Pashko Vasa - Oh, Albania, Poor Albania [CC]

Excerpt from “Oh, Albania, Poor Albania” (sq: “O moj Shqypni”), from the historical and political monograph The Truth on Albania and the Albanians, 1879. Recited by Pjetër Gjoka. The featured image is adapted from the League of Prizren (sq: Lidhja e Prizrenit), 1957, a painting by Abdurrahim Buza. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie.
Oh Albania, poor Albania,
Who has shoved your head in ashes?
Once you were a fine, great lady,
All the world’s men called you mother.
Once you had such wealth and goodness,
With fair maidens, strapping young lads,
Herds and land, rich fields and produce,
Flashing guns, Italian weapons,
Heroic fellows and pure women,
You reigned as their best companion.
At rifle’s blast, at flash of lightning
The Albanian mastered battle,
Thus he fought and thus he perished,
Leaving ne’er misdeeds behind him.
Whene’er an Albanian swore an oath did
All the Balkans tremble at him,
When he charged in savage battle,
Always he returned a victor.
How fare you today, Albania?
Like an oak tree groundward falling!
Trampled now, the world walks o’er you,
No one has a kind word for you.
Like snow-capped peaks, like fields a-blooming
You were clothed, you’re now in tatters,
You’ve no name or reputation,
In your plight you have destroyed them.
Albanians, you are killing kinfolk,
You’re split in a hundred factions,
Some believe in God or Allah,
Say “I’m Turk,” or “I am Latin,”
But you’re brothers, hapless people!
You’ve been duped by priests and hodjas
To divide you, keep you wretched,
When the stranger shares your hearth side,
Puts to shame your wife and sister,
You still serve him, gaining little,
You forget your forebears’ pledges
You are serfs to foreign landlords,
Who have not your blood or language!
Weep, lament, oh swords and rifles,
The Albanian bird’s been snared, imprisoned!
Weep with us, oh dauntless heroes,
For Albania’s toppled, face-smeared,
Neither bread nor meat remaining,
Fire in hearth, nor light, nor pine torch,
Drained of blood and of friends’ honour,
She’s defiled and now has fallen!
Gather ’round now, maids and women,
You with fair eyes know of weeping,
Come and mourn our poor Albania,
She has lost her honour, virtue,
She’s a widow with no husband,
She’s a mother with no offspring!
Who has the heart to let her perish,
Once a heroine, now so weakened!
Well-loved mother, dare we leave her
To fall under foreign boot heels?
No one wishes such shame on her,
Each of us dreads such misfortune!
Before Albania’s thus forsaken
Let our men die, bearing rifles.
Wake, Albanian, from your slumber,
Let us, brothers, swear in common
And not look to church or mosque,
The Albanian’s faith is Albanianism!
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