By: Johann Georg von Hahn (1811-1869)[1]
Translated into English (from German): Robert Elsie (1950 -2017)
Translated into Albanian (from English): Agron Shala / Telegrafi.com
[…] Kaçanik is the perfect place for a bandit’s den, because there is no other way around the Lepenc Gorge. It is often described as such in old Serbian songs, and until the beginning of this century it remained a hotbed of bandits. Only in 1807 did Reshid Pasha of Kalkandel [Tetovo] clear the region of them, after burning their forests. This is what Pouqueville and Boué tell us.
Very few of my readers will be aware that the land of Kaçanik is soaked with noble German blood. The events surrounding this catastrophe, as far as I know, were first brought to light by A. Arneth in his work The Life of Count Guido Starhemberg. An excerpt from the pages of this excellent book is even more appropriate here, as it sheds light on the Albanians of this region. In this context, I have adapted the names of the places according to what I thought was best.
After the glorious victory of the imperial army at Niš and the occupation of this city, the bulk of the army marched north towards Vidin and Wallachia. However, Count Piccolomini, who commanded the troops remaining in Serbia, advanced rapidly southwards and took Pristina and the Kosovo Plain, together with the Kačanik Gorge. He even sent preparatory forces across the gorge – which occupied the settlements on the other side, including the ancient capital of Dardania, Skopje. The Christian inhabitants of this region, who welcomed the brave and charitable Piccolomini as a savior from the yoke of the infidels, declared that they would be ready to return under Christian rule if they received the necessary support. The Turks, for their part, were so disheartened by the success of the imperial army that this moment would have been a good one to make peace. Sadly, he missed the opportunity and a series of setbacks occurred which, to a large extent, undone the success he had achieved.
The first disaster was the death of Piccolomini – he died suddenly in Pristina on 9 November 1689. His successor in command was the Duke of Holstein, whose brutal conduct, arbitrary tax collection and tolerance of the transgressions of his soldiers caused the Albanians to turn against him and return to the Turks. However, on 27 November, probably near Stipo [Štip], he succeeded in defeating a Turkish army of 6 men which the pashas of Skopje and Sofia had assembled against him. But that same winter, a new Turkish army advanced on the Kosovo Plain, took the strong fortress of Kaçanik and near that area defeated Colonel Freiherr von Strasser. The Colonel, already hated by the Albanians, had recently executed one of their men for a minor offence. Against the advice of his other officers, he sent his 000-strong force to fight a Turkish force of 2 in an open field, without any further support. He then insulted one of the Albanians who had informed him of the futility of this operation, got into an argument with him, and shot him in the arm with a pistol. The angry Albanians consequently deserted him during the battle and went over to the side of the Turks. Under a fierce enemy attack, the German troops showed extraordinary bravery, but were crushed by the unequal strength of their opponent. Despite his acts of extraordinary bravery, the brave but hasty Strasser realized his mistake too late and paid with his life for his harsh and reckless behavior. The heroic Prince of Hanover fell with him, having killed nine enemy warriors with his own hands, as well as the Counts Styrum, Gronsfeld, and Auersperg – young men of great promise. Count Solar managed to escape at night, in the darkness, with a few warriors left, and hid in a dense forest.
When the Duke of Holstein heard of the disaster, he abandoned Pristina, where he had amassed many supplies, and retreated to Niš. However, very soon, General Veterani, Piccolomini’s successor in command, rushed to the battlefield – although he himself was still suffering from wounds – took command, strengthened the morale of the demoralized troops and threw himself against the enemy, who retreated as soon as he arrived. Veterani retook Pristina and Prizren, which the imperial troops had previously held, but now with thinned forces! He had only 15 under his command and had to leave 000 of them behind to defend the fortress of Niš. The second occupation of Kosovo by imperial troops does not seem to have lasted long, as the fall of Niš and Belgrade shifted the scene of the war to the southern border of Hungary.
An interesting fact emerges from these historical events – that in 1689 Dardania had a large and warlike Albanian population because, in my opinion, it is highly unlikely that the Albanians mentioned here came from Albania itself to join the imperial troops. In the above-mentioned work, there is no answer to the question of whether these Albanians were Christians or Muslims. A publication with first-hand sources, on the Dardanian campaign of the imperial troops, would make an important contribution to our knowledge of this region and its inhabitants, and would also be of great interest to our military history, since names such as Starhemberg and Veterani are mentioned in it. No one would be more suitable for this than a biography of the former.
We spent the night in the large inn in the village, which belonged to an Albanian, whose appearance reminded us more of a captain. police officer than an innkeeper. The next morning, we set off for two hours along the bed of the Lepenc River, towards the Kosovo Plain, and then climbed through the bushes to its southern edge. However, in the evening rain and fog had set in, and they prevented us from seeing, as we would have liked, this fascinating region. All the hills and mountains were shrouded in cloud to their bases and remained so throughout our stay. Even seeing things on the plain was often difficult because of the fog.
The plain appears to be rectangular in shape. One of its narrow sides extends to the northern slopes of the Sharr mountain range. These mountains rise to a magnificent pyramid formed by the Lubeten Mountain which falls abruptly to the North, East and South, and is connected to the Karadak range by a series of hills through which the Lepenc River flows. This massive peak which dominates the plain, unfortunately, appeared to us only one evening when we were returning from Gjilan to Kaçanik.
There are two river flows that divide this plain. In its southern part, the Lepenc River, which runs through the northern and eastern slopes of the Sharr Mountains, flows into the Vardar, as does the nearby Nerodima River. In the northernmost part of the plain, the Sitnica River, a tributary of the Ibar, flows from the South-Southeast to the North-Northwest towards the Morava, which itself flows into the Danube basin. In one place, these two regions are connected to each other by a bifurcation – the only one that I know of in the entire Danube basin. In a pond located about an hour and a half from the source of the Nerodima, part of the stream water is channeled through a mill and flows into the Sasli swamp, while the main part of the stream flows into the Lepenc. This phenomenon was described to us by a kavass from Gjilan, who said that part of the water of Nerodima flows into the Black Sea, while the rest into the White Sea – which is the term the Turks use to name the Mediterranean Sea.
The aforementioned Sasli swamp appears to be the last remnant of a large lake which, in prehistoric times, covered the Kosovo Plain and, strangely enough, has two streams flowing from it: the southern one (Lepenci) and the northern one (Sitnica) […]
The road from Kaçanik to Pristina reaches the previous horizontal level at the village of Babush, after passing the last of the bushy hills, about five hours from Kaçanik and six hours from Pristina. Here it soon meets the Sitnica River. The village of Babush is inhabited by a single family, divided into ten houses, which traces its origins back to the Battle of Kosovo in the 14th century. Their ancestor received this village, which is a few hours’ walk around the perimeter, as tax-free property as a reward for important intelligence services he provided to Sultan Murad I. His descendants retained the tax privileges, until they lost them with the tax reforms of the Tanzimat.
We spent the night at the Rubofci inn, half an hour to the north, and from there we did not take the direct road to Pristina, but turned east to the Gracanica Monastery, one of the most famous in the ancient Kingdom of Raška, a kingdom that included the Kosovo Plain and the White Drin Plain (Metohija). The word Raška seems to have fallen out of use here and is preserved only by the Germans and Hungarians who call the Serbian settlers of Banat as “Raitzen”. The Serbs have replaced it with the term Old Serbia (Old Serbia), but I was unable to find out what exact area this term encompasses. In addition to the plains mentioned above, it probably also includes the Novi Pazar valley.
We stopped to chat with a group of villagers who were taking advantage of a day off to visit their landlord in a neighboring village, and we asked them about the region. Despite the gloomy weather, they were more than willing to give us information, and I was impressed by the theatrical way in which these eight or nine men answered — all at the same time and with the same answer — to every question the major asked. The major sat on a long-legged mare, wrapped in a large raincoat and hood over his head, and all his arms stretched out in one direction whenever he asked about a place. A more perfect chorus could not be imagined. The Albanians, on the other hand, behave in a more aristocratic manner. The general rule with them is that the oldest man speaks and the others remain silent.
However, when our coachman asked for directions through the swamp, our choir suddenly fell silent and tried to leave as quickly as possible. We felt sorry for these good people and were content with a simple demonstration of the general direction we should take. But we soon discovered that our pity had been misplaced, for the coachman began to look restless and the horses and cart sank deeper and deeper into the mud. Then we noticed a peasant walking through the swamp in the opposite direction, not far from us. We called to him and he explained that he was looking for a cow. He was not sure whether it had lost its way or whether it had been carried off by Albanians or a wolf. We asked him if the animal was in the habit of going only in the direction it had taken, which he denied with some bewilderment. So we decided that he would come with us and that we would give him a tip for his service. It was clear from the expression on his face that he was confused as to why we were offering him a reward, without being obliged, but he simply replied: “Yes, sir” and rode away. Without wasting any time, the major began to question him and extracted some information from him about the Nerodimas bifurcation, but it was so vague that we had to ask him several times. Finally, he was so terrified that he raised his index and middle fingers in the shape of the letter V and shouted: “Look, sir, when the water level is low, the stream does this”! Suddenly I understood what he was trying to say, and when the villager learned from the questions that I understood, he laughed out loud and continued to point his fingers at me, calling on Christ and the saints as witnesses to convince me that he was telling the truth.
Meanwhile, the mud had reached the axles of the cart, but we were not alarmed, for the villager assured us that we were advancing in the right direction. And, indeed, we soon reached solid ground, for we were near the foot of the mountains on the eastern side. After passing a series of valleys and the hills between them, we reached the monastery. It is situated on the left bank of the Gracanica stream, which rises in the hills a quarter of an hour to the east and flows westward into the surrounding plain, and, like the other streams flowing east-west which we have passed, empties into the Sitnica.
The monastery church is located in the middle of a walled courtyard and several adjacent buildings, and is built in the Byzantine style. However, it contains a number of elements that I had not seen before. Each of its four facades is divided into three parts, of which the lowest part consists of three round arches, the middle arch being one and a half times larger than the other two. Above each of these central arches is the second part consisting of four pointed arches. The rectangular shape they create supports the third part, which is the main dome. At the corners created by the outer arches, there are four secondary domes which, in my opinion, are very isolated and do not harmonize with the base of the main dome.
The pillars supporting the four domes rise to a peculiar height in the interior, but give no impression of harmony when considered with the modest dimensions of the main vault which they support. If they had been of the right proportions, these narrow round arches would have displayed great elegance. A good example of this style is the small church at Old Mistra, which is now, unfortunately, half in ruins.
In accordance with the three outer arches of the façade, the main body of the church contains three naves separated by walls. In the right nave there is a wall to the right of the entrance, with a large inscription in the Slavic language, painted in black letters on the white limestone façade. It consists of 82 lines, each with about 130 letters, occupying a width of about seven feet. It is said to contain the founding act of the monastery and to have been issued by King Milutin who is believed to have been the founder of the monastery. If the weather had been better, I would not have hesitated to copy the entire inscription, despite its length, but, in the circumstances, such an attempt was pointless. The monks of the monastery, of whom there were four in all, including the abbot, told me that a traveler named Stefan had copied the inscription early last summer. It took him eight days, and they built a scaffold to help him. I had also heard about this traveler at the Sveti Otac monastery, where he had also been. In both places, they knew him only by his Christian name and added that he spoke fluent Bulgarian and that he traveled alone, without a companion.
Opposite the inscription, in the same room, are some Latin letters carved on a crudely crafted rectangular altar. In the chalcidicum of the church is another, larger altar, also rectangular, which on both sides presents tomb inscriptions from the pagan Roman period. At the entrance there is also a tombstone from the same period. There is another on the floor of the church, but from it only a few letters at the beginning of the line can be read. I suspect that these were brought to the monastery from the Vicianum station along the great military road that connected Naissus [Niš] with Lisus [Lezha], about which I will speak in more detail below. If Vicianum can be identified with the village of Çagllavića, then it would have been only an hour away from Graçanica.
From the monastery we continued our journey for an hour and a half to the city of Pristina, which lies in a north-northwesterly direction. To reach it, we again crossed several valleys and ranges of hills. The city is situated neither in the plain nor on its edge, but in a side valley, at the point where it divides into two branches. A stream runs through it which descends from the two upper valleys and joins there. According to my calculations, the city has an altitude of 1 feet above sea level. It has twelve minarets and a clock tower that rise above the multitude of houses.
Prishtina (from Slavic broken, meaning “pimple, boil”) is the main center of military training, after Monastery, for the western half of the peninsula. It was undoubtedly chosen for its strategic military position, being between the restive Dardanian and Gheg Albanians, and near the Novi Pazar basin which constitutes the only link between Bosnia and the rest of the empire – a region where the Serbs have often penetrated to “shake hands” with the Montenegrins. For this reason, the city is filled with armed soldiers carrying all kinds of weapons, although it is not an administrative center, but belongs to the Pasha of Prizren and is the seat of a mudir simple. The current officer holding this post is a small, elderly man who paid us a lot of attention, but we did not come into contact with the military authorities.
The next morning (November 1), everything was covered with white, after a foot of snow had fallen during the night. Winter had arrived on this high plateau, and, as the natives informed me, it usually becomes severe after its first appearance. Bad weather was therefore expected. For this reason, I was forced to change my original plan to continue in the direction of the Dardanian mountains, and I thought it would be better to return as soon as possible to the South, to milder and milder climates. I stayed for two days in the mayor’s house. The dark rooms were not at all suitable for my disposition. However, the stay was interesting, because the mayor’s mother told me that European travelers rarely reach there. The last she remembered were two young Frenchmen who had stayed eighteen years ago, when her husband, then mayor of the city, was still alive. When I mentioned the names Boué and Viquesnel, she could only recall the former, but her description was correct. This was the only trace we found of these men, to whom science owes the first detailed description of these places. To what extent these lands were unknown before them – and, in fact, still are – can be seen from the works they left behind. How few they are – nothing to preserve for future generations!
Since the weather made a visit to the Dardanian mountain tribes impossible, we used our time in Pristina to learn at least something about them. For the first time, we were told of a geographical division of the land in the East of the Kosovo Plain into a northern part called Lab [Llap] and a southern part called Golak [Gollak]. It does not seem plausible to me that the term Lab Golab, which Albanians in typical Albania use to describe their Dardanian brethren, derives from these words. As I have written before, the latter is most likely connected with Golubinje, the old name for Vranje. Gol in Slavic means “cullak” and Golak, like Golesh, refers to a bare or desolate mountain range. It is possible that the rocky character of Mërkonje and the two neighboring mountain ranges gave the name to this area, but I was unable to secure any precise information on this, nor on the geographical extent of the region, although I am convinced that its boundaries can be accurately determined after a field inspection.
The Labi region is named after the river, a tributary of the Sitnica, and includes the area that we tried to learn as much about as possible during our stay in Pristina, because it is still completely unknown.
Each of these regions can be divided into two parts, as the note I made shows: Upper Golak includes 19 villages that hold their assemblies in the mosque of Prapashica [Prapashtica]. The 21 villages of Lower Golak gather near the village of Sfircë. The 20 villages around Pristina, in turn, gather in Orlan [Orllan], and the 22 villages of Labi gather in Podujevo [Podujevë]. From this note it can be understood that the Dardanian Albanians hold popular assemblies, just as the highlanders of the motherland do, but, unfortunately, there was no Father Gabriel in Pristina to explain to me in detail the functioning of these Dardanian assemblies, as he did for the Alps of Northern Albania. Consequently, I was unable to learn anything more about them.
The Dardanian Albanians, like the Albanians in the highlands and in the motherland Mirdita, are divided into tribes, but tribal unity is weaker. This can be seen from the fact that blood feuds are a family matter and not a matter of the whole tribe. The obligation to avenge falls only on the closest relative of the murdered man, and, likewise, the responsibility for the murder lies only on the closest heir of the murderer. However, it is debatable whether the principle “he who inherits, he avenges” is an integral part of the custom here – as is claimed. More strange was another piece of information that I heard in Dedić and that was confirmed by Albanians in Prishtina: that a daughter can inherit her father’s property. With her marriage, this property passes into the possession of another tribe, because, although the tribes are widely scattered here, custom still does not allow marriages between members of the same tribe. However, in Prishtina I was informed that this rule is not always strictly observed. If the heiress is able to inherit the property and if she has to marry a member of another tribe, then from a legal perspective a key feature of a tribe is missing, namely the concept of compact tribal territory.
Just like in the motherland, the clan here is called fis, a term that seems to be related to the Greek φύσιςThe successive leaders of the tribes are called nacer, a word I have not encountered in my native language. It is probably of Turkish origin.
The main tribes are distributed throughout the country, approximately as follows: of the 22 villages of Lab, 20 of them are of the Clementine [Kelmend] tribe. The other two belong to the Betush [Bytyq] tribe. They extend from Podujevo to Kursumli and inhabit most of the villages in Dediq. On the other hand, there are no Kelmendas in the regions of Vranje and Gilan [Gjilan]. They all consider the Kelmendi, who live in the Northern Albanian Alps and who belong to the Catholic faith, as their mother tribe from which, at different times, separate families have migrated to Dardania. The Grashniq [Krasniq] are found mainly in and around Pristina and constitute almost the entire Muslim population of that city. Besides them, there are only fourteen houses of the Emir tribe, who consider themselves a branch of a mother tribe in Novo Brdo [Novobërda]. These emirs are the only Muslims in the country who have Asian origins or, as it is said locally, they are the only Ottomans in the country.
Golak i Epërm and Golak i Poshtëm are the main Krasniqi villages in the Prishtina region, where they are more or less equal in number to the Kelmendasi. They are also prominent in Leskoc and Mitrovica, and are also found in the Vranje region.
Mixed with the Krasniqi in the Leskoc region are the branches of the Sob (Sanë), Berisha and Gashi tribes. The Sobs are also the majority in the Moravica Valley. Almost all the inhabitants of Karadag [Skopje’s Montenegro] are of the Berisha tribe. Gashi is also found in the Masurica region which, however, belongs mainly to the Krasniqi. The Gashjans inhabit six villages in the vicinity of Leskoc, but have no connection with the rest of their tribe in Pristina and Vranje. Their chieftain was once Latif Aga, known throughout the country for his bravery. He has now been replaced by his eldest son, Reshid Aga, whose brother, Emini, commands the garrison of five at the post at Lebana [Lebane]. I am grateful for some of this information to this Emin and one of his subordinates named Hajdar, who particularly stood out to me because he was the only Albanian who, by his gestures, showed that he offered shelter to others [non-Muslims?]. They also told me about other large tribes: the Gashjans who are scattered everywhere, and the Shala [Shala] who constitute the main part of the population of the Vučitërna [Vushtrri] region and who recognize the Catholic Shala of the Northern Albanian Alps as their mother tribe.
These are the largest tribes. However, they share Albanian Dardania with a dozen smaller tribes. The latter can be further divided into smaller groups. For example, the Berisha tribe has seven branches: 1. Asqur, 2. Ali Shiça, 3. Dodo, 4. Murtur, 5. Livosh, 6. Kuç, 7. Gec, and these branches are divided into even smaller units. Since I could not learn anything new about these matters in Dardania, I ask the reader to refer to what I have already written in Albanese Studien [Albanian Studies].
As for population figures for Dardanian Albanians, the only reliable point of reference is the report from the General Staff of the Rumelia military corps on the number of recruits that the Muslim population in these regions of Dardanian Albania provides in the first-class recruitment in peacetime, in a ratio of 5:100. Other information I have gathered in this regard is consistent with this.
This makes a total of 8 Albanians of conscription age, because the Muslim population in these districts is entirely Albanian and there are no Christian Albanians there. However, this does not help us further because, although I asked for an estimate of the proportion of conscripts to the general population, I received no answer.
Fortunately, I received information in Gjilan that there were 3 houses in the district that bears the name of this city, of which 800 belonged to Muslim Albanians and 2 to Christian Bulgarians. This information can serve more or less as a basis for a calculation. As I noted earlier, Albanians tend to preserve their family units as long as possible from disintegration and to stay within them, because they are more prone to blood feuds and the law of force than Serbs and Bulgarians. For this reason, I would estimate that there are at least six people in an Albanian family on average. According to this calculation, Dardanian Albania would have a population of about 300 inhabitants.
If we calculate the area of this region as about 80 square miles, then there would be a population density of about 900 people per square mile.
In addition to the districts mentioned above, there are several others outside Lab Golak and the regions to the East, such as the Moravica Valley, the source of the Morava and parts of the Kosovo Plain. On the other hand, we can safely assume that the lists used for recruitment in this wild and harsh country are far from the real population data, and for this reason I suspect that our figures are more low than high. /Telegraph/
