Skanderbeg: verschil tussen versies

Bestand:Skanderbeg sculpture.jpg

Gjergj Kastrioti (geboren als Gjergj Kastrioti, in het Grieks Γεώργιος Καστριώτης, 6 mei (omstreden) 1405 - 17 januari 1468), beter bekend als Skanderberg, (Turks:İskender Bey) is een van de prominentste historische figuren uit de Albanese geschiedenis en een van de bekendste Albanezen. Hij staat ook wel bekend als de Draak van Albanië, en is de nationale held van de Albanezen. Hij word herdacht om zijn strijd tegen het Ottomaanse Rijk door het werk van zijn eerste biograaf, Marin Barleti^[1].

Bestand:Skanderbeu.jpg

Scanderbeg was geboren in Dibër, en een afstammeling van de Kastriotis, een van de belangrijkste families in Arberië, het hedendaagse Albanië. Volgens Gibbon ^[2] was de vader van Scanderbeg, Gjon Kastrioti, een erfprins van een klein district Epirus of Albanië, dat Mat, Krujë, Mirditë en Dibër omvatte^[3]. Zijn moeder, Voisava, was een prinses^[4] uit de Pologvallei, gelegen in het huidige Macedonië. Gjon Kastrioti was een van de tegenstanders van de vijandelijke inval door de Ottomaan Bayezid I, hoewel zijn verzet geen effect had. De sultan verplichtte hem, na zijn nederigheid te hebben geaccepteerd, hem eer te betuigen en de feodale verhoudingen te garanderen, en nam Gjergj Kastrioti en zijn drie broers op aan zijn hof als gijzelaars. Na zijn bekering tot de Islam^[5] ging hij naar de militaire school in Edirne en vocht in vele oorlogen voor het Ottomaanse Rijk met succes. Voor zijn vele militaire overwinningen kreeg hij de titel Arnavutlu İskender Bey (Albanees: Skënderbeu Shqiptari, Scanderbeg de Albanees). In het Turks betekent deze titel Heer Alexander de Albanees, waarmee Kastrioti's militaire genialiteit werd vergeleken met die van Alexander de Grote.

Hij verdiende onderscheiding als officier in diverse Ottomaanse campagnes, zowel in Klein-Azië als in Europa, en de sultan benoemde hem tot generaal door hem aan het hoofd te stellen aan een afdeling cavalerie van 5000 man. Sommige bronnen claimen dat hij er geheime banden met Ragusa, Venetië, Ladislaus VI van Hongarije en Alfonso I van Napels op nahield.

Op 28 november 1443 zag Scanderbeg zijn kans om te rebelleren tijdens een slag tegen de Hongaren, welke geleid werd door Johannes Hunyadi in Niš. Samen met 300 andere Albanezen uit het Ottomaanse leger deserteerde hij naar de andere zijde. Na een lange tocht naar Albanië veroverde hij uiteindelijk Krujë door een brief te vervalsen^[6] van de sultan aan de gouverneur van Krujë, welke hem het bestuur gaf over het gebied. Na het kasteel ingenomen te hebben zwoor Scanderbeg de profeet en de sultan af, en riep zichzelf uit tot wreker van zijn familie en zijn land. Hij hees zijn standaard (later werd dit de vlag van Albanië) boven het kasteel, en verklaarde naar verluidt: "Ik heb jullie geen vrijgeid gebracht; ik vond het hier, bij jullie.". Scanderbeg sloot een bondgenootschap met Gjergj Arianit Komneni^[7] en trouwde diens dochter Andronike (Marina Donika Arianiti)^[8].

Na de verovering van Krujë bracht Scanderbeg de Albanese prinsen bijeen in het dorp Lezhë^[9]. Volgens Gibbon^[2] werd hij op deze vergadering gekozen tot generaal van de Turkse oorlog en stelde ieder van de bondgenoten hem een proportioneel deel aan manschappen en geld ter beschikking. Met deze steun kon Scanderbeg versperringen bouwen, en een mobiele defensiemacht opzetten, welke de Ottomanen dwong hun manschappen te verdelen, wat hen kwetsbaar maakte voor de guerillia-tactieken van de Albanezen^[10]. Scanderbeg gebruikte in de guerillia-oorlog het bergachtig terrein in zijn voordeel, en zette zijn verzet tegen de Ottomaanse manschappen voort tot zijn dood, met een leger dat zelden boven de 20.000 uitkwam.

Hoewel het algemeen wordt aangenomen dat Scanderbeg deelnam aan de Tweede oorlog van Kosovo in 1448, kwam hij er eigenlijk nooit aan. Hij en zijn leger waren op weg om het Hongaarse leger van Johannes Hunyadi te versterken, maar de Albanezen werden tegengehouden en de doorweg werd geweigerd door Đurađ Branković van Servië, aangezien hij had toegestemd dat terwijl hij Scanderbeg zou helpen tegen Venetië, hij hem niet zou helpen tegen de Turken. Romd de tijd van de oorlog startte Mehmet II ook een inval in Albanië om Scanderbeg bezig te houden. Hoewel Hunyadi werd verslagen in de slag, verzette hij zich succesvol en versloeg hij Ottomaanse campagnes gedurende zijn leven.

Muzaka of Angelina, a nephew of Skanderbeg, and 18 other noblemen and army captains. These men were sent immediately to Istanbul and tortured for fifteen days.^[11] Skanderbeg’s pleas to have these men back, by either ransom or prisoner exchange, failed.

In 1466 Sultan Mehmed II personally led an army into Albania and laid siege to Krujë as his father had attempted sixteen years earlier. The town was defended by a garrison of 4,400 men, led by Prince Tanush Topia. After several months, Mehmed, like Murad II, saw that seizing Krujë by force of arms was impossible for him to accomplish. Shamed, he left the siege to return to Istanbul. However, he left a force of 40,000 men under Ballaban Pasha to maintain the siege, even building a castle in central Albania, which he named El-basan (the modern Elbasan), to support the siege. Durrës would be the next target of the sultan, in order to be used as a strong base opposite the Italian coast.^[12] The second siege of Kruja was eventually broken by Skanderbeg, resulting in the death of Ballaban Pasha from firearms.

A few months later in 1467, Mehmed, frustrated by his inability to subdue Albania, again led the largest army of its time into Albania. Krujë was besieged for a third time, but on a much grander scale. While a contingent kept the city and its forces pinned down, Ottoman armies came pouring in from Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, and Epirus with the aim of keeping the whole country surrounded, thereby strangling Skanderbeg’s supply routes and limiting his mobility. During this conflict, Skanderbeg fell ill with malaria in the Venetian-controlled city of Lezhë, and died on January 17 1468, just as the army under the leadership of Leke Dukagjini defeated the Ottoman force in Shkodër.

Skanderbeg's military successes evoked a good deal of interest and admiration from the Papal States, Venice, and Naples, themselves threatened by the growing Ottoman power across the Adriatic Sea. Skanderbeg managed to arrange for support in the form of money, supplies, and occasionally troops from all three states through his diplomatic skill. One of his most powerful and consistent supporters was Alfonso the Magnanimous, the king of Aragon and Naples, who decided to take Skanderbeg under his protection as a vassal in 1451, shortly after the latter had scored his second victory against Murad II. In addition to financial assistance, the King of Naples supplied the Albanian leader with troops, military equipment, and sanctuary for himself and his family if such a need should arise. As an active defender of the Christian cause in the Balkans, Skanderbeg was also closely involved with the politics of four Popes, including Pope Pius II, who hailed him as the Christian Gideon.^[13]

Profoundly shaken by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Pius II tried to organize a new crusade against the Ottoman Turks, and to that end he did his best to come to Skanderbeg's aid, as his predecessors Pope Nicholas V and Pope Calixtus III had done before him. the latter named him captain general of the Holy See. This policy was continued by his successor, Pope Paul II. They gave him the title Athleta Christi, or Champion of Christ.

Bestand:Piazza Albania.JPG

The Albanian resistance went on after the death of Skanderbeg for an additional ten years under the leadership of Dukagjini, though with only moderate success and no great victories. In 1478, the fourth siege of Krujë finally proved successful for the Ottomans; demoralized and severely weakened by hunger and lack of supplies from the year-long siege, the defenders surrendered to Mehmed, who had promised them to leave unharmed in exchange. As the Albanians were walking away with their families, however, the Ottomans reneged on this promise, killing the men and enslaving the women and children.^[12]

In 1479, the Ottoman forces captured the Venetian-controlled Shkodër after a fifteen-month siege.^[14] Shkodër was the last Albanian castle to fall to the Ottomans and Venetians evacuated Durrës in 1501. Albanian resistance continued sporadically until around 1500.

The union^[15] which Skanderbeg had maintained in Albania did not survive him. Without Skanderbeg at their lead, their allegiances faltered and splintered until they were forced into submission. The defeats triggered a great Albanian exodus^[14] to southern Italy, especially to the kingdom of Naples, as well as to Sicily, Greece, Romania, and Egypt. Following this, most of its population converted to Islam. Albania remained a part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912, never again posing a serious threat to the Ottomans.

The Ottoman Empire's expansion was ground to a halt during the timeframe in which Skanderbeg and his Albanian forces resisted. He has been credited with being the main reason for delaying Ottoman expansion into Western Europe, giving Vienna time to better prepare for the Ottoman arrival. While the Albanian resistance certainly played a vital role in this, it was one piece of numerous events that played out in the mid-15th century. Much credit must also go to the successful resistance mounted by Vlad III Dracula in Wallachia, as well as the defeats inflicted upon the Ottomans by Hunyadi and his Hungarian forces.

Skanderbeg's family, the Castriots,^[2] were invested with a Neapolitan dukedom after the Turkish pressure became too strong. They obtained a feudal fiefdom, the Duchy of San Pietro di Galatina. John, Skanderbeg's son, married Irene Palaeologus of the Byzantine royal family, the Palaeologus.^[16]

An illegitimate branch of that family lives onwards in south Italy, having used the name Castriota Scanderbeg for centuries. They have been part of Italian lower nobility. The legitimate line of George Castriota went extinct as to males within a few generations, but apparently the family continues through a Sanseverino branch. There is also a Spanish nobleman by the name of Juan Alandro Castriota who contributed a great deal towards Albania's struggle for independence.^[bron?]

A seal that is assumed to be a seal of Skanderbeg has been kept in Denmark since it was discovered in 1634. It was bought by the National Museum in 1839. According to the interpretation of the symbols and inscriptions by Danish scholars, the seal is made of brass, is 6 cm in length and weighs 280 g. The inscription is in Greek and reads Alexander (Skender) is an Emperor and a King. Emperor of the Romaic nation (Greeks) and King of the Turks, the Albanians, the Serbs and the Bulgarians. It naturally follows the inscription is laterally reversed. It is possible that the seal was made after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, since Skanderbeg is referred to as an Emperor of the Byzantines. The double eagle in the center of the seal is derived from the eagle of the Byzantine emperor, and this fact is also the most agreed upon among educated Albanians. Some claim it is a famous ancient Illyrian symbol. This seal is the origin of the flag of modern Albania. Furthermore, Skanderbeg never was a King of the Serbs or the Bulgars. It is possible the seal was 'designed' while Skanderbeg was organizing a crusade against the Ottomans or that it was manufactured when Skanderbeg was an ally of the King of Naples. It is also possible that the seal was commissioned by the family of Skanderbeg some time in the 16th century, or even that it is a fake from the 15th or 16th century.

His names have been spelled in a number of ways: George, Gjergj, Giorgio; Castriota, Kastrioti, Castrioti, ,^[6] Kastriotes, Castriot,^[13] Kastriot, Skanderbeg, Scanderbeg, Skenderbeg, Skanderbeu, Scander-Begh, or Iskander Bey.

Skanderbeg issued many edicts, like census of the population and tax collection, during his reign based on Roman and Byzantine law.^[bron?]

When the Ottomans found the grave of Skanderbeg in Saint Nicholas, a church in Lezhë, they opened it and made amulets of his bones,^[2] believing that these would confer bravery on the wearer.

Skanderbeg today is the national hero of Albania. Many museums and monuments, such as the Skanderbeg Museum next to the castle in Krujë, have been raised in his honor around Albania and in predominantly Albanian-populated Kosovo. Skanderbeg's struggle against the Ottoman Empire became highly significant to the Albanian people, as it strengthened their solidarity, made them more conscious of their national identity, and served later as a great source of inspiration in their struggle for national unity, freedom, and independence.

In Arbëresh poems he is not only the defender of their home country, but also the defender of Christianity. For the Albanians in Albania, Skanderbeg is a national argument proving Albania's cultural affinity to Europe. Many have argued he was Muslim himself, although he was not. He had converted while held captive in Anatolia, but later reverted back to Christianity upon escaping.

Skanderbeg gathered quite a posthumous reputation in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. With virtually all of the Balkans under Ottoman rule and with the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1683, nothing could have captivated readers in the West more than an action-packed tale of heroic Christian resistance to the "Moslem hordes".

Books on the Albanian prince began to appear in Western Europe in the early 16th century. One of the earliest of these histories to have circulated in Western Europe about the heroic deeds of Skanderbeg was the Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi, Epirotarum Princeps (Rome ca. 1508-1510), published a mere four decades after Skanderbeg's death. This History of the life and deeds of Scanderbeg, Prince of the Epirotes was written by the Albanian historian Marinus Barletius Scodrensis, known in Albanian as Marin Barleti,^[1] who after experiencing the Turkish occupation of his native Shkodër at firsthand, settled in Padua where he became rector of the parish church of St. Stephan. Barleti dedicates his work to Donferrante Kastrioti,^[9] Skanderbeg's grandchild, and to posterity. The book was first published in Latin and has since been translated in many languages.

The work was widely read in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was translated and/or adapted into a number of foreign language versions: German by Johann Pincianus (1533), Italian by Pietro Rocca (1554, 1560), Portuguese by Francisco D'Andrade (1567), Polish by Ciprian Bazylik (1569), French by Jaques De Lavardin, also known as Jacques de Lavardin, Seigneur du Plessis-Bourrot (Histoire de Georges Castriot Surnomé Scanderbeg, Roy d'Albanie, 1576), and Spanish by Juan Ochoa de la Salde (1582). The English version, translated from the French of Jaques De Lavardin by one Zachary Jones Gentleman, was published at the end of the 16th century under the title, Historie of George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albinie; containing his Famous Actes, his Noble Deedes of Armes and Memorable Victories against the Turkes for the Faith of Christ. Gibbon was not the first one who noticed that Barleti is sometimes inaccurate in favour of his hero;^[17] for example, Barleti claims that the Sultan was killed by disease under the walls of Kruje.^[18]

Skanderbeg's posthumous fame was not confined to his own country. Voltaire starts his chapter "The Taking of Constantinople" with the phrase

Had the Greek Emperors acted like Scanderbeg, the empire of the East might still have been preserved.^[19]

A number of poets and composers have also drawn inspiration from his military career. The French 16th century poet Ronsard wrote a poem about him, as did the 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.^[20] Antonio Vivaldi composed an opera entitled Scanderbeg. For Gibbon, "John Huniades and Scanderbeg... are both entitled to our notice, since their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the Greek empire."

In 1855, Camille Paganel wrote Histoire de Scanderbeg, inspired by the Crimean War.^[21]

• The palace in Rome in which Skanderbeg resided in 1465-66 still bears his name. A statue in the city is also dedicate to him.

• In 2006, a statue of Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg was unveiled on the grounds of St. Paul's Albanian Catholic Community in Rochester Hills, Michigan, making it the first Skanderbeg statue in the United States.^[bron?]

Skanderbeg fought many battles and many of them ended with victory.

• Battle of Ujebardha
• Battle of Torviolli
• Battle of Drin
• Siege of Berat
• First Siege of Krujë
• Second Siege of Krujë
• Third Siege of Krujë
• Fourth Siege of Krujë
• Fall of Krujë
• Siege of Shkodra

• Arms of Skanderbeg
• History of Albania
• History of Ottoman Empire

-->

• Adapted from Fan S. Noli's biography George Castrioti Scanderbeg

• A Short History of George Castriota Scanderbeg
• Scanderbeg's expedition to Italy
• Heraldic Source on Scanderbeg
• The Arbreshe and Contessa Entellina
• A Brief History of Albania
• Benjamin Disraeli, 1833, The Rise of Iskander, (Note this is historical fiction)
• Analysis of literature on Scanderbeg
• Scanderbeg: Warrior-King of Albania - trailer of a documentary