Norwich bulletin., 1916-01-24
STARING STARVATION AND
SUBMERGENcE IN FACE
Position of AIbanians Is Even Worse
Than That of Mohtenegrins.
Especial to The Bulletin)


Washington, D. c.. Jan. % with
a longer, drawer, more terribly fought
struggle to their credit for self-pre-
servation in their native land than
even the Montenegrins, the Albanians,
or Shkypetars as they are properly
called, the oldest race in Europe to
survive upon the land where the
morning light of history found ii, are
today staring starvation and final sub
mergence of their nation in the face,
swallowed up in the maelstrom of a
world-war that seems to bode i'll for
them whichever way it veers," says
bulletin just issued by the National
Geographic Society, which sketches
the heroic story of the Balkan people
who. have fought with their backs to
their bleak crags voiceless through the
centuries.
'Montenegro's courageous resistance
to the Turk through five centuries has
claimed the admiration of the world;
tho sturdy resistance of the Servian,
the unfiagging perseverance of the
Bulgarian, and the revival of the en-
gaging Greeks, the nation of illustri-
Gus ancestry, have all awakened hearty
sympathy among the peoples of the
world. But the amending conflict, so
pobly sustained through some 1000
years against Greek and Slav and
Frank, that the Shkypetars have
waged for home and fatherland has
stirred no echo of understanding in
Europe or. America The Albanians
have been overshadowed by the people
around them; they, alone, have not
learned no VITO bring their case be-
fore the world, while their neighbors,
mostly, also, their enemies, have told
their wrongs through the press every
where.
TQfer,o 81 ba
Congress of Berlin. More properly
speaking, there was no Albanian Dip
lomats, no Albanian spokesman, but
just the remnants of the ancient
Snkypetar race, forced ever further
into a fringe of unproductive noun
tains, which formerly bordered their
broad homeland in the Balkans.
Between the Slavs and the Silky
petars there have been centuries OF
blood-feud. Brigand and plunderer.
the world accepted this verdict,
| though it is the Slav and the Turk
who have steadily torn away the
Shkypetar's home and land. Up until
now, though occasionally beaten and
forced into narrower bounds, the
enG alone, without sympathy from
anyone. illiterate, poor in country, his
few remaining rocks coveted by every
neighbor, with no ally or disinterested
| counsellor, Ine SHkypSIdT mas put up
splendid fight with hardly an armis-
| tice through more than 1000 years.
These people are the remnants of
| the original inhabitants Of 1lyria,
Epirus, Macedonia and Thrace. Over
| wLelming waves of Kelts, Cloths, Ro-
mans. Greeks, Serbs, Bulgars, and
| Turks have flooded against them, but
| the Shkypetars have always survived
the burning of their villages, the
wasting of their lands. and the mas
sacring of their people, and have
somehow emerged unbroken, unas-
simulated upon the stage of Twentieth
| Century Europe.
Lord Byron gave them a momen-
tary notice, a brief literary memorial,
when he said that the wild Albanian
! had never shown an enemy his back
| or broken his faith to a guest. The
| Albanian has asked nothing of Eu-
rope, and Europe has given him MOTH
1 Ing but a sad reputation. Even the
mission schools have passed him by.
when the Slavs appeared in the
| Balkans In the beginning Of the 9Th
century, the Shkypetars had already
session of the land Rome policed
] these peoples, but left them largely to
| themselves. The Slavs destroyed
| them or drove them from thir lands.
| For more than 1000 years, the Silky
petars have contested every inch of
| erourld against Slav and Turk. Mon
| tenegro,s whose story has been told so
| often and feelingly, struggled against
| the Turk a bare five centuries.
'tPyrrhus, the greatest soldier OF his
age, was a Shkypetar. The first known
king of this people. Shkypetars OF the
! Sens Of the Mountain Eagle, was