ALBANIA - TIRANA HISTORY
Tirana, the capital of Albania, is an ancient city with an early history
enriched by the interplay of cultural forces originating in the Islamic
and European Christian worlds.
The area around Tirana has been inhabited since the neolithic age.
It is the largest city and the chief industrial and cultural center of
the country. Tiranë is located on a fertile plain that yields a variety
of agricultural products. Its manufactures include metal products,
agricultural machinery, textiles, pharmaceuticals, and foodstuffs.
The founding and later development of the city of Tirana were made
possible by its geographic position on the fertile plain, rich in forest
lands and water, and crossroads of the Adriatic and eastern Albania, and
through the Qafa e K‘rab‘s valley and the Shkumbin river with the inner
parts of the Balkan peninsula.
The name of the city contains an ancient root that is present in other
places that have been inhabited by Illyrians. There was a system of
castles on the surrounding hills (Petrel‘, Prez‘, Ndroq, Fark‘, etc.)
that served as protection for Durr‘s and Kruja. The oldest discovery in
the area of Tirana has been a mosaic with several other remains of
buildings of the later antiquity, found at the Kroi i Sh‘ngjinit
(Fountain of Sh‘ngjin), near a Medieval temple.Records of the first land
registrations under the Ottomans in 1431-32 reveal that Tirana then
consisted of 60 inhabited areas, with nearly 1000 houses and 7300
inhabitants.
According to the historian Marin Barleti in the 15th century there was a
‘Tirana e Madhe’ and a ‘Tirana e Vogël’ (Great and Small Tirana) in the
15th century. Barleti, a Catholic priest and scholar, was largely
responsible, through his biography of him, for creating what became the
cult of Iskander Bey, the title (in Turkish) (rendered in Albanian as
‘Skenderbeu’, and frequently anglicized as ‘Skanderbeg’) given to Gjergj
Kastrioti, an Albanian nobleman who, after being forcibly brought to
Adrianople as a youth and given military training, distinguished himself
in a number of campaigns for the Ottomans, and was promoted to the rank
of general, but then returned to Albania to liberate it, and spent the
next 25 years, until his death, leading a successful guerilla resistance
against the forces of the Turkish empire. Skenderbeu continues to be the
national hero of Albania.
On November 26th, 1912, the people of Tirana, in accordance with Ismajl
Qemali, rose the Albanian flag to end the rule of the Ottoman Turks in
Albania. During the First Balkan War, Tirana was captured by the Serbian
army.
A large population from Dibra, forcefully expelled from their homes by
the Serbian army, in 1913-1915 and 1918-1920, took shelter and settled
in Tirana. The inhabitants of Tirana and its surroundings took part in
an uprising led by Haxhi Qamili in 1914. On February 8th, 1920, the
provisional government formed at the Congress of Lushje moved to Tirana,
and at this point Tirana became the capital of the country. This played
an important role for the development of the town.
Most of the modern part of Tirana was built after 1920, when it was
selected as the capital of Albania. A new residential quarter was built
under Italian rule (1939-43). Also, an industrial sector was developed
after the Second World war . On Jan. 11, 1946, the Communist government
of Enver Hoxha was proclaimed there.
In the early 1990s, Tirana was rocked by massive and often violent
demonstrations that forced the Communist government to institute
substantial political and economic reforms. After 1990 new industries
sprang up in scattered locations around the city.
