Albanophilia is a non-Albanian person's expression of a strong interest in or appreciation for the Albanian language, Albanian culture, Albanian literature, Albanian history or the Albanian people.
Albanophilia is a non-Albanian person's expression of a strong interest in or appreciation for the Albanian language, Albanian culture, Albanian literature, Albanian history or the Albanian people.
Johann Erich Thunmann in the 18th century supported the theory of the autochthony of the Albanians [1] and also presented the Illyrian origin theory. [2] [3] Later on Gustav Meyer proved that Albanian language was part of the Indo-European family. [4]
In 2001 during the Insurgency in Macedonia the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer declared, that the Albanian question in the Balkans is not solved. Around 1912 Germany and Austria supported an Independent Albania, including cities like Parga, Tetovo and Pristina. [5]
The Montenegrin Federalist Party was the only party in Montenegro which promoted common Illyrian theory with Albanians. The party's theoretician, Sekula Drljević, promoted ideas of a separate Montenegrin ethnicity (ideas that become more extreme throughout the 1930s), arguing that the Montenegrins were Illyrian. [6] He wrote:
Races are communities of blood, whereas people are creatures of history. With their language, the Montenegrin people belong to the Slavic linguistic community. By their blood, however, they belong [to the Dinaric peoples]. According to the contemporary science of European races, [Dinaric] peoples are descended from the Illyrians. Hence, not just the kinship, but the identity of certain cultural forms among the Dinaric peoples, all the way from Albanians to South Tyroleans, who are Germanized Illyrians. [7]
The Balkans, corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria. The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south, the Turkish straits in the east, and the Black Sea in the northeast. The northern border of the peninsula is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Musala, 2,925 metres (9,596 ft), in the Rila mountain range, Bulgaria.
The Enchele's polity was the earliest to emerge and centered in Albania. Also the earliest known Illyrian king, Bardylis, emerged in what is now Albania around 400 BC, aiming to make Illyria a regional power interfering with Macedon. He united many southern Illyrian tribes under his realm and defeated the Macedonians and Molossians several times, expanding his dominion over Upper Macedonia and Lynkestis. Before the Rise of Macedon Illyrians were the dominant power in the region. The kingdom of the Taulantii under Glaukias' rule was based in central Albania and dominated southern Illyrian affairs in the late 4th century BC, exerting great influence on the Epirote state through the close ties with the Molossian king Pyrrhus. Under the Ardiaei the greatest known Illyrian kingdom emerged in the 3rd century BC encompassing also northern Albania in its core territory. It became a formidable power both on land and sea by assembling a great army and fleet, and directly ruling over a large area made up of different Illyrian tribes and cities that stretched from the Neretva River in the north to the borders of Epirus in the south, while its influence extended throughout Epirus and down into Acarnania. The dominant power of the Illyrian kingdom in the region ceased after the Illyrian defeat in the Illyro-Roman Wars. The last known "King of the Illyrians" was Gentius, of the Labeatae tribe.
Montenegro is a country in Southeastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Its 25 municipalities have a total population of 633,158 people in an area of 13,812 km2. It is bordered by Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast, Kosovo to the east, Albania to the southeast, Croatia to the west, and has a coastline along the Adriatic Sea to the southwest. The capital and largest city is Podgorica, while Cetinje is the Old Royal Capital and cultural centre.
The Dinaric race, also known as the Adriatic race, were terms used by certain physical anthropologists in the early to mid-20th century to describe the perceived predominant phenotype of the contemporary ethnic groups of southeast Europe. According to the discredited theories of physical anthropologist Carleton Coon, the Dinaric race was most commonly found among the populations in the Balkans and Carpathians, such as Montenegrins, Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats, Ghegs, Slovaks, Romanians, Hungarians, Western Ukrainians, and Southern Poles. Additionally, in Northern Europe, the South Germans were also identified as having Dinaric characteristics.
The early written records of the history of Montenegro begin with Illyria and its various kingdoms until the Roman Republic incorporated the region into the province of Illyricum after the Illyro-Roman Wars.
Dacian is an extinct language generally believed to be a member of the Indo-European language family that was spoken in the ancient region of Dacia.
The Illyrians were a group of Indo-European-speaking people who inhabited the western Balkan Peninsula in ancient times. They constituted one of the three main Paleo-Balkan populations, along with the Thracians and Greeks.
Ulcinj is a town in the Coastal region of Montenegro and the capital of Ulcinj Municipality. It has an urban population of 11,488.
The origin of the Albanians has been the subject of historical, linguistic, archaeological and genetic studies. The first mention of the ethnonym Albanoi occurred in the 2nd century AD by Ptolemy describing an Illyrian tribe who lived around present-day central Albania. The first attestation of medieval Albanians as an ethnic group is in the 11th century.
Sekula Drljević was a Montenegrin nationalist, Yugoslav jurist, politician, orator, and theoretician. During World War II, he became a collaborator with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and cooperated with the Ustaše in the German puppet state of Croatia.
The Paleo-Balkan languages are a geographical grouping of various Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans and surrounding areas in ancient times. In antiquity, Dacian, Greek, Illyrian, Messapic, Paeonian, Phrygian and Thracian were the Paleo-Balkan languages which were attested in literature. They may have included other unattested languages.
Albanology, also known as Albanian studies, is an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities that addresses the language, costume, literature, art, culture and history of Albanians. Within the studies the scientific methods of literature, linguistics, archeology, history and culture are used. However the Albanian language is the main point of research of the studies.
Albanian nationalism is a general grouping of nationalist ideas and concepts generated by ethnic Albanians that were first formed in the 19th century during the Albanian National Awakening. Albanian nationalism is also associated with similar concepts, such as Albanianism ("Shqiptaria") and Pan-Albanianism, that includes ideas on the creation of a geographically expanded Albanian state or a Greater Albania encompassing adjacent Balkan lands with substantial Albanian populations.
The Illyrian language was an Indo-European language or group of languages spoken by the Illyrians in Southeast Europe during antiquity. The language is unattested with the exception of personal names and placenames. Just enough information can be drawn from these to allow the conclusion that it belonged to the Indo-European language family.
Albanian is an Indo-European language and the only surviving representative of the Albanoid branch, which belongs to the Paleo-Balkan group. It is the native language of the Albanian people. Standard Albanian is the official language of Albania and Kosovo, and a co-official language in North Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as a recognized minority language of Italy, Croatia, Romania and Serbia. It is also spoken in Greece and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europe and Oceania. Albanian is estimated to have as many as 7.5 million native speakers.
The Partition of Albania is a term used for the partition of the Albanian state, which proclaimed its independence on 28 November 1912. The delineation of the newly established Principality of Albania under the terms of the London Conference of 1912–1913 and the Ambassadors of the six Great Powers of that time left Albanian and non-Albanian populations on both sides of the border. Representatives of the Albanian national movement viewed this as a partition of claimed Albanian-inhabited territories, also territories contained in a proposed Albanian Vilayet.
Montenegrin nationalism is the nationalism that asserts that Montenegrins are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Montenegrins.
Johann Erich Thunmann or Johannes or Hans was a linguist, historian and theologian born in Thoresund (Södermanland) in Sweden. He studied at Strängnäs and Uppsala then left Sweden to study at Greifswald. Thunmann was professor of philosophy at the University of Halle.
Shkodër is the fifth-most-populous city of the Republic of Albania and the seat of Shkodër County and Shkodër Municipality. Shkodra has been continuously inhabited since the Early Bronze Age, and has roughly 2,200 years of recorded history. The city sprawls across the Plain of Mbishkodra between the southern part of Lake Shkodër and the foothills of the Albanian Alps on the banks of the Buna, Drin and Kir rivers. Due to its proximity to the Adriatic Sea, Shkodër is affected by a seasonal Mediterranean climate with continental influences.
The Albanian–Eastern Romance linguistic parallels are subject of historical and contact linguistic research applied to the Albanian and Eastern Romance languages. It has also been studied to understand the history of Albanian and Eastern Romance speakers. The common phonological, morphological and syntactical features of the two language families have been studied for more than a century. Both are part of the Balkan sprachbund but there are certain elements shared only by Albanian and Eastern Romance languages that descended from Common Romanian. Aside from Latin, and from shared Greek, Slavic and Turkish elements, other characteristics and words are attributed to the Palaeo-Balkan linguistic base. Similarities between Eastern Romance and Albanian are not limited to their common Balkan features and the assumed common lexical items: the two language families share calques and proverbs, and display analogous phonetic changes, some of the latter especially shared between Tosk Albanian and Common Romanian.
Johann Erich Thunmann (1746–1778) of the University of Halle first disseminated the theory of the autochthony of the Albanians
Although the first major exposition of the Illyrian theory, published by the German scholar Johann Thunmann in 1774...
The first one who clearly formulated the thesis of the Illyrian origin of the Albanians, was the German historian Johannes Thunmann in the eighteenth century.
In fact, Albanian was not established definitively Indo-European until the latter part of the nineteenth century, when certain structural and lexical correspondences that demonstrated the Indo-European character of the language were noted (especially by Gustav Meyer)
Edith Durham, the noted Albanophile, comes here to mind.