Talk:Albania in the Middle Ages

Untitled
I think this article needs some kind of intro paragraph. As it stands it just dives right in. Plinth molecular gathered 19:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

not very encyclopedic saying
"Thanks to their protective mountains, close-knit tribal society, and sheer pertinacity, however, the Albanian people developed their distinctive identity and language." I think this is not written according to encyclopedic style. Language and identity cannot be developed so fast during the middle ages as well. (Andrius 23:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC))

Map
Surely there is some map to present Albania in the Middle Ages. The only map (and the only image) in the article is a Epirus Nova,400 AD which doesn't even belong to Middle Ages.--Kebeta (talk) 16:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

NPOV, Accuracy, & Organization issues
With apologies for going on at such length... There are a number of problems with this article, some of which I suspect may be effects of a single cause. Specifically, people with strong views about the current disputes over the territory of Kosovo seem to be editing entries such as this one to present history in a way that they think supports their position on the independence of Kosovo. This can be seen most clearly in two aspects of this article.

First, the period of time during which the region that comprises present-day Albania was under Serbian rule is mischaracterized and minimized. For instance, the entry makes reference to a "Serbian Occupation" rather than the "Serbian Empire" (I've already changed such references in two places). To characterize the Serbs' rule as an "occupation" is to suggest both that Serbs were a sort of foreign element temporarily taking control of the area and that the land really belonged to (or was the sovereign territory of) someone else; it is, in short, pejorative and misleading. By contrast, notice that periods of Byzantine and Bulgarian control are not referred to as "occupations"--it is simply acknowledged that these were the groups in power in the region at the time and that this region, like the rest of the Balkans, underwent considerable demographic and political change in this period. Also, most of what is under the heading "Serbian Empire"--3 out of 5 sentences--is not actually about the Serbian control of the region but rather about the rule of Venice, the Despotate of Epirus, and the Kingdom of Albania (which is discussed in detail in a subsequent section).

Second, there are two sorts of imprecision in sections 3, 4, and 5. One, it is not made sufficiently clear that the Principality of Arbanon and the Kingdom of Albania were not sovereign entities but rather regions within the Empires discussed in section 2 or dependencies of other powers (the Byzantine Empire and the Despotate of Epirus in the first case, and the Kingdom of Sicily in the second). That is, they were vassal territories, not what we would today call "successor states." Two, the heading "Principalities in Albania and Kosovo" is both confusing and inaccurate. How do "Principalities in Albania" differ from "Albanian Principalities"? How can there be principalities *in* Albania when Albania, as such, did not exist? (As noted in the article about the League of Lezha, the alliance of these various principalities in 1444 "is regarded as the first unified Albanian state.") Finally, and this may get us to the crux of the matter, there was no such thing as an Albanian principality in Kosovo. The article cited in current footnote 5, though it makes passing reference to Dukagjini's Princedom (in a footnote), is not a history of the region but a discussion of its laws & customs. Hence, it can hardly be considered an authoritative source to support the claim of an Albanian Principality in Kosovo. Further, as this map of the District of Branković makes clear, the region of modern-day Kosovo (including its three main cities) was not part of the Principality of Dukagjini. The historical record also shows that even after the Battle of Maritsa in 1371 and the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, Serbs continued to have control of the region until 1459, when they finally succumbed to Ottoman rule. In addition to the misplaced mention of Kosovo, the description of the boundaries of the Principality of Dukagjini is quite wrong, as territory is ascribe to it that was actually part of the realm of Vuk Branković and the Principality of Zeta into the 15th and 16th centuries, respectively. See relevant map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Central_balkans_1373_1395.png

As long as we're at it, I'll add a third comment about the organization of the article. I'm not sure why there is a separate heading titled "Middle Ages" when the whole article is about this very period. So, perhaps section 1 could be folded into the introduction? Also, to keep the article historically balanced & structurally consistent, it seems like a better idea to combine all the Albanian Principalities under a single heading.

My suggested reorganization of the article would result in: Introduction; 1 Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Serbian Rule; 2 Early Albanian Entities (including subsections for the Principality of Arbanon and the Kingdom of Albania); 3 Later Albanian Principalities (including subsections for the principalities currently discussed in 5.1 and 5.2, as well as the League of Lezha); 4 Christian Schism; 5 Medieval Culture; 6 References; 7 External Links

To sum up the substantive part of this note, I'll quote a historian of the period: Balkan nationalism "still searches for legitimation in medieval history, real or imaginary, and therefore we must examine that medieval history in order to understand why, for instance, Kosovo is a disputed territory between Serbs and Albanians, or why Greece does not agree with the official name 'Macedonia' for the present state that has its capital at Skopje" (Alexandru Madgearu, The Wars of the Balkan Peninsula: Their Medieval Origins [3, emphasis added]). I could be wrong, but it strikes me that some of the problems with this article are the consequence of contributors describing the early history of what is now Albania in ways consistent with current ideological beliefs and policy preferences. Whatever views contributors may hold about the region of Kosovo, I hope the majority will agree that it is unacceptable to distort history in order to bolster one's claims about the present. Given that Kosovo was not a part of the Albanian principalities in the Middle Ages, nor is it a part of Albania now, I propose that the references to it be removed from this article. I'd make the changes myself, but I believe that a consensus on this point would be better than a unilateral move by a single contributor. To maintain the trend of improving the substance, accuracy, and NPOV, this article may be in need of some editorial supervision. Ironymobile (talk) 09:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)