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Albania veneta is a coastal area of Montenegro that was part of the dominions of the Republic of Venice in southern Dalmatia from 1420 to 1797.
Geography
The Albania veneta was a coastal territory stretching from the southern borders of the Republic of Ragusa (actual Dubrovnik) to Durazzo (Durres) in northern Albania. The venetian possessions never reached more than 20 kms from the Adriatic sea. After 1573 the southern limit was moved to the village of Confin (Kufin) near Budua (Budva), because of the ottoman conquests of Antivari (Bar) and Dulcigno (Ulcinj) in the Balkans.
The Dominions of Venice were centered around the Bay of Kotor (Cattaro) and included the small cities of Risano (Risan), Perasto (Perast), Teodo (Tivat), Castelnuovo (Herceg Novi), Budua (Budva) and Spizza (Sutomore).
Albanians lived only in the south of the Albania veneta, specifically around Bar and Ulcinj (the venetian Antivari and Dulcigno). The area around Kotor (the venetian Cattaro) was populated by people of romance and serbocroat languages. The word "veneta" in Albania veneta was used to differentiate the area from the moslem Albania (called Albania ottomana in those centuries), an area stretching from Kosovo to southern Albania.
History
The dominions of Venice in the Adriatic sea are even related to the relationship of this italian city with the romance speaking populations in Dalmatia, according to Will Durant in his book The Renaissance.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476), the romanized Illyrians of the southern coast of Dalmatia survived the barbarian invasions of the Avars in the sixth century and were only nominally under the influence of the Slavs in the seventh and eighth centuries. In the last centuries of the first millenium, these romanized Illyrians started to develop their own neo-latin language, called dalmatian language, around their small coastal villages that were growing with maritime commerce mainly with Venice. These villages looked to Venice even for protection and around them the Venetians started to create their dominions in Dalmatia, according to Matteo Bartoli in his book Le parlate italiane della Venezia Giulia e della Dalmazia. The croatian and slav presence was minimal in the area of Cattaro (Kotor) in those centuries.
Venice started to take control of these small southern dalmatian villages around the tenth century, assimilating quickly the dalmatian language into the venetian language. But only in the fourteenth century the Republic of Venice was able to create a territorial continuity around the Bay of Kotor (Cattaro). These venetian dominions around Cattaro lasted from 1420 to 1797 and were called Albania veneta, an historical province of the Republic of Venice.
When the Turks started to conquer the Balkans in the fifteenth century, many christian Slavs took refuge inside the venetian dalmatia and so even the Albania veneta started to have a huge slav and albanian population. By the end of the seventeenth century the romance speaking population of the historical Albania veneta was already a minority, according to Oscar Randi in his book ''Dalmazia etnica, incontri e fusioni.
After the napoleonic armies conquered and put an end to the Republic of Venice in 1797, the area of the Albania veneta changed control many times: in 1805 was annexed to the napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, then in 1809 was part of the french Illyrian Provinces and finally in 1815 was put under Habsburg control in the Dalmatia of Austro-Hungary.
Under the Habsburg domination, the Albania veneta was part of the "Austrian Dalmatia" and in 1878 (in the Congress of Berlin) were added to this territory another 40 km² around Spizza (a few kms north of Antivari (Bar).
The borders of the former venetian province of Albania veneta changed again in 1918, but were reinstated from 1941 to 1943 during WWII, when Mussolini annexed the territories around Cattaro to the Kingdom of Italy. The area was part of the italian Governatorato di Dalmazia and was called Provincia di Cattaro.
After WWII any political entity related to the historical presence of Venice in southern Dalmatia ceased to exist and the area was definitely incorporated into Yugoslavia. Actually the old Albania veneta is a coastal region of the newly independent Montenegro.
History of the venetian speaking population of Albania veneta
According to the dalmatian historian Luigi Paulucci (in his book "Le Bocche di Cattaro nel 1810") the population of the Albania veneta, during the centuries of the Republic of Venice, was mainly venetian speaking (aproximately 66%) in the urban areas (Cattaro, Perasto, Budua, ecc..) around the "Bocche di Cattaro" (Bay of Kotor).
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But in the inland areas more than half of the population was serbocroatian speaking, after the first years of the eighteenth century. Furthermore, near the border with Albania there were big communities of albanian speaking people: Dulcigno (Ulcinj) was half albanian, one quarter venetian and one quarter slav speaking.
During the nineteenth century, according to the historian Scaglioni Marzio, the wars of independence of Italy from the Austro-Hungarian empire created a situation of harrassment against the italian (or venetian speaking) communities in the austrian southern dalmatia. The result was that in 1880 there were in Cattaro, according to the austrian census, only 930 ethnic italians (or only 32% of a total population of 2910 people).
Furthermore, in the austrian census of 1910, the italians were reduced to only 13.6% in that city, according to Diego De Castro in his book Dalmazia, popolazione e composizione etnica. Cenno storico sul rapporto etnico tra Italiani e Slavi nella Dalmazia. Actually there are 500 italian speaking in Montenegro, mainly in the area of Cattaro (Kotor) and Perasto Perast, who constitute the "Comunitá Nazionale Italiana del Montenegro".
The "disappearance" of the italian speaking populations in Dalmatia was nearly complete after WWII. The linguist Matteo Bartoli calculated that the italians were 33% of the Dalmatian population during the napoleonic wars, while actually there are only 300 italians in the croatian dalmatia and 500 italians in coastal Montenegro.
In our days Montenegro has one official language, the Ijekavian dialect of Serbian. This replaced Serbo-Croat as Montenegro's official language in the constitution of 1992 and is spoken by the majority of the actual population of the former Albania veneta.
In the areas of Montenegro where the descendants of the venetian speaking populations are present, this official language is being called montenegrin language, by political organizations in the last years, and probably is going to be written officially only in the Latin alphabet (showing the enduring influence of the romance presence in the coastal region). Indeed, on the last census in 2003, 21.53% of the population of Montenegro declared Montenegrin their native language, many of them in the area of the former Albania veneta, where most of the venetian architecture in Montenegro is concentrated.
Other non-official languages spoken in the former areas of the Albania veneta include Albanian and Croatian. Since the independence of Montenegro, the albanian language is an official language of the municipality of Dulcigno (Ulcinj). The italian language in coastal Montenegro is being promoted by the "Comunita' nazionale italiana del Montenegro" and by the "Comitato Cattaro" of the Dante Alighieri association.
Gallery
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Catholic Cathedral of Saint Tryphon in Cattaro (Kotor)
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Church in Perasto (Perast) with typical venetian bellfry
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Postcard showing the venetian architecture of Perasto in 1900
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Old Cattaro (Kotor)
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Venetian walls of Cattaro (Kotor)
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Old Perasto (Perast)
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Roman mosaic in Risano (Risan)
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Old venetian church of Cattaro (Kotor)
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Bibliography
- Bartl, Peter. Le picciole Indie dei Veneziani. Zur Stellung Albaniens in den Handelsbeziehungen zwischen der Balkan- und der Appenninenhalbinsel. In: Münchner Zeitschrift für Balkankunde 4 (1981-1982) 1-10.
- Bartl, Peter. Der venezianische Türkenkrieg im Jahre 1690 nach den Briefen des päpstlichen Offiziers Guido Bonaventura. In: Südost-Forschungen 26 (1967) 88-101.
- Bartoli, Matteo. Le parlate italiane della Venezia Giulia e della Dalmazia. Tipografia italo-orientale. Grottaferrata 1919.
- Cecchetti, Bartolomeo. Intorno agli stabilimenti politici della repubblica veneta nell'Albania. In: Atti del Regio Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti. Bd. 3, Seria 4, S. 978-998. 1874.
- De Brodmann, Giuseppe. Memorie politico-economiche della citta e territorio di Trieste, della penisola d’Istria, della Dalmazia fu Veneta, di Ragusi e dell’Albania, ora congiunti all’Austriaco Impero. Venezia 1821.
- De Castro, Diego. Dalmazia, popolazione e composizione etnica. Cenno storico sul rapporto etnico tra Italiani e Slavi nella Dalmazia. ISPI 1978.
- Durant, Will. The Renaissance. MJK Books. New York, 1981.
- Gelcich, Giuseppe. Memorie storiche sulle bocche di Cattaro. Zara 1880.
- Martin, John Jeffries. Venice Reconsidered. The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297–1797. Johns Hopkins UP. New York, 2002.
- Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. Vintage Books. New York, 1989.
- Paulucci, Luigi. Le Bocche di Cattaro nel 1810 Edizioni Italo Svevo.Trieste, 2005.
- Randi, Oscar. Dalmazia etnica, incontri e fusioni. Tipografie venete. Venezia 1990.
- Scaglioni Marzio. La presenza italiana in Dalmazia 1866-1943 Histria ed. Trieste,2000.
- Schmitt, Oliver. Das venezianische Albanien (1392 - 1479). (=Südosteuropäische Arbeiten. 110). München 2001.
- Tagliavini, Carlo. Le origini delle lingue neolatine. Patron Ed. Bologna 1982.
References
- The struggle between Venice and the Ottoman empire for the "Albania veneta" in the sixteenth century (italian)
- Cattaro (Kotor) and the Montenegro's venetian speaking area (italian)
- UNESCO: Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor (Cattaro)
- Historical review of the italian traces in Montenegro (Italian)
- Dante Alighieri association in Kotor (Cattaro)