Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Arlene Corwin writes


Albanian Observation


Tourists: Each land I see on TV
Shows vacationers, Japan to Germany.
Walking around Albania!
Of all the former tyrannies,
Isolated and enclosed,
Unallowed and unallowing place
That turned its face within;
Fortress just across from Greece,
Released at last -
And there they are: the tourists.

Tickets dear and far from home,
Here I sit,
Watching plucky program leader
Roam through history’s magnificence,
Significant; Three thousand years
Of wars and tears – and tourists
Curious about
The food, the folk, the houses, språk*
The world outside, the sea outwide…
I’m stupefied. And mystified.
Where do they find the energy?
And wherefrom comes the mania
To travel to Albania?

* Swedish for language.  I used it because it was an appropriate rhyme

 Image result for albania tourism poster

1 comment:

  1. Albania (Republika e Shqipërisë) was annexed by the Romans in the 3rd century BCE. The Latin name for the area was derived from the Albani, an Illyrian tribe who inhabited the region. Claudius Ptolemy's map of 150 identified a city named Albanopolis (near modern Krujë). The province emerged as the autonomous principality of Albanon in 1190. After it was dissolved in 1255 Charles I of Anjou (the youngest son of Louis VIII, who had become the king of Sicilia in 1266) conquered the area in 1272 and established the Regnum Albaniae with himself as king. The Angevins ruled the greatly reduced kingdom until 1368 when Karl Topia drove them out in 1368 and established a native dynasty, but his son surrendered the domain to the Repùblica de Venèsia (Venice) in 1392. In the 15th century it was conquered by the Osmanli empire in Turkey. In the 17th century the Albanians began calling themselves the Shqiptarë (Children of the Eagles). With the Turkish defeat in 1912, Shqipëri once again regained its independence, but king Zog I was ousted by the Italians in 1939. However, Italia surrendered to the Allies in 1943 and its ally Germany occupied the territory. After World War II Enver Hoxha established the Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë (People's Socialist Republic of Albania). During the "Autumn of Nations" in which Communist rule collapses throughout Europe, the "4th republic" was proclaimed in 1991. Through most of the 20th century, when it was isolated from the rest of the world, it was regarded as the poorest country in Europe, but since the 1990s, when it abandoned Communism, it has made economic gains.

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