"Kotor and the Albanians" brings to light the unknown history of the Arbërs

When talking about the history of Albanians, it is usually associated with the mountain. But Ylber Hysa's book proves another side. It brings facts that the sea had a great importance in the life of the Albanians, and to elaborate on it, it opens the archives related to Kotor, today in Montenegro. A not very ordinary inauguration, a conversation with the prominent Swiss historian Oliver Schmitt, has brought details from the book that, among other things, "sails" in Venetian Albania, in Kotor also brings data on Albanian nobles, stops in Ulcinj before continuing to Venice

There are a number of reasons why the maritime history of Albanians has not been sufficiently elucidated.

The claims of the South Slavs and the history written under the Enverist tutelage are among them. With Kotor as the center as a very important medieval port, the historian Ylber Hysa extends the threads of the maritime history of the Albanians to other parts of the Adriatic. Through the book “Kotor and the Albanians” with the subtitle “The Forgotten Adriatic Connection”, Hysa sheds light on Venetian Arbërënia, to which Kotor also belonged. The monograph brings together data on Arbërë families that had a major role in the life of this important center. It was not only about skilled sailors, but also about people whose contribution from the economy, affected culture, religious life and even scholars. 

The book's promotion on Wednesday evening was done through a conversation with University of Vienna professor and member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Oliver Schmitt. He is a reviewer of the book.

Schmitt started the conversation with a question, as he said, atypical for historians: Why Kotor, for what reasons?

Hysa, who has also served as Kosovo's ambassador to Montenegro, has shown that Kotor is part of his long-term project for Albanians and others, and is an attempt to overcome a cliché and a stereotype that has mainly been built by neighbors about Albanians. According to Hysa, very little is known about the connection between the Bay of Kotor and Albanians. 

"The geographical connection between Kotor and the Albanians has been realized in many segments. In the military segment, there is still an island called Stradioti nearby today. The Stradioti were a well-known light cavalry formation used by Venice and almost over 80 percent of them are Albanians," he said. In this case, he added that he is a man who seems controversial from today's perspective, while mentioning Vojvoda Mazreku as the governor of Zeta at the time of despot Stefan Lazarević, who as an Albanian fought against the Venetians. 

He then mentioned personalities such as Frang Dukagjini, who he said died as a Venetian commander trying to take Herceg Novi from the Ottomans. 

"After a century or so, it is the Albanian sejmen who defend Herceg Novi," said Hysa. While talking about his book, in the rare conversation that takes place at history book promotions, Hysa said that there are other dimensions that affect trade when it comes to Albanians and Kotor. According to him, at that time Albania was much more lively and had more harbors than it does today. 

"Albania is seen as an extraordinary space for the economy. Although it seems like a territory that is exploited by others, there is also a mix of capital between the Kotor people and a Durrësak for example who also had real estate in Kotor," he said. According to Hysa, an important part of this connection is when the Ottoman Empire finally conquered Shkodra and later Ulcinj and Tivar. In this case, he has shown that he is talking about the period after 1571 and the time when there was a kind of large influx of the Albanian factor that gravitated towards Kotor and there are a large number of Albanian clerics who have had quite a role. 

"When we talk about the clergy, it is a key moment. In this regard, it is the inauguration of the Kotor Cathedral in 1166, which is still an inevitable part of the image of Kotor today. Two of the three apses were consecrated by two Albanian bishops. This happened at a time when Kotor was part of Byzantium," he said while talking about the voluminous book published by the Albanological Institute of Pristina. Hysa showed that it is often forgotten that in this territorial division, a good part of Dalmatia, part of the Montenegrin coast, later received the name Venetian Albania. 

"There has been a tendency among South Slavic historians to call this a coincidence. But this is not a coincidence at all, and I have tried to address this in the work to explain that it is actually a Venetian tendency to legitimize itself as the heir to the Romano-Byzantine world," Hysa said. 

Oliver Svhmitt begins his review of the book with the sentence: “Albanian history is also maritime history.” In the promotion, he said that it is about the maritime or coastal dimension of Albanian history. 

"How can this book be positioned in the tradition of Albanian historiography and beyond. You mean in the tradition of Adriatic historiography? Where do you see the position of your book?" he asked Hysa. 

Hysa initially mentioned two aristocratic families that left many traces in the Bay of Kotor and in Venice, the Bronza and Ballovic, who were Venetian ship captains for several generations. In this case, he went into more detail. 

"They often left written traces, details, even details of the wars with pirates. Especially with the Ulcinj pirates. Ulcinj is the counterpart of Perast," said Hysa. He explained that Perast is known for being extremely warlike with people who were prominent in the Venetian navy, while on the other hand Ulcinj remained Ottoman who created piracy as part of its identity. In this case, he added that even at the time when the Porte agreed with others to stop piracy, the Ulcinj people continued it and were often penalized. 

"The Ballovic and Bronza are naval dynasties. Another very interesting dynasty in the Bay of Kotor is the Vulovic Arbanasovic who until recently kept the name Arbanasovic. These are at least four generations with 55 different officers who have sailed as far as Japan and left their mark," said Hysa while talking about the early Arbër diasporas.

He also gave great importance to Kotor in terms of communication. He said that Venice maintained its mail all the way to Istanbul through Kotor. While explaining the influence of the Arbër factor in Kotor, he also gave examples. 

"Ship insurance was also one of the elements. Ship insurance was maintained by the noble family of Albanian origin, the Zaguri, which was based in Kotor but after 1500 received the title of nobility in Venice and left numerous traces in architecture there. They had the issue of ship insurance as a family business. So when we talk about seafaring, we are not talking only about sailors but about a wider spectrum," he said. 

For Schmitt, the idea that Albania is primarily a mountainous country is also a product of Enverist historiography which described Albania as a mountainous country and, from a maritime perspective, is more limited. 

"What is such an opening to the sea called for the reinterpretation of Albanian history and perhaps for the identity of today's Albanians?" Schmitt asked the book's author. 

Hysa said that he thinks that there is an established stereotype of the southern Slavs that says: "What is a valley for the Slavs, is a sea for the Greeks and a mountain for the Albanians". "It is stereotyped that the Albanian is a mountaineer perhaps due to the fact that in different periods, especially in the early Middle Ages, the mountain is actually the asylum that protects the Albanians because the coast could never belong to the locals", he said. He elaborated on this by adding that Durrës was a kind of Panama, a kind of Suez. 

"It means it played that role in history, it played the Via Egnatia. It was one of the largest cities along with Thessaloniki and always belonged to an empire. With the arrival of the Ottoman Empire, for the first time we have the Adriatic in two. With the Ottoman Empire from Ulcinj and below, we have a different situation. This was also a geographical issue, since the Adriatic part of Albania is still swampy and inaccessible, like, for example, the Dalmatian coast, which is more similar to the Italian part," said Hysa. 

But according to him, there were many harbors and several ports in Buna. According to him, in the Middle Ages the Albanian sea was much more open than it is today. 

“Much more than Albania can be called maritime today,” he said. Hysa’s book covers the history of Kotor from the inauguration of the Cathedral in 1166 to the end of Venetian Kotor in 1797. Hysa’s study delves into the depths of northern Albania in the Adriatic and also on the other side, in the mountainous part.