Marin Barleti - The Siege of Shkodra: Albanias Courageous Stand Against Ottoman Conquest, 1478

David Hosaflook, 2012

The book you are about to read was an international bestseller in the sixteenth century. The Ottoman Turks were on the move, and Europeans were fearful as one Christian city after another fell to Islamic conquest. Marin Barleti, a Shkodran priest who witnessed the events of the siege of Shkodra, wrote this work in Latin in 1504. It was soon translated into Italian, Polish, and French, providing a graphic inside look at an Ottoman invasion.

A generation earlier, Europeans had considered Constantinople (Istanbul) an impenetrable buffer city to the East, as it had successfully resisted invading armies for more than a millennium. With Constantinople as its great wall and the Adriatic Sea as its great moat, Europe felt safe and remained focused on its internal disputes.

In the spring of 1453, the world changed. In just fifty-four days a new Ottoman sultan managed to do the impossible: he besieged and defeated Constantinople, declared it his capital, converted its grand Hagia Sophia into a mosque, and took his seat upon the throne of the Caesars. With greater exploits in holy war than all previous Muslim sovereigns, it seemed obvious to himif not divinely ordainedthat he should become lord of the world. At only twenty-one years of age, he was Mehmed II the Conqueror . With the new Rome now under his feet, it was time for the young man to go west, toward the old Rome.

Albanias Strategic Importance

There was, however, the problem of the moat. If Mehmed was to attack the Italian peninsula with impunity, he would have to secure the Adriatic Sea. Assailing the old Rome from the new Rome was risky: the distance was too great and the Venetian navy was too strong. The sultan needed an intermediate supply station and launching platform between Istanbul and Italy. A simple glance at a map is all that is needed to see why Mehmed needed Albania. He had already made some inroads there; but having been preoccupied with the East, he had not yet exerted himself to secure all of Albania.

Emboldened by swift and decisive victories in his other campaigns, Mehmed imagined that victory in Albania would be equally swift and decisive; but he underestimated the tenacity of the Albaniansthe sons of the eagleand the impregnability of their fortresses. The struggle turned out to be nightmarish and dogged, frustrating the sultan and delaying his invasion of Europe until the year before he died. Before Mehmed had come to power, one of the most renown Ottoman military commanders had defectedScanderbegan Albanian kidnapped in his youth and trained for elite leadership in the Ottoman court. Scanderbeg united Albanian clans, led a rebellion, secured aid from the West, and vanquished many a Turkish army. He and the Albanians became an unexpected bone in Mehmeds throat as Europe cheered from afar.

Shkodras role in shielding Western Europe

In 1468, when Scanderbeg died, Mehmeds hopes and Europes fears were renewed. How could the Albanian resistance continue without its inimitable leader? No individual could replace Scanderbeg: that was clear to all. But perhaps a city could. Shkodra proved to be the formidable foe that would shield Western Europe from the Turks for yet another decade. In 1814, William Martin Leake wrote that the defense of Shkodra confers as much honor upon the Albanians as all the exploits of Scanderbeg ( Researches 249). Thus we are introduced to the extraordinary conflict of 1478 that inspired Barletis bestselling book: the Ottomans versus the Shkodrans, an empire versus a city.

The siege of Shkodra marked the end of Mehmeds reign as dramatically as the siege of Constantinople had marked its beginning. Mehmed led both sieges personally. In Constantinople he won, just two years after his reign had begun. In Shkodra he lost, just two years before his reign would end. In fact, when The Conqueror died at the premature age of forty-nine, the Shkodrans boasted that it was their doingdeath by frustration. Admittedly, Mehmed eventually acquired Shkodra (Venice ceded it to him in a peace agreement), but the fact remained that the sultan failed twice to take it by direct force.

Who knows what the world would look like today were it not for the Shkodran resistance that delayed the Ottomans surge toward Western Europe. Historian Gazmend Shpuza notes, The Albanians attracted the prime forces of the Ottoman Empire when it was at its zenith and... impeded the westward advance of its hordes.... Only after the fall of Shkodra did Sultan Mehmed II begin to make specific plans to actualize his long-cherished dream of crossing the Adriatic (222). At the walls of Shkodra, the Turkish battle cry was To Rome! To Rome! Incredibly and regrettably, history has all but overlooked the siege of Shkodra. The primary reason is that Marin Barletis masterpiece has only now been translated into English.

Albania and the Albanians in modern times

The Albanians are an ancient, enigmatic, and honorable people. They have never invaded a neighbor but have often been called to defend the receding borders of their homeland. The 1478 siege of Shkodra commenced the full-scale Ottoman occupation of the whole of Albania that would last 434 years, ushering in both Islamic and Turkish culture. Unlike other Balkan nations occupied by the Turks, Albania did not have a national church or liturgy in the vernacular; consequently, conversion to Islam over the centuries became a pragmatic choice unaffected by nationalism. Conversion both eased the Albanians coexistence with the Turks and solidified their identity as non-Greek and non-Serb. Nevertheless, in general every religion was viewed as a foreign import. In the late 1800s, Shkodran-born Vaso Pasha, who wielded the pen of the Albanian Awakening, wrote what would become the motto of Albanian nationalism: Look not to churches and mosques, for the religion of the Albanian is Albanianism.