Forsaken Albania

By Artan Lame
Today it is the anniversary of the creation of the Albanian Police Force in 1913. In honour of this date, I would like to dedicate this edition to this subject, but making one thing very clear: The Police Force of the new State really was founded in this year, 1913, however, it should not be forgotten that under Turkey too, the State had a Police Force.
The end of the XIX Century, with the ceaseless eruption of national uprisings throughout the entire area of the Balkans, remains one of the most difficult moments of the Ottoman Empire. Snuffing out these national movements sapped the core military strength of the Empire, subsequently resulting in the weakening of public order. During that period, this was noticed particularly in the basin including the Albanian regions, Macedonia and as far as the outlying areas of Thessalonica.
According to traditions thousands of years old, whenever the inhabitants of the mountains felt that the strength of central government was one the wane, they would begin to emerge from the mists of their God forsaken localities where for many years they had lain in wait for such moments in history and would surge down from the mountains to the lowlands and the towns, looting and pillaging, slaying and razing to the ground everything that appeared before them. This continued up until the government in office managed to rally the strength and forces and the men of the mountains would withdraw once again into the folds of the mist, deep behind their mountain ridges, to hibernate for years and years, with unending patience, until the next descent.
This ritual has continued in these lands as early as back in the IV-V Century, the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire, and later on into the XII-XIII Centuries, the time of the withdrawal of Byzantine, it was repeated several times during the XX Century, when different powers flourished and weakened one after the other. The traces of the last eruption are still fresh, because this occurred only a decade ago in 1997, when we thought the world had come to an end, but, in fact it was just another one of those performances by the age old actors, repeating an age old drama.
Let’s get back to the photograph. It shows a group of Turkish police officers posing around the body of a slain bandit. The body has been bound to fence posts so it is in an upright position and it is only the lifeless eyes that give him away. The deceased is wearing a short fustanella ( short, pleated skirt for men), of a dark colour. Outlaws from the south of the country wore dark and not white fustanellas for camouflage in the forests (although it’s hard to believe that they would remain white anyway in the muddy surroundings). This is also a shorter fustanella than the normal model so as not to impede rapid movement, as the folk song says, “Fustanella of the thief falls above the knee.” In general Albanians did not grow beards, but if you were on the run from the law, a bandit, and outlaw, then you had a beard, because these men did not have the amenities in the forests and caves to shave. The deceased has lost his shoes known as ‘opinga’, among the first items to be stolen from a cadaver, being so very useful to the living. His shirt and fustanella are smeared in bees wax for protection against the penetration of dampness and the rain. It is easy to discern who the police officers are, not so much from their faces (which do not differ so much from the face of the bandit), but from their uniforms, also irregular. They are holding Martini-Henry rifles of English make which are fondly recalled to this day by the bards of folklore as “pushke Martini” (Martini rifles). Proceeding from the make of the rifle which was used by the Turkish army in the years 1880-1890, the photograph can also be dated as belonging to this period. In Albania, the people used these rifles up into the twenties’ of the XX Century, for no better reason than because of their large caliber (12mm) they made a deafening noise when they were fired, and the Albanians love loud noises. Alongside the police officers are several civilians, who appear to have helped in the operation. This often occurred because the lowlands suffered a great deal from the plunder.
Over the fence you can see the heads of a villager and several children, one of whom, with a look that only the sons of Laberia can conjure up, poses directly above the deceased. It is obvious that the cadaver does not make much of an impression on him, being more interested, as he is, in striking up a pose for the camera. UNICEF had not been created at that time so that it could deal with the education of the children and the public display of killed criminals was the only way of teaching the children something.