[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 154 (Friday, November 18, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2430-E2432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    GJERGJ KASTRIOTI ``SKENDERBEG''

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. DANA ROHRABACHER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 18, 2005

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I wish to place in today's 
Congressional Record

[[Page E2431]]

this excellent speech by Congressman Joseph J. DioGuardi on Gjergj 
Kastrioti ``Skenderbeg.''

                    Gjergj Kastrioti ``Skenderbeg''

                        (By Joseph J. DioGuardi)

       From 1443, when he returned in triumph to the White Castle 
     in Kruja to his deathbed at Lezha in 1468, Skenderbeg left an 
     unforgettable legacy of great heroism in the defense of 
     freedom. Gjergj Kastrioti lived and died for what he firmly 
     believed were the sacred values of faith, virtue, honor, 
     freedom, courage, and love of country. These universal values 
     are clearly displayed in his correspondence and speeches, 
     along with his deep philosophy of life and his incredible 
     deeds. Who was Gjergj Kastrioti? Why is he an important 
     historical figure? What can Albanians today learn from his 
     life and deeds? Why is he not better known around the world?
       Kastrioti was the son of an Albanian prince, Gjon 
     Kastrioti, who ruled the Albanian lands in the Balkan 
     Peninsula at the end of the 14th century and the beginning of 
     the fifteenth century. Gjon had kept the invading Ottoman 
     Turks at bay for more than twenty years when he was forced 
     into a deceptive peace treaty in 1422 with Sultan Murad II to 
     secure the rear of the Turkish army in Southeast Europe and 
     spare the lives of his people from the wrath of the Ottoman 
     Empire. To guarantee the arrangement, the Sultan took Gjon's 
     youngest son, Gjergj, hostage to Adrianople, the European 
     capital of the Ottoman Empire. Here, Gjergj was sent to the 
     Ottoman military academy where he excelled in all ways and 
     adopted the Moslem alias ``Iskender Bey,'' or Lord Alexander 
     after Alexander the Great. Skenderbeg's excellent academic 
     and military record caught the eye of the Sultan, who gave 
     him the rank of general even before reaching twenty years of 
     age. Skenderbeg's military successes against the enemies of 
     the Ottoman Empire became legendary, as were the decorations 
     and gifts bestowed on him after each incredible triumph.
       An important turning point in Skenderbeg's life came when, 
     in 1443, he received the sad news from Kruja of his father's 
     death. Gjon had defied and frustrated the Ottomans for more 
     than fifty years and the Sultan grew suspicious of 
     Skenderbeg's potential to take his father's place in trying 
     to perpetuate a free Albania even after Greece, Bulgaria, 
     Romania, and Serbia had been conquered. Skenderbeg sensed the 
     danger to him and to his father's people and decided to seize 
     the moment in November 1443, when he was sent on a military 
     excursion to defeat the Hungarians led by another great 
     freedom fighter (and thorn in the side of the Sultan), 
     Janos Hunyadi. Rather than do the Sultan's dirty work at 
     Nish (in Serbia today), he fooled his fellow Ottoman 
     commanders and fled the battlefield to Kruja with three 
     hundred of his loyal Albanian horsemen. Two weeks after 
     triumphantly entering Albania at Dibra, he stormed the 
     White Castle at Kruja on November 28, 1443 and deposed the 
     Ottoman governor there. The next twenty-five years would 
     see some of the greatest military feats against the ever 
     powerful and growing Ottoman Empire. It was only after 
     Skenderbeg's death in 1468 that the Ottomans were able to 
     get a foothold in Albania. Without their great leader, the 
     struggle against the Ottomans faltered, leading to a 
     complete occupation of Albanian lands in 1488. This lasted 
     425 years until Ismail Qemali raised Skenderbeg's double-
     headed eagle banner at Vlora on November 28, 1912.
       It is one thing for Albanians today to praise and honor 
     Gjergj Kastrioti. But let's now take some time to hear about 
     this saintly knight, his incredible military genius, and our 
     Albanian national hero from those who knew him well. Having 
     now read a great deal about Skenderbeg, it became evident 
     that a Roman Catholic priest from Shkodra, Marin Barletius, 
     wrote the most comprehensive and vivid account of 
     Skenderbeg's life and deeds. His twelve-volume work included 
     Kastrioti's letters, speeches, and his philosophy of life, 
     religion, and nation. Since Barletius was a contemporary of 
     Skenderbeg, he had access to firsthand information from the 
     battlefields, the archives in Rome, and many other personal 
     firsthand accounts from witnesses of Kastrioti's phenomenal 
     accomplishments, character, and charisma. The scholarly work 
     of Barletius, originally written in Latin, was translated 
     widely, including French and English, which allowed many to 
     know about the legendary feats of Skenderbeg.
       The nineteenth-century American poet Henry Wadsworth 
     Longfellow had been mesmerized reading about the incredible 
     life and deeds of Gjergj Kastrioti. His epic poem 
     ``Scanderbeg'' gave a vivid account of Kastrioti triumphant 
     in Kruja on November 28, 1443:

     . . . Anon from the castle walls
     The crescent banner falls,
     And the crowd beholds instead,
     Like a portent in the sky,
     Iskander's banner fly,
     The Black Eagle with double head.
     And shouts ascend on high
     . . .'' Long live Scanderbeg.

       Skenderbeg's genius has been likened by many military 
     experts to Alexander the Great. Major General James Wolfe, 
     commander of the English army at the siege of Quebec, Canada, 
     wrote to Lord Sydney that ``Scanderbeg exceeds all the 
     officers, ancient and modern, in the conduct of a defensive 
     army. I met him in Turkish history but nowhere else.''
       Historian Edmond Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the 
     Roman Empire said: ``In the list of heroes, John Hunyadi and 
     Scanderbeg are commonly associated and entitled to our notice 
     since their occupation of arms delayed the ruin of the Greek 
     (Byzantine) Empire. . . . The Albanian prince may justly 
     be praised as a firm and able champion of his national 
     independence. The enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has 
     ranked him with the names of Alexander the Great and 
     Pyrrhus. . . .''
       Even the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser held that 
     Scanderbeg was ``matchable to the greatest of the great'' in 
     his preface to an English translation of Barletius, which 
     concluded by saying:

     To one whom later age has brought to light,
     Matchable to the greatest of the great:
     Great both in name and great in power and might,
     And meriting a mere triumphant feat.
     The scourge of Turks, and plague of infidels,
     Thy acts, O' Scanderbeg, this volume tells.

       Finally, among the many, many accounts of one Albanian 
     hero, we turn to the notable nineteenth-century English 
     literary figure Lord Byron who fell in love with everything 
     he saw in Albania. Like Kastrioti, Byron had a deep love of 
     freedom and national independence. In his poem ``Child 
     Harold's Pilgrimage,'' he wrote:

     Land of Albania, where Islander rose,
     Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise,
     And he, his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes
     Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprize.
     Land of Albania, let me bend my eyes
     On thee, though rugged nurse of savage men!
     Where is the foe that ever saw their back? . . .

       In short, Gjergj Kastrioti was an exceptional military 
     genius, a man of great faith and courage, a philosopher and 
     one who cherished personal freedom and national independence. 
     He was the subject of many books, poems, and even an opera by 
     Vivaldi! His imposing figure, sword in hand, atop his 
     majestic stallion, graces the capitals of Italy, Austria, and 
     Hungary today. And, on the 600th anniversary of his birth, a 
     Congressional Resolution introduced in the U.S. House of 
     Representatives, the most democratic forum in the world, 
     recounts his many deeds and his importance as an historic 
     figure not just for Albanians and the Balkans, but Western 
     Europe, which he saved from Ottoman domination.
       What Albanians can learn today from Skenderbeg's life and 
     deeds is limitless. As a man of great faith, he placed 
     himself at God's mercy on many occasions where he was facing 
     overwhelming odds. On one such occasion, after defeating the 
     Hungarian army at Varna in 1445, Sultan Murad sent a 
     threatening letter to Skenderbeg, who now stood between the 
     Ottoman Empire and a Europe in disarray. True to his nature 
     as a great leader and man of God with a steadfast vision of 
     freedom for his people and all of Europe, he boldly 
     responded to the Sultan:
       ``Cease your angry threats and tell us not of the Hungarian 
     (mis)fortune. Every man has his own resolution . . . and so 
     will we with patience endure such fortune as it shall please 
     God to appoint us. Meanwhile, for direction of our affairs, 
     we will not request counsel of our enemies, nor peace from 
     you, but victory by the help of God!''
       Albanian leaders today, especially in Kosova seeking 
     complete independence from Serbia, would do well to emulate 
     the resolute way in which Skenderbeg pursued his vision of 
     freedom for his people. He made no room for compromise with 
     his enemies and showed fierce determination to prevail even 
     in the face of such a formidable adversary as the Ottoman 
     Empire. He did this relying not only on his skill as a great 
     national leader and military tactician, but on his belief in 
     God's providence as well. We can all learn from Skenderbeg's 
     great example in pursuing the Albanian national cause today.
       Skenderbeg again showed his great faith in God and deep 
     loyalty to friends after his great friend and patron 
     Alphonse, King of Naples and Sicily, died in 1460. Italy was 
     plunged into bloodshed and rebellion, and Ferdinand I, 
     Alphonse's son and successor, came under attack from the 
     French once again. Feeling a deep moral obligation to repay 
     his steadfast friends and allies on the other side of the 
     Adriatic, Skenderbeg himself led an elite cavalry of 2,000 
     men there in the summer of 1461 and soon turned the tide 
     against the French and their Italian collaborators in the 
     bloody battle of Apulia. In reading the accounts of 
     Skenderbeg's exhortation to his soldiers before the battle of 
     Apulia, one is reminded of George Washington exhorting his 
     troops at Valley Forge:
       ``This now is our case, my good soldiers. . . . We are now 
     across the sea far from our own homes and from our own 
     country. . . . We are amongst strangers, altogether without 
     hope of ever returning again to our own (home) . . . if we do 
     not win a notable victory over our enemies. But have courage, 
     my men: Let us consider that this is God's will . . . that we 
     should maintain . . . the seat of the Church. And never doubt 
     that He will send us even from heaven an easy and speedy 
     victory.. . and then shall we return to our own country 
     victors, joyous and triumphant.''
       One might ask, after hearing of the greatness of 
     Skenderbeg, why he is not as well known today as before. I 
     believe that the history of Gjergj Kastrioti is inextricably 
     tied to that of the Albanian people. The Albanian nation was 
     submerged under the Ottoman Empire for 425 years. When it 
     emerged in

[[Page E2432]]

     1912, it was unfairly divided so that only half of the seven 
     million Albanians who live in the Balkans today live in the 
     State of Albania, with the other half living on her borders 
     in five other jurisdictions. The State of Yugoslavia was 
     created after World War I on the backs of the Albanian people 
     and on their land. Then Communism again submerged the 
     Albanian people--this time throwing them into a political 
     and economic ``black hole,'' stretching from Belgrade to 
     Tirana, for almost fifty years after World War II. It is a 
     wonder that the Albanian people kept their language, their 
     history, and their hope alive throughout the last six 
     hundred years of occupation and resistance. It is a wonder 
     that, amid all the national stress and personal sacrifice, 
     that Gjergj Kastrioti has not been forgotten altogether. 
     But he has not been forgotten, and it is a tribute to his 
     greatness and to the besa of the Albanian people that, 
     against all odds, Albanians are standing free today, in 
     Albania and Kosova, and that the sons and daughters of 
     Skenderbeg continue to adore him as their national hero 
     and liberator, and are building even more memorials to his 
     past and present glory and significance--even, with a U.S. 
     Congressional Resolution (H. Res. 522), in the capital of 
     the only superpower in the world today, Washington, DC.


                          author's postscript

       The battle of Apulia in the southern part of the Italian 
     Peninsula, near Naples, is of special significance to me and 
     my family. In 1461, after Skenderbeg and his elite cavalry 
     helped save the Kingdom of Naples from French domination, the 
     future security of the Kingdom was assured when Gjergj 
     Kastrioti decided to leave two thousand horsemen there, while 
     he returned to Albania to continue to defend the Albanian 
     people from Ottoman Turkish domination. As an inducement for 
     Skenderbeg to agree to what must have been a difficult 
     decision for him, the King of Naples awarded the Albanian 
     soldiers an area about forty miles east of Naples, including 
     a high mountaintop village called Greci. Greci had been 
     formed by Greek farmers and merchants in 535 AD and had since 
     declined after most Greeks abandoned the area that they had 
     controlled in the first millennium. Albanians changed the 
     name of the village to ``Katundi,'' which is the name used 
     today by the Albanian residents, even though the Italians 
     still call it Greci. My father, Joseph, Sr. immigrated to 
     America from Katundi in 1929 at the age of fifteen. His 
     family is descended from one of Skenderbeg's two thousand 
     soldiers, and this is a great reminder that the seeds of 
     Skenderbeg are still spreading across the oceans of the world 
     today.

                          ____________________