Le ‘vergini giurate’ tra storia e mito

Between the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, many travelers and scholars who traveled in the mountainous areas of the Dinaric Alps of the Western Balkans have been fascinated by the presence of women, in varying degrees, masculinized: the sworn virgins or virgjineshë. The article analyses this phenomenon from a his torical-anthropological point of view, outlining its salient features and trying to trace the elements that led to its birth.