Shkoder
Shkoder or Shkodra in present Albania is one of the oldest cities among numerous Balkan settlements of rich heritage and history. Town of Shkoder features numerous traces of several millennia of human life.
Today is the town of Shkoder important economic and cultural center of north Albania, with some 90,000 inhabitants. Skodra is set in the north-western part of Albania, on the southern part of the Mbishkodra plain, next to the Shkodra Lake which is divided between Albania and Montenegro, on the confluence of Drim, Kiri and Bojana – Buna Rivers, the mountain of Tarabosh, and the impressive Rozafa Castle. The Tarabosh is hill in northwestern Albania whose smaller portion is located in the maritime area of Montenegro, actually elongated southeastern ridge of the Rumija Mountain which parallelly spreads along the southern shore of the Skadar Lake, and whose southeastern ends arrive to the Bojana River and the urban part of the town of Shkoder. Skadar Lake – Skadarsko Jezero (Skadar Lake, Scutari Lake) is the largest lake at Balkan Peninsula and the largest freshwater lake in the Balkans. It is named after the city of Skadar (Shkodra) nowadays in northern Albania (Shkodër in Albanian, Scutari in Italian and Skadar in Serbian), that was created by the efforts of the Great Powers to design a new state map in the Balkans at the beginning of the 20th century. Two thirds of Skadar Lake is positioned in Montenegro and the rest third portion is part of present Albania. The origin of the name comes from the Greek expression of “Skoutari”.
By the 7th century BC, the Illyrians (possible ancestors of the Albanian or the Serbian nation) populated this area with constant presence of indigenous population of the historical Serbian states. In 181 BC Shkodra known as Scodrinon, becomes the capital of the Illyrian Empire. In 168 BC the Romans conquered the areas populated by the indigenous tribal population when they had established the “Scutari” protectorate of Illyricum where converged the trade routes from the Danube River and the Aegean Sea. During the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, Shkodra became seat of the Prevalitane province (Praevalis), while after Roman division into the East and West Roman Empire (395) it had come under the Byzantine rule, and the part of the Durres thema (thema Dyrrachion). After division of the Roman Empire in 395 the territory of today’s Albania fall into the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire, when the present day Shkodra became important city of the Byzantine Empire.
Town of Skhoder was from 490 til 1171 the Serbian historical capital ruled by some forty kings and rulers on whose administration testify remains of the Serbian Orthodox Church of Saint Stephan. In the first half of the 10th century this area was under the Bulgarian Kingdom. The ruler Caslav Klonimir of the Vojislavljevic Dynasty liberated the Serb territories from the Byzantine and Bulgarian rule. Town of Shkoder became the capital of the Doclea state during the reign of the Holy Jovan Vladimir in the second half of the 10th century. Jovan Vladimir successfully protected the town from attacks of the Arbanian tribes. The king Constantine Bodin of Doclea and Dalmatia received the crusaders in Shkoder in 1101. After a period of dynastic clashes, the town of Shkoder became part of the state of Zeta, under the rule of the Grand zhupan of Raska. The present town of Shkoder was the seat of the Serbian dynasties of Vojislavljević, Nemanjić, Balšić, Lazarević, Branković, and Crnojević and Serbian Medieval Zeta and Raska princes and kings: Mihailo, Bodin, Vladimir, Dobroslav, Gradina and Draginja, and the Medieval states ruled by the Prince Jovan Vladimir, king Milutin and tzar Dušan. The Serbs named their largest fortification Rozafa after the town of Risafe in Asia Minor /on the border with the Sassanian Empire in Persia, now a city in ruins in central Syria/. It was there in Risafa fortress where the holy Orthodox warrior Saint Sergius was brutally killed at the beginning of the 4th century from where spread the cult of this martyr throughout the Roman Empire. In the centuries that followed, this territory was invaded by the Huns, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, while the Byzantine Empire re-conquers the region few times.
In 1043 the town of Shkoder was seat of the Serbian ruling lords of Zeta /today, Montenegro/, with developed economy and trade of the town that turned it into the center of the medieval Serbian state of Zeta and in 1067 became the Bishopric see. The town was captured by the Byzantines in 1118 but it was regained by the Serbian King Stephan Nemanya in 1185, ever since it was the seat of the Serbian kings and lords for the next 300 years. Since 1355 the town was ruled by the Balsic Family who were the Serbian feudal lords of the northern Albania and parts of Montenegro. Threatened by the Ottoman invasions in 1393 when the lord of Zeta Djuradj Stratimirovic was captured in 1392, the Balshic rulers sold the town of Shkoder to the Venetians in 1396 who renamed the town Scutari and reinforced the castle. The local Serb uprising in 1403 expelled the Venetians out from the town.
“Today at the place of the Monastery of SS Sergius and Bacchus by Shkoder there is the newly constructed Albanian Roman-Catholic graveyard, with the only one wall that remained out of the former shrine. At this place are buried the earliest Serbian kings, Mihailo Vojislavljević (ruled 1050-1081) and his son Bodin (ruled 1081-1099). At present we do not actually know which members of the Vojislavljevic and Nemanjic dynasties were buried in this shrine as the archaeological excavations at this locality were never carried out. Who knows what of the Serb history is hidden around this the only remaining wall, with option that the Boyana river took away part of the Serbian history of this place when the river course changed. The Vojislavljevic Dynasty are however the first Serb royal dynasty who approached the historical scene after the first Serb Vlastimirovic Dynasty during the struggles of the Serb state agains the Bulgarian expansion campaign under Tsar Samoil, and in the Crusaders wars and during liberation of large territories from the Byzantine – Romaei Empire – the Eastern Roman Empire. The origins of the Vojislavlavljevic Dynasty were most probably from Zeta where they had their seat. We consider this by the fact that the first rulers of this Serb dynasty were close relatives – male cousins – the Holy Jovan Vladimir and the Herzegowinian prince Stefan Vojislav – founder of Travunia. During the time of the reign of one of the members of this dynasty, the Serbian prince Holy Jovan Vladimir of Doclea, his cousin, Stefan Vojislav ruled the Travunia as the ruling prince of the Serbian Principality which spread from Dubrovnik and Trebinje in the west, up to Risan and the western coast of the Boka Kotor Bay. We can find foundations of the rise of the Vojislavljevic Family in the Serb rebelion against the Romaei administation, around 1035 when the Serb lords begun the struglle for wider independence led by Stefan Vojislav – the prince of Travunia who is recorded as the successor of his relative, the Prince of Doclea – Holy Jovan Vladimir.
The Vojislavljevics family members belonged to the first royal Serb dynasty. Mihailo I – the son of Prince Stefan Vojislav was in 1077 recognized the first Serbian king. The proof of his royal dignity we find for example in the letter of the Roman Pope Gregory VII issued in 1078 in which the Serb king is addressed as the Slavic King”Michaeli Sclavorum regi“. The Vojislavljevics also managed something that non of the Serbian dynasties until the 20th century achieved – they united all the Serbian lands under one crown so that there was no other Serbian state entity besides the crowned Vojislavljevic family. When in 1081 the king Mihail I was succeeded on the throne by his son Bodin who ruled as the king from 1081 until around 1100, the King Bodin governed from Shkoder at the peak of his reign over all the Serbian states from Doclea and Travunia with Dubrovnik across Zahumlye up to Bosnia and Raska-Rascia. During his reign there was only Serbia under his crown and no independent or semi-independent Dubrovnik or Bosnia or Travunia or similar entity. All the Serbian territories that were not under the Romaei or the Hungarian crown were ruled by the Serbian Vojislavljevic rulers. Yet, such achievement was not accomplished by the Nemanyics rulers as there was always the Dubrovnik Republic or the Bosnian Banate region as the parastatal Serbian entity /although in vassal relationship/. During the era of the Vojislavljevics there was a tectonic change within the European continent, the Great Schism in 1054 /break of communion between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches/ caused by the Roman Pope Louis IX who stepped forward from the Orthodox church. The religious division created by stepping out of the Roman-Catholicism spread across the Serbian state of Vojislavljevics, where especially in the Adriatic Littoral there was strong influence of the western Christianity upon activities of the Dubrovnik Arch-bishopric, while the Dyrrachium – Durres Mitropolitanate and the Ohrid Arch-Bishopric which included the rest of the Serb territories, had remained firmly in accordance with the Orthodox principles and had rejected the Papal heresy as was the Filioque.
The Vojislavljevics are the first Serbian rulers to have been painted. We find the ktetoral portrait of King Mihailo in his endowment – the Church of Saint Mihail in the old Ston. A member of the Vojislavljevic family was the first self-proclaimed tsar chosen in the rebellion against the Romeai in 1072 for the leader of the movement that strived towards reconstruction of the tsar Samoil Empire. Then the Serb king Mihailo sent his son Bodin with 300 soldiers and the Serb military leader Petril to Prizren where his son Bodin proclaimed himself the ruling tsar and took the name of Petar. The Vojislavljevic Dynasty gave the Serbian people the first Serbian saint – the Holy Jovan Vladimir, righteous, pious and peaceloving ruling prince whose love story with his wife Kosara – daughter of the tsar Samoil begun during his captivity after the Tsar Samoil occupied Doclea around 1100 and contained his return to the Serbian throne and his martyrdom assasination by Jovan Vladimir – the cousin of tsar Samoil – was truly like a film movie. Also the sacred members of the Nemanjic Dynasty were close kinship of the Vojislavljevics. One of the crucial events of our history happened around 1083 when the Serb king Konstantin Bodin Vojislavljević /ruled 1081-1099/ sent from Shkoder to Ras his relatives Vukan and Marko with the aim to rule the Serb Principality of Raska – Rascia. It was exactly this grand duke Vukan /ruled 1083–1112/ who founded the Vukanovic Dynasty while the side branch of this dynasty created – no more, no less – the Nemanyics with the center of the Serb lands slowly transferred in those years from Shkoder and Doclea to Ras and Raska – Rascia. As in those years the rule in Ras of grand lord Vukan highly elevated – by indirect founder of the sacred Nemanyic Dynasty, in historical records we find his son George and also his grandson – Prince Mihailo III who ruled around 1186 as the Romeai vassal only in the narrow maritime belt of Zeta. In the meantime the Serb grand lord Stefan Nemanya who was close relative of the Vojislavljevics expelled the Romaei reign from the Serb littoral and handed over the rule over the maritime Serb regions to his oldest son Stefan Vukan who ruled from Shkoder. The Monastery of SS Sergius and Bacchus played important role during the reign of the Nemanyics. Along with the town of Shkoder this area was in the Nemanyic era the capital of young Nemanyic Dynasty kings /heirs to the throne/. The wall of the SS Sergius and Bacchus Monastery we see today in Shkoder most probably dates from the reconstruction period, 1288-1290 that was carried out by the Serbian Queen Helen of Anjou with her sons, King Dragutin (ruled 1276-1282) and King Milutin (ruled 1282-1321), on which testify the still existing inscription carved in the western church portal“. Source: Arhivski snimci srednjovekovne Srbije – Archive records of the Medieval Serbia
Right here, in the fall of 1096, Serbian King Constantine Bodin Vojisavljevic /1081-1099/ met French Count Raymond IV of Toulouse /1094–1105/, the Commander-in-Chief of the Crusader Army which went on a march to Jerusalem. That was the first recorded meeting at the highest national level between the representatives of Serbia and France. The French army under command of the French noblemen marched across Europe and into Anatolia and the Mediterranean in the First Crusade war /1096-1099/ to provide support to their Byzantine Christian allies and fight to regain the Holy City of Jerusalem which was under Islamic rule of Seljuk Turks. The Crusaders viewed Muslim as infidels who had no right to rule over Jerusalem. Previously Jerusalem for centuries was a part of the Orthodox Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Part of the crusaders army went to Jerusalem by land and so the army of the western knights “Crusaders” found themselves on the road through Serbia. This is how Crusaders, led by Count Raymond of Toulouse, sought a meeting with the Serbian king in the capital Scadar /Skhoder/, in order to get permission for an uninterrupted passage through Serbia. At this meeting rich gifts were exchanged and contracts were signed that the Crusader army would not be disturbed by the Serbian army of King Bodin and that the Crusaders would be provided with all necessary supplies. Here Count Raymond even twinned with the Serbian king Bodin. (History of the Serbs)
In 1385 the Ottomans invaded the territory which is now Albania, finally capturing town of Shkodra only in 1479. Members of three feudal families ruled the town of Shkoder and the area in the middle ages /Dukadjini/ – Dukagjini in the 16th century, Mahmudbegovic in the 17th century and during the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century the Bushatli family – Busati. In the 16th century the Turks had destroyed the SS Sergius and Bacchus Monastery and today there are only ruins of this shrine in pitiful condition.
According to the records of the Academy of Sciences of Albania – Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë, in 1485 Serbs were 90% of the population in the northern part of Albania – the Shkoder county. “Vraca is the Serb Municipality of north Albania in the Shkoder county. This region includes settlements positioned on the shores of the Shkoder Lake, some 7 km north of the town of Shkoder. Vraca contains eight Serb villages with the seat of the Municipality in the Borich village. This ethnographic region is settled by the Serbs and the ‘Podgoričani people’ as they call the Serbs who live in this center of the Serb community in Albania. In 2007 the Slavic linguists Klaus Štainke /Klaus Dieter Helmut Steinke/ and Xhelal Iliri have proved during the works carried out in the terrain the accuracy of literature sources about the historical existence of the villages populated with ethnic minorities who speak the Serbia language and who belong to the Serb national community. In the Shkoder area there are villages populated with the Serb inhabitants who speak the Zeta dialect of the Serbian language. Those are the villages exclusively settled with the Serb people in the Vraca Municipality: Mali Borič, Veliki Borič, Borič, Kula Raška, Gril, Omara, Kotrabudan, Balšići, Derignst – Skadarsko Vojvodstvo”. Source: Blagoje Misic
In 1905 there were 250000 Serbs residing in Shkoder and the surroundings, while during the First World War several hundreds of Serbs have been expelled from Shkoder area to either Serbia or Montenegro after suffering from expulsion measures. After great repressions in 1934 happened the second migration of Serbs from Albania. In that period started the albanization of Serbs, and their forced assimilation. Nearly all Orthodox churches were destroyed, and those which remained – were turned into mosques. After demolition of churches, Serbs were forbidden to use their names and family names, so all their names and family names were Albanized. The family names ending with -ić were forbidden. The Serbian alphabet was forbidden, as well as the Orthodox religion, that greatly influenced the national identity. Until 1934 there were more than 20 schools in the Serbian language in Shkoder and the area. After 1934 the schooling in Serbian was forbidden and all the Serb educational institutions were suspended. The huge pressure on the remained Serbs increased during the rule of Enver Hoxha. Since 1990 the entire state aparatus performed the terrible reprisals and genocidal policy, so Albania existed nearly without the Serb minority. Those Serbs who have not been albanized were forced to add to their names utterly humiliating adds that translated into Albanian mean “slime”, “mud”, “wood”, “dirtiness” ….While the communist leaders of Yugoslavia attributed all rights to the Shqiptars, the communists of Albania abolished the Serb minority. For nearly 8 decades the Serbs did not have any educational institution, and have lived without right for religion, have died unbaptized, and have been buried without the Orthodox customs. In spite of such terror experienced for more than 100 years, numerous Serbs have preserved their national consciousness and consider themselves Serbs regardless of not understanding the Serbian language, or the fact that they have adopted islam or the Roman-catholic religion. Today the Serbs in Albania have right to regain either their name or the family name, but not both, as per very expensive and purposely difficult procedure. The seriousness of the assimilation can be best seen in analysis of the religious structure of the remaining national minority. The president of the Association of the Serbian-Montenegrin national minority is Orthodox Pavle Jakoj Brajović, his assistant is Catholic Gezim Gjokaj and the Vice-president is Muslim Gani Musmeraj. They are all Serbs by nationality. After 73 years, on 28 February 2008 there was festively celebrated the start of the schooling in the Serbian language in Shkoder.
There are two mountains around the town of Shkoder – the Brdanjola and Tarabos. On the Brdanjola hill in 1445 18000 Serbian solders were killed in fights with the Ottomans, while 14000 Montenegrin and Serbian solders were killed on the Tarabos hill during the First and Second Balkan wars. Ottoman rule over the Shkoder area lasted more than 500 years. As Ottoman power wanes, Albanian feudal rulers called beys arise and flourish. Their holdings are merged into two semi-autonomous Ottoman units called pashalik. Shkodra was the center of the Bushatllinje Pashalik, whose leader Mahmut Pasha establishes an independent Albanian principality, only to be suppressed by the Ottoman Empire. In the middle of the 18th century intellectuals begun promoting teaching in Albanian /which was prohibited during the Ottoman reign/. After Russia defeated the Ottoman Empire, the provisional government was proclaimed in 1881 but was soon crushed by the Ottomans.
During the Balkan Wars and World War I, fortified town of Shkodra was constantly enduring in liberation by Montenegrin and Serbian armies from the Ottoman rule, with great loses during heavy and long fights. On the 19th November 1912 the Serb town of Shkoder and the Port of Durres were liberated from the several centuries of the Turkish occupation of the part of the medieval state in present Albania which was called the Srpske zemlje i Pomorske – the Serb and Littoral countries. After liberation of Shkoder and the north of the present Albania from the Ottoman forces in the First Balkan War, in 1912 the Serbian Army marched into Durres. On the 19th November 1912 was created the Durres county within the Kingdom of Serbia with 4 districts – the Durres, Tirana, Liessus and Elbasan districts. The Christian and the Serb population delightfully greeted the glorious liberators.
The Serbian army terminated its operations for Shkoder on the 29 March 1913, but King Nikola Petrovic continued fights, willing to keep his personal and military dominance of Montenegro. Town of Skhoder surrendered to Montenegrins on the 10 April, but they were unable to retain it. Great powers intermediated on negotiations in Cetinje, so King Nikola was compelled after a week of talks to give over the town of Shkoder to them, and so Great powers soldiers enthralled the town on the 18th of April. The Turkish Army was under command of Essad pasha Toptani – honest friend and proven admirer of the Serbs who immeasurably helped the Serb Army in Golghota across Albania at the end of 1915 and beginning of 1916. Essad pasha handed his saber to the Serb general Petar Bojovic in the event of surrender of Shkoder to the Serbian and Montenegrin armies. Then the Serb general Bojovic return the saber to the pasha and enabled his army to leave Shkoder along with ammunition and quite part of the military provisions.
Convinced in the idea ‘Balkans to the Balkan people’ Essad pasha and Nikola Pashic signed on the 17th September 1914 the secret Nis Declaration on establishment of common military and political institutions of Serbia and Albania, the military union as well as on construction of the Adriatic railway from Serbia to Durres. Fierce resistance of Esad pasha’s political opponents and insurrection of the muslim population of Central Albania resulted in the claim for war declaration against Serbia. At the beginning of1915 Serbia sent some 20.000 soldiers to the hotbeds of rebellion in the areas of Elbasan and Tirana with the aim to help surrounded Essad pasha to remain in power and distinguish the revolt. The Serbian and Montenegrin armies were compelled to leave Shkoder in May 1913, in accordance with the London Conference of Ambassadors, which allotted Shkodra to the new country of Albania.
During World War I, the Montenegrin forces once again entered Shkodra on June 27th, 1915. In January of 1916, Shkodra was captured by Austria-Hungary and was the center of the zone of their occupation. After World War I, the international military administration of Albania was temporarily located in Shkodra, and in March, 1920, Shkodra was put under the administration of the national government of Tirana. Esad pasha Toptani was forced to leave Albania and with part of his army join the Serbian Army at the Salonica Front – Thessaloniki Front. Esad pasha Toptani participated with the delegation of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the Peace Conference in Paris when the National Parliament constituted of his supporters proclaimed a king of Albania. The Albanian assassin Avni Rustemi killed Esad pasha in Paris on the 13th June 1920 convinced thaat pasha betrayed Albanian interests and Albanian people by his support and help to Serbia and the Serbs. As per personal wish, Esad pasha Toptani was buried along the Serb soldiers and officers from Cer, Drina, Mackov kamen, Kolubara battles,… on the Serb military Cemetery in Paris.
During World War II, the Shkodrans fought against the Italian forces, and they were later resisted with demonstrations and strikes. The resistance movement was organized by the communists, which later formed Partisan fighting units. The town of Shkodra was liberated from the Germans on November 19th, 1944.
The town of Shkodra now has 50,000 inhabitants and is a booming trade town, with six foreign consulates, a chamber of commerce and a bazaar with 2500 shops and 80 professions. The city of Skodra retains its characteristic appearance, with narrow streets with tall stone walls on both sides, and tall gates. The main street is characterized by two-store houses, the facade often in gentle colors, with the second floor often lovely ornamented (and different to the first floor). A large part of it has been transformed after World War II, with straight wide streets and tall residential and public buildings. The city expanded with several new quarters, and the industrial zone was built north of the city. Some of the landmarks and monuments of culture of Shkodra are the impressive Castle of Shkodra (Rozafa) built by the Serbian noble family of Mrnjavchevic – brothers Vukasin, Ugljesa and Gojko, the Turkish Bath (hamam), Mesi Bridge, the Mosque of Plumbi, and many old houses with an appearance characteristic to Shkodra.
The Rozafa fortress, dominating the town of Shkodra, is one of the most famous monuments in Albania. Built on a hill dominating the confluence of the rivers Buna/Bojana and Kiri, Rozafa Fortress features an oval shape, and a perimeter of 600 meters and an area of 6 hectares. The Rozafa fortress and its seven towers date from the Middle Ages and the rule of the Serbs, and had been successively rebuilt by the Venetians and the Ottomans on the foundations of an early Illyrian-Serbian fortress. The building of the fortress is related by Rozafa’s legend. The three Mrnjavchevic brothers in charge of the building noticed that their daily work was always destroyed during the next night; they were advised by an old man to wall up someone alive in order to calm down the demons that trashed their work. The brothers decided to sacrifice the first of their wives who would come the next day to bring their lunch. The two oldest brothers warned their wives and Rozafa, the wife of the junior son, was sacrificed. She accepted it but asked for a small interstice to be made in the wall so that she could breast-feed her young son. Rozafa’s fountain, indeed a seepage of calcareous water, can still be seen in the wall of the entrance gate of the fortress. It is a place of pilgrimage for pregnant women. This kind of legend is widespread in the Balkans and was illustrated by famous writers such as Ismail Kadare (The three-arched bridges) and Ivo Andrić (The bridge over the Drina).
The remains of the Serbian Orthodox church of Saint Stephen in Shkoder are located in today’s Albania, a state created by the great powers in 1912. Despite the counterfeiting of Serbian history, the official documents, some of which are kept in the Venetian archives, testify that Shkoder – Skadar was the capital of Serbian medieval state in the early Middle Ages, and that this area was ruled by Serbian dynasties of Vojislavljević,
In the vicinity of the town of Shkoder, some 10 km away, in the village of Shirq, on the plateau of the Bojana River, there was the Serbian Orthodox Monastery of SS Sergius and Bacchus. This church was part of the Benedictine Monastery reconstructed in the 11th century, probably on the site of the former shrine from the 6th century – period of the Emperor Justinian reign. The church was the mausoleum of six Zeta and Raska rulers and kings – Michail, Bodin, Vladimir, Dobroslav, Gradina and Draginja. During the Middle age here was a fortified town of Saint Sergius with the trading square and the customs point. The Serbian Queen Helen highly respected the significance of this church, and with her sons Dragutin and Milutin had erected the new church in 1290 on the foundations of the old shrine, that became the largest sacral object in the area of the Bar Archbishopric. The stone plaque with carved inscriptions testifying on donation of the SS Sergius Monastery by the queen Helen and her sons in today kept in the National Museum of Shkoder.
The city of Shkodra is positioned next to the Shkoder – Scadar lake and the residents use the beach of Shiroka for recreation.
Few kilometers north of Shkodra there is the stone viaduct-bridge at Mes /village called Ura e Mesit/, where the Drin River divides the fields from the hillside of Drishti and the Cukali’s highland. Mesi Bridge is over 100 meters long and was built about 1770 along the ancient trading road connecting Shkodra and Constantinople. The Mesi Bridge was constructed by Mehmet Pasha Bushatlliu, who governed his province wisely by ensuring that this important port region was able to develop extensive trade with the West. The Mesi Bridge made it possible to transport carriages and agricultural products from the farmers living in the highland areas to the Adriatic coast. The Mesi bridge is 3.4 meters wide and its track has the form of a staircase. The Mesi Bridge is Monument of culture monument and one of the biggest of its kind in Albania.
