Marin Barleti (1450-1460 – 1512-1513) was an outstanding humanist, historian and one of the greatest authors of the old Albanian literature, theologian and Catholic priest. 

Barleti was born and raised in Scutari (modern Shkodra, Albania), then part of the Republic of Venice. In an early version of the Siege of Shkodra which was found in 2018 and published in 2022, Barleti recalls that the local language which in another part he equates with Albanian is the language of his ancestors (attavorum nostrum). This is an indirect reference to Albanian being Barleti’s mother tongue.

In 1478, he participated with arms in the war for the first siege by the Ottoman forces. The heroism of his compatriots remained in his eyes and in his mind, until he immortalized it in his historical works dedicated to the wars to protect the homeland “from the memory of which, he writes, I am now renewed as if by a miracle, but also for which I cannot write without tears in my eyes”.

The fall of Shkodra, which was one of the last bastions of Albanian resistance after the death of Skanderbeg, forced Barlet, like many others, to exile to Venice in 1504. Here he completed his humanistic culture and became a deep connoisseur of classical literature and the Latin language, in which he wrote his works. 

Barlet’s “History of Skanderbeg” became the most important source, from where Albanian patriots learned the history of the glorious wars of our people under the leadership of Skanderbeg and were inspired for their efforts for the salvation and freedom of Albania.

With his book, Marin Barleti stands at the beginning of Albanian literature, which begins its journey with a work of great proportions. This work was written in Latin, which at that time was the language of culture in Europe, but it belongs to the Albanian culture, not only that it was written by an Albanian, but that it is the Albanian world that gave life to the magnificent argument of the early culture of this the ancient people.

“The Siege of Shkodra” tells the dramatic story of the life-or-death struggle of the city’s inhabitants, who were besieged for a year by the Ottomans in 1478-1479. Based on his own notes and memories as well as those of other participants, the book gives an accurate account of the political-military events, but especially of the internal aspect, of the high patriotic consciousness of the city’s residents. It was written in Latin and published in Rome around 1508-1510.

This work was in its time reprinted in Latin three times and translated into several European languages. It was translated into English for the first time in 2012 as “The Siege of Shkodra”.Barleti’s work describes the history of the heroic wars of the Albanians, led by Skanderbeg, against the Ottoman hordes.

It is permeated from beginning to end by patriotic feeling, the author’s pride in the fighting qualities of his people, love and adoration for the hero, who gave his name to an entire era in the history of the Albanian people. The most precious value that Barleti finds in his compatriots is the love for freedom, for the native lands, the determination to give his life for their protection.

There is nothing more precious to man than the motherland, no duty more sacred than the war to protect it from the outsider. This is one of the great ideas of the work. The work became the source of a wide literature about our national hero, written in different languages of the world, from Italian, Spanish, Russian, French, Greek to Japanese.

/k.s/