Albanian Blood Quotes

An Albanian’s house is the dwelling of God and the guest.’ Of God and the guest, you see. So before it is the house of its master, it is the house of one’s guest. The guest, in an Albanian’s life, represents the supreme ethical category, more important than blood relations. One may pardon the man who spills the blood of one’s father or of one’s son, but never the blood of a guest.

Generally the Truman Doctrine had been pursued passively, though in 1949 a secret joint American-British operation had parachuted trained Albanian exiles back into Albania to start a counterrevolution. This had failed, and nothing much had been tried since, aside from propaganda, notably the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe. American agents did not start the anti-Communist uprisings in East Germany or Czechoslovakia in 1953 or those in Poland or Hungary in 1956.

Religion mattered at a deep level, which must help to explain why none of these people went over to Islam; but in most cases it did not direct their lives, nor did it prevent some of them from cultivating their connection with a powerful relative who was a Muslim convert. Whilst the fact that they were Catholics from one of Christendom’s frontier zones may have given them an enhanced sense of their Catholicism, the fact that they were Albanians, connected by language, blood and history to Ottoman subjects and Ottoman territory, gave them an ability to see things also from something more like an Ottoman perspective

Turk, Elhamdulila The Turks took up the sword, Europe trembled, shuddered. And we too in Kosova fought For our beloved freedom. They attacked with fire and sword, For centuries our freedoms were lost, The tyrant overran us: 'You are a Turk, elhamdulila!' Religion and nation were the same, Moslem and Turk were one. He wanted us to forget our very names: 'You are a Turk, elhamdulila!' He forbade our language too, To speak no Turkish was to be an infidel. It is the word of God, they told us: 'You are a Turk, elhamdulila!' 'You are a Turk, you are a Turk,' they thundered At the Albanians for centuries, And one day one of us uttered: 'I am a Turk, elhamdulila!' But no, Turks we are not! Never! Let everyone know We have always been Albanians; Religion cannot wipe that away! No, Turks we are not! But their working people we love. After times of blood and gloom We shall go forth - hand in hand! Translated by Robert Elsie