Kanina (Albania)
| Kanina | ||
|---|---|---|
 Remains of the castle |
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| Creation time : | 4th century BC Chr. | |
| Castle type : | Hill castle | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Construction: | Stone construction | |
| Place: | Kanina / Vlora | |
| Geographical location | 40 ° 26 '23 " N , 19 ° 31' 8" E | |
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Kanina ( Albanian also Kaninë ) is a village in Qark Vlora ( Vlora County ) in southern Albania .
geography
The village is about six kilometers southeast of the center of the port city of Vlora on a hill that belongs to the northern foothills of the Ceraunic Mountains . At 383 m above sea level. A. high hilltop are the remains of an old fortress. The village extends around the castle complex and along the ridge to the south. From Kanina you have a good view over the bay of Vlora , which begins two kilometers to the west, where the beaches of Vlora extend.
history
Antiquity
The settlement took place in the 4th century BC. When the Illyrians built a small fortress. In the 4th century AD, the place was fortified again because of the barbarian incursions into the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire . Emperor Justinian had the fortifications expanded, and a small urban settlement was created to protect them. At the time of Bulgarian rule in the 10th century, Kanina became the seat of a bishop who was subordinate to the Metropolitan of Ohrid .
middle Ages
In the late Middle Ages, the place remained of strategic importance. The despots of Epirus maintained a garrison in Kanina. In the second half of the 13th century Kanina was given as a dowry from Helena Angelina Dukaina from the Angeloi family to her husband, the Hohenstaufen king Manfred of Sicily . This left it to one of his vassals, Philipp Chinard (* around 1205, † 1266), for administration.
From 1270 to 1330 Kanina Castle served several times as the residence of the governors who administered the Angevin possessions in Albania. From February 21, 1272 Kanina belonged to the Regnum Albaniae founded by Charles of Anjou . Castellan was Giacomo Baliniano "[...] Iacobi de Baliniano castellani castri nostri Canine et Avallone [...]" In a royal document of April 11, 1273 Giacomo Baliniano is mentioned as castellan of Vallona and Kanina as he was named by Charles of Anjou 200 salme wheat salme generale received for the fortification of Kanina. After that, for a few decades it formed the center of a small principality that was successively a vassal of the Epirotian princes, the Serbian tsar and the Venetians . The princes were members of the Strazimir family, a branch of the Bulgarian royal family Assen . The Epirot princes, as well as the Anjou and the Strazimirs, recruited many of their soldiers among the Albanians , who therefore settled in large numbers in the area in the 13th and 14th centuries and soon formed the majority of the population.
Ottoman period
In 1417 the Ottomans captured Kanina and incorporated it into their empire. Ruđina Balšić , the last princess of Kanina, went into exile in Corfu . The place was devastated like many other Albanian cities and in 1431 only had 216 houses. For a long time the castle was of military importance for the protection of the port of Vlora. When the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi came to Kanina in 1670, he found the fortress still in good condition and with a garrison of 400 men. He counted 300 houses in the village, plus 20 in the citadel and mentioned the mosque built by the Ottomans and the nearby Tekke . Ekrem Bey Vlora writes in his memoirs that his family lived in the castle of Kaninë like in the land of milk and honey - with 200 to 300 servants. In 1820 the family moved into a large estate in Vlora.
Modern times
When the English painter Edward Lear visited Kanina in 1848, the fortress was in ruins. At the end of the 19th century Kanina developed into the summer resort of the wealthy citizens of Vlora, who had country houses built here. During the communist period (until 1990) the place was a quiet farming village. At present, Kanina is often visited by tourists vacationing on the nearby coast for its view of the Bay of Vlorë . The castle area was used several times for theater performances and television shows.
Personalities
- Donika Kastrioti (1428–1505 / 06), Albanian princess, Skanderbeg's wife and close confidante of the royal family in Naples
literature
- Henry Baerlein: Southern Albania under the Acroceraunian Mountains. Chicago 1968 (a political and cultural-historical treatise on the region south of Vlorë).
- Edward Lear: Journals of a landscape painter in Albania. London 1851, pp. 212-220.
- Robert Elsie: Kanina dhe Vlora nga udhëpërshkrimi (Sejahatnameja) e Evlija Çelebiut. In: Albanica Ekskluzive. Revistë mujore për dije e cultureë. No. 68, Prishtinë, May 2007, pp. 82-85. PDF file
- Ekrem Vlora: Kalaja e Kaninës. arti grafiche editoriali A. Urbinati, Rome 1961. (Reprint: Kalaja e Kaninës dhe shkrime të tjera. Botimet Koçi, Tirana 2004, ISBN 99927-871-5-5 ).
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ Salme ( singular : Salma) was a grain measure in the Kingdom of Sicily,
- ↑ One Salma Generale corresponds to 16 tomoli .
Individual evidence
- ^ Norbert Kamp: Chinard, Filippo. In: Treccani.it. Retrieved April 19, 2018 (Italian).
- ^ Robert Elsie: A Biographical Dictionary of Albanian History . IB Tauris, London, New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-78076-431-3 , pp. 81 f . (English, online preview in Google Book Search).
- ^ Camillo Minieri Riccio: Genealogia di Carlo I di Angiò: prima generazione . Vincenzo Priggiobba, Naples 1857, p. 140, Document No. XIV (Italian, archive.org ).
- ^ Domenico Forges Davanzati: Monumenti . In: Dissertazione sulla seconda moglie del re Manfredi e su 'loro figlioli, Filippo Raimondi . Filippo Raimondi, Naples 1791, p. XLVII, number LI (Latin, archive.org ).
- ^ Giuseppe De Welz: Saggio su i mezzi da moltiplicare prontamente le ricchezze della Sicilia . Firmin Didot, Paris 1822, p. 22 (Italian, online version in Google Book Search).
- ^ Archivio storico italiano . 3, Tomo 22. LS Olschk, Florence 1875, p. 16 (Italian, archive.org ).
- ↑ Emin Riza: The Albanian City in the Middle Ages and in the Ottoman Period. in Walter Raunig (ed.): Albania - wealth and diversity of ancient culture. State Museum for Ethnology, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-9807561-2-2
- ↑ Ekrem Bey Vlora: Memoirs (1885 to 1912) . In: Mathias Bernath (Ed.): Southeast European works . tape I . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1968, p. 21 .