Scanderbeg and Venice, a history of war and peace

Abstract

The project of Gjergj Kastrioti Scanderbeg about the establishment of a centralized Albanian state,² collided with the Republic of Venice, an important factor of international relations, since the beginning. Scanderbeg and Venice split on one essential question, the attitude towards the Ottomans. While Scanderbeg followed the policy of uncompromised war against them, the Republic of Venice until 1463 followed the policy of peace and dirty bargains with them. From the other side, in the case when the Hero returned to his homeland, on 1443, Venice had occupied the most vital centres of the Albanian coast, without which the centralized state dreamed by Scanderbeg was only incomplete. Differently from Balshaj, who until 1370, in the chaos that subsequently followed the fall of the Serbian Empire, became rulers of the important cities of the Albanian area such as Shkodra, Drisht, Ulqin, Tivar, Budva, Prizren, Peja, Novob rda, Vlora, Berat, and Durr s from 1384,³ Scanderbeg except some cities in the inner Albania, couldn’t possess none of the important coastal centres. When he returned to Albania, they had been under the rule of the Republic of Venice for decades. Cities such as Durr s, Shkodra, Lezha, Vlora, Berat, Ulqin, Tivar were the centre of economic life and trade and the spot where the connections with abroad were made, and the exit in the small harbour of Shufada, accomplished since the time of his father, Gjon Kastrioti, couldn’t help the fulfilment of his major project for a functional state unity.⁴