Ismail Qemali was an Albanian diplomat, politician, rilindas, statesman and the Founding Father of modern Albania. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, he subsequently served as the first Prime and Foreign Minister of Albania during the period from 1912 to 1914.
Ismail Kadare is an Albanian novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright. He is a leading international literary figure and intellectual. He focused on poetry until the publication of his first novel, The General of the Dead Army, which made him famous internationally.
Ali Pasha, variously referred to as of Tepelena or of Janina/Yannina/Ioannina, or the Lion of Yannina, was an Ottoman Albanian ruler who served as pasha of a large part of western Rumelia, the Ottoman Empire's European territories, which was referred to as the Pashalik of Yanina. His court was in Ioannina, and the territory he governed incorporated most of Epirus and the western parts of Thessaly and Greek Macedonia. Ali had three sons: Muhtar Pasha, who served in the 1809 war against the Russians, Veli Pasha, who became Pasha of the Morea Eyalet and Salih Pasha, governor of Vlore.
Köprülüzade Fazıl Mustafa Pasha ("Köprülü Mustafa Pasha the Wise", also known as Gazi Fazıl Mustafa Köprülü served as the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1689 to 1691, when the Empire was engaged in a war against the Holy League countries in the Great Turkish War. He was a member of the Köprülü family of Albanian origin. His father Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, his elder brother Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, as well as his two brothers-in-law were former grand viziers. His epithet Fazıl means "wise" in Ottoman Turkish.
Albanian literature stretches back to the Middle Ages and comprises those literary texts and works written in the Albanian language. It may also refer to literature written by Albanians in Albania, Kosovo and the Albanian diaspora particularly in Italy. The Albanian language occupies an independent branch within the Indo-European family and does not have any other closely related language. The origin of the Albanian language is not entirely known, but it may be a successor of the ancient Illyrian language.
David Bellos is an English-born translator and biographer. Bellos is Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of French Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University in the United States. He was director of Princeton's Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication from its inception in 2007 until July 1, 2019.
Mustafa Naili Pasha was an Ottoman statesman, who held the office of Grand Vizier twice during the reign of Abdülmecid I, the first time between 14 May 1853 and 29 May 1854, and the second time between 6 August 1857 and 22 October 1857.
The First Egyptian–Ottoman War, First Turco-Egyptian War or First Syrian War (1831–1833) was a military conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Egypt brought about by Muhammad Ali Pasha's demand to the Sublime Porte for control of Greater Syria, as reward for aiding the Sultan during the Greek War of Independence. As a result, Muhammad Ali's forces temporarily gained control of Syria, advancing as far north as Kütahya.
The Ottoman countercoup of 1909 was an attempt to dismantle the Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire and replace it with an autocracy under Sultan and Caliph Abdul Hamid II. Unfortunately for the advocates of the representative parliamentary government, mutinous demonstrations by disenfranchised regimental officers broke out, which led to the collapse of the Ottoman government. Characterized as a countercoup, chaos reigned briefly and several people were killed in the confusion. It was instigated by factions within the Ottoman Army, in a large part by a Cypriot Islamist Dervish Vahdeti, who reigned supreme in Constantinople for 11 days. The countercoup was successfully put down by Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) sympathizers within the Ottoman Army via Mahmud Shevket Pasha's Action Army in the 31 March Incident.
The Siege is a novel by Albanian author Ismail Kadare, first published in 1970 in Tirana as Kështjella. It tells about the Albanian-Ottoman war during the time of Skanderbeg. It was translated into French by Jusuf Vrioni and then from French into English by David Bellos under the title The Siege. Bellos in his afterword suggests that the book is patterned after Marin Barleti's work The Siege of Shkodra. The narrator of the novel is however not an Albanian fighting for Skanderbeg but a member of the besieging Ottoman army.
Chronicle in Stone is a novel by Albanian author Ismail Kadare. First published in Albanian in 1971, and 16 years later in English translation, it describes life in a small Albanian city during World War II.
Gjirokastër Castle is a fortress in Gjirokastër, Albania. Gjirokastër Castle is situated at a height of 336 metres (1,102 ft).
The Massacre of the Albanian beys occurred on 9 August 1830, when around 500 Albanian leaders (beys) and their personal guards were killed by Ottoman forces in the town of Manastir. The massacre led to the weakening of the power of the beys of southern Albania and also set the basis for the destruction of the powerful northern Albanian Pashalik of Scutari.
Bayezid Pasha or Beyazid Pasha was an Ottoman Albanian statesman who served as grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1413 to 1421.He was the first Albanian and first muslim from Balkans to become Grand Vizier of the Ottoman state.
The Albanian revolts of 1833–1839 took place in Albania as a reaction against the new centralizing policy of Ottoman administration.
The Şahkulu rebellion was a widespread pro-Shia and pro-Safavid uprising in Anatolia, directed against the Ottoman Empire, in 1511. It began among the Turkmen tribes of the Taurus mountains, before spreading to a wide variety of disgruntled groups. It is named after the leader of the rebels, Şahkulu. His death in battle also meant the end of the uprising.
Elegy for Kosovo is an Albanian novel written by Ismail Kadare.
The Palace of Dreams is a 1981 novel by the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare. Set ostensibly in the Ottoman Empire, but in a deliberately imprecise past shaded by myth and intended to represent the modern totalitarian state, The Palace of Dreams follows the rapid rise of Mark-Alem, a young Ottoman Albanian related to the powerful Köprülü family, within the bureaucratic regime of the title palace, a shady ministry whose objective is to gather, examine and interpret the dreams of the empire's subjects in order to uncover the master-dreams, which are believed to shell the future destiny of the Sultan and the state.
The Successor is a 2003 novel by the Albanian writer and inaugural International Man Booker Prize winner Ismail Kadare. It is the second part of a diptych of which the first part is the novella Agamemnon's Daughter. The diptych is ranked by many critics among the author's greatest works.
The 1806 Edirne Incident was an armed confrontation between the New Order Troops of Ottoman Sultan Selim III and a coalition of Balkan magnates, ayans, and the region's Janissary garrisons that occurred in Thrace throughout the summer of 1806. The cause of the incident was Selim III's attempt to expand the New Order's permanent presence into Rumelia through the establishment of New Order barracks in the region's cities. The ultimate outcome of the confrontation was the retreat of imperial forces back to Istanbul and to Anatolia, constituting a deathblow to Selim III's ambitions of expanding his reformed army, as well as a major blow to his legitimacy. The outcome of the Edirne Incident would play no small part in his deposition the following May.
