Oct
©Albanians and their territories
Research and studies
As Albanians attracted the curiosity of many individuals in Europe in the early 1800’s, their history also was scrutinized. Without exception, Albanians were seen as descendents of Epiriots (southern Albanains) and Illyrians (northern Albanians). Greeks to south, who had freed themselves from the Turks in 1821, substantially due to the Albanian effort, were looking to acquire an identity. Their nationalist circles took it upon themselves to have dreams of a large Greece that would encompass, what they thought, all Hellenic Greece, and Epirus was consider part of it. This line of thought never ceased being a part of nationalist Greek view of what was and is Greek. These nationalist Greeks are after to reincarnate the Byzantine concept of ‘Romans’ (῾Ρωμαῖοι) under the name ‘Greeks’ that would encompass all peoples that at one time were nder the influence of Constantinople.
Oct
The war at Troy was significant to Illyrians because it was the story of their heroic Dardanian ancestors. Throughout ages before the translation into Greek, Illyrian bards had been lamenting the fall of Ilios. Consequently numerous ballads about the Trojan War were scattered across Asia Minor and the Balkans.
The Illyrian variants of the Trojan War have been lost. The Homeric saga is a mere translation of an early oral heritage created immediately after the war. Progressively those poems were collected and translated in the same way Christians would shape their own Holy Book, the Bible later.
Oct
The Albanian language has been variously attached to Illyrian and Messapian, both of which were probably related. Only the latter, to a small extent, has left any evidence that may in any way liken it to Albanian. Consider the Messapic words bilia (Alb bijë “daughter”), brendon “deer” (Alb bri, brî “horn”, pl. brirë, brinë), hazavathi ‘he pours out’ (Alb deh “to make drunk”), klaohi ‘listen!’ (Alb quaj, quej “to call, give a name”), kos (Alb kush “who”), veinan (Alb vehte “self”), venas (Alb uri, û “hunger”), etc. Messapian settlements are known to have existed along the Adriatic in both Italy and Illyria, especially around Durrës.
Aug
Researches into the History of the European Nations.
Paragraph 3. – Of the Albanians or Skipetarians*.
The people generally known in Europe by the name of Albanians, by the Turks called Arnauts, and by themselves Skipetares, which means in their language “mountaineers” or “dwellers on rocks,” inhabit a greater part of ancient Illyricum and Epirus. They are hardy and warlike people, and they pay only a nominal obedience to the Ottoman Porte. They have a peculiar language, and constitute, as we have observed, a particular race, which is very distinct from the Slavonian inhabitants of the country which borders on them towards the north, as well as from their Turkish and Greek neighbors, and they are now generally supposed to be the descendants of the Ancient Illyrians and Epirots. The ancient writers, as we have already observed, distinguished the nations thus named from each other, and have left us no intimation that they were in any way connected.
THE PELASGIANS
The ancient term “Pelasgian” is almost as mysterious now as ever, for scholars still have difficulty assigning precise meaning to it. For that reason some linguistic authorities prefer to substitute the term “pre-Hellenic” for the language of the people who antedated the Greeks in the Balkan Peninsula(Hamp 1983). However, Herodotus and Strabo wrote a great deal about the Pelasgians. So did Thucydides, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Pliny the Elder, Hesiod, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil and many others.
Aug
EPIRUS VETUS/ EPIRUS NOVA
Written by: mhb
©www.albter.com
N. G. L. Hammond has been consistent on two of his narrow formulations that the original language of Epiriots was Greek and that Illyrians intruded into Epirus. The former view he bases on the presence of Greek language inscriptions in Epirus and the latter on his assumption that Illyrians came to the Balkans after the Greeks. Both assumptions are superfluous and contrary to the evidence provided by ancient authors and archeological discoveries and inappropriate for the Epirus/Southern Illyrian reality. Here is what he says about the Greek Illyrian line of confluence.
Serbia, nationalism entangled in myths
By: mhb
Originally taken from: http://albter.com/
One of the most important elements of Balkan history has been the important role myths have played in history of some of the countries. It is a reality, the creation of Serbian and Greek (modern) ethnicities owe their creation to myths. These myths proved expedient during their national revival and afterwards, during which time they took precedence over national culture and state strategies. This is best exemplified by their anti-Albanian policies which were built on baseless myths. The intrusions into Albanian territories were given a totally different face and glorified. The autochthonous population did not fit at all in this scheme of things, of importance was only Serbian ‘greatness’ in Kosovo and for the Greeks their idea of “Greek Epirus”. As days of Ottoman Empire were coming to an end, the extremist elements devised plans to ‘correct historic’ injustices that were bestowed on them and establish control over land they designated as belonging to them. Hence comes the myth that the Albanians had intruded to the land that belonged to them. To correct this historic injustice, extremist policies were devised against the majority autochthonous population of these territories. This population was subjected to a position of a people who had intruded on Serb and respectively Greek domains, and as such, even extermination policies would be acceptable.
