MARCH OF THE TITANS - A HISTORY OF THE WHITE RACE
CHAPTER 36 : THE MELTING POT - ROMANIA, BULGARIA, ALBANIA AND GREECE
Part iii - Albania
ALBANIA
ANCIENT ALBANIA INHABITED BY ILLYRIANS
The original Albanians were old Europeans called Illyrians who had settled large parts of the Balkans centuries prior to the Indo-European invasions. These Old Europeans established a quiet Neolithic civilization in the region, interrupted only by the settlement of Indo-European Greek colonies along the coast which made their appearance during the 6th Century BC.
With the dissolution of the people of Classical Greece, the Grecian colonies in Albania also went into decline. By the end of 3rd Century BC, the Grecian influence had all but disappeared, and their descendants, who had mixed with the original Old European population, then established a number of independent kingdoms which lasted well into the 2nd Century AD.
ROMAN OCCUPATION 168 BC
The Roman Empire, in the course of its expansion eastward, invaded the Albanian coast line in 229 BC, sparking off a conflict with the natives known as the Illyrian Wars. By 168 BC the Romans had subdued all of the Illyrians and had incorporated the region into the Roman Empire under the name of Illyricum. Rome ruled the region for the next six centuries, but the Illyrians resisted assimilation and their distinctive culture and language survived.
As the Roman population itself became less and less Roman, increasing use was made of mercenaries in the Roman armies. The Illyrians were no exception: soon Illyrians were, along with Germans, one of the largest segments of the Roman army and later individual Illyrians would become emperors of the Empire itself.
BYZANTINE RULE
In 395 AD, the Roman Empire was split into a Western and Eastern empire. Illyria fell under the auspices of the Eastern Empire. By this time the Illyrians had started achieving positions of great prominence in the Eastern Empire - one of the most famous Illyrians by birth was emperor Justinian I, who reigned from 527 to 565 AD.
Under Byzantine rule, Christianity also became the official religion of Illyria, replacing the mish mash of Old European beliefs and the Greco-Roman pantheon of Gods who had previously been worshiped in the region. This process was temporarily reversed by the passing through of the Goths in their great westward migration, but the Goths only stayed for a short while and left no significant impact upon the population.
George Kastrioti - White Hero of Albania. The White nation of Albania was all but destroyed by the Nonwhite Turkish Ottoman invasion of 1388. By 1430 the Ottomans had conquered all of Albania - an unsuccessful uprising led by the Albanian patriot George Kastrioti, popularly known as Scanderbeg, resisted the Nonwhite invaders for 25 years, but the Turks crushed all opposition by 1506, exacting a terrible revenge upon the Albanians for rebelling.
ASIATIC INVASIONS LEAVE THEIR MARK
Illyria was however to be irreparably marked by the Asiatic invasions which followed the Goths - first the Huns, then the Avars, Bulgars and Magyars devastated the land, destroying large towns and killing or enslaving a great deal of the population.
Virtually all of the Illyrians were dispersed as a result of these invasions, and the country was then occupied by the natural growth of the Slavic peoples from the neighboring states which were beginning to emerge at the time. Those Illyrians who had survived the Asiatic invasions were then for the greatest part absorbed into the Slavs into what is today Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. Only in the very south of the land did any significant numbers of Illyrians survive - they were to later form the basis of the state of Albania.
SHQIPERIA - COUNTRY OF THE EAGLE
The region then became known as Albania, or Shqiperia (Country of the Eagle) during the 8th Century. From the 9th Century onwards it came under successive waves of invaders, each of whom brought with their own specific sub-racial types which went to add to the mix in Albania. The Bulgarian Slavs brought a mixed Indo-European strain with a slight Asiatic admixture - the Norman Crusaders brought Nordic Viking blood - Italian Angevins brought Nordic/Alpine sub-racial stock - Serbs brought more Slavic blood while Venetians brought Germanic Lombardic blood into the country. The end result was the creation of a mix of all the main White sub-racial groupings in the country, with a slight admixture of "dark' types descended from the Asiatic invasions.
During the Middle Ages Albanian cities expanded and commerce flourished. Education, art and culture grew, and although the Illyrian language survived, Greek and Latin became the official languages.
SERBIAN INVASION DISRUPTS ILLYRIAN CIVILIZATION CIRCA 1350 AD
This flourishing majority White population was then broken up by two major historical events in quick succession. The first was the conquest of the region by the expanding Serbian state in 1347, which saw hundreds of thousands of the small Albanian population emigrate to Greece.
OTTOMAN INVASION - RESISTED FOR 25 YEARS
The second event which led to the fall of the prosperous state of Shqiperia was the Nonwhite Turkish Ottoman invasion of the region, which occurred in 1388. By 1430 the Ottomans had conquered all of Albania - an unsuccessful uprising led by the Albanian patriot George Kastrioti, popularly known as Scanderbeg, resisted the Nonwhite invaders for 25 years, but the Turks crushed all opposition by 1506, exacting a terrible revenge upon the Albanians for rebelling.
The viciousness of the Turkish reprisals and the nature of their rule caused another 25 per cent of the Albanian population to flee to Italy. In addition to the huge wave of migrants who fled to Greece from the Serbian invasion, large numbers of Albanians were killed fighting the Ottomans or were killed in the Turkish reprisals. All this decimated the White Albanian population. The result was that physical mixing and Turkish settlement in the now largely depleted countryside saw Albania becoming two thirds Muslim by the end of the 17th Century, with the population being to the greatest degree a mix of Turks and Albanian remnants. As a result, a number of Albanians rose to high positions in the Ottoman government in the 18th and 19th centuries, with more than two dozen becoming grand viziers (prime ministers).
ALBANIAN INDEPENDENCE 1912 AD
Although two thirds Muslim, a tiny number of Albanians remained who had not mixed with the Turks, and under their leadership an independence movement was organized. Between 1910 and 1912 these Albanian nationalists waged an armed struggle against the Ottomans, which when combined with the outbreak of the First Balkan War in 1912, saw the Turks defeated: Albania proclaimed its independence the same year.
The countries of Western Europe recognized Albania's independence, but after pressure from Serbia, the Albanian region of Kosovo was given to Serbia, despite the fact that the majority of inhabitants were Albanians. This division of land was the cause of conflict between the Serbs and the Albanians which lasted until the end of the 20th Century and flared up to such an extent that the West intervened in the region in 1999.
IGNOMINY - WORLD'S FIRST ATHEIST STATE
The Albanian state then went into a period of decline and ignominy, its original Shqiperia population almost entirely gone.
A peculiarly named King Zog ruled from 1929 to 1939 in a dictatorial tin pot fashion, with his rule ending with an Italian invasion of the country in the last year of his reign. After Yugoslavia and Greece were occupied by the Germans in 1941, the region of Kosovo was returned to Albania by a benevolent Germany; Kosovo remained part of Albania until 1944 when the Germans withdrew from Albania: in that year the region was returned to Serbian rule.
The Communists then seized power in Albania in November 1944, establishing a highly centralized system of government and sovietizing the already impoverished country, causing an ever further drop in living standards. The Soviet Union was forced to prop up the Albanian state with loans and outright financial gifts, and when ideological differences saw Albanians switch to Communist China as it major ally, that country then became the hard line Communist state's provider of aid. In 1967 all religious bodies were banned, Christian and Muslim church property was confiscated, and Albania was formally declared the world's first atheist state.
The mixed racial ancestry of many - but not all - Albanians can be seen in this 1999 photograph of two soldiers from the Kosovo Liberation Army, who fought against the Serbian government in that year. The soldier on the left is virtually completely 'Turkish' in appearance - and ironically carries the two headed eagle flag of the original White Albanians, the Shqiperia.
The collapse of Communism in 1989 saw gradual democratic reforms in Albania - the state had however long since been teetering on collapse. By the end of the 20th Century thousands of Albanians were trying to flee their wrecked country and enter Western Europe by illegally immigrating to Italy - a shadow of the race of which one of their sons was the great Roman Emperor Justinian.
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