NË PËRKUJTIM TË KRYENGRITJES SË MORESË (1453)

[ALBPelasgian]

Shqiptarës e Moresë pellazgjike, në kohën kur Kastrioti po thyente darën osmane pranë dyerve të Krujës, ngritën krye kundër hordhive osmane.

The Morea revolt of 1453 was a failed peasant rebellion carried out against the rule of the brothers Thomas and Demetrios II Palaiologos, rulers of the Byzantine Despotate of Morea in the Peloponnese peninsula.

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The Byzantine Empire on the eve of the final conquest of Constantinople and the Morea, ca. 1450. The large purple peninsula in the southwest is the Morea, at the time the Empire's most important and prosperous territory.

The Byzantine Empire had ruled over the Morea for centuries before the rebellion. During this time, several thousand Albanians had settled in the area.[1] After the Battle of Varna in 1444, the Ottoman Turks had a free hand in dealing with the remnants of the Byzantine Empire, which had been in decline for over a century. In 1446, the Ottomans invaded the Byzantine Morea which was then jointly administrated by the two brothers, the Despots Constantine and Thomas Palaiologos. The brothers successfully resisted the invasion, but at the cost of devastating the countryside of the Morea, and the Turks carrying off 60,000 Greek civilians back to their territory.[2] Murad II, the Ottoman Sultan, concluded a peace treaty which resulted in the brothers paying a heavy tribute to the Turks, accepting vassalage to them and a promise not to oppose them in the future, for Murad had to deal with his own internal conflicts elsewhere.[3]
Upon the death of Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos in Constantinople in October 1448, the imperial throne fell to Constantine, who was crowned on 6 January 1449 in Mystras before departing for the capital. Two months later, he assumed his new role in Constantinople as Emperor Constantine XI. His younger brothers, Thomas and Demetrius remained in charge of the Morea as joint Despots in his place. Despite assurances to Constantine that they would pledge support to one another, both Thomas and Demetrius coveted the other's lands - in addition, they pressed claims against Venetian port possessions in the Morea, alienating the only power capable of aiding them in resisting the Turks.[4] The mutual hostility went to the point that both despots requested military aid from the Turks against the other. During the final siege of Constantinople, the new Sultan, Mehmed II invaded the Morea again as a distraction to prevent the brothers sending any provisions to Constantinople.

The revolt

Shortly after the fall of Constantinople and the death of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI, 30,000 Albanians under Peter Boua rose in revolt against the two brothers, Thomas and Demetrius II, due to the chronic insecurity and tribute payment to the Turks.[5] The Albanians were later joined by the local Greeks, who by then had a common leader in Manuel Kantakouzenos. Kantakouzenos was hailed as their common Despot, and the rebels asked for Venetian help, while the two brothers asked for Mehmed's help in putting down the rebellion. The situation was further confused by a second rebellion led by Giovanni Asen Zaccaria, who claimed to be the "Prince of Achaia" representing the remains of the Latin element in the Morea. Before the rebellion, Zaccaria had been imprisoned by Thomas but managed to escape during the confusion.[5]

Aftermath

By 1454, both rebellions were put down, but only after a full-scale invasion by the Turks and the restoration of the now completely humiliated Despots. Tribute was reinstated to the same levels and the Despots were to continue their vassalage as before. From the rebel leaders, Boua was pardoned by Mehmet and later became a spokesperson for the Albanian people, Zaccaria fled and ended up as a pensioner in Venice and later the Papal Court, while Kantakouzenos escaped and disappeared from history.[5]

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References

^ Ostrogorsky, p. 508
^ Cheetham, pp. 215-216
^ Ostrogorsky, p. 567
^ Cheetham, p. 217
^ a b c Cheetham, p. 218

Sources

Nicolas Cheetham, Mediaeval Greece, Yale University Press, New Havan & London (1981) ISBN 0-300-02421-5
George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, (1969) ISBN 0-8135-0599-2

[ALBPelasgian]

Mu pse shqiptarët luftuan për truallin e tyre stërgjyshor (Morenë) ata ishin të lidhur me tokën e tyre, aq sa kur u shprengulen përtej detit Jon, në brigjet e Italisë jugore, ata i thurën kolektivisht një prej këngëve më të fuqishme folklorike.

Oh, my Beautiful Morea



The nostalgic song “Oh, my beautiful Morea,” included in the last eight lines of this folk ballad, is perhaps the best known Arbëresh (Italo-Albanian) folksong of all. The ballad reflects a central element in the collective memory of the Albanian minority of southern Italy – that of their early flight from the Morea (i.e. the Peloponnese in Greece), which had been conquered by the Ottoman Turks, to the safety of Sicily and Calabria. Other Albanians fled from Albania, too, when it was conquered by the Turks in the fifteenth century.


Once there was a savage ruler
Who imprisoned a fine fellow,
No one dared address that ruler
Till a noble-hearted maiden
Summoned courage, spoke unto him:
“Lord, though you are known as savage,
You and I, let’s make a wager,
Let us see who is more able,
Who can drink more wine-filled glasses.
If you lose, release your prisoner,
If you win, my bed you’ll conquer
All with silken snakes embroidered.”
He was willing, made the wager.
To her servants said the maiden:
“When you serve the Turk his wineglass,
Make sure that the cup is brimming.
When you serve to me my wineglass,
Do not fill the cup completely,
Add a bit of water to it.”
Then, while they were having dinner,
Flushed with wine they were and laughing,
Did she lift her wineglass, sipping
Wine with icy water in it.
Mad with rapture did the ruler
Seize his glass and swill the wine down,
Till he slumped into his armchair,
Overcome, and fell asleep there.
Well the noble maiden freed the
Prisoner, armed him; they departed,
Taking flight then to the seaside,
There they climbed aboard a sailboat,
Tossing, gliding ’cross the ocean.
When they reached the other coastline
She looked back towards the ocean
In nostalgia contemplating:
“Oh, my beautiful Morea,
Left and saw you nevermore,
Left behind my lady mother,
Left behind my loving brother,
Left behind my lordly father,
All under your soil they’re resting.
Oh, my beautiful Morea,
Left and saw you nevermore.”

[Moj, e bukura Morea, Italo-Albanian folksong. From: Balada shqiptare, ed. Vladimir Zoto (Tirana: Dasara 2006), p. 311-312. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie.]

http://www.albanianliterature.net/oral_lit2/OL2-06.html

[ALBPelasgian]

I would like to add something about the Albanians in the Morea. We do not know when they first arrived in this region. It is said that Matthew Cantacuzene who had received Albania from his Serbian wife, expelled to this country all the nobles of his land, whom he found suspicious. In 1391, there were already numerous Albanians on the peninsula. Demetrius Raul, a commander of the Despot Theodor of Morea, assembled an army of Albanians and Leontarians and, with them, attacked Prince Asan Centerion of Achaia who had invaded the Morea with a Turkish commander called Vrenes, and conquered Akuva. But Vrenes soon brought about a disastrous defeat for the Albanians. In 1423, Murad II sent Turachan [Turhan] to the Morea to lay waste to Venetian strongholds there, and the Albanians in Tavia, a region in the middle of the country, thus had a new leader of their own and decided to break away from the Greek princes. They also attacked Turhan but were repulsed. When Constantine Dragases, the son of the Emperor Manuel arrived in the Morea as despot in 1443 and took control of the Isthmus (Hexamilion), he also took over the Albanians living in Pindus, who were called Arabaeans. His ever increasing power caused Sultan Murad to attack him and the Despot of Achaia, with an army of 60,000 men. They endeavoured to resist, but abandoned and betrayed by their Albanians, they soon fell into the hands of the Turks. Mohammed II, the son of Murad, finally conquered Constantinople in 1453. All of Greece was horrified. The princes of the Morea, Thomas and Demetrius Palaeologus, fled to the banks of the sea in order to get to Italy. The Albanians refused to be their subjects any longer and resolved to rule in the Morea themselves. They chose Manuel Cantacuzene as their leader, a grandson of Matthew, and seem to have declared war on the Palaeologi. At the time, they were all shepherds and had no fix homes. The wars they waged were simply ones of pillaging, but they also conquered towns. They were supported by some mighty Peleponnesian rulers, such as Martin Asan Centerion, brother-in-law of the Despot Thomas, Nicephorus Lucanis, and Bochalis, Lord of Leontari. The Morea was lost when the despots received support from Turkish troops under Turhan in 1454. The Albanians were now out of luck. They sent their representatives to the princes and informed them that they would be willing to submit to their rule once again, if they could keep all the territory they had conquered and all the herds they had captured. A treaty was contracted under these conditions.
But peace was not restored. Instigated by Lucanis, the Albanians and the other inhabitants of the Morea refused to offer obedience to the princes and demanded an equal portion of territory, nor were they willing to pay the Turks the annual tribute of twelve thousand ducats. Mohammed the Conqueror demanded payment of tribute for three years in vain. In 1453, he finally invaded the Peleponnese with a huge army. Resistance failed, but he paid dearly for the gains he made. The Albanians opposed him at every step of the way. This time, Mohammed made peace with the despots, retained some of his conquests and recalled Omar, son of Turhan, and his army. In the following year, there was war between the two despots Thomas and Demetrius. Thomas parted ways with Mohammed. The Albanians adhered to this despot, but their rashness often caused them to change from one side to the other, depending on who offered them the better deal. In addition to this, their excesses were unparalleled. Mohammed finally put an end to this internal chaos in 1460. He took the land away from both the despots and turned the Morea into an Ottoman province. He treated the Albanians worst of all, slaughtering even those of them who surrendered to him. It cost him much to overcome their resistance, but Mohammed eventually got them under his sway. The Albanians have lived on the peninsula ever since that time and have settlements there up to the present day.
This is all I have to report on the Albanians for the moment. The material is incomplete. Indeed, it is but a fragment, and not well connected. However, this was not my fault, but stems rather from the lack of information, that has prevented anyone up to now from writing their history in its entirety. I concentrated on the oldest periods because these were the least known ones. I only touched upon the better known periods and broke off at the moment when their history began to become more interesting. It was not my aim to write a full-length history. I was only striving to bring to light the origins of the Albanians, as evinced by a number of chronologically ordered facts, to do away with the darkness, confusion and audacious speculation that had been prevalent, and to make this nation known in the whole course of its history, a nation that is among the oldest inhabitants of Europe and that, despite the influx of the Greeks, Romans, Goths, Slavs, French, Italians and Turks, has managed to survive.

http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts16-18/AH1774.html