Albanian History - GJERGJ KASTRIOTI - SKENDERBEU (1405-1468)
Gjergj (Albanian: George) Kastrioti was born in Kruja from Gjon Kastrioti, lord of Middle Albania, who was obliged by the Ottomans to pay tribute to the Empire. To assure the fidelity of local rulers the Sultan used to take their sons as hostage and bring them up in his court. Gjergj Kastrioti attended military school in the Ottoman Empire and was named Iskander Bey which in Turkish means Lord Alexandre.
He was distinguished as one of the best officers in several Ottoman campaigns both in Asia Minor and in Europe, and the Sultan appointed him General. He even fought against Greeks, Serbs and Hungarians, and some sources says that he used to maintain secret links with Raguse, Venice, Vladislas of Hungary et Alphonse V of Naples. Sultan Murat II gave him the title Vali which made him the General Governor of some provinces in central Albania. He was respected everywhere but he missed his country.
In 1443, during the battle against the Hungarians of Hunyadi in Nish (in present day Serbia), he abandoned the Ottoman Army and captured Kruja, his father's seat in middle Albania. Above the castle he rose the Albanian flag, a red flag with the black double-headed eagle, the present-day Albanian flag, and pronounced to his countrymen the famous words: "I have not brought you liberty, I found it here, among you". He managed to unite all Albanian princes at the town of Lezha (League of Lezha, 1444) and united them under his command to fight against the Turks.
During the next 25 years he fought, with forces rarely exceeding 20,000 against the most powerful army of that time and defeated it for 25 years. In 1450 the Turkish army was led by the Sultan Murad II in person, who died after his defeat in the way back. Two other times, in 1466 and 1467, Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, led the Turkish army himself against Skenderbeg and failed too. The Ottoman Empire attempted to conquer Kruja 24 times and failed all 24 of them.
Skenderbeg's military successes evoked a good deal of interest and admiration of the Papal state, Venice and Naples, themselves threatened by the growing Ottoman power across the Adriatic. The Albanian warrior played his hand with a good deal of political and diplomatic skill in his dealings with the three Italian states. Hoping to strengthen and expand the last Christian bridgehead in the Balkans, they provided Skenderbeg with money, supplies and occasionally with troops. One of his most powerful and consistent supporters was Alfonso the Magnanimous (1416-1458), the Aragone king of Naples, who decided to take Skenderbeg under his protection as vassal in 1451, shortly after the latter had scored his second victory against Murad II. In addition to financial assistance, the King of Naples undertook to supply the Albanian leader with troops, military equipment as well as with sanctuary for himself and his family if such a need should arise. As an active defender of the Christian cause in the Balkans, Skenderbeg was also closely involved with the politics of four Popes, one of them being Pius II (1458-1464) or Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, the Renaissance humanist, writer and diplomat.
Profoundly shaken by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Pius II tried to organise a new crusade against the Turks; consequently he did his best to come to Skenderbeg's aid, as two of his predecessors Nicholas V and Calixtus III, had done before him. This policy was continued by his successor, Paul II,(1464-1473).They gave him the title Athleta Christi.
For a quarter of a century he and his country prevented Turks from invading Catholic Western Europe.
After his death from natural causes in 1468 in Lezha, his soldiers resisted the Turks for the next 12 years. In 1480 Albania was finally conquered by the Ottoman Empire. When the Turks found the grave of Skenderbeg in Saint Nicholas church of Lezha, they opened it and held his bones like talismans for luck. In 1480 the Turks invaded Italy and conquered the City of Otranto.
Skenderbeg's posthumous renown was by no means confined to his own country. Voltaire thought the Byzantine Empire would have survived had it possesed a leader of his quality. A number of poets and composers have also drawn inspiration from his military career. The French sixteenth-century poet Ronsard wrote a poem about him and so did the nineteenth-century American poet Longfellow. Antonio Vivaldi, too, composed an opera entitled Scanderbeg.
Skenderbeg today is the National Hero of Albania. Many museums and monuments are raised in his honour around Albania, and among them the Museum of Skenderbeg in his famous castle in Kruja.
Bibliography:
Noli, Fan S.: George Castrioti Scanderbeg, New York, 1947
Logoreci, Anton: The Albanians, London, 1977.
You come into Kruja (pronounced: Kru-yah) past age-old olive trees and lime-kilns, with limestone outcrops offering the barest grazing to a few sheep and goats. Then shrubs and oaks replace the olives, and finally the conifers take over. "Kruj'" means "Spring" and of course there is no shortage of fresh water at these cool heights. The air invigorates you after the hot, humid plain of Tirana, and one can easily imagine why the old Ilyrrian settlement of Zg'rdhesh was abandoned in the forth century, and the refugees from the hotter, more exposed foothills chose to defend a mountain eyrie instead.
The ecclesiastical record of the ninth century mentioned Kruj' as a bishop's see. The byzantine held the city up to c.1190, when the first Albanian feudal state was declared at Kruj' under the archon Progon (1190-8). Arbania survived throughout the rule of Progon's son Gjin (1198-1206) and Dhimitrit (1206-16), but in 1216 it fell under the sway of Epiros, in 1230 under Bulgarians, and in 1240 again under Epiros. Foreign invaders continue to fight over the dying body of a torn and bleeding Albania until an Ottoman garrison was permanently stationed at Kruj' in 1415.
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The youngest of Gjon Kastrioti's four sons, Gjergj, was sent with his three brothers as a hostage to the Sultan at Constantinople in 1415. He impressed his tutors at the military school he attended and they gave him the title "Skender-beg" for the valour on the field of battle. Then in 1443 he suddenly left the Ottoman army fighting Hunyadi, the Hungarian Hero and returned to Albania. As the Turks retreated near Nish on 3 November 1443, Gjergj withdrew his nephew Hamza and 300 Albanian horsemen and headed for Dib'r and then Kruj'. The citadel of Kruj' became the scene of one of Europe's most titanic struggles. In May 1450 the Ottoman Sultan Murad II set out from Constantinople with a hundred thousand men to crush once and for all the Albanian army which had been united since 1444 by Skenderbeg's personal recruiting campaign. He aimed to storm the citadel of Kruj' and to hold the Albanian countryside with Kruj' as a capital. Skenderbeg's personal magnetism ensured that those Albanians fit to take up arms were armed and ready for combat, a total of 17,500 at the most, who were thus outnumbered by five to one. Skenderbeg divided his troops into three bands. Fifteen hundred led by Count Uran were provisioned to withstand the siege within the citadel itself. The two major forces of 8 000 each were split up, the first under Skenderbeg to harry the near of the Ottoman army once it had encamped below Kruj', and the other forming small bands of guerrilleros to ambush, raid, and snipe at the Turkish caravan on its cumbersome trail from Macedonia. Since Murad II realised that his troops would mutiny if ordered to withstand the hostile winter encamped in a trap below Kruj', after four and a half months he retreated with loses estimated at more than twenty thousand - that is exceeding the strength of the whole Albanian army. Ragusa congratulated Skenderbeg, "Magnificus et Potens" on his stupendous victory.
The remains of the castle and its surroundings |
Kruja under the direction of Skenderbeg defeated the turkish army lead by the Sultan Mehmet etc. for a quarter of a century. As the British military strategist Wolfe has said Skenderbeg surpassed "all the captains, both ancient and modern, in his ability to lead a small defensive army". After the death of Skenderbeg from natural causes in 1468, the citadel of Kruj' defeated the Turks for more then ten years under the direction of Lek' Dugagjin till at 16 june 1478 when it fell definitively to the Sultan Mehmet.
The remains of the tower and the new museum |
After the Ottoman took their dearly-won castle of Kruj', they rebuild the walls on the northern side, with openings for firearms, to make Kruj' as impregnable against the Albanians as it had been impregnable against themselves. The earthquake of 1617 caused the cracking and collapse of many hill structures, including the citadel, but in 1832, on the Sultan's orders, the Albanian feudal castles were made useless for defence and a centralised bureaucratic government replaced - at least in intention - the former feudal semi-autonomy of the mountain regions as Kruj'. Half-hearted attempts were made by the Turks to rebuild sections of the castle, after they have tightened their grip on the countryside, for they realised that sudden Balkan uprisings could overwhelm their government, and a defenceless castle is a doubtful asset to a ruling class.
Points of Touristic Interest
The Skenderbeg Museum |
- The Restored Castle and Citadel
- The Skenderbeg Museum erected in the middle of the Castle.
- The Old restored Bazaar near the castle.
- The jewel eighteen-century architecture Bektashi tekke "Dollma" (West of the castle), a shrine of the Bektashi movement, one of the fourth main religions of Albania after the Catholics, the Orthodox, and Muslims.
