Ancient Illyria and Ethnic Albania as Playable Civilizations!

Do not let the constructed political borders and boundaries of today fool you; these ethnic Albanian cities are a part of ethnic Albania, regardless of however Europe may next decide to split it up.

Hmmm you are not ...historically accurate here,after all the only purpose of the European intervation after the Ottoman(both Turkish and Albanian)defeat in the Balkan war was to ensure that Serbs and Greeks withdraw from the borders they considered the Albanian state should have.
Bur nevertherless every city that has or ever had an important number of Albanian population could be in your list(the same way as Dyrahium could be in the Byzantine city list,Epidamnos and Chimara in the Greek one).I just didnt like the dramatic tone of your last post.Cheers;)
 
Hmmm you are not ...historically accurate here,after all the only purpose of the European intervation after the Ottoman(both Turkish and Albanian)defeat in the Balkan war was to ensure that Serbs and Greeks withdraw from the borders they considered the Albanian state should have.
Bur nevertherless every city that has or ever had an important number of Albanian population could be in your list(the same way as Dyrahium could be in the Byzantine city list,Epidamnos and Chimara in the Greek one).I just didnt like the dramatic tone of your last post.Cheers;)

Perhaps I don't really understand your argument because it's not put forth very clearly (the wording is ambiguous), but I trust that you'll correct me if I'm wrong.

Firstly, do you define "Ottoman" as Turkish and Albanian (as indicated by your parentheses after the word)? To do so is extremely incorrect, and reflects the propaganda pushed especially by the Serbs and the Greeks to gain Western European support in the dismantling of Albanian lands.

After the Russians defeated the Ottomans in the Russo-Turkish war, they insisted that Albania (then still under Ottoman domination) be divided and given to Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria. Large portions of northern Albania were ceded by the Balkan Slavs through Russia's initiative to help its Slavic "brothers" gain access to more land and a warm water port. The Russians have always protected and defended the interests of the Serbs, which coincide with their own interests, and have been almost a satellite into Europe through the Balkans for Russia.

The Treaty of San Stefano granted large tracts of Albanian land to the Balkan Slavs, and was imposed by the Russians and the Western Europeans on the Turks, which gave up the Albanian land. In the part given to Montenegro, especially, the Albanians organized and provided fiercely successful armed resistance. The Ottomans were then pressured into "pacifying its subjects" and sent in battalions to take control of the region from the Albanians and hand it over to the Montenegrins. The Great Powers of Europe interceded and set up a naval blockade to prevent reinforcements and munitions from reaching the Albanians. Surrounded on all sides and cut off from further support, the region was eventually reclaimed by the Turks and handed to the Montenegrins. The size of the state of Montenegro doubled as a result of this.

The Balkan Wars actually began with the Albanian war of independence, which made significant gains in 1911 when the Albanians seized Shkup (now the capital of FYROM) from the the Turks, and Albanian independence was first declared in the part of the northern Albanian mountains (allotted to Montenegro) close to the present Albanian border. The Albanians initiated in rebellion against the Ottomans and began to reclaim control of their ancestral lands, when the Balkan Slavs and Greeks, witnessing the disintegration and apparent weakness of control of the Ottoman Empire, declared war as an excuse to make land grabs.

While they may have formally declared war against the Ottoman Empire (since up to that point Albania was under Ottoman administration), in effect they were fighting the Albanians for the territories that the Albanians had just liberated. Since the Balkan Slavs lived in states with decades of independence and standing professional armies, as well as superior numbers, the Albanians were outnumbered and lost such possessions which then became incorporated into the aforementioned states.

In order to prevent the further partition of Albania, the independence of the country was officially declared in 1912 and, thanks in large part to Woodrow Wilson's interest in the Albanian people and the concept of self-determination, spared the country from further annexation by its neighbors and the plans of some Europeans to remove it from the map completely, partitioning it between Serbia, Greece, and Italy.
 
Well said.Your description of the events is pretty accurate.I didnt even claim that your city list aint accurate.
It is sure that Russians promoted the interests of the southern slavs(especially the bulgarians,not the Serbs).It is sure that Albanians were in a very difficult position and had to distinguish themselves from the turkish ottoman citizens(I never claimed they were turks:crazyeye: ) and fight for their independence because the danger of foreign occupation or even worse a new homeland in the anatolian mountains created by a population exchange was imminent(Actually many turks of epirus refused their "turkishness" to avoid this).It is sure that the new formed states tried to seize as much territory they could from the crumbling and ethnically mixed Ottoman Empire.In order to support their efforts they claimed that every territory with their ethnic population (even if it was a minority of 2 families in a 500 family town) was their ethnic land.Everybody accused their neighbors for extreme and illogical claims while they had their own similar claims.Eveybody was(and unfortunatelly is) his neighbor's bad guy while the superpowers were part of an evil consiracy to support the bad guys.

Originally Posted by Shqype
Do not let the constructed political borders and boundaries of today fool you; these ethnic Albanian cities are a part of ethnic Albania, regardless of however Europe may next decide to split it up

I suppose you get my point.
 
Alright, it appears we see eye to eye. :)

If you downloaded this mod, be sure to check the Civilopedia. In the Albania entry, I have a link to another entry called "Rilindja Kombetare," or the National Revival, which is very informative and gives a great idea of the obstacles faced by Albanians in unifying, and how their land-hungry neighbors (and especially the Ottoman Empire), did what they could to stop it from happening.


One of the coolest things is reading New York Times articles from the early 1900s about these very struggles. :D I could always post some, if you're interested. ;)
 
this is great i'v ben searching this for a long time...gues im not a good finder......esht shum mir...vazhdo keshtu te na besh krenar
 
sory for double-posting ut u can post those news-pappers im really interested to see how usa sees this great day
 
Somehow I can't download it. It seems as a broken link.
One thing bother me. The costumes. They should have fustanella, the albanian kilt. The white pants with black strips was used from villagers. The albania nobility and warriors worn the fustanella. Something like this



 
Thanks for your concern.

The fustanella was used only by the Tosks in the South, which are roughly only 1/3 of the entire Albanian population. They are represented in the Illyrian Kambsor unit. The Kalorse, on the other hand, represents Gjergj Kastrioti's guerrilla cavalry, and thus correctly are worn with their Albanian national dress. Most of Kastrioti's soldiers were Gegs, and at Kuvendi i Lezhes only 2 out of the 10 royal families and nobility present were Tosk.

The çakshir, (white pants with black stripes, as you call it) is the traditional Geg Albanian costume, and doesn't only apply to the "villagers," as you claim, but also the mountaineers which made up a majority of Kastrioti's army. Since the Albanians lived in their tribal and clan structures since Illyrian times, to call them all "villagers" might not be very far from the truth, but the sentiment which accompanied that classification is understood and often derogatory, unfortunately.

I need to re-upload the file, because since the database was hacked and many of the recent uploads were lost, this file has been lost as well.
 
you're wrong. the ghegs used it to but for some reasons they stoped using fustanella after 1900. the first in my previous post image has a writing "albanians in Scutari (shkodra)"

Fencing,Albanians_of_Montenegro_by_Paja_Jovanoviq



engraving-LEMONDEILLUSTRE-PUBLICATIONFROMAROUND1870-londontype-titledTYPESOFALBANIANS--2shkodra-pulti-mirdita-shala-kelmendi



londonnewsfustanella-ALBANIAandMONTENEGROSOLDIERSFIGHTING-PRINT1880



Rudolf_Ottenfeld,_Backgammon_1890_north_albanians


All this images are for Ghegs. Enver hoxha's system wanted to show the common worker (njeriun e thjeshte) as the real force of the nation. It was the comunism's ideology. this is why he made those pants as national costume but I never saw that costume on the paintings depicting albanians before 1900.Read more books of europian travelers during that era and you will see how the ghegs are shown. they just stopped using that before the tosks, nothing else.
 
It's unfortunate that you feel that way. It is well known that Enver Hoxha was a Tosk, and if he wanted to use "pants for the worker" they were more modern European pants, definitely not the çakshir which is depicted in the unit art. That is national dress of the Geg as well as of Malsia, the highland region, which has been wearing the same outfit for centuries upon centuries. The female counterpart to the çakshir, the xhubletë, is the oldest European national dress.

Albanians have been wearing the çakshir prior to Gjergj Kastrioti's time. If you read Kanuni i Leke Dukagjinit you would know this. Both Leke Dukagjini, Gjergj Kastrioti, and their soldiers wore the çakshir. It's an ancient costume.
 
I spent some time reading the posts, and i must say that i am dissapointed that this always happens in threads about the balkans. People really need to stop constructing national myths and megalomaniac ideas about their countries; the only way forward is with mutual understanding and co-operation..
 
I spent some time reading the posts, and i must say that i am dissapointed that this always happens in threads about the balkans. People really need to stop constructing national myths and megalomaniac ideas about their countries; the only way forward is with mutual understanding and co-operation..

Anything you're talking about in particular?

I re-uploaded both BTS versions of the files to the database, the links are in the first post.

Anyway, all enjoy, let me know what you guys think. :)
 
Anything you're talking about in particular?

The fact that you present it as if Albania is somehow entitled to land belonging to other countries is nothing sort of dangerous. Im sure you would not like it if people had dreams of taking land from your own country, and it is not their fault that it is small and poor.
It is very well known that all countries in the balkans have national myths. However if you think that loving your country is the same thing as singling out historic recourses which in your view present it as something great, then imo you are very wrong and have a destructive relation with history. You did not at all mind the fact that some cities you named as "ethnically albanian" today belong to others, and moreover albania has no more connection to them that they do, if any at all. You go on an on about Kastrioti as if he was some sort of deity, but in reality he was only another warlord who in the end got defeated and that was all. Just because you have nothing else to be proud of you create legends about relatively insignificant figures, and use them to spread false sense of being the victim. I have news for you: everyone in the balkans at some time played that card. More news: we are all victims, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, all were good and the others bad and thieves. Check nationalism in the other balkan countries and you will see the same rotten undercurrent; you are not presenting anything particularly different, but make the mistake of being proud of it.
I do not mean to be rude to you, it is just that i am very bored of people who cannot understand that the one and only way that this region of Europe is going to get better is through civilization and normal relations. No one cares about albanian megalomania; most people outside Europe do not even know where Albania is. You have every right to love your country, like i said, but do not let love become hatred for other countries.

In conclusion i would like to say that i have nothing against albanians, but dislike heavily any idea of a greater Albania and myths about it.
Anyway this post became larger than i originally intended.
 
The fact that you present it as if Albania is somehow entitled to land belonging to other countries is nothing sort of dangerous. Im sure you would not like it if people had dreams of taking land from your own country, and it is not their fault that it is small and poor.
It is very well known that all countries in the balkans have national myths. However if you think that loving your country is the same thing as singling out historic recourses which in your view present it as something great, then imo you are very wrong and have a destructive relation with history. You did not at all mind the fact that some cities you named as "ethnically albanian" today belong to others, and moreover albania has no more connection to them that they do, if any at all. You go on an on about Kastrioti as if he was some sort of deity, but in reality he was only another warlord who in the end got defeated and that was all. Just because you have nothing else to be proud of you create legends about relatively insignificant figures, and use them to spread false sense of being the victim. I have news for you: everyone in the balkans at some time played that card. More news: we are all victims, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, all were good and the others bad and thieves. Check nationalism in the other balkan countries and you will see the same rotten undercurrent; you are not presenting anything particularly different, but make the mistake of being proud of it.
I do not mean to be rude to you, it is just that i am very bored of people who cannot understand that the one and only way that this region of Europe is going to get better is through civilization and normal relations. No one cares about albanian megalomania; most people outside Europe do not even know where Albania is. You have every right to love your country, like i said, but do not let love become hatred for other countries.

In conclusion i would like to say that i have nothing against albanians, but dislike heavily any idea of a greater Albania and myths about it.
Anyway this post became larger than i originally intended.

All this coming from the Greek that created a scenario about the first Balkan War without representing the Albanians which started it, :lol:

To say that the ethnically Albanian cities have nothing to do with Albania is grossly exaggerated lie. The cities I have from Montenegro, Kosova, and Macedonia are all populated by majority Albanians. Ulqini, for example, a coast given to Montenegro by the great powers over a century ago, despite the staunch Albanian resistance to such injustice, is still 95% Albanian today. My forefathers lived there, and my ancestors lived there, and my family still lives there today. Roughly 1/3 of Macedonia is comprised of Albanians (the Macedonian government 'officially' claims 1/4), and the cities I mentioned are all Albanian inhabited. Kosova, as you know, is +90% Albanian as well.

The only exception might be in Greece, where the Cham Albanians are a) gone, or b) now consider themselves Greek after the genocide committed by the Greeks against the ethnic Albanians and the heavy assimilation efforts carried out by the government. So, some of those cities in Greek may not have a majority Albanian population today as a result of Greek's xenophobia and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Tosk Albanian population there, but the cities in other present-day countries listed in this mod are still to this day Albanian-inhabited.


As for your attempt to discredit Kastrioti: he was given the title Athleta Christi for his defense of Christendom. When Mehmet the Conqueror conquered Constantinople, Kastrioti continued to defeat his armies in battle. The Byzantine stronghold was defeated, but Kastrioti wasn't. He secured the assistance of 4 Catholic Popes and other European Allies, and was continuously successful in keeping the Ottomans at bay for 1/4 of a century, allowing the West to increase its defense and the maturation of the Renaissance. Aside from being a military mastermind, a genius at guerrilla warfare, the first to introduce compulsory military service in Europe, the enlightened Voltaire wrote "Had the Greek Emperors acted like Scanderbeg, the empire of the East might still have been preserved." To say otherwise shows a severe misunderstanding of history and an indication of your anti-Albanian bias (as seems to be all the rage amongst Greeks, Albanian-flag burners and racists that they are).


As an Albanian I have plenty to be proud of: ancient history aside, even past Gjergj Kastrioti's successful resistance for Christian Europe (which he never failed, the Turks took control of Albania 12 years after his death), I am proud first and foremost of Mother Teresa, which many people considered to have been a living Saint. My nationalism is pride for my people and my history, and the contributions we've made to world history. You can look up famous Albanians to learn more about those contributions (such as some of the pioneers of the Greek independence movement, a Catholic Pope from the 17th century, the man who created Viagra, etc).

I don't desire a greater Albania, but I know that there is such thing as an ethnic Albania: an Albania before it was dismantled by the Great Powers of Europe, and plans between the Greeks, Slavs, and Italians to split it amongst themselves, where Albanians still live today as they have for centuries.
 
The fact that you present it as if Albania is somehow entitled to land belonging to other countries is nothing sort of dangerous. Im sure you would not like it if people had dreams of taking land from your own country, and it is not their fault that it is small and poor.
It is very well known that all countries in the balkans have national myths. However if you think that loving your country is the same thing as singling out historic recourses which in your view present it as something great, then imo you are very wrong and have a destructive relation with history. You did not at all mind the fact that some cities you named as "ethnically albanian" today belong to others, and moreover albania has no more connection to them that they do, if any at all. You go on an on about Kastrioti as if he was some sort of deity, but in reality he was only another warlord who in the end got defeated and that was all. Just because you have nothing else to be proud of you create legends about relatively insignificant figures, and use them to spread false sense of being the victim. I have news for you: everyone in the balkans at some time played that card. More news: we are all victims, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, all were good and the others bad and thieves. Check nationalism in the other balkan countries and you will see the same rotten undercurrent; you are not presenting anything particularly different, but make the mistake of being proud of it.
I do not mean to be rude to you, it is just that i am very bored of people who cannot understand that the one and only way that this region of Europe is going to get better is through civilization and normal relations. No one cares about albanian megalomania; most people outside Europe do not even know where Albania is. You have every right to love your country, like i said, but do not let love become hatred for other countries.

In conclusion i would like to say that i have nothing against albanians, but dislike heavily any idea of a greater Albania and myths about it.
Anyway this post became larger than i originally intended.




First of all that term "Great Albania" was created by the slavs too tell the west that we are the bad guys and of course the Serbs just try to save theyr teritory. Im going to ask you just one question who do you think Lived in the teritory of present day Dardania (Kosova) Without including East Kosova(Bujanovc,Presheva,Medvegja) ! Dont be ingorant or should i tell your history you know the slavs have comed in the 8 century ??? Or im wrong !

Shqype You make proud that im albanian im glad that you know so many things about our heroic nation All the Best .Gjith tmirat Nga Tetova(Ilirida):)
 
you're wrong. the ghegs used it to but for some reasons they stoped using fustanella after 1900. the first in my previous post image has a writing "albanians in Scutari (shkodra)"

Fencing,Albanians_of_Montenegro_by_Paja_Jovanoviq



engraving-LEMONDEILLUSTRE-PUBLICATIONFROMAROUND1870-londontype-titledTYPESOFALBANIANS--2shkodra-pulti-mirdita-shala-kelmendi



londonnewsfustanella-ALBANIAandMONTENEGROSOLDIERSFIGHTING-PRINT1880



Rudolf_Ottenfeld,_Backgammon_1890_north_albanians


All this images are for Ghegs. Enver hoxha's system wanted to show the common worker (njeriun e thjeshte) as the real force of the nation. It was the comunism's ideology. this is why he made those pants as national costume but I never saw that costume on the paintings depicting albanians before 1900.Read more books of europian travelers during that era and you will see how the ghegs are shown. they just stopped using that before the tosks, nothing else.

You are wrong sir ! Im a folk dancer and i know the ghegs Traditionally use ("Terqi" the pants with black stroukes) Although i dont deny Becous i dont have very much info about this ,but i promise you i will find facts about this
All the best guys :D
 
pershendetje shype

desha te di se qka duhet te bej un qe mund te luaj ket loj e kam downloadu dhe e kam ber extract me winzip po prap po mi qet vetem read me dhe 1 folder me shume files brenda... faliminderit

Can you help me how to play i download it and extract it bit i still dont know what to do... thnx
 
It's easy to to claim right to land when a popultaion (and culture) has been violently and methodically injected into a geographic area, I was on a mission to Kosovo a few years ago and you really gotta wonder where the western media gets their information, there is no question who got the short end of the stick over there.
 
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