"Kanga e milet" or the real Albanian anthem

By: Gazmend Shpuza

Four years ago I wrote about this topic. However, still few people know that there was an anthem of the League of Prizren, what it is, who are its authors and a little less is known about the history of its execution with extreme obstacles during these nearly 140 years since its creation. . It has been forgotten, it has remained almost unknown. Unbelievable!

The anthem was born in the glorious years 1878-1881. Although not even four years, they represent, without exaggeration, an epochal period of our national history in the ideological, political, and organizational level, unifying in defense of the entirety of the motherland and the struggle for securing an autonomous Albania. It was in those years that the March of the League "Union of Albania" was born.

Sources from 130 years ago provide accurate and very interesting evidence about the first National Anthem of the Albanians, little known even in our musical circles. As soon as the text was written, it was composed and executed with a band and was sung by the warriors who were going to the front for the defense of the motherland. It is worth noting that the execution of the Anthem echoed in the European press of the time it was just released.

The first data about it were published by researcher Mikel Prenushi, on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the League of Prizren. His writing did not have the echo it deserved at that time. However, it influenced the inclusion of the Anthem in the repertoire of the then Band of the People's Army, which performed it between the patriotic marches in the square named after the National Hero, in front of his monument, on the occasion of the grand 100th anniversary of Connection.

The initiative to create the band was taken by the arborist Father Tomaseo Markoci (Marcozzi). The well-known at that time in Shkodër, Pater Toma, with the help collected in Pazar, the economic center of the largest city of Albania at the time, ordered and brought from Italy the musical instruments for the band and agreed to set up the wind orchestra with the Neapolitan master Gjon Kanale ( Giovanni Canale) – this is also an arborist. The Shkodra band gave its first public concert on the occasion of Christmas in 1878. The band, with a lineup of 31 instrumentalists, at the beginning of its activity gave concerts from time to time and then every Sunday and for major religious holidays. . It was administered by the Catholic clergy. The people called it "The Drum".

The correspondent of the Austrian newspaper "Wiener Algemeinen Zeitung", located in Shkodër in 1880, testifies: "Mr. Canale... had gained great credit by creating a town band. Within a short time, he prepared excellent musicians from uneducated Albanians who had no idea about music. I was amazed by the work of the band playing with a rare precision. I was definitely touched in a special way when, on the occasion of the celebration of the Corpus Christi in the cathedral, I heard opera arias instead of church songs... In the end, she successfully gave the 'Union March' composed by Mr. Channels. I have to confess that his beauty was completely unexpected".

The Viennese correspondent, cultured connoisseur of European music, documents the artistic activity, not only religious but also secular and, above all, patriotic, of the city band of Shkodra at that time. Closely familiar with this unusual cultural event, he highly appreciates it: "I am convinced that if this march were published, it would quickly circulate in Europe, as it often does with some beautiful piece that pleases the ear." The hymn composed by Pater Gjon Kanale was valued in comparison with those performed at that time in Europe, even at a pleasing level.

Then, the brass band's repertoire would include, apart from church music, small pieces: marches, patriotic songs, arrangements of folk songs in the form of potpourri, etc. It was also enriched with selected pieces from the operatic repertoire. The wind orchestra becomes more and more an active participant in the social and political life of the time.

The text of the League March became known in Shkodër in April-May 1880 through leaflets printed in Istanbul. In them, Pashko Vasa's devotional poem "O moj Shqypni" was reproduced. She quickly became beloved by our warriors and people. According to a document from those days, it is proven that "Kanga gives spirit to the people". We are at a time when the resistance of the Albanians, as the people of Arbëresh declared, "is stunning Europe".

As a local document of the year 1880 expressed, the Albanian political-cultural movement of the years of the League was given "gajret (courage) vegeglia", the common people, who were fighting heroically in defense of their native lands.

The National March of the Albanians of the seventies of the XIX century, composed by the fighter of the revolution for the liberation of Italy from the Austro-Hungarian yoke, Pashko Vasë Shkodrani, and composed by the Neapolitan master Xhovani Kanale is completely European not only in terms of the musical language, but and from the national and democratic content. It is precisely for this reason that he was not executed nor was he publicly sung after the suppression of the League of Prizren. But even after the Declaration of Independence, his execution was not so lucky.

Prof. Injac Zamputi talks about the attitude that has been taken, as towards other works of our great renaissance, also towards the Hymn of the League for fear of sowing the "bad seed of anti-clericalism and anti-despotism" in the people. "We are witnesses, writes the distinguished former student of the Saverian College of Shkodra and later the professor of this educational institution, that we have always sung the song of Pashko Vasa with longing and passion, and we sang it to the end, but we never they had said those words that speak of "the church and mosque", of "priests and monks", of "the religion of the Albanian, which is Albanianism". We encountered these elements much later, in the age of maturity, in literature". So, at the time of his youth, the Anthem was sung censored, without the epitaph verses "Don't look at the church and the mosque, the Albanian's religion is Albanian".

Anyway, at least, the music of the Anthem "Union of Albania" resounded strongly 35 years ago in the 100th anniversary of the League of Prizren. However, on the 100th anniversary of the declaration of Independence, the Hymn of the League was not heard to be sung, it was only performed by the TOB orchestra within the four walls of its hall. In fact, her music there was not accompanied, at least, by the masterful recitation of Pashko Vasa's verses by the well-known artists Reshat Arbana from Tirana or Mirush Kabashi from Gjakova, who were present in many concerts given in those years Albanian and in the diaspora.

The value of the great Pashko Vasa did not fade at the time when it is claimed that he overdid it with the recitation of the verses "The religion of the Albanian is Albanianism!" even from the leaders of the state party. His true values ​​faded, not a little, only when his anthem was censored and especially when it was not heard at all. even rarely recited.

This attitude towards the Hymn of the League is maintained even today when his great patriotic, scientific and literary works are left in oblivion. This is why the fundamentalist interpretation from all sides of his epitaph verses is having a bad effect no less than before: "Don't look at the church and the mosque, the Albanian's church is Albanian!" Churches and mosques in the artistic treatment of the Catholic Easter were not stigmatized as religious institutions in themselves, but as places where a majority of foreign or local clergy were gathered, who, not being limited to religious services, were lined up in the service of anti-Albanian policies. Today's priests and priests in the Albanian territories do not have to be identified with most of the clergy who served in them during the Renaissance and earlier.

The Lebanese journalist Mubarak, who helped, as the then diplomat Dalan Bujheli in Egypt testifies, our Embassy for the repatriation of the remains of Pashko Va from Lebanon to Shkodra, was very impressed by how it happened that the remains of the former governor of Lebanon from a grave with a cross to rest in a grave without a cross. He is also without a red star even though he rests next to the LANÇ martyrs. Today, the double-headed eagle on a red background perfectly suits that tomb.

We went above and beyond to underline that Pashko Vasa's renaissance affectationism and European humanist anti-clericalism was not, as claimed back in our day, even more than yesterday, atheistic. Today, in the year of Skanderbeg and the anniversary of the League of Prizren, Albanians, regardless of faith, can sing together with one voice without fear of entering into sin or falling into sin, the League's Anthem "Union of Albania":

"Albanian! With my brother, you're in trouble,
and with a hundred detachments you are scattered;
How many say we have religion, how many say we have knowledge,
one says I'm Turkish, the other I'm Latin,
they will be called Greeks, feed some others,
but you are brothers, all of you, poor fellow;
to the priests, they have confused you,
because of you, I am poor;
a stranger comes, you stay in the voter,
shame on you, my wife, my sister;
even for how much money you will earn
you forget all the stories of the past,
and wear the slave of a foreign man,
that does not have your language, nor your blood!
Weep ye swords, weep two-edged,
that Albania was taken, but like a bird among the woods!
Coniu, O Albanian, wake up from sleep,
all like brothers in one place, strengoniu
don't even look at the church and mosque,
Albania's religion is Albania.
From Tivar to Preveza
everywhere the sun emits heat and rays,
this is our land, the ancestors left it to us,
who does not touch us, because we want, theirs.
We want you like men who know the weather,
and not to be taken before God."

For the author of the text of the hymn "O moj Shqipni", Albania was the Nation of Muslims, Orthodox and Albanian Catholics, considered by the theocratic Balkan policies, behind which stood the European, Turkish, Hellenic and Latin ones. Of the Neo-Latin, Catholic peoples, none of them call themselves "Latin" to this day. That's what they were called, as far as we know, within the Ottoman system of "miletes". The Greeks called themselves Roma and Christians. Epirots never occurred to them to call themselves, much less Vorioepirots; there was no question of lowering themselves so low as to be placed on a level with their neighbors whom they called barbarians.

Even the Turks until the beginning of the 20th century, appealing to their faith, called themselves, together with the Arabs and others, denying their nationality. Faced with these realities, our Muslims, by and large, called themselves Albanians. There were also some of them, when the Balkans and Europeans called them Turks, stuck in the trap of theocratic propaganda, they called themselves Turks, always in a purely religious sense. At that time, the Turks themselves did not call themselves ethnically, as they should, but only Muslims.

However, Albanian Muslims never confused themselves with Turks on an ethnic level. It was not unknown to them that Ottoman intellectuals of Turkish nationality, until the beginning of the 20th century, used their ethnic Turkish designation with disdain to mark the peasants of Anatolia.

Pashko Vasa's verses "Albanian's religion is Albanian..." were a generalization of a geo-religious reality embedded in the Albanian land for centuries. They were the result not only of tolerance and religious harmony but, first of all, of the interreligious coexistence experienced over the centuries, among Albanians. This coexistence included the village, the town, the bajrak, the mountain, the tribe, the province, the entire nation. It even included the family where, until recently, one brother was a priest and the other was studying to become a priest. Cohabitation survived from early times and in the marital bed. It is enough to bring only one example from the beginning of the century. XX: the mother of the future vice-president of the first Albanian national government, Dom Nikollë Kaçorri, was a Muslim.

Arabic names and surnames to many Christians, even prominent leaders of the anti-Ottoman National Movement men and women, such as Mehmet Shpendi, Tringe Smajlja and hundreds of others, despite the economic reasons that dictated their acquisition and retention, which is worth noting, without violence, are evidence of centuries-old coexistence among Albanians.

Above this unique reality in the world, deeply recognized and correctly understood by P. Vasa, the verses of the hymn "Union of Albania" stand majestically: "The religion of Albania is Albania!" In this context, they were sung and are sung and especially recited, generally, by all Albanians.

The song "O my Albania!" did not find a place, as far as I have followed them, even in the shows, generally representative, "100 years of music" by Pandi Laço. It was performed only by the symphony orchestra of TOB, not accompanied by the choir or any soloist. The authorship was mistakenly attributed to Palokë Kurti, the worthy student of the arboretum master Gjon Kanale.

In the 100th anniversary of Independence, none of the organizers of the jubilee remembered the authors of the first National Anthem of all Albanians, the great ideologue of the Renaissance Pashko Vasa and his Neapolitan composer Gjon (Xovani) Kanale. Apparently, our statesmen can't get enough of the Anthem "Bashkimi i Shqipnis". They are afraid, as they used to be, that proletarian internationalism would be harmed, while today they are going against the demands of the European Union and the Euro-Atlantic Alliance.

It is worth clarifying that in the face of any unintentional and somewhat intentional misunderstandings, the verses "From Tivar to Preveza, the sun emits heat and heat everywhere" are an authentic reflection of the demographic reality of the Albanian lands until the 70s of the century. XIX. The erudite author Pashko Vasa, the realist, did not include within them foreign lands such as those from the Venetians, who were not without right called Albania Veneta up to Kotor, even though this Venetian Albania itself and its hinterland were inhabited by a Neoilian/Arberian population, which was systematically Slavized in accordance with Tsar Dushan's Custom.

Pashko Vasa, also, never thought of including in the Albanian lands that territory that no Greek to this day refuses to call "Greek Arvania" just as the Venetians of the Middle Ages called their "Albania". After the vicious decisions of the Congress of Berlin, politics, diplomacy and European public opinion, not without reason, would talk about a "Montenegro Albania".

The Greek chauvinistic plans towards the Albanian lands in Epirus were not realized at that time. As for the fate of the Albanian Epirus, called not without purpose, the North, and the province of Kosovo, the so-called "Old Serbia" will be discussed after 30 or so years as a result of the decisions of the London Conference, with which the territories Albanians will be halved.

The author of the anthem "Bashkimi i Shqipnis" had made it clear in March 1878 in the Submission sent to the British ambassador A. Layard that to what extent the "United Provinces" or "Vilayage of Albania" included in the demands of the League of Prizren, taking into account only the territories in which Albanians constituted the majority of the population. His territorial concept was the result of an admirable scientific work not only for that time, presented in his historical-political treatise "The truth about Albania and the Albanians" and in a series of documents. In them, Pashko Vasa argued the national aspirations of his compatriots and the path they had to follow to achieve their final goal. Not only that.

The program of the League announced on June 15, 1878 in its Founding Assembly was reconfirmed in the First Assembly of Dibra, on November 1, 1878, also by the representatives of the vilayet of Ioannina with Abdyl Frashëri at the head. It called for the creation of the autonomous vilayet of Albania consisting only of 12 sanjaks with a predominantly Albanian population, excluding from it the other sanjaks of the vilayet of Kosovo, Ioannina and Manastir in which they did not constitute the majority. In these historical gatherings of the Albanian League, Pashkoja played a decisive role.

Pashko Vasa, as the inspirer and co-author of the programmatic document of the League of Prizren, called, not without right, "Constitution of the League, gave his major contribution in those historical moments. Vasa, as a man among the first and most prominent representatives of Albanian patriotism, a rare distinguished intellectual with western and eastern culture, was at the forefront of the nationwide movement for liberation and national unity, as early as the first days of the establishment of the League of Prizren . Although formulated in a very concise way, the ideological and political views of P. Vasa remain the basic program of the Albanian National Movement until the end of the century. XIX. , the baton of the author of the Hymn of the League was carried forward by his comrade Shemsedin Sami Frashëri with his work "Albania what was, what is and what will become?"

In Shkodër and beyond, the wars of the Albanian people under the leadership of the League of Prizren are popularly called Lufta e Mileti (National War), while the League's Anthem, Kanga e Mileti (National Anthem).

The use of the word miles in this context is incomprehensible and even strange to many. While for those who want to show themselves more European than Europeans, the use of Turkishisms by Albanians, not only Muslims, represented, regardless of the historical and even ethnic context, simply and only the Ottoman backwardness. Among them there are such fundamentalists who also consider the Islamic faith of the majority of Albanians to be Ottoman rubbish. On our screens, someone goes even further and considers these wastes to be toxic waste in our midst. As for the knowledge of the majority of readers, not only those who unfairly prejudice Muslim compatriots and the entire Ottoman heritage, we must remember that in today's Serbian, according to western orientalists, there are more Turkishisms than in Albanian.

Albanians have used the term miles, at least since the League of Prizren, more or less as Sami Frashëri will explain the word 'nation' nearly a quarter of a century later in his French-Turkish dictionary. In the popular songs dedicated to the wars for the defense of the homeland and ensuring the autonomy of Albania, the fighters of the League used the term miles for the nation in the modern sense. Their image, although not very consistent, was fully European in accordance with our historically inherited interreligious reality of a nation or nation raised above religious differences. A unique case in the world.

The popular fighters after defeating the mission of Mehmet Ali saw Maxharri in Gjakovë and heroically and with many sacrifices defended Plava and Guca in opposition to the order of the sultan, when they were going to defend Hoti and Gruda they announced with unwavering determination their awareness: "Pa Bloody mountains, don't let go of me/we're going to leave the miles." In these verses it is clearly reflected that popular consciousness was rising to an unimaginable national level. Furthermore, when the popular singer clearly saw that the Ottoman Empire was mobilizing to impose the decisions of the Congress of Berlin on the Albanians, he called out: "The state has let you go/Get behind the miles", meaning the Albanian pluri-faith milet. The popular singer Mirditas ordered the Albanians not to put their hope in religious traditions, but to keep the Albanian faith among themselves: "Keep the faith among yourselves. There is nothing wrong with them." Because otherwise "If you didn't keep your faith together", / Your quarrels will come out".

Under the leadership of the League of Prizren, the Miletus War, even though it could not defend the Albanian Ulcinj in the face of an international coalition and in the face of the forces commanded by Dervish Pasha, failed to ensure the implementation of its autonomist program through the creation of the Province of Albania, convincingly proved that " Today Albania is Milet"! The popular singer proclaimed that the Albanian nation was a reality, the existence of which the Albanian people witnessed in the battles fought under the leadership of the League of Prizren against a coalition of anti-Albanian forces on a continental scale. Imperialist Europe and the chauvinist Balkans, (the epithets used above belong to the terminology of the time) and the aging Ottoman Empire (the sick Bosphorus did not allow the contradictions between such imperialist forces) took nearly three years to imposed on the Albanians the implementation of the unjust decisions of the Congress of Berlin at the expense of the Albanian lands.

The word miles in the modern sense that the Albanians gave to it at the time of the League of Prizren, the Turks themselves, through whom we got it, began to use it after the Young Turk revolution. After the victory of the Kemalist revolution, the term nation-mile was formalized.

... The well-known composer Fehim Ibrahimi performed the "Song of Milet" in the Migjeni Theater with the artistic forces of the city of Shkodra. And as the well-known musician Xhavid Ujkani, who helped with its staging along with others, confirmed to me, it was a completely European march.

In the year of Skanderbeg and the 140th anniversary of the founding of the Albanian League of Prizren, I believe that the time has come for the Albanian Anthem to be performed with a band and orchestra, to be sung in full choir and with soloists, without censoring any of its lines. . Thus, we believe that it will become known throughout Albania!

Arbëreshi Tomaseo Markoci (Marcozzi), known as Patër Toma, and Neapolitan arbëresh master Gjon Canale (Giovanni Canale), in my opinion, are the founders of the first city band in the Albanian territories. He emphasized the city because the wind orchestra has been close to the Ottoman army units since before. Without a doubt, near the commands of the 2-3 corps that operated in the vilayets that are rightly called Albanian due to the predominant population, there were certainly orchestras filled with trained instrumentalists and led by qualified conductors. To clarify the dimensions of such an orchestral formation, we can suffice with research in the well-known Photo Library of Marubi and in the Photo Library of the Manaqi brothers of Manstiri, where there should be photos of the band of divisions deployed in the vilayet of Shkodra and Manastir. The repertoire of these bands included, in our opinion, the Mahmudije and Mejidije marches composed by a Donizzeti. Don't be surprised. For nearly 30 years, Abdylhamid II's march "Padishahêm çok yasha" (Long live our Padishah) was executed by them.

In 1828, Sultan Mahmut II brought Joseph, the brother of the famous French composer Gaetano Donizetti, who founded the "Sultan Band" (Muzika-yi Hümayun) to the Sultan's Palace. He taught his students the Western system of notation. His name is associated with the spread of the clarinet instrument in Istanbul and beyond. He composed the Mahmudije march in honor of Sultan Mahmud, who gave him the title of Pasha. After Abdylmejid's accession to the throne, Donizzet Pashaj composed the Mejidije march. There is a discussion regarding the authorship of the Mahmudije march, that it may be the composition of the great Gaetano. Despite this, the influence of European music came to Shkodër primarily through Naples.

I express my conviction that the residents of Arbëre, Father Tom Markoçi and Father Gjon Kanale, as the founders of the first Albanian city band, deserve to be decorated by the Albanian state not only for their pioneering cultural and artistic activity, but also, first and foremost, for their genuine patriotic activity. Albanian. While Pashko Vasë Shkodrani and father Gjon Napolitani as authors of the first National Anthem of the Albanians, on this occasion they should be re-evaluated in a special way. The bust of the great renaissance man has been missing for a long time in the capital of Albania, not only for the Anthem "Union of Albania", but also for his major work "The Truth for Albania and the Albanians" and his contribution to the establishment, organization and orientation of the Albanian League since The Constituent Assembly of Prizren and the Joint Assembly of Dibra. Any music school in our country deserves to be named after master Gjon Kanale. Our "Donizetti" and his bust have a place at least in Shkodër and in the National Historical Museum.

We hope this article will serve as a reminder to bring to the attention of the highest state authorities and Albanian artistic organizations for the repayment of the debt that all Albanians owe to the authors of their first National Anthem and for its revival. /milosao/