Elbasan

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Elbasan
Elbasani
Elbasan coat of arms
Elbasan (Albania)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg

Coordinates: 41 ° 7 '  N , 20 ° 5'  E

Basic data
Qark : Elbasan
Municipality : Elbasan
Height : 135  m above sea level A.
Residential place : 78,703 (2011)
Bashkia residents : 141,714 (2011)
Telephone code : (+355) 54
Postal code : 3001-3006
Politics and administration (as of 2019 )
Mayor : Gledian Llatja ( PS )
Website :
Culture and history
Local place name : Elbason / Elbasoni
City foundation : 1466
City Festival : the 14th of March
View of the fortress, one of the landmarks of Elbasan (2015)

View of the fortress, one of the landmarks of Elbasan (2015)

Elbasan ( Albanian  also  Elbasani ) is a city in central Albania . It is the official seat of a Bashkia and the capital of the Qark Elbasan . The industrial city is located north of the Shkumbin River . With 128,232 inhabitants according to self-reported (2011) and 78,703 inhabitants according to the 2011 census, it is the fourth largest city in the country.

geography

View of the city from the south

Elbasan lies in a wide valley, an extension of the coastal plain inland, at around 150  m above sea level. A. The distance to the Adriatic Sea is around 60 kilometers. A few kilometers to the east, the Shkumbin emerges from its rock valley and has enabled productive agriculture here throughout history. In the north and south of the city rise up to 1000 meters and 1800 meters high mountains.

Elbasan has a continental climate with warm and dry summers and cold winters with lots of precipitation.

The municipal area, which was greatly expanded in 2015, also includes the integrated municipalities in the north and east of the former Elbasan district . The new municipality has 141,714 inhabitants (as of 2011).

Former parishes
Surname Population (2011) Community type
Elbasan 000000000078703.000000000078,703 Bashkia
Bradashesh 000000000010700.000000000010,700 Komuna
Funar 000000000002122.00000000002.122 Komuna
Gjergjan 000000000005126.00000000005.126 Komuna
Gjinar 000000000003478.00000000003,478 Komuna
Gracen 000000000002192.00000000002,192 Komuna
Fushë-Labinot 000000000007058.00000000007,058 Komuna
Mal-Labinot 000000000005291.00000000005,291 Komuna
Paper 000000000006348.00000000006,348 Komuna
Shirgjan 000000000007307.00000000007,307 Komuna
Shushica 000000000008731.00000000008,731 Komuna
Tregan 000000000003036.00000000003,036 Komuna
Zavalina 000000000001622.00000000001,622 Komuna

history

Antiquity

The first historical settlers in the area were the Illyrians , who lived in the 2nd century BC. First dwellings built. In 2010 two Illyrian graves were found near the city wall and excavated. After the end of the Third Macedonian-Roman War in 168 BC. All of Illyria came under Roman protectorate . 146 BC The Romans built the trade route Via Egnatia , which served as a continuation to the Italian Via Appia in the Balkans and provided the direct connection between Rome and Byzantium . It began at the two port cities Dyrrhachium and Apollonia on the Adriatic and united west of Elbasan on the Genusus River . At this point there was a Roman trading post called Mansio Scampa . Scampa is the Illyrian word for "rock" (cf. Albanian shkëmb / -i ).

Rest areas were later laid out at regular intervals along this route, in Latin Mutatio ad Quintum - station for changing draft animals every fifth mile . The station at today's village of Bradashesh , seven kilometers (five miles) west of Elbasan and on today's road to Durrës, has been preserved . Somewhat hidden at the foot of the mountain lie the remains of a small but technically mature bathing facility with a reservoir for spring water from the middle of the 2nd century AD.

Around 160 AD Scampa is mentioned again in a Roman epitaph . It speaks of a place with fertile farmland, the location on the Genusus River and a crossroads on the Via Egnatia.

Scampa was expanded into a fortress by the Romans at the beginning of the 4th century, the position of the wall rectangle of 348 meters by 308 meters forms the border of the old town to this day. The Via Egnatia ran through the two city gates in the middle of the west and east side. A side gate to the river was in the south.

In the 5th century Scampa became the seat of a bishop . There is a report by a delegation from Pope Hormisdas , which was welcomed in 519 in Scampa, located in an eastern Roman province. The location of the former episcopal church is unknown, excavations from today's higher ground level in the old town have revealed finds of further Christian buildings. Outside the city walls, on a hill in the west ( Tepe ), the remains of a basilica were uncovered, the construction phases of which are given as the 4th to 6th centuries. Also outside the city wall near the southern side gate, the mosaic floor of another basilica has been exposed since 2007, probably from the 6th century. From the 7th century onwards there were several incursions by Slavs , and Scampa was badly damaged by fires. The place was then probably abandoned. It is unclear whether a settlement existed under the Byzantines .

Ottoman period

Roman-Ottoman city walls

Sultan Mehmed II. Nickname "the Conqueror" refers to his capture of Constantinople and large parts of the Balkans for the Ottoman Empire . During several campaigns against the fortress of Kruja in northern Albania, he had the city wall rebuilt in 1466. The place got its current name "Elbasan", which means "strong fortress" in Turkish . Evliya Çelebi , who traveled in the service of the Ottoman Sultan , wrote a detailed description of the city at that time in 1670 with his work entitled Seyahatnâme (Turkish travel book ). He mentioned three entrances to the city, each with double iron gates, behind the southern one was the bazaar with a coffee house. There were 460 one- and two-story houses with tile roofs within the city walls. The city as a whole extended far beyond this area and had 1150 houses, which were described as being well-kept in the middle of vineyards and parks.

At the end of the 17th century Elbasan had about 2000 inhabitants. After the suppression of several uprisings in the Balkans, the Turkish Grand Vizier Reschid Pasha had a large part of the walls torn down in 1832. Nevertheless, three mosques and one church were mentioned in the mid-19th century.

Due to its favorable location, the city developed into a center for trade and handicrafts in the Ottoman Empire. In addition to Albanian and Turkish merchants, Greek and Slavic traders also settled here . Commercial goods in the 16th and 17th centuries were mainly leather, wood and silver.

Nationalism and Independence of Albania

From 1870 there were efforts in Albania to introduce a uniform written Albanian language . However, the alphabet developed in Elbasan could not prevail. Elbasan plays an important role in the history of the school system in the country. On December 1, 1909, a teacher training school was opened in the city, the first ever in Albania. The conversion of some Orthodox from Elbasan and the surrounding area to Catholicism while maintaining the Byzantine rite in 1895, the revival of the Albanian Greek Catholic Church , is to be understood in the context of the Albanian national movement Rilindja .

The Muslim majority in the city refused in 1914 to recognize the rule of the German-born, Christian Prince Wilhelm zu Wied over Albania.

Cityscape

The former city wall with a height of eleven meters was reinforced by 26 regularly arranged towers protruding from the wall. The Ottoman old town with its winding alleys in the center of the modern street plan is recognizable and has retained a somewhat oriental character. Practically only the southern part of the city wall with the former side gate is preserved.

About 100 meters north in the center of the old town is the King's Mosque ( Albanian  Xhamia e Mbretit ) from 1492, one of the oldest surviving mosques in Albania . It is an inconspicuous, almost square building with a flat wooden roof. Careful box masonry can be seen under a white coat of paint. This technique was borrowed from earlier church construction. The already mentioned Evliya Çelebi found the mosque completely painted on the outside with religious poems in the finest calligraphy in 1670 , until the 1960s the walls were covered with red Arabic script . There were other 17th century mosques that were destroyed in the atheism campaign in the late 1960s . The royal mosque survived this time as a political meeting room, among other things.

Not far away is the Cathedral of Saint Mary (alb. Katedralja e Shën Merisë ), a three-aisled basilica from 1833 with a remarkable iconostasis from the mid-19th century. The portico added on the north and south sides make the building appear even wider.

The hamam (Turkish bath house) outside the city wall next to the Hotel Scampi already existed at the end of the 17th century, at that time the bath was located within the weekly market, surrounded by narrow shopping streets. It was renovated in the 19th century and was in use until the 1940s. Outside in good condition, no description of the interior is required. It was converted into a restaurant after 1990.

The 16th century Naziresha Mosque is around a kilometer south of the castle . The Namazgjah , the country's first prayer place, was destroyed by the communist dictatorship .

Culture

The Ethnographic Museum (Alb. Muzeu Etnografik ), housed in a building from the 18th century, shows traditional crafts from the Ottoman period. The Archaeological Museum (alb. Muzeu Arkeologjik ) is located in the southwest corner of the old town.

The city is famous for the spring festival Dita e Verës , for which the sweet pastry ballokumja is baked.

Sports

The local football club KF Elbasani will play in the top league in the 2014/15 season .

The Elbasan Arena (formerly Ruzhdi-Bizhuta-Stadion ) was renovated in 2014 and has been used for international matches for the national soccer team until the national stadium in Tirana is demolished and the new building is completed. [outdated]

politics

The city coat of arms

Elbasan is the official seat of a Bashkia , which as an administrative unit includes the city and the surrounding area with other localities. The city itself is divided into six districts, called "Rayons" (Alb. Rajon ), which in turn are divided into several quarters (Alb. Lagja ). There are 21 districts in total. As a political body, the Bashkia has, among other things, the mayor (alb. Kryebashkiaku ), who is elected by the local population for a legislative period of four years. In the 2011 and 2015 elections , Qazim Sejdini ( PS ) was confirmed in office. He was elected 22nd Mayor of Elbasan for the first time in 2007. The city council (alb. Këshilli Bashkiak ) also plays an important political role . It consists of 51 members and has legislative functions.

Town twinning

Elbasan is twinned with Tetovo in North Macedonia and Forlì in Italy .

economy

The steel mill of the party

Italian companies began mining and recycling chrome and nickel for steel production in the 1930s. During the communist era , west of Elbasan was the country's largest metallurgical plant ( the party's steel ). With a maximum output of 750,000 tons of steel per year (600,000 tons were reached), the company employed around 12,000 workers until its decline in 1990. After that, the plant was closed, the workers laid off and the enormous air pollution ended. During the general unrest in the country in 1997 , large numbers of plant components were illegally dismantled and sold abroad.

In 1999 the Turkish company Kurum Steel Co. resumed production with a 20-year contract. Kurum made a commitment to invest 6 million US dollars within four years and to cover the country's entire demand for steel in the long term. Since then there have been several problems with compliance with environmental protection regulations. In 2005, the 240 workers were affected by the plant closure for a while because filters were not installed in time. The city suffers from smog and the number of cancer patients has risen sharply.

Limestone is still being quarried in the nearby mountains . Wood processing and soap production also have a tradition.

traffic

Elbasan is located at the entrance to the Shkumbin Valley, which connects central Albania with North Macedonia and Greece . From the capital Tirana , the SH3 leads over the Krraba Pass to Elbasan, which was laid out by the Italians during the Second World War . Meanwhile, a new route, the A3 motorway , is under construction. A well-developed road leads from the coast as SH7 to Elbasan, which then joins the SH3 and follows the course of the ancient Via Egnatia via Elbasan in the direction of south-eastern Bania and Macedonia . This route is part of the Pan-European Transport Corridor VIII , which connects the Albanian Adriatic coast with the Black Sea .

The railway line from Durrës to Librazhd also runs via Elbasan .

Personalities

literature

  • Franz Babinger : The founding of Elbasan. In: Communications from the Seminar for Oriental Languages ​​in Berlin, 34, 1931
  • Visar Nonaj: "New plant, new people": The recruitment of workers for the Albanian steel mill "Steel of the Party". In: Südost-Forschungen , Vol. 72, 2013, pp. 319–348.

Web links

Commons : Elbasan  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Ines Nurja: Censusi i popullsisë dhe banesave / Population and Housing Census - Elbasan 2011 . Results Kryesore / Main Results. Ed .: INSTAT . Pjesa / Part 1. Adel Print, Tirana 2013 ( document as PDF [accessed on April 28, 2019]).
  2. Të dhënat për popullsinë për muajin January 2011. (No longer available online.) Bashkia Elbasan, archived from the original on May 8, 2014 ; Retrieved November 3, 2012 (PDF file, 20.4 KB). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.elbasani.gov.al
  3. Elbasan, zbulohen dy varre ilire në muret e kalasë (Elbasan, two Illyrian graves found near the castle). In: Balkanweb.com. August 7, 2010, archived from the original on July 12, 2012 ; Retrieved November 21, 2013 (Albanian).
  4. The Roman bath is two kilometers away from the roundabout at the Elbasan-Durrës-Tirana junction at the end of a small road parallel to the expressway to Durrës. Description and ground plan in Guntram Koch: Albania. Du Mont Buchverlag, Cologne 1989.
  5. The very well preserved mosaic is two meters deep in the park near the Hotel Scampa.
  6. Klaus Kreiser (Ed.): Evliya Chelebi in Albania and adjactent regions. The relevant sections of the Seyahatname edited with translations, commentary and introduction by Robert Dankoff and Robert Elsie. Vol 5. Leiden, New York and Cologne 2000, p. 307 ff. Excerpts in Robert Elsie : Early Albania. A Reader of Historical Texts 11th – 17th Centuries. Balkanological Publications Vol. 39. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003
  7. Miranda Vickers: Shqiptarët - Një histori modern . Bota Shqiptare, 2008, ISBN 978-99956-11-68-2 , Rritja e kundërshtimit ndaj xhonturqve , p. 100–101 (English: The Albanians - A Modern History . Translated by Xhevdet Shehu).
  8. Chris Hall: Southeast Europe Business Guide. July 2006, archived from the original on December 13, 2011 ; accessed on November 3, 2012 .
  9. Albanian Environmental Stories describe the pollution from the steel mill in 2004 in the chapter on Elbasan and Bradashesh. Retrieved November 3, 2012 .
  10. Elbasani, i pushtuar nga smogu. Top Channel , October 28, 2012, accessed October 28, 2012 (Albanian).