The ethnic Albanians entered Balkan history in 1043 when they came from East Sicily and settled in present-day Central Albania by the Byzantine authorities.[1] Their ethnic origin remains still very vague and no historical consensus has been reached on the subject until now. The Albanians became aware of the importance of being a “nation” late, compared with other Balkan ethnicities. The Albanian nationalist leaders tried to turn this handicap into an advantage. Since European historians offered a variety of (hypo)theses on the subject, they could adopt those that best suited their political and nationalistic purposes.

The Albanian case is very similar to the problems that the Croat 19th-century nationalists faced with the acute lack of ingredients for forging the nation they needed: land, people, and language. Let us consider these items separately.

Land. The present-day Albanian land was part of several empires and kingdoms in previous historical periods, from the Roman and the Byzantine Empires to the Serb rulers, the Venetian Republic, and the Ottoman Sultanate, until the independent Albanian state was founded (practically) by Austria-Hungary in 1912, as a barrier between Serbia and the Adriatic coast. Albanian nationalists had thus to resort to acquiring some historical state as their predecessor. The Balkan Illyrians and their states seemed to be the best offer on the market,[2] for good reasons. They vanished from the historical scene a long time ago, and could not complain. Second, their language was extinct and could be declared as proto-Albanian.

The principal archeological find which is supposed to support claims about Illyrian-Albanian continuity is the so-called Koman Culture, which stretches from Skadar (Skoder) to the Ohrid Lake.[3] In order to dismiss the claims of Yugoslav archeologists that this culture from the 7th-8th centuries AD is of Slavic or Roman-Byzantine character, Albanians simply wiped out all traces of Slavic presence in the area, by the policy of Albanization of the local Slavic population and toponyms in the area of North Albania, during the rule of Enver Hoxha (1945-1985).[4]

Similar to this case of cultural cleansing, this has been going on in Kosovo-Metochia (KosMet) in the last 25 years under the “protection” of the UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) and the (NATO) KFOR (Kosovo Force).[5]

People. The Balkan ethnic Albanians used to present since 1043 AD a population that was concentrated predominantly in the regions of today’s Albania. The present-day number of this population should not deceive modern historians and demographers, for the following reasons:

A] There has been a demographic explosion of ethnic Albanians since the beginning of the 20th century, which has dramatically changed the relative proportions of the existing ethnic communities in the area populated by the Albanians and other ethnic groups (Slavic and Hellenic; KosMet is the best example).

B] Since the Ottoman rule in the Balkans, a noticeable Albanization of the Slavophone people has been carried out that was followed by an extensive conversion of the Albanophone population to the Muslim religion, partly by force, partly voluntarily.

This made the Muslim Albanians more loyal and trustworthy Ottoman subjects, which provided the latter with a privileged position with regard to the Christian population (Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic).

At the beginning of the 20th century, the forced conversion of KosMet’s Serbs was strengthened. The Serbs from Kosovo-Metochia’s region complained to the Russian consulate in Priština and asked for help. Russia intervened at the Ottoman Porta in Istanbul, and the conversion stopped immediately. This resulted in a situation in which half of a village was Serb and half Albanian, though the entire village was ethnic Serb. Even after WWII, there were Albanian families where grandfathers did not speak Albanian, but Serb only.[6] However, the strongest and most successful Albanization of KosMet’s Serbs happened in the 19th century.

Remnants of this shift from a Slavic to an Albanian ethnicity at times show up in strange ways. Many frescoes in Serb Christian Orthodox churches and monasteries at KosMet have been damaged in a strange way: the eyes of saints and Serb kings (donors) have been gouged out. Scholars have interpreted this as instances of wildness and vandalism by Muslim Albanians, but the more profound explanation is more subtle.[7]

It is widely believed by common people that the plastic from the saints’ eyes could help cure blindness. Of course, true believers would never commit such acts in holy places. Only those who believe the magic power of the fresco eyes, but are not committed to the relevant church, would commit such a blasphemous misdeed. These are presumably former Christian Orthodox Serbs but cases of Albanian involvement cannot be excluded. The ethnic Albanians, who were converted from Christianity decades and even centuries ago (since the 15th century), still retain the memory of their previous faith, as a sort of archetype.[8] 

The situation described above resembles a similar case of the Croats’ endeavor to form a nation. During the so-called Independent State of Croatia, a puppet Nazi-fascist construction during WWII, Croat-Bosniak Nazi-fascist nationalists Ustashi had a plan to strengthen the Croatian nation and a state of Greater Croatia. This consisted, as Dr. Mile Budak, Minister of Religion and Education of the Independent State of Croatia, put it, of converting one-third of Serbs to the Roman Catholic faith (as a prelude to complete Croatization),[9] one-third would be banished from Croatia and one third exterminated (in the most brutal way).[10] This plan has been carried out with considerable success.[11]

The politics of Albanians at KosMet followed closely these WWII-Croat-Bosniak Ustashi tactics, especially during WWII, when the biggest portion of KosMet was part of Greater Albania, protected firstly by fascist Italy and since September 1943 by Nazi Germany.[12] The irony of this enterprise was that many of the Serb victims of Ustashi slaughter and violence were descendants of Serbs who fled from KosMet centuries ago and settled in West Balkans in the territory of the Austrian Empire with numerous ecclesiastic-national privileges given to them by the Austrian authorities.[13]

In 1995, when a Croat neo-Ustashi Government banished Krayina Serbs, about 250,000 of them, from Croatia,[14] arrived again in Serbia. The majority were settled in Vojvodina, a smaller number in Central Serbia, and a small part in Kosovo-Metochia. The reaction of local Albanians was so violent that almost all refugees had to be withdrawn from KosMet and settled elsewhere in Central Serbia.

Language. The Albanian language appears to be a distinct part of the Indo-European family, an eastern branch, together with Indo-Iranian, Armenian, and Baltic-Slavonic languages (Satem group).[15] It has two dialects, the Gheg (spoken in North Albania) and the Tosk (in Central and South Albania). It is an admixture of an authentic language and corrupted Latin, Italian, Turkish, and Slavonic (mainly Serbian) ones. The claims of Albanian nationalists that their language is derived directly from the ancient Illyrian one have never been supported by proper linguistic evidence. As the British linguist Potter put it:

“Some would associate it with extinct Illyrian, but in so doing they proceed from little known to the unknown. As Andre Martinet has sometimes shrewdly observed, fashionable researchers into Proto-Indo-European favour either the Illyrian or the laryngeals, and we really know precious little about either. Albanian has two dialects: Gheg in the north and Tosk in the south. As a result of successive domination by Venetians and Turks, its vocabulary is mixed. Unfortunately, we know little about its history because, apart from legal documents, no literature survives that is older than the seventeenth century.

In this respect, Albanian presents a marked contrast to Greek or Hellenic which vies with Hittite and Sanskrit for the place as the most antique of all Indo-European tongues. Recent decipherment of Linear B Mycenaean script has antedated the beginnings of Greek by three centuries back to a time long before the sack of Troy (1183 B.C.) described by Homer in his Iliad.”

Since ancient Illyrians never left any trace of literacy, their language appears totally unknown. The claim of modern Albanians to have inherited the Illyrian language can be neither proved nor disproved. It cannot have a scientific character, for it does not satisfy the basic criterion of forgery in the Popperian sense. As an Albanian author remarks:[16]

“The picture which Albanian science makes about the early history of their own nation is simplified, uncritical, and appears contrived. Linguistic proofs about Illyrian-Albanian kinship are almost absent.”

Potter’s comments were provoked by various hypotheses launched by some Western authors. Thus, late 19th-century Austrian philologist Gustav Meyer argued that the contemporary Albanian language was a dialect of the Illyrian language, its latest development. Theoretically, there is but one step which modern Albanian nationalists were ready to make, linguists or non-linguists alike. If one appreciates the motivation of Albanian nationalists to project their newly contrived awareness of national Albanian identity, similar claims by non-Albanian authors cannot be considered intellectual extravagances. The zealous Yugoslav Communist leader, a Montenegrin, Milovan Ðilas[17] wrote:

“The Albanians are the most ancient Balkan people – older than the Slavs, and even the ancient Greeks”.

However, if these words by a Montenegrin who considers Albanians to be of Illyrian origin, is understood as a claim for their antiquity, the view of Andre Marlaux, who wrote: “Athens was, alas no more than an Albanian village”,[18] surely had a different rationale. Athens meant something to European (and world) culture and civilization, which bothered some Christian intellectuals, especially religious ones. The idea of an illiterate Balkan tribe being the progenitor of European culture[19] could not be more cynical (and extravagant), though one cannot exclude the possibility of self-irony.[20]

In the hands of frustrated intellectuals, those extravagances are taken seriously. If the Albanians are descendants of the ancient Balkan Illyrians, why not of some even more ancient inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula? Since it is generally believed that the most ancient Balkan people were the Pelasgians, some Albanian authors proposed that both the Illyrians and modern Albanians descend from them. This claim matches A. Marlaux’s conjecture (sic) about Athens, since some scholars believe that the Athenians were of Pelasgian blood, as the latter were the indigenous population of Attica.[21] 

Albanian “retrospective optimism”, outlined above, is not unique. We saw the same Croat “project” of the Croat-Illyrian movement in the first half of the 19th century. Similarly, some Serb nationalists argued for Serb ethnic antiquity. The book, The Serbs: Most Ancient People, was popular during Slobodan Miloševic’s era and had a renaissance after 1999.[22] An author from Chicago, Dr. Jovan Deretic, (not to be confused with Prof. Jovan Deretic of Belgrade University) claimed in his book on the same subject, that the ethnic Serbs were the elite force in the Macedon army of Alexander the Great and thus responsible for his victorious conquering the world.[23]

The rationale of all those claims was the noticed similarity between modern Serb and ancient lexicons, like Greek, Sanskrit, etc. But all this appears modest compared with the fancies of some Albanian authors who claim that Alexander the Great and his Macedons were Illyrians and, thus, ethnic Albanians. Aphrodite was not spared either (her name appears symphonic with the Albanian mirdita, Drita, etc.).

The hypothesis of the Illyrian origin of modern Albanians has been seriously challenged by several modern authors, especially linguists. The most convincing alternative hypotheses was that of the Dacian ethnic origin of modern Albanians. According to this theory, ancestors of ethnic Albanians came to present-day Albania from the Roman Province of Moesia Superior (present-day Serbia), situated around the River of Morava, around 1000 BC. In ancient times this region was the zone of Dacian ethnicity. Hence, modern Albanians can be of Dacian, but not of Illyrian origin. Linguistic support for this hypothesis comes from the terminology of the Albanian language referring to littoral terms, which are borrowed from the surrounding people, testifying that the Albanians were not originally coastal people (as the Dacians have not been, but the Illyrians were).[24]

The same rationale applies to South Slavs, who borrowed more (for sea) from the Latin (mare), vino for wine, etc. As for the Greek language, surprisingly few ancient Greek loanwords exist in modern Albanian language. Hence, the original homeland of the Albanians should be searched in present-day Romania or Serbia. Some investigations show the modern Albanian language is a semi-Romanized Dacian-Moesian tongue, just as the Romanian language is Romanized Dacian-Moesian one.

Why is it so important to convince the world that the present-day Albanian tongue is the Illyrian one, or derived from it? As is known, the whole Balkan Dinaric region appears to be of Illyrian origin, at least in great part.  Since the ancient Illyrians were spread over a vast area of the present West Balkans, it is not only ethnic Albanians who can claim the status of “indigenous population”. Tbut there is a difference between Slavophone and Albanophone Dinaroids in this respect. In the Slavophone, the Slavic element prevailed, whereas, in the Albanophone, the Albanian language remains distinct from the surrounding people. The situation appears similar to the case of the Basques, whose language is unique in Europe[25] and as Georgian turns out to be a unique tongue on the Eurasia continent.[26]

Regarding the very term Illyrian, during the time of the Roman Emperor Diocletian (284-305) the whole West Balkans was organized as Praefectura Illyricum. It is due to this administrative name that the term Illyrians was preserved and given to people living there, including South Slavs and Albanians.[27] This name disappeared in the 7th century, at the time of the returning Slavic migration back to the Balkans from North-East Europe.

The term Albanian, according to official pro-Albanian Albanology studies, was derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe, Albanoi, which was subsequently ascribed to all Illyrian tribes, but the name of this Illyrian tribe and the tribe itself have no proven connections with ethnic Albanians who originate in the Caucasus. The Albanian language, as a spoken tongue, was mentioned for the first time in a manuscript from Dubrovnik, as lingua albanesesca, only in 1285 AD. Some Byzantine sources from the 13th century called the region between the Drim River and the Skadar Lake Arbanon (Arber). Both the Turks and the Serbs called people settled in Albania: Arbanasi. The Albanians called themselves before being subjugated to the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century: Arbërësh/Arbënesh.

Whether the Albanian language is linked with the Illyrian one or not, the fact that it is completely unintelligible to other neighbouring people has resulted in further isolation of this mountainous community. This isolation has accentuated the conservation of the traditional society of the Albanophone highlanders. Their dialect, the (northern) Gheg, is intelligible to Albanians who speak (southern) Tosk, but with difficulty.[28]

The uniqueness of the Albanian language has promoted at least two features of this population:

A] Since very few people outside the Albanian community were ready to learn the Albanian language, communication with the external world had to be made through Albanians who spoke other languages, like the Serb, Greek, Italian, etc. This gave the Albanians the advantage of possessing “a secret code”, which in proved important in affairs like smuggling, mafia-like activities, political movements, etc. This is why the Albanian mafia appears so efficient and almost impossible to break. It competes successfully with the Italian mafia, Chinese, and other organized crime societies.[29]

B] An other important feature required for the mafia to be unbreakable is the blood lineage of the members of a mafia unit. This has been amply provided by the fis (tribe) organization of the Albanian community. One fis may comprise a hundred members, who can supply tens of guns, drug and weaponry smugglers, drug dealers, etc. They can communicate among themselves freely, without fear of infiltration. The Sicilian mafia is similar, but the Italians have been fully incorporated into American society and many of FBI members are of Italian origin.

If we note that this criminal business is almost inevitably associated with political aims, with a façade of patriotism, the inwardness of the mafia organization of the Albanian diaspora appears quite ”natural” with the final task to realize the program of the 1878 Prizren League – a Greater Albania (ethnically cleansed of all non-Albanians).[30]

References

1] Several written historical sources from different cultural environments (Byzantine, Arab) clearly say that the Albanians arrived in the Balkans in the year 1043 from East Sicily and that their original place was the Caucasus Albania, mentioned in several antique sources as an independent state with rulers. The Caucasus Albania was neighboring the Caspian Sea, Media, Iberia, Armenia, and Sarmatia Asiatica. The most important source is Byzantine historian Michael Ataliota [M. Ataliota, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantine, Bonn: Weber, 1853, 18]. This historical fact is recognized by Albanian historians like Stefang Pollo and Arben Puto [S. Pollo, A. Puto, The History of Albania, London-Boston-Hebley: Routledge & Kegan, 1981, 37].  

2] For alternative offers, like Dacian, see V.B. Sotirovic, The Fundamental Misconception of the Balkan Ethnology: The “Illyrian“ Theory of the Albanian Ethnogenesis, American Hellenic Institute Foundation Policy Journal, Vol. 9, Spring 2018, 1-12, online: http://www.ahifworld.org/journal-issues/volume-9-winter-2017-2018.

3] On the Illyrians, see Stipcevic A., Every Story About the Balkans Begins With the Illyrians, Priština, 1985.

4] About the pro-Albanian history of Albania, see N. Costa, Albania: A European Enigma, New York, 1995.

5] Kosovo’s Albanians proclaimed the independence of this autonomous province of Serbia in February 2008. On Kosovo’s independence, see N. Giannopoulos, A Critical Overview of State-Building: The Case of Kosovo, Private Edition, 2018.

6] The Islamized and Albanized KosMet’s (former Christian Orthodox) Serbs are called the Arnatus. It is estimated that some 1/3 out of today’s Albanian-speakers in KosMet are Arnauts [?. ?. ?????????, ?????? ? ????????: ???????? ? ??????????, ????? ???????? ??????, ???????: ?????? ??????, 2007, 31-52].

7] See, for instance, the fresco of Serbian King Milutin in the vestibule of the Church of Bogorodica Ljeviška (first half of 14th century) in Prizren [?. ?????, ?. ?????, ?????? ????? ? ???????, ????????: ??????? ?? ???????? ??????????? ? ?????????? ?????????, 1990, 59].

8] About Crypto-Christianity and the process of the Albanization of KosMet, see in [?. ?. ?????????, ?????? ? ????????: ???????? ? ??????????, ????? ???????? ??????, ???????: ?????? ??????, 2007, 46-52].

9] About the Catholization of the Orthodox Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in WWII, see in[Dr. M. Bulajic, Ustashi Crimes of Genocide. The Role of the Vatican in the Break-Up of the Yugoslav State. The Mission of the Vatican in the Independent State of Croatia, Belgrade: The Ministry of Information of the Republic of Serbia, 1993, 111-165.

10] The minimum number of exterminated ethnic Serbs on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia by the Ustashi regime is 500,000 [?. ?????, ?????? ????????, ??????? ??????, ???????: Vukotic Media, 2019, 270]. It is a well-known open message by M. Budak to the Cristian Orthodox Serbs: “Either bow yourself or remove yourself” [B. Petranovic, Istorija Jugoslavije 1918-1988. Druga knjiga: Narodnooslobodilacki rat i revolucija 1941-1945, Beograd: NOLIT, 1988, 45].

11] About the policy of extermination of Serbs by a Croat-Bosniak Nazi-fascist regime with considerable support by the Roman Catholic church in the Independent State of Croatia, see M. Aurelio Rivelli, L’ Arcivescovo del genocidio, Milano: Kaos Edizioni, 1999.

12] Here, an Albanian political leader from KosMet, Ali Shukria, whose mother tongue was Turkish and the Turkish language was spoken at his home, considered himself as an Albanian. But, ideologically, B. Mussolini’s Greater Albania was founded to largely on a propaganda-hypothesis of the Illyrian origin of Balkan Albanians [?. ?. ?????????, ?????? ? ???????? ? ??????-?????????? ????????, ????? ???????? ??????, ???????: ?????? ??????, 2006].

13] See ???????? ?????? ???????????. ????? ????? ?? ??????? XVI ?? ????? XVIII ????, ???????: ????????, 1960.

14] J. Guskova, Istorija jugoslovenske krize (1990-2000), II, Beograd: ????, 2003, 232-253.

15] West branches consists of the Greek, Italic, Celtic, and Germanic languages (the Centum-group).

16] Peter Bartl, Albanien, von Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1995.

17] About this notorious Communist criminal from WWII, see J. Pirjevec, Tito i drugovi, I deo, Beograd: Laguna, 487-564.

18] A. Marlaux, Anti-Memoires, New York, 1968, 33.

19] About Balkan culture in European context, see T. Stoianovich, Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe, Armonk, NY-London: England: M. E. Sharpe, 1994.

20] To be noted here, in the same context, a statement of a Byzantine author: “Serbs are the most ancient people, I am quite certain about that”. This statement is very popular among Serb scholars.

21] See R. Graves, The Greek Myths, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966; G. Schwab, Die Schönsten Sagen des Klassischen Altertums, Leipzig-Weimar: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag.

22] This is a book by a Ph.D. dissertation holder who defended it at the Sorbonne University in Paris [??. ???? ??????? ????????, ????... ????? ??????????, I-II, Beograd, 1988].

23] This claim is based on the writings of Dubrovnik Baroque poet Ivo Dživo Gundulic (1589-1638). About the historic origins of the Serbs, see in ?. ?????????, ?????????? ??????? ????, ????? ???????? ? ????????? ??????, ???????: ?????????, 2006.

24] The Dacian term hot designates highwayman. It is common in the Albanian language and is the name of an Albanian tribe.

25] About the Basque language, see A. Tovar, Mythology and Ideology of the Basque Language, Reno, Nevada: Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, 2015.

26] About the Georgian language, see H. Lewis, A Traveler’s Guide to the Georgian Language, Edinburg, VA: American Friends of Georgia, Inc., 2013. The Japanese language is likewise unique, though it has great resemblance to the Korean one.

27] On the Balkan Peninsula ca. 400 A.D., see the map [Paul Robert Magocsi, Historical Atlas of Central Europe, Revised and Expanded Edition, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002, 7].

28] About colloquial Albanian, see in I. Zymberi, Colloquial Albanian, London-New York: Routledge, 2000.

29] On Albanian organized crime, see J. Arsovska, Decoding Albanian Organized Crime: Culture, Politics, and Globalization, Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2015.

30] On this issue, see V. Sotirovic, Serbia, Montenegro and the “Albanian Question”, 1878-1912: A Greater Albania Between Balkan Nationalism & European Imperialism, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2015.