Feb. 21, 2025, 11:59 a.m.
(Photo: ukrainer)
Albanians in Ukraine are one of the smallest ethnic groups in Odesa Oblast, whose history and origins have remained virtually unknown. Apart from the village of Karakurt, the Albanian community in other settlements of the region is small. During the Soviet era, Albania was an ideological opponent of the USSR, a supporter of Maoism, which led to a superficial and unsystematic study of this country. At the same time, we want to consider interesting and controversial versions of the origin of this mysterious nation that has deep historical ties to Ukraine.
Central Albania, 1900. Photo by albanianphotography.net
The question of the origin of Albanians has traditionally been viewed more through the prism of politics and ideology than through historical facts. For the most part, scholars have relied on the outdated theory of the Swedish researcher Johan Thunmann, who in his book Studies in the History of the East European Peoples suggested that Albanians were related to the ancient Illyrian population of the Balkan Peninsula.
This theory was actively supported by Serbian nationalists, as it promoted the idea of "brotherly peoples." Instead, other views, such as those of Gottfried Schramm, who considered Albanians to be descendants of a Thracian tribe that fled to Kosovo from the Proto-Bulgarians, were ignored by Serbs because they did not fit the ideology of "Illyria is the mother of the Yugoslav peoples."
An important drawback of the supported theory was that the Illyrian script has not yet been deciphered, and therefore its interpretation remained only a hypothesis formulated in the eighteenth century. A controversial proof of the Illyrian version was the presence of Albanian roots in the name of the Nishava River, but Albanians appeared in this region much later.
Monument to the Illyrian queen Tevte in Tirana. Image by focus.ua
With the exception of Serbian researchers, other scholars clearly did not consider Albanians to be Illyrians. In the nineteenth century, the Polish researcher Kazimierz Schultz first opposed the Illyrian theory in his work "On the Origin and Settlement of the Ancient Illyrians." In the eleventh century, the ethnonym Albanians was used to refer to foreigners, while Albanians themselves called themselves Shiptar. It is important to note that the Illyrians disappeared as early as the sixth century, so they cannot be directly linked to the term Albanian, which appeared only in the eleventh century.
An alternative to the ideological Illyrian concept was the Dardanian or Pelasgian theory. According to this theory, the Albanians were considered descendants of the ancient Tirren people, and the name of their capital, Tirana, comes from them. The Tyrrhenians are another name for the Etruscans, who had a significant impact on the formation of the Roman Empire. Thus, Albanians, along with Italians and Romans, began to claim the role of descendants of this ancient civilization.
If we take into account the works of Ukrainian publicists Yurii Shylov and Yurii Kanyhin, who argued that the Etruscans were originally from the northern Black Sea region, the return of Albanians to Odesa (Mala and Velyka Arnautska streets) in the nineteenth century can be seen as a historical homecoming.
However, this attractive and majestic version has been refuted by linguistic studies by R. Pesic (Yugoslavia) and V. Shcherbakov (USSR). Although these scholars confirmed the similarity of the languages of the Etruscans and Slavs, the self-name of the Etruscans, the Raseni, has nothing to do with the Albanians. The Greeks and Romans called them Tyrrhenians.
Gottfried Heinrich Geisler, "The Arnauts in the Crimea". Image by Wikipedia
In the twentieth century, even more exotic versions of the Albanian origin appeared. Proponents of these theories often used methods similar to those used by conspiracy theorists G. Nosovsky and A. Fomenko, based on the consonance of sounds and similarity of words.
For example, the Celtic word albjo (universe) was transformed into Albanian, and the expression Alpes Albus (high mountain) immediately became the basis for the name of the Albanians. However, no one paid attention to the fact that the word for mountain in Albanian is skipper. Therefore, the Celtic version of the origin had almost no scientific basis or evidence.
The Caucasian version was more reasonable. As early as the first century, the Roman historian Tacitus mentioned Caucasian Albania, which really existed until the seventh century AD. Dr. Jovan Deretić is one of the most dedicated supporters of this theory. According to him, "the people whom we call 'Arbanasi' - foreigners, and they call themselves 'Shchipetari' - came from the Caucasus, from the Ashperon Peninsula, where the city of Baku is now located. Near Derbent, there used to be a town called Albana, from which the name of the country comes."
According to Deretić, in 1043, Caucasian Albanians, as mercenary infantrymen of the Byzantine commander George Maniak, captured the Serbian region of Drače. Later they settled near Elbanas and were called Arbanasi.
As for the name Arnaut, Deretić derives it from a Turkish expression meaning "those who did not return." However, this version again relies on the Latin word alba, which means white, which allows us to draw parallels not only with Albanians but also with England (Albion), Rome (the city of Alba Longa), and even with the albatross bird.
Caucasian Albania. Image by Wikipedia
Only the similarity of the Albanian language to the Caucasian languages of the Ossetians, Udins, and Abazis gave rise to the Udin theory, which is based on linguistic research and legends, not on word consonances.
Udins and Abazis consider Balkan Albanians to be their brothers. According to one legend, their ancestors, led by two brothers, came from the south to the Euphrates and from there moved to the Caucasus. According to another version of the legend, the Abazians actually came from under the Abaza River, located in the northwest of the Black Sea.
It should be noted that in the southwest of the Caucasus there is the Alaza River, and the description of the area given in the legend coincides with the Daryal Gorge, where the Udins really lived in the past.
Udinka in traditional clothes. Image by Wikipedia
However, one of the disadvantages of the Udine version is that the Udins are immigrants, descendants of Iraqi-speaking Scythians who later settled in the Northern Black Sea region. However, it is this version that leads to the Scythian-Carpathian theory, which is the most logical and reasonable of all possible hypotheses.
The similarity of Albanian and Carpathian place names was first pointed out by I. Zhelezniak. He connected the Ukrainian city of Halych with the Albanian gjalliqes, which means resurrection or rebirth. He derived the name Carpathians from the Albanian karpe, meaning rock, and the Carpathian massif of Kodri from the Albanian kodёr, meaning hill. The Uzh River, according to his version, has a name similar to the Albanian ujё, which means water, and the Limnice River resembles the Albanian lumё, which means river.
The author also drew parallels with Ukrainian words: mur (wall) - mur, nenya (mother) - nёnё, boyars - bujar (nobility, generosity). Although the researcher expressed interesting ideas, he did not completely abandon the classical Illyrian theory, mistakenly drawing a parallel with the ancient Balkan population.
The historical chronicles of the early Middle Ages do not record a tribe that resembles modern Albanians in language. The exception is the Carp tribe, which Roman authors tried to ignore in every way possible. The hostility to the Carpians can be explained by the defeats suffered by the Roman Empire from these tribes in the II-III centuries AD.
The Romans stubbornly called the highlanders of the Carpathians Sarmatians, ignoring the fact that the nomadic Sarmatians could not run their farms in the mountains, and the Carpathians fought without cavalry, unlike the Sarmatians. In 375, it was the Carpathians who formed the basis of the Gothic army that defeated the Romans at Hadrianople, although Emperor Constantine had reported with joy on their conquest and destruction in 319.
Carps' armament. Image: spadok.org.ua
The connection with the Scythians also has a logical explanation. In 640-620 BC, the Scythians penetrated the Northern Black Sea region through Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, so it is not surprising that their descendants, in particular the Udynians, preserved the memory of the Euphrates River.
Both Carpians and Scythians were Caucasians in appearance with white skin, light eyes, and hair. Therefore, it is quite logical that the Roman soldiers based on the Danube, among whom were Asians and Syrians, called them alba, which means white.
It is worth noting that until the mid-nineteenth century, Albanians did not seek to settle on the coast of the Azov Sea and founded their own village of Karakurt, located relatively close to Kodri. Their resettlement to the modern Zaporizhzhia region in the mid-nineteenth century was forced, as they fled Moldovan rule and settled where the Russian government sent them.
A significant drawback of this theory is the lack of a clear explanation of where exactly the Albanian ancestors were between 375 and 1043, even if they are recognized as descendants of the Carpathians. However, a similar situation is characteristic of Romanians, who still cannot answer how they are descendants of Rome and the Dacians, given that there is a historical gap of almost 1100 years between Vlachs and Dacians.
We hope that political bias in the study of the origin of Albanians will give way to objective historical research. If the historical involvement of this ethnic group in the Ukrainian lands of ancient times is proven, the resettlement of Albanian Arnauts to Bessarabia and Odesa in the early nineteenth century can be considered their return home.
Андрій Шевченко