Last time I focused on Korce, a town in the south of Albania. Today my focus is Kruya, a town just north of the capital and which Nancy and I have visited twice. This town’s importance is as the base of operations of Skanderbeg, the hero of Albania. George Kastrioti was born to a prominent family in a small district that included Kruya. His father resisted Ottoman advances but was overwhelmed, and to prove his loyalty allowed his four sons to be taken into the Sultan’s court where they converted to Islam. George proved himself a brave and brilliant warrior in the
Ottoman army, and was given the honorary name Arnavutlu Iskender Bey which means Lord Alexander the Albanian. This became his name—Skanderbeg.

When an opportunity presented itself he rallied the divided Albanian people against the Ottomans. He took control of his ancestral town of Kruya from the Turks and raised his family flag, which today is the national flag of Albania. From Kruya he led a resistance movement that was successful for twenty five years, a movement that defeated much larger Turkish armies and thwarted Ottoman expansion to the north.

At Kruya you can visit the castle from which Skanderbeg led his resistance and a museum to his accomplishments. You can also walk through a marvelous home built in the 1800s by a prominent family, in which you can see the way a wealthy family lived at that time—and it lived quite well…

Today was another nice day, so Nancy and I decided to walk the mile or so south of our apartment to the highest peak around Tirana, the site of a 12-meter statue that overlooks the city and the 28,000 graves comprising the National Martyrs Cemetery. The statue called Mother Albania figuratively represents the country as a mother guarding over those who gave their lives for her during World War II, mostly in the battle to liberate Albania from its German occupiers. The massive statue holds a wreath of laurels and a star.
The complexity of Albania today is reflected in this cemetery, as those buried in it were almost all partisans, which is the party that became the communist party and led the nation into disarray. Albanians want to honor their heroism in liberating the country, but distance themselves from what they did for the next forty years…

Another place where the complexity of Albanian history is represented is in the main city park of Albania. There you can see two small graves, separated only by a monument to three brothers whose writings and deeds formed an important force in the establishment of the Albanian nation in the early 1900s. Both cemeteries are dominated by crosses, but one is to British soldiers who perished liberating Albania from the Germans while the other is to the Germans who died fighting those British.

It is tragic that much of the history of almost every nation is in its wars and warriors. It is particularly tragic when one or even both sides claim that what they are doing is mandated by God. I have always appreciated Abraham Lincoln’s response to the question of whether he believed God was on his side in the civil war, The question is not is God on my side, but am I on God’s side…

All this has made me appreciate that just two days ago I was able to participate with approximately 200 others in a prayer for Albania rally and march down the main boulevard of Tirana. The march began at the statue of the Albanian warrior-hero Skanderbeg but it ended with prayer at the statue of the Albanian compassionate heroine, Mother Teresa. The movement of the march was symbolic to me, and reminded me of the words of Jesus, Blessed are the peacemakers…