Albania and the Ottoman Empire

Abstract

Skanderbeg, the national hero of Albania, won his reputation for his long and successful campaigns against the Turks between 1445 and 1468. This much is certain in a very uncertain area. Skanderbeg’s birth in 1405 has more or less been established, but it is not at all clear for how long, under what terms and for what reasons he spent his youth and early manhood as a servant of the Turks. Skanderbeg’s almost unbroken series of victories, marred only by the occasional defeat and more than occasional piece of treachery, are well attested, but it is difficult to be sure whether the inspiration behind these victories was national feeling, religious fervour or the class struggle. Skanderbeg’s death in 1468 was closely followed by the complete collapse of resistance with the capitulation of Krujë in 1478 and the conquest by the Turks of all Albania apart from a few coastal possessions still retained by Venice. It is difficult to know whether this rapid submission is a tribute to Skanderbeg’s magnetic powers as a resistance leader or to the desperate nature of his resistance. Skanderbeg’s relations with the Papacy, with Venice and with Naples were difficult in his lifetime, and are difficult to disentangle 500 years after his death. Skanderbeg’s Italian campaigns seem an odd aberration, since it is hard to avoid the feeling that such a champion of Christendom should be otherwise engaged at a time when his own country was in peril, and Christendom had suffered such a grievous blow with the fall of Constantinople.