[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.
____________________