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By:
Academician Rexhep Ismajli
- December 12, 2021 12:00
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After 1981, the campaign against albanology started. First, related to the articles about Albanians in the Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia, and then to the VI Congress of Communists of Serbia, where I. Ajeti spoke about the Illyrian origin of Albanians as a scientific matter. Discussions in scientific publications developed by the author of these ranks - 1985, French 1986 and later. The campaign in the means of public and cultural information in Serbia, especially against authors from Kosovo who spoke about the ancient and Illyrian origin of Albanians and the Albanian language, was entirely political.
The historian of the Serbo-Croatian language and the most prominent Balkanologist among the Serbs, Ivan Popović (-1961) even claimed that the Albanians will have come to today's Albania after XIII, while the places they could have come from are different, in any case in the east, namely the northeast of Serbia. Let's take a closer look at his ideas summarized in the book "Geschichte der serbokroatischen Sprache" 1960. In that wide-ranging work there is a sub-chapter entitled The Albanian Problem, the author dealt with the issue of the origin of the Albanian language. In the wake of the then most popular ideas that started from the assumption that Illyrian was a centum-type language, while Albanian was a satem-type language, even though today's Albania was part of Illyricum in ancient times, Albanian could not be a descendant of Illyrian, nor " a mixed Illyrian-Thracian language", because Illyrian and Thracian were not close languages between them (Popović, 1960:79).
According to him, Weigand's assertion that the means of navigation and fishing in Albania are loans is of great importance. "With this, he said, the early first Balkan homeland of the Albanians will be found outside today's Albania, which is consistent with the fact that the historical sources mention the Albanians only in sh. XIII". Popović's arguments were shared only by Barić, all of Weigand, and later repeated by Ivić, Loma and others.
In general he thought that the coast was Latin (or entirely Romanized), the hinterland was Illyrian in present-day Dalmatia, Montenegro and Northern Albania, in the center - from Sirmium to Naissus near Scup again Latin, in the east (roughly Bulgaria today) was Thracian, while the entire south, roughly from the Via Egnatia, Greek (including ancient Macedonian). In the north was Pannonia, again Illyrian. The areas of Dardania and today's Serbia, therefore, were Latinized, so Albanian could come somewhere from the northeast, so it was Thracian, he thought.
What can be said in this case is that the assumption about the complete romanization of Dardania and today's Albania, as well as the Greekization of southern Albania, despite the inscriptions in the languages of the written cultures, has not been proven to have been so complete . There are serious authors who, on the basis of archaeological and historical research, think the opposite, while the existence and complex dialectical development of Albanian say exactly this. For example, Fanula Papazoglu, in her study of the differences in the relations between Dardania and the Illyrian Kingdom regarding Romanization for the area of ancient Dardania, drew this conclusion: "Dardania is among the least Romanized areas of the Balkans, where the autochthonous population has been preserved the most the best. Regarding the preservation of the ethnic consciousness of the Dardanians, we can also judge on the basis of the dedications to the Dardanian gods Dea Dardaniae and Deus Andinus, as well as on the basis of the fact that both the country and the people kept their name until late antiquity..." (Papazoglu 1988:145-171, French ibid. 173-199, here p. 169).
...the assumption about the complete romanization of Dardania and today's Albania, as well as the Greekization of southern Albania, despite the inscriptions in the languages of the written cultures, has not proven to have been so complete. There are serious authors who, on the basis of archaeological and historical research, think the opposite, while the existence and complex dialectal development of Albanian say exactly this...
According to V. Popović, Albanian will be treated as a descendant of Thracian. The first homeland (Urheimat) of the Albanians was probably found in Northern Thrace, in Macedonia, in Northern Bulgaria, in Eastern Serbia or in Romania; there the Albanians were able to be in contact with the Romanians, all the same, north or south of the Danube, because the Romanians were on both sides. Since there are no names that can be explained through Albanian in Albania, other possibilities should be seen, said Popović, and he referred to the names mentioned by others such as Oxrid: Λυxνίς/ Λυxνίδoς, Shtip - Astíbos, Άστίvoς, Sharr - Σκάρδoς, Niš : Naissus, etc.
also
The irrelevance of the origin of the Albanians and the beginnings of the history of the Balkans
Pavle Ivić (1924-1999), prominent Serbian, dialectologist, phonologist and historian of the Serbian (Serbo-Croatian) language in the well-known book "Srpski narod i njegov jezik", Belgrade 1971 in his explanations of the relations between the Slavic languages of the South-East and Western, interpreting the groups of isoglosses that appeared in the border area between Serbia and Bulgaria as far as Osogovo and Sharr, took back the idea of the arrival of the Slavs from the north of the Danube to Gjerdap in the direction of the rivers, while in the mountains they remained attracted the pre-Slavic ancestors, whose participation in the biological ancestry of these latter may be greater than the Slavs. Here he brought to mind van Wijk's idea of the Romanian intermediary that separated the two Slavic branches precisely in the areas of eastern Serbia. According to him, the issue of the origin of the Albanian language remains controversial. "It was shown that Albanian is in no way a continuation of the ancient Illyrian language that was spoken in today's Albania (and in a large part of Yugoslavia) before the Roman conquest. Simply, the peculiarities of the Albanian language are in strict opposition to what is known about the old Illyrian", p. 27. As elements of opposition in this regard, he brought the issue of the lack of maritime terminology, even the word fish is borrowed, he said; in the Middle Ages Albanians were continental shepherds; there are no cities where the toponymy was directly inherited, but we have Nish, Shtip, Sharr, Ohrid, which came to the Slavs through the Albanians; the Roman elements of Albanian are related to Romanian; pastoral terminology comes from an ancient pre-Roman language and the language where those expressions were created is the predecessor of Albanian. Attitudes similar to I. Popović's, without referring to them.
He continued with these ideas, and even more clearly in the public reactions after 1981. Let's also say that the ASHSA Memorandum in 1986 expressed a negative assessment of the "permission" to unify the Albanian identity designation, no longer Šiptar/Albanac, for the "permission" to unify the language, etc. Others then A. Loma, follow the Popović-Ivić lines, sometimes deeper, sometimes less, not even Barić's ideas to the end.
Katičić on the origin of Albanian
Radoslav Katičić (1930-2019), the researcher who brought the most compact and important summary of the ancient languages of the Balkans, was concerned more than once with the question of origin and the place where Albanian was spoken in antiquity, before and after in 1981. His views in the Albanological areas became known in the Assembly of Illyrians in 1972. According to him, "it is normal and natural that in Albanian we see the modern successor of the Illyrian language" and further: "On the Thracian origin of the language nothing has been presented that would have the nature of evidence, but only accumulations of evidence, which, without deciding the issue, do not allow us to discard the Thracian hypothesis at all", finally: "the Albanian area corresponds only to the territory that was Illyrian in the narrow sense of the word".
Katičić once again returned to the Old Balkan linguistic space in the Colloquium on languages in the Roman Empire after the imperial era in 1974. Regarding the origin of Albanian and Romanian, Katičić started with this assessment: "With all the state of the sources, there is no there is no doubt that Albanian is the modern stage of development of an ancient Balkan language: in Albanian there are, as is known, borrowings from ancient Greek and a very important layer of Latin in the lexicon, which shows a strong wave of romanization. Both, the ancient Greek superstructure as well as the Latin superstructure of the lexicon, could have happened only in the Balkan areas".
"In this state of our knowledge, the conclusion is imposed that Albanian is a modern form of Illyrian"... "Thus, the Thracian hypothesis is only an interesting construction and the assumption about the Illyrian origin of Albanian remains, thanks to the circumstances described at the beginning, the most reliable alternative, even why not proven with certainty".
Archaeologists and Historians of the Serbian Academy 1988
In 1988 in the book about "Illyrians and Albanians" the question was raised, but what were the Dardanians? Were the Dardanians Illyrian? There have been many discussions and today the dominant opinion is that the Dardanians were Illyrians (see recently Mirdita Zagreb 2015). There is, however, a small discussion that says that the Dardanians were Illyrians, but the Dardanians of the c. X before K. and the Dardanians of the c. IV before K. may not have been the same, earlier they may have been something else and in the meantime they were Illyrianized. Here we enter the field of historians and we are not able to make value judgments. But we will say that a theory has been built on this basis, see especially V. Popović then M. Garašanin, who at first thought differently, partly F. Papazoglu, who in 1988 published the book "Illyria the Albanian", in which insist on saying that the Dardanians at least before the century IV BC, when they created their state and were Illyrians, they may have been something else and are a little different from other Illyrians.
Fanula Papazoglu, in the mentioned study, started from the general criticism of the views of Albanian science about the Illyrians, which includes the Dardanians and even the Peons. Her remark has to do with the belief that "between the Illyrians and the Dardanians there can be no equal sign", Papazoglu 1988: 143.
She tried to specify that, although there was an unquestionable Illyrian component, they could not be identified with the Illyrians. Moreover, she also emphasized that, according to late studies, in the formation of the Dardanians, she wanted to recognize an older Daco-Meze and perhaps even Proto-Phrygian layer. In historical times, she thought that there was also an intermingling of Thracian elements and it must be this element that will have given them the seal in terms of ethnic structure. "But more than the ethnic structure, what separates the Dardanians from the Illyrians is the political development. Indeed, from the moment they emerge from prehistory - the Illyrians around the middle of the 1988st millennium BC, the Dardanians a little later, in the second half of the 146th century - the Illyrian and Dardanian communities had clearly separate fates", Papazoglu XNUMX: XNUMX. The author noted that between the Illyrian Kingdom and the Dardanian Kingdom in the south, the border corresponded to the ethnic and political border (it moved roughly around the line where the Albanian-Yugoslav border crossed).
And finally, Papazoglu came up with this attitude: "Dardania is among the least romanized ancient regions in the Balkans, where the autochthonous population was best preserved", Papazoglu 1988:169. After asserting that the ethnic consciousness of the Dardanians was expressed through the qualified names Daradania, Dardanus, Dardana, and even Nat(ione) Dardanus, she concluded: "It is not excluded that this population survived the era of barbarian invasions and great migrations , especially in the less urbanized regions, and entered the Middle Ages under the name of Albanians", Papazoglu 1988: 169.
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The anti-Albanian strategy
In the opening speech of that scientific gathering, the secretary of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the academic writer A. Isaković did not hide the intention that through this book that Academy would take on the role of "the issue raised by the Illyrians and Albanians, who in many countries has moved away from scientific objectivity and truth, let's return it to true scientific flows and contours".
A page earlier connected the whole issue with the events of 1981 in Kosovo, because: "it is an undoubted fact that Albanian science, unfortunately helped by some scientific workers from Kosovo, often approaches scientific facts in an uncritical manner, presenting them one-sidedly, keeping some eyes silent and putting others in the foreground, in order to find justification for political aspirations and hardening of relations", Isaković 1988: 5-6.
The question is, therefore, since Isaković was only a writer, for a programmatic orientation to correct an entire national science and to remove the bases for political aspirations. Of course, declaring its own truth to be non-political. And seeing all Albanian authors as one, without differentiation, and with political aspirations.
Vladislav Popović, archeologist, meanwhile, did not hide his political assessments, of course, always in the spirit and with the aim of scientific objectivity: "...Georgje Kastrioti, called Skanderbeg, who opposed the Turks mercilessly in tragic circumstances until in 1468, and to whom memorials are erected in Albania today, he was actually the fiercest enemy of the historically turbulent nature of pre-Romanized and non-Hellenized natives, whom Albanian scientists claim to be Illyrians and with an almost miraculous courage think that their countrymen today are their direct descendants. Seen in this light, the Illyrian expansionist thesis is nothing but a contemporary and impoverished surrogate of the politics of the Turkish crescent, strongly supported by jatagan", Popović.
And further his conclusion extended to the 'revival of the Illyrians' "embodied in the Arbanians, as a product of the conjectures of philologists well learned in the German schools", Popović 1988: 249-50. He recognized the quality of German schools, but tried to completely devalue Albanian studies.
In closing remarks, archeology authority Milutin Garašanin, the great-grandson of the famous Ilija Garašanin, who in an extensive account a few years before his death in 1996 (Milutin Garašanin, razvovori o archeologiji, Beograd 1996, 1) asserted: "The family Garašanin is descended from Montenegro, from Bjelopavliqi... According to that legend, the Boškovićs, that is, us too, would be descended from Lekë Kapedani, which are fairy tales", he therefore saw it necessary to highlight some observations. According to him, the Illyrians were created through a long ethnocultural process of regrouping, disintegration and reintegration of different tribes and cultural groups in the Western Balkans. "They were gradually differentiated among the inhabitants of that three in the space from South Albania to Përdrin and Drini i Bardhë and up to today's middle Dalmatia. The inhabitants of Posavina, the northern coast of the Adriatic and its hinterland, and especially Dardania, are sharply separated from them. They, especially the latter, are formed from a completely different substrate. The Dardanians cannot be identified with the Illyrians", Garašanin 1988:362.
Of course, he did not leave without emphasizing their northern connection with the Dako-Mez substratum. His main conclusion speaks for itself: "Similar to Vlach, remnants of the Romanized population in the mountains, which moved here during the influx of peoples and Slavic immigration, the Albanians were created from the remnants of the pre-Romanized Paleo-Balkan population of those lands, among who probably also had remnants of the Illyrians and the Dardanians. Over time, especially within the framework of pastoral movements, the integration of certain elements, initially of different origins, that now enter history as a new people only in the XI-XII century, when for the first time, apparently already formed, are mentioned in Byzantine and South Slavic sources. It is clear that these elements were later joined by other components, especially Slavs, whose importance in Albania is proven by toponyms", Garašanin 1988: 366.
As a solution for the ethnogenesis of the Albanians, he saw two components: the biggest role was played by "remains of different elements from the old Paleo-Balkan substrate: Illyrians, Dacomese (Dardans) and Thracians"; These elements participate in the formation of Albanians at a time when they cannot be spoken of as ethnic formations, peoples, that disappeared with the Empire. But it did not show how these remnants were united exactly among the Arbans.
I think the political period of our time has an influence here. The book in question was created after 1981, when the theory about the Illyrian origin of Albanian was heavily criticized for political reasons, and even in the preface it was clearly stated that the book was being made against 'Albanian claims' that both Illyrians and Dardanians were Illyrians and Albanians are descendants theirs. I mean the reasoning, simplified, of course, could be something like this: the Albanians thought that if we say that both the Illyrians and the Dardanians are the ancestors of the Albanians, Dardania is the country of the Albanians as Illyrians; this could be translated in the case of such assumptions that justify the territorial claims of the Albanians for Kosovo, Dardania. Of course, conjectures such as simplifications cannot stand either in political relations or in scientific relations, therefore they do not become completely explicit. However, whether Albanian is the successor of Illyrian or of Dardanian, or of the hazy remnants, as the authors mentioned in their (dis)evaluations would like, it belongs to this space. V. Popović even went further with his settings: "these murky descendants of the ancient Balkan population", "with the crescent sword they came to conquer the country".
In 1968, the attack on Zef Mirdita at the symposium on pre-Slavic ethnic elements in the Balkans was precisely related to the ideas that emphasize the antiquity of the Albanians in the Balkans, and especially the descent from the Illyrians. After 1981, the campaign against albanology started. First, related to the articles about Albanians in the Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia, and then to the VI Congress of Communists of Serbia, where I. Ajeti spoke about the Illyrian origin of Albanians as a scientific matter. Discussions in scientific publications developed by the author of these ranks - 1985, French 1986 and later. The campaign in the means of public and cultural information in Serbia, especially against authors from Kosovo who spoke about the ancient and Illyrian origin of Albanians and the Albanian language, was entirely political. We will not deal with it in this case.
To be continued in the next issue of the Culture Supplement
also
Ideas about the origin of the Albanian language and Albanians in Yugoslavia
This statement is a condensed version of what academician Rexhep Ismajli presented at the International Assembly of Albanian Studies held in Tirana from November 25 to 27, organized by the Academy of Sciences of Albania in cooperation with the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo. Published with permission of the author
