Ottoman Albania
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Ottoman Albania Historia e Shqipërisë në Perandorinë Osmane (Albanian) | |
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1479–1912 | |
Common languages | Albanian |
Religion | Sunni Islam (official) Christianity (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholicism) |
Demonym(s) | Arnaut (ارناود) |
Government | |
Beylerbey, Pasha, Agha, Dey | |
History | |
1479 | |
1912 | |
Today part of | Albania |
History of Albania |
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Timeline |
Ottoman Albania refers to a period in
The term used in Ottoman sources for the country was Arnavudluk (Ottoman Turkish: آرناوودلق), including areas such as present-day Albania, Kosovo, western North Macedonia, southern Serbia, southern Montenegro and parts of northern Greece.[1][2]
In 1431, Many Albanian princes including
The Albanian resistance and war against Ottomans continued for 48 years. The last towns captured by the Ottomans were
Albanians would enter later on in a period of Islamization, starting in the late 14th century and early 15th century, and increasing especially in the 16th and 17th centuries. Albanians through converting to Islam would eventually dominate the Ottoman power structures disproportionally to their small population considering the large territory and huge population of the Ottoman Empire. They would become one of the most important and prestigious nations in the Empire playing an important role in the 15th and 16th centuries and especially a striking role in the 17th,18th and 19th centuries.
A period of the semi-independence started for local Albanian rulers in Balkans in the 1750s with the era of the so called Independent Albanian Pashas. In 1754 the autonomous Albanian Pashalik of
Meanwhile, an Ottoman Albanian commander
The territory which today belongs to the
History
14th century
The Ottomans expanded their control from Anatolia to the Balkans in the middle of the 14th century. They entered European territory in 1352, and they defeated a Balkan coalition army led by Serbs, that also included some Albanians and Bosnians in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Ottoman pressure lessened in 1402 when the Mongol leader Timur (Tamerlane) attacked Anatolia from the east, killed the Sultan, and sparked a civil war.[7] When order was restored, the Ottomans renewed their westward progress. In 1453, Sultan Mehmed II's forces overran Constantinople and killed the last Byzantine emperor.[8]
The division of the Albanian-populated lands into small, quarreling fiefdoms ruled by independent feudal lords and tribal chiefs made them easy prey for the Ottoman armies. In 1385, the Albanian ruler of
and than Kruja was established as the center of Sanjak of Albania after Gjergj Arianiti defeated the Ottomans between 1431 and 1435.The Ottomans allowed Albanian clan chiefs to maintain their positions, rule and property, but they had to pay tribute, and sometimes send their sons to the Ottoman court as hostages, and provide the Ottoman army with auxiliary troops.[8] However many Albanian clans and Principalities did not recognize the Ottoman authority and did not pay tribute.
Albanian resistance
The Albanians' resistance to the Ottomans in the 14th century and especially in the 15th century won them acclaim all over Europe.
On 1 March 1444, Albanian chieftains gathered in the cathedral of Lezhë with the prince of Montenegro and delegates from Venice and proclaimed Skanderbeg commander of the Albanian resistance. All of Albania accepted his leadership against the Ottomans, but local leaders kept control of their own districts. Under a red flag bearing Skanderbeg's heraldic emblem, an Albanian force of about 10,000-15.000 men held off Ottoman campaigns against their lands for twenty-four years when Skanderbeg was commander in chief and for another 11 years after his death.
Three times the Albanians overcame sieges of Krujë. In 1450, the Albanians routed Sultan Murad II himself. Later, they repulsed attacks led by Sultan Mehmed II in 1466 and 1467. In 1461, Skanderbeg went to the aid of his suzerain, King
Sometimes the government under Skanderbeg was unstable, however, and at times local Albanian rulers cooperated with the Ottomans against him.[8]
With political and minor material support from the Kingdom of Naples and the Vatican, resistance to the Ottoman Empire continued for 36 years.
Krujë fell to the Ottomans only in 1478, ten years after the death of Skanderbeg;
Skanderbeg's long struggle to keep Albania free became highly significant to the Albanian people, as it strengthened their solidarity, made them more conscious of their national identity, and served later as a great source of inspiration in their struggle for national unity, freedom, and national identity.[10] The memory of the mid-15th century resistance under Skanderbeg continues to be important to Albanians,[citation needed] and his family's banner, bearing a black two-headed eagle on a red field, became the flag under which the Albanian national movement rallied centuries later. 11 years after the death of Skenderbeg and the fall of Krujë, the Ottoman Empire gained control of the ethnic Albanian territories and made many political changes.
16th–17th centuries
The Albanian population gradually began to convert to Islam through the teachings of
Albanians would enter later on in the 15th and especially 16th and 17th centuries, a period of Islamization. Albanians through converting to Islam would eventually dominate the Ottoman power structures disporportinally to their small population considering the large territory and huge population of the Ottoman Empire. They would become one of the most important and prestigious nations in the Empire playing a stringing role since the 15th century, but especially in the 17th,18th and 19th centuries.
For example, 48
Albanians also played a crucial role during the
Ottoman Empire would be heavily dependent on Albanian Mercenaries in its warfare between the early 1600s to middle 1800s until the reforms of Tanzimat.
18th–19th centuries and the Albanian Pashaliks
The weakening of Ottoman central authority and the
The Bushati family initially dominated the Shkodër region through a network of alliances with various highland tribes and later expanded in huge areas in today's
South of the Shkumbini River, the mostly peasant Tosks lived in compact villages under elected rulers. Some Tosks living in settlements high in the mountains maintained their independence and often escaped payment of taxes. The Tosks of the lowlands, however, were easy for the Ottoman authorities to control. The Albanian tribal system disappeared there, and the Ottomans imposed a system of military fiefs under which the sultan granted soldiers and cavalrymen temporary landholdings, or timars, in exchange for military service. By the 18th century, many military fiefs had effectively become the hereditary landholdings of economically and politically powerful families who squeezed wealth from their hard-strapped Christian and Muslim tenant farmers. The beys, like the clan chiefs of the northern mountains, became virtually independent rulers in their own provinces, had their own military contingents, and often waged war against each other to increase their landholdings and power. The Sublime Porte attempted to press a divide-and-rule policy to keep the local beys from uniting and posing a threat to Ottoman rule itself, but with little success.[13]
Ottoman-Albanian relations worsened in the year 1826 during the reign of
After crushing the Bushatis and Ali Pasha, the
After 1865, the central authorities redivided the Albanian lands between the vilayets of
20th century
In 1906, opposition groups in the Ottoman Empire emerged, one of which evolved into the Committee of Union and Progress, more commonly known as the
The Albanians refused to submit to the Young Turks' campaign to "Ottomanize" them by force.
Governance
Administratively, the Ottomans divided the Albanian-inhabited lands among a number of districts, or vilayets. The Ottoman authorities did not stress conversion to Islam and the conversion was done initially by Albanian nobles in the end of the 14th century and beginning of 15th one and was gradually accepted by the mass.[13]
By 1479, the entire country, except for
Administrative divisions
- For details of : State Organization
The Ottoman sultan considered himself God's agent on Earth, the leader of a religious—not a national—state whose purpose was to defend and propagate Islam. Non-Muslims paid extra taxes and held an inferior status, but they could retain their old religion and a large measure of local autonomy. By converting to Islam, individuals among the conquered could elevate themselves to the privileged stratum of society. In the early years of the empire, all Ottoman high officials were the sultan's bondsmen the children of Christian subjects chosen in childhood for their promise, converted to Islam, and educated to serve. Some were selected from prisoners of war, others sent as gifts, and still others obtained through devshirme, the tribute of children levied in the Ottoman Empire's Balkan lands. Many of the best fighters in the sultan's elite guard, the janissaries, were conscripted as young boys from Christian Albanian families, and high-ranking Ottoman officials often had Albanian bodyguards.[13]
Taxation
According to historian Zija Shkodra, Albania was developed as much as the rest of the Balkans [citation needed]. In the mountains north of the Shkumbini River, Geg herders maintained their self-governing society base on clans. An association of clans was called a bajrak.
Taxes on the northern tribes were difficult if not impossible for the Ottomans to collect because of the rough terrain and fierceness of the Albanian highlanders. Some mountain tribes succeeded in defending their independence through the centuries of Ottoman rule, engaging in intermittent guerrilla warfare with the Ottomans, who never deemed it worthwhile to subjugate them.
Until recent times, Geg clan chiefs, or bajraktars, exercised patriarchal powers, arranged marriages, mediated quarrels, and meted out punishments. The tribesmen of the northern Albanian mountains recognized no law but the Code of
Culture
Religion
Four centuries of Ottoman rule grouped the Albanian people along religious, regional, and tribal lines. In the 16th century and early 17th century, Albanians converted to Islam in large numbers. Within a century, the Muslim Albanian community was the largest religious community in the country, losing their previous entirely Orthodox and Catholic religious identity. Albanians in this time were divided into two distinct tribal and dialectal groupings: the
In the 15th and especially 16th and 17th centuries, many Albanian converts to Islam migrated elsewhere to escape the Ottoman Empire. Some attained powerful positions in the Ottoman administration, which severely disadvantaged the Catholic community since conversion to Islam came with numerous upper-class affiliations. About 48 Albanians rose to the position of grand vizier, chief deputy to the sultan himself. In the second half of the 17th century, the Albanian Köprülü family provided 6 grand viziers, who fought against corruption, temporarily shored up eroding central government control over rapacious local beys, and won several military victories by max expanding the Ottoman states to the gates of Vienna and middle Ukraine..
As early as the 18th century, a mystic Islamic sect, the
In the 19th century, the Ottoman sultans tried in vain to shore up their collapsing empire by introducing a series of reforms aimed at reining in recalcitrant local officials and dousing the fires of nationalism among its myriad peoples. The power of nationalism, however, proved too strong to counteract.
Nowadays, Albanians tend to not have strong affiliations to their varied religious identities as a result of about 50 years of Communist rule (especially under the regime of Enver Hoxha) that banned the practice of religion.
See also
- Albania in the Middle Ages
- Albanian Renaissance
References
- ^ Anscombe 2006, p. 772: "The term 'Arnavud' was used to denote persons who spoke one of the dialects of Albanian, came from mountainous country in the western Balkans (referred to as 'Arnavudluk', and including not only the area now forming the state of Albania but also neighbouring parts of Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro), organized society on the strength of blood ties (family, clan, tribe), engaged predominantly in a mix of settled agriculture and livestock herding, and were notable fighters – a group, in short, difficult to control."
- ^ Kolovos 2007, p. 41: "Anscombe (ibid., 107 n. 3) notes that Ottoman "Albania" or Arnavudluk... included parts of present-day northern Greece, western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, Kosovo, and southern Serbia"; see also El2. s.v. "Arnawutluk. 6. History" (H. İnalcık) and Arsh, He Alvania. 31.33, 39-40. For the Byzantine period. see Psimouli, Souli. 28."
- ^ "Albania - The World Factbook". Central Intelligence Agency. 13 February 2024.
- ^ Gjon Marku 2017, p. 10.
- ^ Gjon Marku 2017, p. 17.
- ^ "Albania::The decline of Byzantium". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- ^ Dimitris J. Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid: Empire building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402–1413, (BRILL, 2007), 1–3.
- ^ a b c d e Raymond Zickel and Walter R. Iwaskiw (1994). "Albania: A Country Study ("The Ottoman Conquest of Albania")". Retrieved 9 April 2008.
- ^ Riza, Emin (1992). "Ethnographic and open-air museums" (PDF). UNESCO, Paris. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
- ^ "Albania | History, Geography, Customs, & Traditions". Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 February 2024.
- ^ a b c Raymond Zickel and Walter R. Iwaskiw (1994). "Albania: A Country Study ("Local Albanian Leaders in the Early 19th Century")". Retrieved 9 April 2008.
- ^ Dauti 2018, p. 37.
- ^ a b c d Raymond Zickel and Walter R. Iwaskiw (1994). "Albania: A Country Study ("Albanians under Ottoman Rule")". Retrieved 9 April 2008.
- ISBN 978-1-86064-541-9.
- ^ Elsie 2010, "Flag, Albanian", p. 140: "The eagle was a common heraldic symbol for many Albanian dynasties in the Late Middle Ages and came to be a symbol of the Albanians in general. It is also said to have been the flag of Skanderbeg.... As a symbol of modern Albania, the flag began to be seen during the years of the national awakening and was in common use during the uprisings of 1909-1912."
Bibliography
- Anscombe, Frederick (2006). "The Ottoman Empire in Recent International Politics - II: The Case of Kosovo" (PDF). The International History Review. 28 (4): 758–793. S2CID 154724667. Archived from the original(PDF) on 24 September 2019. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
- Dauti, Daut (30 January 2018). Britain, the Albanian Question and the Demise of the Ottoman Empire 1876-1914 (phd). University of Leeds.
- Elsie, Robert (2010). Historical Dictionary of Albania. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press (The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group Incorporated). ISBN 978-0-8108-6188-6.
- Kolovos, Elias (2007). The Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, the Greek lands: Toward a social and economic history: Studies in honor of John C. Alexander. Istanbul: Isis Press. ISBN 9789754283464.
- Gjon Marku, Ndue (2017). Mirdita House of Gjomarku Kanun. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-5425-6510-3.