Si jeni. A je mirë. Çfarë ka të re.
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Differences between Western(Catholic-Protestant) and Orthodox civilisations.
- Thread starter Stears555
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- western civilization
Si jeni. A je mirë. Çfarë ka të re.
King Bardhyl
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@ LeBrok & Yetos
It is interesting that as a "bandit" as you call him to deal with such things:
Works
Negovani is the author of prose and poetry, including school texts, translations and fables. Among his publications are
References
On February 10, 1905 Negovani held a church service in Albanian before Karavangelis, bishop of Kastoria, which came forth from the church, said these fatal words , "Do not find next year among the living".
After two days, Saturday, Feb. 12, 1905, the village was surrounded by greek andartes, who forced Negovani thirty years old ,aware that the expected end, leave the house at midnight to then slaughtered with an ax along with five others, among them his brother.
On September 22, 1906 Bajo Topulli killed the Greek Orthodox bishop Korçë, Photios,[3] who was said to be responsible for the death of Papa Kristo Negovani.
So this thirty years old was partitioned with an ax by peoples sent by the Greek Church. This is what you called to spread orthodoxy and helenism in greek way.
And don`t offend me. Focus on argument and not to the person .
LeBrok should be careful and see these insults against my country history and me personally.
I am trying to help LeBrok in this:
Kristo Negovani
Kristo Negovani właśc. Kristo Harallambi (ur. 1875 we wsi Flampouro k. Floriny, zm. 12 lutego 1905 w Negovan) – albański działacz narodowy i pisarz, duchowny prawosławny.
Pochodził z rodziny albańskiej, mieszkającej we wsi Negovan (dzis. Flampouro), w Czamerii. Był synem kupca. Uczył się w szkole średniej w Atenach, a następnie wyemigrował do rumuńskiej Braiły, gdzie pracował jako robotnik portowy. Tam też nawiązał współpracę z albańskim ruchem niepodległościowym. W 1897 powrócił do swojej rodzinnej wsi. Został wyświęcony na księdza prawosławnego. Pracował w miejscowej parafii. Dom, w którym mieszkał Negovani przekształcił w szkołę, w której uczył pisać i czytać w języku albańskim ponad setkę dzieci. Kiedy pierwszy raz odprawił w miejscowej cerkwi nabożeństwo w języku albańskim zostało to przyjęte z wrogością przez grecką hierarchię prawosławną. Dwa dni później oddział greckich andartes opanował wieś i wymordował jej mieszkańców, w tym Negovaniego. W akcie zemsty za śmierć Negovaniego, oddział albański Bajo Topullego we wrześniu 1906 zamordował greckiego biskupa Focjusza, metropolitę Korczy.
Działalność translatorską Negovani podjął jeszcze w 1889 w Rumunii, przygotowując tłumaczenie Starego Testamentu na język albański. Po powrocie do kraju przygotowywał tłumaczenie bajek La Fontaine'a w wersji albańskiej. W jego dorobku są także podręczniki do nauki języka albańskiego i utwory poetyckie.
Dzieła
It is interesting that as a "bandit" as you call him to deal with such things:
Works
Negovani is the author of prose and poetry, including school texts, translations and fables. Among his publications are
- The History of the Old Testament, (Albanian: Istori e Dhiatës së Vjetërë), Bucharest 1889;
- The Destruction of Hormova, (Albanian: Prishija e Hormovësë), Sofia 1904;
- Little Dhonat Argjendi (Albanian: I vogëli Dhonat Argjendi), Costanza 1904;
- Works of the Holy Apostles (Albanian: Bëmatë të shëntorëvet dërgimtarë), Sofia 1906;
- History of Plikati (Albanian: Istorishkronjë e Plikatit), Thessaloniki 1909.
References
- Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd Jürgen Fischer: Albanian identities: myth and history, 2002 page 55. [1]
- Myzyri: The First National Albanian Schools 1887- July 1908, publisher "8 Nëntori" 1978 page 114 and page 137 (Shkollat e Para Kombetare Shqipe 1887- korrik 1908) [2]
- Religion and atheism in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe By Bohdan R. Bociurkiw, John W. Strong, Jean K. Laux 1975 page 397 [3]
- Historia e Shqipërisë, Volume 2 By Selim Islami, Kristo Frashëri, Aleks Buda 1967 page 274 [4]
- The Albanian national awakening, 1878-1912 By Stavro Skendi 1967 page 206 [5]
- Sabrina P. Ramet (1988). Eastern Christianity and politics in the twentieth century. Duke University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8223-0827-0. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
- Jašar Redžepagić (1970). Zhvillimi i arësimit dhe i sistemit shkollor të kombësisë shqiptare në teritorin e Jugosllavisë së sotme deri në vitin 1918. Enti i teksteve dhe i mjeteve mësimore i Krahinës Socialiste Autonome të Kosovës. p. 87. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
On February 10, 1905 Negovani held a church service in Albanian before Karavangelis, bishop of Kastoria, which came forth from the church, said these fatal words , "Do not find next year among the living".
After two days, Saturday, Feb. 12, 1905, the village was surrounded by greek andartes, who forced Negovani thirty years old ,aware that the expected end, leave the house at midnight to then slaughtered with an ax along with five others, among them his brother.
On September 22, 1906 Bajo Topulli killed the Greek Orthodox bishop Korçë, Photios,[3] who was said to be responsible for the death of Papa Kristo Negovani.
So this thirty years old was partitioned with an ax by peoples sent by the Greek Church. This is what you called to spread orthodoxy and helenism in greek way.
And don`t offend me. Focus on argument and not to the person .
LeBrok should be careful and see these insults against my country history and me personally.
I am trying to help LeBrok in this:
Kristo Negovani
Kristo Negovani właśc. Kristo Harallambi (ur. 1875 we wsi Flampouro k. Floriny, zm. 12 lutego 1905 w Negovan) – albański działacz narodowy i pisarz, duchowny prawosławny.
Pochodził z rodziny albańskiej, mieszkającej we wsi Negovan (dzis. Flampouro), w Czamerii. Był synem kupca. Uczył się w szkole średniej w Atenach, a następnie wyemigrował do rumuńskiej Braiły, gdzie pracował jako robotnik portowy. Tam też nawiązał współpracę z albańskim ruchem niepodległościowym. W 1897 powrócił do swojej rodzinnej wsi. Został wyświęcony na księdza prawosławnego. Pracował w miejscowej parafii. Dom, w którym mieszkał Negovani przekształcił w szkołę, w której uczył pisać i czytać w języku albańskim ponad setkę dzieci. Kiedy pierwszy raz odprawił w miejscowej cerkwi nabożeństwo w języku albańskim zostało to przyjęte z wrogością przez grecką hierarchię prawosławną. Dwa dni później oddział greckich andartes opanował wieś i wymordował jej mieszkańców, w tym Negovaniego. W akcie zemsty za śmierć Negovaniego, oddział albański Bajo Topullego we wrześniu 1906 zamordował greckiego biskupa Focjusza, metropolitę Korczy.
Działalność translatorską Negovani podjął jeszcze w 1889 w Rumunii, przygotowując tłumaczenie Starego Testamentu na język albański. Po powrocie do kraju przygotowywał tłumaczenie bajek La Fontaine'a w wersji albańskiej. W jego dorobku są także podręczniki do nauki języka albańskiego i utwory poetyckie.
Dzieła
- 1889: Istori e Dhiatës së Vjetërë, (Historia Starego Testamentu)
- 1904: Prishija e Hormovësë (Zniszczenie Hormovës)
- 1904: I vogëli Dhonat Argjendi (Mały Dhonat Argjendi)
- 1906: I drunjti kryq (Drewniany krzyż)
- 1906: Bëmatë të shëntorëvet dërgimtarë (Dzieje Apostolskie)
- 1909: Istorishkronjë e Plikatit (Historia Plikati)
- Robert Elsie: A Biographical Dictionary of Albanian History.. I.B. Tauris: 2013, s. 327-328. ISBN 9781780764313.
- Hysni Myzyri: Shkollat e Para Kombetare Shqipe 1887- korrik 1908. Tirana: 1978, s. 114,137. (alb.)
- Sabrina Ramet: Nihil Obstat. Religion, Politics and Social Change in East-Central Europe. Duke University Press: 1998, s. 206. ISBN 9780822320708.
- Stavro Skendi: The Albanian national awakening, 1878-1912. Princeton: 1967, s. 206-207.
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Templar
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Hungarian guy, what do you think about Bosnia? We had stone fortresses all over the country, some of the largest silver mines in Europe, the oldest written documents in exyugo, etc.
King Bardhyl
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Enough with these stone fortresses:
[h=3]1332
Anonymous:
Initiative for Making the Passage[/h]
Anonymous:
Initiative for Making the Passage[/h]
The 'Directorium ad passagium faciendum', which can be translated as 'Initiative for making the passage', is a mediaeval Latin manuscript (also available in an early French translation) attributed alternatively to a monk called Burcard (Brocardus Monacus / Frère Brochard) or to one William Adam (Guillelmus Adam / Guillaume Adam) (1). The author was at any rate a Dominican priest and Latin prelate in the Byzantine Empire and Armenia, whose aim was to persuade the Catholic armies under Philip VI of Valois (r. 1328-1350) to embark upon a holy crusade and conquer Serbian-occupied Albania, thus restoring the Catholic Church to its former power there and taking revenge upon the Orthodox Greeks for having destroyed the Latin Empire of Constantinople. In the text, the author makes reference to the Albanians as the majority population in Albania. It is also in the 'Directorium' that a much-quoted phrase about the existence of books in Albania occurs: 'licet Albanenses aliam omnino linguam a latina habeant et diversam, tamen litteram latinam habent in usu et in omnibus suis libris' (The Albanians indeed have a language quite different from Latin, however they use Latin letters in all their books). Though the reference to the existence of the language is clear, that to writing in Albanian is ambiguous. It cannot be said for certain whether the author meant Albanian-language books written in Latin script or simply books written in Latin. The former possibility has of course captured the imagination of subsequent generations of Albanian scholars and the text is often quoted to this end in histories and studies of Albanian literature as evidence that Albanian-language books existed long before the so-called Missal of Gjon Buzuku (1555).
On the Kingdom of Rascia and how it could easily be conquered I would like to come back to the Kingdom of Rascia to show how it could be conquered. Indeed, the desire to invade is all that is needed for the country to be taken. In order to make this clear, I would like to present a number of brief suggestions for an invasion and a number of easily fulfilled conditions for a conquest.
The said kingdom has few if any fortifications at all. All that exists are farmhouses and cottages devoid of moats and outer walls. The buildings and palaces, both of the king and of the nobles, are made of straw and wood. I have never seen a palace or home there made of stone or of brick except in the coastal towns of the Latins. The said kingdom is rich in grain, wine, oil and meat. It is a pleasant place with water from springs and rivers flowing through it, a delightful land with woods, meadows, mountains, plains and valleys full of various species of wild beasts. In short, everything that grows there is of choice quality, in particular in areas along the coast. In the said kingdom, there are indeed five gold mines and an equal number of silver mines in which expert miners toil without interruption. There are also mixed deposits of silver and gold, which have recently been discovered at various and sundry sites, and huge dense forests. Whoever owns this kingdom will have a veritable jewel in his possession, select and precious for all times.
One factor, among others, which makes this kingdom easy to conquer, is that it is inhabited by two peoples, i.e. the Albanians and the Latins who, in their beliefs, their rites and their obedience, both abide by the Roman Catholic Church. Accordingly, they have archbishops, bishops and abbots, as well as religious and secular clerics of lower rank and status. The Latins have six towns with bishops: firstly Antibarum (Bar), the seat of the archbishop, then Chatarensis (Kotor), Dulcedinensis (Ulcinj), Suacinensis (Shas) (2), Scutarensis (Shkodra) and Drivascensis (Drisht) (3), which are inhabited by the Latins alone. Outside the town walls, the Albanians make up the population throughout the diocese. There are four Albanian towns: Polatum Maius (Greater Pult) (4), Polatum Minus (Lesser Pult), Sabatensis (Sapa) (5) and Albanensis (Albanopolis) (6) which, together with the towns of the Latins, are all legally subject to the Archbishop of Bar and his church as their metropolitan. The Albanians indeed have a language quite different from Latin. However they use Latin letters in all their books (7). The sway of the Latins is thus confined to the limits of their towns. Outside the towns, they do possess vineyards and fields, but there are no fortifications or villages actually inhabited by the Latins. The Albanians for their part, the larger of the two peoples, could assemble over fifteen thousand horsemen for warfare according to the custom and manner of the country, who would be courageous and industrious warriors. Since the said Latins and Albanians suffer under the unbearable yoke and extremely dire bondage of their odious Slav leaders whom they detest - the people being tormented, the clergy humiliated and oppressed, the bishops and abbots often kept in chains, the nobles disinherited and held hostage, episcopal and other churches disbanded and deprived of their rights, and the monasteries in decay and ruin - they would all to a man believe that they were consecrating their hands in the blood of the aforementioned Slavs if a French prince were to appear before them whom they could make leader of their war against the said evil Slavs, the enemies of our true faith. With the help of the aforementioned Albanians and Latins, one thousand French knights and five or six thousand foot soldiers could without a doubt easily conquer the whole length and breadth of this kingdom.
[Extract from: Recueil des historiens des croisades. Documents arméniens. Tome second. Documents latins et français relatifs à l'Arménie, Paris 1906, p. 478 485. Translated from the Latin by Robert Elsie. First published in R. Elsie: Early Albania, a Reader of Historical Texts, 11th - 17th Centuries, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 28-30.]
On the Kingdom of Rascia and how it could easily be conquered I would like to come back to the Kingdom of Rascia to show how it could be conquered. Indeed, the desire to invade is all that is needed for the country to be taken. In order to make this clear, I would like to present a number of brief suggestions for an invasion and a number of easily fulfilled conditions for a conquest.
The said kingdom has few if any fortifications at all. All that exists are farmhouses and cottages devoid of moats and outer walls. The buildings and palaces, both of the king and of the nobles, are made of straw and wood. I have never seen a palace or home there made of stone or of brick except in the coastal towns of the Latins. The said kingdom is rich in grain, wine, oil and meat. It is a pleasant place with water from springs and rivers flowing through it, a delightful land with woods, meadows, mountains, plains and valleys full of various species of wild beasts. In short, everything that grows there is of choice quality, in particular in areas along the coast. In the said kingdom, there are indeed five gold mines and an equal number of silver mines in which expert miners toil without interruption. There are also mixed deposits of silver and gold, which have recently been discovered at various and sundry sites, and huge dense forests. Whoever owns this kingdom will have a veritable jewel in his possession, select and precious for all times.
One factor, among others, which makes this kingdom easy to conquer, is that it is inhabited by two peoples, i.e. the Albanians and the Latins who, in their beliefs, their rites and their obedience, both abide by the Roman Catholic Church. Accordingly, they have archbishops, bishops and abbots, as well as religious and secular clerics of lower rank and status. The Latins have six towns with bishops: firstly Antibarum (Bar), the seat of the archbishop, then Chatarensis (Kotor), Dulcedinensis (Ulcinj), Suacinensis (Shas) (2), Scutarensis (Shkodra) and Drivascensis (Drisht) (3), which are inhabited by the Latins alone. Outside the town walls, the Albanians make up the population throughout the diocese. There are four Albanian towns: Polatum Maius (Greater Pult) (4), Polatum Minus (Lesser Pult), Sabatensis (Sapa) (5) and Albanensis (Albanopolis) (6) which, together with the towns of the Latins, are all legally subject to the Archbishop of Bar and his church as their metropolitan. The Albanians indeed have a language quite different from Latin. However they use Latin letters in all their books (7). The sway of the Latins is thus confined to the limits of their towns. Outside the towns, they do possess vineyards and fields, but there are no fortifications or villages actually inhabited by the Latins. The Albanians for their part, the larger of the two peoples, could assemble over fifteen thousand horsemen for warfare according to the custom and manner of the country, who would be courageous and industrious warriors. Since the said Latins and Albanians suffer under the unbearable yoke and extremely dire bondage of their odious Slav leaders whom they detest - the people being tormented, the clergy humiliated and oppressed, the bishops and abbots often kept in chains, the nobles disinherited and held hostage, episcopal and other churches disbanded and deprived of their rights, and the monasteries in decay and ruin - they would all to a man believe that they were consecrating their hands in the blood of the aforementioned Slavs if a French prince were to appear before them whom they could make leader of their war against the said evil Slavs, the enemies of our true faith. With the help of the aforementioned Albanians and Latins, one thousand French knights and five or six thousand foot soldiers could without a doubt easily conquer the whole length and breadth of this kingdom.
| (1) | On the authorship of the 'Directorium', cf. M. Šufflay, Pseudobrocardus..., in: Vjesnik kraljevskog hrvatskog slavonskog dalmatinskog zemeljskog archiva, Zagreb, 13 (1911), p. 142-150; A. Atiya, The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, New York 1965, p. 95 106, 65 67. |
| (2) | Settlement near the river Buna, on the Montenegrin side of the present border. At its zenith during the Middle Ages it was known as Suacium, Italian Suazzo, Sfazzi, French Soans, and now in Albanian as Shas and in Serbo-Croatian as Šas. The town was first documented in 1067 and began to decay around the end of the 14th century. |
| (3) | Village on the river Kir, northeast of Shkodra. |
| (4) | Pult (Polatum) is a region on the river Kir extending beyond Drisht to Prekal. |
| (5) | Saba or Sapa was in the Zadrima region east of Shkodra, later to be part of the diocese of Sapa and Sarda (Sapatensis et Sardensis). |
| (6) | Albanopolis has been traditionally identified with the village of Zgërdhesh, south of Kruja. |
| (7) | For an interpretation of this sentence, cf. I. Zamputi, in: Hylli i Dritës, 1-2, 1995, p. 14-51. |
Yetos
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Yes,
the man was pat of Belkamenos and topalis/Topulis) guerrilla forces,
search who was Belkamenos (you can find him also as Bellochamis in locals vocabularry)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Bellkameni
I told many many times, the Moscohopolis case and the Aromanian choose is another story,
After the revolt of Greeks, the acts of klepths reduced,
but in Ottoman states (Albania was still under Ottoman occupation) continue.
many of them were Aromanians who preferd the Albanian nationality,
many of them continued the Klephtes living like Bellochamis (Bellkamenos)
your papa was among them,
King Bardhyl
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THE ALBANIANS
Of all their vague political aspirations and obscure strivings nothing seems to have been known save the one damning fact that they had risen to protest against the reforms. It
has been their fate to hide their virtues under an alias.
Whether as Christians or as Moslems their lot has been to win laurels for other races. How much of the great legend of the Greek War of Independence would remain if the share which the Christian Albanians had in it were subtracted ? When one thinks of that various struggle, sometimes savage, sometimes heroic, two chapters emerge which have specially seized the imagination of Europe — the wars of Suli against Ali Pasha, and the exploits of the seamen of Hydra against the Turkish navy. Both the Suliotes and Hydriotes were Albanians in blood, language, and customs. They were "Greeks" only in the sense that the Vlachs are " Greeks " — they belonged to the Orthodox Church, and if any of them possessed any culture at all, it was Greek culture. The Suliotes were a predatory tribe, rather better organised and more homogeneous than most Albanian septs, and their manners had not been softened by their nominal Christianity. The Hydriotes were simply pirates.
KORITZA AND THE LANGUAGE MOVEMENT
There is an air almost European about the town of Koritza.
The energy and virility of the Albanian character seem somehow to have found a half-
expression. Yet a Greek Bishop and a Turkish Pasha, aliens both of them, still claim the allegiance of the town, though confronted by a spirit of the soil which both dread
and both persecute — a spirit that is busily knitting a new people together, in spite of all their efforts.
If the secret thought in the august hearts of these twoofficials could be bared to the world, it would deserve to rankamong the rarest curiosities of officialdom. They have onemaster passion, the Bishop and the Pasha, and when they have finished praying for each other's destruction in their daily secret devotions, i suspect that a fervent little clause in Greek and in Turkish is addressed in much the same phraseology to Allah and the Trinity. And that is a prayer for the destruction of a spelling-book. They look upon that spelling-book much as Zeus regarded the torches of Prometheus. The end of the Turkish Empire is somehow predestined in the cabalistic symbols of its alphabet, and its little reading lessons in words of one syllable are like to be more fatal to the Greek Church than all the tractates of the heretics. I saw it once, and turned its pages with timid care, as one might handle a torpedo. It was locked in a glass case in the sacred precincts of the American Protestant School of Koritza, where it sheltered safely on foreign soil under the shadow of treaties and capitulations. I had just been paying a formal call on the Bishop, who had explained to me how, ever since he had been Secretary to the Ecumenical Patriarch, his hard-won leisure had been spent in ceaseless efforts to promote a union between the Anglican and the Greek Church. In business hours he had sterner work. He occupied himself in excommunicating the parents of all the children who dared to attend the Protestant school where that spelling-book is harboured. It seemed an odd way of promoting the union of Protestantism and Orthodoxy. As for the Pasha, he had lately sent the chief of police to hunt for seditious books, and only a peremptory telegram from one of the consulates in Monastir had availed to save the alphabet.
The history of that spelling-book is the record of the one hopeful movement which gives a promise of enlightenment to the Albania of the future.
There were no doubt schools in such centres as Jannina, Berat, Koritza, and Elbasan, but i they belonged to the Orthodox Church, and their whole ( instruction was in Greek). They taught the young Albanian that he was a Greek, that he must speak Greek, and that his mother-tongue was only a nursery dialect for children, or a barbarous patois for " Turks." As for the Muslims, school hardly entered into their notions. The Turkish conceptionof a school was a place where little boys squatted upon the ground, and recited the Koran by heart.
The knowledge of Greek letters was at no time rare in Southern Albania, but none the less the Albanians remained illiterate, isolated, and untaught. The few who went to the Greek Gymnasia in Koritza or Jannina, or to the University of Athens became, to all purposes, Greeks. But the bulk of the Albanian people had no intention of denationalized itself, and its patriotism in consequence was quite untainted by letters.
It was not until the second quarter of the seventeenth century that any Albanian developed the odd wish to use his language for literary purposes. The first pioneers seem to have come from among the Catholic clergy. Their record in this matter compares favourably with that of their Orthodox brethren, for whom the terms " Greek ' and "Christian" seem to have been synonymous. The first Albanian book that was ever printed was an " Imitatio Christi," published in Venice in 1626. A Catholic Bishop of Uskub, by name Bogdanes, did much for the language. He used the Latin alphabet, and a few copies of his works are still extant. He had a more enterprising successor
towards the end of the eighteenth century, an Orthodox teacher named Theodore, who lived in Elbasan. He was the first pioneer to attempt a serious study of the language, and his "Lexicon Tetraglosson " (Latin, Greek, Vlach, Albanian) displays a real originality, since it claims for Albanian a place among the languages of Europe.
Clearly Theodore was a Pioneer born out of due time. It was a dangerous thing in those days to play with letters in Albania. Some fifty years later another Southern Albanian, Naum Veqilharxhi , took up Theodore's task, and worked out mother alphabet. It made some progress in the districts around Koritza, and a few little booklets were printed in it. But by this time the jealousies of the Greek clergy were aroused, and it is generally believed among albanian patriots that Naoum, who was so reckless as to mitrust himself during an illness to the Greek hospital at Constantinople, was poisoned by order of the Patriarch. I repeat the story because it is interesting to note that the efforts of the Albanians to throw the ignorance of the centuries had already roused the hostility of the Orthodox Church. As yet the movement was in its infancy, and could be checked by the untimely deaths of its leaders.
Meanwhile the Catholic clergy in the North were by no means idle. The Jesuits issued a number of books, mostly, however, legends of the Saints, which can have had no particular educative value. A religious periodical was also published by them in Scutari. The happiest event for the Albanian language was the translation of the Bible by Constantine Christophorides (whose intellect has been quickened by an intimate association with the scholarly traveller. Von Hahn), under the auspices of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
It was issued at first in two alphabets, more or less modified to suit the peculiar phonetics of the Albanian language in Greek characters for the South, in Latin for the North. These early editions, however, found small favour, but between the years 1877-9 a Committee of Albanian patriots, most of them moslems, sat in Constantinople and elaborated yet another alphabet, mainly Latin, with an admixture of Greek characters. This was at length adopted by the Bible Society, and their Albanian colporteurs were set to work to sell it. They are to this day persecuted alike by the Greek Church and by the Turks. Every journey they undertake is an adventure. Their families are boycotted and excommunicated by the Orthodox priesthood they themselves are frequently imprisoned by the Turks. The work of the Constantinople Commission soon attracted the notice of the Turkish Government, and it had perforce to remove itself to a free centre. It settled in Bucharest and established a printing press of its own, from which about fifty books have been issued, including a Grammar, a Life of Skanderbeg, a popular history of Albania, and a number of translations. Albanian periodicals are issued in Bucharest, in Sofia, in Rome, and in London, but comparatively few copies find their way into Turkey.
To keep Albania savage and ignorant is a fundamental principle of Abdul Hamid's statescraft. Macedonia is covered with schools which disseminate the views of every conceivable racial propaganda. There are Greek schools to Hellenise Vlachs and Slavs and Albanians. There are Bulgarian schools which maintain the schism within the Orthodox Church. There are Servian schools to split the Slav element. There are Roumanian schools to detach the Vlachs from the Hellenic interest. On all of these the Porte smiles with an indifferent and capricious favour. The more schools there are and the more propagandas, the less fear is there of a coalition among the Christians against he Turkish yoke. For all of these there is a contemptuous tolerance. They are part of the hereditary Ottoman tradition of dividing to conquer. But Albanian schools fall under a very different category. In them the Turks have seen a force making not for discord, but for unity. The Albanians, divided in religion, have only their language in common, and in the cult of that language lies the hope of the reunion of Moslem and Christian. The Albanian movement, nationalist like all the others, differed from them in seeking its rallying-point not in a religious but in a secular propaganda.
Though the earlier pioneers were all Christians, their work was never partisan, and they readily won the patronage and the sympathy of the Muslim aristocracy.
That is doubtless why the " Young Turkish" Liberal movement, ineffective and innocuous though it is, is persecuted more severely than any Bulgarian conspiracy. In the case of the Albanians there were additional reasons at work. They are a military people whose revolt would be as formidable as their loyalty is valuable. Their country is difficult and inaccessible, and therefore it seemed wise to check the first signs of particularism, since an armed rising would be peculiarly difficult to subdue.
Indeed, the surprising thing is that Albanian schools ever came to be established at all. In 1884, however, the Albanian Society, which was busied in publishing its booklets and periodicals in Bucharest, contrived to open a secondary school for boys in Koritza. It had on an average about sixty pupils, who came from both Moslem and Christian families, while the teachers belonged to the Orthodox rite. Its success among the Christians, however, was limited, because from the first it was subjected to the systematic persecution of the Greek clergy. The reading of anathemas against it soon became a regular part of the ritual in the Greek cathedral. Its teachers were steadily boycotted. But even these methods proved ineffective, and ultimately the Greeks found it necessary to denounce the two principal Albanian teachers as traitors who were conspiring against the Sultan. Their efforts went unheeded for some years, since the war of 1897 had left the whole Greek race under a cloud. But in 1902 the teachers, two brothers named Naoum and Leonidas Natcha, were arrested, and still languish untried
in prison. The school, as i saw it, is a wrecked and dismantled shell, its garden overgrown with weeds, and its class-rooms littered with the stones which the apostles of Hellenism and culture cast through its broken windows as they go arrogantly by. Another interesting experiment still survives in a maimed form. In 1889 an Albanian Protestant School for girls and young boys was started under the auspices of the American Mission by Mr. Gerassimo Kyrias, an able and devoted man who did much in a short life for his language and the cause. Like so many of the pioneers of the movement, he came to an untimely end. He was captured by brigands, and dragged about by them for the best part of a year, while his friends collected an exorbitant ransom. The exposure, the privation, and the wanton cruelty to which he was subjected during this experience practically killed him, and he died soon after his release. The school is carried on by his sister, a graduate of Robert College. For four years it thrived and was much patronised by the Moslem gentry of Koritza. But its success in due course aroused the suspicions of the authorities. It would never do to allow the next generation of the Mohamedan aristocracy to be brought up by mothers who had imbibed the idea of patriotism with a knowledge of their own tongue. It was given out that the father of any Mohamedan child attending the school would be sent immediately, and without trial, into lifelong exile.
Too many had gone that road before now a hapless poet whosewhole crime was to have published a version of the legend of Genevieve in the proscribed Albanian language, and again a generous and tolerant hey who had assisted the Koritza schools. The threat proved effective, and only the Christian scholars remained. With them the Greek clergy knew how to deal. There were the usual anathemas, excommunications, and boycotts, and in 1904 when I visited Koritza, Miss Kyrias found her pupils reduced to about twenty boarders, some of them Protestants, and most of them members of families whose homes lie beyond the immediate influence of the Bishop of Koritza. Her teaching is carried on as though it were a furtive and shameful practice, and her school, centre of high influences, model of order and sweetness and goodwill, would be more readily tolerated if it were a nest of vice and crime. At any moment the chief of police may come clanking into the courtyard, and more than once the brave woman who works there alone and unprotected has stood in her doorway and dared him to execute his threat of confiscating her books.
There are also the Catholic schools in the North, conducted by the Jesuits in Scutari, and one or two other of the larger Gheg centres. The Catholic clergy has done much for the Albanian language, but it conducts its schools on a definitely religious basis, which deprives them of any influence upon the Mohamedans, who form, after all, two- thirds of the population. They owe their immunity to the fact that they are under Austrian protection.
The same organisation which founded the Albanian boys' school in Koritza, opened schools at Pogradetz and in the Colonia district, but these also were closed mainly through the jealousy of the Greeks.
On the coast there are secular Italian schools at Durazzo and Vallona, which have also had their share of persecution.
The fears of the Turks and the jealousies of the Greeks have worked their will upon the Albanian movement so far as any external organisation goes. They have destroyed the machinery of propaganda, and left it a cult of the heart which depends on the devotion of individuals. It has neither schools nor churches nor committees. There are Albanian societies no doubt in Romanian, in Italy, and Egypt, more or less active and more or less independent. But they have no branches in Albania.
Under the joint persecution of the Church and the State, the cult of the Albanian language has deepened and broadened into a patriotic movement at once nationalist and democratic.
Persecution has strengthened their fibre, and the spiritual stimulus of this preoccupation about an idea has enlarged their mental horizon, softened their manners, and raised them to a moral level where self- discipline and disinterested devotion alike become possible. In this cult of letters and language lies the best pledge for the future of Albania. Thanks to the folly of Greeks and Turks, it is already laying the foundation of her inde- pendence, and, at the same time, of her civilisation. When, in the fulness of time, an Albanian prince takes his seat on the throne of Skanderbeg, he will swear his fealty to the enlightened constitution of the youngest of European kingdoms neither on Bible nor Koran. He will take his oath, if he be wise, on the Albanian spelling-book.
Source:
Macedonia; its races and their future ([1906])
Author: Brailsford, Henry Noel, 1873-1958
https://archive.org/details/macedoniaitsrace00braiuoft
Who was Henry Noel Brailsford:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._N._Brailsford
Of all their vague political aspirations and obscure strivings nothing seems to have been known save the one damning fact that they had risen to protest against the reforms. It
has been their fate to hide their virtues under an alias.
Whether as Christians or as Moslems their lot has been to win laurels for other races. How much of the great legend of the Greek War of Independence would remain if the share which the Christian Albanians had in it were subtracted ? When one thinks of that various struggle, sometimes savage, sometimes heroic, two chapters emerge which have specially seized the imagination of Europe — the wars of Suli against Ali Pasha, and the exploits of the seamen of Hydra against the Turkish navy. Both the Suliotes and Hydriotes were Albanians in blood, language, and customs. They were "Greeks" only in the sense that the Vlachs are " Greeks " — they belonged to the Orthodox Church, and if any of them possessed any culture at all, it was Greek culture. The Suliotes were a predatory tribe, rather better organised and more homogeneous than most Albanian septs, and their manners had not been softened by their nominal Christianity. The Hydriotes were simply pirates.
KORITZA AND THE LANGUAGE MOVEMENT
There is an air almost European about the town of Koritza.
The energy and virility of the Albanian character seem somehow to have found a half-
expression. Yet a Greek Bishop and a Turkish Pasha, aliens both of them, still claim the allegiance of the town, though confronted by a spirit of the soil which both dread
and both persecute — a spirit that is busily knitting a new people together, in spite of all their efforts.
If the secret thought in the august hearts of these twoofficials could be bared to the world, it would deserve to rankamong the rarest curiosities of officialdom. They have onemaster passion, the Bishop and the Pasha, and when they have finished praying for each other's destruction in their daily secret devotions, i suspect that a fervent little clause in Greek and in Turkish is addressed in much the same phraseology to Allah and the Trinity. And that is a prayer for the destruction of a spelling-book. They look upon that spelling-book much as Zeus regarded the torches of Prometheus. The end of the Turkish Empire is somehow predestined in the cabalistic symbols of its alphabet, and its little reading lessons in words of one syllable are like to be more fatal to the Greek Church than all the tractates of the heretics. I saw it once, and turned its pages with timid care, as one might handle a torpedo. It was locked in a glass case in the sacred precincts of the American Protestant School of Koritza, where it sheltered safely on foreign soil under the shadow of treaties and capitulations. I had just been paying a formal call on the Bishop, who had explained to me how, ever since he had been Secretary to the Ecumenical Patriarch, his hard-won leisure had been spent in ceaseless efforts to promote a union between the Anglican and the Greek Church. In business hours he had sterner work. He occupied himself in excommunicating the parents of all the children who dared to attend the Protestant school where that spelling-book is harboured. It seemed an odd way of promoting the union of Protestantism and Orthodoxy. As for the Pasha, he had lately sent the chief of police to hunt for seditious books, and only a peremptory telegram from one of the consulates in Monastir had availed to save the alphabet.
The history of that spelling-book is the record of the one hopeful movement which gives a promise of enlightenment to the Albania of the future.
There were no doubt schools in such centres as Jannina, Berat, Koritza, and Elbasan, but i they belonged to the Orthodox Church, and their whole ( instruction was in Greek). They taught the young Albanian that he was a Greek, that he must speak Greek, and that his mother-tongue was only a nursery dialect for children, or a barbarous patois for " Turks." As for the Muslims, school hardly entered into their notions. The Turkish conceptionof a school was a place where little boys squatted upon the ground, and recited the Koran by heart.
The knowledge of Greek letters was at no time rare in Southern Albania, but none the less the Albanians remained illiterate, isolated, and untaught. The few who went to the Greek Gymnasia in Koritza or Jannina, or to the University of Athens became, to all purposes, Greeks. But the bulk of the Albanian people had no intention of denationalized itself, and its patriotism in consequence was quite untainted by letters.
It was not until the second quarter of the seventeenth century that any Albanian developed the odd wish to use his language for literary purposes. The first pioneers seem to have come from among the Catholic clergy. Their record in this matter compares favourably with that of their Orthodox brethren, for whom the terms " Greek ' and "Christian" seem to have been synonymous. The first Albanian book that was ever printed was an " Imitatio Christi," published in Venice in 1626. A Catholic Bishop of Uskub, by name Bogdanes, did much for the language. He used the Latin alphabet, and a few copies of his works are still extant. He had a more enterprising successor
towards the end of the eighteenth century, an Orthodox teacher named Theodore, who lived in Elbasan. He was the first pioneer to attempt a serious study of the language, and his "Lexicon Tetraglosson " (Latin, Greek, Vlach, Albanian) displays a real originality, since it claims for Albanian a place among the languages of Europe.
Clearly Theodore was a Pioneer born out of due time. It was a dangerous thing in those days to play with letters in Albania. Some fifty years later another Southern Albanian, Naum Veqilharxhi , took up Theodore's task, and worked out mother alphabet. It made some progress in the districts around Koritza, and a few little booklets were printed in it. But by this time the jealousies of the Greek clergy were aroused, and it is generally believed among albanian patriots that Naoum, who was so reckless as to mitrust himself during an illness to the Greek hospital at Constantinople, was poisoned by order of the Patriarch. I repeat the story because it is interesting to note that the efforts of the Albanians to throw the ignorance of the centuries had already roused the hostility of the Orthodox Church. As yet the movement was in its infancy, and could be checked by the untimely deaths of its leaders.
Meanwhile the Catholic clergy in the North were by no means idle. The Jesuits issued a number of books, mostly, however, legends of the Saints, which can have had no particular educative value. A religious periodical was also published by them in Scutari. The happiest event for the Albanian language was the translation of the Bible by Constantine Christophorides (whose intellect has been quickened by an intimate association with the scholarly traveller. Von Hahn), under the auspices of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
It was issued at first in two alphabets, more or less modified to suit the peculiar phonetics of the Albanian language in Greek characters for the South, in Latin for the North. These early editions, however, found small favour, but between the years 1877-9 a Committee of Albanian patriots, most of them moslems, sat in Constantinople and elaborated yet another alphabet, mainly Latin, with an admixture of Greek characters. This was at length adopted by the Bible Society, and their Albanian colporteurs were set to work to sell it. They are to this day persecuted alike by the Greek Church and by the Turks. Every journey they undertake is an adventure. Their families are boycotted and excommunicated by the Orthodox priesthood they themselves are frequently imprisoned by the Turks. The work of the Constantinople Commission soon attracted the notice of the Turkish Government, and it had perforce to remove itself to a free centre. It settled in Bucharest and established a printing press of its own, from which about fifty books have been issued, including a Grammar, a Life of Skanderbeg, a popular history of Albania, and a number of translations. Albanian periodicals are issued in Bucharest, in Sofia, in Rome, and in London, but comparatively few copies find their way into Turkey.
To keep Albania savage and ignorant is a fundamental principle of Abdul Hamid's statescraft. Macedonia is covered with schools which disseminate the views of every conceivable racial propaganda. There are Greek schools to Hellenise Vlachs and Slavs and Albanians. There are Bulgarian schools which maintain the schism within the Orthodox Church. There are Servian schools to split the Slav element. There are Roumanian schools to detach the Vlachs from the Hellenic interest. On all of these the Porte smiles with an indifferent and capricious favour. The more schools there are and the more propagandas, the less fear is there of a coalition among the Christians against he Turkish yoke. For all of these there is a contemptuous tolerance. They are part of the hereditary Ottoman tradition of dividing to conquer. But Albanian schools fall under a very different category. In them the Turks have seen a force making not for discord, but for unity. The Albanians, divided in religion, have only their language in common, and in the cult of that language lies the hope of the reunion of Moslem and Christian. The Albanian movement, nationalist like all the others, differed from them in seeking its rallying-point not in a religious but in a secular propaganda.
Though the earlier pioneers were all Christians, their work was never partisan, and they readily won the patronage and the sympathy of the Muslim aristocracy.
That is doubtless why the " Young Turkish" Liberal movement, ineffective and innocuous though it is, is persecuted more severely than any Bulgarian conspiracy. In the case of the Albanians there were additional reasons at work. They are a military people whose revolt would be as formidable as their loyalty is valuable. Their country is difficult and inaccessible, and therefore it seemed wise to check the first signs of particularism, since an armed rising would be peculiarly difficult to subdue.
Indeed, the surprising thing is that Albanian schools ever came to be established at all. In 1884, however, the Albanian Society, which was busied in publishing its booklets and periodicals in Bucharest, contrived to open a secondary school for boys in Koritza. It had on an average about sixty pupils, who came from both Moslem and Christian families, while the teachers belonged to the Orthodox rite. Its success among the Christians, however, was limited, because from the first it was subjected to the systematic persecution of the Greek clergy. The reading of anathemas against it soon became a regular part of the ritual in the Greek cathedral. Its teachers were steadily boycotted. But even these methods proved ineffective, and ultimately the Greeks found it necessary to denounce the two principal Albanian teachers as traitors who were conspiring against the Sultan. Their efforts went unheeded for some years, since the war of 1897 had left the whole Greek race under a cloud. But in 1902 the teachers, two brothers named Naoum and Leonidas Natcha, were arrested, and still languish untried
in prison. The school, as i saw it, is a wrecked and dismantled shell, its garden overgrown with weeds, and its class-rooms littered with the stones which the apostles of Hellenism and culture cast through its broken windows as they go arrogantly by. Another interesting experiment still survives in a maimed form. In 1889 an Albanian Protestant School for girls and young boys was started under the auspices of the American Mission by Mr. Gerassimo Kyrias, an able and devoted man who did much in a short life for his language and the cause. Like so many of the pioneers of the movement, he came to an untimely end. He was captured by brigands, and dragged about by them for the best part of a year, while his friends collected an exorbitant ransom. The exposure, the privation, and the wanton cruelty to which he was subjected during this experience practically killed him, and he died soon after his release. The school is carried on by his sister, a graduate of Robert College. For four years it thrived and was much patronised by the Moslem gentry of Koritza. But its success in due course aroused the suspicions of the authorities. It would never do to allow the next generation of the Mohamedan aristocracy to be brought up by mothers who had imbibed the idea of patriotism with a knowledge of their own tongue. It was given out that the father of any Mohamedan child attending the school would be sent immediately, and without trial, into lifelong exile.
Too many had gone that road before now a hapless poet whosewhole crime was to have published a version of the legend of Genevieve in the proscribed Albanian language, and again a generous and tolerant hey who had assisted the Koritza schools. The threat proved effective, and only the Christian scholars remained. With them the Greek clergy knew how to deal. There were the usual anathemas, excommunications, and boycotts, and in 1904 when I visited Koritza, Miss Kyrias found her pupils reduced to about twenty boarders, some of them Protestants, and most of them members of families whose homes lie beyond the immediate influence of the Bishop of Koritza. Her teaching is carried on as though it were a furtive and shameful practice, and her school, centre of high influences, model of order and sweetness and goodwill, would be more readily tolerated if it were a nest of vice and crime. At any moment the chief of police may come clanking into the courtyard, and more than once the brave woman who works there alone and unprotected has stood in her doorway and dared him to execute his threat of confiscating her books.
There are also the Catholic schools in the North, conducted by the Jesuits in Scutari, and one or two other of the larger Gheg centres. The Catholic clergy has done much for the Albanian language, but it conducts its schools on a definitely religious basis, which deprives them of any influence upon the Mohamedans, who form, after all, two- thirds of the population. They owe their immunity to the fact that they are under Austrian protection.
The same organisation which founded the Albanian boys' school in Koritza, opened schools at Pogradetz and in the Colonia district, but these also were closed mainly through the jealousy of the Greeks.
On the coast there are secular Italian schools at Durazzo and Vallona, which have also had their share of persecution.
The fears of the Turks and the jealousies of the Greeks have worked their will upon the Albanian movement so far as any external organisation goes. They have destroyed the machinery of propaganda, and left it a cult of the heart which depends on the devotion of individuals. It has neither schools nor churches nor committees. There are Albanian societies no doubt in Romanian, in Italy, and Egypt, more or less active and more or less independent. But they have no branches in Albania.
Under the joint persecution of the Church and the State, the cult of the Albanian language has deepened and broadened into a patriotic movement at once nationalist and democratic.
Persecution has strengthened their fibre, and the spiritual stimulus of this preoccupation about an idea has enlarged their mental horizon, softened their manners, and raised them to a moral level where self- discipline and disinterested devotion alike become possible. In this cult of letters and language lies the best pledge for the future of Albania. Thanks to the folly of Greeks and Turks, it is already laying the foundation of her inde- pendence, and, at the same time, of her civilisation. When, in the fulness of time, an Albanian prince takes his seat on the throne of Skanderbeg, he will swear his fealty to the enlightened constitution of the youngest of European kingdoms neither on Bible nor Koran. He will take his oath, if he be wise, on the Albanian spelling-book.
Source:
Macedonia; its races and their future ([1906])
Author: Brailsford, Henry Noel, 1873-1958
https://archive.org/details/macedoniaitsrace00braiuoft
Who was Henry Noel Brailsford:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._N._Brailsford
King Bardhyl
Banned
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You want more?
Now you understand why the Greek Church and the Patriarchate kill teachers and Albanian Orthodox priests?
Apparently Greek priests and monks were well trained in the use of axes, knives, poison, etc.
Now you understand why the Greek Church and the Patriarchate kill teachers and Albanian Orthodox priests?
Apparently Greek priests and monks were well trained in the use of axes, knives, poison, etc.
Yetos
Regular Member
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- Location
- Makedonia
- Ethnic group
- Makedonian original
- Y-DNA haplogroup
- G2a3a
- mtDNA haplogroup
- X2b
that is true, that is why i do not christianity,
but I wonder why history is not always as you like it to be?
you heve your nationality
I have mine,
Topullis for you is hero,
for me is not,
so you tell me nothing,
church history is full of such,
if I mention Borgians what you will tell me?
simply you are someone who cries about his past,
you tell me about a bandit priest, to prove what?
that church is not good?
We all know that from bigger and more fancy stories,
your disapointment, cause only few follow you, and you convice noone, is such, that you are blinded by hate,
Well come to democratic world, not Theocratic, neither one man rules,
we do not have to agree, your Heroes are not mine, neither mine are yours,
You entered a religion thread to post about a bandit priest, that was killed by Greek rabels, cause he cooperate with Albanian rabels,
ok If I post about Orthodox Photios BISHOP of Korytsa who was murdered by Albanian rabels what next?
YOU BELIEVE ALBANIANS ARE INNOCENTS? OR YOU LIKE TO SHOW THEM AS ANGELS?
WE ARE NOT KIDS?
there was a strugle there,
We lost Korytsa, you earned her
we lost Monasterion, else earned it
we earn Florina, you and SlavoMakedonians lost it.
the rest are your imagination, or your propaganda effort to show you as innocents or victims,
but it is not,
King Bardhyl
Banned
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- 467
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- 12
- Points
- 0
Among us seem like a race. I argue you using serious references, while you continue to lie as much as possible.
1923
League of Nations:
The Sederholm Enquiry in Southern Albania
Jakob Johannes Sederholm (1863-1934), born in Helsinki, was a Finnish geologist and petrologist who specialized in the study of migmatite, a term which he coined. He studied in Helsinki, Stockholm and Heidelberg before returning to his country to work for the Geological Service of Finland (Geologian tutkimuskeskus). Sederholm was the author of over 250 scholarly works. He was also a member of the Finnish parliament which he represented at the League of Nations. In this capacity he headed a commission of inquiry into conditions in southern Albania that visited the country from 19 December 1922 to 1 February 1923. In this connection, Sederholm produced the following lucid report on the tense situation between Albanians and Greeks in southern Albania which, even today, makes interesting reading.
The Relations between Albania and Greece at the Time of the Visit
At the time of my arrival at Koritza I received information which seemed to show that the Greek Government was persisting in its former attitude of not regarding the provinces of Koritza and Arghirocastro as belonging to Albania
The long delay which has occurred regarding the final decision concerning the delimitation of the boundaries between Greek Macedonia and the former Ottoman Kaza of Koritza attributed to Albania, has caused such uneasiness in the province of Koritza, especially in those portions of the former Kaza of Koritza which are still occupied by Greek troops to some extent in disregard all the decisions of the Conference of Ambassadors. It was not possible for me to enquire into the conditions within this area or to investigate the many complaints of people living there which were reported to me. On my arrival at the boundary of this area, the Greek authorities, although otherwise showing me perfect courtesy, refused to allow me to enter it. It seemed to me, however, obvious that very serious difficulties would continue to exist so long as the territory in question remained in an ambiguous situation. Its inhabitants had been recruited as soldiers in the Greek Army, although their future fate might not be connected with that of Greece, and recalcitrants were being severely punished. The inhabitants also had to pay heavy taxes in money and kind. Further, their main market was at Koritza and they found their existence very difficult so long as they were separated from that town, to whose inhabitants this separation also caused serious hardships. Moreover, there was a danger that the present unsettled state of affairs may lead to an increase in the tension between Greece and Albania. I therefore ventured to recommend, in a telegram to the Secretary-General, that the Council of the League should request the Conference of Ambassadors to hasten the final delimitation. It is only when that question is finally settled that a firm basis can be laid for a good understanding between these two neighbouring countries.
The Question of the Formation of an Independent Orthodox Albanian Church
As stated already in my last report, the question of the formation of an independent Orthodox Albanian Church seems to be approaching a definite solution. It may be of interest to give a brief account of the beginning and development of the movement which has led to this result. It was among the Albanian emigrants to North America that the wish first originated to create Albanian religious communities independent of the Greek churches and using Albanian as the language of the divine service. The first of these communities was formed in Boston in the year 1919, with the Rev. Fan Noli as its head. He was ordained a priest by the Russian Metropolite in New York, the Greek higher clergy having refused to do so. The desire of the Albanians to get for the Rev. Fan Noli investiture as a bishop from the Russian Metropolite was not fulfilled, and the community, taking the matter into their own hands has declared the Rev. Fan Noli, bishop without the investiture of the Church.
Subsequently the Rev. Fan Noli and other Albanian orthodox clergymen came over from America to Koritza, where they continued their efforts to create a national Albanian Orthodox Church. They were assisted by a number of nationalists, most of them also emigrants returned from America.
The congress met at Berat and decided to create an Albanian autocephalous Church and to apply to the Patriarchate for approval of that decision. Contrary to what many people anticipated, the Patriarch gave a favourable reception to the demand and sent to Koritza a representative invested with full powers, the Exarch Ierotheos. The Exarch, himself of Albanian origin, preached in the church in Albanian, sanctified the Albanian independent Church and implored benediction over it; he issued a proclamation in which he declared that the Patriarchate, recognising the legal character of the congress of Berat, was favourable to the formation of an independent Albanian Church and would proceed to the measures necessary to confirm the ecclesiastical separation (tomos syndikos).
The congress of Berat expressed the following wishes: the metropolites should be Albanians; the language of the divine service, including that of the mass, should in future be Albanian, except in the churches frequented by the grecophone communities of the Arghirocastro region.
The above is the situation of the church question as explained to me by the present chiefs of the Albanian Church in Koritza, one of whom spoke English, and also by the Exarch Ierotheos, through an interpreter. The former always spoke of the formation of an ‘autocephalous’ Church, and the word ‘autonomous’ was never mentioned; it was explicitly stated that the Exarch possessed full powers not only to enquire into, but also to promulgate, the formation of an autocephalous Church.
The representation of the situation which I got later from Serb-Croat-Slovene sources differs, however, in some important points from the information which I obtained in Koritza. According to the former information, which had been received from the Serb-Croat-Slovene representative in Constantinople, the Patriarch did not give his emissary full powers to take decisions but only to enquire upon the matters in question, and the decision was to be taken later by the Holy Synod in Constantinople. Further, it was said that the character of the independent Albanian Church to be formed would not be that of an autocephalous church, headed by a Patriarch, but of an autonomous church, which would remain subordinate to the Patriarch in Constantinople in some respects.
The difference in these two interpretations of the situation is perhaps mainly formal. In every case it seems clear that the formation of an independent Albanian Church is only a matter of time.
In the prefecture of Koritza there are, even according to Greek statistics, no grecophone people.
The school question in the Koritza region has a different aspect from that in the west. Here there are no linguistic minorities. As has already been remarked, all the population, even the most eager Hellenophiles, speak Albanian in their homes. But with one exception there have been no Albanian schools before the time of the French occupation, all schools for the Christian population being Greek, which was also the language of commerce, etc. The Mohammedan population used also Turkish as their school language. Thus Greek was the language of culture of the Christian population, and many Albanians from Koritza, having ended their school studies, completed their instruction at the Greek University in Athens.
It should, however, be possible in a few years to create satisfactory primary schools. The Albanian schools in Northern Albania organised by the Jesuits and the Franciscan brotherhoods are already quite satisfactory.
The classes of the present French lycée are crowded, some of them having more than 40 pupils. These pupils are of very different ages and received their earlier instruction in different languages, some having studied in Albanian, others in Greek, Austrian or Italian schools. French being an entirely foreign language, it has been difficult to teach them, in the lower classes, enough of the language to enable them to follow with success the instruction in the higher classes. The director of the lycée, who devotes himself with much enthusiasm to his task, hopes that this difficulty will soon be overcome.
It may be objected that the language conditions in Southern Albania are very different from those in most other countries, the Christian population of this region having used Albanian mainly as the language of common intercourse; while Greek has long continued to be the language of religion, of literature and of commerce.
The conditions are in some respects, although not very closely, analogous to those which prevailed in my own country, Finland, less than a century ago, when the Finns, although forming the great majority of the population, received all their higher instruction in the grammar schools and at the university in the Swedish language, which was also the prevalent language of legislation and administration. Finnish was mainly used for the most elementary instruction and in religious and economic books for the people. Swedish, however, was never considered as being the mother-tongue or the ‘own language’ of such educated Finns as continued to speak Finnish in their homes. Later, when nationalism awoke, the Finns built up in less than half a century a complete literature of their own, giving thus to the Albanians an encouraging example to follow and an indication of the rapidity with which such a work can be done.
In the case of Finland, however, there existed at least one radical difference as compared with the conditions in Albania, inasmuch as the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland were fervent patriots, whereas many of the Hellenophiles in Southern Albania, as well as their Greek supporters, are hostile to the Albanian State. It is not to be expected that the Albanian Government would ever allow Greek schools for the Albanian-speaking population as long as they are used for the purpose of pan-Hellenic propaganda. The Albanians will prefer to use one of the western languages for the instruction in the higher schools till the time when their own literature has been sufficiently developed to be used for that purpose.
At the present time no foreign language has a decided preponderance in Albania. French is, as usual in the Orient, known to almost all the higher classes. Turkish is spoken by many people all over the country, while a knowledge of Greek is common in Southern Albania and will continue to retain importance, especially for commercial purposes. English is known by the emigrants returned from America; Italian is general in the coast towns of the Adriatic; German was spread during the war; and some knowledge of Serbian is not uncommon in the north and the west. As a result of her history, Albania is as divided culturally as it is geographically and economically, and it is only when her own language shall have been developed so as to serve all the needs of an indigenous culture that this division will cease to exist.
There are no racial feelings between Greeks and Albanians, and neither regards the other as an inferior race. It would be difficult for the Greeks to do so, as such a great proportion of the population of Greece is of Albanian origin and so many of the best citizens of Greece have sprung from Shkipetars.
If insurrectional movements should begin, they could only be started from the other side of the frontier, where certainly organisations of ‘pan-Epirotes’ exist, who have openly declared their intention to conquer ‘Northern Epirus’ for Greece. It must be assumed that the Greek Government would hinder all such intentions by forbidding their organisations and by preventing their procuring arms. This is, of course, the duty, under the recognised principles of international law, of any Government in similar circumstances.
The deduction to be made from the statistics which I have given, and which I believe to be roughly accurate, is that the decision taken by the Powers in fixing the southern frontiers of Albania was on the whole a just and wise one. It reinforces the conviction that the existence of an independent Albania is a necessity to the peace of that part of Europe and that an independent Albania is only possible if the Southern provinces are included.
In order that this situation may remain permanent, the reforms indicated in this report are of primary importance, and it is comforting to be able to conclude this report by stating that they form part of the programme of the present government of Albania.
The sooner and the more completely they are carried out the sooner will the anxieties of friends of Albania be put to rest.
(Signed)
J. J. Sederholm
[League of Nations. Report of the Commission of Enquiry in Albania on its Activities from December 19th, 1922, to February 1st, 1923. The Enquiry in Southern Albania. April 6th, 1923. in: League of Nations, Official Journal, Geneva, May 1923, p. 491-502.]
1923
League of Nations:
The Sederholm Enquiry in Southern Albania
Jakob Johannes Sederholm (1863-1934), born in Helsinki, was a Finnish geologist and petrologist who specialized in the study of migmatite, a term which he coined. He studied in Helsinki, Stockholm and Heidelberg before returning to his country to work for the Geological Service of Finland (Geologian tutkimuskeskus). Sederholm was the author of over 250 scholarly works. He was also a member of the Finnish parliament which he represented at the League of Nations. In this capacity he headed a commission of inquiry into conditions in southern Albania that visited the country from 19 December 1922 to 1 February 1923. In this connection, Sederholm produced the following lucid report on the tense situation between Albanians and Greeks in southern Albania which, even today, makes interesting reading.
The Relations between Albania and Greece at the Time of the Visit
At the time of my arrival at Koritza I received information which seemed to show that the Greek Government was persisting in its former attitude of not regarding the provinces of Koritza and Arghirocastro as belonging to Albania
The long delay which has occurred regarding the final decision concerning the delimitation of the boundaries between Greek Macedonia and the former Ottoman Kaza of Koritza attributed to Albania, has caused such uneasiness in the province of Koritza, especially in those portions of the former Kaza of Koritza which are still occupied by Greek troops to some extent in disregard all the decisions of the Conference of Ambassadors. It was not possible for me to enquire into the conditions within this area or to investigate the many complaints of people living there which were reported to me. On my arrival at the boundary of this area, the Greek authorities, although otherwise showing me perfect courtesy, refused to allow me to enter it. It seemed to me, however, obvious that very serious difficulties would continue to exist so long as the territory in question remained in an ambiguous situation. Its inhabitants had been recruited as soldiers in the Greek Army, although their future fate might not be connected with that of Greece, and recalcitrants were being severely punished. The inhabitants also had to pay heavy taxes in money and kind. Further, their main market was at Koritza and they found their existence very difficult so long as they were separated from that town, to whose inhabitants this separation also caused serious hardships. Moreover, there was a danger that the present unsettled state of affairs may lead to an increase in the tension between Greece and Albania. I therefore ventured to recommend, in a telegram to the Secretary-General, that the Council of the League should request the Conference of Ambassadors to hasten the final delimitation. It is only when that question is finally settled that a firm basis can be laid for a good understanding between these two neighbouring countries.
The Question of the Formation of an Independent Orthodox Albanian Church
As stated already in my last report, the question of the formation of an independent Orthodox Albanian Church seems to be approaching a definite solution. It may be of interest to give a brief account of the beginning and development of the movement which has led to this result. It was among the Albanian emigrants to North America that the wish first originated to create Albanian religious communities independent of the Greek churches and using Albanian as the language of the divine service. The first of these communities was formed in Boston in the year 1919, with the Rev. Fan Noli as its head. He was ordained a priest by the Russian Metropolite in New York, the Greek higher clergy having refused to do so. The desire of the Albanians to get for the Rev. Fan Noli investiture as a bishop from the Russian Metropolite was not fulfilled, and the community, taking the matter into their own hands has declared the Rev. Fan Noli, bishop without the investiture of the Church.
Subsequently the Rev. Fan Noli and other Albanian orthodox clergymen came over from America to Koritza, where they continued their efforts to create a national Albanian Orthodox Church. They were assisted by a number of nationalists, most of them also emigrants returned from America.
The congress met at Berat and decided to create an Albanian autocephalous Church and to apply to the Patriarchate for approval of that decision. Contrary to what many people anticipated, the Patriarch gave a favourable reception to the demand and sent to Koritza a representative invested with full powers, the Exarch Ierotheos. The Exarch, himself of Albanian origin, preached in the church in Albanian, sanctified the Albanian independent Church and implored benediction over it; he issued a proclamation in which he declared that the Patriarchate, recognising the legal character of the congress of Berat, was favourable to the formation of an independent Albanian Church and would proceed to the measures necessary to confirm the ecclesiastical separation (tomos syndikos).
The congress of Berat expressed the following wishes: the metropolites should be Albanians; the language of the divine service, including that of the mass, should in future be Albanian, except in the churches frequented by the grecophone communities of the Arghirocastro region.
The above is the situation of the church question as explained to me by the present chiefs of the Albanian Church in Koritza, one of whom spoke English, and also by the Exarch Ierotheos, through an interpreter. The former always spoke of the formation of an ‘autocephalous’ Church, and the word ‘autonomous’ was never mentioned; it was explicitly stated that the Exarch possessed full powers not only to enquire into, but also to promulgate, the formation of an autocephalous Church.
The representation of the situation which I got later from Serb-Croat-Slovene sources differs, however, in some important points from the information which I obtained in Koritza. According to the former information, which had been received from the Serb-Croat-Slovene representative in Constantinople, the Patriarch did not give his emissary full powers to take decisions but only to enquire upon the matters in question, and the decision was to be taken later by the Holy Synod in Constantinople. Further, it was said that the character of the independent Albanian Church to be formed would not be that of an autocephalous church, headed by a Patriarch, but of an autonomous church, which would remain subordinate to the Patriarch in Constantinople in some respects.
The difference in these two interpretations of the situation is perhaps mainly formal. In every case it seems clear that the formation of an independent Albanian Church is only a matter of time.
In the prefecture of Koritza there are, even according to Greek statistics, no grecophone people.
The school question in the Koritza region has a different aspect from that in the west. Here there are no linguistic minorities. As has already been remarked, all the population, even the most eager Hellenophiles, speak Albanian in their homes. But with one exception there have been no Albanian schools before the time of the French occupation, all schools for the Christian population being Greek, which was also the language of commerce, etc. The Mohammedan population used also Turkish as their school language. Thus Greek was the language of culture of the Christian population, and many Albanians from Koritza, having ended their school studies, completed their instruction at the Greek University in Athens.
It should, however, be possible in a few years to create satisfactory primary schools. The Albanian schools in Northern Albania organised by the Jesuits and the Franciscan brotherhoods are already quite satisfactory.
The classes of the present French lycée are crowded, some of them having more than 40 pupils. These pupils are of very different ages and received their earlier instruction in different languages, some having studied in Albanian, others in Greek, Austrian or Italian schools. French being an entirely foreign language, it has been difficult to teach them, in the lower classes, enough of the language to enable them to follow with success the instruction in the higher classes. The director of the lycée, who devotes himself with much enthusiasm to his task, hopes that this difficulty will soon be overcome.
It may be objected that the language conditions in Southern Albania are very different from those in most other countries, the Christian population of this region having used Albanian mainly as the language of common intercourse; while Greek has long continued to be the language of religion, of literature and of commerce.
The conditions are in some respects, although not very closely, analogous to those which prevailed in my own country, Finland, less than a century ago, when the Finns, although forming the great majority of the population, received all their higher instruction in the grammar schools and at the university in the Swedish language, which was also the prevalent language of legislation and administration. Finnish was mainly used for the most elementary instruction and in religious and economic books for the people. Swedish, however, was never considered as being the mother-tongue or the ‘own language’ of such educated Finns as continued to speak Finnish in their homes. Later, when nationalism awoke, the Finns built up in less than half a century a complete literature of their own, giving thus to the Albanians an encouraging example to follow and an indication of the rapidity with which such a work can be done.
In the case of Finland, however, there existed at least one radical difference as compared with the conditions in Albania, inasmuch as the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland were fervent patriots, whereas many of the Hellenophiles in Southern Albania, as well as their Greek supporters, are hostile to the Albanian State. It is not to be expected that the Albanian Government would ever allow Greek schools for the Albanian-speaking population as long as they are used for the purpose of pan-Hellenic propaganda. The Albanians will prefer to use one of the western languages for the instruction in the higher schools till the time when their own literature has been sufficiently developed to be used for that purpose.
At the present time no foreign language has a decided preponderance in Albania. French is, as usual in the Orient, known to almost all the higher classes. Turkish is spoken by many people all over the country, while a knowledge of Greek is common in Southern Albania and will continue to retain importance, especially for commercial purposes. English is known by the emigrants returned from America; Italian is general in the coast towns of the Adriatic; German was spread during the war; and some knowledge of Serbian is not uncommon in the north and the west. As a result of her history, Albania is as divided culturally as it is geographically and economically, and it is only when her own language shall have been developed so as to serve all the needs of an indigenous culture that this division will cease to exist.
There are no racial feelings between Greeks and Albanians, and neither regards the other as an inferior race. It would be difficult for the Greeks to do so, as such a great proportion of the population of Greece is of Albanian origin and so many of the best citizens of Greece have sprung from Shkipetars.
If insurrectional movements should begin, they could only be started from the other side of the frontier, where certainly organisations of ‘pan-Epirotes’ exist, who have openly declared their intention to conquer ‘Northern Epirus’ for Greece. It must be assumed that the Greek Government would hinder all such intentions by forbidding their organisations and by preventing their procuring arms. This is, of course, the duty, under the recognised principles of international law, of any Government in similar circumstances.
The deduction to be made from the statistics which I have given, and which I believe to be roughly accurate, is that the decision taken by the Powers in fixing the southern frontiers of Albania was on the whole a just and wise one. It reinforces the conviction that the existence of an independent Albania is a necessity to the peace of that part of Europe and that an independent Albania is only possible if the Southern provinces are included.
In order that this situation may remain permanent, the reforms indicated in this report are of primary importance, and it is comforting to be able to conclude this report by stating that they form part of the programme of the present government of Albania.
The sooner and the more completely they are carried out the sooner will the anxieties of friends of Albania be put to rest.
(Signed)
J. J. Sederholm
[League of Nations. Report of the Commission of Enquiry in Albania on its Activities from December 19th, 1922, to February 1st, 1923. The Enquiry in Southern Albania. April 6th, 1923. in: League of Nations, Official Journal, Geneva, May 1923, p. 491-502.]
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King Bardhyl
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And what you intend to show with this?
[h=1]Spiro Bellkameni[/h] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Spiro Bellkameni (1885-1912) was an Albanian military commander and activist of the Albanian National Awakening. He led one of the most important bands during the Albanian revolts of the 1900-1910s.[1]
[h=2]Life[/h] Born in Bellkamen, in the Manastir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire in 1885 he was a close associate of Themistokli Gërmenji and Mihal Grameno. In 1906 he was a member of Bajo Topulli's band that assassinated the Pontic Greek bishop of Korçë Photios as retribution for the assassination of Kristo Negovani, which was instigated by Photios.[2][3] During the Albanian Revolt of 1911 he defeated an Ottoman contingent in Mali i Thatë.[4] He was assassinated by Ottoman agents under orders from the pro-Ottoman commander of Neveska Abdurraman Dibra in October 1912.
King Bardhyl
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The history of Albanians is the history of a people without support who always fought against Eastern onslaughts, Slavic-Orthodox and Islamic-Ottoman.
We as a people during our history have always fought and we have seen with hope from the west.
For us the sun rises in the west. And after 500 years thanks God the "East chapter" in our history is closed.
Such for you Yetos and your panorthodox and panhellenic propaganda.
And when you discuss with me use arguments not large letters, this don`t help you.
How is it possible that a man like you, an Engineer, go around the forums insulting Albanians.
DISGUSTING
We as a people during our history have always fought and we have seen with hope from the west.
For us the sun rises in the west. And after 500 years thanks God the "East chapter" in our history is closed.
Such for you Yetos and your panorthodox and panhellenic propaganda.
And when you discuss with me use arguments not large letters, this don`t help you.
How is it possible that a man like you, an Engineer, go around the forums insulting Albanians.
DISGUSTING
Who about what, Bardhyl about fictional Chamuria.
How many Albanian states, how many do you wear in your avatar?
Here's another one, last month you declared so called Ilirida, in Skopje.
Veterans of Albanian politics proclaim the so called Republic of Ilirida
http://www.balkaneu.com/veterans-albanian-politics-proclaim-called-republic-ilirida/
Bardhyl, Kurds number about 30 million, and they have no their state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds
Albanians, less than five millions, but according your avatar 5 states, (or more?).
King Bardhyl
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Hey Garrick, you are finding your roots?
Ike
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Damn it Bardhyl, if you are so insecure in your ethnic background, that you consider speaking another language a potential harm to your self-image, that doesn't mean others are.
King Bardhyl
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Welcome back, Ike.
It's a pleasure to hear you again.
BTW, you told that you are not serb, where are you from?
It's a pleasure to hear you again.
BTW, you told that you are not serb, where are you from?
King Bardhyl
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King Bardhyl
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