Albania and the Albanians

Abstract

ABOUT the dawn of authentic history the Balkan peninsula seems to have been mainly occupied by two kindred Aryan peoples—the Hellenes in the south, the Thrako-Illyrians in the north. Since then, or, say, for some 3,000 years, this region has been swept by more numerous tides of migration than almost any other country on the globe. Some of these waves, such as those of the Kelts 300 years before, and of the Goths 400 years after, the Christian era, receded without leaving any permanent traces behind them. Some, such as the Romans, are still represented by the Dako-Rumanians of the Danubian principalities and their southern kinsmen, the Zinzars or Kutzo-Vlachs of the Pindus range and Thessaly. Others, such as the Ugrian Bulgars, have been absorbed or assimilated to the Slaves, intruders like themselves, while others again have either resettled the land, as, for instance, the Serbo-Croatians, or else, like the Osmanli of TÛrki stock, have seized the political control without making any serious attempts at colonisation. The result is a condition of things absolutely without a parallel elsewhere—an utter chaos of races, languages, religions, a clash of social interests and national aspirations, which has long threatened the peace of the world, and the means of reconciling which the wisest heads have hitherto failed to discover.