Skanderbeg family Kastrioti family
Gjergj Kastrioti, (c. 1405 – 17 January 1468), commonly known as Skanderbeg, was an Albanian feudal lord and military commander who led a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in what is today Albania, North Macedonia, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia.
A member of the noble Kastrioti family, he was sent as a hostage to the Ottoman court. He was educated there and entered the service of the Ottoman sultan for the next twenty years. His rise through the ranks culminated in his appointment as sanjakbey (governor) of the Sanjak of Dibra in 1440. In 1443, during the Battle of Niš, he deserted the Ottomans and became the ruler of Krujë and the nearby areas extending from central Albania to Sfetigrad, and Modrič. In 1444, with support from local nobles and the Catholic Church in Albania, a general council (generalis concilium) of Albanian aristocracy was held in the city of Lezhë (under Venetian control). The council proclaimed a union (known in historiography as League of Lezhë) of the small Albanian principalities and fiefdoms under Skanderbeg as its sole leader. This was the first time much of Albania was united under a single leader.Despite his military valor he was only able to hold his own possessions within the very small area in today's northern Albania where almost all of his victories against the Ottomans took place. Skanderbeg's military skills presented a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion, and many in western Europe considered him to be a model of Christian resistance against Muslims. For 25 years, from 1443 to 1468, Skanderbeg's 10,000-man army marched through Ottoman territory, winning against consistently larger and better-supplied Ottoman forces. He was greatly admired for this.Skanderbeg always signed himself in Latin: Dominus Albaniae ("Lord of Albania"), and claimed no other titles but that in surviving documents. In 1451, through the Treaty of Gaeta, he recognized de jure the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Naples over Albania, ensuring a protective alliance, although he remained a de facto independent ruler. In 1460–61, he supported Ferdinand I of Naples in his wars and led an expedition against John of Anjou and the barons who supported John's claim to the throne of Naples.
In 1463, he was earmarked to be the chief commander of the crusading forces of Pope Pius II, but the Pope died while the armies were still gathering and the greater European crusade never eventuated. Together with Venetians, he fought against the Ottomans during the Ottoman–Venetian War (1463–1479) until his death in January 1468. He ranks high in the military history of that time as the most persistent—and ever-victorious—opponent of the Ottoman Empire in its heyday. He became a central figure in the Albanian National Awakening in the 19th century. He is honored in modern Albania, and is commemorated with many monuments and cultural works.Early life
There have been many theories on the place where Skanderbeg was born. One of the main Skanderbeg biographers, Frashëri, has, among other, interpreted Gjon Muzaka's book of genealogies, sources of Raffaele Maffei ("il Volterrano"; 1451–1522), and the Ottoman defter (census) of 1467, and placed the birth of Skanderbeg in the small village of Sinë, one of the two villages owned by his grandfather Pal Kastrioti. Fan Noli's placement of the year of his birth in 1405 is now largely agreed upon, after earlier disagreements, and lack of birth documents for him and his siblings. His father Gjon Kastrioti held a territory between Lezhë and Prizren that included Mat, Mirditë and Dibër in north-central Albania. His mother was Voisava, whose origin is disputed. One view holds that she was a Slavic princess from the Polog region, which has been interpreted as her being a possible member of the Serbian Branković family or a local Bulgarian noble family. The other view is that she was a member of the Albanian Muzaka family, daughter of Dominicus alias Moncinus a relative of Muzaka house. Skanderbeg had three older brothers, Stanisha, Reposh and Constantine, and five sisters, Mara, Jelena, Angelina, Vlajka and Mamica.According to the geopolitical contexts of the time, Gjon Kastrioti changed allegiances and religions when allied to Venice as a Catholic and Serbia as an Orthodox Christian. Gjon Kastrioti later became a vassal of the Sultan since the end of the 14th century, and, as a consequence, paid tribute and provided military services to the Ottomans (like in the Battle of Ankara 1402). In 1409, he sent his eldest son, Stanisha, to be the Sultan's hostage. According to Marin Barleti, a primary source, Skanderbeg and his three older brothers, Reposh, Kostandin, and Stanisha, were taken by the Sultan to his court as hostages. However, according to documents, besides Skanderbeg, only one of the brothers of Skanderbeg, probably Stanisha, was taken hostage and had been conscripted into the Devşirme system, a military institute that enrolled Christian boys, converted them to Islam, and trained them to become military officers. Recent historians are of the opinion that while Stanisha might have been conscripted at a young age, and had to go through the Devşirme, this was not the case with Skanderbeg, who is assumed to have been sent hostage to the Sultan by his father only at the age of 18. It was customary at the time that a local chieftain, who had been defeated by the Sultan, would send one of his children to the Sultan's court, where the child would be a hostage for an unspecified time; this way, the Sultan was able to exercise control in the area ruled by the hostage's father. The treatment of the hostages was not bad. Far from being held in a prison, the hostages were usually sent to the best military schools and trained to become future military leaders.
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