![]() His legacy did not thrive – within ten years, Krujë had fallen and Albania would remain under Ottoman control until 1912 – but his legend did. For 25 years he held the Ottoman Empire at bay in Albania and weakened and harassed them in neighbouring territories.Īt the age of 63, having put his affairs in order, the scourge of the Ottomans died. Italy was pinning its hopes on this Albanian warlord to hold back the Ottoman Empire from the coastline of Albania – from where it was only a short hop into Italy and the rest of western Europe. The Kingdom of Naples became another supporter. Pope Calixtus III provided funds for the Albanian campaigns and, after some impressive victories, named Skanderbeg Captain General of the Holy See. ![]() He raised financial support from the Venetians, who were keen to have the Ottomans distracted, rather than looking towards western Europe. Rejecting the Islam of his youth, Skanderbeg presented himself as a Christian bulwark against Islam. Soon after his return to Albania, he succeeded in uniting the local chieftains under his leadership and then he looked further afield. But Skanderbeg was more than just a gifted military commander he was also skilled at making alliances. This would have been a ludicrously difficult ambition for the ‘Albanian Braveheart’ and his small force of deserters – William Wallace, after all, only had the forces of England to worry about, not the entire Ottoman Empire. He established himself in the mountainous stronghold of Krujë and from there set about expelling the Ottomans from Albania. At the head of a small force of Albanians who had also deserted, he put his expert military skills towards reclaiming his father’s lands. During a major Turkish defeat at Niš, Serbia, in 1443, Skanderbeg abandoned the Turkish side and turned homewards. With no father or any lands to protect, whatever loyalty Skanderbeg might have had to the Ottoman Empire melted away. ![]() That proved to be a costly mistake on the part of the Ottomans. Skanderbeg requested to be granted a portion of his ancestral lands, but he was denied. Skanderbeg’s military successes and his popularity at court protected him from suffering for his father’s disloyalty, but it did not protect his birthright and the Kastrioti lands were divided up among others. He died in exile in a monastery in Greece. Gjon decided that Venice offered the best chance of security for his threatened domain and joined a doomed uprising against the Ottoman Empire, losing all his lands. By his early twenties he was making his mark in Ottoman campaigns against Christian territories, to the extent that his father had to apologise to Venice for his son’s activities. He proved to be a gifted military leader. He was trained in the art of war and granted the title bey (lord or chieftain) and so the warrior ‘Skanderbeg’ came into being. Gjergj left his homeland at the age of nine for Adrianople (Edirne, in modern Turkey), where he was converted to Islam from Christianity and given a new name: Alexander, or in Turkish, Iskander. As part of this policy, he sent some of his sons east as political hostages, to be raised in the Ottoman court. His father, Gjon (John) Kastrioti, tried to walk a delicate political line to avoid being overthrown by either the Venetians or the Ottoman Turks. He was the youngest son of a local ruler, but tiny Albania was under pressure from both west and east. Skanderbeg was born Gjergj (George) Kastrioti in 1405 in the town of Krujë in the Albanian mountains. Who was this forgotten hero – sometimes called ‘The Albanian Braveheart’ – and what relevance, if any, does he have today? ‘Land of Albania! Where Iskander rose Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise,’ wrote Byron in 1812. Now an obscure figure outside Albania, for centuries Skanderbeg was lauded throughout Europe. The Albanian government made the decision late last year, as 2018 marks 550 years since his death, in 1468. You could be forgiven for missing the announcement that 2018 is the ‘Year of Skanderbeg’.
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