Chandra Prakash Bhongir, Civil Engr, May04 - Repositories

ABSTRACT
Since his death in 1468, Scanderbeg’s life served as the source of many tales and
myths in Albania and Europe. It is my contention that even though, Albanians and the
Albanian diaspora in the world kept his memory alive, it was not until the nineteenth
century, that Scanderbeg’s memory was resurrected by Albanian nationalists, who lived
outside Albania, as a rallying point toward the achievement of Albanian independence
from the Ottoman empire.
The Albanian movement for independence is a phenomenon of the Albanian
Diaspora. It was the work of intellectuals like Girolamo De Rada, Giussepe Scura, Zef
Serembe, Dora D’Istria, Naim and Sami Frasheri, Ismail Qemali and Fan Noli who used
the memory of Scanderbeg to revive and bring to fruition Albanian independence in
1912. Many Albanians intellectuals from Diaspora, returned to Albania in the late
nineteenth century to create an independent Albanian state. While many Diasporic
intellectuals lived in the Arberesh communities in Southern Italy, many others lived in
Egypt, Romania, Turkey, and the United States. Their efforts toward the achievement of
Albanian independence were a direct response and reflected the changes that were
occurring in their respective geographic domiciles of the time.
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