Albania was almost unknown to the general world until
the Balkan War of 1913, when she suddenly awoke to find
herself famous, and the centre of a much-disputed sphere of
influence — Montenegrin, Austrian and Italian.
Few travellers had visited the wild beauty of her land,
deterred perhaps by the mistaken idea that the Albanians
were a Turkish race, and the fear of possible brigands. Even
such an authority as Gibbon briefly puts them down as
" a vagrant tribe of shepherds and robbers."
The history of their race dates back — with the ex-
ception of the Basques — further than that of any other
European people, for the Shkypetars, as the Albanians are
called in their own country (meaning sons of the moun-
tain eagle), are the descendants of the Thraco-Illyrian tribes
who occupied the northern portion of Greece when that
country's history was emerging from the mists of legend.
The Albanians allege that it was of them St. Paul spoke
when he said, " Round about and into Illyricum I have
fully preached the gospel of Christ." Pyrrhus, the greatest
soldier of his age, was a Shkypetar, and this name was
adopted by the people and their ruler about 300 B.C.
Their earliest king is said to have been Hyllus, who
lived in 1215 B.C. From this time on the coast and valley
lands were swept by hordes of invaders, the Celts, Goths,
Romans, Serbs, Bulgars and Turks.
The original and ancient race — fleeing to the uncon-
quered mountains, where they preserved their primitive
speech and customs — have been overrun and submerged
time after time, but have never failed to rise again, and
like the Montenegrin, have in their stem qualities of ten-
acity and stubborn endurance justified their right to the
possession of the grim mountainous land occupied by them
for centuries.
For five hundred years Montenegro resisted the Turk,
A LAND OF DEFIANCE. 297
but the Albanian struggled for over a thousand years, and
though his land was overrun and ruled time after time,
he onty retired deeper into his moimtain fastnesses and
refused to be conquered.
It was not until about the twelfth century that the
country became kno\vn under the name of Albania, when
the Normans, under Robert Guiscard, after defeating the
Emperor Alexius Commenus at Durazzo, marched to
Elbassar, then called Albanopolis, and his troops, finding
the name too difficult to pronounce, called the country,
of which it was the capital, Albania.
The Serbs did not cross the Danube until the sixth
century, and the Bulgars until the seventh century, a.d.,
whereas the Shkypetars had lived then in their mountain
fastnesses for over a thousand years.
There has never been any love lost between the Albanian
and the Slav. They are both fearless fighters, but the
Albanian remembers how the ancient Serbian Empire
swallowed up his land, and likes him not as a neighbour.
Their last conqueror was the Turk, who ruled them
for four centuries by means of oppression, chicanery and
cruelty ; a course which prevented all development on the
part of the people, all education or progress towards civili-
zation, and only plunged them more deeply into poverty,
superstition and bloodthirstiness. The Turk left his van-
quished countries to rot, frustrating all attempts at advance,
and keeping them to the level of the dark ages. Their
country certainly was conquered, and the Turk endeavoured
by means of the bastinado and the bullet to crush them,
but he never succeeded in subduing their untamable spirit,
and finally he was forced to humour them. The tribesmen
of the mountain districts were permitted a kind of practical
independence, and the privilege of retaining their arms,
their tribal laws and customs, while the remainder of the
country was governed by Pashas from the Porte.
That relentless despot, Abdul Hamid, who lived in
perpetual fear of assassination, picked the fiercest of these
mountain warriors to form his celebrated body-guard at
Constantinople, and once they had taken the oath of
allegiance to him, they constituted the most trusted ad-
herents throughout his army.
The natural abilities of the race are above the average,
' 10 a
298 A WOMAN IN THE BALKANS.
and, given the advantage of education, they quickly de-
velop. Some of the cleverest and most distinguished civil
and military officials and Pashas in the Ottoman service,
both in the past as well as the present, have been Albanians.
Admiral Miaoulis, Ferid Pasha,* several times Grand Vizier
to the Sultan Abdul Hamid, Crispi, the Italian statesman,
and the former Khedive of Egypt were aU of Albanian
extraction.
Albania's one great national hero was George Castriot,
the famous Skanderberg, who lived in the fourteenth cen-
tury. He devoted his life to the great ideal of trying to
unify the different warring tribes, so as to form a combined
front against the invader, but died before his aim was
achieved, after fighting and winning twenty-one battles
against the Turk. Even Mahomet II., the Conqueror, was
defeated at Croja in 1465 by this intrepid leader.
But he left no successor to carry on the twofold struggle
towards national unity and liberation of the people from
the dominion of the Turk, and the Albanians, without a
leader, and rent again by the old system of tribal jealousy
of each other, relapsed once more into sullen defiant sur-
render to the invader.
The Albanian of the present day is one of the most
indomitable as well as picturesque personalities in Europe,
and interesting as are his traits and customs, his political
future is even more so. His individualism is extraordinarily
developed : had this not been so, he would have been
submerged long ago, under the successive waves of invasion
his country has had to endure.
Though cursed by backwardness, ignorance and poverty,
the Albanians are at last beginning to perceive the necessity
of a national unity. The course of recent events has,
however, not been favourable to this end.
With the advent to power of the Young Turk party in
1909 a unique opportunity presented itself for the apph-
cation of those liberal principles of freedom and progress
by which their party was supposed to be animated.
The chance was ready to their hand to propitiate the
* Ferid Pasha was Grand Vizier to the Sultan several times during the
Old Regime, and was Minister of the Interior under the New Regime. He
died onh' a few montlis ago, bitterly disappointed at the part his country
was playing in the war.
A LAND OF DEFIANCE. 299
Albanian people by inaugurating a better system of govern-
ment, reforms, the fulfilment of the promise of national
education, and a certain manifestation of sympathy towards
an ignorant but splendidly courageous and potentially
capable people.
If the Young Turk party had been sagacious enough
to deal with this crucial problem wisely and justly, they
might have succeeded in making of Albania a great centre
of Ottoman strength, a barrier against Western aggression,
and with the institution of these reforms a large measure
of national cohesion would have been achieved.
For we must remember that the tribal principle and
jealousy of one another which prevailed so extensively in
Albania has engendered a general mistrust which can only
be removed very gradually, and which has so far effectually
prevented anything in the nature of national unity.
But the Young Turks were ruthless, and started the
policy of a steam-roller government, thinking they could
by brutal repression bring this race to the level of their
Armenian subjects, massacred and tortured into submission
in Asia Minor.
Again and again the tribes rose up in futile rebellion—
the brave but desperate attempts of a disunited people
to free themselves.
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