Mother Teresa: a biography

A FORGOTTEN PEOPLE
The Turks established their dominion over Albania just as the Renais-
sance was beginning in Italy. Turkish domination of the Balkans cut the
region off from contact and exchanges with Western Europe. As a conse-
quence, Albania had no chance to participate in, or benefit from, the em-
phasis on human capabilities and accomplishments that characterized the
Renaissance. Not only did the Balkans miss out on the Renaissance, but
the Turks’ conquest of Albania also caused great suffering and vast de-
struction of the economy and commerce as well as traditional art and cul-
ture. To escape persecution, about one-fourth of the Albanian population
fled to southern Italy, Sicily, and the northern part of the Dalmatian coast.
Countless others who remained converted to Islam, the religion of the
Ottoman Empire.
Although the Turks ruled Albania for more than four hundred years,
they failed to extend their authority throughout the kingdom. In the
highland regions, the Turks exercised only a formal sovereignty. Beyond
the reach of the government and the military, the Albanian highlanders
refused to pay taxes, to serve in the army, or to surrender their weapons.
They did, however, attempt to appease the Turks by offering an annual
tribute to Constantinople. Even those Albanians who did fall under Turk-
ish sway proved difficult to manage. They rose in rebellion time and again
against their conquerors.
To quell Albanian resistance, which was motivated as much by the de-
fense of Christianity as by the desire for independence, the Turks initiated
a systematic effort to convert Albanians to Islam. By the end of the sev-
enteenth century, approximately two-thirds of Albanians had embraced
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Islam. Like their counterparts who had earlier converted, these men and
women became Muslims not primarily from religious conviction but to es-
cape the exploitation and violence directed toward Christians. Those
who refused to convert, for example, endured a crushing tax burden from
which Muslims were exempt. The so-called process of Islamization aggra-
vated the religious fragmentation of Albanian society, which had began
during the Middle Ages. The residue of this religious division persisted
into the nineteenth century when leaders of the Albanian national move-
ment used the rallying cry “the religion of Albanians is Albanianism” to
overcome religious division and foster a sense of national unity.
By the middle of the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire was
weakening. Turkey, known as “The Sick Man of Europe,” was having
trouble maintaining its hold on its many possessions. Sensing an opportu-
nity to break free of Ottoman domination, the Albanians, along with
other Balkan peoples, sought to attain their independence. In 1878, the
leaders of the Albanian independence movement met in Prizren, a town
in Kosovo, to found the Albanian League of Prizren. The league had two
main goals. First, to unify Albanian territory, which the Turks had split
into four provinces: Kosovo, Shkodra, Monastir, and Janina. Initially, the
League of Prizren advocated not Albanian independence, but the cre-
ation of an autonomous Albanian state within the Ottoman Empire. Sec-
ond, the league initiated a movement to promote Albanian cultural
nationalism, emphasizing a distinctly Albanian language, literature, art,
and education. Although the Turks suppressed the League of Prizren in
1881, the nationalist spirit of the league lived on. Inspired by the league,
Albanian leaders met in the town of Monastir in 1908 to adopt a national
alphabet. Based mostly on Latin, this alphabet supplanted several others,
including Arabic and Greek, then in use. It is impossible to overestimate
the value of an Albanian national language to the drive for national iden-
tity and independence.
In addition to repression, however, Turkish leaders promised to reform
their administration of Albania to give the Albanians greater power to
determine local affairs. When in 1908, however (the same year in which
the Albanians adopted a national alphabet), a group called the Young
Turks, bent on modernizing and strengthening the empire, seized control
of the Turkish government, they ignored previous commitments to the
Albanians. Frustrated at this turn of events, Albanians took up arms and
in 1912 forced the Turks, in effect, to grant Albania near independence.
Alarmed at the prospect of an independent Albania, Albania’s Balkan
neighbors, who had already made plans to partition the region, declared
war on Turkey in October 1912. To prevent the annihilation of the coun-
S K O P J E
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try, Albanian delegates met in Vlorë and, on November 28, 1912, issued
the Vlorë Proclamation in which they formally declared Albanian inde-
pendence. In the midst of these ethnic, national, and religious conflicts, a
child was born in Skopje who would one day try to overcome these differ-
ences in order, as she said, to do God’s work on earth.