Where my Albanians at?
Tell me: are there any Albanians in "da house"?
Okay. I won't put you through any more of that.
November 28 is Albanian Independence Day. It commemorates the date in 1912 when Albania declared Independence from the Ottoman Empire. My late father-in-law Manush Raship was the son of Albanian immigrants. He passed away earlier this year and we dedicate this post to him, for I assure you, I would have known very little of what follows if he had not existed.
Located northwest of Greece, Albania was part of Illyria in ancient times. In the Middle Ages, the Balkans were invaded by Turkic Bulgars and Slavs, eventually becoming what we now know as Bulgaria and the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Wedged between mountains and the Adriatic Sea, Albania was isolated. Many believe Albanians to be the sole cultural descendants of the Illyrians, and their language to be the sole surviving tongue of the Illyrian branch of the Indo-European language family,
Albania was absorbed by the Ottomans in the 15th century and largely Islamicized. Following independence in the early 20th century, there was period of unrest characterized by internal strife and attempts by Italy, Greece, and Serbia to acquire territory. This was the era when my wife's grandparents came to the United States. They thus were fortunate to miss the further miseries suffered by the nation in the 20th century, when they were occupied by Fascist Italy (1939-43), then Nazi Germany (1943-44), and then Communist self-rule (1946-1991). (Interestingly, Communist Albania was not officially aligned with either Tito's Yugoslavia or the Russian dominated Eastern bloc). Today it is a westernized parliamentary republic and a member of NATO.
During the Covid lock-down my wife and I started a new ritual of reading aloud to each other a few tales a week. Coincidentally, this book of Albanian Wonder Tales is the time of the moment:
Like fairy tales of nearly all lands, the stories are by turns whimsical, adorable, surreal, hilarious, culturally education, and brutally cruel and violent. They were collected and translated by an interesting man named Post Wheeler, a diplomat, writer and journalist who served as America;s minister to Albania in the early '30s.
The most famous of all Albanians is undoubtedly Mother Teresa. (You thought she was Indian? No! Think about it! She went to HELP the poor of India!) On the other, quite apart from sainthood, there seem to be several hot young Albanian singer chicks who've had hit singles on the pop charts, but they're far too contemporary for me to know anything about. Have you heard of Bebe Rexha, Dua Lipa, Rita Ora, Ava Max? You do? Why are you on this blog?
At all events, there are a half dozen Albanian-Americans I do know something about. (Only a half dozen? Albanians aren't very numerous; the whole nation of Albania has fewer than three million people, about as many as live in Arkansas or Mississippi. Neighboring Kosovo has another million.) Here they be:
The Belushi Brothers
John Belushi was the first honest to God Albanian I ever heard anything about, thus adding a hint of realism to his performances in the "cheeseboogie, cheeseboogie" Greek diner sketches of early SNL. He was from the Albanian community in Greater Chicago, and his father did indeed own a restaurant. Naturally, his younger brother, Jim, or James Belushi is of the same background. I'm overdue to write about Jim, but my post on John is here.
Danny DeVito (partial hit)
The diminutive stage and screen star is of course primarily Italian, but part of his heritage is Arbëresh, which is a community of Albanian expats who live in Calabria (Southern Italy is just a short distance across the water from the mother country). DeVito grew up in New Jersey, of course. My post on Taxi, the show that first brought him to fame, is here.
Eliza Dushku
Anyone who has ever seen Dushku as "Faith", the dark frenemy of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, can tell you that she is from Boston. That accent! She is but half Albanian, on her father's side. Her mother is Idaho Mormon.
Regis Philbin
Regis was half Albanian and half Irish -- the same rare, alchemical, intoxicating admixture as my wife. Read about him here.
Stan Dragoti
You don't know his name but you probably know his work. Stan Dragoti directed Love at First Bite! He was a neighborhood friend of my father-in-law's, they grew up together in the Arthur Avenue section of the Bronx. More about him here.
Carolyn Raship
My wife is the best and most beautiful of all possible Albanians! Someday we hope to return to her home country in order to do battle with The Shtriga.
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