SKANDERBEG or GEORGE CASTRIOTA (14o3 1468), the national hero of the Albanians, "ranked by Sir Wil liam Temple among the seven chiefs who have deserved, with out wearing a toyal crown," was of Serbian origin. The founder of the family of Castriota was a certain Branilo, who was gov ernor of Kanina in 1368, and whose grandson, Giovanni, lord of Mat and Vumenestia, married Voisava Tripalda, daughter of a Serbian magnate. The offspring of this union was George Castri ota. Thus, as the Albanians gave to Greece several leaders of her War of Independence, Serbia furnished the chief figure of their struggle for freedom. George's uncle had, however, married an heiress of the leading Albanian clan of Thopia and thus acquired, together with the fortress of Kroja, some of that family's influ ence. Born in 1403, George was II years old when the Turks began to occupy Albania, and, while the castle of Kroja became the seat of a Turkish governor, he was sent as a hostage to Con stantinople. Educated there as a Muslim he received the Turkish name of Iskander ("Alexander"), applied to him by Byron in Childe Harold, with the title of bey—subsequently abbreviated by his countrymen into Skanderbeg. Like Albanians in later times, he rose to eminence in the Turkish service ; he was pro moted to the government of a sanjak, and for many years f ought for his Turkish masters against Venetians and Serbs, till, in while serving in the Turkish army which had been defeated by Janos Hunyadi's troops near Nish, he heard that his native land had risen against the Turkish garrison.
Then, at the age of 4o, he realized that his mission was to free Albania, and the rest of his life was devoted to that object. Seizing Kroja by stratagem, he made it his capital, proclaimed himself a Christian, and gathered the wild Albanian clansmen about him. His personal influence was increased by his marriage with Andronica, daughter of Arianites Comnenus, a prominent Albanian chief, who had vainly endeavoured to drive out the Turks. The other chiefs rallied round his standard ; the Mon tenegrins, whose ruler, Stephen Crnojevich, was his brother-in law, came to his assistance, and at a gathering of the clans at the Venetian colony of Alessio he was proclaimed Captain-General of Albania. Venice, then mistress of the Albanian coast as far south as Durazzo, at first regarded him as a rival, but subsequently took him into her pay as an ally against the common foe. The pope and the king of Naples helped the Albanian cause, as fel low-Christians and neighbours, and the latter, mindful of the claims of the Neapolitan Angevins beyond the Adriatic, received the homage of the Albanian champion. But Mohammed II.,
partly by working upon the proverbial jealousy of the other Albanian chiefs, partly by force of arms, temporarily eliminated him, and in 1461 concluded with him a ten years' armistice.
But long before it elapsed, Skanderbeg, at the instigation of Pius II., broke it, with fatal results. That pope's projected cru sade was prevented by its author's death; Skanderbeg, abandoned by his western allies, was left to fight single-handed against the great sultan, who himself in 1466 besieged Kroja. The fortress held out, but Skanderbeg went to seek help from Pope Paul II. in Rome, where a lane near the Quirinal still commemorates his name and visit. Returning, he died in the Venetian colony of Alessio on Jan. 17, 1468, whereupon the Turks easily conquered Albania, except Kroja, ceded by his son to Venice, and the other Venetian possessions. His son Giovanni and other Albanian chiefs emigrated to southern Italy, and his posterity formed part of the considerable Albanian colonies there; in our own time a self styled Castriota claimed the Albanian throne on the ground of his alleged descent from the national hero.
Skanderbeg's grave in the church of St. Nicholas at Alessio was opened by the Turks, who touched his bones with superstitious reverence and wore them as amulets ; but the ruins of the castle which he built on Cape Rodoni remain, the Mirdites still wear mourning for him, and the independent Albania of to-day has placed his image on some of her postage stamps. He has been made the subject of a Latin poem by de Bussieres, an Italian poem by Signora Sarrocchi, and an English tragedy, Scanderbeg: or Love and Liberty, by Whincop (i747). Gen. Wolfe wrote that "he exceeds all the officers, ancient and modern, in the conduct of a small defensive army." His resistance to the Turkish ad vance helped Christendom, but did not save Albania—a country too small and too much divided by the clan system to stand against a powerful Turkey.
T. Petrovitch, Scanderbeg (Georges Cas triota) ; Essai de bibliographie raisonnee ; Ouvrages sur Scanderbeg ecrits en langues francaise, anglaise, allemande, latine, italienne, etc. (Paris, 1880 ; Pisko, Skanderbeg, historische Studie (Vienna, 1895) M. Barletius, Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi Epirotarum Prin cipis (Rome, S.A.? 1508) ; J. de Lavardin, Histoire de Georges Castriot, surnomme Scanderbeg (Paris, 1598) ; C. C. Moore, George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, king of Albania (New York, x85o) ; Hopf, Chroniques Greco-romanes (Berlin, 1873) ; Monumenta spectantia historiam Slavorum Meridionalium, xxiv. 404 (Agram, 1868-93).
(W. M.)