Two years ago I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing Msgr. Arjan DodajMetropolitan Archbishop of the Diocese of Tirana (Albania). It was a wonderful opportunity that allowed me to get to know the story of an exceptional man and to get a little closer to a country that is very important for us Italians.
In fact, in addition to our geographical proximity, we are linked to Albania by a series of events, not always happy ones, which have nevertheless strengthened our relations. Most Albanians, therefore, know Italian perfectly well and follow Italian television channels. More importantly, several Italian regions are home to ancient villages and towns founded by Albanian exiles who fled their country between the 15th and 18th centuries, following the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine territories. This ethno-linguistic minority of about 100,000 individuals is well settled in southern Italy and preserves the ancient Albanian language and the Byzantine rite, to the extent that it does not belong to local dioceses, but has its own eparchies immediately subject to the Holy See.
However, a few kilometers from my hometown, Sant'Arcangelo, in Basilicata, there are several Albanian-speaking and Albanian-culture villages (such as San Costantino Albanian and San Paolo Albanian).
The first time I heard about Albania was in 1990, when I was 11 years old. It was the first time that Italy experienced mass immigration and we watched in amazement, on television, as barges plied the Adriatic and Ionian seas loaded with people crammed in the holds, on the decks, clinging to the railings. They filled every space, every corner to escape the poverty and uncertainty that reigned in their country after the fall of the communist regime that had oppressed them for decades.
Sons of the Eagle
Albania, in the western part of the Balkan peninsula, is a very small country, although Albanian speakers also populate neighboring countries, such as the disputed region of Kosovo, or Montenegro and North Macedonia (where they constitute a considerable minority) and Greece. With an area of 28,748 km², it borders Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, North Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south. To the west it faces the Adriatic Sea and to the southwest the Ionian Sea.
It is called the kingdom of the eagles because the modern toponym of the country, Shqipëria, means "eagles' nest" in Albanian and its inhabitants are called "shqiptar", "sons of the eagle" (even the Albanian flag represents a black double-headed eagle on a red background, coming from the Byzantine standard, which alludes to the very strong link of the Albanians with Byzantium). However, this toponym began to be used during the period of Ottoman domination. In fact, in medieval times the terms "Arban" and "Arbër" (probably from Albanopolis, which later became Arbanon, a city in ancient Illyria near present-day Durres) were used. Before that, however, the territory of present-day Albania was part of Illyria, a larger area that encompassed part of the Balkan Adriatic coast, from southern Dalmatia to northern Greece, near Epirus.
From the Illyrians to the Romans and Byzantines
Albania has been inhabited since prehistoric times (especially since the Neolithic). There are traces of the presence of various populations, mainly Indo-European-speaking, but the characteristic civilization of this part of Europe was that of the Illyrians, themselves divided into several tribes often at odds with each other (Albanians, Amantines, Dardanians and others) who spoke the Illyrian language, a scarcely attested language but of clear Indo-European origin (it is not clear, however, whether modern Albanian is in any way related to the ancient Illyrian language). Peoples of Illyrian origin reached as far as Italy (the Iapi of Apulia, for example, were of Illyrian origin).
The Illyrians, a proud and warlike people, were divided into several autonomous entities and, although they were under Greek influence (the Greeks had founded several colonies in Illyria, among them Apollonia, Epidamnos-Dirrachion - today's Durres - and Lissos, today's Alexis), they were able to maintain their independence and resist foreign invasions for a long time, at least until the second century BC, when the Romans led a series of campaigns to conquer their territory, which became part of the Roman dominions in 168 BC as the province of Illyricum (Illyricum).
During Roman times, local towns such as Durazzo (Dyrrachium) and Butrint (Buthrotum), whose impressive archaeological park can be admired, were important commercial and military centers.
After the division of the Roman Empire, Albania became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire. At this time, the region was invaded by various populations, including Slavs and Visigoths, which changed the ethnic composition of the territory to some extent.
Precisely its position between East and West, and between the two parts of the Roman Empire, made Albania a meeting point of different civilizations and traditions.
Although Byzantine influence remained predominant, small local principalities and kingdoms eventually emerged (including the Principality of Arbanon) which, with customary Albanian pride, sought to assert their independence from Constantinople. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, the country was invaded and occupied by various regional powers, such as the Normans and the Serbs.
The national hero: Scanderbeg
In the 14th century, the Ottoman Empire began to expand into the Balkans, including Albania. Here, however, the Turks met with the tenacious resistance of the Albanian people, led by a leader, named George Castriota but nicknamed Scanderbeg, an Albanian Christian nobleman who, after serving as an Ottoman general, rebelled against the Sublime Porte and led a long and strenuous resistance from 1443 to 1468.
He was the first to manage to unify numerous Albanian clans and successfully defend the territory for more than two decades, also gaining the support of European powers such as the Kingdom of Naples and the Republic of Venice. His exploits were also celebrated in the West, to the point that the great Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi composed an opera dedicated to him, and Pope Callixtus III awarded him the title of "Athleta Christi et Defensor Fidei" (Athlete of Christ and Defender of the Faith), and Pope Pius II that of "the new Alexander" (in reference to Alexander the Great).
Scanderbeg became a sort of Cid Campeador for the Albanian people, who longed to be free and independent, but above all for the exiles, the numerous Albanians who, after his death and the final conquest of the country by the Ottomans, were forced to flee to Italy, forming the Italian Albanian diaspora.
Albania remained under the rule of the Sublime Porte for more than four centuries, with considerable repercussions on the culture, religion (progressive Islamization) and customs of the country.
Contemporary Albania
Like other Eastern European countries under the Ottoman yoke (Bulgaria and Greece in the first place), a nationalist movement developed in Albania in the 19th century, aiming to liberate the country from the domination of the Sublime Porte. The League of Prizren, in fact, founded on June 10, 1878 in Prizren (in present-day Kosovo), aimed at preserving the territories of ethnic Albanian majority (and predominantly Islamic religion) assigned to other Ottoman provinces or to other states (Greece, Montenegro, Serbia) by the Treaties of St. Stephen and Berlin, in order to reunite them under a single autonomous Albanian administration (vilayet) within the Ottoman Empire. Its main exponents were Abdyl and Sami Frashëri.
Despite its defeat in the First Balkan War (1912-1913), the League contributed to the awakening of national consciousness, influenced the Albanian Renaissance and attracted the attention of European powers. Disbanded in 1881, it tried in vain to reorganize.
On November 28, 1912, Ismail Qemali finally declared Albania's independence from the Porte in the city of Vlora, but it was a short-lived independence and was immediately marked by great difficulties, including the intervention of European powers that redrew the country's borders. In the years that followed, the fledgling nation faced considerable political instability, of which the Italians took advantage. Albania became an Italian protectorate in 1939 and was occupied by Mussolini's army during World War II.
Enver Hoxha
At the end of the war, a newly independent Albania became a socialist state under the leadership of Enver Hoxha.
Hoxha established one of the most repressive regimes of the communist bloc, ruling the country with an iron fist until his death in 1985, imposing on the nation an extremely rigid international isolation (he broke with his main allies, the Soviet Union in 1961 and China in 1978) and a totalitarian control over all aspects of social life, in total ideological and political autarchy.
Hoxha's government also promoted state atheism, banning religious practices (Christian and Islamic) and closing or destroying places of worship such as churches and mosques. Political repression was intense, with arrests, summary executions and the creation of forced labor camps where dissidents and opponents often met death by starvation. The economy was based on five-year development plans and forced collectivization, but development never came; on the contrary, poverty became more and more widespread.
The communist regime tried to intervene even in the language spoken by the citizens, applying a policy of centralization and standardization of Albanian (traditionally divided into two dialects, Tosk and Guego), and imposing the use of one of the two, Tosk, as the official and written form, with the marginalization of Guego and other dialects. The aim was to culturally unify the country and reinforce national identity by eliminating regional divisions and promoting the use of the unified Albanian language as a tool for propaganda and social control.
Albania's isolation continued after the death of Enver Hoxha in 1985.
Transition to democracy
In fact, it was in 1991, after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, that the country began a difficult transition to democracy and a market economy. The post-communist period was characterized by political instability and a very serious economic and social crisis that culminated in the 1997 riots.
Since then, however, the country has made remarkable progress towards political stability and economic development, despite the controversies surrounding successive governments and the scourges of corruption and drug trafficking (especially marijuana), which had one of its most important centers in the world in the town of Lazarat, known as the capital of marijuana, since this town alone produced about 900 tons annually.
It was not until 2014 that the current Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama (a member of the Socialist Party of Albania and a great opponent of his predecessor Sali Berisha and his party, the Democratic Party of Albania) ordered the destruction of the marijuana plantations, having 800 special forces agents and two army battalions besiege Lazarat.
Albania is now a candidate country for EU membership and a NATO member since 2009.
