page_title: Mirdita
section_title: Ottoman period
hierarchical_section_title: Mirdita / History / Ottoman period
caption_attribution_description: With the kaimakam of Mirdita, Marka Gjoni, Don Domenico, Summa my dragoman, and the brothers and guards of the kaimakam Photos made avilable online by Robert Elsie at albanianphotography.net
context_page_description: Mirdita is a region of northern Albania whose territory is synonymous with the historic Albanian tribe of the same name.
context_section_description: The word Mirdita is first cited as Mirdita in an Ottoman document of 1571 and in a report by Marino Bizzi the tribal name appears as Miriditti in 1610. In a letter from 1621 by Albanian bishop Pjetër Budi it is written as Meredita, in the ecclesiastical reports of Pjetër Mazreku (1634) as Mireditta, bishop Benedetto Orsini Ragusino (1642) as Miriditi and Pietro Stefano Gaspari (1671) as Miriditi. In a 1689 Italian map by cartographer Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola it's noted as Mirediti and an ecclesiastical report of 1703 by archbishop Vićenco Zmajević as Meredita(i). The area of Mirdita was also known earlier by the name Ndërfandina meaning land between the two Fan rivers.
  In comparison to other Albanian tribes the military organisation of Mirdita was better developed and they used their forces to resist incursions from the Ottomans and others in the area and also deploying it for pillaging and raiding. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century they were ruled by kapedan (captain) Prenk Llesh who died fighting the Ottomans and succeeded by his son Prenk Doda who partook in wars on side of the Ottomans against the Greeks who were fighting for independence. He was succeeded by his younger brother Nikolla or Kola Doda whose uncle Llesh i Zi (Black Llesh) took over, a man with a reputation for bravery and cruelty. Llesh i Zi fought with the empire against the Greeks and later in 1830 backed Mustafa Bushati in his fight against them assisting him at the siege of Shkodër until its capture by the Ottomans on November 1831 who exiled him to Yanina. His nephew Nikolla was appointed kapedan and he partook in Ottoman military expeditions against the Montenegrins gaining the admiration and support of Grand Vezir Reşid Mehmed Pasha who appointed him in the imperial vanguard at the battle of Konya against Egyptian forces. The sons of Lleshi i ZI attempted a coup and Nikolla had them murdered leading to a blood feud within the family. By the 1860s, the kapedan of Mirdita was Bib Doda and ran into difficulties with the Ottoman Empire over an alleged involvement in an uprising and from fellow tribesmen who refused to recognise him as leader after he had not paid them wages for their participation in the Crimean War. Dying in 1868 he was succeeded by his young son Prenk Bib Doda.
  In the late Ottoman period, the Mirdita tribe were all devoutly Catholic, had 2,500 households and five bajraktars (chieftains). In times of war the Mirdita could mobilise up to 5,000 irregular troops when expected by the Ottoman state. A general assembly of the Mirdita met often in Orosh to deliberate on important issues relating to the tribe. The position of hereditary prince of the tribe with the title Prenk Pasha (Prince Lord) was held by the Gjonmarkaj family. Apart from the princely family the Franciscan Abbot held some influence among the Mirdita tribesmen. Within the Sanjak of Shkodër, the Mirdita were fiercely independent and the most powerful tribe of the province. Alexandre Degrand, the French consul who served in Shkodër during the 1890s noted that for the past twenty years only seven outsiders had been to Orosh with one being the Ottoman vali (governor) of the sanjak.
   
  During the Great Eastern Crisis, Prenk Bib Doda as hereditary chief of the Mirdita initiated a rebellion in mid-April 1877 against government control and the Ottoman Empire sent troops to put it down. Following the revolt Doda was exiled and after the Young Turk Revolution (1908) was allowed home where his return was celebrated by tribesmen and the new government expected him to secure Mirdita support for the Young Turk regime. During the Albanian revolt of 1910, Ottoman forces and their commander Mahmud Shevket Pasha briefly visited Mirdita during their wider campaign to quell the uprising within the region. During the Albanian Revolt of 1911, Terenzio Tocci, an Italo-Albanian lawyer who had spent year with the tribe gathered the Mirditë chieftains on 26/27 April in Orosh and proclaimed the independence of Albania, raised the flag of Albania and declared a provisional govern
caption: The Ottoman kaimakam of Mirdita, Marka Gjoni, Don Domenico, and other armed Mirdita tribesmen (1890s)
exif: {}