History of Albania - Storia Albanese

Friday, January 17, 2014

Muhammad Ali Pasha

One person among the many who have lead Egypt through its 5000 hears of history is Muhammad Ali Pasha. An unusual visionary who new how to use the talent and advice of his advisors, his leadership expanded Egypt’s influence and its agricultural technology into the surrounding countries. The Founder of Modern Egypt Muhammad Ali Pasha (Arabic: اشاب يلع دمحم ) or Mehmet Ali Paşa (Kavalalı Mehmet Ali Pasha in Turkish) (c. 1769 – August 2, 1848), was a viceroy of Egypt and is often cited as the founder of modern Egypt. Muhammad Ali was born in the town of Kavala (in present day Greece) in an Albanian family. After working for a time in his youth as a tobacco merchant, Muhammad Ali took a commission in the Ottoman army. Ali spent the first years of his rule fighting off attempts to unseat him and extended his personal authority over all of Egypt. In one of the most infamous episodes of his reign, Ali definitively broke the power of the Mamluks by massacring their leaders. Having worn down the Mamluks for years with raids and skirmishes, he invited their amis in 1811 to a feast to celebrate his son Tosu Paşa’s appointment to lead the army being sent against the Wahhabi rebellion in Arabia. As the procession of Mamluk princes made its way through a narrow gated alley in the Citadel, Ali’s men shut the gates, trapping all the Mamluks and his rival Kadeem, as the soldiers positioned in the buildings facing the alley opened fire from above. When the shooting ended, soldiers on the ground finished off any Mamluks still living with swords and axes. In the following days, he ordered his men to kill any other Mamluks they could catch. Industrialization and modernization The reign of Muhammad Ali and his successors over Egypt was a period of rapid reform and modernization that led to Egypt becoming one of the most developed states outside of Europe. It also led to massive government expenditures, that ended up bankrupting Egypt and eventually led to it 65 falling under control of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Muhammad Ali executed one of the greatest land grabes in history. He confiscated the feudal farms of the Mameluk grandees and stripped Cairo’s religious institutions of their 600,000 prime acres of landholdings. Thus decapitating Cairo’s medieval order and Egypt was now the viceroy’s private plantation. With the help of the French, Muhammed Ali set about making changes. He ordered wide-scale planting of a new strain of cotton, which was to be the cash crop that would finance the economic revival. Since British textile manufacturers were willing to pay good money for such cotton, Ali ordered the majority of Egyptian peasants to cultivate cotton at the exclusion of all other crops. At harvest time, Ali bought the entire crop himself, which he then sold at a mark-up to textile manufacturers. In this way, he turned the whole of Egypt’s cotton production into his personal monopoly. He also experimented with textile factories that might process cotton into cloth within Egypt, but these did not prove very successful. He created state monopolies over the chief products of the country. He set up a number of factories and began digging in 1819 a new canal to Alexandria, called the Mahmudiya (after the reigning sultan of Turkey). The old canal had long fallen into decay, and the necessity of a safe channel between Alexandria and the Nile was much felt. The conclusion in 1838 of a commercial treaty with Turkey, negotiated by Sir Henry Bulwer (Lord Darling), struck a deathblow to the system of monopolies, though the application of the treaty to Egypt was delayed for some years. Efforts were made to promote education and the study of medicine. To European merchants, on whom he was dependent for the sale of his exports, Muhammad Ali 66 showed much favor, and under his influence the port of Alexandria again rose into importance. It was also under Mehemet Ali’s encouragement that the overland transit of goods from Europe to India via Egypt was resumed. The needs of the military likewise fueled other modernization projects, such as state educational institutions, a teaching hospital, roads and canals, factories to turn out uniforms and munitions, and a shipbuilding foundry at Alexandria, although all the wood for ships had to be imported from abroad. In the same way that he conscripted peasants to serve in the army, he frequently drafted peasants into labor corvées for his factories and industrial projects. The peasantry objected to these conscriptions and many ran away from their villages to avoid being taken, sometimes fleeing as far away as Syria. A number of them maimed themselves so as to be unsuitable for combat: common ways of self-maiming were blinding an eye with rat poison and cutting off a finger of the right hand, which usually worked the firing mechanism of a rifle. He died in August 2, 1849. He had done a great work in Egypt; the most permanent being the weakening of the tie binding the country to Turkey, the starting of the great cotton industry, the recognition of the advantages of European science, and the conquest of the Sudan.

THE RISE OF NATIONALISM

By the mid-19th century Turkey was in the throes of the "Eastern Question," as the peoples of the Balkans, including Albanians, sought to realize their national aspirations. To defend and promote their national interests, Albanians met in Prizren, a town in Kosova, in 1878 and founded the Albanian League of Prizren. The league had two main goals, one political and the other cultural. First, it strove (unsuccessfully) to unify all Albanian territories--at the time divided among the four vilayets, or provinces, of Kosova, Shkodra, Monastir, and Janina--into one autonomous state within the framework of the Ottoman Empire. Second, it spearheaded a movement to develop Albanian language, literature, education, and culture. In line with the second program, in 1908 Albanian leaders met in the town of Monastir (now Bitola, Macedonia) and adopted a national alphabet. Based mostly on the Latin script, this supplanted several other alphabets, including Arabic and Greek, that were in use until then. The Albanian League was suppressed by the Turks in 1881, in part because they were alarmed by its strong nationalistic orientation. By then, however, the league had become a powerful symbol of Albania's national awakening, and its ideas and objectives fueled the drive that culminated later in national independence. When the Young Turks, who seized power in Istanbul in 1908, ignored their commitments to Albanians to institute democratic reforms and to grant autonomy, Albanians embarked on an armed struggle, which, at the end of three years (1910-12), forced the Turks to agree, in effect, to grant their demands. Alarmed at the prospect of Albanian autonomy, Albania's Balkan neighbours, who had already made plans to partition the region, declared war on Turkey in October 1912, and Greek, Serbian, and Montenegrin armies advanced into Albanian territories. To prevent the annihilation of the country, Albanian national delegates met at a congress in Vlor'. They were led by Ismail Qemal, an Albanian who had held several high positions in the Ottoman government. On Nov. 28, 1912, the congress issued the Vlor' proclamation, which declared Albania's independence.

Albanian-Yugoslav relations

Until Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Cominform in 1948, Albania acted like a Yugoslav satellite and Tito aimed to use his choke hold on the Albanian party to incorporate the entire country into Yugoslavia[citation needed]. After Germany's withdrawal from Kosovo in late 1944, Yugoslavia's communist partisans took possession of the province and committed retaliatory massacres against Albanians. Before World War II, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had supported transferring Kosovo to Albania, but Yugoslavia's postwar communist regime insisted on preserving the country's prewar borders. In repudiating the 1943 Mukaj agreement under pressure from the Yugoslavs, Albania's communists had consented to restore Kosovo to Yugoslavia after the war. In January 1945, the two governments signed a treaty reincorporating Kosovo into Yugoslavia as an autonomous province. Shortly thereafter, Yugoslavia became the first country to recognize Albania's provisional government. Relations between Albania and Yugoslavia declined, however, when the Albanians began complaining that the Yugoslavs were paying too little for Albanian raw materials and exploiting Albania through the joint stock companies. In addition, the Albanians sought investment funds to develop light industries and an oil refinery, while the Yugoslavs wanted the Albanians to concentrate on agriculture and raw-material extraction. The head of Albania's Economic Planning Commission and one of Hoxha's allies, Nako Spiru, became the leading critic of Yugoslavia's efforts to exert economic control over Albania. Tito distrusted Hoxha and the other intellectuals in the Albanian party and, through Xoxe and his loyalists, attempted to unseat them. In 1947, Yugoslavia's leaders engineered an all-out offensive against anti-Yugoslav Albanian communists, including Hoxha and Spiru. In May, Tirana announced the arrest, trial, and conviction of nine People's Assembly members, all known for opposing Yugoslavia, on charges of antistate activities. A month later, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia's Central Committee accused Hoxha of following "independent" policies and turning the Albanian people against Yugoslavia.

Albania and the Soviet Union Relations

Albania became dependent on Soviet aid and know-how after the break with Yugoslavia in 1948. In February 1949, Albania gained membership in the communist bloc's organization for coordinating economic planning, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon). Tirana soon entered into trade agreements with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet Union. Soviet and central European technical advisers took up residence in Albania, and the Soviet Union also sent Albania military advisers and built a submarine installation on Sazan Island. After the Soviet-Yugoslav split, Albania and Bulgaria were the only countries the Soviet Union could use to funnel war material to the communists fighting in Greece. What little strategic value Albania offered the Soviet Union, however, gradually shrank as nuclear arms technology developed. Anxious to pay homage to Stalin, Albania's rulers implemented new elements of the Stalinist economic system. In 1949 Albania adopted the basic elements of the Soviet fiscal system, under which state enterprises paid direct contributions to the treasury from their profits and kept only a share authorized for self-financed investments and other purposes. In 1951, the Albanian government launched its first five-year plan, which emphasized exploiting the country's oil, chromite, copper, nickel, asphalt, and coal resources; expanding electricity production and the power grid; increasing agricultural output; and improving transportation. The government began a program of rapid industrialization after the APL's Second Party Congress and a campaign of forced collectivization of farmland in 1955. At the time, private farms still produced about 87% of Albania's agricultural output, but by 1960 the same percentage came from collective or state farms. Stalin died in March 1953, and apparently fearing that the Soviet ruler's demise might encourage rivals within the Albanian party's ranks, neither Hoxha nor Shehu risked traveling to Moscow to attend his funeral. The Soviet Union's subsequent movement toward rapprochement with the hated Yugoslavs rankled the two Albanian leaders. Tirana soon came under pressure from Moscow to copy, at least formally, the new Soviet model for a collective leadership. In July 1953, Hoxha handed over the foreign affairs and defense portfolios to loyal followers, but he kept both the top party post and the premiership until 1954, when Shehu became Albania's prime minister. The Soviet Union, responding with an effort to raise the Albanian leaders' morale, elevated diplomatic relations between the two countries to the ambassadorial level. Despite some initial expressions of enthusiasm, Hoxha and Shehu mistrusted Nikita Khrushchev's programs of "peaceful coexistence" and "different roads to socialism" because they appeared to pose the threat that Yugoslavia might again try to take control of Albania. Hoxha and Shehu were also alarmed at the prospect that Moscow might prefer less dogmatic rulers in Albania. Tirana and Belgrade renewed diplomatic relations in December 1953, but Hoxha refused Khrushchev's repeated appeals to rehabilitate posthumously the pro-Yugoslav Xoxe as a gesture to Tito. The Albanian duo instead tightened their grip on their country's domestic life and let the propaganda war with the Yugoslavs grind on.

Albania and China Relations

Albania played a role in the Sino-Soviet split far outweighing either its size or its importance in the communist world. By 1958 Albania stood with the People's Republic of China[75] in opposing Moscow on issues of peaceful coexistence, de-Stalinization, and Yugoslavia's "separate road to socialism" through decentralization of economic life. The Soviet Union, central European countries, and China all offered Albania large amounts of aid. Soviet leaders also promised to build a large Palace of Culture in Tirana as a symbol of the Soviet people's "love and friendship" for the Albanians. Despite these gestures, Tirana was dissatisfied with Moscow's economic policy toward Albania. Hoxha and Shehu apparently decided in May or June 1960 that Albania was assured of Chinese support, and they openly sided with the PRC when sharp polemics erupted between the PRC and the Soviet Union. Ramiz Alia, at the time a candidate-member of the Politburo and Hoxha's adviser on ideological questions, played a prominent role in the rhetoric. Hoxha and Shehu continued their harangue against the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia at the APL's Fourth Party Congress in February 1961. During the congress, the Albanian government announced the broad outlines of the country's Third Five-Year Plan (1961–65), which allocated 54% of all investment to industry, thereby rejecting Khrushchev's wish to make Albania primarily an agricultural producer. Moscow responded by canceling aid programs and lines of credit for Albania, but the Chinese again came to the rescue. Albanian-Chinese relations had stagnated by 1970, and when the Asian giant began to reemerge from isolation in the early 1970s, Mao Zedong and the other Communist Chinese leaders reassessed their commitment to tiny Albania. In response, Tirana began broadening its contacts with the outside world. Albania opened trade negotiations with France, Italy, and the recently independent Asian and African states, and in 1971 it normalized relations with Yugoslavia and Greece. Albania's leaders abhorred the People's Republic of China's contacts with the United States in the early 1970s, and its press and radio ignored President Richard Nixon's trip to Beijing in 1972.

Storia dell'Albania

Prima di approfondire, partiamo da una panoramica generale della storia dell’antica Albania…

Precisiamo che quando si parla degli Illiri, si parla degli antenati degli albanesi.

Pare strano paragonare l’antica Albania, cioè la grande ed evoluta Illiria, con la piccola Albania attuale, smembrata, e mortificata perfino dagli eventi disumani degli ultimi 50 anni di spietato comunismo, la democrazia è recente in Albania, recentemente, iniziando dalla capitale (Tirana), il suo tipo di economia sta iniziando a fiorire, si vedono discoteche, locali, costruzioni costosissime etc. ma adesso parliamo di moltissimi anni fa, molto ma molto prima della sua storia recente. L’antica Illiria, era il paese dei liberi “liri”. Si estendeva nei Balcani occidentali a sud del Danubio ed era formata da una serie di varie tribù evolute che vivevano attorno alle città stato, dove a capo c’era un unico re, e diversi re si succedettero al trono durante la sua storia, qui indicheremo solo gli ultimi, quelli nel periodo di massima fioritura dell’Illiria.

Con il re Glauco, (312 a.c) il paese aveva raggiunto il massimo dell’evoluzione, e col suo governo che dedicava tutte le proprie risorse alla cultura e benessere, l’Illiria aveva goduto di 80 anni di pace. Il suo erede fu Agron che aveva tendenze militari, e secondo il racconto di Stradone, nessuno dei suoi predecessori aveva reso tanto potente il paese dal punto di vista bellico. Forse Agron era preoccupato dalla crescita di una nuova potenza, quella di Roma, che era in continua espansione, e che rappresentava un pericolo per l’illiria, dopo la morte di Agron andò al trono la regina Teuta, si dice che non fosse molto gradita ai Romani, che la chiamavano “la regina isterica”.

Durante il suo Regno aveva fatto molti trattati e alleanze.

Dopo che un membro di ambasceria romana fu ucciso, Roma attaccò l’Illiria con ingenti forze, e dopo uno scontro cruento, le 2 parti decisero una tregua con condizioni giudicate disonorevoli dalla regina Teuta che si suicidò. Venne sostituita dal re Genzio, diplomatico e naturalista, la scoperta delle qualità mediche della “genziana” è dovuta a lui.

Genzio decise di fare la città di Shkodra (Scutari), nel nord dell’Albania attuale, capitale dell’Illiria, accrebbe il potere centrale e ordinò che solo Scutari potesse coniare moneta. Purtroppo, non tutte le città-stato aderirono, rendendo, forse sotto l’influenza romana, più gracile e vulnerabile L’illiria.

Con il pretesto di un’alleanza di Genzio con la Macedonia, Roma sferrò una terza guerra contro L’illiria divisa, indebolita, e la conquistò nel 168 a.c completando il dominio su tutti i balcani.

Roma smembrò il paese in 3 province, in modo da renderne più sicuro il dominio, e per quanto rispettasse tradizioni e costumi, dette inizio al tramonto di una grande civiltà…

Le culture dei vincitori prevalgono su quelle dei vinti, solo la terra è capace di conservare nel suo grembo materno le testimonianze indelebili di una civiltà fagocitata dalla follia umana che, nel tentativo di prevaricare su tutto e su tutti, con immatura incoscienza, occulta ciò che sarebbe stato utile alla comune evoluzione dell’intera umanità. Comunque, anche dopo l’occupazione, le scuole dell’Illiria illuminarono le menti di molti personaggi di Roma. Tra i più noti possiamo citare Giulio Cesare, il quale si perfezionò nelle scuole di Durazzo, come narra lui stesso nel “De Bello Civili”.

Un’altra grande mente di Roma che studiò nelle scuole dell’Illiria, e precisamente nella citta-stato di Apollonia, fu Augusto, il quale amò quel luogo durante tutta la sua vita.

Comunque, oltre a legionari valorosi, l’Illiria diede a Roma e a Bisanzio molti imperatori, tra i quali ricordiamo:

Aureliano, detto “Restitutor Orbis” (214-275)

Diocleziano (255-313)

Costantino il Grande (274-337)

Giustino I (450-528)

Giustiniano il Grande (482-565)

Giustino II (morto nel 578)

Quei territori, subirono eventi tragici, e culminarono con la dominazione Ottomana (Turka), che durò quasi 5 secoli, l’Albania ebbe però azioni gloriose dal 1443 al 1479 con l’eroe Giorgio Kastrioti Skanderbeg, il principe di Kruje, con gesti che hanno dell’incredibile, unì le tribù dell'Epiro e dell'Albania, e resistette per 25 anni ai tentativi di conquista dell'Impero Ottomano (Turco)

Gjergj Kastrioti (nell’immagine) naque in Kruje da Gjon Kastrioti, signore dell'Albania centrale, che venne obbligato dai Turchi di rendere omaggio (pagare tributi) all'Impero Ottomano. Per assicurare la fedeltà dei dominatori locali il Sultano Turco prese suo figlio come ostaggio e lo portò nella sua corte. Gjergj Kastrioti partecipò alla scuola militare nell'Impero Ottomano e venne chiamato Iskander Bey che in turco significa Lord Alexander.

Lui si distinse per la sua immensa intelligenza, sapeva parlare il turco, arabo, greco, l’italiano, bulgaro e il serbo-croato, ed era espertissimo nella strategia militare a tal punto da guadagnarsi la fiducia del sultano.

Lui combattè per gli Ottomani, fino a quando alla testa di un gruppo di fedelissimi, si riprese il castello di Kruje in Albania.

il sultano Murad II, furioso per il tradimento del suo protetto, inviò contro gli albanesi, un potente esercito, guidato da Ali Pascià alla testa di 100.000 uomini. Le forze di Skanderbeg erano notevolmente inferiori numericamente, ma grazie alla sua tattica militare i turchi riportarono una cocente sconfitta.

L'esito dello scontro rese ancora più furibondo il sultano, che ordinò a Firuz Pascià di distruggere Skanderbeg e gli Albanesi e così il comandante ottomano partì alla testa di 15.000 cavalieri. Skenderbeg ne uscì anche questa volta vittorioso, ormai le gesta di Skanderbeg risuonavano per tutto l'occidente, Skanderbeg si guadagnò i titoli di "difensore impavido della civiltà occidentale" e "atleta di Cristo".

Ma Murad II non si rassegnava, dispose agli ordini di Mustafà Pascià due eserciti per un complessivo di 25.000 uomini, di cui metà cavalieri, che si scontrarono con gli Albanesi, l'esito fu disastroso, si salvarono solo pochi turchi e a stento Mustafà Pascià.

Le imprese di Skanderbeg, tuttavia, preoccupavano i veneziani, che vedendo in pericolo i traffici nel frattempo stabiliti con i Turchi, si allearono con il sultano per contrastare Skenderbeg. La battaglia vide la sconfitta dei veneziani.

Nella primavera del 1449, Murad II in persona intervenì contro l'Albania alla testa di 100.000 soldati. Tra scontri ed assedi i Turchi persero metà dell'esercito e il comandante Firuz Pascià venne ucciso personalmente da Skanderbeg.

Alfonso d'Aragona, preoccupato dalla grandezza ottomana, diede successivamente aiuti militari a Skenderbeg per la lotta contro gli Ottomani.

Maometto II, sucessore di Murad, decise di mandare due armate contro l'Albania; una comandata da Hamza-bey, l'altra da Dalip Pascià. Nel luglio del 1452 le due armate furono annientate e mentre Hamza-bey fu catturato, Dalip Pascià invece morì in battaglia.

Altre incursioni turche si tramutarono in sconfitte, Skopljë il 22 aprile del 1453, Oranik nel 1456, il 7 settembre 1457 nella valle del fiume Mati. Infine, nel corso del 1459 in una serie di scontri scaturiti da offensive portate questa volta da Skanderbeg, altre tre armate turche furono sbaragliate.

La fama di Skanderbeg fu incontenibile, al sultano turco non rimase altro che chiedere di trattare la pace, ma il Castriota non ne volle sapere e continuò la sua battaglia.

Nel 1458 si recò in Italia per aiutare Ferdinando I, re di Napoli, figlio del suo amico e protettore Alfonso d'Aragona nella lotta contro il rivale Giovanni d'Angiò e del suo esercito.

Intanto, altre due armate turche comandate da Hussein-bey e Sinan-bey, nel febbraio del 1462, mossero contro gli albanesi costringendo Skanderbeg a rientrare in tutta fretta nella sua patria, per guidare il suo esercito. Ci fu una furiosa battaglia presso Skopljë che vide i turchi annientati e il sogno di Maometto II, di far giungere il potere musulmano fino a Roma infrangersi. La decisione finale fu un trattato di pace firmato il 27 aprile 1463 tra Maometto II e il Castriota..

Note:

- La strada che portava a kruje, fu chiamata dai Turchi , “jezitjoll”, cioè la via del diavolo.

- Un partecipante alla spedizione contro l’Albania disse “il loro guerriero più debole è paragonabile al più forte dei nostri guerrieri turchi”

Sceremet-bey fu incaricato di muovere contro gli albanesi ma i turchi furono nuovamente sconfitti. Il figlio di Sceremet-bey fu catturato e rilasciato a fronte di un grosso riscatto.

L'anno dopo, scongiurato il pericolo della crociata, il Sultano intravide la possibilità di farla finita con il Castriota, mise insieme un poderoso esercito affidandolo ad un traditore albanese, il quale era stato cresciuto allo stesso modo di Scanderbeg, Ballaban Pascià. Ma anche quest'impresa fallì; l'esercito turco fu messo in fuga dalle forze albanesi.

Ancora una volta, nella primavera del 1466, riunì forze imponenti, mosse contro gli albanesi e cinse d'assedio Krujë; una serie di scontri furiosi, nel corso dei quali Ballaban Pascià fu ucciso, portarono Skanderbeg ad un'ennesima e straordinaria vittoria. Maometto II ostinatissimo nella sua lotta contro il Castriota, riorganizzò il suo esercito e, nell'estate del 1467, pose di nuovo l'assedio a Krujë, ma, dopo innumerevoli tentativi, dovette rassegnarsi e ritirarsi.

Finchè Skanderbeg rimase in vita, i turchi non riuscirono mai a conquistare il suo impero.

Skanderbeg morì di malaria, ad Alessio, il 17 gennaio 1468, krujë l'eroica cittadina cadde nelle mani turche dieci anni dopo.

Tuttavia i Turchi non riuscirono a cancellare la gloria di Kruje. L'onda delle spedizioni militari turche insieme alle città distrusse castelli, cattedrali, palazzi ed edifici pubblici ereditati dai secoli passati. Assieme a questi si distrussero o andarono persi anche importanti dipinti e sculture, furono bruciati documenti e manoscritti di valore inestimabile; e nonostante tutto la roccaforte di Kruje, pur mutilata, rappresenta un glorioso monumento della resistenza eroica e dello spirito creativo degli albanesi.

L’Albania riconquistò l’indipendenza solo nel 1912 sotto la guida del democratico ISMAIL KEMAL e il paese cominciò a sanare le sue enormi ferite multisecolari, anche se un’altra disgrazia colpì l’Albania, l’occupazione fascista, come reazione ci fu il comunismo, che durò quasi mezzo secolo.

Ora, finalmente l’Albania ha saputo scegliere la democrazia, che sta mettendo in piedi il paese e la sta facendo meritare il diritto al suo posto in Europa, posto che le spetta dall’epoca della grande ed evoluta Illiria che seppe irradiare ovunque la sua illuminata cultura di provenienza Pelagica.

Albanian language and literature

Albanian was proved to be an Indo-European language in 1854 by the German philologist Franz Bopp. The Albanian language comprises its own branch of the Indo-European language family. Some scholars believe that Albanian derives from Illyrian[109] while others[110] claim that it derives from Daco-Thracian. (Illyrian and Daco-Thracian, however, might have been closely related languages; see Thraco-Illyrian.) Establishing longer relations, Albanian is often compared to Balto-Slavic on the one hand and Germanic on the other, both of which share a number of isoglosses with Albanian. Moreover, Albanian has undergone a vowel shift in which stressed, long o has fallen to a, much like in the former and opposite the latter. Likewise, Albanian has taken the old relative jos and innovatively used it exclusively to qualify adjectives, much in the way Balto-Slavic has used this word to provide the definite ending of adjectives. The cultural renaissance was first of all expressed through the development of the Albanian language in the area of church texts and publications, mainly of the Catholic region in the North, but also of the Orthodox in the South. The Protestant reforms invigorated hopes for the development of the local language and literary tradition when cleric Gjon Buzuku brought into the Albanian language the Catholic liturgy, trying to do for the Albanian language what Luther did for German. Excerpt from Meshari by Gjon Buzuku Meshari (The Missal) by Gjon Buzuku, published in 1555, is considered the first literary work of written Albanian. The refined level of the language and the stabilised orthography must be the result of an earlier tradition of written Albanian, a tradition that is not well understood. However, there is some fragmented evidence, pre-dating Buzuku, which indicates that Albanian was written from at least the 14th century. The earliest evidence dates from 1332 AD with a Latin report from the French Dominican Guillelmus Adae, Archbishop of Antivari, who wrote that Albanians used Latin letters in their books although their language was quite different from Latin. Other significant examples include: a baptism formula (Unte paghesont premenit Atit et Birit et spertit senit) from 1462, written in Albanian within a Latin text by the Bishop of Durrës, Pal Engjëlli; a glossary of Albanian words of 1497 by Arnold von Harff, a German who had travelled through Albania, and a 15th-century fragment of the Bible from the Gospel of Matthew, also in Albanian, but written in Greek letters. The National Museum of Albania features exhibits from Illyrian times to the fall of Communism in the 1990s. Albanian writings from these centuries must not have been religious texts only, but historical chronicles too. They are mentioned by the humanist Marin Barleti, who, in his book Rrethimi i Shkodrës (The Siege of Shkodër) (1504), confirms that he leafed through such chronicles written in the language of the people (in vernacula lingua). During the 16th to 17th centuries, the catechism E mbësuame krishterë (Christian Teachings) (1592) by Lekë Matrënga, Doktrina e krishterë (The Christian Doctrine) (1618) and Rituale romanum (1621) by Pjetër Budi, the first writer of original Albanian prose and poetry, an apology for George Castriot (1636) by Frang Bardhi, who also published a dictionary and folklore creations, the theological-philosophical treaty Cuneus Prophetarum (The Band of Prophets) (1685) by Pjetër Bogdani, the most universal personality of Albanian Middle Ages, were published in Albanian. The most famous Albanian writer is probably Ismail Kadare.