Judeo-Spanish from the Balkans - The Recordings by Julius Subak (1908) and Max A. Luria (1927) (Standard format, CD)

In 1927, the American Max A. Luria (1891-1966) undertook linguistic field research in Monastir (present-day Bitola, FYROM) as part of his doctoral dissertation. Equipped with an Archivphonograph, he made a total of 26 recordings which - featuring proverbs and dialogues, but above all numerous konsezas (folktales) - bring to life again this particularly conservative dialect of Judeo-Spanish. The contributions by Aldina Quintana Rodriguez, Edwin Seroussi and Rivka Havassy as well as Paloma Diaz-Mas highlight the importance of these unique sound documents, especially for Judeo-Spanish dialectology, but also for the study of Sephardic music and literature. Together with the transcriptions, they constitute a valuable supplement to the recorded witnesses of a once flourishing culture on the eve of cataclysmic changes.