FEUILLETON The foreign factor and the construction of the Albanian nation (2): Cultural protectorate as a solution

Writing for Kosovo Online: Dragan BisenicTop of Form

Peter Knauseder, in his analysis "Rebellions in Albania during the First World War: Cooperation between Austro-Hungary and Albanian rebels against Serbia and Montenegro", published in Vienna in 2012, states that after the defeat in Koniggratz in 1866, the Danube Monarchy had to seek a new foreign policy direction. Although the Ottoman Empire still exerted varying degrees of control over large parts of the Balkans, the institution of the cultural protectorate offered an outlet, albeit with fairly limited possibilities for exercising authority.

These protective rights that Austria-Hungary and France exercised over the Catholic Church, and thus over Catholics in some areas of the Ottoman Empire, were based on international agreements on one hand, and Turkish customary law on the other.

German pioneer of Albanian studies

"In the 18th century, Austria guaranteed through a treaty a protectorate over the Catholic population in the northern Albanian mountains, the so-called Malesia. This cultural protectorate viewed protection over religious communities as such. With the constitutional strengthening of religious freedoms in the Ottoman Empire in 1908 after the Young Turk Revolution, the cultural protectorate was actually brought to absurdity, but the Habsburg Monarchy continued to invoke this protective right".

The beginning of Austria-Hungary's efforts was in 1854 when the Austrian diplomat and Albanian language specialist, Johann Georg von Hahn, identified the Pelasgian language with Proto-Albanian. Hahn, born in Frankfurt on the Main, was appointed Austrian consul in Ioannina, now in Greece, in 1847. He was transferred to the Hellenic Kingdom on the island of Syros in 1851, and from 1869, he was the general consul in Athens. He is considered the pioneer of Albanian studies.

He collected and published original materials on the Albanian language and culture as descendants of the ancient Illyrians. For the "needs of the preliminary study necessary for the ancient history of the Albanians" in his work "Albanesische Studien", he started with the idea that the oldest historically known inhabitants of Hellas were Pelasgians (p. 310). He raises the question of whether their culture was brought from ancient Egypt or Phoenicia, or whether two cultural currents that originated from a common source intersected among them".

Hahn assumes that the Phoenician script reached the Greeks through the mediation of the Pelasgians. For the interpretation of Greek history, he accepts Napoleon's view that the French Revolution was, in fact, the 'revolt of the Gauls against the Franks', i.e., that the political struggles in Greek states were the result of conflicts between Greek aristocratic and Pelasgian democratic elements.

Hahn noted, 'As ancient texts describe the ruling Thessalian warrior nobility, it shows great similarity to today's Albanians; the aspiration for personal and local independence predominates and never allows the concentration of collective forces'.

He then places the Illyrians in Persia and Armenia to show how Albanian and Armenian words have similarities. 'In present-day Albania, forms like Arben and Armeng can be found, just as there are Albania and Armenia. Today's river Arsen corresponds to the Armenian Arsan (also a tributary of the Euphrates now called Arsen). All this happens in the 3rd and 4th centuries BCE'.

This theory is not supported by any scientific evidence, and contemporary scholars view it as a myth. Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Bernd Jürgen Fischer, editors of the collection 'Albanian Identities: Myth and History', present works that are the result of the London conference held in 1999 under the title 'The Role of Myth in the History and Development of Albania'. The 'Pelasgian' myth about Albanians as the oldest community in Southeastern Europe is among those explored in the essay by Noel Malcolm, 'Myths of Albanian National Identity: Some Key Elements, as Expressed in the Works of Albanian Writers in America in the Early Twentieth Century'.

Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, in the introductory essay, establishes the context of the myth of 'Pelasgian Albanians', applicable to Eastern Europe in general, in terms of the 'yearning for a stable identity in a rapidly opening society'.

Pelasgian Theory

Peter Mackridge, in the work 'Aspects of Language and Identity on the Greek Peninsula since the Eighteenth Century', stated: Soon after, the 'Pelasgian theory' was formulated, claiming that the Greek and Albanian languages have a common origin from the Pelasgian, and the Albanians themselves are Pelasgians, thus originating from the same ethnological origin as the Greeks.

The 'Pelasgian theory' began to take shape in the 1850s and 1860s and became widely spread in the 1870s. Needless to say, there is absolutely no scientific evidence supporting any of these theories.

Hahn states that three migrations can be distinguished: Gothic, Serbian, and Bulgarian.

He mentions that in the year 610, Croats and Serbs migrated to Dalmatia, subjugating the Avars they found there and reconciling with the few Roman inhabitants of coastal cities spared by the storms of time. Today, these immigrants still inhabit Croatia, Slavonia (Sirmium), Dalmatia, and Bosnia, absorbing what remained of the original Illyrian inhabitants and forming the northern neighbors of the Albanians in these areas. However, they displaced them and conquered northern Albania, which then, until 1360, constituted a province of the Serbian Empire, separate from the southern part of the country.

Highlighting how the Serbs became bolder in their incursions, Hahn mentions that Emperor Michael Doukas appointed the bravest man in the empire, Nikephoros Bryennios, as the Duke of Dyrrhachium to put an end to it. The indigenous people welcomed him with joy and sent him off on a happy journey against the Serbs. However, he was defeated by the Serbian army. Later, he rebelled against the emperor but was captured and blinded.

His successor in the position of viceroy was not deterred by this example; he gathered a large army of Normans, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Albanians and advanced from Ohrid to Thessaloniki in 1079. However, he suffered the same fate as his predecessor. On this occasion, the name 'Albanians' is mentioned for the first time in the annals. Two years later, the Normans began their conquests in Albania.

During the Eastern Crisis of 1878, the Ottoman Empire could no longer defend the territorial integrity of the Albanians, so the Albanian question came to the negotiating table of European diplomacy for the first time. At the end of the 19th century, several Albanian intellectuals tried to prepare the people for separation from the Ottoman Empire. Internally, they sought to create a common identity despite two religions, four denominations, and two main dialects, unlike the Ottomans, Greeks, and Slavs, with their own language and history. Externally, they tried to formulate demands for independent national existence or statehood.

Continuation tomorrow - Pashko Vasa and the emergence of 'Albanianism'