LUFTA E KOSOVËS (1448) NË “APOLOGJINË” PËR SKËNDERBEUN TË FRANG BARDHIT
THE OF KOSOVA (1448) IN THE “APOLOGY” FOR SCANDERBEG BY FRANG BARDHI

Summary/Abstract: Frang Bardhi (1606 – July 1643) takes an important place in our old literature, as the first promoter of studies of the Albanian language, as one of our oldest historians and one of the most outstanding personalities of our cultural life at the first centuries of the Ottoman rule. Frang Bardhi is the first compiler of Albanian dictionary, transla-tor of two manuscript works, which are lost, compiler of nine letters in Italian and three detailed relations in this language as well. However, in this study we are going to talk only about the first Apology on George Kastrioti Scanderbeg (1636), and especially emphasising the place that the Second War of Kosova (1448) takes in this creative work. It is well known that from Albania, Bardhi went to study at the Illyrian college of Loretti in 1628, from which, as he wrote himself, he got away and joined the College De Propaganda Fide of Rome from 1633 till 1636. He was still a student when he came across the creative work in Latin by Jan Tomk Marnavich in 1632. Therefore, the idea of Bardhi to respond to Marnavich, who said that Scanderbeg came from the family (house) of Marnavichs of Bosnian Slav, with which he was in contradiction with historical data written in the Slavonic and other world languages, (it) rose at the time when he was still a student. The Apology of Scanderbeg by Frang Bardhi is not an authentic history about our national hero. It is a polemical creative work, the first apology in the Latin language, written by an Albanian about a problem concerning to Albania. Frang Bardhi, analysing a diploma of Huniad presented by Jan Tomk, also talks about the Second War of Kosova in 1448. Precisely some aspects of this war, reflected in Bardhi’s work like: relations of Scanderbeg with Gjuragj Brankoviq, treachery of Gjuragj Brankoviq and “lateness” of Scanderbeg for the Second War of Kosova (1448) are scopes discussed in this study.[...] At the end of this summary we can conclude that the creative work of Frang Bardhi Scanderbeg is important for the history of the Albanian people, because it enriches the fund of literature with data of great interest for the epoch of Scanderbeg. Although this book cannot be aligned among monumental creative works like that by Marin Barleti about Scanderbeg, even so, it has its value as a source and it is the first Apology, not only among Albanians. The significance of this book also consists on the fact that it was written some 400 years ago, at the time when in Europe books of such a nature were very rare.

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