Zenit Publishing House has recently published in Albanian John Foster Fraser’s Pictures from Balkan, where the British travel author documents his trips around the peninsula, in the beginning of 20th century.
It’s not strange to often come across testimonies from adventurous foreign writers, whose curiosity about the Balkans in general and especially Albania brought them in the region. John Foster Fraser is one of those, bringing an original description of the nature, virtues and psychology of Albanians and their relations with neighbours, details which remain important for scholars of different fields.
During the time he visited Albania, Fraser said that even though every Albanian would like to break free from Ottoman occupation, that rule is exactly what keeps the country from turning into a bloody arena between the Albanians themselves.
Quotes from Pictures of Balkans (1906), translated for the first time in Albanian
The fact is that the Albanian has his hand against every Turk because he is his hereditary enemy. But he has no quarrel at all with Europeans. Certainly he has no quarrel with anybody who comes from England. In the Albanian mind there is a firm belief that England is the friend of their country. I talked with many peasants; and although at first they did not know whether I was an Austrian, a German, an Italian, or a Frenchman, the instant they knew I came from England I noticed a change of demeanour and an anxiety to do me honour.
All Albanians may be said to be brigands in regard to Turks. Though brigands were in the hills, I was quite certain they had no evil intentions towards myself, for though an Albanian will kill you he will not thieve from you. Had I and my dragoman worn the Turkish fez, I daresay we might have had an encounter with the brigands. But the hill-men, who may have watched us from a distance, knew perfectly well it was a European going through the country, and they had no desire to offer molestation. I pleased myself with thinking, and have often thought since, that instead of the Turkish soldiers saving me from attack; it was myself who saved them from the lead-storm of Albanian rifles.
Once there was a moment of excitement. We were on a patch of level country, when suddenly round the back of a wood wheeled half a dozen Albanians armed to the teeth. The advance guard pulled rein, swung round their horses, unslung their rifles, and stood in their stirrups ready for eventualities. I confess that, as these hills-men came dashing along, my hand wandered to my hip pocket where my revolver was carried. The soldiers spread as though to be ready to open fire. But the Albanians, warlike though they appeared, had no warlike intentions. They rather enjoyed the fright of the Turks, of whom; however, they took no notice, although they gave me a smile and a salute as they rode by.
With the fall of the sun and the valleys deepening into gloom, and the entire mountain peak flushed rosy, it was one of the most exquisite scenes conceivable. What a place for a holiday! Only in these degenerate days we like to take our appreciation of scenery with the additional prospect of a good dinner, or in the comfortable enjoyment which follows a good dinner. There was no good dinner at Kjuks. Charming though the han was at a distance, close at hand it was just like any other han. It was a big, dirty, badly whitewashed barn. The kitchen was a fire on the earthen floor. There were apartments with windows, but no glass in the windows. There was no furniture, nothing but dirty boards. I took three of the rooms: the largest I gave to the soldiers, another I gave to the captain of the guard and my dragoman, and I kept the other to myself. We made tea and drank much of it, though it was smoky. Then an hour was spent in bargaining for three chickens to provide food additional to the gritty rice which the soldiers were carrying in their saddle-bags.
I saw a number of these Roman bridges in Albania. Some were useful as ever they were; some were in part decayed, with slabs and boulders gone into the stream; others had broken in twain. But I never saw a bridge which the Turks had repaired. There were great sections of ancient bridges, partly stretching over rivers as though appealing to one another to be joined. The mending would not have cost much; would often have saved making detours of miles to find a fordable point. Not in a single place did I see a piece of road that was serviceable in joining one town with another.
I did see roads, however, which were monuments of futility. Between the Skumbi bridge and Elbasan the country is fairly level. Here were evidences of heroic, but silly, efforts to make a way. The authorities gave instructions to all the inhabitants of the region that they were to give four days’ work a year to provide a good road to run from Elbasan to Struga. At the present pace it will not be accomplished for four thousand years, and will then not be any good. I saw this road-making going on, but only in those places which happened to be the easiest to travel over. The ground was smooth and level. It looked quite nice. A little rain, however, would turn the whole thing into slush. Then would come a mile or two of district where the people had not done their four days’ work, and no vehicle could possibly travel along. Then there would be a mile of road made by the Government: plenty of earth thrown up like a railway embankment, with chiselled granite culverts, which were quite needless because they allowed escape for tiny streams you could jump across at their worst, and now all dry. Turkish officials at Elbasan were pleased with this “carriage way,” as they love to call it. They overlooked the fact that before the carriage way could be reached from.
