On 12 August 1912, Albanian insurgents entered Shkup (Skopje), challenging five centuries of Ottoman rule. Led by patriots including Bajram Curri, Isa Boletini, Hasan Prishtina and Idriz Seferi, they forced the Porte to concede Albanian national demands. Before Serbia claimed Shkup, Albanians had already raised the question of who had the right to shape its future. History must remember them.

Dulcigno/Ulqin had a Black community so rooted in the town that its last members spoke the local Albanian as their mother tongue. Gazmend Çitaku opens their story in Koha Javore, and he starts where Dulcigno/Ulqin always started: the sea. Dulcigno/Ulqin was a maritime town. Its captains traded across the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and they raided too. Çitaku separates two things people blur. Corsairs worked under state authority, went after ships of hostile flags, couldn't kill or plunder at will, and had to declare what they took. Pirates worked for themselves, murdered, and sold captives. The Barbary coast (Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis, Rabat) ran its own trade from roughly 1500 to 1800, taking white captives for ransom. The Afro-Ulqinakë came from Sudan, Chad and Ethiopia. Captains from Dulcigno/Ulqin bought them in Tripoli, Benghazi, Port Said and Alexandria. By an unwritten rule they were children aged 6 to 12, girls and boys, set to work on ships, in the fields and in households. Since a Muslim captain wasn't supposed to hold a slave, the child converted, could take the owner's surname, and received a plot of land. They arrived so young that none kept a single word of their African languages. The record, as Çitaku lays it out: Tihomir Đorđević visited in 1928 and counted five Afro-Ulqinak houses in Shtoj. Walking the main street of Dulcigno/Ulqin, he stopped a small Black boy and asked where he was from. The boy answered "from Ulqin" in the local Albanian and ran back to his game. Đurđica Petrović (1972) puts the Ottoman-era community at about 100 houses and 500 people. After Dulcigno/Ulqin passed to Montenegro in 1880 it was about 50 houses and 150 people, who left for Shkodër alongside Albanian families. Of those, Haxhi Beg Gjyli took eight with him and Haxhi Mehmet Beci took five. Alexander Lopašić (1958) still found dozens of pure Afro-Ulqinakë and some of mixed descent. By the 1970s Maksut Haxhibrahimi counted 7 pure, 8 children of mixed marriages and one elderly widower. One story from Ali Llunji's "Harapët e Ulqinit": Haxhi Halil Fici, an Ottoman bimbashi, came home with his Sudanese wife Zehra and their daughter Zylihaja. Zehra later married Jakup Harapi, who ran a café in town. Çitaku's reading list for anyone serious about this: Đorđević, Petrović, Lopašić, Haxhibrahimi, Llunji, and Ylber Hysa's "Shqiptarët dhe të tjerët". This is part one of a series. kohajavore.me/mozaik/histori… #Dulcigno #Ulqin #Albania #Montenegro #History

While Tirana descends into chaos and fires spread across the city, this footage from 1996 reminds us what the capital looked like before Albania’s devastating civil unrest of 1997: a city struggling with poverty, disorder and uncontrolled urban sprawl. Tonight, students demand Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation. Is Albania heading towards another 1997, or will history take a different turn?

Prof. Oliver Jens Schmitt: "The Serbs were crucial allies of the Ottomans in the conquest of the Balkans and Constantinople, including the Second Battle of Kosovo, where they prevented the joining of forces between Gjergj Kastrioti and the Hungarian leader John Hunyadi." The words of the Austrian historian Schmitt, one of the leading authorities on the medieval Balkans, give weight to a truth our historiography has rarely touched: the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans wasn't the work of Istanbul alone. Without the help of Balkan vassals, especially the Serbs, many of the sultans' victories would not have been possible. At Kosovo in 1448, Skanderbeg faced not only the Ottoman army but also roads blocked by those who should have stood against it. The answer is that the tribes (the highland fise) didn't appear out of thin air. Their formation is directly tied to the devastation the Ottomans inflicted on the plains of Albanian territory. The lowlands, where settled farmers lived under the control of the towns, were emptied by conquest, taxation and violence. Those who refused to submit withdrew up into the mountains, where they found protection. There, with no state to rely on, they held themselves together through blood ties, the besa (word of honor) and the Kanun. The tribe was their answer to a world collapsing beneath them. The tribes of Malësia, Mirdita, Dukagjin and Kraja are therefore evidence of resistance, not backwardness, as we've so often been told. #AlbanianHistory #Skanderbeg #HighlandTribes #Schmitt #Balkans

Who are the Albanians genetically? Modern Europeans descend from ancient populations: Anatolian farmers (ANF), Caucasus-related groups (CHG), European hunter-gatherers (WHG), and Yamnaya steppe herders. Albanians share this ancient Balkan genetic mosaic, including paternal lineages such as E-V13, J2b, J2a, R1b and R1a. No single haplogroup defines a nation. Genetics, archaeology and language together help explain our past.

Preveza, 28 September 1538. Barbarossa's Ottoman fleet routed Andrea Doria and the Holy League off the Ionian coast in a few hours. Doria fled. One afternoon decided who ruled the Mediterranean for the next 33 years, until Lepanto in 1571. Some sources say Barbarossa's father was Albanian.

From Shiroka, Shkodër, to the Presidency of Kosova. The father of Kosova’s new President, Justina Shiroka-Pula, was Simon Shiroka, a Shkodran from Shiroka who was embraced by Prizren. He left his mark in the art of silver, in the culture of Prizren, and in the memory of generations. Today, that legacy takes on another dimension: Justina, the daughter of Simon Shiroka, President of Kosova. From Shiroka to Prizren, and from Prizren to the Presidency of Kosova, a remarkable Albanian story connecting cities, art, heritage and memory. Congratulations, President Justina Shiroka-Pula!

Me rastin e zgjedhjes së Justina Shirokës në detyrën e Presidentes së Kosovës, vlen të kujtojmë edhe figurën e babait të saj, Simon Shirokës, mjeshtrit të madh të filigranit dhe një prej emrave të rëndësishëm të artit kosovar. Simon Shiroka e ktheu mjeshtërinë e filigranit nga një zanat tradicional në art, duke ndërthurur argjendin, arin, folklorin, mitologjinë dhe etnografinë shqiptare me shprehjen moderne artistike. Justina ka treguar se i ati i edukoi fëmijët jo vetëm me dashurinë për artin, por edhe me dashurinë për kombin, traditën dhe njerëzit. Ndoshta kjo është një nga trashëgimitë më të bukura të Simon Shirokës: arti nuk trashëgohet vetëm me duar, por edhe me vlera.

Ulqin’s transformation began when the Adriatic Highway finally reached the town in 1971. This vital road opened the Montenegrin coast to mass tourism, bringing thousands of Albanians from Kosova and beyond to the Adriatic. For many, it was their first encounter with the sea, and Ulqin became a place of unforgettable summer memories.

Francesco Crispi was born on 4 October 1818 in Ribera, Sicily. Of Arbëreshë descent, he fought alongside Garibaldi and later became Italy's Prime Minister (1887–91, 1893–96). He was the first southerner in the job and never lost touch with his Albanian roots.

Wag the Dog showed how a manufactured crisis can make the public forget the real one: in the film, an imaginary war with Albania did the job. Today Albania has its own distractions: sensational sex tapes dominate the headlines while serious questions remain about broken promises and allegations that the intelligence chief leaked sensitive information to people linked to drug trafficking. Coincidence, or Wag the Dog in real life?

During the conflict, 116 civilians were killed in the Dubrovnik area; 194 Croatian fighters and 165 members of the Yugoslav People’s Army JNA from Montenegro were killed, 443 people were imprisoned in camps at Morinj in Montenegro and Bileca in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 33,000 people were deported and 2,071 residential buildings were destroyed. An important element of the JNA campaign at the time was a claim that Croatia wanted to “reclaim” parts of Montenegro, specifically the Boka Kotorska Bay, and that with this goal in mind they had amassed around 30,000 soldiers on the border with Montenegro who would attack at any moment. This false claim about a large Croatian army waiting at the border motivated a large number of Montenegrin volunteers to join the war. As part of Yugoslavia, Montenegro took part directly in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina under the leadership of then Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, although it saw no conflict on its own soil.

24 September 1915 — 111 years ago. At 75, Dedë Gjo Luli met his final battle in Orosh, Mirditë. Captured with some 50 Highlanders, bound, stripped and robbed, he was executed by Serbian soldiers with rifle fire and bayonets. His death remains certain; the identity of those who lured him into the trap remains disputed. His body was later recovered and buried with honour. A warrior to the end.

Ulqin: €1.8M earmarked by "Të Mirat Detare" for a new 2.5km, 1.5m-wide seaside promenade, with bike lanes and lighting, linking Hotel Albatros to Kepi i Gjeranave done in coordination with the municipality of Ulqin. Past record says otherwise: projects in Ulqin under Morsko Dobro have a pattern of ending up unfinished, mismanaged, and abandoned. No reason to expect this one breaks that pattern. @JP_Morsko_dobro @GencNimanbegu @ICapuni

Prejardhja e fisit të Këlmendit dhe administrimi i tyre!…sipas dosjeve të huaja.