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Slide 2: HISTORICAL DICTIONARIES OF EUROPE Jon Woronoff, Series Editor 1. Portugal, by Douglas L. Wheeler. 1993. Out of print. See no. 40. 2. Turkey, by Metin Heper. 1994. Out of print. See no. 38. 3. Poland, by George Sanford and Adriana Gozdecka-Sanford. 1994. Out of print. See no. 41. 4. Germany, by Wayne C. Thompson, Susan L. Thompson, and Juliet S. Thompson. 1994. 5. Greece, by Thanos M. Veremis and Mark Dragoumis. 1995. 6. Cyprus, by Stavros Panteli. 1995. Out of print. See no. 69. 7. Sweden, by Irene Scobbie. 1995. Out of print. See no. 48. 8. Finland, by George Maude. 1995. Out of print. See no. 49. 9. Croatia, by Robert Stallaerts and Jeannine Laurens. 1995. Out of print. See no. 39. 10. Malta, by Warren G. Berg. 1995. 11. Spain, by Angel Smith. 1996. Out of print. See no. 65. 12. Albania, by Raymond Hutchings. 1996. Out of print. See no. 42. 13. Slovenia, by Leopoldina Plut-Pregelj and Carole Rogel. 1996. Out of print. See no. 56. 14. Luxembourg, by Harry C. Barteau. 1996. 15. Romania, by Kurt W. Treptow and Marcel Popa. 1996. 16. Bulgaria, by Raymond Detrez. 1997. Out of print. See no. 46. 17. United Kingdom: Volume 1, England and the United Kingdom; Volume 2, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, by Kenneth J. Panton and Keith A. Cowlard. 1997, 1998. 18. Hungary, by Steven Béla Várdy. 1997. 19. Latvia, by Andrejs Plakans. 1997. 20. Ireland, by Colin Thomas and Avril Thomas. 1997. 21. Lithuania, by Saulius Suziedelis. 1997. 22. Macedonia, by Valentina Georgieva and Sasha Konechni. 1998. Out of print. See no. 68. 23. The Czech State, by Jiří Hochman. 1998. Out of print. See no. 72. 24. Iceland, by Guđmunder Hálfdanarson. 1997. Out of print. See no. 66. 25. Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Ante Cuvalo. 1997. Out of print. See no. 57.
Slide 3: 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. Russia, by Boris Raymond and Paul Duffy. 1998. Gypsies (Romanies), by Donald Kenrick. 1998. Out of print. Belarus, by Jan Zaprudnik. 1998. Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, by Zeljan Suster. 1999. France, by Gino Raymond. 1998. Out of print. See no. 64. Slovakia, by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum. 1998. Out of print. See no. 47. Netherlands, by Arend H. Huussen Jr. 1998. Out of print. See no. 55. Denmark, by Alastair H. Thomas and Stewart P. Oakley. 1998. Out of print. See no. 63. Modern Italy, by Mark F. Gilbert and K. Robert Nilsson. 1998. Out of print. See no. 58. Belgium, by Robert Stallaerts. 1999. Austria, by Paula Sutter Fichtner. 1999. Out of print. See No. 70. Republic of Moldova, by Andrei Brezianu. 2000. Out of print. See no. 52. Turkey, 2nd edition, by Metin Heper. 2002. Out of print. See no. 67. Republic of Croatia, 2nd edition, by Robert Stallaerts. 2003. Out of print. See no. 74 Portugal, 2nd edition, by Douglas L. Wheeler. 2002. Out of print. See no. 73. Poland, 2nd edition, by George Sanford. 2003. Albania, New edition, by Robert Elsie. 2004. Out of print. See no. 75. Estonia, by Toivo Miljan. 2004. Kosova, by Robert Elsie. 2004. Ukraine, by Zenon E. Kohut, Bohdan Y. Nebesio, and Myroslav Yurkevich. 2005. Bulgaria, 2nd edition, by Raymond Detrez. 2006. Slovakia, 2nd edition, by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum. 2006. Sweden, 2nd edition, by Irene Scobbie. 2006. Finland, 2nd edition, by George Maude. 2007. Georgia, by Alexander Mikaberidze. 2007. Belgium, 2nd edition, by Robert Stallaerts. 2007. Moldova, 2nd edition, by Andrei Brezianu and Vlad Spânu. 2007. Switzerland, by Leo Schelbert. 2007.
Slide 4: 54. Contemporary Germany, by Derek Lewis with Ulrike Zitzlsperger. 2007. 55. Netherlands, 2nd edition, by Joop W. Koopmans and Arend H. Huussen Jr. 2007. 56. Slovenia, 2nd edition, by Leopoldina Plut-Pregelj and Carole Rogel. 2007. 57. Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2nd edition, by Ante Čuvalo. 2007. 58. Modern Italy, 2nd edition, by Mark F. Gilbert and K. Robert Nilsson. 2007. 59. Belarus, 2nd edition, by Vitali Silitski and Jan Zaprudnik. 2007. 60. Latvia, 2nd edition, by Andrejs Plakans. 2008. 61. Contemporary United Kingdom, by Kenneth J. Panton and Keith A. Cowlard. 2008. 62. Norway, by Jan Sjåvik. 2008. 63. Denmark, 2nd edition, by Alastair H. Thomas. 2009. 64. France, 2nd edition, by Gino Raymond. 2008. 65. Spain, 2nd edition, by Angel Smith. 2008. 66. Iceland, 2nd edition, by Guđmunder Hálfdanarson. 2009. 67. Turkey, 3rd edition, by Metin Heper and Nur Bilge Criss. 2009. 68. Republic of Macedonia, by Dimitar Bechev. 2009. 69. Cyprus, by Farid Mirbagheri. 2010. 70. Austria, 2nd edition, by Paula Sutter Fichtner. 2009. 71. Modern Greece, by Dimitris Keridis. 2009. 72. Czech State, 2nd edition, by Rick Fawn and Jiří Hochman, 2010. 73. Portugal, 3rd edition, by Douglas L. Wheeler and Walter C. Opello Jr., 2010. 74. Croatia, 3rd edition, by Robert Stallaerts, 2010. 75. Albania, 2nd edition, by Robert Elsie, 2010.
Slide 6: Historical Dictionary of Albania Second Edition Robert Elsie Historical Dictionaries of Europe, No. 75 The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham • Toronto • Plymouth, UK 2010
Slide 7: Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.scarecrowpress.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Robert Elsie All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Elsie, Robert, 1950Historical dictionary of Albania / Robert Elsie. — 2nd ed. p. cm. — (Historical dictionaries of Europe ; no. 75) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8108-6188-6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-7380-3 (ebook) 1. Albania—History—Dictionaries. I. Title. DR927.E44 2010 949.65003—dc22 2009040650 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America
Slide 8: Contents Editor’s Foreword Preface Readers’ Note Acronyms and Abbreviations Maps Chronology Introduction THE DICTIONARY Appendixes A. B. Albanian Heads of State and Government Albanian Political Parties and Organizations ix xi xiii xv xix xxvii li 1 503 507 509 587 Bibliography About the Author vii
Slide 10: Editor’s Foreword Historical dictionaries are useful books for all countries, but they are more essential for some than others. Albania is a case in point. Never particularly well known by outsiders under earlier regimes, it was deliberately and almost hermetically closed to the outside world during the communist era. Now it has thankfully become free again, its borders are open and it can be visited, and it is increasingly integrating with the rest of Europe and beyond. Nonetheless, it still remains relatively remote, and our knowledge of it is sparse. Worse, some of the things we think we know are wrong. So it takes a lot of effort to learn about Albania, although that was already lessened considerably by the previous edition of this Historical Dictionary of Albania, and will be even more so by the second edition. This volume takes a long view, presenting the various peoples, regimes, and rulers who shaped its earlier development and the leaders who are now seeking other, more promising directions, although not always successfully. Nonetheless, there has been progress, and it can best be seen by taking a long view, which is one of the strong points of this book. It also takes a very broad view, covering not only history and politics, but also economics and social customs, foreign policy, language, culture, and religion. And it adds a further dimension: the Albanians living outside of the country, whether in neighboring Kosovo or the more distant diaspora. Literally hundreds of entries in the dictionary section are buttressed by a list of acronyms, a chronology, and an introduction. And those who want to learn more about specific topics should consult the impressively large bibliography. Not surprisingly, the number of foreigners who know Albania is quite limited, and the number of those who have mustered any “expertise” is even more so. We were thus fortunate that both the first and second editions were written by one of that tiny circle, Robert Elsie. Dr. ix
Slide 11: x• EDITOR’S FOREWORD Elsie, along with engaging in extensive studies, has traveled widely in Albania and other places inhabited by Albanians. In recent decades, he has written some 50 books and numerous shorter works on Albania. He has also served as a translator and interpreter of Albanian, most recently before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and presently works for the Hague Tribunal. Few have gained as much insight into the region and its inhabitants, and even fewer can convey their accumulated knowledge as easily and effectively. Jon Woronoff Series Editor
Slide 12: Preface This revised edition of the Historical Dictionary of Albania updates the reader with information on Albania and the Albanians up to the middle of 2009. Compiling a historical dictionary for a whole country, even for a small one like Albania, is a major undertaking. Compiling a historical dictionary for a country as traditionally reclusive as Albania is even more of a daunting task, in particular because there is still no objective and reliable historiography in Albania upon which such a work can be based. Decades of politically motivated censorship and self-censorship, combined with generations of nationalist thinking, have given rise to many myths and misconceptions. It has been difficult for Albanian historians and scholars to set aside the standard fare of hero glorification and turn their backs on pompous assertions of national grandeur. Albanian history abounds with myths, which have served to disguise the inferiority complexes of a small and underdeveloped people, but on the other hand, they have also helped to hold the nation together in times of crisis. Poet Dritëro Agolli described Albania as a country that has produced more heroism than grain. The few foreign historians who have dealt in depth with Albanian history and have published in this field have proven to be more trustworthy, working as they do from an objective distance. Nonetheless, some erroneous claims and naive views still pass from hand to hand. A full-length, comprehensive, and reliable history of Albania has yet to be written. The present work does not endeavor to fill the void, but only to offer the reader basic, factual information on the country, its historical development, its current situation, and the culture of its people. The majority of the ca. 750 entries in this Historical Dictionary of Albania are about people. They comprise not only figures of Albanian history, but also contemporary public figures and political leaders in xi
Slide 13: xii • PREFACE Albania, as well as individuals, Albanian and foreign, who have made notable contributions to Albanian studies and culture. The Historical Dictionary of Albania thus endeavors to provide a comprehensive overview, not only of Albanian history, but also of contemporary Albania as it enters the 21st century, focusing on both the past and a modern European nation struggling to put its formidable Stalinist past and underdevelopment behind it. It must not be forgotten that, for half a century, Albania was a planet of its own, isolated from the rest of Mother Earth. Since the fall of the communist regime, the Albanians have been striving, not without difficulty, to find their place among the nations of Europe. Robert Elsie The Hague, The Netherlands
Slide 14: Reader’s Note The Albanian alphabet contains a number of sounds (treated as individual letters of the alphabet) that have a special graphic representation: c (“ts” as in Engl. “bits”), ç (“ch” as in Engl. “child”), dh (a voiced “th” as in Engl. “this”), ë (a schwa vowel like the “e” in “father” or the “a” in “about”; it can be stressed), gj (a voiced palatal plosive, something like “d” + “y” together), j (as in Engl. “yes”), l (a palatal “l” as in Italian “voglio”), ll (a velar “l” as in English “table”), nj (a palatal “n” as in “cognac”), q (a voiceless palatal plosive, something like “ch” + “y” together), r (a simple flapped “r” as in Spanish “pero”), rr (a rolled “r” as in Spanish “perro”), sh (as in English “she”), th (a voiceless “th” as in Engl. “think”), x (“dz” as in “foods”), xh (“j” as in Engl. “jam”), y (a high round vowel as in French “tu,” German “grün”), and zh (as in Engl. “measure,” “Brezhnev”). Albanian users of this volume should note that the entries are listed according to the English, not the Albanian, alphabet. Albanian nouns and place-names often cause confusion because they can be written with or without the postpositive definite article, e.g., Tirana vs. Tiranë and Elbasani vs. Elbasan. In line with recommended international usage for Albanian toponyms, feminine place-names appear here in the definite form and masculine place-names in the indefinite form, thus: Tirana, Vlora, Prishtina, and Shkodra rather than Tiranë, Vlorë, Prishtinë, and Shkodër; Elbasan, Durrës, and Prizren rather than Elbasani, Durrësi, and Prizreni. Exceptions are made for tribal designations and regions for which English forms such as Hoti, Kelmendi, and Shkreli are better known. In this connection, reference is made to political leader Ahmet Zogu, but when he became king of Albania, to King Zog, in line with common usage. Finally, a word on the term Kosovo/Kosova. The first edition of this dictionary and of our Historical Dictionary of Kosova, both published xiii
Slide 15: xiv • READER’S NOTE in 2004, gave preference to the Albanian form Kosova over the traditional Kosovo. Since the country’s independence in February 2008, it has called itself the Republic of Kosovo in line with traditional international usage. For this reason, we have adopted the form Kosovo for this edition. The birth and death dates given for people are provided in the international day/month/year system. Cross-references in the dictionary entries are printed in bold or are listed at the end of the entry.
Slide 16: Acronyms and Abbreviations AACL AANO AD APC AVC BBC BCS BF CSCE DBSH EU FAC FRESSH FYROM G99 KESH KLA KONARE kV kWh LDK LSI LZHK Albanian–American Civic League Albanian–American National Organization Aleanca Demokratike (Democratic Alliance) Albanian Communist Party American Vocational School British Broadcasting Corporation Bosnian–Croatian–Serbian (language) Bashkimi për Fitore (Union for Victory) Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe E Djathta e Bashkuar Shqiptare (United Albanian Right) European Union Free Albania Committee Forumi i Rinisë Eurosocialiste Shqiptare (Forum of Albanian Euro-Socialist Youth) Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Group 99 Korporata Elektroenergjetike Shqiptare (Albanian Electrical Energy Corporation) Kosovo Liberation Army Komiteti Nacional Revolucionar (National Revolutionary Committee) kilovolt kilowatt-hours Lidhja Demokratike e Kosovës (Democratic League of Kosovo) Lëvizja Socialiste për Integrim (Socialist Movement for Intregration) Lëvizja për Zhvillim Kombëtar (Movement for National Development) xv
Slide 17: xvi • ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS MW NAAC NATO OSCE PAA PAD PALSH PASH PBD PBDKSH PBDNJ PBK PBKD PBKSH PBKSH PBL PBRSH PBSD PBSH PD PDD PDI PDK PDR PDS megawatt National Albanian American Council North Atlantic Treaty Organization Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Partia Agrare Ambientaliste (Agrarian Environmentalist Party) Partia Aleanca Demokratike (Democratic Alliance Party) Partia Alternativa Liberale Shqiptare (Albanian Liberal Alternative Party) Partia Agrare Shqiptare (Albanian Agrarian Party) Partia Bashkimi Demokratik (Democratic Union Party) Partia Bashkimi Demokristian Shqiptar (Albanian Christian Democratic Union Party) Partia Bashkimi për të Drejtat e Njeriut (Union for Human Rights Party) Partia Balli Kombëtar (National Front Party) Partia Balli Kombetar Demokrat (Democratic National Front Party) Partia Bashkësia Kombëtare Shqiptare (Albanian National Unity Party) Partia e Bashkuar Komuniste Shqiptare (United Albanian Communist Party) Partia Bashkimi Liberal (Liberal Union Party) Partia Bashkimi Republikan Shqiptar (Albanian Republican Union Party) Partia Bashkimi Socialdemokrat (Social Democratic Union Party) Partia e Biznesit Shqiptar (Albanian Business Party) Partia Demokratike (Democratic Party) Partia e Djathtë Demokrate (Democratic Right Party) Partia për Drejtësi dhe Integrim (Party for Justice and Integration) Partia Demokristiane e Shqipërisë (Christian Democratic Party of Albania) Partia Demokratike e Re (New Democratic Party) Partia Demokracia Sociale e Shqipërisë (Social Democracy Party of Albania)
Slide 18: ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS • xvii PDSH PESH PFA PKONS PKSH PLD PLFSH PLL PL Mona. PLPSH PMP PPD PPK PPSH PRDSH PRSH PSDSH PSHA PSI PSKSH PSSH PUKSH Partia Demokratike e Shqipërisë (Democratic Party of Albania) Partia e Emigracionit Shqiptar (Albanian Emigration Party) Partia Forca Albania (Forca Albania Party) Partia Konservatore (Conservative Party) Partia Komuniste Shqiptare (Albanian Communist Party) Partia Lëvizja për Demokraci (Movement for Democracy Party) Partia Lidhja Fshatare Shqiptare (Albanian Rural League Party) Partia Lëvizja e Legalitetit (Movement for Legality Party) Partia Lëvizja Monarkiste Demokrate Shqiptare (Albanian Democratic Monarchist Movement Party) Partia Lëvizja Punëtore Shqiptare (Albanian Labor Movement Party) Partia e Mirëqenies Popullore (People’s Welfare Party) Partia Progresi Demokratik (Democratic Progress Party) Partia e Pajtimit Kombëtar Shqiptar (Albanian National Reconciliation Party) Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë (Party of Labor of Albania) Partia Reformatore Demokratike Shqiptare (Albanian Democratic Reform Party) Partia Republikane Shqiptare (Albanian Republican Party) Partia Socialdemokrate e Shqipërisë (Social Democratic Party of Albania) Partia Shqiptare Ambientaliste (Albanian Environmentalist Party) Partia Socialiste për Integrim (Socialist Party for Integration) Partia Socialkristiane Shqiptare (Albanian Social Christian Party) Partia Socialiste e Shqiperisë (Socialist Party of Albania) Partia e Unitetit Kombëtar Shqiptar (Albanian National Unity Party)
Slide 19: xviii • ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS SAP SHIK SHISH SOE TOB UÇK UÇK UCLA UÇPMB UNDP UNESCO UNMIK UNRRA VOA Stabilization and Association Process (European Union) Shërbimi Informativ Kombetar (National Information Service) Shërbimi Informativ Shtetëror (State Information Service) Special Operations Executive Teatri i Operas dhe Baletit (Opera and Ballet Theater) Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës (Kosovo Liberation Army) Ushtria Çlirimtare Kombëtare (National Liberation Army) in Macedonia University of California in Los Angeles Ushtria Çlirimtare e Preshevës, Medvegjës e Bujanovcit (Liberation Army of Presheva, Medvegja, and Bujanovc) United Nations Development Programme United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization United Nations Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Voice of America
Slide 20: Albania and surrounding countries.
Slide 21: Albania on a map by Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola, 1684.
Slide 22: Northern Albania and the Drin estuary on a map by Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola, 1684.
Slide 23: Map of the Drin Valley, by Vincenzo Coronelli, 1688.
Slide 24: Albania on a map of Turkey-in-Europe (Turecko Evropské), by Jan Vaclík in Prague, 1859.
Slide 25: Map of the newly created Albanian state, contrasted with Albanian-settled territory, 1913.
Slide 26: Proposed borders for the new Albanian State in 1912–1913. Published in Ernest Christian Helmreich: The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, 1912–1913 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938)
Slide 27: Hungarian map of occupied Albania, used by Georges Clemenceau at the Paris Peace Conference on 14 January 1920.
Slide 28: Chronology EARLY ALBANIA (TO 1416) 7th century BC Greek colonization of Epidamnos (Durrës) and Apollonia. 272 BC Death of Pyrrhus, king of the Molossi, in Epirus. 229 BC Rome declares war on Illyria and sends military forces to the Balkans for the first time. Durrës comes under Roman protection. 227 BC Illyrian queen Teuta of Lezha surrenders to Roman forces. 168 BC Roman forces vanquish Genthius, the last Illyrian king of Shkodra. 48 BC Naval battle between Julius Caesar and Pompey off the coast of Durrës during the first Roman civil war. 395 AD Illyricum divided between east and west. The provinces of Moesia, Dardania, and Epirus become part of the Byzantine Empire. ca. 600 AD 851 1018 Slavic invasion and settlement of Albania. Bulgarian invasion of Albania. Expulsion of the Bulgarians and restoration of Byzantine rule. 1038 First reference to the existence of the Albanians by Byzantine historian Michael Attaleiates. 1043 Shkodra conquered by the Slavic rulers of Montenegrin Zeta. 1054 Albanian territory divided by the great schism between western Roman Catholicism and eastern Byzantine Orthodoxy. xxvii
Slide 29: xxviii • CHRONOLOGY 1081–1085 Norman reign in Albania. Robert Guiscard de Hauteville, Duke of Apulia (r. 1057–1085), lays siege to Durrës in 1081 and defeats the Byzantine emperor there. 1096 nia. 1180 Armies of the First Crusade pass through and devastate AlbaShkodra taken over by the Serb dynasty of Stephen Nemanja. 1190 Founding of the medieval state of Arbanon with its capital in Kruja. 1204 Arbanon attains full, though temporary, political independence after the pillage of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. 1205 1248 Venetian forces take possession of Durrës. Monks of the Franciscan Order arrive in Albania. 1257 Reference by Byzantine historian George Acropolites to an Albanian uprising. 1267 Severe earthquake in Durrës recorded by Byzantine historian George Pachymeres. 1272 Charles of Anjou (1226–1285), having landed in Vlora in 1269, proclaims the kingdom of Albania (regnum Albaniae). 1285 Earliest reference to the Albanian language, in Dubrovnik. 1308 “Anonymous Description of Eastern Europe,” containing an account of Albania. 1322 Irish monk Simon Fitzsimmons visits Albania. 1332 Directorium ad passagium faciendum (Directive for Making the Passage), containing a detailed description of Albania. 1343–1355 Serb reign in Albania under Stephan Dushan. 1359–1388 Reign of Charles Thopia as prince of Albania (princeps Albaniae). 1385 18 September: Battle of Savra marks the beginning of Turkish involvement in Albania.
Slide 30: CHRONOLOGY • xxix 1389 28 June: The Turks defeat a coalition of Balkan forces under Serbian leadership at the Battle of Kosovo Polje and establish themselves as masters of the Balkans. 1392 Durrës conquered by the Venetians. ALBANIA IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE (1393–1912) 1393 1396 1405 1415 1417 1419 Shkodra overrun by the Turks. Shkodra reconquered by the Venetians. Birth of Scanderbeg. Fortress of Kruja conquered by the Turks. Vlora, Kanina, and Berat are conquered by the Turks. Gjirokastra conquered by the Turks. 1431 Founding of the Ottoman sandjak of Albania (Sancak-i Arnavid). 1432 George Arianiti begins his uprising against the Turks. 1438 Scanderbeg appointed military commander of the fortress of Kruja. 1443–1468 1448 1462 1466 1468 1478 1479 1492 1495 Uprising of Scanderbeg. Albanian refugees begin settling in southern Italy. Baptismal formula recorded in Albanian. Sultan Mehmet reconstructs the fortress of Elbasan. 17 January: Death of Scanderbeg. Kruja falls to the Turks. January: Shkodra falls to the Turks after a long siege. Construction of the Sultan Mosque of Berat. Construction of the Mirahor Mosque of Korça.
Slide 31: xxx • CHRONOLOGY 1497 Pilgrimage of Arnold von Harff, recording a description of Durrës and notes on the Albanian language. 1501 Durrës falls to the Turks. 1504 Shkodra historian Marinus Barletius publishes De obsidione Scodrensi (On the Siege of Shkodra). 1515 Chronicle of John Musachi. 1531 Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent constructs a fortress in Vlora. 1532–1533 Albanians in the Morea (Peloponnese) flee to Italy after Turkish encroachments. 1537–1542 Construction of the Murad Mosque of Vlora. 1555 The missal of Gjon Buzuku, the first Albanian-language book, published. 1591 Journey of Venetian ambassador Lorenzo Bernardo through Albania. 1592 Albanian-language “Christian Doctrine” written by Italo–Albanian priest Leke Matrënga. 1610 Visit to northern Albania by Marino Bizzi, Catholic archbishop of Bar. 1614 Description of the Sandjak of Shkodra, including Kelmendi territory, by Italian diplomat Mariano Bolizza. 1618 Albanian-language “Christian Doctrine” written by Pjetër Budi. 1621 Pjetër Budi, Catholic bishop of Sapa and Sarda in northern Albania, calls for an uprising against the Turks. 1635 1670 Latin–Albanian dictionary published by Frang Bardhi. Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visits southern Albania. 1685 Albanian-language Cuneus Prophetarum published by Pjeter Bogdani.
Slide 32: CHRONOLOGY • xxxi 1703 14–15 January: Albanian Council (Kuvendi i Arbënit) held near Lezha. 1716 mar. Francesco Maria da Lecce publishes the first Albanian gram- 1725 The earliest Albanian-language poem written in Arabic script, by Muçi Zade. 1731 ems. Nezim Frakulla prepares his Albanian-language divan of po- 1732 Founding of the Corsini Seminary in San Benedetto Ullano in Calabria. 1740 Gjon Nikollë Kazazi discovers Buzuku’s Meshari in Rome. 1744 Founding of the Orthodox New Academy or Hellênikon Frontistêrion as a center of learning in Voskopoja. 1744–1746 Italy. 1757–1775 Albanian settlement in Villa Badessa near Pescara in Dynasty of Mehmed Bushatlliu, pasha of Shkodra. 1762 Giulio Variboba from Calabria publishes Albanian-language Life of the Virgin Mary. 1773–1774 Construction of the Lead Mosque of Shkodra. 1774 Albanian settlement in Brindisi di Montagna near Potenza in Italy. 1777 Nicola Chetta of Palermo in Sicily composes the first-known Albanian sonnet. 1778–1796 Reign of Kara Mahmud, pasha of Shkodra, in northern Albania. 1787–1822 Reign of Ali Pasha Tepelena, the Lion of Janina, in southern Albania and Epirus. 1793–1794 1811–1832 1822 Construction of the Et’hem Bey Mosque in Tirana. Reign of Mustafa Pasha Bushatlliu of Shkodra. 5 February: Death of Ali Pasha Tepelena in Janina.
Slide 33: xxxii • CHRONOLOGY 1827 Publication of a bilingual Albanian–Greek edition of the New Testament in Corfu. 1836 Girolamo De Rada publishes the first edition of his best-known Albanian-language poem, the “Songs of Milosao.” 1839 3 November: Beginning of Tanzimat reform in the Ottoman Empire. Resistance in Albania to compulsory military service. 1845 Publication of Naum Veqilharxhi’s Very New Albanian Spelling Book for Elementary Schoolboys. 1848 Publication in Naples of l’Albanese d’Italia, the first Albanian newspaper. 1854 Publication of Albanesische Studien (Albanian Studies) by Johann Georg von Hahn, father of Albanian studies. 1855 Founding of the Franciscan school in Shkodra, the first school in which Albanian was taught. 1859 Opening by the Jesuits of the Albanian Pontifical Seminary (Kolegjia Papnore Shqyptare) in Shkodra. 1861 Founding of a Franciscan seminary in Shkodra. 1872 Kostandin Kristoforidhi translates the New Testament into Gheg dialect. 1876 2 July: Serbia and Montenegro declare war on Turkey. 1877 Founding of the College of St. Francis Xavier, also known as the Saverian College (Kolegja Saveriane), in Shkodra. December: Founding of the Komitet qendror për mbrojtjen e të drejtave të kombësisë shqiptare (Central Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Albanian People) in Constantinople. 1878 Pashko Vasa writes his stirring nationalist poem “O moj Shqypni” (“Oh Albania, Poor Albania”). 3 March: Treaty of San Stefano. 10 June: Founding of the League of Prizren. 13 June–13 July: Congress of Berlin. 1881 Turkish forces occupy Prizren and disperse the League of Prizren.
Slide 34: CHRONOLOGY • xxxiii 1883 Girolamo De Rada founds the bilingual monthly journal Fiàmuri Arbërit-La bandiera dell’Albania (The Albanian Flag). 1884 August: Albanian-language periodical Drita (The Light) published in Istanbul. 1886 Naim bey Frashëri publishes his verse collection, Bagëti e bujqësija (Bucolics and Georgics). 1887 7 March: Opening of the first Albanian-language school, in Korça. 1891 First Albanian girls’ school founded in Korça. 1899 Sami bey Frashëri publishes his manifesto, Shqipëria-ç’ka qënë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhetë? (Albania—What It Was, What It Is and What Will Become of It?). 1899–1900 League of Peja. 1901 Founding of the Agimi (The Dawn) cultural society by Ndre and Lazar Mjeda. 1908 February: Founding by Fan Noli of the Albanian Autocephalic Orthodox Church in Boston. July: Young Turk revolution. 14–22 November: Congress of Monastir sets forth a common Albanian alphabet. 1909–1912 Uprisings in northern Albania and Kosovo. 1909 Founding of the Boston weekly Dielli (The Sun) by Fan Noli and Faik bey Konitza. 1 December: Opening of the Normal School (Shkolla Normale) in Elbasan, Albania’s first teacher-training college. 1912 28 April: Founding in Boston of the Pan-Albanian Vatra (The Hearth) federation. 8 October: Beginning of the first Balkan War. INDEPENDENT ALBANIA (1912–1944) 1912 28 November: Ismail Qemal bey Vlora declares Albanian independence in Vlora.
Slide 35: xxxiv • CHRONOLOGY 1913 22 April: The citadel of Shkodra, the last Turkish stronghold in the Balkans, is abandoned by Ottoman forces. 30 May: End of the first Balkan War and peace treaty in London. 5 July: Formation of a provisional government with Ismail Qemal bey Vlora as prime minister. 29 July: Albanian independence recognized at the Conference of Ambassadors in London. 16 October: Essad Pasha Toptani forms a government in Durrës. 1 November: German Prince Wilhelm zu Wied agrees to accept the Albanian throne. 1914 7 March: Arrival of Prince Wilhelm zu Wied in Durrës to take the throne. 1914–1918 World War I. Albania invaded and occupied by seven foreign armies: Austrian, Italian, Greek, Serbian, Montenegrin, French, and Bulgarian. 1914 3 September: Departure of Prince Wilhelm zu Wied from Albania. 30 October: Italian troops occupy the island of Sazan. 26 December: Italian troops occupy Vlora. 1916 Austro–Hungarian troops occupy northern and central Albania. Albanian Literary Commission (Komisija Letrare Shqype) set up in Shkodra by the Austro–Hungarian administration. 10 December: French forces proclaim the autonomous Republic of Korça. 1918 February: End of the autonomous Republic of Korça. 1919 Formation of the Bogdani Theater Company in Shkodra. 18 January: Beginning of the Paris Peace Conference. 29 July: Tittoni– Venizelos agreement for the partitioning of Albania. 1920 28–31 January: Congress of Lushnja and beginning of first genuinely independent Albanian government, with its seat in Tirana. 8 February: Tirana becomes capital of Albania. 15 May: Kapshtica agreement, by which Greece renounces possession of Korça. 5 June: Beginning of the battle for Vlora. 13 June: Assassination of Essad Pasha Toptani in Paris. 17 December: Albania, represented by Fan Noli, joins the League of Nations. 1921 Growing conflict between Fan Noli and Ahmet Zogu.
Slide 36: CHRONOLOGY • xxxv 1922 Founding of the Albanian Publishing Society (Shoqeria botonjesé shqipetaré) in Cairo, headed by Milo Duçi. 2 December: Ahmet Zogu becomes prime minister for the first time. 1923 Population census shows 817,460 people in Albania. 21 November: Fan Noli consecrated Bishop of Korça and Metropolitan of Durrës. 1924 23 February: Ahmet Zogu shot and wounded in Tirana. 20 April: Revolutionary Avni Rustemi shot and killed in Tirana. 30 April: Funeral of Avni Rustemi in Vlora marks the beginning of the so-called Democratic Revolution. 16 June: Bishop Fan Noli as prime minister officially forms a government. 24 December: Ahmet Zogu takes over power in Albania in a coup d’état, thus putting an end to the liberal Noli administration. 1925–1939 Albania under Ahmet Zogu, alias King Zog. 1925 21 January: Albania declared a republic. 31 January: Ahmet Zogu becomes president of Albania. 7 March: New Albanian constitution. 15 March: Albanian national bank founded, with its headquarters in Rome. 18 July: Parliament authorizes territorial concessions to Yugoslavia. 1926 27 November: First Pact of Tirana ensures Italian predominance in Albanian affairs. 1927 22 November: Second Pact of Tirana ensures Italian military influence in Albania. 1928 1 September: Ahmet Zogu proclaimed king of the Albanians. 1 December: Constitution of the Kingdom of Albania (Mbretnija Shqiptare). 1930 13 April: Law on agrarian reform passed. 1934 23 June: Italian fleet pays a visit on Durrës in a show of strength. 1935 14–15 August: Anti-Zogist demonstrations in Fier. 1936 19 March: 12 economic and financial agreements and a secret military agreement are signed with Italy.
Slide 37: xxxvi • CHRONOLOGY 1937 Gjergj Fishta publishes the definitive edition of Lahuta e malcís (The Highland Lute), a 15,613-line historical verse epic. 27 April: King Zog marries the Hungarian–American countess Geraldine Apponyi. 1938 28 November: First transmission of Radio Tirana. World War II. 1939–1945 1939 5 April: Queen Geraldine gives birth to a son, Leka, in Tirana, before the royal family flees to Greece. 7 April: Italian invasion of Albania. 12 April: Albanian parliament offers the crown of Scanderbeg to King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, thus making the latter king of Albania in “personal union.” 16 April: Italian ambassador, Francesco Jacomoni di San Savino, appointed viceroy (Ital. luogotenente generale) of Albania. 23 April: Albanian Fascist Party (Partia Fashiste Shqiptare) founded as the only legal political organization. 1940 28 October: Beginning of the Italian invasion of Greece. 1941 6 April: German troops invade Yugoslavia and Greece. 12 April: Reunification of Kosovo with Albania. 17 May: Assassination attempt made in Tirana on the life of King Victor Emmanuel III by the young revolutionary, Vasil Llaçi (1922–1941). 29 June: Greater Albania proclaimed by Benito Mussolini. 8 November: Creation of the Albanian Communist Party. 1942 16 September: Conference of Peza proclaims the national liberation struggle. November: Founding of the Balli Kombëtar resistance movement. 1943 1–3 August: Communist and nationalist resistance movements agree in Mukja to cooperate. 8 September: Italy capitulates. Albania occupied by German troops. 5 November: Government of Rexhep bey Mitrovica, under German occupation, declares Albania’s neutrality in the war. 21 November: Founding of the Legality movement. 1944 24–28 May: Antifascist congress of national liberation meets in Përmet. 2 October–29 November: German troops withdraw from Albania.
Slide 38: CHRONOLOGY • xxxvii COMMUNIST ALBANIA (1944–1990) 1944 28 November: Communist forces under Enver Hoxha take control of Tirana. 29 November: Last German troops leave Albania. 1945 March: Beginning of open persecution of the Catholic Church. 22 March: Special tax of 7,250,000,000 lek imposed on businessmen for supposed war profits; liquidates the middle class in Albania. 29 April: Yugoslavia becomes the first country to recognize the new communist regime. August: Beginning of agrarian reform. 7 October: First writers’ conference and founding under Sejfulla Malëshova of the Albanian Writers’ Union. 10 November: Establishment of diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union. 2 December: First parliamentary elections under communist rule. 1946 5 January: Compulsory military service introduced. 11 January: People’s Republic of Albania formally established. 17 January: Government closes down all Catholic cultural institutions and begins mass arrest of priests. 15 February: Nationalization of all Italian companies. 19 February: Expulsion from Albania of all non-Albanian priests. 23 June–2 July: Enver Hoxha pays official visit to Belgrade. 9 July: Treaty on friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance with Yugoslavia signed. 22 October: Corfu Channel incident. 15 November: U.S. mission withdraws from Albania because new government refuses to recognize prewar agreements between the two countries. 27 November: Treaty on a customs union with Yugoslavia signed. 1947 Implementation of agrarian reform and state planning for the economy. 10 February: Peace treaty with Italy signed; return of the island of Sazan. 10 July: Albanian government rejects the Marshall Plan. 14–26 July: Enver Hoxha meets Joseph Stalin in Moscow for the first time. Loan agreement with the Soviet Union. 9 August: Introduction of forced labor throughout the country. 28 September: sixteen people sentenced to death, accused of spying for the United Kingdom and the United States with the intention of overthrowing the regime. Others are sentenced to prison. 7 November: Railway line from Durrës to Peqin inaugurated.
Slide 39: xxxviii • CHRONOLOGY 1948–1961 Alliance with the Soviet Union. 1948 28 June: Yugoslavia expelled from the Cominform after Warsaw conference of communist parties. 30 June: Albania renounces all economic agreements with Yugoslavia. 27 September: Trade and loan agreement signed with the Soviet Union. 3 October: Koçi Xoxe fired as deputy prime minister and later denounced as an anti-Marxist, a Trotskyite, and a Titoist. 8–22 November: First congress of the Albanian communist party, which is renamed the Party of Labor. ProYugoslav faction in the party eliminated. 1949 1 January: Introduction of rationing. 23 February: Railway line from Durrës to Tirana inaugurated. 21 March–11 April: Second meeting between Enver Hoxha and Stalin. Trade and loan agreement signed with the Soviet Union. 3 May: Diplomatic relations established with Italy. 11 May: Beginning of the trial of Koçi Xoxe and conclusion of the political witch hunts in Albania. 2 June: National assembly approves a two-year plan for 1949–1950. 11 June: Koçi Xoxe executed. 2 August: Anticommunist forces attempt to infiltrate Albania from Greece. 26 August: Anticommunist parties in Paris form National Committee for a Free Albania, headed by Mid’hat bey Frashëri. October: Third conference of the Albanian Writers’ Union introduces Zhdanovism and Soviet literary models. 12 November: Yugoslavia renounces the pact of friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance. 26 November: Third meeting between Enver Hoxha and Stalin, in Sukhumi on the Black Sea. 26 November: Law on religious communities passed, obliging them to show allegiance to the “people’s power.” 15 December: International Court of Justice rules that Albania must pay £843,947 in damages to the United Kingdom as a result of the Corfu Channel incident. 1950 5 January: Fourth meeting between Enver Hoxha and Stalin, in Moscow. 11 October: Yugoslavia breaks diplomatic ties with Albania. 21 December: Railway line from Peqin to Elbasan inaugurated. 1951 19 February: Bomb explodes outside Soviet legation in Tirana. A wave of arrests and purges in the Party of Labor ensue. 2 April: Fifth and last meeting between Enver Hoxha and Stalin, in Moscow. 30 July: Law on the statute of the Catholic Church passed, forcing it to sever all ties with the Vatican. 2 November: Three institutes of higher education
Slide 40: CHRONOLOGY • xxxix established in Tirana: the pedagogical institute, the polytechnic, and the agricultural institute. 1952 April: Second party congress. Adoption of the first five-year plan (1951–1955). 10 July: New Albania Film Studios open. 1953 5 March: Death of Stalin commemorated in Albania. 22 December: Resumption of diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia. 1954 20 July: Mehmet Shehu becomes prime minister. 1955 Purge of Tuk Jakova and Bedri Spahiu on charges of revisionism. March: Albania rejects an offer from President Eisenhower for US$850,000 in food aid. 14 May: Albania becomes a founding member of the Warsaw Pact. 18 July: Unofficial meeting between Enver Hoxha and Nikita Khrushchev. 14 December: Albania joins the United Nations. 1956–1960 1956 1957 Second five-year plan. October: Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu travel to China. 16 September: Founding of the University of Tirana. 1958 8 February: Agreement reached with Greece to clear mines in the Corfu Channel. 1959 24 April: Trial of Catholic priests and laymen in Shkodra ends in death sentences. 25 May-4 June: Nikita Khrushchev visits Albania. 1960 5–8 September: Koço Tashko expelled from the party and Liri Belishova expelled from the Central Committee. Ramiz Alia appointed secretary to the Central Committee. 10 November–1 December: Conference of 81 communist and workers’ parties in Moscow, during which Enver Hoxha denounces Khrushchev’s policies in a speech on 16 November. 1961–1965 1961–1978 Third five-year plan. Alliance with the People’s Republic of China. 1961 2 February: Economic, loan, and trade agreement with China signed. March: Soviet Union breaks off food aid to Albania. 15–27 May: A number of high-ranking officers are tried for plotting against the government. 9 April: Death of King Zog in Suresnes near Paris.
Slide 41: xl • CHRONOLOGY 3 December: Rupture of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union; beginning of a blockade by the Comecon countries. 1962 2 June: Democratic Front wins 99.99 percent of votes in parliamentary elections, with 99.99 percent participation. 1964 10–17 January: Visit to Albania by Chinese prime minister Chou En-lai. 1965 24 December: Party campaign against “bureaucracy.” Fourth five-year plan. 1966–1970 1966 March: “Revolutionization” of Albanian culture in the wake of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which had begun in November 1965. The highest wages are reduced and military ranks are eliminated. Thousands of white-collar workers, including many writers and artists, volunteer to be sent to the countryside to work the land with the peasants. November: Fifth party congress sets about to intensify class struggle by making manual labor in the production sectors of the economy obligatory for everyone. 1967 6 February: Speech by Enver Hoxha in Tirana to revolutionize the country. Beginning of the campaign against religion. All churches and mosques closed down. 29 April: Private gardens are forbidden. 19 July: Personal income tax abolished. 30 November: Earthquake in Dibra and Librazhd. 1968 13 September: Albania withdraws from the Warsaw Pact after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. 1969 April: End of the “revolutionization” campaign in Albania. 1970 25 October: Electricity made available to the whole country. 27 October: Cooperation agreement between the universities of Tirana and Prishtina signed. 1971–1975 Fifth five-year plan. 1971 February: Establishment of diplomatic relations between Albania and Yugoslavia brings about a thaw in cultural relations with Kosovo. 6 May: Diplomatic relations with Greece established.
Slide 42: CHRONOLOGY • xli 1972 25–26 February: Speech by Enver Hoxha in Mat about the leading role of the party. 10 October: Founding of the Albanian Academy of Sciences. 19 November: Albania refuses to take part in the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki. 20–25 November: Tirana orthography congress approves standard Albanian (gjuha letrare) as the unified literary language of Albania and of Albanian speakers in Yugoslavia. 25 December: The 11th Song Festival held, which was used as a pretext for the purge of June 1973. 1973 26–28 June: Fourth Plenary Session of the Central Committee crushes the “liberal movement.” Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonja are condemned as deviationists and enemies of the people. 8 December: All villages in the country are linked by telephone. 1974 July-August: Purge of Beqir Balluku, Petrit Dume, and Hito Çako for allegedly organizing a military coup d’état. 27 November: Inauguration of regular flights between Tirana and Beijing. 1975 26–29 May: Purge of Abdyl Këlliçi, Koço Theodhosi, and Kiço Ngjela at the seventh Congress of the Central Committee for alleged grave “revisionist” mistakes and sabotage of the economy. 23 September: Decree on the Albanization of all personal and place-names that are not in line with political, ideological, and moral guidelines. 1976–1980 Sixth five-year plan. 1976 November: Seventh party congress. Enver Hoxha criticizes China. 28 December: Constitution of the Socialist People’s Republic of Albania. 1977 7 July: Article in newspaper Zëri i Popullit (The People’s Voice) denounces the Chinese “theory of the three worlds” as antirevolutionary. 18 July: Inauguration of regular flights between Tirana and Athens. 1978 7 July: China withdraws its experts and blocks all further economic and military assistance to Albania. 29 July: Rupture of the Sino–Albanian alliance. 1979 15 April: Severe earthquake in northern Albania causes 35 deaths.
Slide 43: xlii • CHRONOLOGY 1981–1985 Seventh five-year plan. 1981 March-April: Uprising in Kosovo. 22 November: Railway line from Lezha to Shkodra inaugurated. 18 December: Mysterious death of Enver Hoxha’s rival Mehmet Shehu. 1982 4 January: Adil Çarçani appointed prime minister to succeed Mehmet Shehu. 24 February: Politburo decrees the collectivization of privately owned farm animals. 29 May: Purge of the followers of Mehmet Shehu. 22 November: Ramiz Alia takes over as de facto head of state. 1983 24 June: Bomb explodes at the Albanian embassy in Athens. 1985 11 January: Railway line from Shkodra to the Montenegrin border crossing Hani i Hotit inaugurated. 11 April: Death of Enver Hoxha, who is succeeded on 13 April by Ramiz Alia. 26 November: Railway line between Shkodra and Titograd (Podgorica) opened to international freight traffic. 1986–1990 Eighth five-year plan. 1987 11 September: Diplomatic relations with Canada established. 2 October: Diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic of Germany established. 1990 26 March: Anticommunist demonstrations in Kavaja. 9 May: Restoration of religious freedom. 11–12 May: United Nations Secretary General Perez de Cuellar visits Albania. 28–31 May: American politicians Tom Lantosh and Joseph DioGuardi visit Albania and are received by Ramiz Alia. 2–3 July: Over 5,000 Albanians take refuge in foreign embassies in Tirana and are allowed to leave the country on 13 July. 31 July: Resumption of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. 15 September: Albania applies for full membership in the CSCE. 24 September: Ramiz Alia visits the United States as part of an Albanian delegation to the United Nations. UN speech on 28 September. 25 October: Writer Ismail Kadare seeks and obtains political asylum in France. 1–5 December: Mother Teresa visits Albania and is received by Nexhmije Hoxha. 7 December: Beginning of student demonstrations at the University of Tirana.
Slide 44: CHRONOLOGY • xliii MODERN ALBANIA (FROM 1990) 1990 11 December: Introduction of political pluralism in Albania. Unrest in Kavaja, then in Shkodra, Elbasan, and Durrës. 12 December: Founding of the Democratic Party under Sali Berisha. 1991 1 January: The first 3,000 Albanians flee to Greece. 3 January: Democratic Party holds mass protest meetings in Shkodra and Durrës. 5 January: 202 political prisoners are granted amnesty. The first issue of the opposition newspaper Rilindja Demokratike (Democratic Rebirth) appears. 18 January: Public prayer at the Et’hem Bey Mosque in Tirana. 6 February: Students go on strike, demanding that the name Enver Hoxha be removed from the University of Tirana. 8 February: Thousands of young people storm the ferries in Durrës and are driven back by the police. 20 February: Statue of Enver Hoxha toppled in Tirana during a large demonstration. 22 February: Fatos Nano appointed prime minister in a short-lived administration. March: Some 20,000 Albanians flee by sea to Brindisi in southern Italy. 15 March: Diplomatic relations with the United States established. 17 March: Release of 175 political prisoners. 31 March: First pluralist elections in Albania, in which the communist Party of Labor wins 55.8 percent of the popular vote. 2 April: Opposition demonstrations in Shkodra result in deaths and injuries. 25 April: Boats and ships in Shkodra, Lezha, and Shëngjin are seized by Albanians wanting to get to Italy. 30 April: Ramiz Alia elected president of the Republic of Albania. 29 May: Diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom established. 5 June: Coalition “stability” government formed under prime minister Ylli Bufi. 10–13 June: Founding of the Socialist Party of Albania from the ranks of the former Party of Labor. 19 June: Albania joins the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). 22 June: U.S. Secretary of State James Baker given an enthusiastic reception in Tirana. 19 July: Privatization of land and property legalized. 6–8 August: Some 12,500 Albanians flee by boat to Bari in southern Italy (and are deported from 9–12 August). 2 September: Statue of Enver Hoxha removed from the Enver Hoxha museum, which is transformed into an international cultural center. 7 September: Diplomatic relations with the Vatican established. 16 September: Albania signs the CSCE Final Act of Helsinki. 27–29 September: First congress of the Democratic
Slide 45: xliv • CHRONOLOGY Party confirms Sali Berisha’s election as party leader, despite growing opposition within the party. 16 October: Albania joins the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 3–7 December: Food stocks and shops plundered when Prime Minister Bufi admits that food supplies are low, resulting in deaths and injuries. 5 December: Nexhmije Hoxha, widow of the communist dictator, is arrested. 1992 25–29 February: Food stocks and shops are plundered in Pogradec, Lushnja, and Tirana, resulting in several deaths. 22 March: Victory of the Democratic Party under Sali Berisha in the general elections. 3 April: Ramiz Alia announces his resignation as president of Albania. 9 April: Sali Berisha becomes president of Albania. 12 April: Aleksandër Meksi becomes prime minister. 6 June: Albania joins the Cooperation Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. July: Thousands of people try to flee the country. 16 July: The communist party banned. 26 July: Local government elections result in heavy losses for the Democratic Party. 12 September: Ramiz Alia placed under house arrest. 1993 8–27 January: Trial of Nexhmije Hoxha, who is sentenced to nine years in prison. 30 July: Opposition leader Fatos Nano arrested. 26 December: Diplomatic relations with the Republic of Macedonia established. 1994 21 March: Editors of opposition newspaper Koha jonë (Our Time) are tried and jailed for revealing state secrets. April–July: Tension with Greece. 3 April: Opposition leader Fatos Nano sentenced to 12 years in prison. 21 May–2 July: Trial of Ramiz Alia and six other members of the communist politburo. 6 November: Referendum for a new constitution rejected. Rise of further anti-Berisha sentiment. 1995 29 June: Albania joins the Council of Europe. 12 September: President Berisha visits the White House in Washington. 1996 26 May: Democratic Party under Sali Berisha wins parliamentary elections under questionable circumstances. 20 October: Local government elections, in which the Democratic Party wins 52.5 percent of the popular vote. December: Demonstrations demanding the resignation of the government. 3 December: U.S. State Department criticizes the Berisha regime for human rights violations. 17 December: Sudja pyramid investment company ceases payments to investors, causing violent demonstrations in Tirana.
Slide 46: CHRONOLOGY • xlv 1997 January: Aggravation of the pyramid finance scandal and massive antigovernment demonstrations. 21 January: Xhaferri pyramid investment company announces bankruptcy. February: Political tension throughout the country. 11 February: Police lose control of public order in Vlora and withdraw from the town. 1 March: Protesters in Vlora burn down the headquarters of Berisha’s secret service, the National Information Service. 2 March: Parliament imposes martial law. 3 March: Sali Berisha reelected president to an “orchestra of kalashnikovs,” with the country on the brink of civil war. 4 March: Press censorship introduced. 9 March: Political parties meet in Tirana in an attempt to solve the crisis. 12 March: Rebel forces in Gjirokastra form a National Committee of Public Salvation. 13 March: Government of national reconciliation under Bashkim Fino. 14 March: Foreign governments begin evacuating their citizens from Albania. 28 March: About 100 Albanian clandestine emigrants die in the Straits of Otranto when their boat is rammed by an Italian corvette and capsizes. 15 April: 6,000 United Nations troops under Italian command land in Durrës to restore order in Operation Alba. 29 June: Parliamentary elections result in victory for the Socialist Party under Fatos Nano, in coalition with two other parties. 23 July: Sali Berisha resigns as president and is replaced by Rexhep Meidani. 25 July: Government formed under Fatos Nano, replacing administration of Bashkim Fino. 8 August: Kosovo Liberation Army publicly assumes responsibility for armed attacks against Serb forces and Albanian collaborators in Kosovo. 11 August: Operation Alba completed with the withdrawal of the last Italian units from Albania. 19 September: Controversial political figure Azem Hajdari shot and wounded, giving rise to demonstrations in Shkodra. 25–28 November: Fighting around Skenderaj in Kosovo causes several deaths. 1998 22–24 February: Public disorder in Shkodra, during which a number of public buildings are burned down and several dangerous criminals escape from prison. The Tirana government sends in special troops. 1 March: Serb troops begin a major offensive in the Drenica region of Kosovo. 9 March: More than 200,000 Kosovo Albanians demonstrate in Prishtina and are beaten back by the Serb police. June: Thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees flee to Albania. 4 August: Massacre of Kosovo Albanian civilians in Rahovec. Llausha in the Drenica region is burned to the ground by Serb forces. 6 August: Albanian parliament demands immediate intervention by the North Atlantic
Slide 47: xlvi • CHRONOLOGY Treaty Organization in Kosovo. 16 August: Serb troops occupy Junik in western Kosovo after weeks of combat with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). 17–21 August: North Atlantic Treaty Organigation (NATO) maneuvers in Albania. 23 August: Several politicians of the Democratic Party placed under arrest for their military involvement in combating rebel forces in March 1997. This leads to unrest in the following week in Tirana and the north. 18 September: Parliament rescinds Berisha’s immunity to make him liable for arrest. Large and angry pro-Berisha demonstrations in Tirana. 28 September: Fatos Nano resigns as prime minister and is replaced by Pandeli Majko, also of the Socialist Party. 10 November: Unrest in Shkodra following the arrest of several members of the Democratic Party. 22 November: New constitution approved by 90 percent of the voting electorate. 24–27 December: Serb offensive in Podujeva. KLA offers a cease-fire. 1999 15 January: Massacre by the Serb police of 45 Kosovo Albanian civilians in Reçak causes international outrage. 6 February: Beginning of the Rambouillet conference to avoid full-scale war in Kosovo. 24 March–9 June: NATO military campaign in Yugoslavia. Half a million Kosovo Albanians seek refuge in Albania after being expelled by Serb forces. 27 May: Serb leader Slobodan Milošević is accused of genocide and war crimes by International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. 12 June: NATO forces enter and liberate Kosovo. 13 August: Prime Minister Pandeli Majko visits Kosovo in a private capacity. 29 October: Pandeli Majko resigns as prime minister and is replaced by Ilir Meta. 22 December: Prime Minister Ilir Meta visits Greece to discuss the legalization of Albanian emigrants and to bring up the issue of Çamëria. 2000 24 February: Border crossing to Montenegro at Hani i Hotit reopened after two years. 24 May: President Rexhep Meidani visits Kosovo. 17 July: Albania joins the World Trade Organization. 1 October: Local government elections result in a victory for the Socialist Party, with 42.9 percent of the popular vote. Edi Rama elected mayor of Tirana. 2001 17 January: Albania and Yugoslavia resume diplomatic relations. 20 February: Fighting in Macedonia between Albanian guerrillas and Macedonian government forces. 14 March: Fighting in
Slide 48: CHRONOLOGY • xlvii Macedonia spreads to center of Tetova. 17 March: National Liberation Army of Macedonia calls on all Albanians there to join its struggle. 15 May: Serious fighting flares up in the Presheva valley between Yugoslav forces and the Liberation Army of Presheva, Medvegja and Bujanovc. 24 June: Parliamentary elections in Albania give the lead to the Socialist Party coalition over opposition Union for Victory. The elections subsequently criticized in an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) report on 11 October. 13 August: Ohrid Peace Agreement signed, putting an official end to armed conflict in Macedonia. 16 November: Macedonian parliament approves constitutional reform making Albanian the second official language of Macedonia. 17 November: Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) wins first parliamentary elections in Kosovo. 2002 29 January: Prime Minister Ilir Meta resigns under pressure from Socialist Party leader Fatos Nano. 7 February: Pandeli Majko once again becomes prime minister of Albania. 24 June: Alfred Moisiu becomes president of Albania. 28 June: Former royal family, including pretender Leka Zogu and his mother Queen Geraldine, widow of King Zog, return to Albania to take up permanent residence. 24 July: President Rexhep Meidani retires from office, making way for President Alfred Moisiu. 24 July: Pandeli Majko resigns as prime minister and is replaced by Fatos Nano. 29 July: Fourth government cabinet formed under Fatos Nano, with Ilir Meta as foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Pandeli Majko as minister of defense, and Kastriot Islami as minister of finance. 28 November: Commemoration of the 90th anniversary of Albanian independence. 2003 19 July: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ilir Meta resign, causing major rift in ruling Socialist Party. 12 October: Local elections give victory to ruling Socialist Party of Albania. 29 December: Cabinet reform under Prime Minister Fatos Nano, with Namik Dokle as deputy prime minister and Kastriot Islami as foreign minister. 2004 7 February: Supporters of opposition Democratic party try to storm the Albanian parliament. 6 September: Founding of the Socialist Party for Integration (PSI) under Ilir Meta, as the third political force in Albania. 13–20 September 2004: Prime Minister Fatos Nano visits China and signs an agreement on economic cooperation. 6 December: Tirana mayor Edi Rama wins World Mayor award.
Slide 49: xlviii • CHRONOLOGY 2005 3 July: Democratic Party wins parliamentary elections, bringing Sali Berisha back to power as prime minister. He has the support of 74 of 140 members. 1 September: Fatos Nano resigns as head of the Socialist Party, which is subsequently taken over by Edi Rama. 3 September: Jozefina Topalli elected as speaker of the Albanian parliament. 3 September: Sali Berisha officially appointed prime minister after electoral victory in July. 9 October: Edi Rama elected as new head of the Socialist Party. 2006 12 June: Prime Minister Sali Berisha signs association agreement with European Union. 16 July: Democratic Party politician Gramoz Pashko killed in helicopter crash. 1 August: Establishment of diplomatic relations between Albania and Montenegro. 30 August: Agreement in parliament, after weeks of turmoil, on constitutional change in the central electoral commission. 2007 19 February: Municipal elections show equal support for government and opposition in the country. 23 April: Call by Vasil Bollano, mayor of Himara, for the independence of his town and other Greek-speaking areas of southern Albania causes outrage throughout the country. 24 April: New government shuffle, with Lulzim Basha replacing Besnik Mustafaj as foreign minister. 10 June: U.S. President George W. Bush visits Albania. 20 July: Bamir Topi elected president of Albania after weeks of political turmoil. 5–8 September: Highranking Chinese delegation visits Albania. 26 September: The NGO Transparency International ranks Albania with Djibouti and Burkina Faso on its list of corruption. It is thus substantially behind all the other Balkan countries. 14 October: Prosecutor’s Office begins investigation of Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha on charges of corruption related to contracts for the Durrës-Kukë highway to Kosovo. 21 November: Ina Rama replaces Teodor Sollaku as general prosecutor. 2008 17 February: Independence of Kosovo, which is recognized immediately by Albania. 15 March: Major explosion of factory in Gërdec near Tirana devoted to destroying ammunition causes many deaths and injured. 17 March: Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu resigns in connection with the Gërdec catastrophe and is replaced by Gazmend Oketa. 3 April: Albania and Croatia invited to join NATO. 16 June: President Topi relieves Luan Hoxha, head of the army General Staff,
Slide 50: CHRONOLOGY • xlix of his office in connection with the Gërdec affair. 9 July: Albania’s accession to NATO ratified in Brussels during a visit by Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha. 23 July: Uproar in parliament when Socialist deputy Taulant Balla accuses Berisha’s family of open corruption. 28 July: Cabinet reshuffle, with Genc Pollo as new deputy prime minister. 19 September: Large opposition demonstration in Tirana accusing Berisha of delaying results of Gërdec inquiry. 8 October: Prime Minister Berisha visits Berlin to seek German support for Albania’s European Union (EU) application. 10 November: 11 members of parliament begin a hunger strike to protest discrimination against smaller parties in the draft electoral law. 18 November: New electoral law on regional proportional basis. 1 December: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visits Tirana to discuss energy projects and Albanian emigration to Italy and expresses support for Albania’s integration into the EU. 24 December: Supreme Court initiates proceedings against Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha for corruption. 2009 13 January: U.S. nongovernmental organization Freedom House criticizes Albania sharply on civil rights, stating that little progress has been made since 2001. 9 February: Assassination attempt on Supreme Court judge Ardian Nuni, who is gravely injured. 15 January: Controversial lustration law enters into force. 17 February: Constitutional Court overturns the new lustration law. 4 March: Minister of Culture Ylli Pango fired in a sex scandal when tapes of job interviews are broadcast on the television program Fiks Fare. 4 April: Albania joins NATO. 28 April: Albanian Government submits its official application for EU membership. 31 May: Prime Minister Berisha and Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi open long road tunnel near Kalimash to inaugurate first highway connection between Albania and Kosovo, cutting travel time from seven hours to under three. 28 June: Parliamentary elections, won by the Democratic Party in coalition with the Socialist Movement for Integration.
Slide 52: Introduction Only a few decades ago, Albania was something of a curiosity on planet Earth. Perhaps only North Korea was as isolated from the rest of the world as Albania was. For left-wing idealists, it was a distant Shangrila where all social inequalities had been done away with; for those few individuals with concrete knowledge of the realities of the Stalinist regime that held power until 1990 and for the vast majority of people living in Albania, it was hell on earth. The tiny, backward Balkan country, remembered by some from the earlier days of King Zog and his royal sisters in their flashy white uniforms, was the epitome of “Ruritania,” a country where, like British cricketer C. B. Fry, one might be offered the throne. The images that postcommunist Albania have conjured up are far less romantic: a land of destitution and despair in which the Albanian mafia, that scourge of modern Europe, has free rein, a country of blood-feuds, kalashnikovs, and eternal crises. Yet Albania is, in essence, a European nation like any other and will soon, it is to be hoped, advance and take its proper place in Europe and the world. LAND AND PEOPLE Albania is a small country in southeastern Europe. It is situated on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the southwestern part of the Balkan Peninsula and borders Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia (FYROM) to the east, and Greece to the south. To the west of Albania, across the sea, is the southeastern coast of Italy. Albania is a primarily mountainous country with a Mediterranean climate—hot, dry summers and temperate winters—although it can be cold in the winter months in inland regions and at higher altitudes. li
Slide 53: lii • INTRODUCTION Albania has a resident population of about three million people, all of whom speak Albanian, an Indo–European language. There are also several, mostly bilingual, ethnic minorities, notably of Greeks in the south of the country, but also small groups of Slavs, Roma, and Vlachs. As to traditional religious identification, about 70 percent of the population is Muslim, about 20 percent is Albanian Orthodox, and about 10 percent, in the north, is Roman Catholic. There is also a sizable community of Bektashi, a liberal Islamic sect. Only about half of the Albanians live within the borders of the Republic of Albania itself. The other half live in the surrounding countries, primarily in Kosovo, which has about two million Albanians, and in Macedonia, which has about half a million Albanians. Aside from small Albanian-speaking minorities in southern Italy and Greece who settled there centuries ago, there are now also large emigrant communities who left Albania in the 1990s in search of jobs and a better life. Most of these Albanian emigrants have settled in Greece and Italy, legally or illegally, though Albanian emigrants are now to be found throughout Europe and in many other parts of the globe. The Republic of Albania is by far the poorest and most underdeveloped country in Europe. Although located on a prosperous continent and very near to countries like Italy and Greece, which have vastly higher standards of living, Albania is, in fact, a third world country and suffers from all the problems that the poor and underdeveloped countries of Africa, Latin America, and Asia do. HISTORY Early Albania (to 1393) The southwestern Balkans, along the Adriatic coast, were known in ancient times as Illyria and were inhabited by Balkan tribes such as the Illyrians. Whether the Albanians are direct descendants of the ancient Illyrians is difficult to ascertain because little is known about the Illyrian language. It can, however, be assumed that the ancestors of the Albanians were living in the southern part of the Balkan peninsula long before the Slavic invasions of the sixth and seventh centuries AD, and an affiliation with the Illyrians would seem logical.
Slide 54: INTRODUCTION • liii Geographically, Albania has always been at the crossroads of empires and civilizations, even though it also has often been isolated from the mainstream of European history. For centuries it formed the political, military, and cultural border between East and West, that is, between the Roman Empire of the western Mediterranean, including much of the northern Balkans, and the Greek Empire of the eastern Mediterranean, including the southern Balkans. In the Middle Ages, Albania was once again a buffer zone, this time between Catholic Italy and the Byzantine Greek Empire. After its definitive conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, it formed a bridgehead between Christian Europe and the Islamic Orient. The Rise of the Albanian People As a people, the Albanians first emerged from the mist of history in the early years of the second millennium AD. Their traditional designation, based on a root *alban- and its rhotacized variants *arban-, *albar-, and *arbar-, appears from the 11th century onward in Byzantine chronicles as Albanoi, Arbanitai, and Arbanites, and from the 14th century onward in Latin and other Western documents as Albanenses and Arbanenses. Originally a small herding community in the most inaccessible reaches of the Balkans, the Albanians grew and spread their settlements throughout the southwest of the peninsula. With time, as well as with innate vigor, unconscious persistence, and much luck, they came to take their place among the nation-states of Europe. At the end of the 10th century the great Bulgarian empire fell to the Byzantine Greeks, and no doubt the political void in the region allowed the pastoral Albanians room for expansion. They began migrating from their mountain homeland in the 11th and 12th centuries, initially taking full possession of the northern and central Albanian coastline, and by the 13th century spreading southward toward what is now southern Albania and western Macedonia. In the mid-14th century, they migrated even farther south into Greece. By the mid-15th century, which marks the end of this process of migration and colonization, the Albanians had settled in over half of Greece, in such great numbers that in many regions they constituted the majority of the population. By the middle of the 11th century the Byzantine Empire, to which Albania belonged, was increasingly on the defensive. The Normans
Slide 55: liv • INTRODUCTION under Robert Guiscard de Hauteville (1016–1085) took possession of the last Byzantine territories in southern Italy and in 1081 crossed the Adriatic to occupy Durrës and central Albania. Although Byzantine forces managed to regain Durrës the following year, East and West continued to vie for Albania during the following centuries. The Venetians took possession of Durrës (1205) after the pillage of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. To the east and northeast of Venetian territory in Albania arose the first autonomous Albanian state under Prince Progon, Arbanon, which lasted from 1190 to 1216. In 1269, Charles of Anjou (1226–1285) landed in Vlora and three years later proclaimed himself king of Albania (rex Albaniae). In the early 14th century, from 1343 to 1347, almost all of Albania, with the exception of Durrës, was conquered by the Serbs, under whose dominion it remained until the death of the great Stephan Dushan in 1355. Thereafter the country was divided up by a number of feudal dynasties: the Thopias, Ballshas, and Dukagjinis in the north, and the Muzakas (Musachi) and Shpatas in the center and south of the country. From the arrival of the Slavs in Albania until the Turkish conquest in the 15th century, the Albanians lived in close contact with their Slavic neighbors, both peoples coming under the strong influence of Byzantine culture. One may indeed speak of a Slavic–Albanian symbiosis throughout much of the country, in which the rural and no doubt largely nomadic Albanians were under constant threat of ethnic assimilation. There were no noticeable Albanian-speaking communities in the cities of the Albanian coast throughout the Middle Ages. Durrës was inhabited by the Venetians, Greeks, Jews, and Slavs; Shkodra by the Venetians and Slavs; and Vlora by the Byzantine Greeks. Names of towns and rivers in Albania, always a good indicator of settlement patterns, are to a surprising extent Slavic. It is thought that a considerable proportion of the Albanians had already been assimilated by the eve of the Turkish invasion. Like the indigenous people of North America after European colonization, the Albanians had been largely marginalized in their own country. Ottoman Albania (1393–1912) On 28 June 1389, the Turks defeated a coalition of Balkan forces under Serbian leadership at Kosovo Polje, the Plain of the Blackbirds,
Slide 56: INTRODUCTION • lv and established themselves as masters of the Balkans. By 1393 they had overrun Shkodra, although the Venetians were soon able to recover the town and its imposing citadel. The conquest of Albania continued into the early years of the 15th century. The mountain fortress Kruja was taken in 1415, and the equally strategic towns Vlora, Berat, and Kanina in southern Albania fell in 1417. By 1431, the Turks had incorporated all of southern Albania into the Ottoman Empire and set up a sandjak administration with its capital in Gjirokastra, captured in 1419. Feudal northern Albania remained under the control of its autonomous tribal leaders, though now under the suzerain authority of the sultan. The Turkish conquest was resisted by the Albanians, notably under George Castriotta, known as Scanderbeg (1405–1468), a prince and now a national hero of Albania. Scanderbeg successfully repulsed 13 Ottoman incursions, including three major Ottoman sieges of the citadel of Kruja led by the sultans themselves (Murad II in 1450 and Mehmet II in 1466 and 1467). He was widely admired in the Christian world for his resistance to the Turks and was given the title Athleta Christi by Pope Calixtus III (r. 1455–1458). Albanian resistance held out until Scanderbeg’s death at Lezha on 17 January 1468. In 1478, the fortress at Kruja was finally taken by Turkish troops, Shkodra fell in 1479, and Durrës at last fell in 1501. By the end of the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire had reached its political zenith, and Albania was subjected, in all, to over four centuries of Turkish colonization, which changed the country and its culture radically. A new, Muslim culture developed and contributed substantially to making the Albanians what they are today. It has been argued that the Turkish invasion and occupation of the southern Balkans had the positive consequence for the Albanians of saving them from ethnic assimilation by the Slavs. It was during the Ottoman period, at any rate, that Albania became truly Albanian in an ethnic sense. Aside from their military garrisons and civilian administrators, the Turks do not seem to have settled the unruly country in any great numbers. The Albanians adapted to the new culture and their new rulers over the coming centuries, but at the same time strove to maintain as much local autonomy as possible. Local warlords, beys, and pashas created their own largely autonomous regions, making of themselves noble families under the suzerain authority of the sultan. The isolated tribes of the northern mountains had little contact with the empire anyway.
Slide 57: lvi • INTRODUCTION The gradual political and economic decay of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century, accompanied by slow but certain territorial disintegration, created a power vacuum in Albania that resulted in the formation of two semiautonomous pashaliks: Shkodra in the north, ruled by the Bushatlliu dynasty, and Janina in the south, which in 1787 came under the formidable sway of Ali Pasha Tepelena (1741–1822), known as the Lion of Janina. Although the autonomy of the pashalik of Shkodra ceased with the death of Kara Mahmud Pasha in 1796, Ali Pasha, by using a skillful blend of diplomacy and terror, kept his region virtually independent until 1822. The restoration of power to the sultan left Albania a backwater of poverty and provincial corruption. The centralist Tanzimat reforms decreed on 3 November 1839, which were intended to modernize the whole of the Ottoman Empire, met with firm opposition from local beys in Albania, intent on retaining their privileges. Nor were the wild tribes of the north, always skeptical of and recusant to anything the Turks might do, to be lured by promises of universal equality or administrative and taxation reform. In this rugged mountainous region in particular, the Tanzimat reforms led directly to a series of uprisings against the Sublime Porte, during which the seeds of Albanian nationalism were sown. Though the European Romantic movement initially had no direct echo among the Albanians, the struggle against Turkish rule had now taken on a definite nationalist dimension, in particular in view of progress made by Albania’s Christian neighbors. Serbia had attained limited autonomy as a tributary state of the Ottoman Empire in 1817; Walachia and Moldavia, in what is now Romania, formed self-governing principalities in 1829; and Greece won independence in 1830 after a long and bloody war that had begun in 1821. The Albanians became increasingly aware of their own ethnicity and the need to run their own affairs. The struggle for autonomy and cultural sovereignty in Albania, however, evolved at a much slower pace, due among other things to the higher degree of Islamization and in particular to the lack of unity within the country itself. But the long-dormant seeds of an Albanian national awakening finally sprouted, not only in Albania itself, but also in the thriving Albanian colonies abroad, in Constantinople, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Egypt, and among the Arbëresh in southern Italy. The second half of the 19th century thus marked the rise of the Albanian national movement known as Rilindja (rebirth). It can be asserted
Slide 58: INTRODUCTION • lvii unequivocally that the Rilindja period had inestimable significance for Albania’s political and cultural survival. The country evolved from an obscure and primitive backwater of the Ottoman Empire to take its place among the nation-states of Europe. Through its literature and cultural history, the Rilindja age created an awareness of national identity and made the Albanian language the matter-of-course vehicle of literary and cultural expression for the Albanian people. It was by no means evident from the start that the impassioned endeavors of the Albanian writers, publicists, and intellectuals of the period to achieve cultural consolidation and statehood would be crowned with success. The League of Prizren, which came into being in 1878 as a reaction to the Congress of Berlin, was in fact a failure. Although it did prevent the annexation of much Albanian territory by Serbia and Montenegro, it did not succeed in its objective of uniting the whole country into one vilayet—one administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire—which had been regarded as a major prerequisite for a certain degree of autonomy. The League of Prizren was crushed by the Porte in 1881, and many of its leaders were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. Nonetheless, most of the uprisings in the years to follow, and there were many, were less concerned with lofty national goals than they were with venting practical grievances, for instance, resisting Turkish government attempts to disarm the tribes of the north, collect taxes, or conscript the male population. The thought of political autonomy, or indeed of independence, placed Albanian intellectuals in a dilemma. They were well aware of the possible boomerang effect that independence for the little Balkan country might have. As part of the Ottoman Empire, flagging though it was, the Albanians were at least protected from the expansionist designs of the neighboring Christian states. Despite the sorry level of corruption and incompetence of the Ottoman administration under which Albanians suffered in the last decades of the empire, many Rilindja leaders appreciated the tactical advantage of being ruled from the distant Bosporus rather than from Cetinje, the nearby mountain capital of the rising Kingdom of Montenegro, or by the Serbs and Greeks, and therefore confined themselves to strengthening national awareness and identity rather than inciting direct political confrontation with the Porte. In a memorandum sent by the Albanians of Monastir (Bitola) to the Great Powers in October 1896, Muslim and Christian Albanians alike rightly
Slide 59: lviii • INTRODUCTION protested that the Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks enjoyed the support and protection of the Great Powers, whereas the Albanians had no support at all. They were not looking for privileges, nor did they desire full independence from Turkey. All they wanted was to be able to live their lives as Albanians. To this end, they demanded the unification of their five vilayets (Kosovo, Monastir, Salonika, Janina, and Shkodra) into one administrative unit with its capital at Monastir, a bilingual (Turkish/ Albanian) government administration, an assembly of representatives, Albanian-language schools, full religious and linguistic freedoms, and the restriction of compulsory military service to duties in the European part of the empire. But the Porte showed no willingness to compromise on the issue of Albanian autonomy. As a result, popular uprisings against Turkish rule occurred during this period with an almost predictable regularity, in particular in northern Albania and Kosovo. Guerrilla bands throughout the country added to the general confusion and insecurity, destroying what remnants of economic order existed and poisoning intercommunal relations. Many Albanian nationalists initially had great faith in the movement the Young Turks, which was to lead to revolution in July 1908 and to the overthrow of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (r. 1876–1909) the following year. Mid’hat bey Frashëri (1880–1949) called upon Albanian leaders to give their full support to the Young Turks, who had their headquarters in his hometown of Salonika. There can be no doubt that the Albanians themselves also played a major role in the Young Turk revolution, which precipitated the demise of that age of stagnation and gave the empire a constitution and a semblance of equality among citizens regardless of faith. But the hopes the Albanians had placed in the Young Turks were soon dashed when it became apparent that the new administration was just as centralistic as the old one, or even more so. As the survival of the Ottoman Empire became more and more questionable, the Albanian uprisings continued, in 1910 in Kosovo and the northern Albanian highlands; in 1911 in the Catholic Mirdita region and the northern highlands; and in 1912 in Skopje, Dibra, and Vlora. In October 1912, the final demise of Turkey in Europe was signaled by the outbreak of the first Balkan War, in which the Greeks, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Bulgarians united to drive the Turks back to the Bosporus. Within two months virtually all of Albania was occupied
Slide 60: INTRODUCTION • lix by the neighboring Balkan states, which, in their anti-Turkish and to an extent anti-Muslim campaign, had no intention of recognizing the legitimate aspirations of the Albanian people. In the midst of the chaos and confusion created by the swift defeat of the Turks, the presageful Albanian politician Ismail Qemal bey Vlora (1844–1919), assured of Austro–Hungarian support, convoked a national congress of Albanian intellectuals at Vlora on the southern coast, which was attended by 37 delegates from southern and central Albania. At this meeting, on 28 November 1912, Albania was finally declared independent, thus bringing to an end centuries of Turkish occupation. The “long night” of Ottoman rule was over. Independent Albania (1912–1944) After the Conference of Ambassadors in London (1912–1913), at which the Great Powers de facto recognized the existence of the fledgling Albanian state, an international border commission was set up, charged with the awesome and thankless task of delineating the frontiers of the new country. Though independence had been declared and at least temporarily secured at an international level, enthusiasm among the Albanians was soon dampened. More than half of the Albanian-speaking territory and about 30 percent of the Albanian population were excluded from the new state. Most tragic of all, Kosovo, which had been “liberated” by the Serbian army, was given to the Kingdom of Serbia, an error that haunted the Balkans right to the end of the 20th century. The new provisional government of Albania, whose sphere of influence hardly extended beyond the town of Vlora, was formed with Ismail Qemal bey Vlora as prime minister and a senate composed of 18 members. Durrës and Tirana remained under the sway of landowner Essad Pasha Toptani (1863–1920), and it was not until 22 April 1913 that the citadel of Shkodra, the last Turkish stronghold in the Balkans, was abandoned by Ottoman forces to the Montenegrins and given over to the International Control Commission. In addition to domestic chaos and intrigue created by the conflicts of interest among the various feudal landowners, tribes, and religious groups within the country, neighboring Greece, Serbia and Montenegro all strove to exert as much influence in Albania as possible. Though Albanian independence had
Slide 61: lx • INTRODUCTION been recognized de facto on 17 December 1912 at the Conference of Ambassadors, it was not until 29 July 1913, after the second Balkan War and the solving of the delicate problem of Shkodra, that the international community agreed to support Albania as a neutral, sovereign, and hereditary principality. The choice of a head of state for the new Balkan nation fell on Prince Wilhelm zu Wied (1876–1945). The wellmeaning German prince, a compromise solution, arrived in the port of Durrës on 7 March 1914 and was welcomed to the booming of cannons, but in the following months he was unable to gain control of much more than the port city itself. With the outbreak of World War I, Prince Wilhelm lost all semblance of international support, and he left Albania on 3 September 1914 after a mere six months of inglorious reign. Though Essad Pasha Toptani was able to maintain his power base in central Albania for a time, much of the country was occupied by a succession of Italian, Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian, Montenegrin, Austrian, and French troops. This chaotic period was brought to an end at the Congress of Lushnja on 28–31 January 1920, at which Tirana was declared the country’s new capital and a new regency government was formed with Sulejman bey Delvina (1884–1932) as prime minister and the 24-year-old Ahmet Zogu (1895–1961) as minister of the interior. By September 1920 virtually all of Albania was under the control of the new government and, on 17 December of that year, Albania was admitted to the League of Nations as a sovereign state. The following years saw the gradual rise of the authoritarian Ahmet Zogu (Zog), initially as minister of the interior, and on 2 December 1922 to the position of prime minister. Zogu, supported primarily by the landed aristocracy and conservative circles, was obliged to flee the country in the so-called Democratic Revolution of 1924, during which Bishop Fan Noli (1882–1965) led the country for a brief period of six months as head of a first more or less progressive government. The American-educated Noli set out to introduce sweeping changes, including desperately needed land reform in Albania, but his idealism was soon crushed by the weight of tradition. With help from Belgrade and the remnants of General Piotr Nikolayevich Wrangel’s White Russian Army, the power-hungry Zogu returned to Albania and took possession of the country in a coup d’état on 24 December 1924. On 22 January 1925, Albania, still formally a principality, was declared a republic, with Ahmet Zogu as its first president. By stifling all opposition within
Slide 62: INTRODUCTION • lxi the country and playing Italy and Yugoslavia off against one another, Zogu created a certain degree of political stability and authority in the coming years, but by the second half of the 1920s Albania’s increasing economic dependence on neighboring fascist Italy had transformed the little Balkan country into an Italian protectorate, in particular after the conclusion of the first Pact of Tirana on 27 November 1926. On 1 September 1928, Ahmet Zogu proclaimed himself Zog I, king of the Albanians, by the grace of Benito Mussolini. Italy’s expansionist designs on Albania culminated in its invasion of the country on Good Friday, 7 April 1939. King Zog, his Hungarian–American wife Geraldine, and their three-day-old son Leka fled to Greece; within four days the entire country was under Italian control. The national assembly met in Tirana on 12 April and, in the presence of Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano (1903–1944), proclaimed Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947) king of Albania. The Albanian state had ceased to exist. In October 1940, fascist Italy attacked Greece, but despite initial success, it was soon pushed back by a resolute Greek counteroffensive. Italian rule was secured once again in the spring of 1941 by the collapse of Yugoslavia and Greece at the hands of Nazi Germany. In these years of foreign occupation and civil war, Kosovo was reunited with Albania. Albania itself was, however, deeply divided by the presence of three rival resistance groups: the communists under Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) and Mehmet Shehu (1913–1981), the anticommunist Balli Kombëtar (National Front) under Mid’hat bey Frashëri, and the smaller royalist Legaliteti (Legality) movement under Abaz Kupi (1892–1976). After the capitulation of fascist Italy on 8 September 1943, the German foreign office endeavored to create a neutral and independent Albanian state to safeguard German strategic interests in the Balkans. A new administration was formed in Tirana, but it was not able to exert much authority over the country, which was now enmeshed in a bloody civil war. When German troops withdrew from Albania at the end of November 1944, the communists under Enver Hoxha took power and subsequently set up the People’s Republic of Albania. Communist Albania (1944–1990) Once in office, the new government took immediate measures to consolidate its power. In January 1945, a special people’s court was set up in Tirana under Koçi Xoxe (1917–1949), the new minister of the
Slide 63: lxii • INTRODUCTION interior from Korça, for the purpose of trying “major war criminals.” This tribunal conducted a series of show trials that went on for months, during which hundreds of actual or suspected opponents of the regime were sentenced to death or to long years of imprisonment. In March, private property and wealth were confiscated by means of a special profit tax, thus eliminating the middle class, and industry was nationalized. In August 1945, a radical agrarian reform was introduced, virtually wiping out the landowning class, which had ruled the country since independence in 1912. At the same time, initial efforts were undertaken to combat illiteracy, which cast its shadow over about 80 percent of the population. In addition to a shattered economy and anticommunist uprisings in the north of the country, the new regime had a number of major foreign policy problems to deal with. Greece still considered itself in a state of war with Albania, relations with the United States had declined dramatically, and ties with the United Kingdom became severely strained after the so-called Corfu Channel incident in 1946, in which two British destroyers hit mines off the Albanian coast. Relations with neighboring Yugoslavia also entered a precarious phase over Kosovo. When the Germans withdrew from northern Albania in November 1944, Kosovo, which had been reunited with Albania several years earlier, was taken over by Yugoslav partisans. Hideous massacres were committed against the Albanian population there, which was accused of collaboration with the Germans. The problem of Kosovo was originally to be decided by the principle of self-determination, that is, by a plebiscite, but Tito, realizing that he would never win the support of Serb nationalists, had persuaded the Albanian communist leaders in 1943 to abandon hope of implementing a “Marxist solution.” One idea raised as a solution to the thorny Kosovo issue was that of uniting Yugoslavia and Albania into one state. The communist leadership in Albania, always plagued by factional division, had split into two camps shortly after it took power. One side, represented by the poet Sejfulla Malëshova (1901–1971), in charge of cultural affairs, contended that Albania should conduct an independent foreign policy, maintaining relations with both East and West, and more moderate domestic policies to encourage national reconciliation. The pro-Yugoslav faction, led by Minister of the Interior Koçi Xoxe, advocated closer ties with Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union and insisted that more radical social and economic policies be introduced and
Slide 64: INTRODUCTION • lxiii be coordinated with those being implemented by Belgrade. Xoxe and his Yugoslav advisors won out, and in February 1946 Malëshova was expelled from the Politburo and condemned as a “right-wing opportunist.” Enver Hoxha himself seems to have maintained a tactically vague position, lying low and waiting for a chance to eliminate his opponents for good. Relations with the United Kingdom and the United States worsened, and in July 1946 Enver Hoxha signed a treaty of friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance with Yugoslavia following a visit to Belgrade. This was envisaged as the first step toward the union of the two countries. Serbo–Croatian was introduced as a compulsory subject in all Albanian schools, and Yugoslav advisors took over key positions in government and economic affairs. Albania was to remain a virtual Yugoslav colony until June 1948. During this period Koçi Xoxe, as minister of the interior, made ample use of his powers over the security apparatus and police to eliminate all potential rivals and enemies. These witch hunts, known euphemistically in official party history as the period of Koçi-Xoxism, resulted in the execution or imprisonment not only of political figures but also a great many talented writers and intellectuals. The rift between Tito and Joseph Stalin in 1948 gave Enver Hoxha a Soviet ally, with whose support he could now act to preserve his own position, and he soon managed to eliminate his rivals. Albania became the first Eastern European country to denounce Yugoslavia after the latter’s expulsion from the Cominform (the Soviet bloc), on 17 June 1948, and all Yugoslav advisors were expelled from the country without delay. Albania had entered the Soviet fold. The series of show trials and purges that ensued were similar to those that took place elsewhere in Eastern Europe in the late 1940s and early 1950s. At its first congress on 8–22 November 1948, the purged Albanian Communist Party was renamed the Albanian Party of Labor. Koçi Xoxe’s own reign of terror came to an end when he was convicted of treason in May 1949; he was executed on 11 June of that year. Albania’s alliance with the Soviet Union had several advantages. The Soviets offered much food and economic assistance to replace the losses caused by the interruption of Yugoslav aid. They also gave the Hoxha regime military protection, both from neighboring Yugoslavia and from the West, at a time when the Cold War was at its height. Because Albania had no common border with the Soviet Union, there
Slide 65: lxiv • INTRODUCTION was no immediate risk of direct political absorption, and the Albanian leadership was in many ways very mindful of preserving the country’s formal independence. Integrated into the Soviet sphere, Albania entered a period of profound isolation from the rest of the world. “Ndërtojmë socializmin duke mbajtur në njërën dorë kazmën dhe në tjetrën pushkën” (“We are building socialism with a pickaxe in one hand and a rifle in the other”) was the slogan spread by the party to create a state-of-siege mentality that would stifle all opposition. By 1955, Albania had become the epitome of a Stalinist state, with Soviet models being copied or adapted in virtually every sphere of Albanian life. When Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) denounced Joseph Stalin’s crimes and personality cult in a secret report to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in February 1956, Enver Hoxha decried revisionism. After some shrewd and ruthless political maneuvering, he managed to overcome criticism of his own Stalinist policies and maintain power. Events in Hungary and Poland now convinced him that Khrushchev represented the greatest threat to Albania’s sovereignty and his own power. The ideological divergence between the two parties and Khrushchev’s attempts to come to an agreement with the renegade Tito in 1956 led to an initial political rift in relations with the Soviet Union, which increased substantially in the following years despite Albania’s extreme dependence on Soviet aid and food shipments. At a conference of 81 communist and workers’ parties held in Moscow in November 1960, Enver Hoxha stubbornly refused to condemn the Chinese communists under Mao Tse-tung (1893–1976), and in an unusually open speech before delegates on 16 November, he attacked Khrushchev for his deviation from Marxism–Leninism. Relations between the two parties deteriorated rapidly, to the point that in March 1961 Khrushchev suspended food shipments to Albania, which the population desperately needed. In December 1961, the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic ties with Albania, and Enver Hoxha, in search of a new patron, turned his attention to the Far East. The Sino–Albanian alliance, which was to last from 1961 until July 1978, radicalized political, economic, and social life in Albania and isolated the country even more from Europe and the rest of the world. The People’s Republic of China provided Albania with much development assistance, including goods and low-interest loans, but this aid was not
Slide 66: INTRODUCTION • lxv enough to promote economic growth. To stem the tide of popular dissatisfaction with his rule, Enver Hoxha employed his usual tactic of counterattack, launching a Chinese-style campaign at the end of 1965 for the “revolutionizing of all aspects of life in the country,” which coincided with the Cultural Revolution in China. A new revolutionary cultural policy, presented to the public by the chief ideologist on cultural affairs, Ramiz Alia (b. 1925), insisted on a break with all foreign influence in Albanian culture. The role of literature and the arts was now to immunize the population against all bourgeois and revisionist trends wherever they occurred. Writers were to concentrate their energies on national themes such as the partisan movement and the construction of socialism. In practice, this policy led to the banning of foreign books and films and to the stifling of the modicum of intellectual freedom that had survived in the country. In response to Enver Hoxha’s open letter of 4 March 1966, thousands of white-collar workers, including many writers and artists, “volunteered” to be sent to the countryside to work the land with the peasants. Confident after its 99.99 percent victory in the general elections of July 1966, the fifth party congress, held in November of that year, set about to intensify “class struggle” even further by making manual labor in the production sectors of the economy obligatory for everyone. The slogan of the day was “Think, work and live as a revolutionary.” In a speech on 6 February 1967, Enver Hoxha instigated a campaign against one of the last bastions of tradition, religion. Within months almost all mosques, churches, and Bektashi tekkes in the country had been closed down, most being demolished or renovated for use as cinemas, gymnasiums (like the Catholic cathedral in Shkodra), and warehouses. Albania was proclaimed the “first atheist state on earth.” This so-called spontaneous wish of the youth stripped Albania of not only many of its cultural traditions but also the vast majority of its architectural monuments. The campaign for the eradication of religion, conducted with the religious fervor of a crusade, constituted an unprecedented act of cultural suicide. Monuments of culture were razed to the ground, icons and valuable books burned, and old manuscripts left to rot. Everything vaguely associated with religion became taboo for the next two decades. At the same time, the education system was radically reformed to purge it of Soviet influence. Political commissars also took control of the military, whose ranks were purged.
Slide 67: lxvi • INTRODUCTION The revolutionary period, which began in 1965 and lasted through mid-1969, was brought to an end by a cooling of relations with China. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, which resulted in Albania’s definitive withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, the Chinese leadership endeavored to improve relations with Yugoslavia and Romania in order to undermine Soviet control in the Balkans. Enver Hoxha, for his part, came to realize that his alliance with China was insufficient to protect his country from a Soviet military threat. By 1971 he was extending discreet feelers to the West, and he normalized diplomatic ties with neighboring Yugoslavia and Greece. Chinese foreign policy also changed in the early 1970s, when isolationism was abandoned. Ideological differences with the Albanian leadership reached an alltime high when American president Richard Nixon visited Beijing in February 1972. Enver Hoxha decried revisionism once again. In spite of Albania’s turbulent foreign relations, a brief period of calm, however deceptive, took hold on the home front in the wake of the Albanian cultural revolution. But after years of sacrifice and turmoil, the population had grown sullen and resentful, and the intellectual community was more restless than ever. Despite constant party harping on the dangers of bourgeois influence, Western dress styles appeared on the streets of Tirana, a pale reflection of the social revolution taking place in the West. Bell-bottom trousers, long hair, and the occasional miniskirt were to be seen, and Western pop music on Italian radio stations was listened to more openly. At the Fourth Plenary Session of the Central Committee on 26–28 June 1973, Enver Hoxha took the offensive once again and presented a report that must now be regarded as a classic in the annals of European obscurantism: Të thellojmë luftën ideologjike kundër shfaqjeve të huaja e qëndrimeve liberale ndaj tyre (“Let us strengthen the ideological struggle against foreign manifestations and liberal attitudes toward them”). It was the quite harmless 11th Song Festival of 25 December 1972 that served as the pretext in Hoxha’s struggle to maintain power. The protagonists of the so-called liberal movement, if indeed there had been one, were dramatist Fadil Paçrami (b. 1922), party secretary for ideological affairs in Tirana, and Todi Lubonja (b. 1923), director of radio and television broadcasting, who served as scapegoats to keep writers and artists, and, consequently the whole country, in line. The two were said to have encouraged liberal trends and permitted decadent
Slide 68: INTRODUCTION • lxvii Western ideas and influence to penetrate Albanian culture. The liberal movement was swiftly crushed and its two figureheads mercilessly condemned for their sins as deviationists and enemies of the people. What followed, from 1973 to at least 1975, was a reign of terror against Albanian writers and intellectuals, comparable, in spirit at least, to the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. These years constituted the major setback for the development of Albanian culture. In the spring of 1973, 130 writers and artists announced that they were leaving the city to work in the fields and on construction sites to strengthen their contacts with the working masses. Poets and prose writers began vying with one another in the proclamation of their revolutionary fervor and rejection of foreign and liberal influences. Those who were less convincing or whose publications were found to be tainted with liberality were banned to the provinces or thrown into prison. The more fortunate simply lost their rights to publish. Almost all major authors had a work withdrawn from circulation and “turned into cardboard.” Learning foreign languages was effectively banned, and those who had the misfortune of knowing French or Italian found themselves in a dangerously embarrassing position. In the following years a series of purges kept other sectors of society, indeed the entire population, in a state of confusion and insecurity. In 1974, Beqir Balluku (1917–1975), minister of defense since 1953, was purged together with Petrit Dume, chief of staff, and Hito Çako, head of the army’s political directorate; in May of the following year Abdyl Këllezi (1919–1977), chairman of the State Planning Commission, Koço Theodhosi (1913–1977), minister of industry and mining, and Kiço Ngjela (1917–2002), minister of trade, were relieved of their offices and mercilessly condemned. The ideological differences with the Chinese leadership that had arisen led to the end of the Sino–Albanian alliance in 1978. Albania was now isolated from the whole world, an island of revolution in a sea of revisionism. The mysterious death on 18 December 1981 of Hoxha’s rival Mehmet Shehu, who as head of the military and of the awesome security apparatus Sigurimi was responsible for much of the terror, brought about another sweeping purge of government and party officials. In November 1982, the aging Hoxha, in one of the most absurd public declarations ever made by an experienced tyrant, announced to a stunned
Slide 69: lxviii • INTRODUCTION world that his one-time closest ally, Mehmet Shehu, had been working for three decades as a foreign agent simultaneously for the Americans, the British, the Soviets, and the Yugoslavs; confronted with his wicked deeds, he had chosen to commit suicide. Needless to say, no deviation from the ideological course set by the party was attempted until well after Hoxha’s death. With the demise of Enver Hoxha on 11 April 1985, political power fell to Ramiz Alia of Shkodra, who ruled the country with a slightly gentler hand, although with no fundamental change of policy. With the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, and in particular the death of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu on 25 December 1989, the party leadership realized that it was only a matter of time until communism would be overthrown in Albania, too. The foundations of the system were shaken in early July 1990 when thousands of young Albanians risked their lives to seek political asylum in the German, Italian, and French embassies in Tirana. Within half a year, the one-party dictatorship that had dominated all aspects of Albanian life for almost half a century had imploded. Political pluralism was introduced in December 1990, and the country’s first multiparty elections were held on 31 March 1991. Incredible as it now seems in retrospect, even to the Albanians themselves, orthodox Stalinism survived unscathed and unabated in Albania for 37 years after Stalin’s death in 1953. Though a definitive judgment on the “socialist” period in Albania will have to be left to historians and political scientists of the future, the legacy of 46 years of “splendid isolation” under Marxist–Leninist rule seems to be little more than universal misery and a backward economy. When one-party rule was finally done away with, there was virtually no intellectual leadership left to fill the void. Albania’s tiny socialist economy and its society lay in ruins. The beginning of the 1990s thus found the Albanian nation in a state of political, economic, and social catastrophe. Modern Albania (from 1990– ) The 1990s were cataclysmic years in Albanian history. No other nation of Eastern Europe was so harshly treated by freedom and democracy. The great bronze statue of Enver Hoxha looming over the central Scanderbeg square in Tirana was toppled during a large demonstration
Slide 70: INTRODUCTION • lxix on 20 February 1991, but the first pluralist elections in the country, on 31 March of that year, were won by the communist Party of Labor. There were, however, few people in the country who wanted a return to one-party communist rule. Most Albanians were frightened and unnerved by the country’s economic collapse and simply wanted to get away. In March 1991, 20,000 Albanians fled by boat to Brindisi in southern Italy, and in August of that year another 12,500 landed in Bari, much to the distress of the Italian government. At the same time, in a more discreet but even more massive exodus, impoverished Albanians fled across the land border into Greece in search of jobs and a better life. Albania had become an international problem. In June 1991, a depoliticized “stability” administration under Ylli Bufi (b. 1948) ensured a modicum of governance, and the communist Party of Labor transformed itself into the new Socialist Party of Albania. During the following winter, food stocks and shops were plundered when it was announced that the country no longer had enough food to feed itself. New elections were held in March 1992, which resulted in a massive victory for the opposition Democratic Party under Sali Berisha (b. 1944). A new era had begun. Sali Berisha turned an important page in Albanian history. He rid the country of its communist heritage and anchored parliamentary democracy and a free market economy. In these historic endeavors, he received much support from Western Europe and the United States, in particular from his protégé, the American ambassador in Tirana, William Ryerson, and set Albania on the right path, at least initially. Despite general agreement on the need for Western democracy and a free market, the Albanians became highly politically polarized during the early years of the Berisha regime. The underprivileged, who had now acquired jobs and risen to power, supported Berisha, but the traditional class of intellectuals, many of whom had lost their positions because of real or alleged ties with the ancien régime, became his bitter opponents. From the start, political dialogue, or rather confrontation, in Albania was not concerned with ideology or platforms of Left and Right but with influence, connections, and jobs in the public sector, and with lucrative kickbacks. By 1994, Albania’s frail democracy was in jeopardy. The ruling Democratic Party, and Sali Berisha in particular, had lost the support of the majority of the population in central and southern Albania. Opposition leader Fatos Nano (b. 1952) had been arrested in July 1993
Slide 71: lxx • INTRODUCTION and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in April 1994. The editors of the only major opposition newspaper, Koha jonë (Our Time), were tried and jailed in March for revealing state secrets. Albania had once again become a one-party state, ruled by an increasingly authoritarian president who now had total control over the media. By May 1996, when the Democratic Party won parliamentary elections that were widely criticized as a farce, the country was on the verge of a new dictatorship. The new secret police, SHIK, were out of control, and the justice system functioned only for card-carrying members of the Democratic Party. The intimidated population reverted to the mute silence of the previous age. In mid-1996, another even more tragic event eclipsed the extreme political tension and confrontation in the country. Pyramid investment companies had risen in Tirana and elsewhere and were offering huge interest on savings deposits. By the end of the year, almost everyone in the country with cash or assets had invested in them. Such scams had already hit Bulgaria and Russia hard, but in Albania they were to rock the very foundations of the state. In January 1997, the bubble burst. The first pyramid investment companies ceased payments to investors and later declared bankruptcy. Violent demonstrations ensued, which in view of the general dislike of the Berisha regime, took on an increasingly antigovernment character. By February, police and government forces had lost control over Vlora and southern Albania. With the south in rebel hands and under the influence of the Socialist Party, the government declared martial law on 2 March and introduced severe press censorship two days later. On 12 March, rebel forces in Gjirokastra formed the National Committee of Public Salvation and began marching on Tirana to throw Berisha and his government out of office. Northern Albania, which had suffered less from the pyramid investment scams and had profited under the Democratic Party, threw its support behind Berisha. Albania was on the brink of civil war. Anarchy broke out in March, and the structures of the Albanian police and army disintegrated. Public order was replaced by chaos. Military installations and arms depots were plundered, and weapons (kalashnikovs) became available to anyone and everyone who wanted them. Foreign governments began evacuating their citizens from Albania on 14 March. With law and order having broken down, the population took its anger and frustration out on public property and
Slide 72: INTRODUCTION • lxxi institutions, wreaking great destruction. For several weeks in 1997 the Albanian state ceased to exist. On 15 April 1997, 6,000 United Nations troops under Italian command landed in Durrës to restore order to the country and, after tense political negotiations under international supervision, the political parties agreed on elections in late June. These were won by the Socialist Party under Berisha’s archrival, Fatos Nano. On 23 July 1997, President Berisha resigned, giving way to a Socialist administration. The pyramid investment scandal and the 1997 uprising not only shook the pillars of the Albanian state, they also threw the country back to square one in economic terms. Albania had lost five years of development. In addition to financial losses, Albania was also suffering tremendously from a “brain drain.” Most of the intellectuals and people of talent had emigrated for good, either to neighboring Greece and Italy or farther afield, to the United States and Canada. This made reconstruction all the more difficult. Though the worst was over by the end of 1997, political tensions between the two sides did not subside. Berisha and the Democratic Party withdrew from parliament, a step that paved the way once again for a one-party state, this time under the Socialist Party. In September 1998, there was severe unrest in Tirana after the assassination of Azem Hajdari (1963–1998), a controversial leader of the Democratic Party. The Socialists denounced the unrest as an attempted coup d’état and threatened to arrest Berisha, leader of the opposition. An eye for an eye. As if the Albanian people had not gone through enough chaos and suffering, yet another calamity of international proportions loomed on the horizon: the war in neighboring Kosovo. Civil war had been raging in Kosovo since mid-1998, between the majority Albanian population on the one hand and the Milosevic regime and Serb forces on the other, the latter incited and supported fanatically by the Serbian minority. Albania, though supportive of the demands of the people of Kosovo, was no match for Yugoslavia and did its best not to get involved in the conflict. With the beginning of the bombing campaign of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on 24 March 1999, however, Serb forces began a well-orchestrated campaign to expel the whole population of Kosovo from the country. By the end of the war in June 1999, there were almost half a million Kosovar refugees in Albania, people who
Slide 73: lxxii • INTRODUCTION had to be fed and cared for in a state that could scarcely feed itself. The total population of Albania had increased by almost one-sixth within the space of two months. The people of Albania did the best they could. Their achievements in coming to terms with this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe were all the more impressive given the extremely limited resources and primitive infrastructure of the country. Traditional solidarity and the unwritten law of Albanian hospitality prevailed, despite the desperate circumstances. The Kosovo War and the opening of the border with the “other half” of the Albanian nation, that is, the people of Kosovo, have changed the Albanian people. For the first time, the Albanians got to know one another. They were embarking upon a process of reunification, perhaps not politically, but certainly culturally, into one large nation. The two sides had much to learn from one another, both from their positive and their negative experiences. Kosovo was free, and, as the new century dawned, Albania was itself progressing, slowly but surely, along the bumpy road toward Europe. Following 10 years of chaos in the 1990s, the first decade of the 21st century finally bestowed upon Albania the modicum of political and economic stability it needed to progress and establish itself as a “normal” European nation, at least in outward appearance. Despite greed and corruption at all levels of society, the finances of the state were modestly consolidated to allow for some basic improvements in the country’s catastrophic infrastructure. Highways were built, and the private construction industry boomed, transforming the face of Tirana and other major urban centers with glittering high-rise office and apartment buildings in a rainbow of colors. Hotels, chic restaurants, and shopping malls now abound, giving the deceptive impression of prosperity in a still bitterly poor country. After years of political turmoil, domestic politics have calmed to an extent, allowing for the transition of power without chaos or armed uprisings. In 2005, the Democratic Party beat the Socialists in the parliamentary elections and returned Sali Berisha to power, this time as prime minister. The parliamentary system has been functioning better in recent years, although the level of graft and open corruption, in all political parties, continues to make Albanian public life a particularly seedy affair.
Slide 74: INTRODUCTION • lxxiii In June 2006, Albania signed an association agreement with the European Union as the first step toward membership, and in April 2009 the country officially joined NATO. Yet much remains to be done to bring the country up to European standards. Albania has come a long way since the communist period, and changes have been dramatic in all fields. The major problems that still face the country and have not yet been dealt with satisfactorily are reforming the public service and the judiciary, holding elections that meet international standards, improving the general business climate to attract foreign investment, finding a practical and systematic approach to combating organized crime and corruption, and rebuilding public confidence in the country’s democratic institutions. European integration can do much to promote these objectives.
Slide 76: The Dictionary –A– ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (AKADEMIA E SHKENCAVE). The Albanian Academy of Sciences was founded in Tirana on 10 October 1972 as the highest and most important scholarly institution in Albania. It was long the center of most academic research in the country, although it has suffered from the brain drain and the lack of younger scholars in recent years. The Academy of Sciences comprises nine scientific research institutes and four research centers. It has published numerous books and scholarly periodicals and maintains international contacts with other academies and similar institutions. Its current head is Gudar Beqiraj. In a major reform in 2007, the competencies of the academy in research were transferred for the most part to the universities and research centers, and a new Center for Albanological Studies was founded. The academy has thus been deprived of most of its functions. ACCURSED MOUNTAINS. Mountain range extending along the Albanian–Montenegrin border approximately from Kelmendi territory in the west, to the border region of Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro in the east. The highest peaks of this range are Mount Jezerca (2,694 meters) in Albania and Mount Gjeravica (2,656 meters) in Kosovo. The range is known in Albanian as Bjeshkët e Namuna and in Serbian as Prokletije, both meaning “accursed, damned.” AGOLLI, DRITËRO (13 October 1931– ). Poet and prose writer. Dritëro Agolli has had a substantial influence on the course of contemporary Albanian literature. He was born to a peasant family in Menkulas in the Devoll region near Korça and went to secondary 1
Slide 77: 2• AGRICULTURE school in Gjirokastra from 1948 to 1952. His first verse was published in newspapers in 1947. Agolli had originally wanted to become a veterinarian but was chosen by the communist party for a literary career and sent off to Leningrad in 1952 to study language and literature. On his return to Albania in 1957, he worked as a journalist for the newspaper Zëri i popullit (The People’s Voice) for 15 years. He visited the People’s Republic of China in 1967 and the Congo in 1971 in official government delegations. Agolli was head of the Union of Writers and Artists from the purge of Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonja at the fourth party congress in 1973 until his retirement on 31 January 1992, and was a member of parliament from 1974 to 1998. After attaining success as a poet of the soil, Dritëro Agolli turned increasingly to prose in the 1970s. He first made a name for himself with the novel Komisari Memo (Commissar Memo; Tirana, 1970), originally conceived as a short story. His second novel, Njeriu me top (The Man with a Cannon; Tirana, 1975), was a rather conformist novel of partisan heroism, the standard fare encouraged by the party. Agolli then produced a far more interesting work, the satirical Shkëlqimi dhe rënja e shokut Zylo (The Splendor and Fall of Comrade Zylo; Tirana, 1973), which has proved to be his claim to fame. Comrade Zylo was the epitome of the well-meaning but incompetent apparatchik, director of an obscure government cultural affairs department. His pathetic vanity, his quixotic fervor, and his grotesque public behavior—in short, his splendor and fall—are all recorded in ironic detail. Though Agolli was a leading figure in the communist system, he remained a highly respected figure of public and literary life after the fall of the dictatorship and is still one of the most widely read authors in Albania. In the early 1990s, he was active for several years as a member of parliament for the Socialist Party of Albania. He also founded his own publishing company, Dritëro, by which means he has been able to publish many new volumes of prose and poetry and have a further impact on literary and intellectual life in the country. See also LITERATURE, ALBANIAN. AGRICULTURE. Despite the generally mountainous terrain, agriculture and animal husbandry are and always have been the mainstays of
Slide 78: AGRICULTURE •3 the Albanian economy. In the 1930s, over 80 percent of the Albanian population was occupied in primitive forms of agriculture, the best of the land being held by large, privately owned estates. In 1938, forest land accounted for 36 percent of the country, grassland and pastures for 31 percent, and farmland and orchards for 11 percent. Even after half a century of communist dictatorship—which on the one hand endeavored to promote the industrialization of the country with huge projects and on the other thoroughly transformed agriculture by nationalizing land and collectivizing all agricultural endeavors—Albania remains primarily an agricultural country. With the collapse of the communist system, socialist agriculture collapsed, too. In the early 1990s, Albania found itself on the brink of starvation and had to be supported from abroad, primarily by the European Union, with massive food aid. On 19 July 2001, the Albanian parliament passed a bill to divide up farmland among the members of the former agricultural cooperatives according to the number of employees and members thereof. Farmland was thus reprivatized, mostly into tiny family plots, and the rural population soon attained a subsistence level; that is, farmers produced enough to feed their families, but had very little left over to sell in the towns for profit. Things improved so much in the second half of the 1990s that Albanian agriculture and animal husbandry are now regarded as one of the more successful aspects of Albanian transition—successful, however, only in relative terms. According to recent statistics on land utilization, 36 percent of available land is considered forest land, 15 percent grassland and pastures, 24 percent arable land for agriculture, and 2 percent land for permanent crops: orchards and vineyards, etc. There are currently 466,659 agricultural holdings, the vast majority of which are small, privately owned family plots. The total surface area for arable crops is 345,258 hectares. The major farm crops produced in Albania are cereals (54 percent), forage (30 percent), white beans (6 percent), other vegetables (6 percent), potatoes (2 percent), and industrial crops (2 percent). According to production surface, the major vegetables, excluding white beans, are melons (34 percent), tomatoes (17 percent), and dried vegetables (16 percent). Albanian farmers are having great
Slide 79: 4• AGRON difficulty competing with cheap food imports from the European Union, Macedonia, and Turkey. Animal husbandry has revived substantially since the years of forced collectivization, in particular the disastrous collectivization campaign of 1981. In 2006, there were 1,426,000 sheep, 700,000 goats, 634,000 head of cattle, 132,000 horses and other equidae, 152,000 pigs, 6,200,000 head of poultry (primarily chickens, but also turkeys, geese, and ducks), and 173,000 beehives in Albania. It should be noted that pigs are generally restricted to the traditionally Catholic areas of northwestern Albania; that is, they are rare in traditionally Muslim areas. According to recent government statistics (2007), the agriculture sector contributes about 21 percent of the GDP and employs over half of the Albanian workforce. Although there has been some notable growth in recent years (an 11 percent rise in food production in 2007), land holdings are still small and fragmented, and farmers have insufficient access to markets and rural finance. Agricultural products represent about 12 percent of total Albanian exports, the main trading partners being Italy, Greece, Germany, and the neighboring Balkan countries. Production and income from agriculture are still very low by EU standards. AGRON. Illyrian ruler and king of Shkodra from ca. 250 to 231 BC. Agron financed his Illyrian kingdom, centered around Shkodra, on piracy. His ships plundered Greek and Roman vessels in the Adriatic Sea as far south as Epirus and Greece. In alliance with Demetrius II of Macedonia, he defeated the Aetolians in Acarnania in 231 but died after the battle from a heavy bout of drinking. He was succeeded by his wife, Queen Teuta. Many Albanian men bear the name Agron in honor of this ancient Illyrian king. AHMETI, MIMOZA (1963– ). Poet and prose writer from Kruja, one of the literary “enfants terribles” of the 1990s. She has managed in recent years to provoke Albania’s impoverished and weary society into much-needed reflection, which with time may lead to new and more sincerely human values. After her first two volumes of verse in the late 1980s, it was the 53 poems of the collection Delirium (Delirium; Tirana, 1994) that caught the public’s attention. Mimoza Ahmeti’s
Slide 80: AIR TRANSPORTATION •5 poetry has been well received by the new generation of readers, in tune for the first time with Western culture. Her candid expressions of wide-eyed feminine desire and indulgence in sensual pleasures and the crystalline fluidity of her language have already made her a modern classic. Among Ahmeti’s recent publications are the poetry volume Palmimi i luleve (Pollination of the Flowers; Tirana, 2002) and the novel Gruaja haluçinante (The Hallucinating Woman; Tirana, 2006). Her works have been translated into Italian, Spanish, and French. See also LITERATURE, ALBANIAN. AIR TRANSPORTATION. Civil air transportation in Albania is currently provided at only one airport, Rinas, or Mother Teresa Airport, which is situated 15 kilometers northwest of Tirana. The new international airport started operations on 23 April 2005. In 2008, 13 airlines—12 foreign companies and 1 Albanian joint venture— were providing regular service to 32 destinations. In 2007, there were 18,250 flight movements, and the airport was used by nearly 1,107,300 passengers. A new airport has also been built in Kukës, and facilities are planned for Saranda and other towns. Air transportation was rare during the isolationist communist dictatorship. From 1944 to 1948, there was a service to Belgrade, but after the break of relations with Yugoslavia, until 1953, there was only a Soviet–Hungarian Maszovlet connection to Budapest twice a month. From 1953 to 1955, there was no air service to Albania at all. In February 1955, a service was instituted between Tirana and Moscow and thereafter to other eastern European capitals. In the late 1980s, there were still only six airlines flying to Tirana, with a total of nine round-trips per week. Traffic increased dramatically in the early 1990s after the country opened up. In 1999, there were 8,249 flights and 356,823 passengers, seven times more people flying in and out of Albania than in 1991. Domestic aviation dates from March 1926, when the German airline Adria-Aero-Lloyd, having obtained a monopoly for all air routes in the country on 2 November 1924, began service between Tirana and Shkodra, Korça, and Vlora. The undertaking proved unprofitable, and Adria-Aero-Lloyd sold its concession to the Italian company Ala Littoria, which instituted air service in 1935 between Tirana, Shkodra, Kukës, Peshkopia, Kuçova, Vlora, Gjirokastra,
Slide 81: 6• AITOLOS, COSMAS and Vlora. It also later provided connections to Rome, Brindisi, Salonika, and Sofia. There were no domestic flights in the communist period. Service between Tirana and a number of regional airfields was partially resumed in the mid-1990s with a small Cessna belonging to an American missionary group, but it was disrupted by the uprising of 1997. There are presently no domestic air services, and there is little need for them because road connections have improved in the small country. AITOLOS, COSMAS. See COSMAS AITOLOS. AKADEMIA E SHKENCAVE. See ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. ALARUPI, VASIL (1908–1977). Journalist and writer. Vasil Alarupi, together with Vangjel Koça, was one of the few genuine proponents of fascism in Albania during the late 1930s. Under Giovanni Giro, head of the fascist Dopolavoro program, he led the so-called action committees, or Lupi di Roma (Wolves of Rome), fascist gangs who provoked street fights with political adversaries. He was also apparently involved in a plot to assassinate King Zog in 1938 and was interned in Kruja at the end of that year. ALBA. See OPERATION ALBA. ALBANIAN–AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE, AACL (LIGA QYTETARE SHQIPTARO-AMERIKANE) (1989– ). Organization founded in 1989 by Joseph DioGuardi, a Republican congressman from New York of Arbëresh origin. The following year, it successfully lobbied for the first congressional hearings on Kosovo, with testimony from Ibrahim Rugova. Though it was not always successful, its rallies and lobbying on behalf of human rights in Kosovo were essential in pushing through economic sanctions against Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. ALBANIAN–AMERICAN NATIONAL ORGANIZATION, AANO (1946– ). A nonreligious and nonpolitical organization established in 1946. Among its priorities is to support the academic endeavors of Albanian–American college students through annual scholarships. It
Slide 82: ALBANIAN REPUBLICAN PARTY •7 has nine chapters located throughout the United States and Canada. Its current national president is John Lulgjuraj of Florida. ALBANIAN COUNCIL (KUVENDI I ARBËNIT) (1703). Council of the Catholic Church held in Mërqia, three kilometers north of Lezha, on 14–15 January 1703 to affirm the position of the Catholic Church in Albania and to stem the tide of conversions to Islam. The conference was organized during the reign of Pope Clement XI Albani (r. 1700–1721), himself of Albanian origin, and was held under the direction and in the presence of the Croatian archbishop, Vincentius Zmajevich (1670–1745) of Bar, who was “apostolic visitor” of Albania, Serbia, and Macedonia. The council was attended by about 200 Catholic dignitaries to discuss the state of the Church, prevent further conversions to Islam, and settle serious property disputes among the various parishes. Both the opening speech by Zmajevich and the resolutions taken by the council were made in Albanian. The records of the meeting, which are of historical, linguistic, and ecclesiastical significance, were sent to Rome for papal inspection and published in Albanian and Latin by the Propaganda Fide in 1706, with the assistance of Francesco Maria Da Lecce O.F.M. They constitute an important source of our knowledge of the language of northern Albania in the early 18th century. ALBANIAN LITERARY COMMISSION (KOMISIJA LETRARE SHQYPE) (1916). Commission set up in Shkodra on 1 September 1916 by the Austro–Hungarian authorities at the instigation of Consul General August Ritter von Kral (1869–1953). Its aim was to create a literary norm and a standard orthography for Albanian official use, and in particular for school teaching. It also encouraged the publication of Albanian school texts. Among the members of the commission were Gjergj Fishta, Luigj Gurakuqi, Maximilian Lambertz, Mati Logoreci, Ndre Mjeda, Hilë Mosi, Sotir Peci, Gjergj Pekmezi, and Aleksandër Xhuvani. After some deliberation, the commission decided to use the central dialect of Elbasan as a neutral compromise for a standard literary language. ALBANIAN REPUBLICAN PARTY. See REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Slide 83: 8• ALBANIAN SOCIETY ALBANIAN SOCIETY (1957–1991). The Albanian Society of Britain was founded in 1957 as a “non-party organization to spread information about the People’s Republic of Albania and to foster friendship and understanding between the British and Albanian peoples.” It was the most important of the “friendship societies” in the Englishspeaking world during the communist period. The society was administered by a committee elected by its members and issued a little quarterly journal called Albanian Life. The moving figure behind the Albanian Society throughout its history was Bill Bland, a British Marxist–Leninist from Ilford in Essex, who served as its secretary and leader from 1960 almost without interruption until July 1990. Although officially a nonpolitical organization open to anyone interested in Albania, it was, in fact, a very Stalinist-oriented movement promoting the political objectives of the Albanian Party of Labor, as opposed to the more anticommunist Anglo–Albanian Association. The Albanian Society was denied official recognition from Albania between 1968 and 1978 when it rejected the pro-Chinese, Maoist stance of the Albanian party leadership. During this period, the pro-Maoist elements withdrew from the group and formed their own New Albanian Society, which received strong support from Albania and China until its dissolution in 1978. By the 1980s, the Albanian Society had several hundred members. It was disbanded with the advent of pluralist democracy in Albania in 1991. ALESSIO. See LEZHA. ALI PASHA TEPELENA (1744–5 December 1822). Ruler and pasha of Janina and southern Albania. Once known in Europe as the “Lion of Janina,” he was born in Tepelena. He served in the Ottoman administration before managing to acquire the stronghold of Janina, now in northern Greece, from where he expanded his reign to take over Epirus, Thessaly, and all of southern and central Albania. Here, around 1788, he set up a quasi-autonomous principality within the Ottoman Empire; had armed forces of his own; and maintained diplomatic relations with England, France, and Russia, all with a view to creating an independent Albania and Epirus. He was visited by, among others, Lord Byron, who recorded his meetings with the
Slide 84: ALIA, RAMIZ •9 aging and brutal tyrant. Ali’s relations with the Sublime Porte were tenuous, but he managed to avoid an open breach for a long time. In 1820, when Sultan Mahmud II relieved him of all his positions and dispatched an army against him, Ali Pasha allied himself with the Greeks, who were already in revolt against Ottoman rule. He was eventually captured on an island in Lake Janina and beheaded. Ali Pasha was regarded in subsequent Albanian historiography as a nationalist figure who led the country in the direction of autonomy and independence. ALIA, RAMIZ (18 October 1925– ). Political figure of the communist period and last head of state of communist Albania. Ramiz Alia was born in Shkodra and graduated from secondary school in Tirana in 1943. In 1939–1940, he was a member of a fascist youth organization, but soon changed allegiance to the communist party, of which he became a member in 1943. Alia took part in the partisan movement as a political commissar and fought with Albanian troops in Yugoslavia in 1944. In 1949, he became the first secretary of the Union of Albanian Antifascist Youth, and served as minister of education and culture from 1954 to 1958. Within the communist party hierarchy, Ramiz Alia was a member of the Central Committee from 1948 to 1991, and a full member of the Politburo from 1961 to 1991. From 22 November 1982 to 1991, as parliamentary president, he was de facto head of state, and on 13 April 1985, after the death of Enver Hoxha, he became first secretary of the Albanian Party of Labor, that is, the political leader of Albania, and ruled the country until the end of the communist dictatorship in 1991. During the period of transition to democracy, Alia remained president of Albania from 30 April 1991 to 3 April 1992, having resigned from all communist party positions on 4 May 1991 according to the provisions of constitutional law. In July 1992, he gave a number of candid interviews to Kosovo journalist Blerim Shala (1963– ), which were published and widely read in the volume Unë, Ramiz Alia dëshmoj për historinë (I, Ramiz Alia, Testify before History; Prishtina, 1992). In September 1992, Alia was placed under house arrest; on 19 August 1993, he was arrested; and between 21 May and 2 July 1994,
Slide 85: 10 • ALIZOTI, FEJZI BEY he was tried and sentenced to eight years in prison, a sentence he served until the uprising of 1997. He is the author of three volumes of memoirs and reflections: Shpresa dhe zhgënjime (Expectations and Disappointments; Tirana, 1993); Ditari i burgut (Prison Diary; Athens, 1998); and Duke biseduar për Shqipërinë (Talking about Albania; Athens, 2000). He now lives in retirement in Tirana. ALIZOTI, FEJZI BEY (22 September 1874–14 April 1945). Political figure. Fejzi bey Alizoti was born in Gjirokastra and attended school in Istanbul. He began his political career with the Ottoman administration, serving in 1911 as mutessarif of Prizren and of AlKhums in western Libya. When Italian troops invaded, he was arrested and interned in Italy. There, he turned into a loyal supporter of the Italian cause, in particular with regard to relations with his native Albania. From 28 January to 15 March 1914, he headed a “central administration” in Albania under the auspices of the International Control Commission. Under Prince Wilhelm zu Wied, he was secretary-general in the ministry of the interior and governor of Shkodra, heading investigations into the conduct of Albanian officers who were suspected of having taken part in uprisings. He later worked with the Austrian occupation forces as a finance director on the civilian administration council set up by August Ritter von Kral (1869–1953), Austro–Hungarian consul general in Shkodra between 1905 and 1910. In December 1918, he headed the Congress of Durrës and became minister of finance in the government of the time. He attempted to impede the work of the Congress of Lushnja and was described as a “traitor” by Ahmet Zogu, then minister of the interior. In the 1924–1925 coup d’état against the Noli government, he joined forces with Zogu, who made use of him because of his good contacts with the Italians. Alizoti took part in various negotiations between Albania and Italy, always siding with Italy to the detriment of Albanian interests, to the extent that he was called the “kavass of the Italians.” From February to October 1927, he was minister of finance and substituted for a short time as minister of foreign affairs for the ailing Iljaz bey Vrioni. Alizoti played a major role in the proclamation of the monarchy in September 1928, but because of his extreme italophile sympathies, he received no further cabinet appointments until the Italian occupation. He is reported to have lived
Slide 86: AMANTIA • 11 off Italian subsidies that he received from time to time and to have been corrupt. In 1939, he was made minister of finance by the Italians and given the rank of an Italian minister of state. Sir Andrew Ryan, British minister in Albania from 1936 to 1939, describes him as “a gross creature physically and morally, with a certain amount of low cunning.” After Yugoslavia’s defeat at the hands of the German Reich, which enabled the reunification of Kosovo and Albania for a couple of years, Alizoti served as high commissioner for Kosovo and Dibra. He was arrested by the communist authorities in 1944, put on trial in March 1945, and shot as a collaborator on 14 April of that year. ALTIMARI, FRANCESCO (1955– ). Arbëresh scholar, linguist, and poet. Altimari was born in San Demetrio Corone (Alb. Shën Mitri) in the southern Italian province of Cosenza. He studied at the University of Calabria in Rende, where he currently holds the chair of Albanian language and literature. His interests focus in particular upon Albanian literature and Arbëresh dialectology. Among his major publications, primarily in Italian and Albanian, are Studi sulla letteratura albanese della Rilindja (Studies on the Albanian Literature of the Rilindja Period; Cosenza, 1984); Studi linguistici arbëreshë (Arbëresh Linguistic Studies; Cosenza, 1988); Per una storia della dialettologia arbëreshe (Towards a History of Arbëresh Dialectology; San Demetrio Corone, 1992); Scripta minora albanica (Minor Albanian Writings; Cosenza, 1994); and Vëzhgime gjuhësore dhe letrare arbëreshe (Observations on Arbëresh Language and Literature; Prishtina, 2002). He has edited the works of Girolamo De Rada and Naim bey Frashëri and is coeditor of L’Esilio della parola: la minoranza linguistica albanese in Italia (Exile of the Word: The Albanian-Language Minority in Italy; Pisa, 1986); I dialetti italo-albanese (Italo–Albanian Dialects; Rome, 1994); and Testi folclorici di Falconara Albanese (Folklore Texts from Falconara Albanese; Rende, 1995). AMANTIA. Archeological site near the present-day villages of Ploça and Vajza in the District of Vlora. The ancient town, no doubt originally an Illyrian settlement, was the fortified capital of the Amantians and is known to have existed in 350 BC. Preserved are walls,
Slide 87: 12 • AMERICAN VOCATIONAL SCHOOL, AVC an unfortified acropolis, a sports stadium with seating for about 4,000 spectators, the remains of a temple, and an early Christian basilica. AMERICAN VOCATIONAL SCHOOL, AVC (1921–1933). The American Vocational School (Alb. Shkolla Teknike e Tiranës) was set up in Tirana in 1921 by the American Junior Red Cross, which was aware that the lack of vocational training in Albania would inhibit the country’s economic growth. Indeed, there were only two secondary schools in the whole country at the time. The AVS provided the (male) students with a solid basic education and gave them a five-year course of vocational training in fields such as masonry, carpentry, metalwork, plumbing, agriculture, printing, machine shop, electrical work, and mechanical drawing. The language of instruction was English. The school, under the direction of Harry T. Fultz, had its own printing press, an ice plant, and its own engine for generating electricity, unheard of in Tirana in the 1920s. Stuart Mann, who taught at the school from 1929 to 1931, reports that, after a visit from King Zog, they were forced to put in a power line from the school to the palace. By 1933, the educational staff had been expanded from 7 to 35, and student enrollment had increased from 60 to more than 600. The vocational school was managed by the American Junior Red Cross until it was nationalized in 1933. Thereafter, it was rebaptized the Technical Institute (Institut Teknik), and the languages of instruction became Albanian and Italian. Among noted figures who attended the American Vocational School were Beqir Balluku, Dervish Duma, Sadik Kaceli, Qazim Kastrati (1905–1974), Ibrahim Kodra, Anton Logoreci, Mehmet Shehu, and Nexhmedin Zajmi. AMERY, JULIAN (27 March 1919–3 September 1996). British military officer and writer. Harold Julian Amery was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. He was press attaché at the British Embassy in Belgrade in 1939 and was recruited during World War II by the Special Operations Executive to foment anti-Italian resistance in Albania. Amery was dropped into central Albania in April 1944 and spent seven months in the mountains, where he maintained close contacts with Abaz Kupi and the Legality movement. After the war, he was
Slide 88: ANGLO–ALBANIAN ASSOCIATION • 13 involved in Western attempts to overthrow the communist regime in Albania, in particular through the training of secret agents in Malta in 1949–1953. He embarked on a political career in England: Conservative member of parliament for Preston North in 1950, minister of aviation in 1962–1964, and minister of state for public buildings and works in 1970 and for housing in 1970–1972. Amery was particularly influential during the administration of Sir Harold Macmillan, who was his father-in-law. In 1992, he was made a life peer as Lord Amery of Lustleigh. His memoirs of the period have appeared as Sons of the Eagle: A Study in Guerilla War (London, 1948) and Approach March: A Venture in Autobiography (London, 1973). ANAGNOSTI, DHIMITËR (23 January 1936– ). Film director and scriptwriter. Anagnosti was born in Vuno on the coast of Himara and studied at the Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. His 1961 film, Njeriu kurrë nuk vdes (Man Never Dies), based on a tale by Ernest Hemingway, won first prize at a film festival in Holland. He later went on to write and direct numerous Albanian films, the most successful of which were Plagë të vjetra (Old Wounds, 1969); Lulëkuqet mbi mure (Red Poppies on Walls, 1976); and Përrallë nga e kaluara (Tale from the Past, 1987). After the fall of the dictatorship, he became a member of the Democratic Party of Albania and in March 1991 was appointed minister of culture, youth, and sports in the first postcommunist government, a position he held until 4 December 1994. He thereafter headed the Fan Noli Foundation for culture and the arts. ANGLO–ALBANIAN ASSOCIATION (1912– ). A group of friends in London set up a committee at the end of 1912, which later developed into the Anglo–Albanian Association. Prominent founding members of the association were writer Edith Durham, who served as its honorary secretary, and member of parliament Aubrey Herbert, who served as its president. The objective of the association was to support the Albanian cause in Britain and to promote recognition of the newly independent Albanian state. The association was at the height of its activities in 1918–1923. According to contemporary writer Joseph Swire, it was largely as a result of the efforts of the association that the League of Nations accepted Albania as a member
Slide 89: 14 • ANTIGONEIA state. The Anglo–Albanian Association declined somewhat after the death of Herbert in 1923 but enjoyed a new lease on life, in particular after World War II, when it became a forum for the anticommunist Albanian diaspora and their like-minded English friends, as opposed to the more Stalinist-oriented Albanian Society. Nonetheless, it was only nominally active after 1962. Among the executive officials of the Anglo–Albanian Association have been Lord Lamington, Mary Herbert (the widow of Aubrey Herbert), Julian Amery, Col. David Smiley, Dayrell Oakley-Hill, Harry Hodgkinson, and Dervish Duma. Its current president is Noel Malcolm. See also UNITED KINGDOM, RELATIONS WITH. ANTIGONEIA. Archeological site near the present-day village of Jerma in the District of Gjirokastra. The ancient town was founded between 295 and 190 BC by Pyrrhus, king of the Molossi, on the site of an earlier Illyrian fortification and was named after his wife. Excavations have revealed houses, a market square, and two early Christian churches. APOLLONIA. Archeological site near the present-day village of Pojan in the District of Fier. After Durrës and Butrint, Apollonia, west of the town of Fier, is the most important ancient site in Albania. It was founded by Greek colonists from Corinth and Corfu in 588 BC. Cicero called the city a magna urbs et gravis (great and important city), and Strabo referred to it as a pólis eunomôtatê (a city of good laws). The remains of the site are situated on a hill six kilometers from the coastline, though the ancient town was originally 500 meters from the sea. It had a harbor that could hold 120 ships. In 229 BC, Apollonia came under the protection of Rome, and in 148 BC it became part of the Roman province of Macedonia. Apollonia was one of the two Balkan points of departure of the Via Egnatia. Julius Caesar had his stronghold here during the Roman civil war, and Octavian, later Emperor Augustus, studied at the famed school of rhetoric here for six months in 45–44 BC. Apollonia seems to have reached its zenith in the third century AD. It declined thereafter when the river Vjosa (ancient Aoos) changed its course and deprived the town of its harbor. The town was abandoned in the sixth century. The
Slide 90: APPONYI, GERALDINE • 15 present Byzantine church of Saint Mary’s was built in the ancient ruins in the early 13th century, using ancient stonework. Initial excavations at Apollonia were carried out by Austrian archeologists Camillo Praschniker (1884–1949) and Arnold Schober (1886–1959) during World War I, and by French archeologists under Léon Rey (1887–1954) from 1924 to 1938. Italian and, in particular since World War II, Albanian archeologists such as Hasan Ceka and Skënder Anamali (1921–1996), have also investigated the site. Most of the objects uncovered have disappeared, though a very few are on exhibit in Tirana and at the museum of Apollonia. Of the ruins on-site, mention may be made of the bouleuterion, also known as the Agonothetes monument, with its six restored Corinthian columns, an odeon for about 600 spectators, a Roman bath, two stoas, a badly preserved Hellenistic theater for about 8,000 spectators, a temple to Apollo or Artemis, vestiges of about 22 Roman houses, a nymphaeum, an acropolis, and the walls. Much of the site remains to be excavated. APPONYI, GERALDINE (6 August 1915–22 October 2002). Queen of Albania. Geraldine Apponyi was born in Budapest as a countess. Her father was a Hungarian aristocrat, Count Gyula Apponyi de Nagy-Appony, and her mother was an American, Gladys Stewart Girault, of an old family from Virginia. Though her father died in 1924 and her mother married a French army officer, the father’s family insisted that Geraldine and her two sisters be educated in Hungary. While she was attending a ball at the age of 17, a photographer took her picture, and it was this picture that eventually reached the hands of King Zog of Albania, who was in search of a bride. King Zog invited Geraldine to Tirana, and she arrived shortly after Christmas in 1937. She accepted the king’s proposal on New Year’s Day 1938 and was married to him on 27 April 1938. On 5 April 1939, Geraldine gave birth to a son, Leka. Also in April 1939, however, the Italians invaded Albania. The royal family was forced to flee overland to Greece and went into exile in London. From 1946 to 1955, they lived in Egypt with King Farouk (1920– 1965), who was himself of Albanian origin. After the deposition of King Farouk in 1952, the Albanian royal family moved to Cannes on
Slide 91: 16 • ARAPI, FATOS the French Riviera and then to Paris. After the death of her husband in Paris in April 1961, Geraldine moved to Spain and later to Bryanston, South Africa, where she lived in exile with her son and his family. She returned to Albania on 28 June 2002 to spend the final months of her life where she had once reigned. ARAPI, FATOS (19 July 1930– ). Poet and prose writer. Fatos Arapi is among the best-known contemporary poets of Albania and is author of philosophical verse, love lyrics, and poignant elegies on death. He was born in Zvërnec near the port city of Vlora and, after studies in economics in Sofia from 1949 to 1954, worked in Tirana as a journalist and lecturer in modern Albanian literature. In his first two collections, Shtigje poetike (Poetic Paths; Tirana, 1962), and Poema dhe vjersha (Poems and Verse; Tirana, 1966), he made use of more modern verse forms than his contemporaries and set the course for a renewal of Albanian poetry after years of stagnation. Criticized in the 1973 purge for the volume Më jepni një emër (Give Me a Name; Tirana, 1973), which was “turned into cardboard” along with many other works of literature, he fell silent for a time and published little of significance until 1989. A child of the Ionian coast, Arapi has never lost his fascination for the sparkling waters of the sea, the tang of the salt air, and the intensity of Mediterranean light, all of which flood his verse. Indeed, beyond the echoing pathos of much of his revolutionary verse on industrial and political themes in numerous publications during the dictatorship, his true poetic vocation can be seen in the creation of an equilibrium between the harmony of the waves and the rhythmic impulses of his being. Among his later volumes of verse are Gloria victis (Glory to the Vanquished; Tirana, 1997); Më duhet një gjysëm ëndrre (I Need Half a Dream; Tirana, 1999); Eklipsi i ëndrrës (Eclipse of the Dream; Tirana, 2002); and Shëtitje pa veten (Walk without Oneself; Tirana, 2005). Arapi has also written much prose in recent years, such as the short story volumes Në Tiranë kur s’ke ç’të bësh (In Tirana Anyhow; Tirana, 2003); and Horrat e ndershëm (The Virtuous Bastards; Tirana, 2007). In all, he is the author of more than 30 books. See also LITERATURE, ALBANIAN.
Slide 92: ARBËRESH • 17 ARBANA, RESHAT (15 September 1940– ). Stage and film actor. Reshat Arbana, born in Tirana, has been one of the most successful film actors in Albania, playing in 35 roles from 1963 to 1995. He has also appeared in numerous stage productions at the National Theater in Tirana. Arbana is remembered in particular for his roles in Fijet që priten (Broken Threads, 1976), Gjeneral gramafoni (General Gramophone, 1978), and Kur hapen dyert e jetës (When the Gates of Life Open, 1986). ARBËRESH. Arbëresh is the Albanian name for the Italo–Albanians, the descendants of sporadic groups from Albania who had found their way to Italy, some as early as 1272, 1388, and 1393. It was not until the mid-15th century that notable Arbëresh settlements were established, when Albanian troops under the command of Demetrius Reres were summoned to Italy by Alfonso I of Aragon (r. 1435– 1458), the King of Naples, to put down a revolt in Calabria. For his assistance, Reres was offered land in Calabria in 1448, and there his soldiers and their families immigrated. His sons, George and Basil, are said to have later made their way to Sicily to establish the first Albanian colonies there. Mass settlement began, however, with the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans, which resulted in a great exodus of Albanians to Italy. This exodus became all the more acute after the collapse of Albanian resistance and the death in 1468 of Scanderbeg, who had found a generous patron in the House of Aragon. Between 1468 and 1478, waves of refugees abandoned southern Albania to establish themselves in Basilicata, Molise, Apulia, and particularly Calabria. More Albanians fled Greece in 1532–1533 after Turkish encroachments in the Morea, settling mostly in Sicily. These waves of refugees formed the core of Albanian colonization in southern Italy, although other emigrants followed in later years. All in all, the Albanians founded or repopulated about 100 towns and villages in southern Italy, over half of which are located in the mountains of Calabria. In the late 19th century, these Italo– Albanians, in particular the poet Girolamo De Rada, played a major role in the Rilindja movement of national awakening. Today, there are about 50 towns scattered throughout the mezzogiorno where Albanian is still to be heard. These communities,
Slide 93: 18 • ARBËRESH comprising an estimated Albanian-speaking population of up to 90,000, are located in seven regions: Abruzzi, Molise, Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, and Sicily. They are: Province of Pescara (Abruzzi): Villa Badessa (Alb. Badhesa); Province of Campobasso (Molise): Campomarino (Alb. Këmarini), Montecilfone (Alb. Munxhifuni), Portocannone (Alb. Portkanuni), and Ururi (Alb. Ruri); Province of Avellino (Campania): Greci (Alb. Greçi); Province of Foggia (Apulia): Casalvecchio di Puglia (Alb. Kazallveqi) and Chieuti (Alb. Qeuti); Province of Taranto (Apulia): San Marzano di San Giuseppe (Alb. Shën Marxani); Province of Potenza (Basilicata): Barile (Alb. Barilli), Ginestra (Alb. Xhinestra), Maschito (Alb. Mashqiti), San Costantino Albanese (Alb. Shën Kostandini), and San Paolo Albanese (Alb. Shën Pali); Province of Cosenza (Calabria): Acquaformosa (Alb. (Firmoza), Castroregio (Alb. Kastërnexhi), Cavallerizzo (Alb. Kajverici), Cerzeto (Alb. Qana), Civita (Alb. Çifti), Eianina or Poicile (Alb. Ejanina or Purçilli), Falconara Albanese (Alb. Fallkunara), Farneta (Alb. Farneta), Firmo (Alb. Ferma), Frascineto (Alb. Frasnita), Lungro (Alb. Ungra), Macchia Albanese (Alb. Maqi), Marri (Alb. Marri), Plataci (Alb. Pllatani), San Basile (Alb. Shën Vasili), San Benedetto Ullano (Alb. Shën Benedhiti), San Cosmo Albanese (Alb. Strigari), San Demetrio Corone (Alb. Shën Mitri), San Giacomo di Cerzeto (Alb. Shën Japku), San Giorgio Albanese (Alb. Mbuzati), San Martino di Finita (Alb. Shën Murtiri), Santa Caterina Albanese (Alb. Picilia), Santa Sofia d’Epiro (Alb. Shën Sofia), Spezzano Albanese (Alb. Spixana), and Vaccarizzo Albanese (Alb. Vakarici); Province of Catanzaro (Calabria): Caraffa di Catanzaro (Alb. Garafa), Carfizzi (Alb. Karfici), Pallagorio (Alb. Puhëriu), San Nicola dell’Alto (Alb. Shën Kolli), and Vena di Maida (Alb. Vina); and Province of Palermo (Sicily): Contessa Entellina (Alb. Kundisa), Piana degli Albanesi (Alb. Hora e Arbëreshëvet), and Santa Cristina Gela (Alb. Shëndhastini).
Slide 94: ARBNORI, PJETËR • 19 Though the Albanian language is by no means moribund in Italy after 500 years, Italian is gaining the upper hand even in these often isolated mountain villages. In a number of the above-mentioned communities, Albanian is still spoken by virtually all the inhabitants. In other settlements, the adult population is bilingual and the children speak only Italian. In still other communities, it is only the old people who understand Albanian. Several factors have contributed to the gradual transition from Albanian to Italian in these villages: the compulsory use of Italian in all schools, the lack of support by the Italian government, the discontinuity of Albanian-speaking territory, the Italian-language mass media and, in particular, seasonal emigration due to chronic unemployment in southern Italy. For written communication, Albanian has only been used by an intellectual minority, as school education and external cultural stimulation have always been in Italian. The substantial difference between the Albanian dialects spoken in southern Italy and the standard literary language of Albania (gjuha letrare) has also made it difficult for the Arbëresh to adapt to standard Albanian for written communication. The Arbëresh are not to be confused with the large numbers of new Albanian immigrants who have arrived from the Balkans to settle throughout Italy in the last two decades. See also ITALY, ALBANIANS IN. ARBNORI, PJETËR (18 January 1935–6 July 2006). Writer, political figure, and high-ranking member of the Democratic Party of Albania. Pjetër Arbnori was born as Filip Toma to a poor family in Durrës. Despite his early anticommunist activities, he managed to finish secondary school and complete a five-year correspondence course with the University of Tirana in 1960. He was affiliated in these early years of the communist dictatorship with the Social Democratic Party of Albania, for which he drafted the program. He was arrested in the spring of 1961 and sentenced to death. His sentence was subsequently commuted to 25 years in prison. While serving his term, he was sentenced to a further 10 years for secretly writing a novel and some short stories. Pjetër Arbnori was released from prison in August 1989, having served over 28 years of his sentence. He joined the burgeoning democratic movement and took part in the first anticommunist
Slide 95: 20 • ARCHEOLOGY demonstration in Shkodra on 14 January 1990. In December 1990, he was elected head of the Democratic Party for Shkodra, and in 1991, he was a member of parliament. From 6 April 1992 to March 1997, he served as speaker of the Albanian parliament. In addition to his political activities, Pjetër Arbnori has published numerous works of literature, among which are the short story “Kur dynden Vikinget” (“When Vikings Migrate”; Tirana, 1992) and the novels Mugujt e mesjetës (The Twilight of the Middle Ages; Tirana, 1993); E bardha dhe e zeza (The White and the Black; Tirana, 1996); Shtëpia e mbetur përgjysëm (The Half-Built House; Lezha, 1997); Vorbulla (The Whirlpool; Tirana, 1997); and Brajtoni një vetëtimë e largët (Brighton, a Distant Bolt of Lightning; Tirana, 2000). ARCHEOLOGY. Albania lies at the crossroads of three ancient European cultures: the Illyrians, the Greeks, and the Romans. Initial archeological activity was carried out in Albania in the early 19th century by foreign travelers and scholars. François Pouqueville and William Martin Leake were particularly interested in archeological sites. The Danish archeologist Peter Oluf Brøndsted (1780–1842) visited Ali Pasha Tepelena in 1812 and, on a joint outing to Nicopolis, now in northwestern Greece, the Lion of Janina encouraged him to excavate, though not for any altruistic scholarly reasons: “My son wrote to me of the marbles found in the Morea; I myself also have old stones in this country. I have, moreover, a good many (he laughed much in uttering this), and if you have a mind to excavate some part in Albania, I will furnish you with as many people as you wish for nothing; — but it is to be understood that I will have my share of the marbles and precious things.” Early descriptions of archeological sites and finds can be found in the works of Milan von Šufflay (Shkodra region) and Carl Patsch (Berat and Myzeqeja). Camillo Praschniker (1884–1949) and Arnold Schober (1886–1959) began excavations at Apollonia near Fier during World War I. This work was continued between 1924 and 1938 on a more proper scholarly footing by Léon Rey (1887–1954) of the Ecole Française d’Athènes. Later investigations of Apollonia were carried out by Albanian archeologists Hasan Ceka and Skënder Anamali (1921–1996).
Slide 96: ARCHITECTURE • 21 Butrint, the other major archeological site of southern Albania, was excavated by Luigi Maria Ugolini in 1924–1930, and later by Albanian archeologists such as Dhimosten Buda (1930–2004). The third major site of Albanian archeology is Epidamnus, the port city of Durrës, with its large amphitheater. Among the many other locations of archeological interest are Amantia, Antigoneia, Byllis, Konispol, Saranda, Sarda, Selca, and Zgërdhesh. A legacy of Ugolini was the Albanian Institute of Archeology. The archeological–ethnographic museum was set up in Tirana in 1948. In 1955, an archeological section was founded within the Institute of History and Linguistics, and in 1976, this section was transformed into the Center of Archeological Research, as part of the Albanian Academy of Sciences. Archeology was strongly supported throughout the communist regime to provide evidence for Albania’s autochthony and to glorify the country’s past. In 1992, the center became known as the Institute of Archeology; it is now involved in research, excavations, and studies throughout Albania. It has collaborated in numerous foreign projects and expeditions, such as a Greek expedition to Butrint in 1991–1994; a project of the University of Texas for prehistoric research in the Cave of Konispol from 1991 to 1997; French archeological activities in Apollonia since 1993, Sovjan (Korça) since 1994, and Byllis; and a project with Hebrew University in Israel on a newly discovered synagogue in Saranda in 2003. The University of Cincinnati has been active for several years in the Mallakastra region. Of particular significance is the work of the Butrint Foundation, financed by the Packard Humanities Institute, which has helped revitalize archeology. In 1999, this institute founded the Rescue Archeology Unit, which has carried out several projects recently. There are now good archeological museums in Durrës, Tirana, and Butrint. One profound disappointment in the field of archeology is the fact that most of what has been excavated in Albania since the 1920s has been stolen or has disappeared. See also CEKA, NERITAN; DRISHT; KORKUTI, MUZAFER; SHAS. ARCHITECTURE. See ART AND ARCHITECTURE.
Slide 97: 22 • ARDENICA ARDENICA. Orthodox monastery on a hilltop between Fier and Lushnja. Ardenica (Gk. Ardeúousa) is one of the most important monasteries and pilgrimage sites of Central Albania. It was visited by pilgrims, Christian and Muslim alike, because of a miracle-working spring. The pilgrims, mostly women, would drink the holy water in the hope of being cured of their illnesses. Surrounded by lofty cypress trees, the monastery of Ardenica was originally founded in the 13th or 14th century. It received many precious gifts from pilgrims over the years and developed into one of the most splendid monasteries in all of Albania. The well-preserved church in the inner courtyard of the monastery, completed in 1743, is devoted to the Virgin Mary. It was here that Scanderbeg and Andronica Arianiti are said to have been married in the 15th century. ARIANITI, GEORGE (ca. 1400–1463). George Arianiti was descended from an important and noble family who owned much territory in central and southern Albania (Çermenika, Shpat, Mokra, Elbasan, etc.). He made a name for himself during the years of Albanian resistance to the Ottoman invasion, defeating Turkish forces in important battles in 1433, 1434, and 1438–1439. Arianiti was known abroad for his deeds and received the support and protection of the pope, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the king of Naples. He was the father-in-law of the more famous Scanderbeg, who married his daughter Andronica. Arianiti earned the title of a captain; he died on Venetian territory, probably in Durrës. His son Constantine Arianiti (1456–1530) was a soldier and diplomat at the court of Emperor Maximilian I. The Arianiti dynasty ended in 1551 when the last male heir died. ARMED FORCES. A general staff for the nascent Albanian armed forces was set up in Vlora on 4 May 1913, five months after the declaration of independence. Albania’s first real government, created by the Congress of Lushnja in January 1920, included a War Ministry under Ali Riza Kolonja. From December 1925, the armed forces were headed and reorganized by the Austrian colonel Gustav von Myrdacz (1876–1945), initially as more of a private standing army for Ahmet Zogu. They stabilized later in the Zogist period into an actual army, in particular after 1932, but were unable to prevent
Slide 98: ARMENIAN MINORITY IN ALBANIA • 23 the Italian occupation and absorption of the country in April 1939. A Ministry of War and National Defense was created on 1 April 1945, after the communist takeover, and in August 1946, Major General Mehmet Shehu was appointed head of the General Staff. The fall of the communist dictatorship found the Albanian armed forces in a desolate state. Equipment was vastly outdated, there was little leadership, and morale had reached an all-time low. As insufficient funds were available for salaries and upkeep, the army was drastically reduced in size. Due to years of neglect, the armed forces were incapable of carrying out any substantial defense tasks and were unable, in particular, to prevent the widespread plundering of weapons stocks during the 1997 uprising. Albania was not directly involved in combat during the 1999 Kosovo War, but made its territory available for operations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In 2002, after a decade of stagnation, the Ministry of Defense launched a 10-year reform program, and on 3 April 2008, the country was invited to join NATO. The phase of restructuring will lead to a standing force of 16,500 troops. In addition to its operational headquarters in Durrës, the Albanian army now has bases in Farka, Laç, Marikaj, Poshnja, Vlora, and Zall Herr. In recent years, Albanian forces have served abroad in Bosnia (100 men for SFOR), Iraq (2003–2008, with 120 men in support of American operations), Afghanistan (ISAF), and Chad. One inherited problem for the armed forces is the destruction of the huge stockpiles of ammunition left over from the communist period. In July 2007, Albania announced that it had destroyed all of its chemical weapons. On 15 March 2008, a major incident occurred at an ammunition depot in Gërdec in which two large explosions rocked the country, leaving 25 dead and several hundred injured. The minister of defense, Fatmir Mediu, resigned as a result. ARMENIAN MINORITY IN ALBANIA. There is a dwindling minority of Armenians in Albania, probably numbering several hundred. A large portion of them left the country after the end of the dictatorship. They lived primarily in Tirana, Vlora, and Elbasan, and were descendants both of government officials from the time of the Ottoman Empire and of refugees who survived the genocide in Anatolia in 1914–1915. As an urban minority, those who remain are
Slide 99: 24 • AROMANIAN MINORITY IN ALBANIA now quite assimilated, comparatively well-educated, and successful in their professions. Among them is a notable number of doctors and dentists. Very few speak their original western Armenian dialect. The remaining members of the Armenian community have formed their own organization, called the “Armenians of Albania Association.” AROMANIAN MINORITY IN ALBANIA. See VLACH MINORITY IN ALBANIA. ART AND ARCHITECTURE. Art forms in Albania were molded by traditional Albanian folk culture and the country’s inclusion in the Ottoman Empire for five centuries, until 1912. Following mosaics and murals from antiquity and the medieval period, the first concrete representations in painting were icons in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition. The earliest Albanian icons date from the late 13th century; they reached their artistic zenith in the 18th century. Ten thousand icons by early artists have been recorded. Among the greatest protagonists of Albanian iconic art were Onufri and David Selenica. Many icons were destroyed during the communist cultural revolution of 1966–1967. Museums in Berat, Korça, and Tirana have good collections of what remains. Among the earliest noted works of architecture in Albania are Byzantine churches, such as those in Berat (ca. 1300); mosques, such as the Red Mosque (1417) and the Sultan Mosque (1492) in Berat, and the Mirahor Mosque (1495) in Korça; and Ottoman-style vaulted bridges, few of which remain. Not much remains either of the many early Catholic churches of the north. Notable in style among private dwellings are the lofty mansions of Gjirokastra, the windowed homes in the Mangalem quarter of Berat, and the kullas (fortified stone towers) of northern Albania and Kosovo. An Albanian school of painting first arose in the early 20th century with the works of Kolë Idromeno (1860–1939) of Shkodra, Spiro Xega (1876–1953) of Korça, Andrea Kushi (1884–1959) of Shkodra, and Simon Rrota (1887–1961) of Shkodra. Among other well-known classical painters of the 20th century are Vangjush Mio (1891–1957), Abdurrahim Buza (1905–1986), Zef Kolombi (1907– 1949), Sadik Kaceli (1914–2000), Nexhmedin Zajmi (1916–1991), Ibrahim Kodra (1918–2006), and Guri Madhi (1921–1988). The
Slide 100: ASDRENI • 25 prime force in Albanian sculpture in the 20th century was Odhise Paskali (1903–1985). The traditions of Albanian art that evolved up until World War II were largely destroyed by the communist regime that took power in 1944 and forced all artists to conform to the doctrine of socialist realism. Particularly difficult for Albanian artists was the decade of political turmoil from the cultural revolution of 1966–1967 to about 1975, when many painters were imprisoned and works destroyed. Few paintings of the socialist period have sustained aesthetic value. Since the fall of the dictatorship, Albanian artists have once again been able to give free rein to their creative impulses, both at home and abroad. The largest collection of Albanian art is that of the National Gallery in Tirana. ASDRENI (11 April 1872–11 December 1947). Poet. Asdreni, pseudonym of Aleks Stavre Drenova, was born in the village of Drenova near Korça in southeastern Albania. He attended a Greek-language elementary school, and in the autumn of 1885, he immigrated to Bucharest to join his two elder brothers. It was there, in the culturally active Albanian colony, that he first came into contact with the ideas and ideals of the nationalist movement in exile. In 1905, Asdreni taught at an Albanian school in the port city of Constanza and the following year became president of the new Bucharest chapter of the Dija (Knowledge) society, originally founded in Vienna. Inspired by the creation of an independent Albanian state, he set out for Durrës in the spring of 1914 to welcome the country’s newly chosen head of state, Prince Wilhelm zu Wied, from whom he hoped to obtain an appointment as an archivist in the new royal administration. It soon became apparent, however, that there would be little to administer and no need for his services at all. After a short visit to Shkodra, Asdreni returned to Bucharest in July 1914. In the following years, Asdreni continued to take an active interest in the Albanian national movement, but chose to remain in Romania, serving as secretary at the Albanian consulate in Romania, which opened in March 1922. He made another visit to Albania in November 1937 on the 25th anniversary of independence, hoping after many years of service to the Albanian state to receive a government pension. He spent some time in Tirana before visiting Shkodra,
Slide 101: 26 • ATHEISM where he met Gjergj Fishta in February 1938. The chaos caused by the Italian invasion of Albania on Easter 1939 made it bitterly obvious to him that his hopes for a pension were in vain, and he returned to Bucharest in July of that year, where he lived until his death. In the early years of the 20th century Asdreni had begun writing poetry and publishing articles in the local press. He is remembered for four collections of verse: Rézé djélli (Sunbeams; Bucharest, 1904); Endra e lote (Dreams and Tears; Bucharest, 1912); Psallme murgu (Psalms of a Monk; Bucharest, 1930), which marks the zenith of his poetic creativity; and Kambana e Krujës (The Bell of Kruja), which remained unpublished during his lifetime. All in all, Asdreni played a decisive role in setting Albanian verse on the path toward modernity. His collection Psallme murgu, with its classical refinement, is still considered by many to be one of the best volumes of Albanian verse published in the 20th century. See also LITERATURE, ALBANIAN. ATHEISM. The Albanians have never been described as a people particularly devoted to organized religion, although beliefs and religions in one form or another have always been part of their lives. The great religions, Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Islam, which penetrated the country over the centuries, were long regarded as foreign imports. As opposed to their Serbian, Bulgarian, and Greek neighbors, who early on made their own national churches out of Byzantine Orthodoxy, the Albanians did not come to identify with these religions as easily, primarily because (at least over the past 150 years) ethnic and national identity took priority over religious identity. With the communist takeover in 1944, so-called scientific atheism was spread throughout the country as part of the Marxist revolution that changed the face of the nation completely. It was propagated by the Albanian Party of Labor, hand in hand with universal education, as an element of “progress.” Militant atheism was also spread as a means of overcoming the rival power of the religious communities in the country, especially that of the Catholic Church. General Mehmet Shehu, in a public address in Shkodra on 28 January 1945, called the Catholic Church a “nest of reaction” and warned that church leaders would receive their “just” rewards before the people’s
Slide 102: BACKER, BERIT • 27 court. Most native priests and Italian missionaries were imprisoned, and some were put to death. The result of this wave of persecution was that the structures of the Catholic and Orthodox churches in Albania, as well as of Islam and Bektashism, were wiped out in the late 1940s and early 1950s. For reasons more political than theological, atheism was propagated with “religious fervor” in the mid-1960s and turned into a militant and extremist movement, culminating in the entire banning of religion in the country. At the time of the ban in 1967, there were about 1,050 mosques, 200 Bektashi tekkes, and 400 Catholic and Orthodox churches in the country, most of which were subsequently destroyed. Albania became the first atheist country in the world, as the people were proudly told by their leaders. Article 37 of the Albanian constitution of 1976 stipulated, “The State recognizes no religion, and supports and carries out atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people.” The ban was maintained until the end of the dictatorship. The law against the public practice of religion was rescinded in December 1990. –B– BACKER, BERIT (3 August 1947–7 March 1993). Norwegian anthropologist. Berit Backer was born in Oslo. She attended the Nansen School in Lillehammer in 1965–1966 and in the spring of 1968 registered as a student at the University of Bergen. During the following years she studied statistics, social anthropology, philosophy, and sociology. She visited Albania in 1969 and was intrigued by the culture and political system of the country. She therefore decided to dedicate her research in social anthropology to the Albanians. Unable to carry on research in Albania itself, Backer went to Kosovo, where in 1974–1975 she was one of the first foreigners to conduct anthropological field work. She spent one year in the village of Isniq in western Kosovo. Her work, which was submitted as a master’s thesis at the Institute of Social Anthropology of the University of Oslo in April 1979, was published posthumously as Behind Stone Walls: Changing Household Organization among the Albanians of Kosovo
Slide 103: 28 • BAHA’I (Peja, 2003). Berit Backer was a great friend of the Albanian people and during the 1980s became a leading human rights activist, in particular in defense of the cause and rights of the Kosovo Albanians. She was active on behalf of the Helsinki Watch Committee and in support of Kosovo Albanian refugees in Norway. She was stabbed to death in Oslo by a Kosovo Albanian suffering from a severe mental disorder. BAHA’I. The Baha’i faith was introduced to Albania in the 1930s by Refo Çapari. Çapari was born in 1900 in the southern Çamëria region and studied in Istanbul. He immigrated to the United States, where he became a Baha’i in 1928. In 1931, he returned to Korça and began translating Baha’i texts into Albanian. In May 1938, Çapari started editing a 44-page periodical in Albanian and occasionally in English, called Penda siprore (The Supreme Plume). The Baha’i community returned to Albania in 1992 following the repeal of the ban on religion and now maintains a center in Tirana. BAJRAKTARI, MUHARREM (15 May 1896–21 January 1989). Political figure and guerrilla fighter. Colonel Muharrem Bajraktari, a tribal leader from Ujmisht in the northeastern district of Kukës, joined the forces of Ahmet Zogu in 1919. In June 1924, he was deposed as commander of Kukës by Bajram Curri, and in December of that year he took part in the successful coup d’état of Zogu. He subsequently sentenced members of the so-called Democratic Revolution who had not fled the country to prison. He was then made commander of the police force in the northeast of the country. In 1926, he led a punitive expedition against the rebels of Dukagjini and in 1929 was made supreme commander of the Gendarmerie. In 1931, he was appointed aide-de-camp to King Zog. In December 1934, Bajraktari rose in revolt against increasing Italian encroachments and fled to Yugoslavia, and in 1936, to France. He returned to Albania in 1939 and organized a band of approximately 1,000 guerrillas in his native Luma region, where, as an independent northern tribal chieftain, he took part in the Legality resistance movement until the end of the German occupation. A report in the British Foreign Office archives by Billy McLean describes him as having a persecution complex that sometimes verged on insanity. Bajraktari took to the hills after the
Slide 104: BALKAN WARS • 29 communist takeover in 1944 and then fled to Italy, where he became an independent nonparty member of the Free Albania Committee in Rome. He subsequently lived in Athens, and in 1957 moved to Brussels, where he died. BALDACCI, ANTONIO (1867–1950). Italian scholar, botanist, and geographer. Baldacci carried out field research in the southern Balkans from the end of the 19th century onward. Aside from many articles on Albanian and Balkan flora, he is remembered for the following monographs: Itinerari albanesi, 1892–1902, con uno sguardo generale all’ Albania e alle sue communicazioni stradali (Albanian Wanderings, 1892–1902, with Special Attention to Albania and Its Road Network; Rome, 1917); L’Albania (Albania; Rome, 1929); and the three-volume Studi speciali albanesi (Special Albanian Studies; Rome, 1932, 1933, 1937). BALKAN WARS (1912–1913). Albania did not play a prominent role in the Balkans Wars, though as a de facto part of the Ottoman Empire it was caught up in the fighting. During the first Balkan War, from October 1912 to May 1913, the Albanians found themselves in an extremely awkward position, between the devil and the deep blue sea. There had been numerous major uprisings against the Turks in the period 1909–1912, but Albanian leaders were now more concerned about the coalition of neighboring Christian forces (Montenegro, Serbia, and Greece) than they were about the weakened Ottoman military presence in their country. What they wanted was to preserve the territorial integrity of Albania. Within two months, Ottoman forces had all but capitulated, and it was only in Shkodra and Janina that Turkish garrisons were able to maintain their positions. The very existence of the country was threatened. It was at this time that Ismail Qemal bey Vlora returned to Albania with Austro–Hungarian support and declared Albanian independence in the town of Vlora, on 28 November 1912. The declaration was more theoretical than practical because Vlora was the only town in the whole country not occupied by coalition forces, yet it proved to be effective in the vacuum of power. The Montenegrins had taken Lezha and Shëngjin and were besieging Shkodra; the Serbs had seized not only Kosovo and western Macedonia, but also Dibra,
Slide 105: 30 • BALLI KOMBËTAR Elbasan, Tirana, and Durrës; and the Greeks had invaded Saranda and stationed their forces on the island of Sazan outside the Bay of Vlora. Fighting continued in and around Shkodra from March until May 1913, by which time both Turkish and Serb troops began to withdraw from the country. On 29 July 1913, the Conference of Ambassadors in London resolved that Albania should become a sovereign state ruled by a European prince. Albanian independence had thus been recognized and the country was only superficially affected by the second Balkan War, from July to August 1913. BALLI KOMBËTAR (1943– ). Anticommunist resistance movement and political organization. The Balli Kombëtar (National Front) was founded by Mid’hat bey Frashëri in November 1942 as an alliance of Albanian resistance fighters and patriots. It promoted the goals of an ethnic Albania, that is, a state including all Albanian territory, and a republican system, that is, anti-Zog. Its social and economic platform was initially more radical than that of its rival, the communist National Liberation Front. Balli Kombëtar held its first conference in Berat in 1943 and elected an eight-man presidium under Mid’hat bey Frashëri. Its partisan units took to the fight against Italian forces, which capitulated in September 1943. Initially, attempts were made, in particular by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), to get the Balli Kombëtar and the communists to work together in the fight against the occupiers, but they soon became bitter rivals, and Albania descended into civil war. With the victory of the communists in the autumn of 1944, Balli Kombëtar was accused of having collaborated with the Germans, and its leaders fled abroad or were killed. The Balli Kombëtar was revived in Albania as a political party in the early 1990s after the fall of the dictatorship, under the leadership of Abas Ermenji, and in 1996 it won 5 percent of the popular vote and two seats in parliament. It has since declined. BALLUKU, BEQIR (14 February 1917–5 November 1975). Political and military figure of the communist period. Beqir Balluku was born in Tirana and attended the American Vocational School for a time, though he did not finish his formal education. From 1935 to 1939, he made his living as a metalworker. In 1940, he joined the resistance movement and helped form the communist party in 1941.
Slide 106: BANKING • 31 During World War II, he was chief of staff of various military brigades and political commissar of the first army corps. He was later member of a special court set up to try “war criminals and enemies of the people.” In February 1948, Balluku was promoted to the rank of major-general. From 1948 to 1953, he was chief of staff of the Albanian army and, after training at the Voroshilov military academy in Moscow from August 1952 to August 1953, he served as minister of defense from July 1953 to July 1974. He was also chairman of the people’s assembly from 1957 to 1974. Beqir Balluku was a member of the communist party’s Central Committee and the Politburo from 1948 to 1974. In August 1974, he was arrested and accused of organizing a military coup d’état with two other military figures, Petrit Dume and Hito Çako. He was found guilty of high treason and executed on 5 November 1975. The bodily remains of all three were discovered in 2000 and were reburied with military honors on 29 July of that year. BANKING. The first Albanian central bank was established in 1913, soon after independence, but collapsed during the confusion of World War I. During the early years of the rule of Ahmet Zogu, in September 1925, an Italian consortium called the Banka Kombëtare e Shqipnis/Banca Nazionale d’Albania (National Bank of Albania) was founded in Rome with the financial support of the Italian Società per lo Sviluppo Economico dell’Albania (Society for the Economic Development of Albania) and issued the first national currency. This bank was nationalized by the communists in 1944 and renamed Banka e Shtetit Shqiptar (Albanian State Bank). In 1992, after the fall of the communist dictatorship, the banking system was restructured for a market economy. The State Bank is now largely independent and has maintained monetary stability in the country despite Albania’s often chaotic economic development. In 2004, the largest commercial bank in the country, the Banka e Kursimit (Savings Bank of Albania) was privatized and sold to the Raiffeisen Bank of Austria. Among the major banking institutions currently active in Albania are Alpha Bank, Intesa Sao Paolo Bank of Albania, Banka Credins, Banka Italo-Shqiptare, Banka Kombëtare Tregtare, Banka Popullore, Credit Bank of Albania, Emporiki Bank, First Investment Bank,
Slide 107: 32 • BARDHI, FRANG International Commercial Bank, National Bank of Greece, Procredit Bank, Raiffeisen Bank, Tirana Bank, and Union Bank. BARDHI, FRANG (1606–9 June 1643). Albanian writer. Frang Bardhi, known in Latin as Franciscus Blancus or Blanchus, is the author of the first Albanian dictionary, published in Rome on 30 May 1635, which at the same time constitutes the first work in Albanian not of direct religious content. He was born in Kallmet (north of Lezha) in the Zadrima region of northern Albania to a family who had a tradition of furnishing its sons as bishops for the church and as soldiers and officials for the Republic of Venice. His uncle was bishop of Sapa and Sarda. Bardhi was sent to Italy, where he studied theology at the Illyrian College of Loretto, and later at the College of the Propaganda Fide in Rome. On 30 March 1636, no doubt with family influence, he was appointed bishop of Sapa and Sarda himself, replacing his uncle, who became archbishop of Antivari (Bar). From 1637 onward, Bardhi submitted reports in Italian and Latin to the Congregation of the Propaganda Fide, which contained a wealth of information about his diocese, political developments, Albanian customs, and the structure and position of the church. Nineteen of these letters and reports are preserved in the archives of the Propaganda Fide. In 1641, two years before his death, he is known to have traveled back to Rome to submit one report personally. After a short but intense life as a writer and ecclesiastical figure, Frang Bardhi died at the age of 37. During his last year at the College of the Propaganda Fide when he was 29 years old, Bardhi published the 238-page Latin–Albanian dictionary for which he is remembered. The work, Dictionarium latino–epiroticum, una cum nonnullis usitatioribus loquendi formulis (Latin–Epirotic Dictionary with Several Common Expressions; Rome, 1635), comprises 5,640 Latin entries translated into Albanian and is supplemented by an appendix of parts of speech, proverbs, and dialogues. In one of his reports, dated 8 February 1637, Bardhi noted that he had translated other ecclesiastical works into Albanian. Whether his other translations were ever circulated or published is not known. Bardhi also published a 76-page treatise in Latin on Scanderbeg entitled Georgius Castriottus Epirensis vulgo Scanderbegh, Epirota-
Slide 108: ´ BARIC, HENRIK • 33 rum Princeps fortissimus ac invictissimus suis et Patriae restitutus (George Castriotta of Epirus, Commonly called Scanderbeg, the very Mighty and Invincible Prince of Epirus, Restored to His People and His Country; Venice, 1636), in which he refuted the assertion of the Bosnian bishop, Tomeus Marnavitius, that the Albanian national hero was of Bosnian origin. It is a work of erudition and patriotic sentiment, not dissimilar to polemics still conducted and appreciated in the Balkans today. See also LITERATURE, ALBANIAN. BARDHI, RESHAT Haxhi Dede (4 March 1935– ). Bektashi religious figure. Reshat Bardhi was born in Kukës and acquired his religious training privately. In 1950, he became a muhib, a spiritual member of the Bektashi community, and in 1954, he became a dervish. Bardhi kept a low profile during the years when religion in Albania was banned (1967–1991). On 22 March 1991, he was chosen as kryegjysh (head grandfather), that is, spiritual leader of the Bektashis in Albania, and indeed in the world, and has led the Bektashi community since that time. ´ BARIC , HENRIK (28 January 1888–3 April 1957). Croatian scholar and historical linguist. Barić was born in Dubrovnik and studied Indo–European and Romance linguistics in Graz and Vienna. He moved to Belgrade at the end of World War I, where from 1920 he lectured in Indo–European linguistics. He was later appointed professor of Indo–European at the University of Belgrade, a post he held until 1944. From 1954 until his death in 1957, he was professor of general and comparative linguistics at the University of Sarajevo, where he founded the Balkanological Institute. Although an Indo–Europeanist and Romance scholar by training, Barić very soon devoted his energies to tracing the history and development of the Albanian language and, in particular, elucidating its position in the Indo–European family of languages. As opposed to many scholars of the period, who favored an Illyrian connection, Barić viewed Albanian as having descended from Thracian and, at the Indo–European level, as being more closely related to Phrygian and Armenian than to the western centum languages. He also realized the significance of Romanian in the historical development of Albanian.
Slide 109: 34 • BARLETI, MARIN Henrik Barić was not a prolific author, but he left his mark on Albanian linguistic studies. Among his major publications, primarily in Serbo–Croatian and German, are Albanorumänische Studien ˇ (Albano–Romanian Studies; Sarajevo, 1919); Ilirske jezicne studije ˇ (Illyrian Linguistic Studies; Zagreb, 1948); Lingvisticke studije ˆ (Linguistic Studies; Sarajevo, 1954); Hymje në historín e gjuhës shqipe (Introduction to the History of the Albanian Language; Prishtina, 1955); Istorija arbanaškog jezika (History of the Albaˇ nian Language; Sarajevo 1959); and Recnik srpskoga ili hrvatskoga i arbanaskoga jezika (Dictionary of the Serbian or Croatian and Albanian Languages; Zagreb, 1950). He is also remembered as editor-in-chief of the noted though short-lived Albanological journal Arhiv za arbanasku starinu, jezik i etnologiju (Archive for Albanian History, Language and Ethnology; Belgrade, 1923–1925). In later years, Barić founded the periodical Godišnjak (Yearbook) of the Balkanological Institute of Sarajevo, although he did not live to see the first edition. BARLETI, MARIN. See BARLETIUS, MARINUS. BARLETIUS, MARINUS (ca. 1450–1512). Italian historian of early Albania. Marinus Barletius, known in Albanian as Marin Barleti, is thought to have been born in Shkodra, where he vividly experienced and survived the second siege of the city by the Turks in 1478. When Shkodra was finally taken, Barletius, like many of his compatriots, fled to Italy and settled in Padua, where he became rector of the parish church of St. Stephan. His experience inspired him to document Albania’s turbulent history during the Turkish invasion and its national resistance under Scanderbeg. Barletius is the author of three Latin works: De obsidione Scodrensi (On the Siege of Shkodra; Venice, 1504); Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi, Epirotarum Principis (History of the Life and Deeds of Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus; Rome, ca. 1508–1510); and Compendium vitarum summorum pontificium et imperatorum romanorum usque ad Marcellum II (Compendium of the Lives of the Popes and Roman Emperors up to Marcellus II; Rome, 1555). Barletius’s history of Scanderbeg was widely read and translated in the 16th and 17th centuries and constitutes a basic source of our in-
Slide 110: BARTL, PETER • 35 formation on 15th-century Albania. The English-language version of the work, published in London in 1596, was entitled The Historie of George Castriot, Surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albinie, Containing his Famous Actes, his Noble Deedes of Armes and Memorable Victories again the Turkes for the Faith of Christ. Strongly influenced in style and outlook by the Roman historians, in particular by Livy (59 BC–AD 17), Barletius captured the imagination of the 16th-century reader who, with the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1529, was becoming increasingly obsessed by the prospect of a Turkish conquest of Western Europe. Barletius also laid the foundations for what can only be called the cult of Scanderbeg among the Albanians at home and in the diaspora, an almost saintly veneration of the Albanian national hero as the symbol and quintessence of resistance to foreign domination. BARTL, PETER (1938– ). German scholar and historian. Peter Bartl was born in Cottbus and studied eastern European history, Slavic, and Turkish in Göttingen and Munich. He is currently professor for the history of eastern and southeastern Europe at the University of Munich and is also head of the Albanien-Institut (Albania Institute) there. He is a specialist in Albanian history. Among his major publications are Die albanischen Muslime zur Zeit des nationalen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, 1878–1912 (The Albanian Muslims at the Time of the National Independence Movement, 1878–1912; Wiesbaden, 1968); Der Westbalkan zwischen spanischer Monarchie und osmanischem Reich: zur Türkenproblematik an der Wende vom 16. zum 17. Jahrhundert (The Western Balkans between the Spanish Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire: On the Turkish Problem at the Turn of the Sixteenth to Seventeenth Century; Wiesbaden, 1974); Quellen und Materialien zur albanischen Geschichte im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Sources and Material on Albanian History in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries; Wiesbaden, 1975/ Munich, 1979); Grundzüge der jugoslawischen Geschichte (Outline of Yugoslav History; Darmstadt, 1985); Albanien: vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (Albania: From the Middle Ages to the Present; Regensburg, 1995); and Albania Sacra: Geistliche Visitationsberichte aus Albanien, 1 (Albania Sacra: Reports on Ecclesiastical Visits to Albania, 1; Wiesbaden, 2007).
Slide 111: 36 • BASHA, LULZIM BASHA, LULZIM (12 June 1974– ). Political figure. Born in Tirana, Lulzim Basha studied law in Utrecht (The Netherlands) and worked for a time for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague and for the justice department of the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK). He joined the Democratic Party in 2005 and was elected to parliament in July of that year. Basha served as minister of public works, transport, and telecommunications from 2005 to 2007, and on 25 April 2007, he was appointed foreign minister, replacing Besnik Mustafaj. His career was tarnished in October 2007 by allegations of corruption in the awarding of a highway construction contract. BASHKIMI PËR FITOREN. See UNION FOR VICTORY. BASHKIMI PËR TË DREJTAT E NJERIUT. See UNION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PARTY. BASILIAN ORDER. Order of Christian monks. The order of Saint Basil, based on the monastic rules of Byzantine rite and inspired by the teachings of Saint Basil the Great, was widely diffused in the Balkans at an early date and is said to have spread Christianity throughout Albania in the sixth and seventh centuries prior to the arrival of the Benedictines. Among its protagonists in Italy was Saint Nilus of Rossano (910–1004). Nilus was a Calabrian Greek, who, after the death of his wife and child, joined a Byzantine monastery at Palma in Campania. In 955, he founded the Basilian monastery of Saint Adrian in the Italo–Albanian village of San Demetrio Corone (Alb. Shën Mitri), in the mountains of Calabria. In about 981, he took refuge from the Saracens at Monte Cassino and finally settled, just before his death, at Grottaferrata in the Alban hills south of Rome, where he founded a monastery. His third successor, Saint Bartholomew of Grottaferrata (d. 1055), established the Abbey of Grottaferrata there on a permanent basis. The Basilian monks of Grottaferrata, with their dependencies in Mezzojuso (Alb. Munxifsi) in Sicily and San Basile (Alb. Shën Vasili) in Calabria, were instrumental in preserving the Uniate Church of Byzantine Rite among the Italo–Albanians. From 1693, they sent missionaries to the Himara district of southern Albania and maintained close relations with the Orthodox community
Slide 112: BEGEJA, LIRIA • 37 there. Even today, the Abbey of Grottaferrata has strong links with Albanian and Italo–Albanian culture. BECI, BAHRI (6 March 1936– ). Scholar and linguist. Bahri Beci studied at the University of Tirana from 1954 to 1958 and was thereafter appointed to the Institute of Linguistics and Literature. In 1966, he was relieved of his job for political reasons and sent to the north to teach school. In 1969, he returned to the institute, of which he was to become director from 1993 to 1997 in the years of the regime of Sali Berisha. He also studied in France from 1975 to 1977. In 1997, he immigrated to Paris, where he now lives, and taught Albanian at the Institute for Oriental Languages and Cultures (INALCO). Bahri Beci is the author of numerous books on the Albanian language and its dialects, in particular the central Gheg variant. He has also been a major figure in the movement to revalue Gheg literary dialect. Among his book publications are Të folmet veriperëndimore të shqipës dhe sistemi fonetik i së folmës së Shkodrës (The Northwestern Dialects of Albanian and the Phonetic System of the Dialect of Shkodra; Tirana, 1995); Gramatika e gjuhës shqipe (Grammar of the Albanian Language; Tirana, 1997); Gramatika e gjuhës shqipe për të gjithë (Grammar of the Albanian Language for Everyone; Shkodra, 2000); Probleme të politikës gjuhësore dhe të planifikimit gjuhësor në Shqipëri (Problems of Language Policy and Language Planning in Albania; Peja, 2000); Dialektet e shqipes dhe historia e formimit të tyre (The Dialects of Albanian and the History of Their Formation; Tirana, 2002); and Probleme të lidhjeve të shqipes me gjuhët e tjera ballkanike (Problems of the Links between Albanian and the Other Balkan Languages; Peja, 2002). BEGEJA, LIRIA (16 February 1955– ). Franco–Albanian film director. Liria Begeja was born in Paris of an Albanian father and French mother. She graduated with a degree in history from the University of Paris in 1977, and from film school in 1978. She began her film debut in the 1980s, working with directors such as Patrice Chéreau (1944– ) and Chantal Akerman. The first film she made on her own was Paris Paparazzi. Her Avril brisé (Broken April), based on a novel by Ismail Kadare, received awards in Locarno and Italy. Her Loin des Barbares (Far from the Barbarians), made in 1993, is a
Slide 113: 38 • BEJTEXHINJ LITERATURE film about Albanian emigration starring Timo Flloko. She has most recently completed the film Change moi ma vie (Change My Life), 2000, starring Fanny Ardant. BEJTEXHINJ LITERATURE. The Bejtexhinj (from Alb. bejtexhi, pl. bejtexhinj, deriving from the Turkish word beyit “couplet”) were popular poets in the Muslim tradition, literally “couplet makers.” The first attempts in the early 18th century by Albanian writers who had been raised in an Islamic culture to express themselves not in the languages of the Orient, but in their own native tongue, resulted in the creation of Bejtexhinj literature. This period of Albanian writing consists almost exclusively of verse composed in Arabic script. The Arabic writing system had already been adapted, albeit rather awkwardly, to the needs of Ottoman Turkish and was then molded to fit the more elaborate phonetic system of Albanian, or more precisely, of the Albanian dialects in question. It proved to be just as unsatisfactory for Albanian as it had been for Turkish. Not only was the script oriental, the language of the Bejtexhinj was an Albanian so laden with Turkish, Arabic, and Persian vocabulary that it is quite tedious for Albanians today to read without a lexicon. Indeed, it is likely that the reader of classical Turkish who does not know Albanian would understand more of these poems than the reader of Albanian who do not know any oriental languages. BEKTASHI ORDER OF DERVISHES. Islamic Sufi order or tariqa and major religious community of Albania. The Bektashi order is said to have been founded in Anatolia by Haji Bektash Veli (Turk. Haci Bektas Veli), who lived in the 13th century. With the expansion ¸ of the Ottoman Empire, the order spread from central Anatolia, notably to the Balkans, Greece, and Crete, where the Bektashi served as missionaries of Islam and chaplains to the janissaries. Little is known of the early history of the Bektashi in Albania, though it can be assumed that they were well established by the late 16th to mid-17th centuries. The Bektashi themselves trace their entry into Albania to the legendary figure Sari Salltëk. The Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi, who visited southern Albania in the summer of 1670, noted a Bektashi monastery or tekke (Alb. Teqe) in Kanina near Vlora, describing the site as follows:
Slide 114: BEKTASHI ORDER OF DERVISHES • 39 There is in addition a tekke of Haji Bektash Veli here, which was also endowed by Sinan Pasha. This tekke is famous throughout Turkey, Arabia and Persia. Here one finds many devotees of the mystical sciences and the dervish life of poverty. Among them are some lovely young boys. Visitors and pilgrims are fed copious meals from the kitchen and pantry of the tekke because all the surrounding mountains, vineyards and gardens belong to it. Near the tekke, the benefactor of the endowment, Ghazi Sinan Pasha, lies buried along with all his household and retainers in a mausoleum with a lofty dome—may God have mercy on their souls. In short, it is a rich and famous tekke, beyond my powers to describe. (Seyahatname VIII, 361a) The mausoleum referred to by Evliya, which has since disappeared, was still an object of veneration during the visit of Austrian consul Johann Georg von Hahn in the mid-19th century. Hahn reported: “[The owners of the fortress] are descendants of the first Turkish conqueror of this region, the famous Sinan Pasha of Konya, whose grave can be seen in a small tekke at the base of the castle. People come here on pilgrimage from far and wide, as the Turks consider Sinan to be a saint (1854).” When the Porte ordered the closure of all Bektashi tekkes in 1826, the Bektashi tekke of Kanina was conferred upon the Halveti order. Among other early Bektashi monasteries was the tekke in Tetova (Tetovo) in Macedonia, founded at the end of the 16th century. According to legend, Sersem Ali Dede, a vizier under Sultan Suleyman (r. 1520–1566), saw Bâlim Sultân, second pîr “patron, founder” of the Bektashi order, in a dream and abandoned his post as vizier to live the life of a simple dervish in the village of Haci Bektaş, where the Bektashi movement arose. Before his death in 1569, he ordered that all his possessions be sold and the money be used to purchase land for a monastery in Tetova. The monastery was constructed by Harâbâtî (Harabti) Baba, after whom the tekke is named. This tekke was expanded in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to include a group of buildings and a beautiful garden, which still exist today as a hotel complex. From the early 18th century onward, the tekke in Tetova served as the mother house (âsitâne) for many other tekkes in Kosovo and Macedonia. In 1780, a Bektashi tekke in Gjirokastra was built under Asim Baba. This tekke laid the foundations for the Bektashi movement in Albania itself and was of particular significance in the late 19th century.
Slide 115: 40 • BEKTASHI ORDER OF DERVISHES The Albanians were especially receptive to certain features of Bektashism, namely, its traditional tolerance and regard for different religions and the related open-minded attitude to practices and beliefs. Indeed, some see Christian and pre-Christian practices continuing under the liberal umbrella of Bektashism. Furthermore, the Bektashis were receptive to local concerns and language, in contrast to Sunni Islam, which identified itself primarily with the Ottoman capital and the Arabic language. Much of southern Albania and Epirus converted to Bektashism, initially under the influence of Ali Pasha Tepelena, the “Lion of Janina,” who was himself a follower of the order. In 1826, four years after Ali Pasha’s death, the order suffered a setback in Albania when Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) suppressed the janissary corps and ordered the closure of all Bektashi tekkes in the Ottoman Empire. The Bektashi were nonetheless prominent once again during the years of the Albanian nationalist movement, Rilindja, in the late 19th century, and it is this link that no doubt gave rise to their surprising popularity. Such was the level of conversion to Bektashism that it grew into a religious community of its own and became the fourth religion of Albania. It is estimated that at the beginning of the 20th century, 15 percent of the population of Albania were Bektashi, equivalent to one-quarter of all Muslims in the country. Their tekkes served as centers for the nationalist movement, in particular for the underground propagation of Albanian-language books and education. Despite this, the sect did not succeed in becoming the Albanian national religion, as many Bektashi intellectuals had hoped. One reason for this was their disproportionate concentration in the south of the country. About 70 percent of all Bektashi tekkes were to be found south of Berat, and only 3 percent in the north. Bektashism also suffered a major setback with the revolt, during independence, of many Muslims demanding the country’s return to the Ottoman Empire. and in particular the burning and looting of the Albanian tekkes by Greek extremists during the Balkan War and World War I. At that time, about 80 percent of the tekkes were damaged or completely destroyed, an immeasurable loss from which this Islamic culture never really recovered.
Slide 116: BEKTASHI ORDER OF DERVISHES • 41 During their first national congress, held in Prishta in Skrapar in January 1922, the Bektashi declared themselves independent of the Turkish Bektashi and, after the ban of all dervish orders in Turkey in the autumn of 1925, it was to Tirana that the Turkish Bektashi transferred their world headquarters. In Albania, they set up a recognized and independent religious community, which existed there until 1967. The Bektashi community was divided into six districts: Kruja, with its headquarters at the tekke of Fushë Kruja; Elbasan, with its headquarters at the tekke of Krasta; Korça, with its headquarters at the tekke of Melçan; Gjirokastra, with its headquarters at the tekke of Asim Baba in Gjirokastra; Prishta, representing Berat and part of Përmet; and Vlora, with its headquarters at the tekke of Frashër. In 1928, the publicist Teki Selenica recorded the presence in Albania of 65 babas, meaning theoretically that there were at least 65 tekkes in the country at the time. There were also about a dozen Bektashi tekkes in Kosovo. By the mid-1940s, there were an estimated 280 babas and dervishes in Albania, and it is known that in the 1960s there were still about 50 Bektashi tekkes in the country and about 80 dervishes, 15 in Fushë Kruja alone. By 1993, however, after the collapse of the communist dictatorship, there were only five babas and one dervish left alive, and only six tekkes remained standing in any recognizable state. The Bektashi community, like the other religious communities in Albania, was persecuted by the communist authorities from the start, and many of its leaders soon met their death. Baba Murteza of Kruja died in 1946 after being tortured and thrown out of a prison window. Baba Kamil Glava of Tepelena was executed in 1946 in Gjirokastra. The writer Baba Ali Tomori (1900–1947) and Baba Shefket Koshtani of Tepelena were executed the following year. The American anthropologist Frances Trix has published a more or less complete list of Bektashi babas who suffered during the early years of communist rule. In 1967, the Bektashi community was dissolved entirely when a communist government edict banned all religious activity in Albania. During the dictatorship, there were only two Albanian tekkes striving to carry on the tradition: one in Gjakova in Kosovo under the direction of Baba Qazim Bakalli (1895–1983) and the other in Taylor,
Slide 117: 42 • BEKTASHI ORDER OF DERVISHES near Detroit, Michigan, founded in 1954 and long under the direction of the eminent Baba Rexhebi. The beautiful tekke of Gjakova was razed by Serb extremists in the spring of 1999 along with the rest of the old town. After almost a quarter of a century of silence in Albania, a provisional committee for the revival of the Bektashi community was founded in Tirana on 27 January 1991. Since that time, the new community, under Baba Reshat Bardhi, has been active in reviving Bektashi traditions in Albania. The tekke and world headquarters in Tirana was reopened on 22 March 1991 on the occasion of Nevruz, and the sixth Bektashi national congress was held in July 1993. There are now six functioning Bektashi tekkes in Albania: Turan under Baba Edmond Ibrahimi (ca. 1957– ), Gjirokastra under Baba Haxhi, Elbasan under Baba Sadik Ibro (1972– ), Fushë Kruja under the learned Baba Selim Kaliçani (1922–2001), Tomorica under Baba Shaban, and Martanesh under Baba Halil Curri. Others are in the process of being set up: Berat, Shëmbërdhenj, Bllaca, and Vlora, where the mausoleum of Kusum Baba was reopened in April 1998 at an inspiring site overlooking the city. The Bektashi religious order has a hierarchical structure as well as specific beliefs, rites, and practices. The main categories in the hierarchy of this faith are as follows. The ashik, Turk. açik, literally “lover,” is the simple Bektashi believer or faithful who has not been initiated in any way. He is often an individual who has been drawn to a particular baba and has become devoted to him. The muhib, also meaning “one who loves, sympathizer,” is a spiritual member of the Bektashi community, an individual who has received some initiation involving a ritual purification and a profession of faith during a ceremony held at a tekke. After a trial period, a muhib can become a varf, “dervish.” The dervish receives a white headdress called a taj (Alb. taxh from Turk. Tac), as well as other garments; lives full-time at a tekke; and is in a sense the equivalent of a Christian monk. The myxher (from Turk. mücerred “person tried by experience, pure, unmarried”) is a member of a special category of dervishes, the celibate ones, who wear a ring in their right ears. There has been much controversy in the history of modern Bektashism about the adherence to celibacy. The baba (also Alb. atë “father”) is a spiritual master,
Slide 118: BEKTASHI ORDER OF DERVISHES • 43 equivalent to a sheikh in other dervish orders. Each tekke is normally headed by a baba. The gjysh (literally “grandfather,” equivalent to Turk. dede or halife), is the superior of the babas and is responsible for all the tekkes in a certain region. The gjysh has passed through the final level of ceremony and wears his white taj with a green cloth band wrapped around it. Finally, the kryegjysh (“head grandfather” known in Turk. as dede baba), is the leader of the Bektashi order as a whole, chosen from among all the gjysh. As in Sufism in general, the emphasis in Bektashism is on inner meaning rather than on the following of outer convention. Bektashi practices and rites are thus characterized, as has been noted above, by a good degree of liberality. Sunni religious leaders have often been scandalized at the indifference the Bektashi often seem to show toward some of the tenets of mainstream Islam. The Bektashi pray only twice a day and are not obliged to do so in the direction of Mecca, in contrast to Sunni Muslims, who pray five times a day. Bektashi prayers do not necessarily involve prostration. As do other Muslims, most Bektashi refuse to eat pork, nor will they touch turtles, dogs, snakes, and, the most abhorrent of all, hares. Some Bektashis drink alcohol and, indeed, in a number of Albanian tekkes they make their own raki. Their women participate on an equal footing with the men in ceremonies and gatherings, something that again scandalizes some mainstream Muslims and which in the past led to wild speculation and rumors about the goings-on in Bektashi tekkes. The Bektashi are not expected to fast during Ramadan, but they do fast or at least abstain from drinking during matem, the first 10 days of the month of Muharrem, during which the suffering and death of Imam Husein is commemorated. Indeed, during the period of matem, they will drink only bitter yogurt and lentil soup. The feast of ashura then follows, during which a dish is eaten made of cracked wheat, dried fruit, crushed nuts, and cinnamon all cooked together. Nevruz, the Persian new year and birthday of Imam Ali, is also commemorated by the Albanian Bektashi. Bektashism has a long history and has absorbed influences from various sources. Among the earliest components of Bektashi doctrines and beliefs in the Middle East are Turkmen heterodoxy, the ascetic Kalenderi (Qalandari) movement of the 13th–14th centuries inspired
Slide 119: 44 • BEKTESHI, BESNIK by Persian and Indian mysticism, otherworldly Sufic Melametism (Malamatiyya), the Futuwwa order in the Middle East, and the gnostic and cabbalistic doctrines of Persian Hurufism. Bektashism subsequently evolved in close contact with Shi’ite and Alevite Islam and, in the Balkans at least, took on many Christian elements. As to their pantheistic core beliefs, about which the Bektashi can be rather secretive, they believe in Allah, Mohammed, and Imam Ali, to whom a special position is accorded. Indeed, Ali, his wife Fatima, and their two sons Hasan and Husein are the central figures of the Bektashi and Shi’ite creed. Many Bektashi homes have pictures of Ali, considering him to be the manifestation of God on earth. He is invoked on a variety of occasions by believers with a “ya, Ali!” or “Muhammed-Ali!” The figures of Allah, Muhammed, and Ali have thus come to constitute a sort of Bektashi trinity. The Bektashi, like other Shi’ites, revere the 12 imams, particularly Ali of course, and consider themselves descendants of the sixth imam, Jafer Sadik. Naturally, they also revere Haji Bektash as the founder of the order. As to ethics, the Bektashi adhere to the Turkish formula, eline, diline, beline sahip ol (Be master of your hands, your tongue, and your loins), used during initiation ceremonies. Essentially, this means not to steal, not to lie or talk idly, and not to commit adultery. A major source of information on Albanian Bektashi beliefs is Fletore e Bektashinjet (Bektashi Notebook), written by one of the best-known writers of Albanian literature, Naim bey Frashëri. Frashëri had hoped that the liberal Bektashi beliefs to which he had been attached since his childhood would one day take hold as a new religion for all of Albania. Since they had their roots both in the Muslim Koran and in the Christian Bible, the Bektashi could promote unity among their religiously divided people. Naim Frashëri supported the confessional independence of the Albanian Bektashi movement from the central pîr evi in the village of Haci Bektaş Köy in Anatolia and proposed an Albanian baba or dede as its leader. He also introduced Albanian terms, which replaced the Turkish ones, to give his Bektashi religion a national character and unite all Albanians. BEKTESHI, BESNIK (11 August 1941– ). Political figure of the communist period. Bekteshi was born in Shkodra and studied con-
Slide 120: BENEDICTINE ORDER • 45 struction engineering at the University of Tirana, later participating in the construction of the Light of the Party (Drita e Partisë) hydroelectric dam and power plant in Fierza on the river Drin. He became a member of the Party of Labor in 1973 and, promoted by Ramiz Alia, was elected to the Central Committee in 1981. He served as a member of parliament from Shkodra in November 1982 and was deputy prime minister from 23 November 1982 to 2 February 1989. He was a full member of the Politburo from 1986 to the end of the dictatorship. Bekteshi was tried together with nine other members of the Politburo and sentenced on 30 December 1993 to six years in prison for the misappropriation of public funds. BELISHOVA, LIRI (1923– ). Political figure of the communist period. Liri Belishova was born in the village of Belishova in the District of Mallakastra. She attended the Queen Mother Pedagogical Institute (Instituti Nanë Mbretneshë) in Tirana in the late 1930s and studied nursing. During World War II, she joined the communist resistance movement and lost one eye. From 1946 to 1947, she was president of the People’s Youth (Rinia Popullore). When her first husband, Nako Spiru, was purged and committed suicide, she was dismissed from all posts and sent to Berat to teach school. After the fall of Koçi Xoxe in 1948, however, she was rehabilitated and became a member of the Politburo from 1948 to 1960. She attended the Marxist–Leninist Institute in Moscow with Ramiz Alia in 1952–1954 and was a member of the party secretariat from 1954 to 1960. She was also married to Maqo Çomo, minister of agriculture from 1954 to 1960. On her return from China in 1960, Liri Belishova stopped over in Moscow and allegedly spoke to Russian leaders about the anti-Soviet intentions of the Chinese leadership. In September of that year, when Albania was on the verge of breaking party relations with the Soviet Union, she was expelled from all party functions as being pro-Soviet and a friend of Nikita Khrushchev, and was placed under arrest. She spent the next 31 years of her life, up to 1991, in internment in Mallakastra. She currently lives in Tirana. BENEDICTINE ORDER. Order of Catholic monks adhering to the rules of the Italian patriarch of monasticism, Benedict of Norcia (ca.
Slide 121: 46 • BERAT 480–547). Saint Benedict founded the order in 529 at the Abbey of Monte Cassino, where he died. It is not known when the Benedictines sent their first missionaries to Albania, but the order was active in the country in the Middle Ages. The Benedictines are credited with preserving Catholic influence in much of Albania against the pressure of rival Byzantine Orthodoxy. Though in decline by the 14th century, the Benedictines are said to have put up heroic resistance to the encroachment of Islam during the Ottoman conquest. BERAT. Town in the District of Berat, of which it is the administrative center. The population in 2006 was 65,000. Berat is one of the oldest settlements in Albania and a town of great historical and cultural interest. Founded in the fourth or third century BC, Berat was known in ancient Greek as Antipatreia and, in Latin, as Antipatrea. The early Byzantine term for the town was Pulcheriopolis, “beautiful town,” when it became the seat of a bishop under Emperor Theodosius II (AD 408–450). In the Middle Ages, it was successively under Byzantine, Bulgarian (ninth century), Norman (1082–1085), Angevin (1272– ), Serb (1346– ), and Turkish (1417– ) control. The present name of the town derives from the Slavic beli grad “white town” (med. Lat. Belogradum, Bellegradum, Turkish Belgrad [1431], Ital. Belgrado [1515]). To the Venetians it was known as Belgrado di Romania and in Turkish as Arnavud Belgrad (1670), to distinguish it from Belgrade in Serbia. The old town of Berat is situated on a hill with impressive Byzantine fortifications and contains some early Orthodox churches of note: the Vlachernes Church (ca. 1300), the church of St. Michael (ca. 1300), the Holy Trinity (ca. 1300), St. George (14th century), St. Nicholas (1591), the Evangelism church (late 16th century), St. Demetrius (1607), St. Constantine and Helena (1644), the church of the Holy Virgin (1797), and foundations of the so-called Red Mosque (1417), said to be the earliest mosque in Albania. The present town, which lies on the banks of the river Osum, ancient Apsus, is noted for the Sultan Mosque (Alb. Xhamia e Mbretit [1492]); the Lead Mosque (Alb. Xhamia e Plumbit [1553–1555]; and a tekke of the Halveti order of dervishes (1785). Evliya Çelebi, who visited Berat in 1670, described it as having a “huge open town
Slide 122: BERATTI, DHIMITËR • 47 entirely outside the walls of the fortress . . . with 5,000 one- and twostory stonework houses with fine red tiled roofs. They are well-built and attractive houses with gardens and are spread over seven verdant hills and valleys. Among them are over 100 splendid mansions with cisterns and foundations and an invigorating climate.” In 1916, Berat had a population of 8,500; in 1939 it was 11,000. Known today as the “Town with the Thousand Windows,” Berat was designated as an official museum city and is under monument protection. BERAT, DISTRICT OF. Region of local government administration. The District of Berat (Rrethi i Beratit), with its administrative headquarters in the town of Berat, borders on the districts of Fier and Mallakastra to the west; Lushnja, Kuçova, and Elbasan to the north; Gramsh and Skrapar to the east; and Tepelena to the south. It is 939 square kilometers in size and has a population of 128,000 (in 2004). BERATTI, DHIMITËR (1896–6 September 1970). Political figure. Dhimitër Beratti was from Korça. Having taken part in the declaration of Albanian independence in Vlora, he was made state secretary at the foreign ministry. From 24 August 1913 to 1914, he edited the biweekly Vlora newspaper Përlindj’ e Shqipëniës (Rebirth of Albania), which, as the voice of the provisional government, was devoted to “the defense of national rights.” Beratti spent World War I in Bucharest and then served as secretary of the Albanian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference from 1919 to 1921. While in France, he published a 69-page book in English, Albania and the Albanians (Paris, 1920), and a similar one in French entitled La question albanaise (The Albanian Question; Paris, 1920), to make the Albanian cause better known. In 1923, Beratti was again at the foreign ministry and served as a member of the International Boundary Commission. After another period in Romania, from 1925, he returned to the foreign ministry once more. In 1934, he was appointed minister of economics. During the occupation, Dhimitër Beratti served as minister of education from December 1941 to January 1943. He fled to Italy after the war, where he died in a traffic accident in 1970.
Slide 123: 48 • BERISHA BERISHA. Northern Albanian tribe and traditional tribal region. The Berisha region is situated south of the Drin River in the present District of Puka, to the west of the town of Fierza. It borders on the traditional tribal regions of Dushmani and Toplana to the west, Bugjoni to the north, Iballja to the east, and Kabashi to the south. The Berishas are thought to be one of the oldest tribes in the northern mountains, with a genealogy reaching back to 1360. The name was recorded in 1691 as Berisa. Berisha is a common family name, in particular in Kosovo. The Berisha tribe had a population of about 1,700 in 1917. BERISHA, SALI (15 October 1944– ). Political figure and high-ranking member of the Democratic Party of Albania. Berisha was born in Vuçidol in the Tropoja region of northern Albania and graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tirana in 1967. He became a member of the communist Party of Labor in 1971 and, after specializing in cardiology, was appointed assistant professor of medicine and cardiologist at Tirana General Hospital. In 1978, he spent nine months in advanced training in Paris on a UNESCO fellowship. In October 1989, Sali Berisha became one of a small group of Albanian intellectuals to voice open opposition to the collapsing communist system and, by early 1990, he was the leading spokesperson of the reform movement. In December 1990, following student protests, he founded the Democratic Party, the first opposition party in postcommunist Albania. He was formally elected head of the party in February 1991 and became a member of parliament in the elections of 31 March 1991. On 9 April 1992, he was elected by parliament as president of Albania, the first noncommunist head of state since World War II. Sali Berisha did much to transform Albania into a Western democracy. He carried out badly needed institutional, economic, and legal reforms, introducing basic democracy, the rule of law, and a market economy. Radical changes in personnel took power out of the hands of the former communist ruling elite, but polarized Albanian society. By mid-1994, however, his rule had become increasingly authoritarian and autocratic, and few decisions were made in the country without his approval. With the leader of the political op-
Slide 124: BESA • 49 position languishing in prison and the new National Information Service (SHIK) sniffing about in everybody’s business, Albania had once again become a one-party state, though infringements of individual rights never reached the awesome proportions they had under the communist dictatorship. Berisha retained much sympathy in the north of the country, but by 1995 he had lost all semblance of popular support in central and southern Albania. The end to his regime was finally brought about by the collapse of the pyramid investment schemes, which led to chaos and an angry popular uprising in the south of the country at the very moment he was having himself elected to a second term of office (3 March 1997). On 23 July 1997, after tense negotiations under international supervision, Sali Berisha resigned as president, turning power over to the Socialists under his archrival, Fatos Nano. Berisha thereafter continued to head the Democratic Party as official leader of the opposition in parliament. He is a dynamic and determined political figure who has survived the vicissitudes of political life in his country. The Democratic Party won the parliamentary elections of 3 July 2005 and of 28 June 2009, and Sali Berisha has been prime minister of Albania since that time. BERLIN, CONGRESS OF. See CONGRESS OF BERLIN. BESA. Popular custom. The besa (Alb. besë, def. besa) is one’s word of honor, a sworn oath, a pledge, or a cease-fire. In Albanian culture, the besa was regarded as something sacred, and its violation was quite unthinkable. The besa was not only a moral virtue, but also a particularly important institution in Albanian customary law. Among the blood feuding tribes of the north it offered the only form of real protection and security to be had. A besa could be given between individuals or feuding families for a specific period of time in order for them to settle other urgent affairs. It could also be concluded between tribes as a cease-fire between periods of fighting. The Croatian priest Lovro Mihačević O.F.M., who lived in the mountains of northern Albania in the late 19th century, described the institution of the besa in the following terms: The besa, equivalent to our word of honor, is sacred to the Albanians. Anyone who does not keep his besa is no man at all, and certainly not
Slide 125: 50 • BESA-BESË a gentleman. The besa is made between individuals as a pledge that they will protect one another. It can happen that two or more individuals who are in the middle of a blood feud, will give one another their besa for a certain period of time, during which the feud and any other hostile actions must be put aside. The Albanian would rather die than break his word of honor, especially if he has taken someone under his protection. The besa, taken to extremes, could have terrible repercussions. The Rilindja author Sami bey Frashëri illustrated this in his Turkish-language play Besa yahud ahde vefa (“Besa” or the Fulfilment of the Pledge), published in Istanbul in 1875 and translated into English as Pledge of Honor, an Albanian Tragedy (New York, 1945). In this rather melodramatic work, readers are confronted with the tragic dilemma of an Albanian father who prefers to kill his own son rather than break his besa. Despite some excesses and exceptions, until recently the Albanian besa was generally respected by the Albanians, who were proud of it. BESA-BESË. See LEAGUE OF PEJA. BIBERAJ, ELEZ (15 November 1952– ). Albanian American scholar and political commentator. Elez Hysen Biberaj was born in Krusheva near Plava in Montenegro a year after his family had escaped from Tropoja. He immigrated with his entire family to the United States in 1968. In December 1980, he began working for the Albanian Service of the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. From 1982 to September 1986, he served as senior analyst for Soviet and East European affairs at the press division of the United States Information Agency, and from September 1986, he was chief of the Albanian Service of the VOA. In March 2004, he resigned as head of the Albanian Service and became Eurasia Division Director of the VOA. Biberaj received his Ph.D. in political science at Columbia University in New York in 1985, where he specialized in Soviet and Eastern European affairs, and first visited Albania in March 1991 as an election observer for the Helsinki Commission. Among his publications are Albania and China: A Study of an Unequal Alliance, Boulder 1986; Albania: A Socialist Maverick (Boulder, 1990) and Albania in Tran-
Slide 126: BLAND, BILL • 51 sition: The Rocky Road to Democracy (Boulder, 1998). He has also published articles in journals such as Conflict Studies, Problems of Communism, Survey, and East European Quarterly. BIBLIOTEKA KOMBËTARE E SHQIPËRISË. See NATIONAL LIBRARY OF ALBANIA. BIÇAKU, AQIF PASHA (1861–10 February 1926). Political figure. Aqif pasha Biçaku of Elbasan, also known as Aqif pasha Elbasani, was born in Elbasan. He is remembered for having raised the Albanian flag in Elbasan on 26 November 1912 at the request of Ismail Qemal bey Vlora. He supported Qemal in his attempt to form a stable administration and was minister of the interior for a brief period in 1914. He took part in an unsuccessful congress in his native Elbasan in 1916 to restore Albanian independence. In 1920, he chaired the Congress of Lushnja and, as a representative of the Bektashi, was elected to the four-member High Regency Council (Këshilli i Lartë i Regjencës). Biçaku was a foe of Shefqet bey Vërlaçi and had often tenuous relations with Ahmet Zogu. Together with Dom Luigj Bumçi, he took part in a coup d’état in December 1921 and was later relieved of his duties on the High Council by Zogu. In 1923–1924, Biçaku represented Korça in parliament as a member of a pro-Noli faction. After the fall of the Noli government, he went into exile. BJESHKËT E NAMUNA. See ACCURSED MOUNTAINS. BLANCHUS, FRANCISCUS. See BARDHI, FRANG. BLAND, BILL (28 April 1916–2001). British Marxist–Leninist. Born in Ashton-under-Lyne, William B. Bland was head of the Stalinist-oriented Albanian Society in Britain for about 30 years. He was instrumental in the creation of the society in 1957 and served as its secretary from 1960 almost without interruption, until his resignation in July 1990. Bland first visited Albania in 1962 at the invitation of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor. He was thereafter active for years in spreading information about Albania and promoting the political objectives of the Albanian party leadership. He endeavored to foster
Slide 127: 52 • BLLOK ties between Albania and Britain and in 1980 launched a campaign to promote diplomatic relations between the two countries. He also edited the society’s small quarterly journal, Albanian Life, from his home in Ilford, Essex. In addition, Bland was instrumental in the foundation of the Marxist–Leninist Organisation of Britain, which in 1975 was renamed the Communist League. From 1968 to 1978, Albania broke off relations with Bland and his Albanian Society because of the latter’s opposition to the pro-Chinese stance of the Albanian party leadership, but close ties resumed after the disintegration of the Sino–Albanian alliance. Bill Bland was the author of Albania: World Bibliographical Series (Oxford, 1988) and coauthor of A Tangled Web: History of Anglo–American Relations with Albania, 1912–1955 (Ilford, 1986). BLLOK. Term from the communist period. Bllok, a word related to the English “block,” referred to the residential area of Tirana, which was reserved for the members and families of the country’s political elite and their servants. It was blocked off by soldiers throughout the dictatorship and, though it is situated in the very heart of Tirana, most inhabitants of the capital had never seen it until 1990. Prominent in the bllok were the villas of Enver Hoxha and of Mehmet Shehu. BLOOD FEUDING. Blood feuding or vendetta (Alb. gjakmarrje, def. gjakmarrja, lit. “blood taking”) is a reflection of Albanian customary law as codified, for instance, in the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini. It was and is practiced as a means of exercising tribal justice in wide regions of northern Albania and Kosovo. Behind the blood feud is the principle of “male honor,” that a man cannot cleanse his honor until he has given satisfaction in blood for a crime or infringement upon his honor or upon the honor of a member of his family. Women are exempt from such feuds. Vendettas usually occur between families, but they can also take place between entire tribes and may last for decades, even after the original cause of the feud has been forgotten. A murder committed in revenge is usually carried out according to specific customs and norms and is considered fully justified by the community in question. The murderer must inform the family of his victim and ensure that the body be transported home. He must also see that the victim’s rifle is returned to the family and, after the ar-
Slide 128: BOGA • 53 rangement of a besa for a 24-hour cease-fire, he is even expected to attend his victim’s funeral. The Kanun originally sanctioned the slaying of the murderer himself, but the practice was later extended so that male honor or blood could also be “cleansed” by the slaying of any male relative of the murderer. Many of the tribes in the north were once virtually decimated by feuding. In 1909, Edith Durham described the custom of blood feuding as follows: The unwritten law of blood is to the Albanian as is the Fury of Greek tragedy. It drives him inexorably to his doom. The curse of blood is upon him when he is born, and it sends him to an early grave. So much accustomed is he to the knowledge that he must shoot or be shot, that it affects his spirits no more than does the fact that “Man is mortal” spoil the dinner of a plump tradesman in West Europe. The man whose honour has been soiled must cleanse it. Until he has done so he is degraded in the eyes of all—an outcast from his fellows, treated contemptuously at all gatherings. When finally folk pass him the glass of rakia behind their backs, he can show his face no more among them—and to clean his honour he kills. Though substantially curtailed in Albania after World War II, blood feuding has remained a prominent feature of northern Albanian society. In Kosovo, thousands of families remained discreetly entrapped in these bloody rites until the late 1980s. An anti-vendetta campaign in 1990, led by a committee of prominent Kosovo– Albanian intellectuals, among whom was the venerable Anton Çetta (1920–1995), resulted in the “pacification” of over 900 blood feuds. In Albania itself, there has been a substantial revival of blood feuding in the north since the fall of the dictatorship. In June 2009, the Free Thought Forum (Forumi i Mendimit të Lirë) had information on some 112 families in the Prefecture of Shkodra alone who did not dare to leave the security of their homes because of blood feuds. This means that many 100 children cannot attend school. BOGA. Northern Albanian tribe and traditional tribal region. The Boga region is situated on the road from Koplik to Theth in the upper regions of the Përroi i Thatë River in the District of Malësia e Madhe. It borders on the traditional tribal regions of Kastrati to the west; Kelmendi to the north; Shala to the east; and Gimaj, Plani,
Slide 129: 54 • BOGDANI, PJETËR and Shoshi to the south. The small Boga tribe was closely related to the Kelmendi tribe, from which it stemmed, and had a population of about 700 at the end of the 19th century. BOGDANI, PJETËR (ca. 1630–December 1689). Writer of early Albanian literature. Pjetër Bogdani, known in Italian as Pietro Bogdano, was the last and by far the most original writer of early literature in Albania. He is author of the Cuneus prophetarum (The Band of the Prophets), the first prose work of substance written originally in Albanian (i.e., not a translation). Born in Gur i Hasit near Prizren about 1630, Bogdani was educated in the traditions of the Catholic Church, to which he devoted all his energy. His uncle Andrea or Ndre Bogdani (ca. 1600–1683) was archbishop of Skopje and author of a Latin–Albanian grammar, now lost. Bogdani is said to have received his initial schooling from the Franciscans at Čiprovac in northwestern Bulgaria and then studied at the Illyrian College of Loretto near Ancona, as had his predecessors, Pjetër Budi and Frang Bardhi. From 1651 to 1654, he served as a parish priest in Pult, and from 1654 to 1656 he studied at the College of the Propaganda Fide in Rome, where he graduated as a doctor of philosophy and theology. In 1656, he was named bishop of Shkodra, a post he held for 21 years, and was also appointed administrator of the Archdiocese of Antivari (Bar) until 1671. During the most troubled years of the Turkish–Austrian war (1664–1669), he hid out in the villages of Barbullush and Rjoll near Shkodra. A cave near Rjoll, in which he took refuge, still bears his name. In 1677, he succeeded his uncle as archbishop of Skopje and administrator of the Kingdom of Serbia. His religious zeal and patriotic fervor kept him at odds with Turkish forces, and in the atmosphere of war and confusion that reigned, he was obliged to flee to Ragusa (Dubrovnik), from where he continued on to Venice and Padua, taking his manuscripts with him. In Padua, he was cordially received by Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo (1622–1697), whom he had served in Rome. Cardinal Barbarigo, bishop of Padua, was responsible for church affairs in the East and had a keen interest in the cultures of the orient, including Albania. He had also founded a printing press in Padua, the Tipografia del Seminario, which served the needs of oriental languages and had fonts for Hebrew, Arabic,
Slide 130: BOGOMILISM • 55 and Armenian. Barbarigo was thus well-disposed, willing, and able to assist Bogdani in the latter’s historic undertaking. After arranging for the publication of the Cuneus prophetarum, Bogdani returned to the Balkans in March 1686 and spent the next years promoting resistance to the armies of the Ottoman Empire, in particular in Kosovo. He contributed a force of 6,000 Albanian soldiers to the Austrian army, which had arrived in Prishtina, and accompanied it to capture Prizren. There, however, he and much of his army were met by another equally formidable adversary, the plague. Bogdani returned to Prishtina but succumbed to the disease there in December 1689. His nephew Gjergj reported in 1698 that his uncle’s remains were later exhumed by Turkish and Tartar soldiers and fed to the dogs in the middle of the square in Prishtina. So ended one of the great figures of early Albanian culture, the writer often referred to as the father of Albanian prose. It was in Padua in 1685 that the Cuneus prophetarum, his vast treatise on theology, was published in Albanian and Italian, with the assistance of Cardinal Barbarigo. It is considered to be the masterpiece of early Albanian literature and is the first work in Albanian of full artistic and literary quality. In scope, it covers philosophy, theology, and science (with digressions on geography, astronomy, physics, and history). The work was reprinted twice under the title L’infallibile verità della cattolica fede (The Infallible Truth of the Catholic Faith; Venice, 1691 and 1702). See also LITERATURE, ALBANIAN. BOGOMILISM. This dualistic sect is said to have been founded by a priest called Bogomil, who was active in Bulgaria from 927 to 950. The Bogomils believed in a good God the Father and in an evil God or devil named Satanael, who was the son of the former and was the creator of humankind. Because the visible world was the creation of evil, the Bogomils condemned worldliness. Marriage, for example, was regarded as an abominable obstacle to holiness and a capitulation to the flesh. The Bogomils, who also condemned eating meat and drinking wine, were convinced that they alone could save the world through activities inspired by Jesus, the second son of God the Father. The Bogomil movement spread from Philippopolis (Plovdiv) to Byzantium, where its adherents were brutally suppressed in the early
Slide 131: 56 • BOJAXHIU, AGNES GONXHE 12th century, not only for their religious beliefs but apparently also for their Slavic nationalism and resentment of Byzantine culture. Despite this, they managed to survive in the Balkans and Asia Minor up to the time of the Ottoman conquest. Bogomil beliefs, condemned by the Christian Church as heresy, also spread to Italy and the West. The Bogomils were widely considered to be the forerunners of the Cathar movement of southern France. Among the Cathar communities of western Europe in 1250 was an Ecclesia Albanensis, a dualistic religious community based around Milan, Verona, and Desenzano, whose founders, judging by the name, may have come from Albania. The cradle of medieval Bogomilism in the Balkans corresponds approximately to the territory of the present Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and part of southwestern Bulgaria. By the end of the 12th century, the movement had spread to Serbia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. To what extent it exerted its influence in Albania is uncertain. Since Macedonian Bogomilism had declined and virtually disappeared by the 14th century, an age in which the nomadic Albanian tribes were still in a phase of early consolidation, it is unlikely that this predominantly Slavic belief had any profound effect on the native population of Albania. BOJAXHIU, AGNES GONXHE. See TERESA, MOTHER. BOLETINI, ISA BEY (15 January 1864–23 January 1916). Nationalist figure and guerrilla fighter. Isa bey Boletini, born in the village of Boletin near Mitrovica, was one of the great freedom fighters of Kosovo at the turn of the last century. After the rise of the League of Prizren, he took part as a young man in the Battle of Slivova against Turkish forces on 22 April 1881. In 1902, Boletini was appointed head of the personal “Albanian guard” of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (r. 1876–1909) in Istanbul, where he spent most of the next four years and acquired the title “bey.” He was loyal to the sultan, but in 1908 he gave his initial support to the Young Turks. When Xhavid Pasha sent an army of 7,000 men to subdue Kosovo in November 1908, however, he and a handful of friends put up fierce resistance. After their escape, Turkish troops burned his house down in revenge. In 1909, Boletini led fighting in Prishtina, Prizren, and elsewhere, and
Slide 132: BUCHHOLZ, ODA • 57 played an important role in the general uprising in Kosovo in the spring of 1910, where he held Turkish forces at bay in Caraleva, between Ferizaj and Prizren, for two days. During the first Balkan War in 1912, he led armed guerrillas in Kosovo and later in Albania proper, in support of the provisional government, which proclaimed Albanian independence in Vlora on 28 November 1912. In March 1913, Boletini accompanied Ismail Qemal bey Vlora to London to seek British support for the new country. Edwin Jacques reports the anecdote that “upon entering the British Foreign Office building to plead his nation’s cause, the security police asked him to remove the pistol from his belt and check it in the vestibule. He complied with no objection. Following the interview, the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, accompanied Boletini to the vestibule where he put the pistol back in his belt. The foreign secretary remarked with a smile, ‘General, the newspapers might record tomorrow that Isa Boletini, whom even Mahmut Shefqet Pasha could not disarm, was just disarmed in London.’ Boletini replied with a broad smile, ‘No, no, not in London either,’ and he withdrew from his pocket a second pistol” (1995, 339). Boletini returned to Albania, where his troops defended Prince Wilhelm zu Wied until the latter’s departure from Albania. He was later interned in Podgorica, where he is said to have been killed in a shoot-out. His home and grave are preserved in the village of Boletin. BOPP, FRANZ (17 September 1791–23 October 1867). German scholar and linguist. Bopp was born in Mainz and taught linguistics at the University of Berlin, where he died. He is remembered as one of the fathers of Indo–European studies for his Vergleichende Grammatik (Comparative Grammar; Berlin, 1833–1852). Of particular significance to Albanian studies was his treatise Über das Albanesische in seinen verwandtschaftlichen Beziehungen (On Albanian in Its Genetic Relations; Berlin, 1854), in which he was the first to convince the scholarly world that Albanian was an Indo–European language. BUCHHOLZ, ODA (21 January 1940– ). German scholar and linguist. Originally from East Germany, Buchholz was able to study in Albania before political relations between Albania and the Warsaw
Slide 133: 58 • BUDA, ALEKS Pact were frozen in 1961. She subsequently became a leading figure of Albanian studies in the German Democratic Republic, working for the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, where she still lives. Oda Buchholz, who is an expert in verb morphology, is the author of Zur Verdoppelung der Objekte im Albanischen (On the Doubling of the Object in Albanian; Berlin, 1977), and is coauthor of Wörterbuch Albanisch Deutsch (Albanian–German Dictionary; Leipzig, 1977); Albanische Grammatik (Albanian Grammar; Leipzig, 1987); and literary translations from the Albanian. BUDA, ALEKS (7 September 1910–7 July 1993). Scholar and historian. Aleks Buda was born in Elbasan, apparently of a merchant family of Jewish origin, and went to school in Lecce in southern Italy. He finished secondary school in Salzburg in Austria in 1930 and completed his university studies in Vienna in 1938. He returned to Albania in February 1939 and taught school in Korça, and, in 1943, in Tirana. After World War II, he was appointed director of the National Library (1945–1946). Although he had specialized in literature up to this point, he was to make a name for himself as a historian, in particular for the ancient, medieval, and Rilindja periods. Much lauded during the communist period, he was also a member of the People’s Assembly and from January 1973 was president of the Academy of Sciences. Buda edited many standard works of Albanian history and published numerous “representative” articles. His writings were collected in the volume Shkrime historike (Historical Writings; Tirana, 1986). BUDI, PJETËR (1566–December 1622). Writer of early Albanian literature. Pjetër Budi, known in Italian as Pietro Budi, was the author of four religious works in Albanian. He was born in the village of Gur i Bardhë in the Mat region of the north-central Albanian mountains. He could not have obtained much formal education in his native region, and he trained for the priesthood at the so-called Illyrian College of Loretto (Collegium Illyricum of Our Lady of Luria), south of Ancona in Italy, where many Albanians and Dalmatians of renown were to study. At the age of 21 he was ordained as a Catholic priest and sent immediately to Macedonia and Kosovo, then part of the ecclesiastical province of Serbia under the jurisdiction of the
Slide 134: BUDI, PJETËR • 59 archbishop of Antivari (Bar), where he served in various parishes for 12 years. In 1610, he was referred to as “chaplain of Christianity in Skopje” and, in 1617, chaplain of Prokuplje. In Kosovo, Budi came into contact with Franciscan Catholics from Bosnia, connections which, in later years, proved fruitful for his political endeavors to develop support for Albanian resistance to the Ottoman Empire. In 1599, Budi was appointed vicar general (vicario generale) of Serbia, a post he held for 17 years. As a representative of the Catholic Church in the Turkish-occupied Balkans, he lived and worked in what was no doubt a tense political atmosphere. His ecclesiastical position was in many ways only a cover for his political aspirations. In 1616, Budi traveled to Rome, where he resided until 1618, overseeing the publication of his works. From March 1618 until ca. September 1619, he went on an 18-month pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Back in Rome in the autumn of 1619, he endeavored to draw the attention of the Roman curia to the plight of Albanian Christians and to raise support for armed resistance. On 20 July 1621, he was made bishop of Sapa and Sarda (Episcopus Sapatensis et Sardensis), that is, of the Zadrima region, and returned to Albania the following year. His activities there were often more political than religious in nature. One of his interests was to ensure that foreign clergymen were replaced by native Albanians, a step that could not have made him particularly popular with some of his superiors in Italy. In December 1622, sometime before Christmas, he drowned while crossing the Drin River. Pjeter Budi’s first work was the Dottrina Christiana or Doktrina e Kërshtenë (Christian Doctrine), a translation of the catechism of Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621). It was published in Rome in 1618; there is only one original copy extant. The Albanian Christian Doctrine was subsequently reprinted by the Congregation of the Propaganda Fide in Rome in what would seem to be relatively large editions in 1636, 1664, and 1868. It is known that in 1759 there were still a total of 960 copies of the book in the depository of the Propaganda Fide. Of more literary interest than the catechism itself are Budi’s 53 pages of religious poetry in Albanian, some 3,000 lines, appended to the Christian Doctrine. It constitutes the earliest poetry in the Gheg dialect. Much of it was translated from Latin or Italian, though some is original.
Slide 135: 60 • BUFI, YLLI Budi’s second publication, Ritvale Romanvm et Specvlvm Confessionis (Roman Ritual and Mirror of Confession), contains his three other religious works: the Rituale Romanum or Rituali Roman (Roman Ritual), a 319-page collection of Latin prayers and sacraments with comments in Albanian; a short work entitled Cusc zzote mesce keto cafsce i duhete me scerbyem (Whoever Says Mass Must Serve This Thing), a 16-page explanation of mass; and the Speculum Confessionis or Pasëqyra e t’rrëfyemit (The Mirror of Confession), a 401-page translation or, better, adaptation of the Specchio di Confessione of Emerio de Bonis, described by Budi as “some spiritual discourse most useful for those who understand no other language than their Albanian mother tongue.” Both the Roman Ritual and the Mirror of Confession are supplemented by verse in Albanian. Pjetër Budi is the first writer from Albania to have devoted himself to poetry. His works include some 3,300 lines of religious verse, almost all in quatrain form with an alternate rhyme. This verse, 19 poems in all, comprises both poetic translations and original poetry by Budi himself. Though his religious verse is not without style, its content, being imitations of Italian and Latin moralist verse of the period, is not excessively original. He prefers biblical themes, eulogies, and universal motifs such as the inevitability of death. See also LITERATURE, ALBANIAN. BUFI, YLLI (25 May 1948– ). Political figure and high-ranking member of the Socialist Party of Albania. Ylli Bufi was born in Tirana and studied chemistry at the University of Tirana, finishing his doctorate in 1971. He worked in the oil and food industries from 1972 to 1982. From 1983 to 1990, he was deputy head, and from 1990 to 1991, head of the ministry of light industry and food production. From 5 June to December 1991, he served as prime minister, heading the so-called stability government in the transitional period between the fall of the communist regime and the rise of pluralist structures. In the cabinet of July 1997, he was appointed minister of economics and privatization. Ylli Bufi has been a member of parliament for the Socialist Party since 1991. In 2005, he was deputy speaker of the Albanian parliament.
Slide 136: BULO, JORGO • 61 BULGARIA, ALBANIANS IN. The first group of Albanians known to have immigrated to Bulgaria settled in the village of Arbanasi near the ancient Bulgarian capital of Veliko Tărnovo in the early 14th century. In 1480, after the death of Scanderbeg, thousands more Albanians fled eastward through Bulgaria, and many settled on the western slopes of the Rhodope mountains. Later, more Orthodox Albanians settled in various regions of Bulgaria and Thrace, in particular in Dyevna, Veliko Tărnovo, Oryahovitsa, Lyaskovets, Stara Zagora, Nova Zagora, and Gorno Dolno, many of them forced into exile by the Ottoman authorities. A group of Catholic Albanians moved to the region of Mihaylovgrad in northwestern Bulgaria and settled in the villages of Kopilovets, Chiprovtsi, and Zhelezna. Many of the Albanians of Bulgaria were later forced to flee to Romania and Russia. In the late 19th century, however, Sofia served as a rallying point for the Albanian nationalist movement. Today, Albanian can still be heard in the Bulgarian–Greek–Turkish border region, notably in the village of Mandrica. In 1951, there were 1,000 Albanians there. According to the 1992 Bulgarian census, there were 3,197 Albanians in the country. BULKU, RAIMONDA (16 August 1958– ). Actress. Raimonda Bulku was born in Tirana and graduated with a degree in acting from the Academy of Fine Arts (Instituti i Lartë i Arteve) there in September 1985. Her first successful role was in the film Dimri i fundit (The Last Winter, 1976). From 1985 to 1994, she played in 18 feature films, mostly in major roles. BULO, JORGO (27 April 1939– ). Scholar. Jorgo Bulo was born in Sheper in the southern Gjirokastra region. He attended secondary school in Gjirokastra and graduated from the University of Tirana with a degree in Albanian language and literature. He finished his doctorate in 1982 and worked for years as a research expert at the Institute of Linguistics and Literature, which he recently headed. His research has focused, in particular, on literary typology and the works of Naim Frashëri. Among his monographs are Romani shqiptar i realizmit socialist për luftën nacionalçlirimtare (The Socialist Realism Novel on the National Liberation War; Tirana, 1982); Magjia dhe
Slide 137: 62 • BULQIZA, DISTRICT OF magjistarët e fjalës (Magic and the Verbal Magicians; Tirana, 1998); and Tipologjia e lirikës së Naim Frashërit (Typology of the Poetry of Naim Frashëri; Tirana, 1999). BULQIZA, DISTRICT OF. Region of local government administration. The District of Bulqiza (Rrethi i Bulqizës), with its administrative headquarters in the town of Bulqiza, borders on the districts of Mat and Tirana to the west, Dibra to the north, Librazhd to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the east. It is 469 square kilometers in size and has a population of 43,000 (2004). It possesses considerable chromite deposits. BUMÇI, LUIGJ (7 November 1872–1945). Political and Catholic religious figure. Dom Luigj Bumçi of Shkodra was the nephew of writer Pashko Vasa. He trained for the priesthood in his native Shkodra and, in January 1912, was made bishop of Lezha. In 1919, he was sent by the government to preside over the Albanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He also participated in the Congress of Lushnja in January 1920 and, as a representative of the Catholic community, was elected to the four-member High Regency Council (Këshilli i Lartë i Regjencës). Together with Aqif pasha Biçaku he took part in a coup d’état in December 1921 and was later relieved of his duties on the High Council by Ahmet Zogu. He thereafter withdrew from politics and returned to his ecclesiastical duties. BUSHATI, MALIQ BEY (?–1945). Political figure from Shkodra. Maliq bey Bushati edited the newspaper Populli (The People) in 1919–1920, together with Salih Nivica. In 1921–1923 and from 1925 on, he was a member of parliament. After the Italian invasion, he gave his support to the occupation and was made minister of the interior in the cabinet of Shefqet bey Vërlaci. Sir Andrew Ryan, British minister in Albania from 1936 to 1939, describes him as a man of character, but of no great intelligence. On 13 February 1943, despite his alleged membership in the Balli Kombëtar, he was appointed prime minister by the Italian authorities. Under his administration, an Albanian army and an Albanian gendarmerie were set up, thus creating the illusion of a measure of autonomy within the country. On 12 May 1943, after three months in power, he was replaced by his
Slide 138: BUTRINT • 63 predecessor, Eqrem bey Libohova. In 1943, he also became head of the National Fascist Party of Albania. Bushati was executed in the spring of 1945 as a collaborator. BUSHATLLIU, KARA MAHMUD PASHA (1749–22 September 1796). Kara Mahmud Bushatlliu was the son of Mehmed Pasha Bushatlliu (d. 1775), who, as bey of Bushat, founded the dynasty of Ottoman pashas that rose to prominence in and around Shkodra in the late 18th century. Kara Mahmud Pasha ruled over much of northern and central Albania for over 20 years and gave the region autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, battling both Ottoman and Montenegrin forces. He promoted trade and commerce and brought new prosperity to the region. Kara Mahmud Pasha was succeeded by his brother, Ibrahim Pasha Bushatlliu (d. 1809), who reigned from 1796 to 1809, and his brother’s son, Mustafa Pasha Bushatlliu (1796-1860), who reigned from 1815 to 1831, when the dynasty was overcome by Turkish troops. BUTRINT. Archeological site south of Saranda. Butrint (Greek Buthrotos, Latin Buthrotum) is the most impressive archeological site in Albania. According to the legend recorded in Vergil’s Aeneid (III 292 sq.), the site was founded by the seer Helenos after the fall of Troy for refugees from Asia Minor. Helenos is said to have married Hector’s widow Andromache and reigned as king of Butrint. The site does not seem to have been founded by the Greeks; archeological evidence points rather to the seventh and sixth centuries BC as the actual age of its foundation. Butrint reached its zenith in the fourth and third centuries BC. Under Julius and Augustus Caesar, Butrint, then known as Colonia Iulia and Colonia Augusta, served as a base for the Roman fleet and as a grain depot. The town grew substantially in the first and second centuries AD. It is mentioned by Cicero in his letters to Atticus. The first Christian bishop was consecrated there in AD 451. Butrint remained inhabited throughout the Middle Ages. Ali Pasha Tepelena constructed a small fortress at Butrint in 1807 to protect his merchant vessels from the French fleet. Butrint was excavated between 1928 and 1941 by Italian archeologists under Luigi M. Ugolini (1895–1936). Preserved at this splendid, though compact, site between the lake and a channel leading
Slide 139: 64 • BUTRINT FOUNDATION to the Ionian Sea are Cyclopean-scale walls and gateways, a finely preserved theater for 2,000 spectators dating from the third century BC, the remains of a third-century Ionian temple of Asclepios, a bath from the second century BC, and an acropolis, as well as a basilica from the early sixth century AD and a well-preserved early Christian baptistry with fine mosaics. Butrint was visited in 1991 by British Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover and Lord Rothchild, who set up the Butrint Foundation in London to help protect the site and promote archeological research there. The British School of Archaeology in Rome has since discovered numerous Roman villas in the surrounding area, as well as the ancient and medieval harbor. Butrint was declared a World Heritage Site in 1992 and has been the major focus of archeological activity in Albania for the last decade. BUTRINT FOUNDATION (1993– ). International foundation set up in 1993 by Lord Rothchild and Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover (1927– ) for the conservation and preservation of the ancient site of Butrint and its hinterland. The prime objective of the foundation is the preservation and development of the Butrint site for the benefit of the general public. Also connected to the Butrint Foundation as director of archeology is Professor Richard Hodges, director of the Institute of World Archaeology at the University of East Anglia. He carried out excavations in Butrint and was active on behalf of the British School of Archaeology in Rome from 1988 to 1995. The Foundation is supported by the Packard Humanities Institute. BUZA, ABDURRAHIM (22 December 1905–7 November 1986). Painter. Abdurrahim Buza was born in Skopje of a family from Gjakova in Kosovo. With the help of Bajram Curri, he was able to get a basic education in Shkodra and Tirana and then attend the Normal School (Shkolla Normale) in Elbasan (1923–1928). As a student there, he took an active part in the so-called Democratic Revolution of June 1924. He was subsequently able to study in Italy on an Albanian government scholarship. Together with sculptor Odhise Paskali, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin for a year, and then continued his training as a painter in Florence (1933). On his return to Albania, he taught art at a school in Tirana and from 1947 at
Slide 140: BUZUKU, GJON • 65 the Jordan Misja Academy, where he remained until his retirement in 1966. Buza’s works were first exhibited at the national level in April 1945. They are characterized by bright colors and a certain peasant naivety. He dealt with a wide range of themes in his painting, from portraits to landscapes in Pogradec and Tirana, as well as historical, legendary, and nationalist subjects. The spirit of his native Kosovo is reflected in many of the ca. 500 oil paintings and 10,000 drawings that have been preserved. BUZUKU, GJON (16th century). Early Albanian writer. Gjon Buzuku was the author of the first book (1555) known to have been published in Albanian. This 188-page Albanian translation of the Catholic missal, commonly known as Meshari (The Missal), is considered by many to be the most spectacular creation of all the history of Albanian writing. Because the frontispiece and the first 16 sheets of the only extant copy of the book are missing, neither its exact title nor its place of publication are known. Little is known about the author of this old Albanian missal. The scant information available comes from the colophon (postscript) of the missal, which Buzuku wrote in Albanian, not unaware of the historic dimensions of his undertaking: I, Don John, son of Benedict Buzuku, having often considered that our language had in it nothing intelligible from the Holy Scriptures, wished for the sake of our people to attempt, as far as I was able, to enlighten the minds of those who understand, so that they may comprehend how great and powerful and forgiving our Lord is to those who love him with all their hearts . . . . I began it in the year 1554 on the twentieth day of March and finished it in the year 1555 on the fifth day of January. It has been put forth convincingly that Gjon Buzuku did not live in Albania itself but rather somewhere on the northern Adriatic in the Republic of San Marco, perhaps in the Venetian region, where families of Albanian refugees had settled after the Turkish conquest of Shkodra in 1479. In Venice, Buzuku would have had greater access to a literary education and to training as a priest than in Albania. Judging from the traits of the northwestern Gheg dialect used in the text, Gjon Buzuku’s family must have stemmed from one of the villages on the western bank of Lake Shkodra, possibly around Shestan, which is now in Montenegro. Elements of other dialects also
Slide 141: 66 • BYLLIS occur, which would seem to confirm the assumption that Buzuku was born and raised outside of Albania, unless of course he was consciously endeavoring to employ a language more widely intelligible than his native dialect. The mystery of Buzuku’s missal is compounded by the fact that only one copy of the book has survived the centuries. It was discovered by chance in 1740 in the library of the College of the Propaganda Fide. The first complete publication of the text was undertaken in 1958 by Namik Ressuli, including a photocopy and a transcription. Ten years later, historical linguist Eqrem Çabej published another, two-volume critical edition in Tirana. BYLLIS. Archeological site near the present-day village of Hekal in the District of Mallakastra. Byllis was founded from Nikaia in the mid-fourth century BC. The toponym derives from the Greek tribal name, Bylliónes, Byllydeis. The hill-site town reached its zenith in the fourth and third centuries BC. In the second century BC, it became a Roman colony and was known as Colonia Byllidensium. Mentioned by Pliny in the first century AD, Byllis was still going strong in the sixth century AD. The present site includes 2.5 kilometers of perimeter walls, 3 meters thick and 9 to 10 meters high, eight towers, an agora, a theater dating from the third century BC, two stoas, and two early Christian basilicas from the early sixth century. Little of Byllis has been properly excavated. BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD (22 January 1788–19 April 1824). British poet. In the course of his extensive travels to the Mediterranean region, the flamboyant and scandalous romantic poet Lord Byron visited southern Albania in 1809, in particular to see the tyrant Ali Pasha Tepelena, the so-called Lion of Janina. The visit made a tremendous impression on him. Byron is remembered in English literature primarily for his long verse tale Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812–1819), which was inspired by his travels in Albania and other parts of the Mediterranean. In Canto II, he writes of the Albanians: Land of Albania! where Iskander rose,/Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise,/And he his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes/Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprize:/Land of Albania! let me bend
Slide 142: ÇABEJ, EQREM • 67 mine eyes/On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!/The cross descends, thy minarets arise,/And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen,/ Through many a cypress grove within each city’s ken. . . . Fierce are Albania’s children, yet they lack/Not virtues, were those virtues more mature./Where is the foe that ever saw their back?/Who can so well the toil of war endure?/Their native fastnesses not more secure/Than they in doubtful time of troublous need:/Their wrath how deadly! but their friendship sure,/When Gratitude or Valour bids them bleed/Unshaken rushing on where’er their chief may lead. (xxxviii, lxv) In the summer of 1813, Byron put on an Albanian costume, which he had purchased during his stay in Albania, and sat for the portrait painter, Thomas Phillips. The resultant painting in three-quarter length, entitled Portrait of a Nobleman in the Dress of an Albanian, was exhibited at the Royal Academy and is now at the British Embassy in Athens. A copy of this painting, made in 1836, is on permanent display at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The original Albanian costume, rediscovered in 1962 and now in the possession of the Landsdowne family, is preserved at their family home at Bowood House in Wiltshire. –C– ÇABEJ, EQREM (6 August 1908–13 August 1980). Scholar and historical linguist. Çabej was born in Eskişehir, Turkey, and finished his elementary schooling in Gjirokastra in 1921. He studied in Austria, in Klagenfurt (1923–1926), Graz (1927), and, in particular, Vienna (1930– ), where he received a solid training in historical linguistics. It was there that he attended the lectures of Paul Kretschmer (1866– 1956), Carl Patsch (1865–1945), Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890-1938), and especially Norbert Jokl, who instilled in him an interest in the historical development of his native language. He completed his doctorate in Vienna on 7 October 1933 with the dissertation “Italoalbanische Studien” (“Italo–Albanian Studies”; Vienna, 1933). On his return to Albania, he worked as a secondary school teacher in Shkodra (1934), and later in Elbasan (1935), Tirana, and Gjirokastra; thereafter, he was considered one of the country’s leading scholars. From 1939 to 1940 he taught once again in Tirana, but in September
Slide 143: 68 • ÇAJUPI, ANDON ZAKO 1942 he refused to join the newly created Institute of Albanian Studies there for political reasons. He was in Rome until July 1944 but then returned to Albania. In 1947, he was appointed as a member of the Institute of Sciences, forerunner of the University of Tirana, and served from 1952 to 1957 as professor for the history of Albanian and historical phonology. In 1972, he became a founding member of the Academy of Sciences. Despite the isolation in which he lived during the long years of the Stalinist dictatorship in Albania, he achieved renown as a linguist and scholar at home and abroad. He died in Rome. The University of Gjirokastra now bears his name. Eqrem Çabej is the author of over 200 publications, many on the Albanian language, but also on literature and folklore. His earliest scholarly publications of substance date from the mid-1930s. He is remembered in particular for his two-volume critical edition of Meshari i Gjon Buzukut, 1555 (The Missal of Gjon Buzuku, 1555; Tirana, 1968) and his seminal etymological research, such as Studime etimologjike në fushë të shqipes (Etymological Studies in the Field of Albanian; Tirana, 1976, 1996). Much of his work was republished in the nine-volume edition Studime gjuhësore (Linguistic Studies; Prishtina, 1986–1989). ÇAJUPI, ANDON ZAKO (27 March 1866–11 July 1930). Poet and playwright. Born in Sheper, a village in the Upper Zagoria region of southern Albania, Çajupi was the son of a rich tobacco merchant, Harito Çako, who did business in Kavala and Egypt. The young Andon Zako, who was later to adopt the pseudonym Çajupi, attended Greek-language schools in the region and in 1882 immigrated to Egypt, where he studied for five years at the French lycée Sainte Catherine des Lazaristes in Alexandria. In 1887, he went on to study law at the University of Geneva. Çajupi remained in Switzerland for two or three more years, during which time he married a girl named Eugénie, who gave birth to their son, Stefan. He completed his law degree on 24 October 1892, but Eugénie died that same year, a tragic loss for the poet. Çajupi returned to Kavala, leaving his small son in the charge of his mother, Zoica. About 1894–1895, he went back to Egypt and articled for three years with a German law firm in Cairo. His legal career came to a swift conclusion, however, when he made the strategic mistake of
Slide 144: ÇAJUPI, ANDON ZAKO • 69 defending a French company in a dispute against the interests of the khedive. Financially independent, however, Çajupi bore this professional calamity with ease. He withdrew to his villa in Heliopolis near Cairo and devoted himself subsequently to literature and to the consolidation of the thriving Albanian nationalist movement in Egypt. In the years following Albanian independence, Çajupi continued to play an active role in the Albanian community on the Nile, organized as it was in various patriotic clubs and societies at odds with one another over political issues. The poet died at his home in Heliopolis. His remains were transferred to Albania in 1958. The most significant phase of Çajupi’s literary and nationalist activities was from 1898 to 1912. By 1902, he was an active member of the Albanian Fraternity of Egypt (Vëllazëria e Egjiptit) and that same year published the poetry volume for which he is best remembered, Baba-Tomorri (Father Tomorr; Cairo, 1902). This collection, named after Mount Tomorr in central Albania, the Parnassus of Albanian mythology, contains light verse on mostly nationalist themes and is divided into three sections: Fatherland, Love, and True and False Tales. The work was an immediate success. Indeed, no volume of Albanian poetry had been so popular among Albanians at home and abroad since the collections of Naim bey Frashëri. Çajupi did not confine himself to the romantic nostalgia of earlier poets in exile. Nationalist he was, but he was also aware of the dreary realities of life in his homeland. One of the most memorable ballads in this collection, Fshati im (My Village), focuses on the inequalities of patriarchal society. Though by far the most significant volume of verse in the early years of the 20th century, Baba-Tomorri was not Çajupi’s only publication. In 1921, he translated 113 fables of La Fontaine (1621–1695) in Perralla (Fables; Heliopolis, 1920–1921), and soon thereafter completed a selection of Sanskrit verse, Lulé te Hindit (The Flowers of India; Cairo, 1922), which he had adapted from a French anthology and dedicated to Faik bey Konitza. Çajupi was also a playwright, author of a verse tragedy on Scanderbeg entitled Burr’ i dheut (The Earthly Hero), written in 1907. This was followed by a one-act original comedy, Pas vdekjes (After Death), written in 1910. Another drama in verse, which remained unpublished during his lifetime, was the four-act situation comedy,
Slide 145: 70 • CAMAJ, MARTIN Katërmbëdhjetë vjeç dhëndër (A Bridegroom at Fourteen). See also LITERATURE, ALBANIAN. CAMAJ, MARTIN (21 July 1925–12 March 1992). Scholar, linguist, and writer. Martin Camaj was an emigrant writer of significance to both Albanian scholarship and modern Albanian prose and poetry. He was born in the village of Temal, in the Dukagjini region of the northern Albanian Alps, and benefited from a classical education at the Jesuit Saverian college in Shkodra. Camaj managed to flee Stalinist Albania in 1949, and after an initial period in Kosovo, he studied at the University of Belgrade. From there he went on to do postgraduate research in Italy, where he taught Albanian and finished his education in linguistics at the University of Rome in 1960. From 1970 to 1990, he was professor of Albanian studies at the University of Munich and lived in the mountain village of Lenggries in Upper Bavaria until his death on 12 March 1992. Camaj’s academic research focused on the Albanian language and its dialects, in particular those of southern Italy. He was also active in the field of folklore. Among his major publications in these fields are Il Messale di Gjon Buzuku: contributi linguistici allo studio della genesi (The Missal of Gjon Buzuku: Linguistic Contributions to the Study of the Genesis; Rome, 1960); Albanische Wortbildung: die Bildung der älteren Nomina im Albanischen (Albanian Morphology: The Construction of the Older Substantives in Albanian; Wiesbaden, 1966); Lehrbuch der albanischen Sprache (Handbook of the Albanian Language; Wiesbaden, 1969); La parlata albanese di Greci in provincia di Avellino (The Albanian Dialect of Greci in the Province of Avellino; Florence, 1971); Die albanische Mundart von Falconara Albanese in der Provinz Cosenza (The Albanian Dialect of Falconara Albanese in the Province of Cosenza; Munich, 1977); Albanian Grammar with Exercises, Chrestomathy and Glossary (Wiesbaden, 1984); and La parlata arbëreshe di San Costantino Albanese in provincia di Potenza (The Arbëresh Dialect of San Costantino Albanese in the Province of Potenza; Rende, 1993). He was also the coauthor of a volume of Albanian folktales in German, Albanische Märchen (Albanian Folk Tales; Düsseldorf, 1974). Martin Camaj began his literary career with poetry, a genre to which he remained faithful throughout his life, though in later years
Slide 146: CAMAJ, MARTIN • 71 he devoted himself increasingly to prose. His first volumes of classical verse, Nji fyell ndër male (A Flute in the Mountains; Prishtina, 1953) and Kânga e vërrinit (Song of the Lowland Pastures; Prishtina, 1954), were inspired by his native northern Albanian mountains, to which he never lost his attachment, despite long years of exile and the impossibility of returning. His collections Legjenda (Legends; Rome, 1964) and Lirika mes dy moteve (Lyrics between Two Ages; Munich, 1967), which contained revised versions of a number of poems from Kânga e vërrinit, were reprinted in Poezi 1953–1967 (Poetry 1953–1967; Munich, 1981). Camaj’s mature verse shows the influence of the hermetic movement of Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970), who was his teacher in Rome. The metaphoric and symbolic character of his language increased with time, as did the range of his poetic themes. Camaj’s language is discreet, reserved, and trying at times, although the author himself regarded the term hermetic as coincidental. He relies on the traditional and colorful linguistic fountainhead of his native Gheg dialect to convey a poetic vision of his pastoral mountain birthplace near the Drin River, with its sparkling streams and shining forests. His verse has appeared in English in the volumes Selected Poetry (New York, 1990) and Palimpsest (Munich, 1991). Camaj’s first major prose work was Djella (Djella; Rome, 1958), a novel interspersed with verse about the love of a teacher for a young girl of the lowlands. This was followed 20 years later by the novel Rrathë (Circles; Munich, 1978), which has been described as the first psychological novel in Albanian. After Shkundullima (Quaking; Munich, 1981), a collection of five short stories and one play, came the novel Karpa (Karpa; Rome, 1987), which is set on the banks of the River Drin in the year 2338, a long prose work that Camaj preferred to call a parable. General themes in Martin Camaj’s work are the loss of tradition, loneliness in a changing world, and the search for one’s roots. Needless to say, his works only became known to the Albanian public after the fall of the dictatorship. Up until then, only a handful of people in Albania had ever heard of him. His prose and poetry were first made widely available in the Balkans in the five-volume edition Vepra letrare (Literary Works; Tirana, 1996). See also LITERATURE, ALBANIAN.
Slide 147: 72 • CAMARDA, DEMETRIO CAMARDA, DEMETRIO (23 October 1821–13 April 1882). Arbëresh philologist. Among the cultural leaders of the Arbëresh in the 19th century whose publications on Albanian language and literature gave impetus not only to the Albanians of Italy but also to the Rilindja movement in the motherland was philologist and folklorist Demetrio Camarda, known in Albanian as Dhimitër Kamarda. He was born in Piana degli Albanesi in Sicily and studied for the priesthood at the college of the Propaganda Fide in Rome. After being ordained in the Byzantine rite in 1844, he lived in Naples and in his native village until 1848, when he was expelled from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by the Bourbon authorities for allegedly having collaborated with the liberals. He fled first to Rome and then to the Benedictine monastery of Cesena. In 1852, he was appointed teacher at a secondary school in Leghorn (Livorno), where he spent the rest of his life as a parish priest of the Greek Catholic community. Camarda is remembered for his Saggio di grammatologia comparata sulla lingua albanese (Essay on the Comparative Grammar of the Albanian Language; Leghorn, 1864), one of the first works of Albanian diachronic philology, in which he attempted to prove the strong affiliation of the Albanian language with Greek, contradicting German comparative linguist Franz Bopp, who had demonstrated its direct Indo-European origin in 1854. This work was followed by Appendice al saggio di grammatologia comparata (Appendix to the Essay on Comparative Grammar; Prato, 1866), a collection of Arbëresh folk songs. Camarda also wrote a grammar of Albanian and published a book of Albanian poetry dedicated to Dora d’Istria, entitled A Dora d’Istria gli Albanesi (To Dora d’Istria, the Albanians; Leghorn, 1870). He died in Leghorn. ÇAMËRIA. Region, also known as Chameria, extending from the southern tip of Albania into what is now northern Greece, the region of Janina. The city of Janina and much of the Çamëria region, formerly populated to a large extent by Albanian Muslims and Christians, was given to Greece on the basis of the report of the International Boundary Commission in 1913. In June 1944, the Albanian Muslim population of Çamëria, a total of 40,000 individuals, was expelled en masse from Greece into Albania, and their property and
Slide 148: ÇARÇANI, ADIL • 73 assets were confiscated by the Greek authorities. They have not yet been given official permission to return, or received compensation. The so-called Çamërian question, and the issue of minority rights in the two countries in general, have long constituted an element of discord in Greek–Albanian relations. The problems of return and restitution of or compensation for lost property, long taboo in Greece, were brought up by the Council of Europe for the first time in late 2002. There are about 200,000 people of Çam origin in Albania. They are represented at the political level by the Party for Justice and Integration, founded in 2004. The party won a seat in parliament in June 2009 and joined the government coaliton. ÇAMI, FOTO (4 October 1925–?). Political figure of the communist period. Foto Çami was born in Labova in the Gjirokastra region and served as the political commissar of a partisan unit during World War II. He studied philosophy at the University of Tirana and was thus given the honorary title “professor.” On 7 November 1971, he became a full member of the Central Committee and in 1986 a full member of the Politburo. Çami was chairman of the foreign relations committee of the Albanian parliament from 1983 to 1990 and secretary of the Central Committee from 1985 to 1990. He was tried together with nine other members of the Politburo and sentenced to prison on 30 December 1993. On 20 June 1996, he was then sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity. ÇAMI, MUHAMET. See KYÇYKU, MUHAMET. ÇARÇANI, ADIL (5 May 1922–13 October 1997). Political figure of the communist period. Adil Çarçani was born in the village of Fushë-Bardhë in the district of Gjirokastra and took part in the communist resistance movement during World War II as the assistant commander of an assault brigade. He studied economics, and in 1955–1965 he was minister of industry, mining, and geology. In 1965–1982, he served as deputy prime minister and from 4 January 1982 to 22 February 1991 as prime minister. Çarçani was a full member of the Central Committee from 1956 to 1991 and a full member of the Politburo from 1961 to 1991. He was chairman of the commission for the total electrification of the country
Slide 149: 74 • CASTRIOTTA, GEORGE from 1966 to 1971 and headed economic delegations to China to sign credit agreements in September 1968 and July 1975. On 2 July 1994, after the fall of the dictatorship, he was sentenced to five years of prison for abuse of power, but the sentence was suspended due to his age and failing health. He died in Tirana. CASTRIOTTA, GEORGE. See SCANDERBEG. CATHOLICISM. The final rupture between Roman Catholicism and Byzantine Orthodoxy took place in 1054 after Pope Leo IX (r. 1048–1054) directed his representative in Constantinople to leave a papal bull on the altar of the Church of Saint Sophia, anathematizing the “seven mortal heresies” of the Greeks and excommunicating the patriarch of Constantinople. The patriarch, in turn, anathematized the pope, thus making the Oriental or Eastern Schism inevitable. Most of central and southern Albania opted for the Byzantine rite, but northern Albania, under the influence of Italy, Venice, and the Crusaders, remained in communion with the Latin Church. With the creation of the Slav principality of Dioclea (corresponding to modern Montenegro), the metropolitan See of Bar (Antivari), which was set up in 1089, became responsible for most of the dioceses in northern Albania, and, consequently, for most Albanian Catholic settlements at the time: Ulcinj, Shas, Shkodra, Drisht (Drivastum), Pult (Polatum), Sapa, and Shurdhah (Sarda). During the brief Venetian occupation of the early 13th century (1204–1212), an archdiocese was also established in Durrës (1204), with a number of suffragans. The Catholic Church put up much resistance to the Ottoman occupation of Albania, which began in 1393 with the conquest of the fortress of Shkodra. Opposition was at its height in the age of Scanderbeg, who initially received much support from Venice, the pope, and the Kingdom of Naples. Scanderbeg was widely admired in the Christian world for his resistance to the Turks and was given the title “Athleta Christi” by Pope Calixtus III (r. 1455–1458). After Scanderbeg’s death in 1468 and the collapse of organized Albanian resistance to the Turks, however, the position of the Catholic Church in Albania became much more precarious. It is known that in 1577, northern and central Albania were still staunchly Catholic, but by the early decades of the 17th century, an estimated 30 to 50 percent of the population
Slide 150: CATHOLICISM • 75 of northern Albania had “turned Turk,” that is, had converted to Islam. In 1599, there were no more than 130 Catholic priests left in the country, most of whom had little education. It can be assumed that the Albanians converted to Islam not for theological reasons, but primarily to escape oppression and the harsh taxes imposed by the Porte on the “infidels.” Many Albanian Catholics initially retained their Christian faith in the privacy of their homes but adopted Muslim names and customs for use in public. This Crypto-Christianity proved to be a pragmatic and very Albanian solution to an existential problem faced by Catholics living in the Ottoman-occupied Balkans. The survival of Catholicism in the northern mountains can be attributed to the untiring missionary activities of the Franciscans. The Albanian tribesmen themselves never seem to have taken the intricacies of Catholic dogma too seriously, however, and apostolic visitors to the country were often scandalized by the moral and ecclesiastical conditions in the mountains. In 1703, during the reign of the albanophile Pope Clement XI (r. 1700–1721), himself said to have been of Albanian descent on his mother’s side, the Croatian archbishop and visitor apostolicus, Vincentius Zmajevich (1670–1745), convoked an Albanian Council in 1703 and attempted to impose the provisions of the Council of Trent upon the rather lax tribesmen. Despite the activities of the Jesuits, who opened a pontifical seminary in Shkodra in 1859, conversions to Islam continued unabated throughout the 19th century. The majority of the highland tribes, however, resisted conversion to Islam. In 1881, among the 19 tribes north of the Drin River, there were 35,000 Catholics, 15,000 Muslims, and 220 Orthodox. In 1886, Shkodra replaced Bar as the metropolitan see for most of Albania. In 1940, the structure of the Catholic hierarchy was as follows: an archbishop in Shkodra with sees in Pult, Sapa, and Lezha; an archbishop in Durrës with no suffragans; the Abbey Nullius of Saint Alexander of Orosh directly subordinate to the Holy See in Rome; and an apostolic administration for central and southern Albania under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Durrës. At the end of World War II, there were 253 Catholic churches and chapels in Albania, 2 seminaries, 10 monasteries, 20 convents, 15 orphanages and asylums, 16 Catholic schools, and 10 charitable institutions. Catholics today make up 10 percent of the population of Albania and Kosovo.