Note: All italics are mine
The
nationalist writers needed to do nothing more than provide [Skenderbeg] with a
national significance and some embellishment, subjecting him to the laboratory
that serves to transform history into myth. As with most myths, his figure and
his deeds became a mixture of historical facts, truths and half-truths,
inventions and folklore… For 19th century Albanians, a majority
of whom had adhered to the faith of Skenderbeg’s Muslim enemies, the religious
dimension needed to be avoided. Consequently, Skenderbeg became simply the
national hero of all Albanians, the embodiment of the myth of ‘continuous
resistance’ against their numerous foes over the centuries.
Pirro
Misha
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 43
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_43.jpg
According to Albanian scholar,
Pirro Misha - Skenderbeg, as Albanians know him or think they know him - is
nothing more than a myth: a mixture of historical facts, truths and
half-truths, inventions and folklore… The Albanian nationalist elites have
turned Skenderbeg into the basis for the myth of ‘continuous resistance’.
In fact, there was no ‘continuous resistance’ by the Albanians. There is only
the betrayal of Skenderbeg by their conversion to the faith of Skenderbeg’s
Muslim enemies. The religious dimension needed to be avoided to serve a
basis for control of the Christian Albanians by the Muslim Albanian nationalist
elites. Skenderbeg’s identity was completely hijacked and along with it,
Albanian Christianity.
One more thing should be observed: the Albanian nationalist elites are always, almost as a rule, Muslim or ‘ex-Muslim.’ The Prizrenites were all Muslims and so was the Enverist ruling circle (Enver Hoxha, Mehmet Shehu, Qemal Stafa, Ramiz Alija, Ismail Kadare); so are the KLA. These nationalist elites have caused Albanians a lot of suffering. Zogu took up the spirit of the League of Prizren and he robbed the country; the Enverists did their damage through cultural isolation, the KLA have turned ‘free’ Kosovo into a cesspool of AIDS and prostitution.
Fatos Lubonja, another insider
into the Albanian academic scene, describes how elements of Skenderbeg’s
biography were manipulated by the Albanian nationalist elites:
The
central figure around whom the mythology of Albanian national romanticism was
created is Skenderbeg… He is a very ambivalent figure, having fought
against the Turks but at the same time having a Turkish name and title. The
fact that he changed religions…fitted a very important historical construct
created by one of the famous men of Albanian renaissance, Vaso Pasha, a
Catholic who had served the Turkish Empire, wrote ‘The religion of the
Albanians is Albanianism.’
Fatos
Lubonja
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 91
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_91.jpg
Lubonja says that the central
figure around whom the mythology of Albanian national romanticism was created
is Skenderbeg.
First it is important to mention
that the historical construct under discussion is the myth of ‘continuous
resistance.’ It is also the myth of ‘religious indifference’
embodied in such false mottos, as ‘The religion of the Albanians is
Albanianism’ that is in question.
What kind of people approaches
their ethnicity with the same blind faith that one would approach religion?
Dangerous people who cannot be reasoned with.
This famous Albanian motto implies
a fanatical understanding of themselves as an ethnic group. Any ethnic group
that has something like that as its national motto is immune from introspection
and higher thought. This is something that every Albanian should devote a lot
of thought to. Part 3 will be devoted to this myth of ‘religious
indifference.’
We return to Lubonja for more
insight:
These are
the basic myth that nourished ideology. Every Albanian educated in the
Albanian schools after 1912, if asked about his country would recount these
fundamental myths without being able to distinguish legend from history.
This is the mythology of the generation, educated under Zog – which
participated in the resistance against the Italian and German occupation…. The
champion of Christianity was a most appropriate hero because he was also the
hero of the Christian Western World.
These are
the basic myths that nourished Albanian nationalistic ideology…
Fatos
Lubonja
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 93
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_93.jpg
Aside from showing that Skenderbeg
was opportunistically selected as the main Albanian hero, Lubonja also says
that Albanians cannot tell reality from fantasy, truth from myth. These
paradigms naturally create mechanisms in the Albanian mind that instinctively
inhibit objective thought. What else are these mechanisms supposed to do? Nothing. If your ethnicity is your religion,
you cannot approach it objectively. It is a specifically Albanian problem.
No other ethnic group, including the Serbs, has this kind of motto; thus no
other nation is hampered by the paradigms and mechanisms that come with it.
Thus no other nation is prone to these kinds of criticisms.
What started out as a convenient
lie to unify a divided population worked - but it carried with it the price of
stifling clear thinking because it necessarily meant assimilating a lie. This
motto laid the foundations for Enver’s North-Korea style isolationism. It
worked in Albania whereas it never would have worked anywhere else in Europe
after WWII because Albanians believed lies long before Enver came along.
Lubonja says: “Every Albanian educated in the Albanian schools after 1912,
if asked about his country would recount these fundamental myths without being
able to distinguish legend from history.” In Part 1, Lubonja, Misha and
other scholars showed that the lies go all the way back to Prizren, 1878.
With regard to Skenderbeg,
Albanians have another problem besides being unable tell reality from fantasy,
truth from myth. Serbophobia is the origin of contemporary Albanian
nationalism. Skenderbeg betrayed the
Turks at the battle of Nis. Rather than attack the Christian Serbs, Skenderbeg
had a change of heart in Serbia. Below, Fatos Lubonja describes how the
ex-Muslim elites tried to reconcile the myth they had created about Skenderbeg
with the Albanians’ religious and political reality…
there was
an attempt in some circles to exalt the Albanians’ Muslim identity on the
grounds that those Albanians who became Muslim were the only true Albanians – arguing
that the Islamic religion was the strongest factor in the survival of the
Albanians… Some even put forth the theory that Skenderbeg should not be the
national hero because he betrayed the Turks by serving the Christians.
…the old myths of national romanticism like
that of Skenderbeg and ‘the religion of the Albanians is Albanianism’ remain
the dominant mythologies in Albanian cultural and political life today.
Fatos
Lubonja
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 102
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_102.jpg
Even after reading the entire
book, Albanian Identities: Myth and History, including all parts dealing
with Skenderbeg, the reader still doesn’t know exactly what parts of the
Albanian image of Skenderbeg is really myth. The authors are vague in this book
but they nevertheless inform us with facts from which we may conveniently proceed
into the final half of this presentation. At one point, Lubonja correctly
mentions that Skenderbeg never liberated all Albanian lands because his attempt
to liberate Berat failed. Lubonja also observed that Skenderbeg’s domain never
included Kosovo. This probably implies that there were few Albanians in Kosovo
in his time. Skenderbeg also never fought the Serbs. In fact, as mentioned
above, he betrayed the Turks rather than participate in the slaughter and
occupation of the Serbian of Nis.
We turn again to Lubonja, this
time from an interview he did with the right wing, Muslim Sarajevo daily Dani:
Not long
ago, for example, I wrote of myths and mentioned Skenderbeg and the Battle of
Kosovo. I told of how the Albanians have
forgotten that Skenderbeg was a Slav. I was attacked by Ismail Kadare,
incensed at how I could possibly say that Skenderbeg
was a Slav and that the history and culture of Albanians is on the level of
Serbs.
That's
the way it is with our culture, which is mythomaniac, national-communist,
romantic, self-glorifying. You can't say anything objective without people
getting angry. The Albanians are a people who still dream. That is what they
are like in their conversations, their literature...In light of Hoxha and
'pyramid schemes, Albanians are a people who still dream. That's just the way
they are...
Fatos
Lubonja
famous Albanian dissident
http://www.bhdani.com/arhiva/151/t1516.htm
Clearly, it seems that stating that
Skenderbeg is anything but Albanian is dangerous. It is well known that
Skenderbeg’s mother was Vojislava was the daughter of the Serb ruler of Polog.
But this does not make Skenderbeg Serbian.
What does make Skenderbeg Serbian
is the work of over a dozen West European genealogists one whom is a descendant
of Skenderbeg and a bearer of both of his last names; he is Nobile Loris
Castriota-Skenderbegh.
http://www.sardimpex.com/index.htm
·
Andrea Dominici Battelli
·
Paolo Bonato
·
Dott. Francis A. Burkle-Young, del
Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania
·
Nobile Loris Castriota
Skanderbegh
·
Dott. Nobile Luigi Gonella
·
Lucia Lopriore
·
Dario E. Maria Manfredi, del Centro Studi Malaspiniani di
Mulazzo
·
Bruno De Martin
·
Don Carlo Notarbartolo Conte di Priolo dei Duchi
di Villarosa
·
Cesare Patrignani
·
R. Kenneth Sheets
·
Prof. Dott. Herbert Stoyan, dell'Università di Erlangen
·
Nicolò Tassoni Estense Marchese di Castelvecchio
This is the most complete
genealogy of the Kastriota’s that has ever been put together. According to this
genealogy:
a) Skenderbeg
is the great grandson of Branilo, the Serb duke of Kastoria.
b) Skenderbeg’s
brother was named Stanisa, a contemporary Serbian name.
c) Stanisa’s
son (Skenderbeg’s nephew) was also named Branilo.
d) Skenderbeg’s
mother was Vojislava daughter of the Serb ruler of Polog
e) Skenderbeg’s
sisters Valica and Jela mean ‘little wave’ and ‘dear’ in Serbian. Branilo and
Stanisa are both Serbian names meaning ‘defender’ and ‘the one who
stands,’ respectively. Note that neither Branilo, Stanisa, Valica nor
Jela exist as Bulgarian names.
http://www.sardimpex.com/FILES/CASTRIOTA%20E%20BRANAI.htm
Branilo
(+ assassinato a Jannina nel 1379 circa), di origine serba, Governatore di
Jannina nel 1368. Sposa N.N.
B2. Stanisha
(+ ante 1450)
= ……….
C1. Stanisha
= Despina, figlia di
Musachi Comneno
C2. Branilo
detto Bernardo (+ 1463), da prima musulmano diviene cristiano nel
1443, Conte di Mat nel
1450, Governatore di Croia fino alla morte.
= Maria, figlia di Paolo
Zarzari o Zarderi
B6. Yela
= N.N.
B8. Vlaica
(+ post 1444)
= Stefan Balsic
It is remarkable that Pagan Serbian
names persisted in the Kastriota family into the fourth generation. Skenderbeg
brother Stanisa named his own son Branilo. Such inter-generational use of Pagan
Serbian names suggests a preservation of a Serb identity. Much in the same way
that religious Jews give their children distinctly Hebrew names like Herschel,
Shmooley, Menachem, Yehuda and so forth so that they never forget their
ancestry and identity. The reader should also note: the names being pointed out
in the genealogy are Pagan Serbian names that could never have been diffused
into Albanian culture through Christianity because the Serbs practiced Orthodox
Christianity, which could never have diffused to Albanian Catholics. Also,
Albanian Orthodoxy was always under Byzantine-Greek jurisdiction and
concentrated in the south of Albania, furthest away from any potential and
unlikely Serbian/Christian cultural diffusion.
Now we can give the comments made by Albanians Pirro Misha and
Fatos Lubonja more substance and clarity. Regarding this genealogy,
historically speaking, there is no document of comparable magnitude. Not only
did more than a dozen professional genealogists compile it but it also has the
backing of a direct descendant of Skenderbeg himself. Even the objective
Albanian reader would be in a dilemma. The reason why Albanians converted to
Islam (70%) very quickly after Skenderbeg died is because he wasn’t an
Albanian. And yet, contrast that to how Albanians are willing to claim Obilic
on 1/100 of the quality of evidence that this genealogy is worth.
Some of the Arberesh still apparently remember that
Skenderbeg was a Serb. We know for a fact that his descendants do as well.
Since the likelihood if this genealogy being a Serbian conspiracy is zero, the
objective reader would have to concede that the genealogy is remarkably
objective. If the genealogy said that Skenderbeg was an Albanian, would any
Albanian still contest it then? Most likely: not. That one, single, unavoidable
fact speaks volumes.
Greater Albania and neo-Enverism have to go. So does
Skenderbeg. It is in the interest of Albanians to transfer their loyalty
accordingly. In the Middle Ages, Albanians were led to greatness by a Serb
nobleman, whose true life few Albanians really know or want to hear about or
can even bare to accept. In a sense, losing Skenderbeg IS the end of the world.
But it could also be the re-birth of a world that existed 600 years ago.
Regardless of how Albanians may want to deal with or accept the Truth about
Skenderbeg – it is still the Truth.
