albanian history

7/28/2019 Albanian History

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(600 AD - 620 AD):HOW THE SERB & SLAVIC INVASIONS PERMANENTLY

ALTERED THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF ALBANIA

The Serb/Slavic contribution to the Albanian ethno genesis occurred in two waves:

1. by undifferentiated Slavs (neither Serbs, Bulgars nor Croats) who flooded SouthernAlbania from 600 AD - 610 AD.

2. by the Serboi, from 620 AD - ?

The undifferentiated Slavs quickly assimilated Serb name an identity. It will be shown belowthat as recently as the 18th century, there were still Tosks who remembered their Serbancestry and remembered fondly the Serb administration of Albania by Czar Stefan Dushanthe Mighty.

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Part 1:

Undif ferent iated Slavs arrive

in Preval i tania & the Shkumb i River

Wilkes confirms that undifferentiated Slavs reached the Shkumbi valley where theycontributed to much of the earliestpre-Serb Slavic toponyms in Albania:

The dispersal of Slavs in the southern Balkans following the siege of Thessaloniki resulted

in the occupation of Prevalitaniaand the region south of the Shkumbi River, adistribution indicated by place-names of Slavic origin.

On the other hand, i t is hoped that the unfor tunate distor t ions wh ich have marredoutstanding progress in Albanian Archaeology wi l l soon be corrected. As newguidebooks are demonstrating, the Albanian cul ture, as fascinating and varied as any in thatquarter of Europe, isan inher i tance from several languages, rel ig ions and ethnic groupsknown to have inhabited the region since prehistoric times, among whom were the Illyrians.

John WilkesThe IllyriansChapter: Prehistoric IllyriansPage: 273

Blackwell Publishers1992

Albanian scholar Ardian Vebiu adds:Where were they living? Where are the places they have named after their common words(technically called appellatives)? The south is full -- literally full -- of Slavic place names,especially the areas of Vlora, Tepelena, Skrapar, Mallakaster.

ArdianVebiufamous Albanian historian

Exactly how "literally full" of Slavic toponyms is southern Albania? If we delve into thisquestion, we discover that all of Albania is full of Slavic toponyms...


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1. Bulgarian scholar Selishev's map of Slavic toponyms in Albania:http://www.kroraina.com/seli_sna/selish_slavic.gif

2. Bulgarian scholar Selishev's map of non-Slavic (Alb, Vlach, Turkish, etc...) toponyms inAlbania:

http://www.kroraina.com/seli_sna/selish_nonslavic.gif

3. Bulgarian scholar Selishev's map of Slavic toponyms in Albania with the names listed:http://www.kroraina.com/seli_sna/selish_slavicnames2.gif

These maps attest to a very large Slavic population in Albania because these hundreds ofplace names could never have been implanted during the brief administration of Albania bySerbia & Bulgaria, which collective adds up to barely 200 years, not counting theinterruptions and rebellions. The fact is that none of these Slavic place names could haveremained to the present day if they had been imposed during that brief time.

We turn again to Albanian scholar & dissident Ardian Vebiu about what Albanian historians

had to say in the 1950s concerning the Serb / Slavic contribution to the Albanian population:

About this issue, one of the most distinguished Albanian historians had to say, in 1955, in frontof an audience of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow, more or less the following:

"The bourgeois science has always tried to deny the historic, ethnic and language links between Albanians and theSlavs. We won't fall into this trap. There's no reason to deny that there is Slavic blood running in our veins, and we areproud of it."

After 1960 all this Slavic blood dried out, obviously.

Ardian Vebiu (Albanian historian & dissident)

We turn to Albanian dissident & critic, Fatos Lubonja who explains exactly how "all this Slavicblood dried out":

...the ethnogenesis of the Albanians was an open question among Albanian scholars in the1950s, but when Enver Hoxha declared that their origin was Illyrian (without denying theirPelasgian roots), no one dared participate in any further discussion of the question ... By thismeans a virtual world was created in which Albanians lived within the propaganda frameworkof the part and of the literary, artistic and academic works, which pervaded schools, libraries,cinemas, theaters and exhibitions.

Fatos LubonjaBetween the Glory of a Virtual World & the Misery of a Real World

Quoted from:Albanian Identities: Myth and HistoryEdited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. FischerPage: 96

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Part 2:

Refut ing alleged "B ulgar ian" contr ibut ions

to Albanian Ethnogenesis


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But the Serb contribution to the ethnogenesis of the Albanians is one of the most deliberatelyunderstated and deliberatelyunderrated events in Albanian history. It is also one of the mostdeliberatelyignored & distorted events in Albanian history.

More often than not, the Serb contribution is deliberately short-changed and masked as a"Bulgarian" contribution. For example, here is an excerpt from the work of the mostprominent Western distorterof Balkan history, Noel Malcolm:

The myth of ethnic homogeneity and cultural purity

Although some of the other myths of Albanian identity may have contained an importantelement of historical truth, this one is hardly defensible at allIn the case of the Albanian, theadded ingredients would include Romans (themselves of various ethnic origins), Slavs (duringthe middle ages when Bulgarian Slav settlers penetrated much of Albania ), Greeks (in muchsmaller numbers) and Turks. linguistic legacy of Slavicand Latin vocabulary and the strongcultural imprint of the Ottomans.

Noel Malcolm

Myth of Albanian National Identity: Some Key Elements

Quoted from:Albanian Identities: Myth and HistoryEdited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. FischerPage: 73

Malcolm attempts to explain Slavic toponyms, vocabulary and population contributions asthe legacy of Bulgarian political administration of Albania - but gives no evidence. Malcolm'sbiases are obvious because the Bulgarian occupation and administration of Albania wasslightly shorter in duration than the Serbian occupation of Albania. Yet, Malcolm is silent onmedieval Serb contributions that should have been implicit if a medieval Bulgarian

contribution is going to mentioned at all.

The fact is that neither Bulgar nor Serb administrat ion of A lbania in the Middle Agesinc luded any s igni f icant migrat ion into Albaniathat would be worth mentioning ascontributing to Albanian ethnogenesis.

When Serbs & Bulgars occupied Albania, they would have had no need to transp lanttheir own p easant popu lat ions into Albania nor wo uld there have been any incentive

or reason to do so.

Albanian tribal chieftains were simply obligated to send soldiers on military expeditions & topay taxes in exchange for local autonomy. Serb administration of Bulgaria, Greece & Albaniaunder Czar Stefan Dushan the Mighty did not involve any migrations either.

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Part 3:

The und if ferent iated Slavs assimi late into Serbs

in the early 7th century

The Serbs entered Albania in the Dark Ages - as early as 620 AD. We know that they

expanded southward very early after arrival; otherwise they never would have been able to


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bestow their ethno-tribal name and identity on the undifferentiated Shkumbi Slavs. Thismovement was probably an organized military campaign.

An monk from Hungary visited Southern Albania in the mid-18th century:

While visiting Greece in 1768, upon being called to a visit by "some Albanians", he stayed

one year with them. He became familiar with the people and "learned Albanian".

Dositej emphasizes their relation to the Serbs: "How (strange) it was for me to hear thesesame Albanians say, 'Whoever governs Serbia, and w e too w i l l acknowledge that ruler ,because the Serb kings were ours o nce, too'".

Dositej continues about his tenure with the Albanians, "Not too far from Hormove, beautifulfields were described which the Albanians call 'Lepa-zhite'. I asked them what this meant. 'Wedon't know,' they told me. 'That's just the name of the field'.

When I clarified what this meant, telling them that this is a Serbian word, "Oh, holy man,"they answered, "Don' t be surpr ised; we were once one fami ly and tr ibe with theSerblyans in ancient t imes".

The Cetinje HeraldDositej among the AlbaniansApril. 2. 1911

Dositej proves that the undifferentiatedSlavs who arrived at the Shkmbi a decade before theSerbs entered Albania - quickly assimilated Serb name an identity that remained with themas recently as 250 years ago. This is expected because both the Slavs and the Serbs spokea similar language.Coon attributes all Slavic place-names and all Slav-speakers in Albaniato the Serb legacy in Albania:

"The once im portant Serbian inf luence in Albaniahas left few vestiges, other than Slavic

place names, and the presence of a few is lands of Mos lem Serb speakers in themountains, as in the Gora district of Luma".

Carleton Stevens CoonRaces of Europe(Chapter XII, section 12)1939

Below, Coon calls the Serbs, "the most important single people in this southern expansion"and mentions (below) that the 7th century Serbs entered North-West Albania.

The movement of the South Slavs took them to the Dinaric mountain chain, which certainbands crossed to the Istra Peninsula and into Northern Italy itself. The main body moved

south-eastward along the Adriatic coast, following the Dinaric mountain chain to Monenegroand to the Gore region of Northw estern Albania.

A southern Slavic nucleus was formed in the Kingdom of Old Serbia centered around Prizren& Skoplje. From this nucleus, they expanded into the Kosovo p la in, which they were soonto lose in great par t to the Turks & Albanians.

The Serbs, the most important sing le peoplein this southern expansion - still speak alanguage closely allied ot that of the Wends of Germany.

Carleton Stevens CoonRaces of Europe(Chapter VI, section 7)The SlavsMacmillam Press


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1939

The suff ixes ov a, ove, iqi , ica found in A lbanian surnames- are al l Slavic suff ixes. Thefirst two are masculine & feminine possessive, the last two are masculine & femininediminutives. There are numerous examples Albanian surnames with Slavic suffixes and it issafe to say, based on Coon's & Dositej's research, that Albanians with these Slavic

surnames descend from Serbs.Colbeck's 19th century map of Europe in 814 AD shows the extent of Serb influence:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/europe_814_colbeck.jpg

The question is: what happened to all these Serbs? These Albanian Serbs were Albanized &Islamized in the Ottoman era by Muslim Albanians, who in turn were converted by the Turks.Muslim Albanian colonists pushed the Serbs out of Kosovo and Western Macedonia in theOttoman Era.

Much of Albania was populated by Serbs by the end of the Middle Ages. Islam andIslamization wiped out the Serb population by forcing them to assimilate into Muslims andthen into Albanians. All that remain of Alb anian Serbs are the tens of thousand s ofalbanized Serb in Albania, Kos ovo & Macedon ia and Serb surnames & Serb toponym s

and hydronym s al l over Albania. The sheer number of toponyms and albanized surnamestell us that the Serb population of Medieval Albania was very considerable, indeed.

The last Medieval ruler of Albania was a Serb nobleman named Djuradj KastriotaSkenderbeg who was a member of a 4th generation Albanian-Serb noble family& a direct descendant of a Serb nobleman - according to Skenderbeg own directdescendant, Count Loris Castriota-Scandrebegh:http://www.sardimpex.com/...

The current Albanian population of Kosovo and Macedonia descend from Muslimcolonists from North Albania who expelled the Serbs from these regions in

Ottoman times :http://www.oocities.com/aia_skenderbeg/turkish_era.html

Albanians also conducted an ethnic cleansing campaign while they administeredKosovo from 1970 - 1987:http://www.oocities.com/aia_skenderbeg/rillindja.html

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