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Albania
The Ottoman Conquest of Albania
Equestrian statue
of Skanderbeg on Skanderbeg Square in central Tiranė
Courtesy Charles Sudetic
The Ottoman Turks expanded their empire from Anatolia to the
Balkans in the fourteenth century. They crossed the Bosporus in
1352, and in 1389 they crushed a Serb-led army that included Albanian
forces at Kosovo Polje, located in the southern part of present-day
Yugoslavia. Europe gained a brief respite from Ottoman pressure
in 1402 when the Mongol leader, Tamerlane, attacked Anatolia from
the east, killed the Turks' absolute ruler, the sultan, and sparked
a civil war. 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.
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 Durrės, Karl Thopia, appealed to the sultan for support against
his rivals, the Balsha family. An Ottoman force quickly marched
into Albania along the Via Egnatia and routed the Balshas. The
principal Albanian clans soon swore fealty to the Turks. Sultan
Murad II launched the major Ottoman onslaught in the Balkans in
1423, and the Turks took Janina in 1431 and Arta on the Ionian
coast, in 1449. The Turks allowed conquered Albanian clan chiefs
to maintain their positions and property, but they had to pay
tribute, send their sons to the Turkish court as hostages, and
provide the Ottoman army with auxiliary troops.
The Albanians' resistance to the Turks in the mid-fifteenth century
won them acclaim all over Europe. Gjon Kastrioti of Krujė was
one of the Albanian clan leaders who submitted to Turkish suzerainty.
He was compelled to send his four sons to the Ottoman capital
to be trained for military service. The youngest, Gjergj Kastrioti
(1403-68), who would become the Albanians' greatest national hero,
captured the sultan's attention. Renamed Iskander when he converted
to Islam, the young man participated in military expeditions to
Asia Minor and Europe. When appointed to administer a Balkan district,
Iskander became known as Skanderbeg. After Ottoman forces under
Skanderbeg's command suffered defeat in a battle near Nis, in
present-day Serbia, in 1443, the Albanian rushed to Krujė and
tricked a Turkish pasha into surrendering him the Kastrioti family
fortress. Skanderbeg then reembraced Roman Catholicism and declared
a holy war against the Turks.
On March 1, 1444, Albanian chieftains gathered in the cathedral
of Lezhė with the prince of Montenegro and delegates from Venice
and proclaimed Skanderbeg commander of the Albanian resistance.
All of Albania, including most of Epirus, accepted his leadership
against the Ottoman Turks, but local leaders kept control of their
own districts. Under a red flag bearing Skanderbeg's heraldic
emblem, an Albanian force of about 30,000 men held off brutal
Ottoman campaigns against their lands for twenty-four years. Twice
the Albanians overcame sieges of Krujė. In 1449 the Albanians
routed Sultan Murad II himself. Later, they repulsed attacks led
by Sultan Mehmed II. In 1461 Skanderbeg went to the aid of his
suzerain, King Alfonso I of Naples, against the kings of Sicily.
The government under Skanderbeg was unstable, however, and at
times local Albanian rulers cooperated with the Ottoman Turks
against him. When Skanderbeg died at Lezhė, the sultan reportedly
cried out, "Asia and Europe are mine at last. Woe to Christendom!
She has lost her sword and shield."
With support from Naples and the Vatican, resistance to the Ottoman
Empire continued mostly in Albania's highlands, where the chieftains
even opposed the construction of roads out of fear that they would
bring Ottoman soldiers and tax collectors. The Albanians' fractured
leadership, however, failed to halt the Ottoman onslaught. Krujė
fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1478; Shkodėr succumbed in 1479 after
a fifteen-month siege; and the Venetians evacuated Durrės in 1501.
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. Most of the Albanian refugees belonged to
the Orthodox Church. Some of the émigrés to Italy converted to
Roman Catholicism, and the rest established a Uniate Church (see
Glossary). The Albanians of Italy significantly influenced the
Albanian national movement in future centuries, and Albanian Franciscan
priests, most of whom were descended from émigrés to Italy, played
a significant role in the preservation of Catholicism in Albania's
northern regions.
Data as of April 1992
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