|
George Kastrioti (Gjergj Kastrioti) (1405 - January 17 1468), better known as Skanderbeg, is one of the most prominent historical figures in the history of Albania and the Albanian people. He is also known as the Dragon of Albania and is the national hero of the Albanians. He is remembered for his struggle against the Ottoman Empire, through the work of his first biographer, Marin Barleti. Biography His names have been spelled in a number of ways: George, Gjergj, Giorgio; Castriota, Kastrioti, Castrioti, Castriottis,, which were located in the Polog valley in modern-day Macedonia. Although he originally fought in the service of the Ottoman Empire, Skanderbeg soon switched sides and fought against the Ottomans until his death. Service in the Ottoman Army
Fighting for freedom In November 28th, 1443, Skanderbeg saw his opportunity to rebel during a battle against the Hungarians led by John Hunyadi in Niš. He switched sides along with 300 other Albanians serving in the Ottoman army. After a long trek to Albania he eventually captured Krujë by forging a letter from the Sultan to the Governor of Krujë, which granted him control of the territory. After capturing the castle, Skanderbeg abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed himself the avenger of his family and country. He raised his standard (that later became the Albanian flag) above the castle and reportedly pronounced: "I have not brought you freedom, I found it here, among you." Skanderbeg allied with George ArianiteJohn V Fine, 1994, The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest, ISBN 0-472-08260-4 and married his daughter Andronike. Following the capture of Krujë, Skanderbeg managed to bring together all the Albanian princes in the town of LezhëMinna Skafte Jensen, 2006, A Heroic Tale: Marin Barleti's Scanderbeg between orality and literacy (see League of Lezhë, 1444). Gibbon reports that "Albanians, a martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their hereditary prince" and that "in the assembly of the states of Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war and each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion of men and money". With this support, Skanderbeg built fortresses and organized a mobile defense force that forced the Ottomans to disperse their troops, leaving them vulnerable to the hit-and-run tactics of the AlbaniansL.S. Stavrianos, 2000, The Balkans Since 1453, ISBN 1-85065-551-0. Skanderbeg fought a guerrilla war against the opposing armies by using the mountainous terrain to his advantage. Skanderbeg continued his resistance against the Ottoman forces until his death, with a force rarely exceeding 20,000. Although it is commonly believed that Skanderbeg took part in the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448, he actually never arrived. He and his army were en route to reinforce the mainly Hungarian army of John Hunyadi, but the Albanians were intercepted and were not allowed passage by Đurađ Branković of Serbia as he had agreed that while he would aid Skanderbeg against the Venetians, he would not against the Turks. About the time of the battle, Mehmed II also launched an invasion into Albania in order to keep Skanderbeg busy. Although Hunyadi was defeated in the campaign, Hungary successfully resisted and defeated the Ottoman campaigns during Hunyadi's lifetime. In June 1450, an Ottoman army numbering approximately 150,000 men led by Sultan Murad II himself laid siege to Krujë. Leaving a protective garrison of 1,500 men under one of his most trusted lieutenants, Vrana Konti (also know as Kont Urani), Skanderbeg harassed the Ottoman camps around Krujë and attacked the supply caravans of the sultan's army. By September the Ottoman camp was in disarray as morale sank and disease ran rampant. Murad II acknowledged the castle of Krujë would not fall by strength of arms, and he lifted the siege and made his way to Edirne. Soon thereafter in the winter of 1450-51, Murad died in Edirne and was succeeded by his son Mehmed II. For the next five years Albania was allowed some respite as the new sultan set out to conquer the last vestiges of the Byzantine Empire. The first real test between the armies of the new sultan and Skanderbeg came in 1455 during the Siege of Berat, and would end in the most disastrous defeat Skanderbeg would suffer. Skanderbeg had sieged the town's castle for months, causing the demoralized Turkish officer in charge of the castle to promise his surrender. At that point Skanderbeg relaxed the grip, split his forces and left the siege location. He left behind one of his generals and half of his cavalry at the bank of the river Osam to finalize the surrender. It would be a costly error. The Ottomans saw this moment as an opportunity for attack. They sent a large cavalry force from Fushe in Kosovo to Berat as reinforcements. The Albanian forces had become overconfident and had been lulled into a false sense of security. The Ottomans caught the Albanian cavalry by surprise while they were resting in the shores of the Osam. Almost all the 5,000 Albanian cavalry laying siege to Berat were massacred. When Skanderbeg made it to the battlefield, everything was over; the Ottoman cavalry had already left for Anatolia. A reason of this defeat of Scanderbeg's army, was the betrayal of his nephew, Hamza Kastrioti who was an officer of Scanderbeg's cavalry that passed on the Ottoman side with other Albanian forces and gave the Ottomans important information about the locatin and the organization of the Albanian troops. Later Hamza Kastrioti was captured in the battlefield by Scanderbeg himself, and imprisoned in the castle of Krujë. In 1457, an Ottoman army numbering approximately 80,000 men invaded Albania with the hope of destroying Albanian resistance once and for all; this army was led by Isa beg Evrenoz, one of the the only commanders to have defeated Skanderbeg in battle, and Hamza Kastrioti, Skanderbeg’s nephew. After wreaking much damage to the countryside, the Ottoman army set up camp at the Ujebardha field (literally translated as "Whitewater"), halfway between Lezhë and Krujë. After having evaded the enemy for months, Skanderbeg attacked there and defeated the Ottomans in September. In 1461 the Sultan proposed terms of accommodation with Skanderbeg and a peace was concluded between them on June 22. In the same year, Skanderbeg launched a successful campaign against the Angevin noblemen and their allies who sought to destabilize King Ferdinand I of Naples. For his services he gained the title Duke of San Pietro in the kingdom of Naples. After securing the Neapolitan kingdom, a crucial ally in his struggle, he returned home. In 1464 Skanderbeg fought and defeated Ballaban Badera, an Albanian renegade who had captured a large number of Albanian army commanders John Musachi, 1515, Brief Chronicle on the Descendants of our Musachi Dynasty, including Moisi Arianit Golemi, a cavalry commander; Vladan Giurica, the chief army economist; Muzaka of Angelina, a nephew of Skanderbeg, and 18 other noblemen and army captains. These men, after they were captured, were sent immediately to Istanbul and tortured for fifteen days. Skanderbeg’s pleas to have these men back, by either ransom or prisoner exchange, failed. In 1466 Sultan Mehmed II personally led an army into Albania and laid siege to Krujë as his father had attempted sixteen years earlier. The town was defended by a garrison of 4,400 men, led by Prince Tanush Topia. After several months, Mehmed, like Murad II, saw that seizing Krujë by force of arms was impossible for him to accomplish. Shamed, he left the siege to return to Istanbul. However, he left a force of 40,000 men under Ballaban Pasha to maintain the siege, even building a castle in central Albania, which he named El-basan (the modern Elbasan), to support the siege. Durrës would be the next target of the sultan, in order to be used as a strong base opposite the Italian coastFranz Babinger, 1992, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time, ISBN 0-691-01078-1. The second siege of Kruja was eventually broken by Skanderbeg, resulting in the death of Ballaban Pasha from firearms. A few months later in 1467, Mehmed, frustrated by his inability to subdue Albania, again led the largest army of its time into Albania. Krujë was besieged for a third time, but on a much grander scale. While a contingent kept the city and its forces pinned down, Ottoman armies came pouring in from Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, and Epirus with the aim of keeping the whole country surrounded, thereby strangling Skanderbeg’s supply routes and limiting his mobility. During this conflict, Skanderbeg fell ill with malaria in the Venetian-controlled city of Lezhë, and died on January 17 1468, just as the army under the leadership of Leke Dukagjini defeated the Ottoman force in Shkodër. Papal relations
After death The Albanian resistance went on after the death of Skanderbeg for an additional ten years under the leadership of Dukagjini, though with only moderate success and no great victories. In 1478, the fourth siege of Krujë finally proved successful for the Ottomans; demoralized and severely weakened by hunger and lack of supplies from the year-long siege, the defenders surrendered to Mehmed, who had promised them to leave unharmed in exchange. As the Albanians were walking away with their families, however, the Ottomans reneged on this promise, killing the men and enslaving the women and children. In 1479, the Ottoman forces captured the Venetian-controlled Shkodër after a fifteen-month siege. Shkodër was the last Albanian castle to fall to the Ottomans and Venetians evacuated Durrës in 1501. Albanian resistance continued sporadically until around 1500. The union which Skanderbeg had maintained in Albania did not survive him. Without Skanderbeg at their lead, their allegiances faltered and splintered until they were forced into submission. The defeats triggered a great Albanian exodus to southern Italy, especially to the kingdom of Naples, as well as to Sicily, Greece, Romania, and Egypt. Following this, most of its population converted to Islam. Albania remained a part of the Ottoman Empire until the early 1900s, never again posing a serious threat to the Ottomans. Effects on the Ottoman expansion The Ottoman Empire's expansion was ground to a halt during the timeframe in which Skanderbeg and his Albanian forces resisted. He has been credited with being the main reason for delaying Ottoman expansion into Western Europe, giving Vienna time to better prepare for the Ottoman arrival. While the Albanian resistance certainly played a vital role in this, it was one piece of numerous events that played out in the mid-15th century. Much credit must also go to the successful resistance mounted by Vlad III Dracula in Wallachia, as well as the defeats inflicted upon the Ottomans by Hunyadi and his Hungarian forces. Descendants Skanderbeg's family, the Castriots, were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom after the Turkish pressure became too strong. They obtained a feudal fiefdom, the Duchy of San Pietro di Galatina. John, Skanderbeg's son, married Irene Palaeologus of the Byzantine royal family, the Palaeologus.Steven Runciman, 1990, The Fall of Constantinople 1453, ISBN 0-521-39832-0 An illegitimate branch of that family lives onwards in south Italy, having used the name Castriota Scanderbeg for centuries. They have been part of Italian lower nobility. The legitimate line of George Castriota went extinct as to males within a few generations, but apparently the family continues through a Sanseverino branch. There is also a Spanish nobleman by the name of Juan Alandro Castriota who contributed a great deal towards Albania's struggle for independence. Seal of Skanderbeg
Weapons of Skanderbeg Legacy
Skanderbeg in literature Skanderbeg gathered quite a posthumous reputation in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. With virtually all of the Balkans under Ottoman rule and with the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1683, nothing could have captivated readers in the West more than an action-packed tale of heroic Christian resistance to the "Moslem hordes." Books on the Albanian prince began to appear in Western Europe in the early 16th century. One of the earliest of these histories to have circulated in Western Europe about the heroic deeds of Skanderbeg was the Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi, Epirotarum Princeps (Rome ca. 1508-1510), published a mere four decades after Skanderbeg's death. This History of the life and deeds of Scanderbeg, Prince of the Epirotes was written by the Albanian historian Marinus Barletius Scodrensis (ca. 1450 - ca. 1512), known in Albanian as Marin Barleti, who after experiencing the Turkish occupation of his native Shkodër at first hand, settled in Padua where he became rector of the parish church of St. Stephan. Barleti dedicates his work to Donferrante Kastrioti, Scanderbeg's grandchild, and to posterity. The book was first published in Latin and has since been translated in many languages. The work was widely read in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was translated and/or adapted into a number of foreign language versions: German by Johann Pincianus (Augsburg, 1533), Italian by Pietro Rocca (Venice, 1554, 1560), Portuguese by Francisco D'Andrade (Lisbon, 1567), Polish by Ciprian Bazylik (Brest-Litovsk, 1569), French by Jaques De Lavardin, also known as Jacques de Lavardin, Seigneur du Plessis-Bourrot ("Histoire de Georges Castriot Surnomé Scanderbeg, Roy d'Albanie", Paris, 1576), and Spanish by Juan Ochoa de la Salde (Seville, 1582). The English version, translated from the French of Jaques De Lavardin by one Zachary Jones Gentleman, was published at the end of the 16th century under the title, Historie of George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albinie; containing his Famous Actes, his Noble Deedes of Armes and Memorable Victories against the Turkes for the Faith of Christ. Gibbon was not the first one who noticed that Barleti is sometimes inaccurate in favour of his hero;see also Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. p. 229 for example, Barleti claims that the Sultan was killed by disease under the walls of Kruje.Gibbon, ibid, note 42 Skanderbeg's posthumous fame was not confined to his own country. Voltaire starts his chapter The Taking of Constantinople with the phrase "Had the Greek Emperors acted like Scanderbeg, the empire of the East might still have been preserved".ref>Voltaire, 1762, Works, Vol 3, translated from the French by T. Smollet, T. Francklin and others A number of poets and composers have also drawn inspiration from his military career. The French 16th century poet Ronsard wrote a poem about him, as did the 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1863, Scanderbeg Antonio Vivaldi composed an opera entitled Scanderbeg. For Gibbon, "John Huniades and Scanderbeg... are both entitled to our notice, since their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the Greek empire." In 1855, Camille Paganel wrote Histoire de Scanderbeg, inspired by the Crimean War. List of Skanderbegs battles Skanderbeg fought many battles and many of them ended with victory. See also Bibliography Additional sources | |||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||
 |
|
| |