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From the love of money, gambling to individualism: The character of Albanians according to Faik Konica

2022-10-19 20:24:32Fokus SHKRUAR NGA FAIK KONICA
From the love of money, gambling to individualism: The character of Albanians
Faik Konica

Albanians - the keys to understanding their life and nature

To understand the history of a people it is necessary to study its nature, but an impartial study is difficult, because the witness may have either a bad attitude or an unsupported sympathy, according to his personal experience. Therefore I will try to give a brief overview of this particular issue, looking at it from several angles.

The

First, it is very important to know that the most serious insult in Albania is to call someone unfaithful, that is, that he is not loyal. Many cases of blood feuds have had as a starting point the accusation of infidelity. Of course, this does not mean that in Albania there are no people who cheat, but it shows us without a mistake what is the basic requirement for behavior, the ideal that is aimed at. On the contrary, it is interesting to point out that in today's Greece the most serious insult to a person is to call him illiterate and fat, so the ideal of Albania's southern neighbors is intelligence instead of strong character. As a proverb says, which is often mentioned everywhere in Albania, the Albanian burns the quilt for a flea, which means that he is impatient and cracked. The proverb may have originated from some thoughtless advice given to a superior, not to rush into starting a costly fight over something completely pointless. Another very nice rule of conduct is the saying that "the forgiven head is not cut off", which means that when the enemy is captured or subdued, he does not have to be killed. The Byzantine historian Nikifor Gregoras, of whom it can be said without a doubt that he was not pro-Albanian, affirms the fact that Albanians neither kill nor enslave defeated enemies.

It is true that Gregoras also adds the names of some other peoples of the Byzantine Empire who have this same ethic of war, but in the Byzantine chronicles many examples can be found contrary to this. However, in recent times, among all the nationalities of Southeast Europe, only the Albanians are known to have remained loyal to the chivalric tradition to spare the defeated enemy.

There is an Albanian rule that is universally recognized and proven in life: the woman is inviolable. Even in blood feuds and in the fiercest wars, women have not been shot. When a man has enemies who hunt him to get his hack, and he is constrained by the necessity of making a journey, it happens that he, in order to make the way safe, takes a woman with him, although such an act is called unmanliness. Even high street Cubans respect this rule.

Forty years ago, the entire press of the world was filled one day with the news of a brave deed: an international train going from Paris to Istanbul was stopped by bandits in Thrace. All the male passengers were forced to get off the train with loot in hand and robbed of all their valuables, while the leader of the gang told the women to stay in their seats and apologized several times for the trouble they had caused. From the orders he gave to his friends in the Albanian language, the nationality of the bandits became known.

When they speak consciously about themselves, Albanians are proud of having many qualities and virtues. This is a weakness of all peoples and such thoughts have no value. On the contrary, popular expressions and sayings are judgments of their own, so to speak, in them a people is caught in the moment when they speak without thinking. We will continue tracking in this direction and will try to find out the opinions of other peoples about Albanians.

Of particular interest is the opinion of the Turks, because they have been with the Albanians for five centuries. All Turkish historians talk about the stubbornness of the Albanians. Arnaud-innud (headless Albanians), is an expression embedded in old chronicles. In addition, Turks think that Albanians are stubborn.

"There is an Albanian vein" is a common saying of the Turks. Mr. James Redhouse, who included this saying in his monumental Turkish-English Dictionary, gives this definition in the new edition of 1921: "Arnautligi tuttu" jumped the pulse of the Albanian, spoke or acted as an Albanian usually does, with impulsive violence". In the opinion of the old Turkish commanders of the army, the Albanian is a very brave and excellent warrior to attack the enemy or to take a place by assault, but is indifferent when the circumstances call for a defensive tactic. According to the Turks, the Albanian is smart. However, a seventeenth-century Turkish historian, Ibrahim Peçevi, disagrees. Speaking of the Grand Vizier,

According to the Turks, another characteristic feature of Albanians is the love for money; they are always ready to enter into the most dangerous adventures, if they see a profit. In the times of the old Turkish Empire, they told a story: "They asked the Albanian: will you go to hell?" He answered: "How much do they pay there?".

In today's Greek language, there are two expressions related to Albanians: koko albani, which means a stubborn, steadfast person; when someone is in trouble and friends want to comfort him, they remind him that God is not Albanian, so God is merciful. The implication of ruthlessness is explicable in the light of history. For many centuries, the Greeks have known the Albanian only as an attacker, as a pirate who robs coastal cities, as a soldier sent to the Greek islands for punitive expeditions, as a gendarme or as a tax collector. The noble side of the Albanian is unknown to the Greek.

***

Hobhaus, Byron's friend who was later called Lord Broughton, was very impressed by the national feeling as a characteristic of Albanians.

"Here there is," he says, "a spirit of independence and love for the country by all the people, and this to a great extent eliminates the deep difference that is observed in other parts of Turkey between the followers of the two religions." Thus, when the inhabitants of other countries ask them what they are, do they answer: "We are Turks" or "We are Christians", while the inhabitants of this country answer: "I am Albanian"... The national feeling is very noticeable in the character of theirs. If one of them leaves the country and while traveling learns that a countryman of his own lives in a village near which he may pass, although he has never seen or heard of him, he changes his route and goes to meet him. . I have several times witnessed the joy which they express when thus meeting by chance, manifest it more openly than two English friends show their feelings on these occasions.

Hobhaus notes that Albanians "are not mean-spirited and when they become ruthless, it comes not so much from the principle of revenge as from the passion of the moment. Betrayal is a vice that you hardly find between them".

But the best observations in Hobhaus's in-depth study are about Albanians' desire for entertainment.

 

His greatest pleasure, - writes Hobaugh, - when he is not busy fighting, is to bask in the sun, smoke, eat, drink brandy, take a nap or come around in the garden around his hut, playing the lute with a single tune. Although he is bored, he is still impatient and ready to grab his rifle and hide in the forest at the first call of his master.

As Tacitus says, human nature is surprisingly unstable, when those same people are as lazy as they are unhappy to rest... But the clumsiness or rather the hatred for work, which is observed in this people, is in no way associated with that appearance importance and laziness that you generally see in Turks. On the contrary, Albanians are lively, even playful; though their popular games are not very active, yet when they play backgammon and other games sitting down, they show their enjoyment by loud bursts of laughter or other signs of childish joy. They also make very strong appearances when expressing their likes or dislikes, and as they have very little self-control, and always prefer force to guile, they do not care to conceal their passions."

Hobhaus's book made Byron not to write too long about Albania. The poet himself tells us this way: "I don't want to dwell too much on Albania and its inhabitants, because this will be done very well by my fellow traveler in a book, which is very likely to come out of the press before this one ("Child Haroldi") , and that's why I don't want to follow him, nor get ahead of him."

Then Byron makes some curious remarks about Albanians and Scottish Highlanders: "The Arnauts or Albanians have made a strong impression on me with their resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland in dress, stature and way of life. Even their mountains looked like those of Caledonia, only with a milder climate. Their fustanella, although white, unlike the kilt, their dry and lively stature, their speech that sounds like Celtic and their heavy habits, all of which reminded me of Morven".

Byron wrote to his mother: "I like Albanians" and his letters to his mother from Albania are full of pictorial details.

In that period of Lik, Hobhaus and Byron, Albania was also visited by a clergyman of the Church of England, His Grace TSHjuz, who in the two volumes of his travels has these condensed notes about the nature of the Albanian.

"By temperament, Albanians are a bit quarrelsome and rarely forgive a blow; without any doubt, they do not lack talent and insight, and it is a noted fact that the three greatest men that Turkey has produced in this century, all of them are of Albanian origin."

of secondment

It is worth noting that no one in this gallery of observers, apparently, has found the most important characteristic of Albanians and precisely that, without the recognition of which their history would remain a mystery, that is, their individualism.

A German researcher, Dr. Herbert Luis, who, as we have already said, was commissioned by the Albanian government to study the topography of the country, claims that there is no such phenomenon as the crowd in Albania.

"One of the strongest impressions," says dr. Luisi, - what my long contact with the Albanian population has left me is surely this: that in every Albanian there is a self-confident person. Every individual, whether clever or stupid, has a surprising faculty of self-determination and puts his wealth and blood on the cards in a business-like manner. In an ambiguous situation, everyone without any limitation, whether their judgment is big or small, participates sensibly, and everyone is ready to take a powerful initiative. In short, there are no indifferent measures in Albania."

The lack of this herd spirit can be interesting, but it has had fatal consequences for the unity of Albania. Due to the fact that the Albanian has always wanted to participate personally, directly, even without the mediation of delegates, for the discussion of the issues of the whole society, his idea of ​​the government has not crossed the borders of his city or his mountain. As for the ancient Greeks and the Italians of the Middle Ages, the ideal of the Albanian was the city-state. And when a national need demanded unity of action, only after endless negotiations could joint measures be decided which would sometimes be taken too late. Whenever Albania was invaded in the past, it always happened because there was a lack of coordinated resistance. Not far away, at the end of the eighteenth century, English and French authors speak of Albania as a conglomeration of a large number of small republics and semi-feudal units, sometimes connected in groups, sometimes completely separate and isolated, that recognized the sultan as a distant ruler and undefined, which did not interfere in local governance. It is interesting to compare two rulers of Albania in the last years of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century: Ali Pasha Tepelena in the South and Karamahmud Pasha Bushatlliu in the North. Both were Albanians and both were successful. But they hated Ali Pasha, because despite his iniquity and crimes, he had the notion of a disciplined union and with a bloody hand forced them to obey a central authority,

***

Another peculiarity of Albanians is the general aversion to punishment. Since the intervention of a central authority in local and individual liberties is felt as a usurpation of power, the laws made by such an authority are called fundamentally unjust and their implementation, no matter how serious the violation may have been, is seen simply as an act of illegal. Moreover, a certain patriarchal feeling makes severe punitive measures to be avoided. The death penalty is generally called something terrible, while it is a noted fact that today, as in the past centuries, you cannot find anyone in Albania who accepts the task of the hangman to hang. In order to execute the death sentences handed down by the courts, the police are forced to find the evgis, who strongly oppose and yet perform this terrible ceremony and, of course,

***

An undoubtedly unfortunate feature of Albanians and a very visible feature is the complete lack of idealism. In a country where people die so easily for nothing, it is unheard of to die for an ideal or a cause. It would take a long time to explain why Albania has not gained its freedom earlier and has a short list of martyrs for national freedom. Acts of bravery and piety that have resulted in thousands of deaths could make my claim of lack of idealism seem false. But blind loyalty to ingrained traditions and the qibar canon of honor are almost mechanical acts, which do not mean that one risks one's life for a freely chosen ideal.

Much has been said about the hospitality of the Albanians and this is quite true. This spirit of hospitality is to some extent limited by a tendency to be suspicious of strangers. There is no one more afraid and more wrinkled than an Albanian who faces the newcomers. In previous generations foreign visitors, except when properly introduced by someone, were suspected of being spies, who had come to map the country and keep records necessary for some planned invasion. Tozer tells us about the difficulties he encountered once, when he tried to visit an old tower. He and his fellow traveler “… launched the attack against the tower using a large stone, as the bolt was missing, for the door was bolted tight and we could hear the master moving upstairs. At first he pretended not to hear us, and when at last he came down he began a gibberish before we were admitted; as he secretly told our interpreter, he could not understand why we did not want to see this place, unless we intended to come as conquerors afterwards.

Today it is well known that the feelings of suspicion against foreigners have completely disappeared in relation to visitors who do not come from South-Eastern Europe, Miss Durham, who traveled all over Northern Albania at the beginning of this century, gives us as an example of Albanian hospitality a visit that he made in a mud hut, where the ragged owner with a chosen politeness invited them to stay: "We are poor, - he told them. – Bread, salt and heart, that's all we can offer you, but you're welcome and you can stay as long as you want.”

Another character trait of Albanians, which has often been pointed out by observers, is their strict honesty.

The ethical standard of Albanians is faith, that is, the given word. Regardless of the circumstances, when an Albanian gives his word, it cannot be violated and there is no need for any type of written agreement. Consequently, the meaning of the word "unfaithful" is the violation of the given word and the unfaithfulness, which we have already talked about.

In a series of commercial maps accompanied by text, published in 1886 by the French Ministry of Commerce, the fascicle dedicated to Albania informs exporters that there is no need for written agreements for Albanians, because their spoken word carries enough weight and no case is known that they violated it".

Henry N. Brailsford, in his well-known book about Macedonia, has this anecdote:

"The most meaningful thing of all was the laconic question with which a Bulgarian bishop answered my request. "Do you trust him?" - I asked him. - "He is an Albanian. Or isn't it?" – was the answer. - For centuries the Slavs and the Albanians have been in unceasing enmity to the death. And here, this is the comment of an enemy about the character of another".

Even after the anxiety of the World War, when Albania reluctantly became a battlefield for several nations and witnessed daily displays of naked dishonesty (foreign soldiers presented cigarette coupons as banknotes and gave them to unsuspecting farmers that in order to buy goods the officers cheated the people and each other or sold stolen goods from military depots and so on), generally it seems, Albanian honesty came out intact, if a little shaken.

III

Let's continue in some other directions to see the other keys that have to do with the character of the Albanian people.

Albanians are not so inclined to many words. The French author, Hyacinthe Hecquard, who was consul of France in Albania for many years and knew North Albania well, points out the brevity and dignity of the speeches in the popular assemblies. However, this dignified silence is not visible to the younger generation of Albanians, who have studied in the universities of Italy, France, Austria and other countries.

In a nation that has the spirit of adventure, there will be some place for gambling. Albanians are good losers. When I was a child I heard of an innkeeper who sat down with some customers for a game of gambling, lost all his money and chattels, and finally gambled away the inn and lost. Then he called a notary, handed over the property to the winner, greeted everyone and left without a single complaint. Albanian prisoners have invented a truly original type of gambling. Since they were not allowed to carry either cards or dice, then one day they started this game: during the break time they sit around and wait for the flies, the one who comes to see a fly wins a point. This ingenious invention belongs to the time of the Ottoman rule.

A flaw that is not usually found in the Albanian character is provocation. In the past, however, there was a scornful type of bully who enjoyed provoking fights just for the fun of it. These guys would walk into a coffee shop or some other crowded place and let a corner of their belt drag on the ground behind them. And as soon as someone accidentally stepped on the corner of the belt (and this was a thing that was bound to happen), they would turn around, take out their jatagan and ask the offender to also take out his jatagan and fight. The reign of these provocations ended more with the introduction of the pistol than the pressure of the police.

I believe that it is known everywhere that Albanians are tolerant of other faiths and, perhaps, this is the only country in Europe where there have been no religious wars. For this reason, some have often talked about Albanian "skepticism".

Excerpted from the book "Faik Konica Vepra 2", selected and prepared by Prof. Nasho Jorgaqi (DUDAJ publications 2001)/Prepared by: Vox News


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