Albania

“ Mais, non!” said he, hurt. “You are Americans, and the stranger in Albania is our guest.”
The road from Durazzo to Tirana crossed the low mountains that, from Trieste to Valona, make the endless monotonous eastern wall of the Adriatic. When you come over the crest of them you see lying before you the green low central valley and the farther blue peaks of the lands of the hidden tribes. And everything accustomed, everything commonplace, everything that reflects ourselves to us, is left behind. ”

“ As mountainous, and as easy of defence as Montenegro—inhabited by at least as warlike a race, and better armed, Albania may prove as hard a nut to crack, as the Black Mountain has proved to Turkey, who for hundreds of years has in vain hurled army after army to perish on those grey rocks.
I think there can be little doubt, too, that the Christian Arnauts will join the league, in case of any invasion. They, too, love their independence—for independent they practically are, the Turkish yoke never having been felt in these wild hills. ”

“ Little is known of Albania’s past history, though individual Albanians have helped to make history for other nations; the descendant of an Albanian soldier of the Ottoman Empire rules over Egypt. But history has been in the making for the last month or so, and possibly, nay, probably, Albania is about to enter the comity of nations, even as Servia, Bulgaria, and other former provinces of the Osmanli have done.{274}
There is no reason to suppose that Albania will fail where others have succeeded. ”

“ Prices in Albania are higher than in the United States—higher in dollars. The homespun garments have worn out; there is nothing to replace them. Fields have been devastated, and no men left alive to till them. Flocks have disappeared, horses and mules are gone. And as the boundaries have been fixed, mile by mile upon a map, Dibra and Mati have lost their market cities, Dukaghini and Merdite have lost their grazing lands, the tribes of Hoti and Gruda and Castrati have been cut in two. ”

“ Albania's most notable tradition from ancient times has been one of foreign domination. Brief periods of independence have been overshadowed by long centuries of subjection to alien rule. Foreign rulers never seemed able or willing to subject the Albanian peasants to the complete authority of a central government. Throughout their history Albanians, protected by the remoteness of their mountain villages, often enjoyed a measure of autonomy even though they lacked national independence. ”

“ The Austrians had money, and there were many Austrians in Albania. This rifle came into the mountains on an Austrian officer. I gave his clothes to a naked man of Dibra who was fighting the Serbs there. I got four Italian capes and trousers in one day, on the road north of Scutari, and there was money on their bodies, too. As to Albanians—there was a rich Albanian once, whom I met riding out from Ipek. Why should a man of Albanian blood ride in the eyes of the Serbs with gold in his pocket, while true Albanians are dying of cold and hunger? ”

“ To whatever state of culture the Albanians may climb, I think it will be generally agreed that some régime other than unaided independence must, in the meantime, be established there. One hears of those who argue that Albania should forthwith be for the Albanians, because they are a gifted and a very ancient people. They are not more gifted than the Basques, and their antiquity is not more wonderful. Nor do they stand on a higher level of culture with respect to their neighbours than do the Basques as compared with theirs. ”

“ But the task of Albania is bound to be difficult. For though the Great Powers have provided it with a ruler—the German Prince William of Wied—there is no organized state. The Albanians are one of the oldest races in Europe, if not the oldest. But they have never created a state. And to-day they are hopelessly divided. It is a land of universal opposition—north against south, tribe against tribe, bey against bey. The majority of the population are Mohammedan but there are many Roman Catholics in the north and in the south the Greek Orthodox Church is predominant. ”

“ The Albanians, like most of the races of minor importance inhabiting European Turkey, are little known to the civilized world. Albania, with its impassable mountains, broken by deep and precipitous ravines, the footways of torrents, has been visited only by those few travellers who have had enough courage and adventurous spirit to penetrate into its fastnesses. This country, occupying the place of the ancient Illyria and Epirus, was in the middle ages called Arvanasi, and later on Arnaoutlik by the Turks and Arvanitia by the Greeks ”

“ This, then, is the future country of Albania, which—if one is rash enough to prophesy—may exist in fifty years. But there is no risk whatever in asserting that a free, united Albania is in the immediate future quite impossible. ”

“ It was lighted—I can only guess by whom—and was stamped out by a chief of the Mati mountaineers, in Albania. A little country, which no one knows. Albania—somewhere in the Balkans, isn’t it? Or is it in the Caucasus? One of those places that are always having revolutions, people fighting among themselves. [Pg 346] Ought to have sense enough to settle down and go to work.
There is no more to this tale. Our trip to the mountains is not part of it. Only a few more pictures come into my mind, when I remember those days in Tirana.
Picture of Ahmet Zogu, riding back from Durazzo. ”

“ They designate themselves as Skipetars or rockmen, and apply this appellation indiscriminately [193] to all the inhabitants of Upper and Lower Albania who do not use Greek, Serbian or Rumanian as a vernacular. Many resemblances in the language spoken by Albanians and Rumanians point to a probable early association of the two peoples.
Albania is still a land of mystery. Few European travelers have ventured within its inhospitable confines. It is a country without a master, a country where the head of every family is sole ruler of his inherited plot of land. It is scantily populated. ”

“ Once only, in the time of Scanderbeg, does Albania appear to have fulfilled a separate mission, in fighting against the Turks for the liberty and independence of her rugged mountains; but the brilliant star of this memorable and almost unique epoch in the poor history of Albania, the famous hero of Croia, according to recent researches into this part of the history of the Middle Ages, was not of Albanian origin. ”

“ The boundaries of Albania in 1970 were essentially the same as those delineated by representatives of the Great Powers after Albania had declared its independence. Ethnic problems raised by the drawing of the boundaries have never been solved to the satisfaction of the countries involved. The Albanians hold that in 1913 about 40 percent of their territory, with a population at that time of about 600,000 ethnic Albanians, was unjustly assigned to Serbia. The area has been a continuing source of friction between Albania and Yugoslavia. ”

“ We all had supper together on board this evening, and had a most amusing conversation with our new friend over our coffee and subsequent pipe and grog. He could speak and write Turkish, French, Italian, Albanese, and Sclave.
We naturally wished to learn from him what sort of a country Albania was, whether travelling was comparatively safe, and how we ought to set to work.
"Albania is perfectly safe," he said; "safer than Trieste. There are no banditti; you can walk alone from Scutari to Salonika, and be treated as a friend by all, especially as you are an Englishman." ”

“ The Franciscans have undoubtedly done much good in Albania. They have been here from a very remote time. They have suffered persecutions, have died the death of martyrs, but have succeeded in completely winning the affections of the wild Arnauts. As Luigi said to me, "Why, should one of us be ill-used by the Turks, the whole of the mountains would rise in our defence. We need fear nothing here now." The headquarters of the order in Albania is at Scutari, where there is a large convent. ”

“ Medieval History.—After the division of the Roman empire, the lands inhabited by the Albanian race became provinces of the Byzantine empire; northern Albania from Scutari to Berat formed the thema or province of Dyrrachium (Durazzo, Albanian Dourtz) , southern Albania and Epirus the thema of Nikopolis. The country was overrun by the Goths in the 4th and 5th centuries, but reconquered by Justinian in 535. In 640 northern Albania was invaded by the Serbo-Croats; it continued with interruptions under Servian rule till 1360. ”

“ Condition of Albania—Her races—The Mussulman—The Christian—The Arnaut—Prince Scanderbeg—Turkish rule—Albanian language—Gendarmes on strike—A Scutarine beauty—Courtship and marriage—Nuns.
Having now brought my readers into Albania, it does not seem out of place to here give a rough sketch of this almost unknown province of Turkey.
The first thing that strikes one is the utter lawlessness of the people. The Turks have never assimilated their remoter possessions. It is not in their character to do so. They seem, even after so many centuries, to be merely temporarily encamped in Albania. ”

“ There are good reasons for these misconceptions of Albania. For six centuries the Albanians were one of the buried Christian minorities of the Turkish Empire in Europe. Their great men who rose to places of power in the Near East were not known to the outside world as Albanians. Ismail Kemal Bey, Grand Vizier of Turkey, who raised the flag of Albanian independence in 1912; Mehmet Ali, who led the struggle for Egyptian independence in 1811 and founded the dynasty of the Khedives of Egypt ”

“ Such are the inhabitants of the country—a country as wild as they. Well did Byron call Albania "the rugged nurse of savage men."
The Acroceraunian Mountains and the Mount Pindus send their branches across the whole province. Rugged rocks are heaped one upon the other, with summits hidden in the clouds. It is a region of tempests, which, like to Montenegro, is too poor and barren to produce aught but warriors, who seem ever to thrive best on poor soil, as the stately pines do. The products of the country are few. ”

“ The Albanian has many savage virtues. He is a picturesque fellow as he swaggers about with a silver-decorated armoury stuck in his waist-belt: and he is truly faithful to a master. But he has not the barest elements of a national organisation; and the Austrian Prince of Albania did not find a single house within all his dominion which would satisfy the housing needs of a respectable London clerk.
Describing the march across Albania to the Adriatic coast during the recent war a Serbian officer wrote:
It is only by travelling as we did that real facts can be learned. ”

“ In the summer and fall of 1912, while Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Greece, prodded by Russia, were waging war against Turkey, the Albanians staged a series of revolts and began to agitate for the creation of an autonomous and neutral Albania. Accordingly, a group of Albanian patriots, led by Ismail Qemal bey Vlora, a member of the Turkish Parliament, proclaimed Albania's independence at Vlore on November 28, 1912, and organized an Albanian provisional government. ”

“ Here I give you only what I saw, felt, and most casually learned while adventuring among the tribes in the interior northern Albanian mountains. It is not even all of Albania, that little country too small to be found on every map. It is simply a fragment of this large, various, and romantic world, sent back by a traveler to those who stay at home.
R. W. L.
Annette Marquis accompanied the author on her trip through Albania and it is to her skill that the photographs are due. ”

“ This news is that the Albanians have risen against their masters the Turks, and joined with the Greeks.
Albania was at one time a part of Greece, but that was in the early history of the Empire. It at last secured its freedom and became an independent country.
In 1478 the Turks conquered Albania, and it has been under Turkish rule ever since. The Albanians have no love for the Turks, and though they are supposed to be obedient to the Sultan's wishes, he does not dare to appoint any but native Albanians to govern them. The people have always contrived to give him all the trouble possible. ”

“ The appeal to nationalism always strikes a responsive chord among the Albanians not only because their history is replete with humiliations and injustices heaped upon them by long domination of foreign powers but also, and especially, because of the territorial aspirations and claims of its neighbors—Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece. The political scene in Albania since it formally won an independent existence from Turkey in 1912 has indeed been dominated by attempts of one, or a combination, of its neighbors to dismember it. ”

“ Albania which is accurate. When a writer so well informed as Mr. Lathrop Stoddard refers to Albania as a “land of rugged mountains and equally rugged mountaineers which raises nothing but trouble,” and thinks that its importance in the Balkan problem is due to Italy’s exaggeration of Valona’s military importance; when all American consuls in Europe warn travelers not to go to Albania, a land of brigands; when Albania appears in the newspapers only as a joke or as the scene of another lawless revolution—the few Americans who know Albania do become special pleaders. ”

“ The only friend caveat we enter is, that if such a protectorate is to be a strength to Italy, and not a source of trouble and friction, she must never forget that she is acting as a trustee, and that Albania will one day come of age. The Albanians are a restless, headstrong, and turbulent people, and these qualities, though they will be fined down by civilization and take new shape and form, will not disappear. ”