1.
Categorizing Albanian Myths
Looking at
the whole range of Albanian national myths, we can distinguish four major
categories: the myth of origins and priority, the myth of ethnic
homogeneity and cultural purity, the myth of permanent national struggle
and the myth of indifference to religion.
Noel
Malcolm
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 73
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_73.jpg
To be fair, Malcolm states earlier on page 71 that he doesn’t use the word ‘myths’ in the same sense as others who have contributed to Albanian Identities: Myth and History. Nevertheless, all pandering aside, Malcolm makes identical observations with others who speak of myths according to the dictionary meaning of the word.
The myth
of ethnic homogeneity and cultural purity
Although
some of the other myths of Albanian identity may have contained an
important element of historical truth, this one is hardly defensible at all…In
the case of the Albanian, the added ingredients would include Romans
(themselves of various ethnic origins), Slavs (during the middle ages when
Bulgarian Slav settlers penetrated much of Albania), Greeks (in much smaller
numbers) and Turks…. linguistic legacy of Slavic and Latin vocabulary and the strong cultural imprint of
the Ottomans.
Noel
Malcolm
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited
by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 73
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_73.jpg
We move to on to Carleton Stevens
Coon, one of the pioneers of American Anthropology:
The Albanian language, a hybrid between Illyrian,
Thracian, Latin, Slavic, Turkish, and other elements, reflects the ethnically
composite origin of the Albanians.
Races of
Europe
Carleton
Stevens Coon
1939
http://www.snpa.nordish.net/chapter-XII13.htm
Ardian Vehbiu, an Albanian scholar
is doubtful that there is even an Illyrian component in the Albanian population
at all. So do all the scholars quoted in this work.
There is an Illyrian myth, with
which Albanian culture has been flirting for at least 150 years, and as a myth
it can't be questioned (for it has all the answers). There is also a very
tentative Illyrian science, based mainly on archaeology, and on some data
transmitted by Ancient Greek and Latin Historians.
These inscriptions, being totally alien to Albanian, show that the Illyrian
question is extremely complicated, and that it isn't likely to be resolved,
unless fundamental epigraphic discoveries are made.
The great Illyrologist Hans Krahe
himself was no supporter of the Illyrian theory about the origin of Albanians.
In his late years he came to understand that most of his paleolinguistic
theories were generally wrong. Krahe started by finding Illyrian traces
everywhere in Europe, but then it was made clear that all he had found were
Indo-European traces -- and nobody had any doubt that Indo-European tribes had
been in Europe for a long many years.
Onomastics is of no great help in
settling linguistic and ethnogenetic issues. Let's have a look at some
important place names in Albanian territories, like Dajti, Shkodra, Durresi,
Vlora, Burreli, Drini, Shkumbini, Tirana, etc. Are they Albanian? We can't say
that, for there are no Albanian words that would explain them (as we explain,
for example, Kruja with "krue" - fountain).
This might well be true, but seems
pathetic in front of the fact that we can't explain through Albanian words the
place names we currently use, let alone the Illyrian ones. So what?
Let's move up in time, and reach the Middle Ages. In
the Middle Ages the Albanians were somewhere there, though their first mention
is in the 11th century (or 12th, I'm not sure). 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, Illyrians (with
their less fortunate fellows, the Pelasgians) are a pure creation of Albanian
romanticism.
ArdianVebiu
famous Albanian historian
http://members.aol.com/Plaku/illyrian.htm
Clearly, there are different
points of view on the issue of Albanian origins and who exactly contributed to
the modern Albanian ethnos. Before we get into this question deeper, it is important
to explore the Serb ethnic contribution to the Albanian ethnos.
2. Serb
Influence in Albania
I would add Serbs as the single
most important population in Albania after Shqipetar- Albanians based on the following
evidence by American anthropologist Carleton Stevens Coon:
"The
once important Serbian influence in Albania has left few vestiges, other than
Slavic place names, and the presence of a few islands of Moslem Serb speakers
in the mountains, as in the Gora district of Luma".
Races of
Europe
Carleton Stevens Coon
1939
http://www.snpa.nordish.net/chapter-XII12.htm
Thus, it safe to say that
Selishev’s toponymic maps below suggest a Serbian rather than Bulgarian
influence:
http://www.kroraina.com/seli_sna/selish_slavic.gif
http://www.kroraina.com/seli_sna/selish_slavicnames2.gif
This next map of Europe in 814 AD at
the death of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne shows Serbs inhabiting all parts
of Albania except for the coast almost 300 years before the first Serb state
was formed and it shows half of all Bulgarians still living north of the Danube
while showing Serbs inhabiting both Moesia and even the Peloponnesian peninsula
in Greece.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/europe_814_colbeck.jpg
This effectively nullifies any
Bulgarian contributions to Albanian toponyms, which would have been confined to
bulgarizing the heavy Serb population that had been there since before 800 AD
when Bulgarians were still north of the Danube, as the map shows. It also shows
that Serbs have been living in Kosovo and all parts of inland Albania since the
700s, less than 200 years after the settlement in 620 AD.
About this issue, one of the most distinguished
Albanian historians had to say, in 1955, in front of 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 the Slavs. We
won't fall into this trap. There's no reason to deny that there is Slavic blood
running in our veins, and we are proud of it."
After 1960 all this Slavic blood dried out,
obviously.
Ardian Vehbiu
Albanian dissident
http://members.aol.com/Plaku/origins.htm
To be fair, Vehbiu interpretation of this is that it may have been an attempt to gain Soviet support. Lubonja disagrees below in the second-to-last quote and argues that Albanian scholarship was free in the 50s. Certainly, given Lubonja’s father Todi’s background as a famous dissident and former top-ranking colleague of Enver Hoxha’s regime, Lubonja’s word certainly carries more weight.
3. The
Origin of the Illyrians
Finally, we need to be clear on
the origin of the Illyrians. Wilkes discounts the theory that Illyrians
migrated from Northern Europe. Whether Wilkes discounts this theory because it
is politically incorrect or not, is hard to say. He says that the consensus is
that Illyrians grew out of the Upper Paleolithic Balkan cultures that existed
before the Illyrians. He calls the people of the Vinca Culture, the Lepenski
Vir culture and other cultures found on ex-YU and in Albania Proto-Illyrian.
Here is the other view, from Carleton Stevens Coon, one of the pioneers of
American Anthropology:
This culture arose in central Europe, with
southern Germany and Austria as a focus, sometime shortly after the beginning
of the first millennium B.C. It developed out of local Bronze Age origins
carried over from the Urnfiels, and in turn from Aunjetitz. Other Middle and
Late Bronze Age influences reached it, particularly that of the tumulus culture
of the south German highlands; likewise both cremation and the use of iron were
introduced from outside. Still, whatever the complexity of archaeological
detail, the Hallstatt civilization may be considered primarily the work of the
indigenous central European population, with little if any accretions.
The Hallstatt culture spread in many
directions, including the southeast, where it penetrated Bosnia, and eventually
Albania. It moved slowly northward, until it reached the Scandinavian and North
German area, bringing iron to these regions relatively late; while to the
southwest, it crossed France and penetrated Catalonia. To the immediate south,
it likewise spread over the Alps into Italy, where the invading Illyrians split
into a number of local tribal groups, including the Veneti. It would be foolish
to claim that every site with Hallstatt cultural remains carries the bones or
ashes of Illyrian speakers. This may only with certainty be asserted for the
central area, and for the regions immediately adjacent, while in the west it is
fairly certain that some of the peoples in a Hallstatt level of culture were
actually Kelts.
Carleton Stevens Coon
Races of Europe
1939
http://www.snpa.nordish.net/index2.htm
Under this theory: Illyrians, Thracians, just as the Serbs, Croats, Bulgars and Greeks were all small but tightly organized tribes who came from elsewhere and assimilated into the much larger Upper Paleolithic populations; while providing them identity and leadership and language.
Later, we will summarize the
conclusions of two Genetic studies that show that Bulgarians and ex-Yugoslavs,
Greeks and Albanians are all native Balkan populations, which have been living
in the Balkans since the Upper Paleolithic. That pre-dates the Illyrians by 35
000 years. Linguistic affinities do not imply ethnic synonymy according to the
latest genetic tests.
If we accept the conclusions of
the Genetic studies and if in fact, Illyrians are not at all connected with
Halstatt Culture, either within or beyond the Balkans (making Coon wrong) –
this scenario provides a basis for continuity between UP cultures, Illyrian
culture and living ex-Yugoslavs from Istra all the way to Western Serbia. It
should also be noted here that the southern border of Illyrian territory only
extended to Central Albania, according to Wilkes on page 68. Half of Albania
was not part of Illyrian territory. On page 69, Wilkes says: “It cannot yet
be established that there were peoples in the north west of mainland Greece
that spoke a language that was neither Illyrian or Greek…Ancient writers tell
us almost nothing of the Illyrian language”. There is no firm basis for
considering the Epirotes as Illyrians or from inferring Albanian-Illyrian
continuity from language, either, as we shall see below.
4. The
Albanian-Illyrian theory:
The Illyrian-Albanian theory was
not the first myth that was concocted to give Albanians a much needed cohesive
ethnic identity…
Among the main
myths are those exalting the antiquity of the Albanian people and Albanian
as one of the oldest languages. Since it was necessary to distinguish the
Albanian from the Greeks and Slavs – even to stress their superiority –
the origin of the Albanian people was found to be in the Pelasgian people,
which according to the mythology, were the inhabitants of the Balkan
Peninsula before the Greeks (later the Pelasgians were replaced by the
Illyrians).
Fatos Lubonja
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 92
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_92.jpg
This whole page is worth reading.
Lubonja observes that the Albanian-Illyrian theory was created out of
expedience in order to establish a myth of Albanian antiquity in the Balkans.
Back to Malcolm again, who elaborates more on the Albanian-Illyrian theory, its
basis and competing theories that existed before this myth became accepted
under the auspices of Enver Hoxha. Regarding this theory, Malcolm has the
following to say:
The evidence
for this is primarily linguistic; its significance has become
clear only with the development of the (modern) science of historical
linguistics.
Noel
Malcolm
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 74
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_74.jpg
The linguistic component stems from
similarities between modern Albanian words and various Illyrian names, which
can also be shown to have cognates in Slavic, Baltic and Armenian. Many
Illyrian names like, to name a fraction: Bato, Pajo, Batina, Bojken, Tadus,
Tata, Panto, Pantelia either have cognates or meaning in Slavic languages.
Nevertheless, basing a theory of ethnic origins on language makes little sense
today, regardless of what Malcolm thinks.
For example, ex-Yugoslavs and
Bulgarians, who speak Slavic languages do not share a genetic lineage with
North European Slav-speakers:
hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/Science_2000_v290_p1155.pdf
http://geocities.datacellar.net/refuting_kemp/gene_intro.html
The Hungarians, Finns and Estonians
speak Ural-Altaic languages but the Mongoloid traces in the population are
insignificant. The same rationale by which Albanians are connected to Illyrians
would necessitate classifying these three people as Mongoloids, which they are
not, either morphologically or culturally. In fact the same studies quoted
above also confirm that this is true for the Balkans. These genetic tests also
show that Bulgarians and ex-Yugoslavs, Greeks and Albanians are native Balkan
populations, which have been living in the Balkans since the Upper Paleolithic.
That pre-dates the Illyrians by 35 000 years. Linguistic affinities do not
imply ethnic synonymy according to the latest genetic tests.
More needs to be said on the
futility of determining ethnic origin through linguistics and how weak the case
is even when attempting to identify Albanian-Illyrian continuity through
language. Wilkes discusses the problems of connecting Illyrian to Albanian
because these two languages belong to two different groups of I-E languages, satem
and centum – which makes Illyrian and Albanian languages separate and
mutually exclusive and ultimately nullifies their continuity. Note that Slavic
and Illyrian are both satem languages. Wilkes continues:
In the
case of Illyrian, the problems appear to be multiplying: if Illyrian belongs
not to the centum group but to the satem, the common etymology of
Gentius and gens must be discarded. There is no evidence in fact that
Illyrian belongs to the centum group but the argument that it does is
crucial to the case that modern Albanian is descended from Illyrian.
John
Wilkes
The
Peoples of Europe: The Illyrians
Page:
1992
Blackwell
Publishers
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_wilkes_73.jpg
Wilkes is pretty straightforward and devastating: the centum/satem
inconsistency makes it impossible to postulate Albanian-Illyrian linguistic
continuity – despite the similarities in Albanian vocabulary and Illyrian
names. In fact, as stated previously: many Illyrian names, like, to name a
fraction: Bato, Pajo, Batina, Bojken, Tadus, Tata, Panto, Pantelia either have
cognates or meaning in Slavic languages. This suggests that Serbian and
Albanian languages borrowed from Illyrian dialects during assimilation. But
more needs to be said on Shqipetar origins, first. So, this same approach can
even be used to justify the claims of Albanians’ neighbors to Illyrian descent,
as well. Relying exclusively on linguistics to determine Albanian ethno-genesis
leads to a dead end. There is no basis for Albanian-Illyrian linguistic, and as
we will see below: ethnic continuity either.
So, we need to examine other theories and provide even more evidence
toward discrediting the Albanian-Illyrian theory.
The word Albanian is an exonym.
This means that the people who identify as Albanians do not call themselves
in their own tongue by any name derived from that particular word. The Albanoi
were once an Illyrian tribe who lived within present day Albania while most
Illyrian tribes lived in ex-Yugoslavia. We do not know much about them except
from Pliny. Eventually, their ethnonym was used to identify an area greater
than that which they originally inhabited centuries earlier. Shqipetar
is the name used by Albanians, in their own language.
From this point on, to avoid
confusion, Shqipetar (an ethnonym) will be used as distinct from Albanian
(a toponym, originally), which is shared by many regions in Europe and thus may
have a distinct etymology in each place. Who were the Shqipetars and
where did they come from? There is no basis upon which to identify Albanoi
as Shqipetars - because this argument doesn’t consider the exonym
factor, which renders the whole concept irrelevant. We move now to explore a
version of the Caucasian-Shqipetar theory, which would seem more plausible in
light of the genetic and linguistic evidence considered above and which Malcolm
obviously never considered:
…the most
influential one was the one that identified the Ur-Albanians with the
inhabitants of an area in the Caucasus also known (to classical geographers) as
‘Albania’…
The
Caucasian Theory was first expounded by Renaissance humanists, (such as Anneas
Silvius Piccolomini) who were familiar with the works of classical geographers
and historians; it was developed in the 1820s by French diplomat and
influential writer on the Balkans, Francois Pouqueville, and in 1855 it was
presented in a polemical response to the work of Johann George von Hahn by a
Greek doctoral student at Gottingen…Buy the late 19th century this
theory wa sin retreat thank to the work of linguists….One last attempt to
salvage the theory was made by an Arberesh writer Francesco Tajani
Noel
Malcolm
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 74
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_74.jpg
Note the antiquity of this
competing Caucasian Albanian theory. First let us be clear: this is only one
particular version of the Caucasian Theory. The Caucasus is a place where
(along with Caucasian languages), there are also spoken I-E and Altaic
languages like Armenian and Azeri. Albanian, being an Indo-European language,
doesn’t nullify the Caucasian hypothesis at all.
This next piece by John Wilkes has
been subdivided into paragraphs here in this text but originally appears as one
paragraph from two pages. It is worth paying attention to:
We are
indebted to Strabo…for a portrayal of the Dardanians: “they are so utterly wild that
they dig caves beneath their dung heaps and live there but still
they have a taste for music and are always playing instruments, both flutes and
strings”. Though their
territory and ethnic associations remain in doubt, the Dardani were, for
several centuries, an enduring presence among the peoples of the central
Balkans, ‘the most stable and conservative ethnic element in an area
where everything was exposed to constant change, as the Yugoslav scholar
Fannoula Papazoglu puts it…the Dardani endured.
In the
Greek and Roman world…the
Dardani…came to be linked with a people of the same name who dwelt in Asia
Minor and who gave their name to the district of Dardania from which the
modern name Dardanelles is derived. Other coincidences of ethnic names
supported notions of a connection between the Balkans and Asia Minor. A current explanation cites as a
likely context the large-scale movement of peoples…(around 1200 BC) when
some of the well-established powers around the eastern Mediterranean were
afflicted by attacks of the ‘sea-peoples’.
By Roman
times the nature of the connection between Balkan and Asian Dardani had become
altogether a more delicate matter. Then a movement in the opposite direction explained the
movement: a certain Dardanus who ruled over many tribes in Asia Minor was
responsible for settling Dardani west of the Thracians…
The accepted version was that the Dardani were
kindred people of the Trojans who had degenerated in their new home to a state of
Barbarism.
Though for
a time probably subordinate to Epirus, the Dardani maintained an independence
that was later eroded by Macedonia and finally extinguished by the Romans… After
335 BC nothing is reported of them…
John
Wilkes
The
Peoples of Europe: The Illyrians
Page:
144, 145
1992
Blackwell
Publishers
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_wilkes_144.jpg
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_wilkes_145.jpg
Wilkes says the accepted version
is that the Dardanians migrated from Asia Minor and settled in Western
Kosovo (not the Eastern half of Kosovo); east of the Autariatae and that
they represented a degenerate branch of their ancestral stock. If
Albanians descend from the Dardanians of Western Kosovo, a longer exposure to
the Illyrians among whom they settled explains why the Albanian language has
preserved more Illyrian vocabulary than surrounding Slavic languages.
Wilkes says of the Daradanians: ‘their
territory and ethnic associations remain in doubt.’ Wilkes even doubts
their status as Illyrians and goes on to state the
accepted version that the Dardanians migrated from Asia Minor and settled in Western
Kosovo. Strabo describes them as ‘so utterly wild that they dig caves
beneath their dung hills and live there’. Fannoula Papazolgu calls
Dardanians ‘the most conservative ethnic element in the area’. Given the
Dardanians’ and Albanians’ conservatism, along with the fact that
archaic living conditions and practices have consistently persisted among both
Dardanians and modern Albanians, it is possible that the two might be
connected. Living in dunghills during the cold is practical for warmth when
living in archaic living conditions, for which Albania is famous.
Wilkes also says that there is no
mention of the Dardanians after 335 BC after Alexander’s Greeks had
vanquished them. If Albanians do descend from the Asian Dardanians, then it
was the Greeks who pushed them southward 1300 years before the Serbs arrived in
620 AD. It is possible that the Dardanians migrated southward into Albania in
the latter part of the 4th century BC after being devastated by the
Greeks.
If Albanians can be connected to
the Dardanians (who Wilkes says are known to have migrated from Asia Minor and settled
among the Illyrians) – then a suitable compromise and connection could be
found between the Shqipetar-Caucasian theory and the Dardanian-Albanian theory.
The Caucasus is just east of Asia Minor. Toponymic and hydronymic data would be
decisive evidence. Note that the present Albanian population of Kosovo and
Macedonia does not descend from these Dardanians but from Muslim colonists from
North Albania in Ottoman Times and expelled the Serbs [http://geocities.com/AIA_SKENDERBEG/turkish_era.html]. Albanians also
conducted an ethnic cleansing campaign while they administered Kosovo before
1987 [http://geocities.com/AIA_SKENDERBEG/rillindja.html].
Although no such theory is offered
right now: below, evidence will be cited immediately below to show that
Albanians and Illyrians are and were two physically different groups, with very
little resemblance, which also devastatingly weakens the Albanian-Illyrian
theory and necessitates a new approach. Toponymic data, along with Carleton
Coon’s observations on the physical similarities between Albanians and the
people of the south Caucasus (The Seven Caves, Adventures &
Discoveries) would be decisive contributions to a more realistic and
ubiquitous theory.
Work done in Yugoslavia and Albania
in the late 1980s and early 1990s by John Wilkes also helped to bring an end to
Illyrian-Albanian myth…
In the
matter of physical character, skeletal evidence from prehistoric cemeteries
suggests no more than average height (male 1.65 m; female 1.53). Not much
reliance should perhaps be placed on attempts to define an Illyrian
anthropological type as short and dark-skinned similar to modern Albanians.
John
Wilkes
The Peoples of Europe: The Illyrians
Page:
219
1992
Blackwell
Publishers
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_wilkes_219.jpg
It should be noted that John
Wilkes is the world’s foremost authority in Illyrian studies. In fact, his 1992
book has not been refuted almost 15 years. No other scholar has published a
critical work of Wilkes’ monumental study, based on skeletal evidence and
archaeological work done in Albania and ex-Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. Wilkes
has the last word. There is no credible evidence to for Albanian-Illyrian
continuity. If Albanians do descend from Dardanians, who migrated to Illyria
from Asia Minor and then to Albania from western Kosovo after being crushed by
Alexander in 335 BC, Wilkes’ skeletal evidence confirms that the Dardanians
were also physically different from the Illyrian population among whom they
settled.
About this issue, one of the most distinguished
Albanian historians had to say, in 1955, in front of 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 the Slavs. We
won't fall into this trap. There's no reason to deny that there is Slavic blood
running in our veins, and we are proud of it."
After 1960 all this Slavic blood dried out,
obviously.
Ardian Vehbiu
Albanian dissident
http://members.aol.com/Plaku/origins.htm
We turn again to Fatos Lubonja who
explains how and why the false Illyrian-Albanian theory reached widespread
popularity…
For
instance, the ethnogenesis of the Albanians was an open question among
Albanian scholars in the 1950s, but when Enver Hoxha declared that their
origin was Illyrian (without denying their Pelasgian roots), no one dared
participate in any further discussion of the question. During the Communist
era, literary and artistic activity as well as academic studies (especially
historic and linguistic studies) all adhered to this pattern. By this means a
virtual world was created in which Albanians lived within the propaganda
framework of the part and of the literary, artistic and academic works, which
pervaded schools, libraries, cinemas, theaters and exhibitions.
Fatos
Lubonja
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 96
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_96.jpg
The ethnogenesis of the Albanians was
an open question among Albanian scholars in the 1950s until Enver Hoxha declared
the Albanians to be ‘Illyrians’. “Albanians lived within the propaganda
framework of the part and of the literary, artistic and academic works, which
pervaded schools, libraries, cinemas, theaters and exhibitions”. Tito
effectively relied on the equally misguided theory of ‘Slavic’ origin for
‘Yugoslavs’ as the basis for maintaining cohesion inside the Communist state -
without giving the matter further consideration for political reasons. All
further Illyrian studies were easily monopolized by information coming from
Hoxha’s Communist myth-making propaganda machine. Bulgarian scholar Galia
Valtchinova concludes:
This
allows him space for a deliberate search of themes known from Greek tragedy. No
wonder then, that we see him playing the Illyrian card, one of the most
powerful myths in the Albanian national construction.
Galia
Valtchinova
The H-File and the making of the Homeric verse
Quoted
from:
Albanian
Identities: Myth and History
Edited by:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 110
http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/Lobby/7681/faqe_110.jpg
8. Summary
and Conclusions of the Evidence
John Wilkes is the world’s foremost
authority in Illyrian studies. In fact, his 1992 book has not been refuted in
over 15 years. No other scholar has published a critical work of Wilkes’
monumental study, based on skeletal evidence and archaeological work done in
Albania and ex-Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. Wilkes has the last word. Lubonja
and Vehbiu inform us that Albanian scholarship under Hoxha even postulated
Slavic origins for the Albanians as early as the 1950s, while scholarship was
still free in Albania. Bulgarian scholar Selishev’s maps confirm a large
Slav-speaking presnce showing 1/3 of Albanian toponyms to be Slavic and to
which Coon attributes to Serbs a once large Serb population in Albania. A map
of Europe in 814 AD, confirms it by showing Serbs living from Dalmatia & BiH
throughout all of interior Albania, Epirus and the Peloponnese (while
Bulgarians were situated north of the Danube).
After explaining a version of the
Caucasian theory, Malcolm stated bluntly that Albanian-Illyrian continuity was
exclusively based in linguistics. Wilkes then discusses the impossibility of
Illyrian-Albanian ethnic & linguistic unity: first by providing skeletal
evidence showing that modern Albanians and Illyrians were physically two
different peoples; second: by discussing the unbridgeable centum/satem
linguistic gap that nullifies the possibility of the continuity between
Albanian and Illyrian languages. I pointed out that many Illyrian names have
cognates and meaning in Serbian, as well as Albanian. Wilkes, as well as
Malcolm (inadvertently) and the two genetic studies have all showed the
weakness and inconsistent results that come with using linguistics to identify
descent.
An overwhelming body of fairly
objective evidence has refuted the Albanian-Illyrian hypothesis and no credible
evidence at all in its favor remains. All that does actually remain is to
provide a theory of Shqipetar ethnogenesis that incorporates (not just
linguistics with all its erroneous conclusions) but more insightful
disciplines. In fact any theory that would incorporate several disciplines will
automatically be more credible than the Albanian-Illyrian myth. Toponymic data,
anthropometrical data and other information never considered before will be
valuable contributions to a more realistic theory.
