ation, become transformed from Catholic
Albanians into Orthodox Montenegrins. It is told that in the wondrous
hours when the _[vc]if[vc]ija_ gloried in the soil he was about to win,
even the notoriously wild Klementi, filled with hunger for the land, ran
down from their fastnesses. But, most unfortunately, at that moment the
Great Powers decided that Albania was to be an autonomous, hereditary
State. This interrupted the movement towards reconciliation with Serbia;
and even now the Serbs will be told by many encouraging people that in
their efforts to win the regard of Albanians they have an impossible
task, that if some of them take a step towards you one day they will
rush back a dozen on the day after. These people will repeat the legend
that the Albanians have an invincible hatred for the Slavs; but the
Albanians have not forgotten how, in the course of the Middle Ages, they
were willingly open to Slav penetration--the Serbian language reached to
beyond Alessio, the small Albanian dynasties intermarried with Slav
ruling families, so that they preferred to speak Serbian, and down to
this day two-thirds of the place-names of northern Albania are of Slav
origin. One of the most important documents in this connection is a
letter from the town of Dubrovnik to the Emperor Sigismund in the year
1434. They inform the Emperor that Andria Topia, lord of the Albanian
coast, has secretaries who know nothing but the Serbian language and
alphabet. Thus when the Emperor sends him letters in Latin he is obliged
to have them translated elsewhere, and the contents of the Imperial
letters are not kept secret. So the Emperor was forced to write to Topia
in Serbian.... Long memories are not always inconvenient, and Albanian
memories are long because, until recent years, all that they knew came
from tradition--Austria and Italy had not yet become so concerned about
Albanian education that (forgetting their own illiterates in Bosnia and
Calabria) the two Allies waved into existence boys' and girls' schools
up and down the country; so desirous were they that these founts of
knowledge should be patronized that both Italians and Austrians were
prepared to pay good money and eke a supply of garments and a
gaily-coloured picture of King or Emperor, as the case might be; and
with respect to the cash, not only was each willing to pay but to pay
more than the other. Yet the Albanian is most mindful of tradition, and
he is aware that his approach to