Letter from Albania: Into one of Europe's last dark corners

[Grace]

Originally Posted by YaunaTakabara

I too don't really have a beef with the Albanians. A Vorio-Epirotis I used to board with explained to me that if you have an Albanian as a friend, he'll stick by your side to the bitter end. Now that was back in the mid 1990s when he told me that, when both he and they were still fresh from the Old World. Things may've changed in the meantime.

"But let them once abandon the profession of arms and immediately their simple feudal virtues seem to win them patrons and even admirers. They are valued all over Macedonia as masons or navvies — these men who would scorn to turn a sod in their own country. They are cunning craftsmen, and in silver work display not only dexterity but taste. In positions of trust their honesty is as proverbial as their courage.

The most timid Levantine merchant will confide to them his money and his life if only they have given their word to be true. The unsophisticated Turkish peasant — a very different man from the nondescript Moslem Levantine of the towns — is usually both honest and truthful, but one feels that his virtues spring in no small degree from his notorious lack of enterprise and imagination. The key to the Albanian temperament is, on the other hand, a sensitive and somewhat aggressive pride. At its lowest it is a picturesque and amiable vanity, at its best it is a fine self-respect.

He has the same quickness of wit, the same tense nerves as the Greek, and the same spirit of enterprise. But his pride saves him alike from cowardice and from meanness. He will rob openly and with violence, but he will not steal. He will torture an enemy, but he will not touch a woman. If he swaggers and boasts and puts a certain truculence into his very dress, he has much too high an opinion of himself to lie meanly in self-defence.

He has the traditions of a race which has fought for the Turk as his mercenaries, but has never accepted his domestic rule without protest. An Albanian's sense of honour is not entirely external. He will murder you without remorse if he conceives that you have insulted him — as Turkish officers and Russian consuls have learned to their cost — and if the murderer, a lonely outlaw, should find his way even to a strange and possibly hostile tribe, it will fight to the last man rather than surrender him to the authorities. [1] But he is equally punctilious about his own pledged word. To keep it he will face any risk himself, and to help him to keep it, his tribe will think no sacrifice extravagant. It is extremely mediaeval, no doubt, this Albanian sense of honour, but if it has the crudity and bloody-mindedness, it has also the chivalry and something of the inward dignity of the knightly spirit. "


1. It is pretty generally understood in Turkey that it is death to strike an Albanian. But occasionally a Turkish officer forgets himself. A case occurred at Vodena in the summer of 1904, and the whole garrison went into mutiny until it had found and slaughtered the erring lieutenant.

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"When it turned out that this man also was an Albanian, I felt no small relief. Here at length is a race which neither religion nor education can corrupt. In the end our Albanian staff included Moslems, "Greeks," Protestants, and Catholics. I think one of the bravest men I have ever known was one of the Protestants. He had a superb physique, but he had been born in a town and had never carried arms.

At the time when the Turkish authorities in Castoria were molesting the Bulgarian peasants who came into our hospital, beating some of them, detaining others, and carrying off a few against their will to the Turkish ambulance, I sent this man to take his stand at the gate of the town, and inform me at once if any violence was offered to our protégés. He had not long to wait, but instead of losing time while he ran for me, he dealt with the situation himself. He marched boldly, unarmed "Giaour" though he was, into the midst of the Turkish soldiers and gendarmes, rescued the Bulgarian peasants by main force and escorted them triumphantly to our hospital. The possession of a rifle will often make a man of a Bulgarian insurgent, but only an Albanian could have showed such courage as this, unarmed, against a crowd of Turks with weapons. But there are in the Albanian nature even rarer capacities than this. Honesty and courage in different degrees are the possession of all true mountaineers. "


writen in 1900 or so.
http://www.promacedonia.org/en/hb/hb_8_1.html (warning: he says that Suliotes were Albanian 'Greeks')

[Grace]

"The Albanians might become formidable to the Ottoman •
empire; their hireling sword is at present its chief support; шеЯА№ш|Г1апа.
the rugged and mountainous nature of their country tends to '
confirm them in their warlike habits. " Every man born in Albania," says
Pouqueville, "may be distinguished by his physiognomy, temperament
and character from the Greeks and the Turks." Strong, active, and patient
of fatigue, they were the soldiers of Pyrrhus, Scander-Beg and Ali-Pacha. "
The Albanian troops endure the utmost rigours of winter; while daylight
lasts, they are employed in their camp in wrestling or other warlike
exercises; their temperance, and sobriety are so great that a very small
ration of bread, wheat or maize, black olives or salted pilchards is sufficient
for them ; the happiness of the Turk consists in indolence, that of the Albanian
in action ; but the latter is not excited by glory or patriotism; unless
he be bribed, he seldom leaves his rugged mountains." Their leaders are
as much venerated as ever were highland chieftains by their clans ; and
the services of these mercenary captains and their numerous dependents,
may be purchased by any government. "

Universal Geography 1829 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ikg...sult#PPA107,M1


For the record: I only have a problem with 'uneducated" or reactionary Greeks the ones that spew "Albanians have no history," 'You rolled over for the Turks,' "Scanderbeg was a Greek" and those that are too cowardly to admit the role of Albanians helping Greeks in the revolutions, just as they mention the Albanians fighting on the other side or the songs, or the dress etc.

Reading the article again: he went to Albania with a chip in his shoulder: he looked at the houses being built and called them decapitated, instead of calling it a construction boom (immigrants build them in little by little as they save money) He also said that NATO went to war for Monica, totally ignoring Bosnia and the warning that Bush Sr had given Slobo in 1992. Oh well.