You
come into Kruja (pronounced: Kru-yah) past age-old olive trees and lime-kilns,
with limestone outcrops offering the barest grazing to a few sheep and
goats. Then shrubs and oaks replace the olives, and finally the conifers
take over. "Kruj‘" means "Spring" and of course there is no shortage of
fresh water at these cool heights. The air invigorates you after the hot,
humid plain of Tirana, and one can easily imagine why the old Ilyrrian
settlement of Zg‘rdhesh was abandoned in the forth century, and the
refugees from the hotter, more exposed foothills chose to defend a mountain
eyrie instead.
The
ecclesiastical record of the ninth century mentioned Krujë as a bishop's
see. The byzantine held the city up to c.1190, when the first Albanian
feudal state was declared at Krujë under the archon Progon (1190-8).
Arbania survived throughout the rule of Progon's son Gjin (1198-1206) and
Dhimitrit (1206-16), but in 1216 it fell under the sway of Epiros, in 1230
under Bulgarians, and in 1240 again under Epiros. Foreign invaders continue
to fight over the dying body of a torn and bleeding Albania until an Ottoman
garrison was permanently stationed at Krujë in 1415.
The youngest of Gjon Kastrioti's four sons, Gjergj, was sent with his
three brothers as a hostage to the Sultan at Constantinople in 1415. He
impressed his tutors at the military school he attended and they gave him
the title "Skender-beg" for the valour on the field of battle. Then in
1443 he suddenly left the Ottoman army
fighting Hunyadi, the Hungarian Hero and returned to Albania. Asthe
Turks retreated near Nish on 3 November 1443, Gjergj withdrew his nephew
Hamza and 300 Albanian horsemen and headed for Dibër and then Krujë.
The citadel of Krujë became the scene of one of Europe's most titanic
struggles. In May 1450 the Ottoman Sultan Murad II set out from Constantinople
with a hundred thousand men to crush once and for all the Albanian army
which had been united since 1444 by Skenderbeg's personal recruiting campaign.
He aimed to storm the
citadel of Krujë and to hold the Albanian countryside with Krujë
as a capital. Skenderbeg's personal magnetism ensured that those
Albanians fit to take up arms were armed and ready for combat, a total
of 17,500 at the most, who were thus outnumbered by five to one. Skenderbeg
divided his troops into three bands. Fifteen hundred led by Count Uran
were provisioned to withstand the siege within the citadel itself. The
two major forces of 8 000 each were split up, the first under Skenderbeg
to harry the near of the Ottoman army once it had encamped below Kruja,
and the other forming small bands of guerrilleros to ambush, raid, and
snipe at the Turkish caravan on its cumbersome trail from Macedonia. Since
Murad II realised that his troops would mutiny if ordered to withstand
the hostile winter encamped in a trap below Kruja, after four and a half
months he retreated with loses estimated at more than twenty thousand -
that is exceeding the strength of the whole Albanian army. Ragusa congratulated
Skenderbeg, "Magnificus et
Potens" on his stupendous victory.
Kruja under the direction of Skenderbeg defeated the turkish army lead
by the Sultan Mehmet etc. for a quarter of a century. As the British military
strategist Wolfe has said Skenderbeg surpassed
"all the captains, both ancient and modern, in his ability to lead
a small defensive army". After the death of Skenderbeg from natural causes
in 1468, the citadel of Kruje defeated the Turks for more
then ten years under the direction of Lek‘ Dugagjin till at 16 june
1478 when it fell definitively to the Sultan Mehmet.
After the Ottoman took their dearly-won castle of Kruja, they rebuild
the walls on the northern side, with openings for firearms, to make Kruja
as impregnable against the Albanians as it had been
impregnable against themselves. The earthquake of 1617 caused the cracking
and collapse of many hill structures, including the citadel, but in 1832,
on the Sultan's orders, the Albanian feudal castles were made useless for
defence and a centralised
bureaucratic government replaced - at least in intention - the former
feudal semi-autonomy of the mountain regions as Kruja. Half-hearted attempts
were made by the Turks to rebuild sections of the castle, after they have
tightened their grip on the countryside, for they realised that sudden
Balkan uprisings could overwhelm their government, and a defenceless castle
is a doubtful asset to a ruling class.
Also in this section:
-
Scanderbeg, Albanian National Hero
-
Photo Album (Kruja in Pictures)
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