Albania is a Turkish Muslim country. Does it belong in Europe?

Question

The answers are so good and get better and better. Thank you all, esp the 3rd and 4th(God bless you AlbV, you open my eyes!). Because I want the world to see this stuff I'm going to extend the expiration of the question (the first of my 1000-odd questions to be so distinguished).
I hate long answers (they don't match my short attention-span!), but I'm determined to swot this stuff up asap.

Answer 1

Albania is in the ancient territory of pelazgs and the people is direct descenders of illirians which are the late pelazgians...(pelazgs) those where the first humans in the Balkans...greeks (helen tribes - from Elleno -son of Deucalione e Pirra ) came later from those territories now called mongolia...Greeks were so cruel that they raped the girls and the wifes of the pelazgians in front of the husband dying. Later After Armenians accepted for the first time Christ Albania was visited by St Pietro who made Albania the 2nd christian country...so strong was this religion that Constantine (the emperor of Rome who legitimate Christianity) has his mother from Albanian territory..Albania gave to Rome 3 Emperors and 4 popes. The first document written in Albania is the baptize formula from the PAL ENGJELLI cardinal of Durres. The first texts written in Albania were also catholic texts. for 500 yrs Alb was under a strong pressure of the ottomans (was invaded) and those who does not convert in Muslims must pay 5 time more taxes...so great part of albanians converted themselves....until the 2nd part of the 1900 albanians made the death rites with a priest in the night and for the public they put the dead underground with a muslim hodja(the muslim priest).Skanderbeg fought against muslims for 25 years ...he was nominated cavalier of Christianity...he is Albanian national hero....the only one...what does this mean...
that Albania always belonged to Europe...geographically and in every other mean....

Albania is not a very strong religious country...80% converted in muslims and muslims here are not as the muslims in M.East...so we are tolerant....tolerant with our neighbors we never declared war to anyone of them, only they to us....this explain the greeks pretends and propaganda...but people must be informed....



Down you can find the internet version of the Van Loon book-http://www.gutenberg.org
just to say that greeks does not have the right to pretend to be the culture master and claim territory from Albania wich become smaller and smaller ....till now... Omerus him self said that Albania is older than Greece

THE GREEKS

MEANWHILE THE INDO-EUROPEAN TRIBE
OF THE HELLENES WAS TAKING
POSSESSION OF GREECE


THE Pyramids were a thousand years old and were beginning
to show the first signs of decay, and Hammurabi, the
wise king of Babylon, had been dead and buried several centuries,
when a small tribe of shepherds left their homes along
the banks of the River Danube and wandered southward in
search of fresh pastures. They called themselves Hellenes,
after Hellen, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. According
to the old myths these were the only two human beings who
had escaped the great flood, which countless years before had
destroyed all the people of the world, when they had grown
so wicked that they disgusted Zeus, the mighty God, who lived
on Mount Olympus.

Of these early Hellenes we know nothing. Thucydides,
the historian of the fall of Athens, describing his earliest
ancestors, said that they ``did not amount to very much,'' and
this was probably true. They were very ill-mannered. They
lived like pigs and threw the bodies of their enemies to the wild
dogs who guarded their sheep. They had very little respect
for other people's rights, and they killed the natives of the
Greek peninsula (who were called the Pelasgians) and stole
their farms and took their cattle and made their wives and
daughters slaves and wrote endless songs praising the courage
of the clan of the Achaeans, who had led the Hellenic advance-
guard into the mountains of Thessaly and the Peloponnesus.

But here and there, on the tops of high rocks, they saw
the castles of the AEgeans and those they did not attack for
they feared the metal swords and the spears of the AEgean
soldiers and knew that they could not hope to defeat them with
their clumsy stone axes.

For many centuries they continued to wander from valley
to valley and from mountain side to mountain side Then the
whole of the land had been occupied and the migration had
come to an end.

That moment was the beginning of Greek civilisation. The
Greek farmer, living within sight of the AEgean colonies,
was finally driven by curiosity to visit his haughty neighbours.
He discovered that he could learn many useful things from
the men who dwelt behind the high stone walls of Mycenae, and
Tiryns.





Mother Teresa was born from an Albanian family in Macedonia-she had just two passports...an albanian one and an indian one...she never accepted other citizenships...


I'm sorry ryladied99! You are wrong! what do you mean with a civil war? here (im surfing from Tirana-the capital) we had smth like a civil war in 1997 .now all is calm and we made so much reforms that the EU signed the Associattion and Stabilisation Agreeman just 3 weeks ago...in less than 6-9 yrs (it stand to us) we will be part of the EU...this cannot be if we were in civil war.

Answer 2

geographically Europian.

After being conquered by the Roman Empire, Illyria was reorganized as a Roman province, Illyricum, later divided into the provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia, the lands comprising Albania mostly being included in Dalmatia. Later, the Byzantine Empire governed the region. It was also ruled by the Bulgarian and Serbian Empires.

In the middle ages, the name Albania began to be increasingly applied to the region now comprising the nation of Albania. From 1443 to 1468 Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg led a successful resistance against the invading Ottomans. After the death of Skanderbeg, resistance continued until 1478, although with only moderate success. The loyalties and alliances created and nurtured by Skanderbeg faltered and fell apart, and the Ottomans conquered the territory of Albania shortly after the fall of Kruje castle. Albania then became part of the Ottoman Empire. Following this, many Albanians fled to neighboring Italy, mostly to Calabria and Sicily. They would remain a part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912.

Unusual among Balkan nations, indeed anywhere in the world, is that Albania is a homogeneous country with only small minorities. Most of the population is ethnically Albanian (95% according to the CIA World Factbook Feb 2005). A Greek minority (3% of the population) exists, however it could significantly vary according to other sources, (note: in 1989, other estimates of the Greek population ranged from 1% (official Albanian statistics) to 12% (from a Greek organization) . Many ethnic Albanians also live in the bordering countries of Serbia (around 100,000) Kosovo(round 2 000 000), Montenegro (around 50,000), and the Republic of Macedonia (around 500,000). Also a small number of ethnic Albanians live in Greece and are called Çam or Cham. Claims over Çam numbers have ranged from 20,000 to over 200,000 but are believed to be underestimated because Athens has not considered the local Albanians to be a separate ethnic group.[3] Since 1991, large numbers of Albanians have emigrated to Greece, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and other European countries

Answer 3

Albania is part of Europe and not the muslim Middle East - although many countries in Africa including Mauritania on the Atlantic coast of Africa are in the Middle Eastern Political Conference - Albania is not, even though they have some cultural ties to the mid east.

Some great historical answers already - wonderful work people.

Answer 4

Yes,it belongs in Europe,and all people need to know about this country.There is a civil war going on right now and I have been told from my husband that Albania is a poor communist country.I hope thing get better for Albania in the future.

Answer 5

It's not part of European Union, but geographically speaking it looks like it is part of Europe.
It has borders with Yugoslavia and Greece and is just in front of Italy (the Adriatic sea is separating Albania from Italy) what leads me to think that Albania is part of Europe geographically speaking.

Answer 6

Half of Albania is stolen territory from Greece. The other half stolen territory from its other neighbouring countrties. Albania therefore not only does not belong in Europe, but does not belong on the map.