In Northern Albania up until today so-called sworn virgins, “burneshas“ in the vernacular language, still live. A medieval corpus iuris that was orally passed down allows families who have lost their male heads – often by blood feud – to appoint a female leader instead. This requires the appointed woman to take an irrevocable vow: she must swear to preserve her virginity forever. Consequently she will be acknowledged by the family and obtains the status of a man. The sworn virgins do men’s work and dress and behave like men, but aren’t men in a sexual, but in a social sense. The sworn virgins fulfil their roles so perfectly that in time they no longer can be recognised as women by people outside their families.

Pepa Hristova, a photographer originally from Bulgaria, accompanied 13 burneshas aged 30 to 84 in Northern Albania between 2008 and 2010. Her work was published in the wonderful photo book “Sworn Virgins” (Kehrer-Verlag 2013). At Pink Apple, Pepa Hristova will be showing selected images from this book and talking about her experience.