Research on early Albanian history (1936)

The German historian Georg Stadtmüller (1901–1985) studied classical philology and European history at the universities of Freiburg and Munich, where he completed his doctorate and worked for two years at the Bavarian State Library. Around 1935 he traveled on foot through Albania - en route to Istanbul - and, the following year, completed his important habilitation thesis, Forschungen zur albanischen Frühgeschichte (Research on early Albanian history), Breslau/Wroclaw, 1936, for which he is best known. This thesis, published in Budapest in 1942 and reprinted in Wiesbaden in 1966, traces the origins of the Albanian people in the Mat region and offers much material that stimulates reflection on the complex issue of Albanian ethnogenesis. The following excerpt from the book summarizes the essence of his thesis.

By: Georg Stadtmüller[1]
Translated into English (from German): Robert Elsie
Translated into Albanian (from English): Agron Shala

Early Albanian period (Roman and early Byzantine era)

The fundamental event in the early history of the Albanian people was the great transformation they experienced when the pre-Albanian tribes were partially Romanized under the extraordinary influence of the Roman imperial culture and language of imperial Rome. It was during this period that the various Albanian tribes first became a people and managed to preserve their language in the sweeping wave of Romanization that engulfed all other ancient Balkan languages. What we know about the history of the Albanian language allows us to reconstruct the steps of the partial Romanization of the early Albanians. However, another major issue of early Albanian history remains unresolved - that of the settlement of the early Albanians during the Roman and early Byzantine periods.

For the period after the Slavic conquest (around 600), we can attest that the center of Albanian settlement was the mountainous region of Mat. But the same cannot be said with certainty for the Roman and early Byzantine periods, due to the great changes that occurred during the era of migrations in the Balkans - from the fourth to the seventh century. The hypothetical possibility cannot be ruled out that, as a result of massive movements of peoples, Albanians immigrated to their later homeland either from another region of the Balkan Peninsula or from outside the Balkans. Their homeland during the Roman and early Byzantine periods must be investigated without reference to later settlements. Linguists, ethnologists, archaeologists and specialists in political and ecclesiastical history must cooperate to provide an answer to this question.

Words borrowed from Latin in the Albanian language

The Albanian language contains a considerable corpus of words borrowed from Latin, which, due to the profound phonological transformations caused by the strong spiritual accent of Albanian, no longer look like Latin words at all. The influence of Latin on the Albanian language was so deep and strong that it can be said that Albanian is a partially Romanized language. In fact, in some areas of life, most concepts are taken from Latin.

For example, almost all terms for family (such as uncle, brother-in-law, parent, child, cousin, stepson) come from Latin, as do basic concepts of urban life (city, house, roof, street, mill, herd), agriculture (farmer, quince, olive, fruit), and government (emperor, court, king). Also from Latin are terms related to rural life and winter pastures.

On the other hand, the terms for livestock and dairy are entirely Albanian. This shows that in the Roman and early Byzantine periods, the early Albanians were transhumance shepherds and that only after contact with Roman culture did they settle in cities and villages and learn how to farm, how to write, and how to organize themselves with the government. Many plant names were also borrowed from Latin, which is an indication of the influence of Roman agriculture on the early Albanians. The word for “hive” is Latin, but the terms for “bee”, “honey” and “wax” are entirely Albanian. Thus, it can be assumed that the early Albanians had knowledge of wild bees before contact with the Romans, but learned beekeeping from the Romans.

All these loanwords show the strong cultural influence of Roman culture on the early Albanians, but do not allow us to draw any conclusions about their settlement at that time. However, we do have some indications from Albanian terms for forestry. The words for mountain forests and mountain trees (e.g. mountain pasture, slope, mountain forest, beech, linden, fir, oak, wood, pine, hazel, plane, hornbeam) are entirely Albanian, while the words for lowland forests and the vegetation found there (e.g. grove, poplar, Mediterranean blackberry, Adriatic oak, ash, willow, wild olive, grove) are borrowed from Latin. Also from Latin are the words for “field, plain”. Thus, Albanians had contact with the fields and forests of the lowlands when they were in the Roman linguistic territory. At the same time, the summer pastures of the early Albanians must have been inland, away from the coast, which also explains the lack of authentic Albanian terms for navigation and fishing. Thus, based on the words borrowed from Latin into Albanian, we can draw the following conclusions:

The early Albanians in the Roman and early Byzantine periods lived as transhumance shepherds in the mountains of the interior. Their winter pastures were in the Romanized coastal lowlands. It was there, in sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile contacts with neighboring Roman settlers, that they learned about social organization (government) and sedentary ways of life and that they acquired goods and, in particular, learned the art of beekeeping and more advanced agriculture.

The great influence of Latin on Albanian is explained by the fact that early Albanians and later Roman settlers lived together for centuries within the borders of the Roman Empire. If early Albanians had lived in a neighboring region, i.e. outside the borders of the empire, as did, for example, the Germanic tribes, Romanization would never have penetrated as deeply as it did here. In this respect, one can easily reject the previous hypotheses that early Albanians migrated to the Balkan Peninsula during the Migration Period. We can safely assume that early Albanians lived in the territory of the Roman Empire at the beginning of Roman rule.

Borrowings from Ancient Greek in the Albanian language

Of particular value in proving where the original homeland of the Albanians was located are the borrowings from ancient Greek in the Albanian language, which appear mainly in the names of fruit trees and in cooking. These borrowings lead us to the following indisputable conclusion: the homeland of the ancient Albanians was located near the Latin-Greek linguistic border, on the Latin side of it.

The border between the Latin-speaking and Greek-speaking regions of the Balkan Peninsula can be determined through inscriptions, road pillars, and coins. As Jireček noted: “It more or less coincides with the provincial borders of the first to third centuries, before the reforms of Diocletian. Starting from the Adriatic Sea, the linguistic border passed near Lisus/Alessio [Lezha] and continued along the border between Dalmatia (later Prevalitana) in the North and Macedonia (later Epirus Nova) in the South. It passed south of the present-day road connecting Shkodra with Prizren, because, according to Ptolemy, Epikarya (called ad Picaria in the Peutingerian Map), which is now Puka, was still in Dalmatia at that time. It also coincided with the border between Moesia Superior (later Dardania) and Macedonia. Here, the inhabitants of the Dardanian settlements of Ulpiana (Lipjan) in Kosovo and Skupi (near Skopje) in the upper reaches of the Axios (Vardar) river valley, have left behind them Latin inscriptions. The nearby settlement of Stobi, on the other hand, has left us Greek inscriptions. The linguistic boundary then followed the old border between Moesia Superior (later Dardania) and Thrace, so that Naisus (Niš) and Remesiana (Bella Pallanka, between Niš and Pirot) are in Latin territory, but Pautalia (Kystendili), Serdica (Sofia) and the Pirot region are in Greek territory. The late Roman province of Dacia Mediterana of the 4th to 7th centuries, formed from parts of Thrace and Moesia Superior, with the settlements of Serdica, Pautalia, Naisus and Remesiana, was thus bilingual. The linguistic boundary continued from the area around Bella Pallanka and Pirot in an easterly direction along the northern slopes of the Hemos [Balkans], following the provincial boundary between Moesia Inferior and Thrace, so that the inscriptions from the area around Vraca and from Nicopolis (Nikjupi near Tërnovo) are mainly Greek, while those from the banks of the Danube to its mouth are almost all Latin. At the eastern end, the linguistic boundary met the territories of the Hellenic communities along the Black Sea coast to the mouth of the Danube”.

Thus, the homeland of the ancient Albanians was located somewhere near the Latin-Greek linguistic border.

The conversion of early Albanians to Christianity

The history of the conversion of the Albanian people to Christianity provides data that allow us to more accurately determine their homeland. Albanians first appeared in European history when they were already Christians, in the High Middle Ages (11th-13th centuries). We have no documentary information about their conversion, but the field of linguistics can help us here. The ecclesiastical expressions that Albanian has borrowed from Latin show a phonetic form that testifies to a connection with the old Romance language of Dalmatia. A smaller part of the ecclesiastical vocabulary is of Greek origin.

Thus, the conversion of the early Albanians to Christianity occurred mainly from Romanized Dalmatia and only to a much lesser extent did they have contact with the Greek church. Thus, the homeland of the early Albanians is located in a region neighboring Dalmatia, but not far from the Greek linguistic border. This limits the location to a smaller region: the Old Serbian basin [Kosovo, Dukagjini and Sandzak] and the mountainous regions of Northern Albania.

The early Albanian region as a linguistic enclave

To come closer to a solution to the homeland issue, we need to clarify what we know about the character of early Albanian territory in the Roman and early Byzantine periods.

The early Albanian territory was a dying linguistic enclave, the diminished remnants of a language once spoken throughout much of the Balkan Peninsula. The early Albanians are the only ancient Balkan people to survive the general Romanization that swept the peninsula. Throughout the rest of the region, the superiority of imperial Roman culture and the imperial Latin language flattened and equalized the peoples and languages ​​of the Balkan provinces in a silent process that lasted for a century. Latin, the language of administration and the army, took precedence everywhere, and the native idioms slowly died out. The process was more or less complete by the end of the third century. Native idioms survived only for a time in isolated regions, far from the main routes of communication.

Latin penetrated all areas of Bosnia and Bulgaria and replaced all the native languages ​​spoken there, but in Northern Albania and Old Serbia, the early Albanian transhumance shepherds managed to preserve their language. Of course, the Roman imperial culture left its mark here too. The early Albanians first came into contact with the more advanced culture of the Roman lowland population when they came down from the mountains to their winter pastures. It was there that they absorbed a great deal of Roman culture. The modern Albanian language reflects this early dependence on Roman culture, in many words borrowed from Latin. Modern Albanian is a partially Romanized language, even, one might say, a semi-Romanized language. If Roman rule in Albania had continued for a few more centuries, it would have wiped out the early Albanian language, just as it did with the native languages ​​of the rest of the Roman Empire. This means that the Latin language of imperial Rome would have assimilated it as well, as it did with other languages. However, this ongoing process of Romanization was interrupted by the Slavic invasion of the Balkans around 600 AD. This is what preserved the early Albanians and their language.

The fact that early Albanian managed to survive the onslaught of Latin, when all other native languages ​​had already died out, can only be explained by the fact that the early Albanians had little contact with Roman culture. As transhumance shepherds, they lived on the winter pastures of the Romanized coastal lowlands during the cold season, and here they were subject to the influence of Romanization. But in the summer, they followed their flocks up to the mountain pastures. So the homeland of the early Albanians was a double region: winter pastures on the Romanized coast and summer pastures in the mountains. Gradual Romanization undoubtedly occurred during the winter months, but in the summer, Albanian shepherds were more or less unaffected by any Roman influence - for half the year. Over time, Romanization spread. Since the early Albanians were the only ancient Balkan transhumance pastoral people to preserve their native language for such a long period, it is clear that their summer pastures must have been located in a mountainous region far from the influence of Roman culture. The early Albanian language could only have survived in an isolated mountainous region located at a distance from Roman cities and the main Roman communication routes.

With this in mind, if we take a look at the possible locations of summer pastures in Old Serbia and Northern Albania that early Albanian herders might have used, it becomes clear from the outset that we must exclude Old Serbia. Because of their low elevation, the large inland basins of Old Serbia (Kosovo, Dukagjini, and the Sandžak of Novi Pazar) would have served them as winter pastures rather than summer pastures. There are extensive pastures in the mountains surrounding these basins, but these regions were not sufficiently isolated to survive as a linguistic enclave. These regions, easily accessible from all sides, played a major role as the nucleus of the early Serbian state (Raška), but they were never major places where the local population could resist foreign rule, whether Roman, Byzantine, or Ottoman. As such, the early Albanian enclave could not have been located in Old Serbia.

As a result, what remains are the mountains of Northern Albania. This includes three different geographical regions: the Northern Albanian Alps, the Drin River Highlands, and the Mat region.

The Northern Albanian Alps (Malësia / Bjeshkët e Nemuna) are a range of rugged mountain peaks that constitute the last remnants of a former limestone plateau. Rivers flow in all directions from the Jezerce Peak massif below the mountains and open into large valleys that provide access to the region. Roman culture was able to penetrate this mountainous region from all sides. From the Shkodra plain, the population center of the Roman province of Prevalitana, the Prron i Thatë and Kir river valleys lead directly into these Northern Albanian Alps. From the south, the mountains are accessible from the wide Valbona valley. To the north, the Lim river valley provides access from what is today the Sandžak of Novi Pazar. Accordingly, this region cannot be considered an enclave, because we must assume that it was open on all sides to the advancement of Roman culture and the Latin language.

The Drin River Highlands encompass a wide range of territories, the best known of which are Mirdita, Dukagjini, and Cukali. There are no natural lines of communication here. All movement is carried out on donkey trails. However, the Drin River Highlands have always been full of movement, as they are located between the Shkodra Plain in the West and the plains of Old Serbia in the East. This region is, therefore, even less suitable as an enclave than the Northern Albanian Alps.

So what remains is the Mati region. It possesses the natural qualities of an enclave and we can assume that the early Albanians had their summer pasture here. The wide Mati river basin constitutes a relatively large region for settlement. About 24 thousand people live there today. The surrounding mountains offer rich summer pastures and the valleys are cultivated. The Mati region is surrounded by a high mountain range which makes it a natural fortress. Contact with the outside world is possible only on difficult donkey trails. The only other routes out of the valley [apart from the Mati valley] are to Ungrej, in the northwest, where there is a path that descends to the Shkodra plain, and over the Bulqiza Pass in the east which leads to the Black Drini valley. The natural isolation of the valley has made the Mati region a separate mountain canton which, in Albanian history, has always played the role of a center of national resistance against foreign intervention. The Mati region has all the natural qualities that early Albanians would have needed to settle there.

Based on the general hypothesis we have presented on the process of Romanization, we can reach the following conclusion: in the Roman and early Byzantine periods, the summer pasture region used by the early Albanians was the region of Mat.

Like any hypothesis based solely on history and comparative development, it can only be a probability, although it is, in my opinion, a very high probability. To transform this probability into something certain, we must establish that the province of Mat was the only region between Northern Albania and Old Serbia that was not affected by Roman settlements and Romanization.

Therefore, we must try to determine the extent of Roman settlements throughout the region in question, based on toponyms and archaeological remains.

Latin place names

Latin toponyms in Northern Albania are rare. The Slavic invasion at the end of the 6th century put an end to Roman culture in the interior. However, the names of rivers and larger cities survived the catastrophe, but these names are almost all of pre-Roman origin (e.g. Drilon-Drin, Skodra, Lisus, Dyrahion, etc.). Very few toponyms in the Albanian coastal region, in the Drin River mountains and in the Northern Albanian Alps can be shown with certainty to be of Latin origin, because it is not clear whether the terms for villages and places named after saints extend before the Slavic period and because the Latin names for many Justinian fortifications have not been preserved.

Among the Latin toponyms on the Albanian coast are: domain (Lat. of), a village about 16 kilometers northeast of Shkodra; Feet (Lat. pedaneus), a village in the coastal terrain where the Mat River emerges from the mountains; Yellow (Lat. green), a village in the coastal terrain where the Drin River emerges from the mountains.

In the Drin Mountains, a number of Latin toponyms have been preserved: August (Lat. angustus) at the outer edge of the Drini gorge, The bag (Lat. Bit(h)us-iacium) in the Fani valley near Oroshi, Cell (Lat. cell) and Puka (Lat. publish) in the Dukagjini region, the source Kron-i-Valung(ë)s (Lat. long dance) in the territory of Berisha, and some toponyms in Mirdita such as Gojan's Caves (Lat. crypta), the village Scort, mountain Maja Walpool (Lat. vulpes), some peaks known as the crown, mountain M(u)nele-a (Lat. montellus), stream Property Sift (Lat. exsuctus), and the ruins of Kastri (Lat. castrum). In the Lura region in the East, we find the cave The-Selita-Shutrrija (Lat. subterraneum).

In the Alps of Northern Albania, we find: Valbona (Lat. good luck), a branch of the Drin; Kastrati (Lat. castrum), a tribe living on the edge of the Northern Albanian Alps north of Shkodra, perhaps Blue (Lat. Flavia) in the upper valley of the Lim River; the nearby mountain, The Roman's Peak, as well as the village Pjani (Lat. planum) in the Gjakova Highlands and the mountain Dune (Lat. cumulus) in the same area.

Of the pre-Slavic toponyms in the Black Drin region, on the eastern edge of modern Albania, only one of them may be of Latin origin.

We do not know the exact location of the ancient fortress. Clementina, but the name has survived in tribal designation Kelmendi (from Clement).

In the neighboring basin of Old Serbia, which was inhabited in Roman times, only two Latin toponyms have been preserved: Tauresium, which today is Tao, and Ulpijana which turned into Lipljan as a Slavic folk etymology (from Slavic lipa, “linden tree”).

So, the few toponyms that are clearly of Latin origin are distributed over coastal Albania, the Drin River mountains, the Northern Albanian Alps, the Black Drin (?) region, and Old Serbia.

In addition to toponyms of Latin origin, many pre-Latin toponyms were phonologically altered by the process of Romanization. The names of the largest settlements (Skodra, Lisus, Dyrahion) are of pre-Roman origin. They survived both the linguistic transformation they experienced during Romanization and the cultural rupture caused by the Slavic invasion. In many cases, the phonological forms of these words can only be explained by the assumption that a Roman population inherited them from the pre-Roman population and that, after the transformation, they were inherited by Albanians and immigrant Slavs. Such names provide indirect evidence of Romanization. Related to these are toponyms that were not continuously in use in Albanian. Such toponyms in the Latin Balkan area that have not undergone normal Albanian phonological development can be seen as evidence of Romanization, because the entire population of the Balkan Peninsula, with the exception of the early Albanian transhumance shepherds, was Romanized (or Hellenized) on the eve of the Slavic conquest. They are found in the Shkodra Basin, the Valbona Valley, the Luma region in the Black Drin valley, the coastal lowlands, and the Shkumbin River valley.

These toponyms which, by their etymological origin or phonological form, indicate Romanization in the respective regions, are insufficient in number to provide absolute proof that the regions were fully Romanized, but they can be used as an indicator of this.

There are only two regions where there are no traces of Romanization in toponyms: the high mountain areas of the Northern Albanian Alps and the Mat region. We would not expect Romanization in the high mountain areas of the Northern Albanian Alps, because they are clearly not a favorable region for settlement. Villages were and are rare there. However, any proper Latin names have been erased by the wave of Slavic invasions. The situation is quite different in the fertile Mat region where, even today, there are large towns and villages. It is here that we would normally expect to find Latin toponyms. The fact that there are none here leads us to conclude that this was in fact the linguistic enclave in which the early Albanian transhumance shepherds found their settlement. /Telegrafi/

[1] Part by: Georg Stadtmüller, Forschungen zur albanischen Frühgeschichte, 1936, second edition printed in Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1966, pp. 76-96. Translated from the German by Robert Elsie. Readers are advised to consult the original text for the numerous footnotes.