George Kastriotis - Skanderbeg - Our Great Hero.
Mar 9, 2018 22:11:20 GMT -5
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Post by Hellenic_Hoplite on Mar 9, 2018 22:11:20 GMT -5
George Kastriotis - Skanderbeg - Our Great Hero
The Greeks are the proud heirs of his legacy.
He was a Greek Prince from Hellenic Epirus which is located in north west Greece.
His grandfather was Konstantinos Kastriotis (1405-1468), the sovereign of Imathia and Kastoria (hence the name Kastriotis). The son of Konstantinos was Ioannis Kastriotis - the sovereign of Krougia (Kruja) - who was married to Voisava Tripalda - a Serbian woman. They brought to life nine children: five daughters and four sons, the last one in the line being Georgios Kastriotis.
UPBRINGING and DEVELOPMENT
During the reign of sultan Murad II (1421-1451), in order to maintain his authority in Krougia, his father Ioannis is compelled to deliver his four sons as hostages, who were to be brought up in the Sultans court in Adrianople (Edirne) and raised according to Turkish habits and traditions. There, though they were Christians, they were converted to Islam. Appreciating the talents of Georgios (beauty, robustness, bravery), Murad II trains him with the successor to the throne, Mehmet II, who would later conquer Constantinople. Admiring his courage, the Sultan gives him the Turkish name "Iskender Bey", which means "Ruler Alexander the Great".
However, the recollection of Krougia, the information of the death of his father first and, then, that of his mother, did not allow him to rest.
On the first opportunity, he leaves the Turkish Army and retakes his Christian name Georgios. He marries the daughter of Arianitos, Andronike Komnen, and in 1443 starts a rebellion against the Turkish conqueror. He liberates Krougia together with his three hundred warriors and immediately enters its cathedral, chanting the “doxologia” to God - Christian Greek hymn of Thanks Giving and Glorification.
He orders the double-headed eagle emblem on a purple background to be his standard flag, which was to be raised on all the castles. The double-headed eagle is the imperial flag of the Greek speaking Byzantine empire and also the Greek Orthodox Church.
He wore the ancient Macedonian Greek helmet with the double-horn. A battle follows, in order to keep his province free from foreign tyrants. He dies on the 17th of January 1468, at the age of sixty four, from a fever that was probably caused by malaria. He was buried in the Church of Saint Nicholas in Alessjo (ancient Greek Lissos) and was succeeded by his son Ioannis Kastriotis.
ETHNICITY
The struggles of Georgios Kastriotis were those of an Orthodox Christian leader against the Turks in order to keep the province free. He was an Epirot Greek, as irrefutably declare the following Historical Sources;
Marini Barletii, his first biographer from Skodra (during the 16th century AD), calls him an "Epirotan Prince" and a "Sovereign of Epirus", while in the entire biography he is referred to only as an Epirotan, never an Albanian.
Georgios Kastriotis himself addressing the sovereign of Taranta, Ioannis Antonio, reveals his Greek origin and his genuine feelings of his background, he writes (in Greek):
"My forefathers were Epirotans, from which Pyrrhos rose, whom only the Romans could push back“.
Similarly, in his letter to the Italian Ursini, from the year 1460, he refers himself as a descendant of the Greek Epirotans, but never the Albanians.
George Kastriotis had a Greek education and spoke the Greek language fluently. Consequently, the letters he sent were written in the Greek language, like that to King Alfonso, monarch of Aragon, Naples and Sicily.
Moreover the biographer of the Turkish Ali Pasha of Ioannina, Ahmet Moyfjt, writes the following about Georgios Kastriotis;
"In the year 1443 the Greek sovereign Kastriotis escaped from the Ottoman camp of Morava and went to the seat of his ancestors, in Krougia".
Italian, English and Swedish reports also consider Georgios Kastriotis as a Greek. Thus the Italian A. Salvi in the tragedy of 1718 mentions him as a Greek (Greco's Georgios Kastriotis).
The Englishman C. Randall in 1810 calls him a “Greek Hero” (Grecian Hero), while the Swedish
Barrau initially and Rudbeck later (1835) consider Georgios Kastriotis as a Greek.
The book of the French historian Pagane l (“Histoirede Scanderbey”), which was published in Paris in 1855, writes about him that he was obviously a Greek.
An Albanian admission of the Greek Epirotan origin of Georgios Kastriotis is the Albanian stamp of 1968, marking the celebration of 500 years from his death, which shows the cover of the book “History” of Barletii and which writes clearly that he was an Epirotan Greek prince (“Epirotarum Principis”), but never an Albanian.
The cover writes: "HISTORIA DE VITA ETGESTIS SCANDERBEGI EPIROTARUM PRINCIPIS".
Danish Franz Jessen, military correspondent of the Parisian newspaper "Le Temps", doubts the Albanian origin of Georgios Kastriotis, stressing in his lecture;
"The question is also, if this Georgios Kastriotis could be considered Albanian, since he was the son of the Greek Ioannis
Kastriotis and of a Serbian princess".
In conclusion, history effortlessly proves the Greek stock of Georgios Kastriotis.
For any effort of forgery and falsification of history comes a moment, when it is exposed and debunked, because;
"Great is the truth, it is mighty above all things."