Chapter 1
SKOPJE
Located in Macedonia, in a region that was formerly part of Albania, the
city of Skopje was a bustling commercial center at the beginning of the
twentieth century. The city, which straddles the Vardar River, rises ap-
proximately 800 feet above sea level. The summers are long and dry, the
winters damp, cold, and foggy. Not large by contemporary standards,
Skopje had a population of 25,000 at the turn of the century.
Founded during the third century B.C. by the Dardanians, early descen-
dants of modern-day Albanians from Illyna in the western Balkan Penin-
sula and Thracians who lived north of ancient Greece, Skopje, then
known as Skupi, later came under the control of the Romanians. By the
sixth century, the area fell under the domination of a Slavic people
known as the Beregheziti. It was they who gave the city its current name.
By the ninth century, owing in part to the weakness of the Byzantine
Empire, with its capital in Constantinople (now Istanbul in modern
Turkey), Albania came under the dominion of a succession of foreign
powers including the Bulgarians, Norman crusaders from France, the
Angevins of southern Italy, the Venetians, and the Serbs. The Serbian oc-
cupation that began in 1347 was especially hard, prompting huge num-
bers of Albanians to migrate to Greece and the Aegean islands.
A few decades later the Albanians confronted a new threat. The Turks
expanded their empire, known as the Ottoman Empire, to include the
Balkan Peninsula. Invading Albania in 1388, the Ottoman Turks, by the
middle of the fifteenth century, had succeeded in occupying the entire
kingdom. The Turks may have occupied the land, but they had less suc-
cess governing the Albanian people. In 1443, Gjergj Kastrioti, also