return to the Balkans was sad and painful. She was coming alone, without her children, to meet Raimondi and his wife Penelope, who had left for Albania before her. "All nature was smiling, but I could not find any consolation. Raymond returned from the depths of Albania. As usual it was all enthusiasm.

"The country is completely destroyed," he told me. "Villages have been emptied and looted, children are dying of hunger. So how can you stay thinking only about your misfortune. Come help us feed the children and give courage to these poor mothers. His speech was efficient and I followed him. He had thought of setting up an aid camp for refugees".

As Isadora testifies from her memoirs, Raimondi went to the bazaar of Corfu, where he bought wool and loaded it on a small ship and brought it to Saranda.

"But how can you feed all these poor people?", Isadora had told him upon arrival. "Only with fur?!"

But Raimondi replied: "If I brought bread, it would only be enough for one day. But, I brought fur, so that they can work for their future".

Somewhere away from the port, by the rocks, where the camp was set up, Raimondi had put up a poster: "Those who want to spin wool, will get one drachma a day".

Soon there was a long line of poor women who bought corn from the Greeks with the drachmas they received. And so the summer of 1913 flowed in Saranda.

"Albania was a strange and tragic place", she wrote later. "There is the first altar erected to Jupiter, the deity of lightning, because both in winter and summer there are storms and downpours. Dressed in capes and sandals, we traversed the country through storms. How nice it was to feel the rain running down your body."

"In Albania I witnessed many tragic scenes. Once a mother was sitting under a tree with her baby in her arms and 3-4 children who were around her hungry and homeless. Their house had been burned and her father and brother had been killed by the Turks. Their cattle had been stolen and the poor mother was left alone with her children in the middle of the four roads. Raimondi gave sacks of potatoes to these sufferers. We returned to camp tired and exhausted, but a strange happiness permeated our being. My children were lost, but there were others starving and suffering. Shouldn't I live for them?", writes Isadora in her memoirs about Albania.

For years, Isadora would have the image of the Sarandjo women, lined up by the sea weaving the white fabric while singing. The inhabitants worshiped that woman who brought them medicine from Corfu and was found on their heads; that graceful woman who was seen every morning undressing by the sea, whose body had something similar to the ancient sculptures of Butrint, a few kilometers away.

"One day I felt that I had to leave this mountainous country, full of giant rocks and all storms"...

It was a beautiful morning that autumn eve, by the Ionian Sea. The breeze was blowing. The blade of the scissors slowly cut through her braid. Suddenly she felt a shudder and realized that it was not the coolness of the morning, but the bitter memory that suddenly appeared to her, her little hands that used to play with that hair. He immediately threw his hair into the sea and the sea absorbed it into its depths. After so long, he could no longer stay in that place.

"There is a big difference between the life of an artist and the life of a saint", she will later write in the book "My Life". "The life of the artist was waking up in me again. I felt that it was impossible with my limited forces to stop that wave of misery of the Albanian refugees... I had to leave this mountainous country, full of giant rocks and stormy. I could not see that misery."

This was Isadora Duncan, the famous American ballerina of the early 20th century, who had lived a life full of events, glory, love, pain and tragedy.

She began to feel that her limbs wanted to move according to that alphabet, gesticulation and dance that she had created with so much passion and love. Eager to reappear again in the Parisian scenes, one day with tears in her eyes, she parted from those Sarandjo women, from that camp of tents and the people on the shore who had come out to escort her. The ship that came to Saranda took him to Trieste. Then he left for Paris by train. The many friends and artists who surrounded him with love, for the first time heard about Albania and the great destruction of the Balkan War. The armies of Europe and the neighbors had turned Albania into a battlefield. For days those images of rocky shores did not leave his eyes.

Isadora Duncan's real name is Dora Angela Duncan. Born in 1877 in San-Francisco, USA, she grew up in an artistic environment. Being a fan of dance, at a young age she joined theater groups in New York and then went to London with her family.

At the beginning of the 20th century, he went to Paris, where he engaged with artistic groups and connected with high personalities such as Rodin, Bourdelle, D'Annunzio, etc.

In 1913, Isadora suffered a family tragedy. Two children accidentally drown in the Seine River in Paris. The pain makes him and his older brother, Raymond Duncan, leave for Saranda, where he stays for five months in a row helping Albanian refugees during the Balkan War.

After returning to France, she starts dancing again. In 1922, he met the Russian poet, Sergei Yesenin, whom he followed in Moscow, where he married. Together they tour America, where Isadora is described as the "red" ballerina.

In 1925 Esenin kills himself, while Isadora returns to the south of France. She would die in 1927, while traveling by car, the scarf she had around her neck got caught in the wheel of the car, thus causing her death.

Isadora Duncan remains a major figure in the history of dance, as she also opened such a professional school in Paris. To this day, international competitions are organized in America and Europe, giving the "Duncan" awards.

The great Isadora Duncan sought spiritual healing in the troubled Albania of 1913: When the life of the artist awakened in me, I could not bear the wave of misery that had conquered the Albanians...
Read too The great Isadora Duncan sought spiritual healing in the troubled Albania of 1913: When the life of the artist awakened in me, I could not bear the wave of misery that had conquered the Albanians...