Luan Kalana: Albania, Land of Aagles

ALBANIA-, LAND of EAGLES

-"Duaje Atdhenë si shqiponja Folenë"

-"Balta më e ëmbël se mjalta", ne Shqiperi"-proverba shqiptare

Prolog

-Albania, Land of Aagles-Shqiperia vendi i Shqiponjave, buron nga historia dhe nje epitet dashamires nga te huajt, qe nga Bajroni  me kujtimet dhe poezite tij ne Shek.XIX, deri me sot nga shqiptari amerikan aktori Jim Belushi, me thenijet e videot e shumta.Eshte folur dhe shkruar , eshte lakuar ky emer edhe me shume tani se fundi, ne mediat dhe autore te huaj, jane shkruar dhe libra, siç eshte libri:

"Land of Eagles-Riding through Europe's forgotten country"-nga Robin Hanbury-Tenison.

"Land of Eagles"nga çifti angles  burre e grua, Robin  Hanbury-Tenison...

-Risi te librit-disa specifika

-Shih e shkruaj, siç thuhet ne nje fraze popullore, pa opinione e pa trillime historike..

-Vertetsi origjinale, shiko degjo e beso..

-Pershkrim me kembe(me kuaj) , jo me makina, te shoqeruar nga banore te thejeshte, jo gazetare e pushtetare...

-Pa superlativa, larg politizimeve, thjeshte e me modesiti, -ketu qendron bukuria e librit.

-Refleksone, ne gjurmet e Bajronit dhe te Edith Durhamit e te tjereve.

-Histori e Shqiperise, realiste e pa komplikuar zbardhur ne ditet e sotme, pa ekstreme por me objeltivitet,

larg subjektivizmave.

-Bazuar ne nje Biblografi kerkimore e studimore dhe me nje Indeks te pasur te pasur, nga studjues porofesioniste, eksplorues te natyres , te kombeve,

te historise se tyre, jo spntane e pasonante..e te tjera...le tja leme lexuesit t'i perforcoje e te shtoje.

Rezyme

Të gjitha keto sa me siper dhe komnetet me poshte e bejne qe libri te jete shume popullor i kerkuar dhei lexuar,

duke pasqyrauar ne liber , nje Shqiperi te re, ndryshe nga te tjeret, dhe te panjohur , te haruar siç thuhet

dhe ne titullin e librit.

Lexoni komnetete me poshteme ne anglisht pa ndonje shtremberim ne shqiperim:

Acknowledgements-Hyrje dhe komente

"Albania is the least-known and least developed country in Europe. It has a long,  rich and troubled past,  characterised

by unrest and isolationism. Today,  very little is known of its people - beyond those who have emigrated to other countries in Europe - and its landscapes have remained virtually untravelled for centuries. Determined to discover the country behind the stereotypes

and preconceptions,  Robin Hanbury-Tenison and his wife Louella rode across Albania,  from Thethi in the north to

the border with Greece in the south. Following in the footsteps of Byron,  Edward Lear and Edith Durham they crossed

some of the most wild and arrestingly beautiful landscape in Europe. Through soaring mountain ranges and hidden valleys

dotted with Illyrian,  Roman and Byzantine ruins they lived simply; staying in the homes of communities untouched by

the 21st century and in towns bursting with artistic creativity. They discovered an ancient land,  proud and fiercely

independent,  struggling to emerge from the darkness of repression and poverty and from the shadows of its more popular

neighbours.

Land of Eagles is the story of a lyrical and dramatic journey,  peppered with adventure and mishap,  discovery and

unexpected encounters. Adorned with the history,  legends and literature of Albania and with the tales of past

travellers,  it is a luminous portrait of this mysterious and eccentric country,  which has for too long been forgotten

by Europe."

"Determined to discover the Albanian that lies behind so many stereotypes and preconceptions,

Robin Hanbury-Tenison and his wife Louella crossed the country on horseback,  from Theth in the north to the border

with Greece in the south. In the footsteps of Byron,  Edward Lear and Edith Durham they crossed some of the

most wild and arrestingly beautiful landscapes in Europe. Through soaring mountain ranges and hidden valleys

they lived simply; staying in the homes of communities completely untouched by the 21st century and in towns bursting

with artistic creativity. "Land of Eagles" is the story of a lyrical and dramatic journey,  peppered with adventure

and mishap,  discovery and unexpected encounters.(Amazon)

"Author Robin Hanbury-Tenison,  OBE,  DL,  is the doyen of British explorers. A Founder and President of Survival International,

the world's leading organisation supporting tribal peoples,  he was one of the first people to bring the plight of

the rainforests to the world's attention. He has been a Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society,

winner of the Pio Manzu Award,  an International Fellow of the Explorers Club,  Winston Churchill Memorial Fellow,

Trustee of the Ecological Foundation and Fellow of the Linnean Society. Among his many publications are:

'A Question of Survival',  'A Pattern of Peoples',  'The Yanomami',  'Fragile Eden',  'The Oxford Book of Exploration',

'Mulu: The Rain Forest' and his two autobiographies,  'Worlds Apart' and 'Worlds Within',  as well as a successful

quartet of books about the other long distance rides he and Louella have made across France,  China,

New Zealand and Spain

Albania remains one of the most mysterious,  beguiling countries in Europe. Robin and Louella Hanbury-Tenison have

travelled through it in a way I can only envy. Top to bottom on horseback,  a journey on which they had the time to

look behind the stereotypes of the country and see the dramatic beauty and unique traditions that lie beneath."

(Michael Palin)"

Review of ‘The Land of Eagles’ for Bookdealer...

"-The trouble with the Balkans,  Winston Churchill is supposed to have said,  is that they create more history than they

can consume. And while,  as with so many of the old Bulldog’s more epigrammatic sayings,  this may on the surface appear

to make sense,  it’s also an expression with hidden shallows. Certainly,  the geographical region we now call Albania

(or more likely ‘plucky little Albania’) has had more than its fair share of invasions,  bloodshed,  ethnic cleansing

and political upheaval over the centuries,  largely because of its being on the political fault-line between the Ottoman

and Hapsburg empires. But paradoxically,  from the 21st century perspective at least,  as Robin Hanbury-Tenison

points out in his superb Land of Eagles,  it is also one of the most dormant,  remote and traditional countries in a

fast-changing Europe that has apparently forgotten all about it.

Obscured by communism and locked away behind ramparts of impassable mountains,  Albania may have been overlooked

economically and may well lack what we today call development,  but it has long attracted the literary and cultural traveller. As Hanbury-Tenison points out,  the country is awash with literary and cultural references. Shakespeare set Twelfth Night in Illyria,  an ancient region of the Balkan Peninsula on the Adriatic coast that is modern Albania. In Così fan tutte Mozart casts his two scheming lovers as ‘Albanian Noblemen’. Edward Gibbon described Albania as ‘a country within sight of Italy,  which is less known than the interior of America’. And of course Byron set his lengthy narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in Albania,  the country the romantic poet rode through with his friend John Cam Hobhouse in 1809. Edward Lear swung into the saddle to ride across the landscape,  a journey ultimately expressed in his 1851 Journal of a Landscape Painter in Greece and Albania,  and noted Victorian traveller Edith Durham – often described as the first woman war correspondent,  and a great enthusiast for the Albanian people – also rode through the mountains before publishing her epic book High Albania. And just for the record,

Hanbury-Tenison comments that up in the high mountain passes of the north ‘are the woods where Voldemort,

the villain of the Harry Potter books,  goes to lie low after being defeated. We could see why,

as they felt quite divorced from the rest of the world.

Hanbury-Tenison likes to do his travelling on horseback. A few years ago I interviewed him for the Royal Geographical

Society’s magazine,  and he told me that ‘on foot with a pack you see nothing but your feet.

In a car you are insulated from the real world. But on a horse,  you have an intelligent animal doing all of the work

and most of the thinking,  leaving you free to look and listen,  to communicate with those you meet.’ These could so

easily be the words of the explorer’s hero and mentor Wilfred Thesiger,  and in emulating the great desert traveller

Hanbury-Tenison is preserving something of a noble tradition that sees exploring as being about discovering things

rather than breaking records. And it’s a formula that has obviously worked and stood the test of time,

with Hanbury-Tenison previously riding through and writing about China,  Spain,  New Zealand and France.

And now Albania. Although the real question is probably ‘why Albania?’ Why not,  the author seems to imply,

recounting a story of how he first met the Crown Prince Leka of Albania at Sandhurst. The prince had been playing rugby with the explorer’s son,  and was covered with mud. He clicked the heels of his boots together in the manner of a Prussian officer before announcing: ‘You will always be welcome in my country.’ Hanbury-Tenison took him at his word,  and in 2007 he and his wife Louella led an expedition along the length of the country from Theth in the north to Erind in the south. The result is Land of Eagles,  a good old-fashioned travel book of the sort that would win the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award if it were still going. It’s got just the right balance of travelogue and digression,  contrasting a gruelling expedition journal with riveting trivia and occasionally complex political history. One minute Hanbury-Tenison will breezily relate an anecdote about how Norman Wisdom became a national hero,  while the next he’ll describe the Balkan Peace Park Project,  an initiative where an environmentally protected area is set aside to unite communities and encourage tourism into a war-torn region. This appeals to the

campaigner in Hanbury-Tenison,  who explains in some depth how substantial chunks of Southern Montenegro and western

Kosovo have been joined to the Albanian section,  making a total area of 3, 000 square kilometres…

‘The fact that this just happens to be the most beguiling and least known corner of Europe makes it a winner.

Although Hanbury-Tenison’s knowledge of the region,  both historically and culturally,  is impressive,

he’s at his best when he’s in the saddle on the open road,  which is quite often little more than the narrowest of tracks,

with a precipice on one side and a cliff on the other. He makes no secret that it’s a hard journey: some of the

mountain passes and suspension bridges would be terrifying to a man half his age (Hanbury-Tenison is now in his

seventies). To make matters worse,  the tracks he uses are dismally signposted in a land without proper maps or reliable

guides. But for all his frustrations he is boyishly optimistic and genuinely enchanted by the hospitality of the people

he meets along the road. In a sentence that only he could have written,  he describes ‘the bucolic charm of

Breughelesque farmers,  who belong to the Byronic landscape so perfectly.

Robin Hanbury-Tenison has always been an intensely busy man. Download his CV from his website and you’d be forgiven

for thinking it describes several action-packed lives. Of course,  he’s best known as an explorer – having led or taken

part in more than 30 expeditions – in which capacity he’s brought to the wider public the plight of the tribal peoples

of the world as well as the rainforest. The Sunday Times named him in 1982 as ‘the greatest explorer of the past 20

years’,  and again in 1991 as one of the 1000 ‘Makers of the 20th Century’. He deserves to be much better known as an

author,  and perhaps with the publication of Land of Eagles this slight injustice is about to be put right.

(Nick Smith is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Contributing Editor on the Explorers Journal,

the magazine of the Explorers Club in New York.)

Permbledhje per librin

Më se domethense dhe simbolike hapen faqet e librit me Albanian Proverbs, shkkruar ne shqip dhe ne anglisht:

-Mbroje atdhene si shqipja folenë.

-Po nise udhe, do kaptosh dhe sheshe, dhe male dhe gure.

-Nuk rrohet me zmer te lepurit.

-Balata me e ëmbel se mjalta, -ne Shqiperi.e te tjera..

Keto shprehje jane krurore krenarije dhe per eksplouresit, te cilet ndermoren kete udhetim

veri -juge ne Shqiperi, shprehje e nje kombi te lashte e te mençur, me nje histori te pasur per liri,

paqe dhe perparim.

Me pas si parantese e librit, e Shqiperise-Land og Eagles, do te vijoje e plote , poema e lord Bajronit:

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"-nje hymn per Albanian.Autoret kane vendosur dhe nje foto  te Bajronit veshur me kostume kombetare shqiptare,

te njohur per ne, midis fotove te shumta me ngjyra, me pamje natyrore nga Shqiperia.

Ndersa nje studjues tjeter duke lexuar librin , faqet e para do te shkruaj me interesim:

-"To those that seek a tourist-unexplored, not over-inaccessible country, for summer tour, let me strongly recommend

this interesting land's of ancient Illyria" E.F.Knight.

Author's Note on Albania/Shqiperia

Autoret pasi shpjegojne se nuk ka ndonje lidhje midis merit te vjeter Albani-Albioni te Anglise,

ndalen ne fllesen e emerit Shqiperi.

"Since about the XVI century, the Albanians themselves have referred to their country as Shqiperia-Land of Eagles,

from Albanian shqiponja, an eagle, which may have been the totem of early tribe......."

Duke vazhduar si rjedhoje analizen historike me deshmi dokumentarederi ne ditet tona,  emertimin e atdheut tone

Shqiperi dhe per te huajt Albani .

Introduction-Hyrje

Anglezet paqesore e dashamires, studjues shkencore, eksploruer profesioniste, do te ndalen qe ne fillim te librit,

pa u futur ne pershkrimet , do tephojne me gojene tyre si rezyme te permbajtjes te librit,

te verteten obliguese per Shqiperine, Land of Eagles.

Indeksi

Libri ndahet ne disa kapituj, dhe me nen simmotrat e tyre, me titujuj retrospktive si

-Part I Durham Country, /II-Guerilla Country./III-Lear Contry./ IV- Bajron Country.duke mbaruar me epilogun,

me rreth 200 faqe,  duke pershkruar udhetimin 'Across the Via Egnatia.fq.121, ne nje nen kapitull me vete.

Autoret e pershkruajne Shqiperine siç eshte nje perle e panjohur e Ballkanit dhe e Europes,

me nje komb me nje popull  te lashte e fisnik , trim e liridashes, bujar e me nje mençuri te pashoq.

-Epilogue

-"Looking back, the best of Albania was its sheer beauty, the remarkablevastness of the landscape and the extreme contarast,

in threw at us all the time....-do te shkruajne autoret ne fillim te epiologut, dhe do ta mbyllin

me fjale prejludi dhe krenarije  mbylljn elibrit:

"We saw a side of Albania few priviliged to see and it touched us.We were lucky to do before whatever changes lie

ahead come to pass...It is my wish for Albaniathat they saffer none of these."....(No komenet L.K.)

-Libiri "Land of Eagles", perben nje triologji eksploruese, si libri i trete, per Shqiperine, nga tre autore te ndryshem,

ne kohe te ndryshme, me te njeten rjedhoje burimore, por me risi te reja historike, letarare dhe gjeogarafike, qe nga

poeti Lodr Bajron*, ne filim te viteve 1800, publiçistja e mirenojuur Edith Durham* ne, dhe tani ne fillim te viteve 2000,

nga Ribin Hanbury-Tenison, duke formuar nje thesar kulturor te pamohueshem dhe me vlera pasurore per kombin tone kryelarte. .

Shkronjesi

Luan Kalana, SHBA

P.s.

-Shenimet e shumta jane  shkruar ne anglisht per vertesine e librit, por dhe lexuesit e huaj e te angishtes.