Albania

ALBANIA, a former kingdom, under Italian domination since 1939. Lying on the west coast of the Balkan peninsula, it has an area of 27,538 square kilometres and a pop. (193o) of 1,003,124, formed out of the earlier Turkish provinces of Scutari and Yan nina, with parts of the vilayets of Kosovo and Monastir. Though the Albanian kingdom may be said to date only from the year 192o, when a national assembly was convoked, and the national boundaries were not demarcated till 1925, the state displayed a certain individuality, distinguishing it from its two larger neigh bours, Greece and Yugoslavia.

The Albanian lands lie athwart the mountain chain of the Dinaric Alps, but, as contrasted with Dalmatia to the north and Greece to the south, these here stand back from the sea, from which they are separated by a marshy and malarious lowland, crossed by several important rivers. The actual coast is generally low, and the shore waters are rendered turbid by the silt carried down by the rivers, thus contrasting markedly with the clear blue tint off the limestone country further north. Equally marked is the general absence of the coastal settlements so characteristic of most parts of the Mediterranean. Southwards, in the region near the port of Valona, the coastal lowland disappears, and limestone hills again approach the water's edge. In this, the region anciently called Epirus, the Greek mode of life becomes visible, though Greek penetration was always limited. The Albanians have been in the past and still are mainly mountain folk, occupying the hilly interior rather than the coastal lowland. The continuity of the mountain belt gives them a certain cultural unity, while at the same time the fact that it is broken up into a series of small regions, more or less isolated from each other, has made the growth of a national spirit a slow process. The country has thus three essential features which go far to explain the history and characteristics of its people : because of the littoral plains it marks a definite break in the otherwise mountainous west coast of the peninsula; its elevated hinterland forms a natural refuge between the seaway to the west and the north-to south land routes of the interior of the peninsula; within the mountain belt lie valleys and basins of considerable productivity, capable of supporting fairly dense populations. The aloofness both of the land as a whole, and of its centres of settlement, has led to Albania being one of the least known parts of Europe, and within the country the primitive and the ultra-modern jostle one another. Thus there were in 1939 eight regularly-scheduled air routes, four wireless stations, and a considerable number of roads suitable for motor traffic ; but at the same time the simple wooden plough, which scarcely does more than scratch the ground, is of archaic type. The language of the country is practically unknown beyond its own borders.

Structure and Relief.

Starting from this simple conception of Albania as consisting of a marginal lowland, crossed by power ful perennial streams, and a complex mountainous hinterland enclosing small fertile basins, the details of the picture may be filled in. To the north the Albanian Alps, built largely of massive limestones, form the outstanding feature. They have a general west-to-east direction, roughly parallel to the course of the Lower Drin, below the junction of the two streams of the Black and White Drin. The Black Drin is the effluent of Lake Okhrida, and flows northwards, draining a large part of eastern Albania, while the White Drin enters the country from Yugoslavia, flowing in a southerly direction. Below the confluence the river swings round at a sharp angle to cut through wild mountainous country, in a series of inaccessible gorges, on its way to the Adriatic. It receives a number of swift tributaries from the Albanian Alps, these also flowing in deep, steep-sided gorges, for the southern slopes of the mountains are remarkably abrupt and rocky. The result is that the actual valley of the Lower Drin is not, as one might suppose, a line of access to the interior, the only practicable route from the coast to the confluence of the two headstreams running well south of the river in the hilly Merdita region. No bridge crosses the Drin in its gorge section, and as it is too deep to be forded, the inhabitants usually cross it by swimming, sup ported by inflated skins. The fact is interesting as suggesting what is meant by difficulties of communication in Albania.

The Albanian Alps rise to heights of 6,5oo-8,5ooft. above sea level, and to the north-west, where limestones predominate, they are practically a continuation of the high karst of Montenegro. To the north-east, however, other rocks, particularly Palaeozoic schists, appear and the scenery is of a different type. The steep lower slopes are thickly wooded, for the region has one of the highest mean annual rainfalls in Europe. At the higher levels, however, where considerable plateau tracts occur, there are wide summer pastures. Though in the strict sense there is no permanent snow, patches linger throughout the summer, and a very slight change in the climate would give the chain a snowcap. It was heavily glaciated during the Ice Age, and the effects of ice erosion have been to accentuate its inaccessibility and high relief. Except on their margins the mountains are virtually devoid of permanent habitations, and thus at first sight they would appear to form an admirable boundary zone. But, as has been noted by travellers, parts of the higher levels swarm with herdsmen and their flocks during the summer season, and these mountain pas tures are an economic necessity to the inhabitants of the lower grounds. Great difficulties have consequently arisen in demarcat ing frontiers, for the line of the water-parting, so often chosen as a basis, may separate a group from its pastures and thus inflict great hardship. In limestone regions, also, the water-parting may be very difficult to trace.

Westwards the Albanian Alps cease abruptly some 3om. from the Adriatic coast, giving place to quite a different type of country. Though much of it lies below Goof t., it is not a uniform plain, and there is a considerable belt of hills between Lake Scutari and the sea. The structure is, however, perfectly clear and simple. Low limestone hills indicate that the coastal chains of Dalmatia are con tinued here, but two separate facts introduce a new note. The first is that depression has taken place on a much greater scale than further north, and the second is that very extensive silting has occurred, so that the sunken hill-ridges are largely submerged beneath a mantle of recent deposits. Lake Scutari itself repre sents an area of depression in which the filling has been incom plete. The Drin, on emerging from its gorge, swollen by the water from the Albanian Alps, has great difficulty in finding its way through the maze of its own deposits and those of its tributary the Kiri. Up to the year 1858 it turned southward past Alessio (Lesh) and discharged its waters by a swampy, wooded delta just south of the port called by the Italians San Giovanni de Medua, and by the Albanians Shen Gjin. In that year, during a period of high flood, it broke through to the Boyana, the effluent of Lake Scutari, and most of its water now follows this course, the older one carrying but a small part. This caused a rise in the level of Lake Scutari, with a flooding of parts of its margins, and also obstructed the channel of the Boyana, formerly navigable, by the silt thus poured into it. As in all such changes of river course, deserted channels and pools were left to become breeding places of mosquitoes, and thus form foci of malaria.

South of this frontier zone of coastal lowland and inland mountain belt the conditions are much more complicated, both as regards geological structure and relief. The mere fact that the Drin, after a lengthy course as the Black Drin in the interior, should cut its way through the mountains in a gorge more than 3,000ft. deep, and over 3om. long, is sufficient to suggest that there have been earth movements on a considerable scale here. So far as geographical effects are concerned, however, the matter may be simply put. The course of the Lower Drin marks a change in the direction of the mountain folds, associated with changes in their characters. The outer or coastal folds have sunk, and at the same time rocks from the west have been thrust over them. The inner folds have bcen elevated, and as a result their surface rocks, including tertiary sandstones and Cretaceous limestones, have been for the most part worn off, exposing the deeper beds, mainly serpentines, below. These serpentines give rise to rounded land-forms, far less repellent than massive lime stones, even though the elevation is considerable, a number of crests rising above 6,5ooft. with a maximum of nearly g,000ft. The region has also been cut up by river action so that it is by no means uniformly high, but encloses small plains whose floors in some cases sink to only some 65oft. above sea-level.

South of the Semeni the low ridges rise to greater heights and the limestones reappear beneath the sandstones. Stiil further south, beyond the River Viossa, the elevation increases to over 6,000ft., the limestones are fully developed, the sandstone cover ing disappears from the crests, though it remains in the interven ing furrows, and the lowland gives place to the mountainous Epirus region, continued beyond the frontier into Greece. The vegetation undergoes a corresponding change, woods tend to dis appear, and the summits are clothed with scanty herbage, again forming summer pasturages. This type of country is continued southward into Greece, and frontier lines are difficult to draw, for the whole tract is the natural home of wandering shepherds. No notable difference of elevation separates this littoral Epirus area from the mountain zone of interior Albania, but it is still possible to distinguish between the two because of the great simplicity of structure of the western folds.

From the western shores of Lake Okhrida towards the Lower Drin there extends northwards a mountain belt consisting of a series of blocks separated by mountain passes. This forms a central backbone repelling settlement to its margins. It is highest to the south where also it forms a single chain, and becomes lower towards the north where it tends to consist of rows of hills rather than of a single ridge. Finally it merges into the complex hilly country of the Merdita, south of the Lower Drin, where settlement becomes possible on the flanks of the hills as well as in the intervening valleys. Except in the extreme south, most of this central hill belt is heavily wooded, especially with beech. Above the tree limit occur the usual high pastures.

At either side of this chain lie long furrows, each consisting of a succession of basins and gorges, and forming one of the most characteristic features of the country. The eastern furrow is traversed by the Black Drin, and is bounded by another mountain belt on its eastern side. It might be supposed, therefore, that this mountain belt would form the eastern frontier of Albania with Yugoslavia. But this is only the case to a limited extent, for south of the town of Dibra, on the Black Drin, the Yugoslav frontier is pushed westwards, and includes that town, a part of the river and the greater part of Lake Okhrida. This is but another illustration of the difficulty of drawing satisfactory frontiers in the Balkan peninsula. The difficulty here depends on the peculiar topography which is itself a result of recent earth movements. It is a characteristic feature of Macedonia that large depressed basins occur which, even when they are strung along the same river system, are separated physically from one another by mountain sills, cut through by the river in gorges. Because of these sills it happens frequently that basins belonging to separate river systems ,are in closer touch with one another than those linked by a single river. The Black Drin shows very markedly this feature of successive basins and gorges, the basins being largest to the south, and smaller towards the north. The largest is that which is mainly submerged beneath the waters of Lake Okhrida. It is a general rule in Albania that, as compared with Macedonia, the basins are small, and thus only moderately productive, and not capable of supporting a dense population. At the same time the intervening gorges tend to be longer and more forbidding, and the possibility of linking effectively succes sive series of basins by transverse routes is much less notable. These differences have had a cumulative effect on the inhabitants of the two areas, and the present frontier, which assigns the greater part of the larger southern basins to Yugoslavia, the power which holds the adjacent section of Macedonia here, and the smaller, more northerly ones to Albania, is drawn mainly on an ethnic basis, racial distribution here being a reflection of the topography.

Some of the basins on the course of the Black Drin may be noted. The largest, as just stated, is occupied by Lake Okhrida, of which only the south-western corner falls in Albania. Here lies the settlement of Pogradec. Still further south there lies a large basin containing the town of Koritsa, but this is best con sidered with the western furrow rather than with that of the Black Drin. On emerging from the lake that river passes through a heavily wooded gorge to emerge at the basin of Dibra. Though most of this basin lies in Yugoslavia, its Albanian side is also capable of settlement. A low ridge separates this basin from that of Pehskepi, further north, and the alternation of basin and sill is continued to and even beyond the confluence of the Black and White Drin. In each basin there tends to be a market centre, but the point of importance is that the floor of the whole basin is capable of yielding cereals, especially maize and wheat, so that each f orms a centre of settlement, more or less isolated • from its neighbours, and necessarily self-sufficing.

To the west of the central mountain belt lies the second furrow, differing in several respects from that of the Drin. Though bounded on the west by the hill belt which forms the inner margin of the coastal lowland, it lacks the continuity given to its easterly counterpart by the Black Drin. A belt of highland forming the water-parting between the Upper Mati and a right-bank tributary of the Shkumbi divides it into a northern and a southern section, drained respectively by the Upper Mati and the Upper Shkumbi. North and south of this wooded and impassable highland passes permit communication with the Black Drin furrow, downstream from Dibra on the one hand, and in the Lake Okhrida area on the other. The latter line is particularly important as it was fol lowed by the Roman Via Egnatia which passed from Durazzo to Elbasan, placed where the Shkumbi emerges from the hill country, and then by way of the basin traversed by that river to the shores of Lake Okhrida, which was rounded to the north. The existence of this route shows that the Shkumbi furrow is much less isolated than parts of the Drin furrow.

The headstream of the Shkumbi approaches very closely the valley of the Devoli, one of the two feeders of the River Semeni. The Devoli drains the basin of Koritsa, to the south of Lake Okhrida, and may be said to mark the region of convergence of the two furrows, the eastern and the western. Koritsa is a fairly important route centre, being connected southwards through Albanian Epirus with Yannina in Greek Epirus, eastward with Kastoria in Greek Macedonia, and also by the Devoli valley with the coastal lowland as with Durazzo via Elbasan and with Valona. To the south-west of the Koritsa basin lies the smaller one of Kolonja, traversed by the Osum river, the other feeder of the Semeni.

Climate and Natural Vegetation.

Theclimate of Albania may be briefly dismissed. The coastal lowland, together with the littoral part of the Epirus region, has the typical Mediter ranean climate, with summer drought accentuated by high summer temperatures. But this type has a limited distribution. Even in the Epirus region the elevation brings changes, diminishing the heat of summer and slightly increasing its rainfall. The southern part of inner Albania, at least in the basins, shows the mod:fied Mediterranean or Macedonian type. The summers are hot, parently even hotter than in the lowland, but winter frosts occur.

The natural vegetation reflects these climatic conditions. Near the coast the characteristic Mediterranean scrub or maquis occurs, though this has been largely cleared. It had always a somewhat limited distribution, and the most widely distributed plant association in the south is oak wood, or rather oak scrub forest. The oaks are of the evergreen, drought-resisting type, and in addition to their value as sources of fuel are important in the low grounds as furnishing in their leaves and shoots supple mentary winter fodder. Even cattle and horses eat oak leaves in Albania. To the north, with the heavier rainfall, the oak woods give place to luxuriant mixed forest, with beech as a predominant element, mingled with pines and firs.

People.

The inhabitants are mainly Albanians, with a certain admixture of Vlachs, especially in the Epirus region, and of a very few Serbs and Bulgars. But not all the Albanians live within the confines of the country. A number estimated at 2 50,000 live in southern Italy and Sicily, whither their forefathers fled from the Turks in the 15th and i 6th centuries. Some 5o,000 are found in the United States, many emigrants leaving Epirus, a region of poverty. As in other parts of the peninsula, emigration is often temporary, the travellers returning when they have amassed a certain amount of money. In addition roughly a million of Albanians live in Greek Epirus, Macedonia, and Kosovo, outside the frontier.

The Albanians have retained their original language, and, though dialects occur, the differences are said not to be so marked as to make mutual comprehension impossible. They are divided into Ghegs to the north of the Shkumbi line and Tosks to the south, the latter being apparently the more advanced. Some 69% of the total are Muslims, this being an effect of Turkish rule ; monogamy is, however, the rule, and the status of women is higher than in most Muslim countries. About i o%, mostly living in the north, are Roman Catholics, while 20%, mostly in the south, belong to the Albanian orthodox church. Religious differences count for nothing as such, but affect political and social relations.

From the psychological standpoint the Albanians, about whose characteristics much has been written, may be said broadly to show the features common to iso lated mountain folk. As is fre quently the case with such stocks their virtues are apt to be more highly estimated by strangers than by those with whom they come in daily contact. Theft and cold-blooded murder are not crimes, either in the estimation of the individual or of his fellows, but a breach of the plighted word or a violation of the duties of hospitality cuts a man off from his family group, and adultery is uncommon. The blood-feud or vendetta, almost inevitable in a country of such loose organiza tion, has been in the past a scourge, and there are said to be still, at least among the Ghegs, groups which hold that the death, even the accidental death, of a kinsman can only be wiped off by the murder of the guilty person or one of his relatives. Associated with this is the strength of the bessa or pledge, which protects its holder absolutely. All women are protected by the bessa, and so also is any man accompanied by a woman. Boys under 16 years of age, ecclesiastics, and gen erally all those incapable of bearing arms, are also protected, while certain places, or routes, some occupations, such as irrigation works, and certain periods, confer similar rights.

Occupations. The

Albanians are almost entirely dependent on the land, carrying on a characteristic combination of pastoral and agricultural occupations. Sheep form the major part of the flocks, and yield cheese, which forms an important part of the diet, and is exported on a considerable scale, as well as wool and skins. Goats are also reared, but the cattle are of poor breeds, yielding little milk. Oxen, with buffaloes in the swampy plains, are the plough animals. Religion excludes the thrifty pig, save among the Christian tribes, and meat of any kind is a luxury. Even the ewe's-milk cheese is too valuable to be used extensively, and the Albanians are mainly vegetarians, depending on maize bread with vegetables and whey. Horses, donkeys and mules are reared for riding and as pack animals.

It is calculated that only 7-9% of the surface is arable, but of this total only a small part, particularly in the north, is actually utilized. In the lower grounds all the characteristic Mediterranean fruit-trees, including olive, orange, lemon, fig, etc., can be grown, but the Albanian shows little aptitude for the more delicate operations of arboriculture. The vine is grown on a fairly large scale, especially in the south of interior Albania, and wine is made, but of a quality only fit for local use. Brandy is distilled from a variety of fruits, including mulberries, and alcoholism is said to be one of the curses of the country. Despite the presence of the mulberry, silkworm-rearing is only carried on on a small scale. Rice is produced in the swampy parts of the lowland, and tobacco is fairly widespread, and forms an article of export.

Towns.

Tirana, the capital, is the largest town with 3o,806 inhabitants, and is growing rapidly. It lies in a wide and fertile plain below a mountain chain. It was chosen as the capital as being central, capable of expansion, and sufficiently far from the frontier or the sea to be presumably secure from any sudden seizure or from bombardment. Koritsa, which is the third largest town in the country, is situated in a well-cultivated and prosperous area.

See Bourcart, L'Albanie et les Albanais (192I) ; Louis, Albanien (1927, bibl.) ; Ronald Matthews, Sons of the Eagle (1 93 7) (M. I. N., X.) Defence.—In 1938, liability of all Albanians for military service began at the age of 20 and ended at the age of 5o. All youths, on attaining the age of 16, underwent pre-military training; and at i 7 they joined a militia which formed part of the national defence forces.

At 20 they were liable for 18 months regular military service, and thereafter they were reservists. In 1938 the strength of the army was about 770 officers and 12,270 other ranks. There was a gendarmerie, and a Royal Frontier Guard of four battalions, and a coastguard service flotilla of four motor launches. Such flying material and personnel as the country possessed was not organized into an air force.

See also the League of Nations Armaments