CAS WTP Bilmez

This text presents the unpublished result of research carried out at CAS.
It has not undergone language editing and is not to

be cited.
Bülent Bilmez
‘We, the People’ fellow 2004 – 2005
MYTHS OF ORIGIN AND AUTOCHTHONY IN

SHEMSEDDIN SAMI FRASHËRI’S (1850-1904) TEXTS
CONTRIBUTING TO THE CONSTRUCTION
OF BOTH ALBANIAN AND TURKISH ‘WE’S.
I) Introduction
This paper deals with some representative texts of an Ottoman intellectual, Shemseddin
Sami Frashëri (1850-1904), who has simultaneously been represented in contemporary
Turkey and Albania as one of the fathers of Turkish and Albanian nationalisms,
respectively.1 Accordingly, he is known with two different names in these countries:
Sami Frashëri in Albania and Şemseddin (Şemsettin) Sami in Turkey. In order to avoid
partisanship in this question, either his full name (as in the title) or the short version
Sami will be used in this paper.
The intended multi-layered analysis of some of Sami’s texts, which contributed to the
discursive construction of two national identities, will be based on the
‘contextualisation’ of them through a brief ‘biography’ of the texts2 and of their author,
i.e. through an account of the author’s life, the story of their productions, and the milieu
they were produced within.
The text corpus of this project, the reason for the choice of which will be discussed
below, consists of three texts by Sami:
1- a Turkish article published in Sami’s own journal Hafta in 1881 in Istanbul,3
2- the preface (“İfade-i Meram”) of his monolingual Turkish dictionary Kamus-i Turki in
1900 in Istanbul,4 and
3- his much disputed Albanian book Shqipëria, published in 1899 in Bucharest without
the name of the publisher.5
It must be stated, however, that the main focus in the latter book will be on its first part
which consists of rather a mythological general history of the Albanians and Albania.
The reason of this focus is that, this part shares with the other two texts similar thematic
and theoretical framework, which makes a comparative analysis of all three texts
meaningful. It is also worth noting that these texts have been canonized through being
counted among the initial texts contributing to the emergence of the national(istic)
discourse in both cases; and that they indeed contain pioneering ideas presented with a
revolutionary rhetoric.
II) Contextualisation: Sami and his texts
1
In accordance with the Albanian and Turkish historiography and with some Western scholars, the terms
Albanianism maybe used here for ‘Albanian nationalism’, and Turkism for the Turkish nationalism without any
thorough discussion of these terms.
2
Tom Quirk, ‘Introduction’, in James Barbour & Tom Quirk, ed., Biographies of Books: The Compositional
Histories of Notable American Writings, University of Missouri Press, 1995, 1-10.
3
Şemseddin Sami, ‘Lisan-ı Türki (Osmani)’ [Turkish (Ottoman) Language], Hafta, Istanbul, 12, 10 Zilhicce 1298
(03 November 1881), 177-181.
4
Şemseddin Sami, Kamus-i Türki, Istanbul: İkdam Matbaası, 1317-1318 [1900].
5
Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhetë? Mendime për shpëtimin e mëmëdheut nga rreziqet që e kanë
rrethuar, Bukeresht, (publisher and the author not indicated), 1899.
1
This text presents the unpublished result of research carried out at CAS. It has not undergone language editing and is not to
be cited.
One could find accounts of Sami’s life and works in many secondary sources (including
some encyclopaedia entries) in Western languages. However they must be read with
caution, because there is much contradictory factual information on concrete issues, as
many aspects in his life have not yet been systematically studied. Writing a
comprehensive and accurate account of his life and works is still an unfulfilled duty,
which can not be even attempted to be accomplished here. Therefore, only the
information about his intellectual and political activities on which there is consensus in
the historiography will be summarized here.6
Known as one of the most productive members of the Ottoman intelligentsia of the last
quarter of the nineteenth century due to his writings as a linguist, lexicographer, novelist
and playwright, Sami was born in 1850 in Frashër, a small village in the district of Berat,
in the south of today’s Albania, then a bigger village in the province of Yanya (Gr.:
Ionnina) in the Ottoman Empire. He was from a Bektashi family, the members of which
would become the most prominent personalities of the Albanian nationalist movement
after the San Stefano Treaty (1878), following the defeat of the Ottoman Armies in the
Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-78.
Finishing initial education in traditional institutions in his village, after the death of his
father he moved together with his family to Yanya where he attended the famous Greek
secondary school, Zossimea.7 There he must have undergone a kind of epistemological
break through the acquisition of ‘modern’ ideas and ‘scientific’ knowledge, and learning
Western languages (French, Italian, and ancient and modern Greek) besides improving
his already existing oriental languages (Ottoman Turkish, Persian and Arabic). His
mother tongue was Albanian, which had not had a written tradition yet, and to the
evolution of which he and other intellectuals would later contribute.
It was this firm educational background that helped him after his move to Istanbul, the
still intellectual, cultural and political, as well as the administrative ‘centre’ of the
Empire, to make a successful career as a journalist and writer (novelist,8 translator9 and
playwright10) within a short time in the 1870s: He was already quite well known when
he started publishing his own newspapers, first Sabah (Morning) in 1876, and later
Tercüman-ı Şark (Interpreter of Truth) in 1878. His main reputation in his time,
however, was based on his six-volume universal encyclopaedia in Ottoman Turkish and
6
For an earlier article underlining different contradictory issues about Sami’s life in the historiography, see
Bilmez Bülent Can, ‘Ölümünün Yüzüncü Yıldönümünde Şemsedin Sami Frashëri, Toplumsal Tarih, No 126
(Haziran), 2004, Istanbul, 50-55.
7
The essential role of this school in the intellectual and political formation of Sami has unfortunately not been
studied yet.
8
His only published novel (‘The Love Affair of Tal‛at and Fitnat’) published in 1872 has often been
acknowledged as the ‘first’ modern Turkish novel in Turkey: Şemseddin Sami, Taaşşuk-ı Talat ve Fitnat, Elcevaip
Matbaası, 1289 [1872].
9
For his published partial and complete translations See [Madame de Saint Ouen,] Tarih-i Mücmel-i Fransa, 1.
cüz, transl., Ş. Sami, İstanbul: Camlı handa, 1289 [1872]; [Jean Pierre Claris de Florian,] Galatee, transl., Ş. Sami,
İstanbul: Zartaryan Fabrikası, 1290 [1873]; İhtiyar Onbaşı, Beş fasıl facia, transl., Ş. Sami, Istanbul: Zartaryan
Fabrikası, 1290 [1873]; [Fredérick Soulié,] Şeytanın Yadigarları, transl., Ş. Sami, İstanbul: Mihran Matbaası,
1295 [1878]; Victor Hugo, Sefiller, transl., Ş. Sami, Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1297 [1880] (it was later re-
published in the Turkish Republic as well: Victor Hugo, Sefiller, 2 Vol., (Transl.: Ş. Sami), (2nd edition), Cihan
Kütüphanesi, 1934); Daniel de Foe, Robinson, transl.: Ş. Sami, Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1302 [1884]; Baki’nin
Eş’ar-ı Müntehabesi, ed. and transl., Ş. Sami, (Kütüphane-i Müntehabat, Aded: 1) Mahmut Bey Matbaası, 1317
[1899] and Ali bin Ebi Talib, Kerremallahü Vechahu ve Radiyallahü anh Efendimizin Eş’ar-ı Müntahabeleri ve
Şerh Tercemesi, (Kütüphane-i Müntehabat, Aded: 2), ed. and transl., Ş. Sami, İstanbul: 52 Numaralı Matbaa, 1319
[1901].
10
For his published theatre plays, see Ş. Sami, Besa yahud ahde vefa. Alti Fasildan ibaret facia, (Matbuat- ı
Ceyyide, Aded: 1), İstanbul: Tasvir-i Efkar Matbaası, 1292 AH [1875]; Ş. Sami, Seydi Yahya, Beş Fasıldan İbaret
Facia, (Matbuat- ı Ceyyide, Aded: 2), Istanbul, Tasvir-i Efkar Matbaası, 1292 AH [1875] and Ş. Sami, Gave, Beş
Fasıldan İbaret Facia, (Matbuat- ı Ceyyide, Aded: 3), Istanbul: Tasvir-i Efkar Matbaası, 1293 [1876].
2
be cited.
monolingual (Turkish-Turkish)11 and bilingual (French-Turkish12 and Turkish-French13)

dictionaries, and his writings in the press on Turkish language and literature in the
Ottoman Empire, and on many other issues like the position of women,14 literature,
languages and linguistics.15 He is also known through his writings on Islam and Islamic
civilization with moderate Pan-Islamist tendencies, where he was trying to offer a
modernist interpretation of Islam and its history, to prove that Islam is not incompatible
with modern (Western) civilisation, and to promote the brotherhood among Muslims.16
It has been suggested in modern Turkey that Sami dealt with the ‘Albanian question’
only through his writings in the press during the time of the Prizren League (1878-81).
The fact that Sami actively took part in the Albanian nationalist movement until the end
of his life17 has always been neglected or denied. However, Sami was “the chair of the
Albanian Committee in Istanbul” from the beginning of the 1880s,18 as has been
commonly stated in the Albanian historiography. The Albanian Society Shoqëria e të
Shtypuri Shkronja Shqip (Society for Publishing in the Albanian Language) was “re-
organized illegally on the initiative of Sami in Istanbul to support the Albanian
movement and to promote the publication of Albanian works.”19 A common letter dated
04 August 1882 was signed by many prominent Albanian intellectuals in Istanbul
including Sami, who was indicated as “the chair of the Albanian Society in Istanbul.”20
It is also well known that Sami was actively involved in the efforts of getting licence for
11
Şemseddin Sami, Kamus-i Türki, Istanbul: İkdam Matbaası, 1317-1318 [1900].
12
Şemseddin Sami, Kamus-i Fransevi, Fransızca’dan Türkçe’ye Lügat, Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1299 [1882].
For later editions, see Şemseddin Sami, Kamus-i Fransevi, Fransızca’dan Türkçe’ye Lügat, (2nd ed.), Istanbul,
Mihran Matbaası, 1315 [1898]; Şemseddin Sami, Resimli Kamus-i Fransevi, (3rd ed.), Istanbul, Mihran Matbaası,
1318 [1901] and Şemseddin Sami, Resimli Kamus-i Fransevi, (4th ed.), Istanbul, Mihran Matbaası, 1322 [1905].
13
Şemseddin Sami, Kamus-i Fransevi, Türkçe’den Fransızca’ya Lügat, Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1302 [1885]
and Ş. Sami, Küçük Kamus-i Fransevi, Türkçe’den Fransızca’ya Lügat, Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1304 [1886].
14
Şemseddin Sami, Kadınlar, (Cep Kütüphanesi, Aded: 3), Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1296 [1879]. For a later
edition see, Şemseddin Sami, Kadınlar, (Cep Kütüphanesi, Aded: 3), (2nd ed.), Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1311
[1894]. For a later publication with modern Turkish alphabet, see Şemseddin Sami, Kadınlar, transcribed by İsmail
Doğan, Ankara: Gündoğan, 1996.
15
Şemseddin Sami, Lisan, (Cep Kütüphanesi, Aded: 27), Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1303 [1886]; Şemseddin Sami,
Usul-i Tenkit ve Tertip, (Cep Kütüphanesi, Aded: 32), 1303 [1886]; Şemseddin Sami, Tasrifat-i Arabiye, Şirket-i
Mürettibiye Matbaası, 1304 [1886]; Şemseddin Sami, Nev Usul Sarf-i Türki, Istanbul: Şirket-i Mürettibiye Matbaası,
1308 [1890]; Şemseddin Sami, Yeni Usul Elifba-i Türki, (Medrese-i Etfal, Aded: 1), Istanbul: Asadoryan Matbaası,
1308 [1891] and Şemseddin Sami, Tatbikat-ı Arabiye, Istanbul, 1318 [1899].
16
On Pan-Islamism and/or Islamism as a project for a supra-national identity in the late Ottoman Empire, see Azmi
Özcan, Pan-Islamizm. Osmanlı Devleti, Hindistan Müslümanları ve İngiltere (1877-1914), Istanbul: ISAM, 1992;
Cezmi Eraslan, II. Abdülhamid ve İslam Birliği, İstanbul: Ötüken, 1995; Jacob M. Landau, The Politics of Pan-
Islamism. Ideology and Organisation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994 and Mümtaz’er Türköne, Siyasi İdeoloji olarak
İslamcılığın Doğuşu, Ankara: Lotus Yayınevi, 2005. For Sami’s books that can be taken as clear indicators of
‘moderate Pan-Islamism’ in him, see his Ottoman Turkish book (Şemseddin Sami, Medeniyyet- i İslamiyye, (Cep
Kütüphanesi, Aded: 1), Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1296 [1879]) and another book in Arabic Ş. Sami, Himmet-ul-
Himam fi Neşr-il-İslam, Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1302 [1885]. For the reprint of the first book, see Şemseddin
Sami, Medeniyyet- i İslamiyye, (Cep Kütüphanesi, Aded: 1), (2nd ed.), Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1302 [1885]; and
for a later edition in modern Turkish alphabet, see Şemseddin Sami, Medeniyyet- i İslamiyye, (Transcription by Remzi
Demir), Ankara: Gündoğan, 1996. For the translation of the latter into Albanian, see Sami Frashëri, Përhapja e
Islamizmit, (Transl., Miftar Ajdini), Prizren, 1989; and into Turkish, see Şemseddin Sami, İslamiyetin Yayılması İçin
Yapılan Çalışmalar, (Transl., Remzi Demir), Ankara: Gündoğan, 1997.
17
See the letter of Jani Vreto (1822-1900) sent to Sotir Kolea (1872-1945) on 23 October 1893. (Arkivi Qendror i
Shtetit (Central State Archive), F. [Fondi/Stock] 54, D. [Dosja/File] 70, fl. [fleta/page] 59-68). Also see the text of
his speech at a meeting on 14/27 January 1896 in the Albanian society Dituri in Bucharest. (Arkivi Qendror i
Shtetit, F. 21, D. 3, fl. 5-9).
18
See the letter of Thimi Mitko in Egypt to Jeronim de Rada in Italy sent on 14/27 June 1880. Arkivi Qendror i
Shtetit, F. 24, D. 54/6, fl. 186-187, the quotation is from fl. 186b.
19
Kristo Frashëri, ‘Şemseddin Sami Frashëri Ideolog i Levizjes Kombëtare Shqiptare’, Studime Historike, No 2,
1967, 79-94, 88.
20
Arkivi Qendror i Shtetit, F. 51, D. 6, fl. 2b.
3
be cited.
opening Albanian schools in 1885-87.21 Sami pursued his activities as a nationalist

Albanian intellectual through his leadership of an illegal Albanian association, the
Albanian Committee in Istanbul up to the 1890s: “Only the Society of Istanbul, changed
towards the end of the century into an ‘Albanian Committee’, still under the leadership
of Sami Frashëri, continued to carry on its activity clandestinely.”22 Sami also kept his
organic relations with Albanian nationalist circles abroad to the end of 1890s.23 It was
through these relations that his Albanian books were published in Bucharest24 and
Sofia25 during his life time. As mentioned above, he was also one of the publishers of the
first Albanian periodical, Drita, in Istanbul in 1884, which in 1885 changed its name to
Dituria from the fifth to the twelfth, and last, issue.
It must be emphasised, however, that an overwhelming majority of Sami’s writings are
in Turkish, mainly either on common issues aimed at general Ottoman readership or on
Ottoman Turkish literature and linguistic issues.
The ‘biographies’ of the analyzed texts and their canonization

The most important contribution to the canonization of Sami’s Turkish texts in question
(i.e. the Turkish article in Hafta and the preface of Kamus-i Turki) came from the
statements on these texts made by of some prominent Turkish nationalist scholars.26 It
was these Turkish texts that were chosen to be published as appendices in the
monographs on Sami or as ‘selections from his writings’ in the general Turkish
anthologies. Examples of such publications of Sami’s writings based on ‘selective
perception’ will be shown below.
These Turkish texts of Sami have been portrayed in the Turkish historiography of the
twentieth century as two early manifestations of Turkish (cultural) nationalism in the
previous century because they emphasize that the common language in the Empire is not
Ottoman, but Turkish. Although this may sound very clear today, it was a pioneering
revisionist suggestion for that time, contributing directly to the emergence of Turkish
nationalism.27
After his work as a translator, author and editor in the Ottoman-Turkish press and after
the publication of abovementioned short-lived newspapers Sabah and Tercüman-ı Şark
in Istanbul of the 1870s, Sami published his first magazine Aile [Family] in 1880, which
had to cease only after the third issue. After this family magazine mainly aimed at
women, Sami published in 1881 the weekly periodical Hafta, which continued for five
21
Vissar Dodani, Memoriet e Mija. Kujtime Nga Shvillimet e Para e Rilindjes të Kombit Shqipetar Nde Bukuresht,
Albania: Constantza, 1930. See also, Kristo Frashëri, Şemseddin Sami Frashëri Ideolog i Levizjes Kombëtare
Shqiptare’, Studime Historike, No 2, 1967, 79-94, 86.
22
Kristo Frashëri, The History of Albania (A Brief History), Tirana, 1964, 152. See also, Kristo Frashëri, Şemseddin
Sami Frashëri Ideolog, 88. Sami’s role as a chair of this committee continued until October 1900. (Kristo Frashëri,
Şemseddin Sami Frashëri Ideolog, 92)
23
A small part of Sami’s correspondence with the Albanian nationalist circles in Diaspora was published in Vissar
Dodani, Memoriet e Mija, 32-35, 43, 45-47.
24
For his Albanian works published in Bucharest, see S. H. F., Abetare e Gjuhësë Shqip, Bukuresht: Drita, 1886;
S. H. F., Shkronjetore e gjhuse shqip, Bukuresht: Drita, 1886; S. H. F., Dheshkronjë, Bukuresht: Dituri, 1888; S.
H. F., Abetare e Gjuhësë Shqip, (2nd ed.), Bukuresht: Drita, 1888; and S. H. F., Abetare e Gjuhësë Shqip, (3rd ed.),
Bukuresht: Drita, 1900.
25
For the Albanian translation of one of his dramas published in Sofia, see Sami Bej Frasheri, Besa, Dramë me
Gjashtë Pamje, (Transl.: Ab A.[bdyl] Ypi Kolonja), Sofjë: Shtypshkronja Mbrothësia, Kristo P. Luarasi, 1901.
26
See, for example, Ömer Faruk Akün, ‘Şemseddin Sami’, İslam Ansiklopedisi, Vol 11, Eskişehir: Anadolu
Üniversitesi Güzel Sanatlar Fakültesi 1997 [1967], 411-422, 416; Agah Sırrı Levend, Şemsedin Sami, Ankara: Türk
Dil Kurumu Yayınları, 1969; Etem Çalık, Şemseddin Sami ve Medeniyet-i İslamiyye, Istanbul: İnsan Yayınları, 1996;
Ömer Faruk Akün, ‘Hayatı, Eserleri, Türklüğe Hizmetleri ve Kamus-i Türki ile Şemseddin Sami’, in Şemseddin Sami,
Kamus-i Türki, (Ed.: Ömer Faruk Akün, Istanbul: Alfa, 1998, 1-32, 27; and Şecaattin Tural, Şemsettin Sami, Istanbul:
Şule Yayınları, 1999, 28.
27
David Kushner, The Rise of Turkish nationalism, 1876-1908, London : Cass, 1977, 8-9.
4
be cited.
months and ran to twenty issues in total.28 The magazine was a kind of popular
‘encyclopaedic’ periodical, aiming at the popularisation of Western knowledge and
ideas by ‘injecting’ them into to the daily life of families. Main issues in the weekly
were from the fields of language (linguistics), sciences, literature, art and ethics. It aimed
at the transfer of modern knowledge to ‘ordinary people’, and at advocating ‘modern
civilisation’ and ‘progress’. “Most importantly”, according to an established nationalist
Turkish scholar, it was in this periodical that Sami started to display his “Turkist
perspective through his writings on Turkish language”.29 His article analysed here was
published in the twelfth issue of this periodical in August 1881.30
It is very telling that the article has never been translated into Albanian, although most of
Sami’s other texts in the Turkish press supporting the Albanian cause have been
translated and published.31 In Turkey, however, we see that this article has always been
referred to as a key text to demonstrate Sami’s revolutionary contribution to the
construction of Turkish nationalism.32 Besides, it is one of the few texts of Sami that
have been reproduced (transcribed in modern Turkish alphabet) as an appendix to books
written on Sami33 and in anthologies34 in Turkey.
The other Turkish text that will be analysed in this essay, the preface of Sami’s two-
volume monolingual Turkish dictionary Kamus-i Turki, was published in 1900 and the
exact date given at the end of the “preface” is 22 January 1900.35
The title chosen by the author, “Turkish Dictionary”, has always been taken as an
indication in the Turkish historiography that Sami is one of the pioneers of Turkish
nationalism, because the dominant term for the language of the Empire was ‘Ottoman’ in
his time, and this was not a coincidence or unintentional, but a deliberate choice by him.
The preface of this dictionary36 has also been used in the Turkish historiography as a
proof of Sami’s Turkish nationalism by different authors.37 Furthermore, it has been
28
Hafta, edebiyat ve fünun ve sanaiye dair mecmuadir, Sahibi: Mihran, Muharriri: Şemseddin Sami, No 1 (22
Ramazan 1298 [18 August 1881]) – No 20 (21 Safer 1299 [12 January 1882]).
29
Akün, Şemseddin Sami, 416.
30
Below, it will sometimes be referred to this text by Sami shortly as ‘the article’.
31
For the Albanian translations of Sami’s Turkish articles from Ottoman press, see Sami Frashëri, ‘Terxhuman-i
Shark (Zëdhënësi i Linhjes)’, in idem, Vepra 1, (Ed.: Xholi, Z.; Dodi, A.; Prifti, K.; Pulaha S. & Çollaku Sh.),
Tirana: Akademia e Shkencave e Rps Të Shqipërisë Instituti i Historisë, 105-233 and Sami Frashëri, Kush e presh
Paqen në Ballkan. (Publicistika e Sami Frahsërit Turqisht), (Transl. by Abdullah Hamiti), Peje: Dukagjini, 2000.
The ‘silence’ in the Albanian historiography about this and other similar texts of Sami and the expressions and
ideas in them is another interesting object of analysis.
32
See, for example, Akün, Şemseddin Sami, 416; Levend, Şemsedin Sami, passim; Çalık, Şemseddin Sami, passim;
Akün, Hayatı, Eserleri, Türklüğe Hizmetleri, 27; and Tural, Şemsettin Sami, 28.
33
See Çalık, Şemseddin Sami, 135-139; Tural, Şemsettin Sami, 66-70 and Levend, Şemsedin Sami, 152-157.
34
See, for example, İsmail Habib [Sevük], Yeni ‘Edebi Yeniliğimiz’, Tanzimattan Beri - II, Edebiyat Antolojisi,
İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1940, 168-171; Suat Hizarcı, ed., Tanzimat Edebiyatı Antolojisi, İstanbul: Varlık Yayınevi,
1955, 103-105 and Cevdet Kudret, Türk Edebiyatından Seçme Parçalar, İstanbul: İnkılap & Aka Kitabevleri, 1973,
211-212.
35
Sami, Kamus-i Türki, t. In 1998 the dictionary was reprinted in Ottoman-Arabic alphabet with an additional
‘preface’ by Ömer Faruk Akün in modern Turkish. See Şemseddin Sami, Kamus-i Türki, (Foreword by Ömer
Faruk Akün), Istanbul: Alfa, 1998.
36
Below, it will be referred to this text shortly as ‘the preface’.
37
See, for example Va-Nu [Vala Nureddin], ‘Akşamdan Akşama: Dil Kurultayı ve Şemseddin Sami’, Akşam,
28.09.1932; Va-Nu [Vala Nureddin], ‘Akşamdan Akşama: Şemsedin Sami’nin Hatırası’, Akşam, 24.07.1943; Ahmet
İhsan [Tokgöz], ‘Bir Anış: Şemseddin Sami’, Hakimiyet-i Milliye, 28.03.1933; Hikmet Turan Dağlıoğlu, ‘Türk Dilinin
Yükselmesine Çalışanlardan Şemseddin Sami Bey’, Resimli Şark, İstanbul, 41 (Mayıs), 1934, 6-14; Hikmet Turan
Dağlıoğlu, Şemsettin Sami Bey Hayatı ve Eserleri, Istanbul: Resimli Ay Matbaası, 1934; Sedat Oksal, ‘Şemseddin
Sami ve Eserleri’, Tanin, 23.10.1943; Rifat Necdet Evrimer, ‘Büyük Türkçü ve Dilci Şemsettin Sami’, Vatan,
İstanbul, 18.06.1952, 2; Akün, Şemseddin Sami, passim; Levend, Şemsedin Sami, passim; Çalık, Şemseddin Sami,
passim; Akün, Hayatı, Eserleri, Türklüğe Hizmetleri, 27 and Tural, Şemsettin Sami, 28.
5
be cited.
transcribed into modern Turkish alphabet and published in a number of periodicals38 and
anthologies39 and as an appendix to some books written on Sami.40 In this essay, it is
important to take this ‘preface’ into account, because it was published almost in the same
year as the Albanian book, whereas his article in question was published almost 20 years
earlier. Hence, a consideration of these texts is of interest in answering the question of
whether Sami changed his attitude in the texts written during this long period.
Sami’s much disputed Albanian book Shqipëria, on the other hand, which is the only
Albanian text (96 pages) in the main text corpus of this study, was published in 1899, in
Bucharest without the name of the author and publisher.41 Sami’s authorship of this book
has usually been rejected in Turkey, and never been disputed in Albania and Europe, and
provides the theme for a separate article.42 I have also dealt elsewhere with the history of
the publication of different editions of this book in different languages43 to conclude that
Sami is the author of the book, the first edition of which was published by the Albanian
association Shoqëria Dituria (‘Society of Knowledge’) in Bucharest, Romania.
The book started to be ‘canonised’ already in the first years after its publication.44
Indeed, the main work by Sami used in the construction of his mythologized image in
Albania has always been and still is this book, because it has always been seen as (one
of) the first ‘manifesto’(s) of Albanian political nationalism foreseeing an Albanian
state.
The book was re-published once in Bulgaria in 1907,45 once in 1919 in the USA46 and
several times in Albania.47 It was also translated into Turkish and published by Shahin
38
See, for example, Şemseddin Sami ‘Kamus-i Türki’nin Önsözü’, (Bugünkü Dile Çeviren: Ömer Asım Aksoy), Türk
Dili, Ankara, Vol. 43, No 355 (Temmuz 1981), 30-35.; ‘Kamus-i Türki’nin Önsözünden - I’, Türk Edebiyatı,
(Sadeleştiren: Mertol Tulum), İstanbul, No 141 (Temmuz), 1985, 18-19; ‘Kamus-i Türki’nin Önsözünden - II’, Türk
Edebiyatı, (Sadeleştiren: Mertol Tulum), İstanbul, No 142 (Ağustos), 1985, 70-71 and ‘Kamus-i Türki’nin
Önsözünden - III’, Türk Edebiyatı, (Sadeleştiren: Mertol Tulum), İstanbul, No 143 (Eylül) 1985, 63-64.
39
See, for example, Hizarcı, Tanzimat Edebiyatı Antolojisi, 105-106; Şükrü Elçin & Muhtar Tevfikoğlu, Yeni
Türk Nesiri Antolojisi, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1987, 23-26; Hüseyin Tuncer, Arayışlar
Devri Türk Edebiyatı 1: Tanzimat Edebiyatı, İzmir: Akademi Kitabevi, 1994, 359-366; and Şemsettin Kutlu,
Tanzimat Dönemi Türk Edebiyatı Antolojisi, İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1981, 308-310.
40
See, for example, Levend, Şemsedin Sami, 172-185; Çalık, Şemseddin Sami, 87-99 and Tural, Şemsettin Sami,
87-100.
41
Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë. Below, it will sometimes be referred to this Albanian book shortly as ‘the book’ or
‘Shqiperia’.
42
Bülent Bilmez, ‘Şemsettin Sami ve ‘Sakıncalı’ bir Kitapla ilgili Tartışmalarda Milliyetçi Retorik’, Müteferrika,
29 (2006/1), Istanbul, 2006, 45-87.
43
Bulent Bilmez ‘New Findings on Some Open Questions in the History of the Disputed Book of Shemseddin
Sami Frashëri: Shqipëria (1899)’, Seminari Ndërkombëtar për Gjuhën, Letërsinë dhe Kulturën Shqiptare, XVI
(August 2004), Prishtina, Kosovo, 2005 and Bülent Bilmez, ‘Şemsetin Sami mi Yazdı bu Kitabı? Yazarı
Tartışmalı Bir Kitap: Arnavutluk Neydi, Nedir ve Ne Olacak?’, Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yaklaşımlar, No 1 (Bahar)
2005, 97-145.
44
For the praise of the book and a long quotation in the Albanian press of that time, see Drita, no 1, 1/14.11.1901,
1.
45
Sami Frashëri, Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhetë? Mendime për shpëtimin e mëmëdheut nga rreziqet që
e kanë rrethuar, (Pershtypje e Dyte), Sofje: Mborthesia, 1907.
46
Sami Frashëri, Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhet?, Worcester, 1919.
47
See, for example, Sami Frashëri, Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhet? Mendime për shpëtimin e
mëmëdheut nga rreziqet që e kanë rrethuar, (Botim i Gjashtë), Tiranë: Botonjës Luarasi, date unavailable; Sami
Bej Frashëri, Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhetë? Mendime për shpëtimin e mëmëdheut nga rreziqet që
e kanë rrethuar, (Përshtypje e Tretë [Third edition]), Tiranë: Mbrothësia’ Kristo Luarasi, 1923/1924. (On the
cover, where it is clearly stated that this is the third edition, the publication year is given as 1924, whereas on the
back of the title page it is stated as 1923); Sami Frashëri, ‘Shqipëria: Ç’ka Qenë, Ç’është e Ç’do të Bëhet?’, (Po
botojmë nga ky libër i sami Frashërit disa pjesë), Zeri popullit, 13 qershor, 1950; Sami Frashëri, Shqipëria. Ç’ka
qënë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhet? Mendime për shpëtimin e mëmëdheut nga rreziqet që e kanë rrethuar, Tirana, 1962;
Sami Frashëri, Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhet? Mendime për shpëtimin e mëmëdheut nga rreziqet që
e kanë rrethuar (Biblieteka e Nxënësit), Tirane: Shtëpia e Botuese e Librit Shkollor, 1980; Sami Frashëri,
‘Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhet? Mendime për shpëtimin e mëmëdheut nga rreziqet që e kanë
rrethuar’, (Reprint of Sami 1899a), in Idem, Vepra 2, (Ed.: Xholi, Z.; Dodi, A.; Prifti, K.; Pulaha S. & Çollaku
6
be cited.
Kolonja, in Albanian alphabet as a series in the Albanian periodical Drita (in Sofia),
between 19 November 1904 (No 53) and 9 August 1906 (No 82).48 This translation was
published in Sofia in 1907 by Kolonja as a book, this time in Ottoman-Turkish
alphabet.49 The German translation by A. Traxler published in 1913 was based on this
Turkish version.50 Besides, a very long summary in German was given in a later article
on this book by Klaus Lange in 1975.51 There are also an unpublished Greek manuscript,
a partial translation without a date, by Fan Noli,52 another partial translation published in
the Albanian periodical Shqiperia in Cairo, in 190653 and a full Greek translation
published in 1907 by Thanas [Athanas] Sinas.54 The book was also translated by Luigi
Lorecchio into Italian and published in 1923.55 All these re-publications and translations
of the book can obviously be seen as a sign of the considerable interest in this text in
Albania and abroad.
This book has played, on the other hand, an important role in the mythologisation of
Sami in the nationalist Turkish historiography as well, because of the claims that Sami
cannot be the author of the book.56 This attitude of rejecting and/or neglecting the
authorship of Sami in Turkey can also be observed in the entries on Sami in Turkish
encyclopaedias and lexica, which are important sources for the canonization of a text on
more popular level: As I tried to demonstrate elsewhere,57 Sami is usually represented in
these entries as a Turkish linguist and author of the first Turkish novel, and as one of the
pioneers of Turkish nationalism. Most of these entries start by stating that Sami was
Turkish.58 In some other encyclopaedias his nationality is not mentioned.59 In one of
Sh.), Tiranë: Akademia Shkencave e RPS të Shqiperise, Institui i Historise, 1988, 17-94; Sami Frashëri, Shqipëria.
Ç’ka qenë, ç’është e ç’do të bëhet, Tirane: Mesonjetorje e Parë, 1999; Sami Frashëri, Shqiperia dhe Shqiptaret,
(Transl.: Zyber Hasan Bakiu), Tiranë: Dajti 2000; Sami Frashëri, Shqipëria Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, ç’është e ç’do të
bëhet?, Prishtinë: Shtëpia Botuese Libri Shkollor, 2001; and Sami Frashëri, Shqipëria Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë,
ç’është e ç’do të bëhet?, Tiranë: nf, 2002.
48
Apart from the issue on 22 April 1905 (No 60), the series continued regularly in all issues between these two
dates.
49
Ş. Sami Fraşeri, Arnavutluk ne idi, nedir ne olacak?, (Transl.: Şahin Kolonja), publication place, publisher and
date not indicated. Shahin Kolonja had added some information in the brackets within the text.
50
Sch. Sami Bey Frascheri, Was war Albanien, was ist es, was wird es werden? Gedanken und Betrachtungen
über die unser geheiligtes Vaterland Albanien bedrohenden Gefahren und deren Abwendungen, (Transl.: A.
Traxler), Wien und Leipzig: Alfred Hölder, K. U. K. Hof- und Universitaets-Buchhaendler, 1913. Understandably,
all changes and additions in the Turkish version (Fraşeri, Arnavutluk ne idi, nedir ne olacak?,) were also
translated; and a short preface by the translator was added.
51
Klaus Lange, ‘Zur Problematik des Nationalgedankes bei Sami Frashëri’, in Peter Bartl & Horst Glassl, eds.,
Südosteuropa unter dem Halbmond (Prof. Georg Stadtmüller zum. 65. Geburtstag gewidmet), München: Dr. Dr.
Rudolf Trofenik, 1975, 177-187.
52
Arkivi Qendror i Shtetit, F. 14, D. 41, fl. 1-75.
53
Sami Bey Fraşeri, İ Alvania ti ito, ti ine ke ti prepi na ine? Skepsis pros apelefterosin tis patridos apo tus
perikiklundas avtin kindinus, (Transl.: Fani Noli), Shqiperia, (Kairo), No 2, 11 Tetor 1906.
54
Sami-Bey Frassari, İ Alvania ti ito, ti ine ke ti prepi na ine? Skepsis pros apelefterosin tis patridos apo tus
perikiklundas avtin kindinus, (Transl.: Gerontos tis Nemertzkas [Thanas Sina]), Sofia, 1907.
55
Sami Bej Frashëri, L’Albania Suo Passato, Presente e Avvenire, (Traduzione dall’ Albenese per Luigi
Lorecchio), Albania, No 8, Roma, 1923.
56
For a detailed discussion of this ‘denial’ and/or negligence in the Turkish historiography, see Bülent Bilmez,
‘Şemsettin Sami ve ‘Sakıncalı’ bir Kitapla ilgili Tartışmalarda Milliyetçi Retorik, passim. It is very telling that this
book has never been translated into modern Turkish. (Some parts of the Kolonja’s Ottoman-Turkish translation
(Fraşeri, Arnavutluk ne idi, nedir ne olacak?) were transcribed and published by Orhan Seyfi Orhon in a series of
artricles on Sami in his periodical Çınaraltı in 1943: O.[rhan] S.[eyfi] O.[rhon ‘Koynumuzda Beslediklerimiz. Bir
hiyanet ve Nankorluk Vesikasi’, Çınaraltı, No 106-110 and No 113, October 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30, 1943.
57
Bülent Bilmez, ‘Mythologization of an Ottoman Intellectual in the Modern Turkish and Socialist Albanian
Historiographies based on ‘selective perception’: Sami Frashëri or Şemseddin Sami Bey?’, Balkanologie, Vol VII,
No 2 (December), 2003, Paris, 19-46. For an Albanian translation of this article, see Bülent Bilmez, ‘Sami
Frashëri apo Shemseddin Sami?’, (Transl., Artan Puto), Përpjekja, Vol IX, No 18 (vjeshtë-dimër), 2003,118-145.
58
See, for example, ‘Şemseddin Sami’, in Hakkı Devrim, ed., Dictionnaire Larousse, Ansiklopedik Sözlük, Vol 6,
İstanbul: Milliyet, 1993- 1994, 2235.; ‘Şemseddin Sami (Fraşer, Yanya 1850 - Istanbul, 1904)’, in Türk
Ansiklopedisi, Vol. 30, Ankara: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1981, 251-252; ‘Şemseddin Sami’, in Meydan Larousse.
7
be cited.
them he is defined as an “Ottoman writer”, although it is stated in the same entry that
Sami believed the term “Ottoman” could only be used for the (Ottoman) state, but not
for the language or nationality.60 In two other encyclopaedias, the entries of which are
almost identical, Sami’s nationality is not stated. However, it is noted that his mother
tongue was Greek.61 In an encyclopaedia published by a nationalist publishing house the
ethno-centrist attitude is formulated very clearly:
“Though originally Albanian, he chose Turkish nationality; believed that
Turks are a great nationality, performed surveys especially on Turkish
language with a nationalist mentality, produced valuable works that
enlightened the Turkish language’s past and enriched its future.”62
These encyclopaedias usually give conflicting information even on factual issues like his
publications, the periods he lived in different places. Furthermore, almost all of these
entries consist of laudatory writing, praising Sami for being the writer of the first
Turkish modern encyclopaedia63 and dictionary64 that was to remain the main source for
all studies on Turkish language for a long time. In the framework of this paper, however,
it is important to note that they all neglect Sami’s activities and publications that made
him known as one of the pioneers of Albanian nationalism in the historiography of
Albania. There is one exception to this attitude, which can be found in an encyclopaedia
that is a translation from French with some modifications and additions. However, it is
striking to find two separate entries in the same encyclopaedia on Sami: the one carrying
the title “Şemsettin Sami” presents the common mythologized image of him by stating at
the beginning that he was “Turkish”, while it also contains information on his activities
as an Albanian intellectual that cannot be found in other encyclopaedias.65 However, the
editors of this Turkish version did not even recognize that another entry on Sami with
the title “Fraşeri (Sami Bey)” was put in another volume of the same encyclopaedia. In
this entry, which consists of a very brief summary of his activities as a national Albanian
intellectual and which is probably just an accurate translation of the entry in the French
version, it is stated that Sami is an “Albanian author” and his book “Shqipëria – Ç’ka
qënë, ç’është e çdo të bëhetë” is his most important work.66 This ambiguous exception,
Büyük Lügat ve Ansiklopedi, Istanbul: Sabah, Vol. 18, publication date unavailable, 504; ‘Şemsettin Sami’, in
Büyük Larousse Sözlük ve Ansiklopedi, Vol. 18, Istanbul: Gelişim Yayınları, 1986, 11047. (Second edition:
‘Şemsettin Sami’, in Büyük Larousse, Vol. 21, Istanbul: Milliyet Yayınları, date unavailable, 11047); ‘Şemsettin
Sami’, in Gelişim Hachette. Alfabetik Genel Kültür Ansiklopedisi, Vol. 10, İstanbul: Gelişim Basın ve Yayın A. Ş.,
1976 (?), 4086-4087; ‘Şemseddin Sami’, in Meydan-Larousse, Vol. 11, Istanbul: Meydan Yayınevi, 1989, 758.;
‘Şemseddin Sami’, in Şevket Rado, ed., Hayat Küçük Ansiklopedi, 1968, Istanbul: Hayat Yayınları, 1079; and
‘Şemsettin Sami (1850-1905)’, in Yeni Hayat Ansiklopedisi, Cilt 6, İstanbul: Doğan Kardeş Yayınları, 1978, 2985.
(Note the incorrect date of Sami’s death in the title of the last entry.)
59
See, for example, ‘Şemseddin Sami (1 Haziran 1850 - 18 Haziran 1904)’, in Başlangıcından Günümüze Büyük Türk
Klasikleri, Tarih-Antoloji-Ansiklopedi, Vol. 9, 1989, 111-119, 111-2; M. Nihat Özön & Baha Dürder, Türk Edebiyatı
Ansiklopedisi, İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1967, 187; ‘Şemseddin Sami’, Ana Britannica, Vol. 29, Istanbul: Ana
Yayıncılık, 1994, 89; İhsan Işık, ‘Şemsettin Sami’, in idem, Türkiye Yazar Ansiklopedisi, (Genişletilmiş 2. Baskı),
Ankara: Elvan Yayınları, 2002, 871; Atilla Özkırımlı, ‘Şemsettin Sami’, in idem, Türk Edebiyatı Ansiklopedisi, Vol. 4,
1987, 1071-1073; ‘Şemsettin Sami (1850-1904)’, in Gelişim Alfabetik Gençlik Ansiklopedisi, Vol. 9, 1980, 2313; and
Şükran Kurdakul ‘Şemsettin Sami’, in idem, Şairler ve Yazarlar Sözlüğü, Istanbul: İnkılap, 1999, 613-614.
60
‘Şemseddin Sami’, in Türk ve Dünya Ünlüleri Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul: Anadolu Yayıncılık, Vol. 10, 1983, 5206.
61
İbrahim Alaettin Gövsa, ‘Şemseddin Sami’, in Meşhur Adamlar, Vol. 4, Istanbul: Yedigün Yayınevi, 1933-
1938, 367-8 and ‘Şemseddin Sami’, in Resimli Yeni Lügat ve Ansiklopedi (Ansiklopedik Sözlük), Vol. 5, Istanbul:
İskit Yayinlari. 1947-54, 2652-3.
62
‘Şemseddin Sami’, in Türkiye Gazetesi Yeni Rehber Ansiklopedisi, Vol. 18, Istanbul: İhlas Holding, 1994, 259.
63
Şemseddin Sami, Kamus-ul Alam. Tarih coğrafya lügatini ve tabir-i essahla kaffe-i esma-i hassa-yı camidir
(Dictionnaire Universal d’Historie et de Geographie), Vol. I-VI, Istanbul: Mihran Matbaası, 1889-1899.
64
Sami, Kamus-i Türki.
65
‘Şemsettin Sami’, in Büyük Larousse Sözlük ve Ansiklopedi, Vol. 18, Istanbul: Gelişim Yayınları, 1986, 11047.
66
‘Fraşeri (Sami Bey)’, in Büyük Larousse Sözlük ve Ansiklopedi, Vol. 7, Istanbul: Gelişim Yayınları, 1986, 4284.
8
be cited.
however, does not change the common attitude of ignoring or rejecting Sami’s
authorship of this book in Turkey.
III) Analysis of the Text Corpus
One of the most important characteristics of Sami’s Albanian book (Shqiperia, 1899) is
the (re-)production of the ‘myths of the ethnogenesis and antiquity’ among the
Albanians. Before discussing these myths, it must be stated that
“Every ethnic collectivity will have one or possibly more than one myth of
ethnogenesis and antiquity. Myths of this kind fairly obviously answer the
question of where we are from in our collective existence. However, these
myths become more than just self-legitimation when used to try to establish
primacy over all other ethnic groups in a given territory. The argument is that,
because one group was there first, it has a superior right to that territory over
all others, meaning that, say, the rights of citizenship must take second place
to those of ethnicity and that those who have primacy also have the right to
define (and maybe circumscribe) the rights of citizenship.”67
Furthermore, the place of these myths in the nationalist discourse among some Albanian
intellectuals of his time should also be kept in mind, while analysing Sami’s Albanian
book: . “As with any other people, the myth of origin, or ethnogenesis, was of special
importance for Albanian nationalist writers.”68
Considering Sami’s Albanian book, it is bluntly maintained in its first section titled
“Pelasgians”, where Sami claims that the Albanians are the eldest people of Europe and
direct descendants of the Pelasgians.69 As Coakley states,
“In many cases, the national story incorporates a particular episode in which
the ‘nation’ was crystallized into its ‘modern’ form. Here, there were broadly
two types of claim. First, the nation had existed in the same territory ‘from
time immemorial.’ (…) Second, the ancestors of the nation moved from
elsewhere, but at a particular point in time settled permanently in their current
location, establishing a decisive presence.”70
In Sami’s case it is obvious that he evidently prefers the second type, as his book starts
with the following sentence:
67
George Schöpflin, ‘The Functions of Myth and Taxonomy of Myths’, in Geoffrey Hosking & George Schöpflin,
eds., Myths and Nationhood, London: Hurst & Company, 1997, 19-35, 34. The discussion in this paper on the
myths, history and nationalism is mainly based on Walker Connor, ‘The Nation and Its Myth’, International
Journal of Comparative Sociology, Vol. 33, No. 1-2, 1992:, 48-57; Geoffrey Hosking & George Schöpflin, eds.,
Myths and Nationhood, London: Hurst & Company, 1997; Anthony D. Smith, Myths and Memories of the Nation,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999; Rumina Sethi, Myths of the Nation: National Identity and Literary
Representation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999; John Coakley, ‘Mobilizing the Past: Nationalist Images of
History’ Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, No: 10, 2004, 531-560. For the works more specifically on the myths of
origin/decent/ethnogenesis, see Joshua Fishman, ‘Social Theory and Ethnography: Neglected Perspectives on
Language and Ethnicity in Eastern Europe’, in Peter Sugar, ed., Ethnic Diversity and Conflict in Eastern Europe,
Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1980, 69-99; Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1985; and Thomas H. Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism, London: Pluto Press,
1993.
68
Piro Misha, ‘Invention of a Nationalism: Myth and Amnesia’, in Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J.
Fischer, eds., Albanian Identities Myth and History, London: Hurst & Company, 2002, 33-48, 42. For a concise
account of the ‘myths of origins and priority’ in the nationalist discourse of Sami’s time and afterwards, see Noel
Malcolm, ‘Myths of Albanian National Identity: Some Key Elements in the Works of Albanian Writers and
America in the Early Twentieth Century’, in Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer, eds., Albanian
Identities Myth and History, London: Hurst & Company, 2002, 70- 90, 73-79.
69
Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, 3-6.
70
Coakley, Mobilizing the Past, 544.
9
be cited.
“Albania consists of every land (vendi) where Albanians live (rrine). The
Albanians are one of the eldest people [nations] (kombeve) of Europe. They
came from Central Asia to the European continent before all others…”71
Being one of the core elements in the nationalist discourse of the nineteenth century, the
aim in this claim is obvious: To declare Albanians the real and only ‘owners’ of the
territories through proving their greater antiquity. It is worth remembering that while
behaving so, Sami and his Albanian and Turkish contemporaries were not exceptional at
all. Indeed,
“… a myth of origin is an essential ingredient in any nation’s self-conception.
(…) In recent years, advances in genetic research allowed the regional
clustering of particular gene types to be mapped, and these advances have also
offered more conclusive evidence to the absence of genetic ‘purity’, and on
genetic mixing as the norm within spatially defined groups. But the nationalist
image of national origin is simpler: a single group or people is identified as
prime ancestor.”72
Here, we encounter an intellectual, himself mythologised, acting as a myth-maker and/or
distributor of modern myths: 73 As it was common in his time, Sami deals with the
earliest history of the Balkans in this chapter selectively replicating the theories of the
nineteenth century, which were based on very little information, speculation and modern
myths. As stated by Anthony Smith in one of his most recent books,
“Myths of origins, whether of the genealogical or the territorial-political kind,
are usually regarded by members and by many analysts as key elements in the
definition of ethnic communities. Not only have they often played a vital role
in differentiating and separating particular ethnies from close neighbours
and/or competitors; it is in such myths that ethnies locate their founding
charter and raison d’etre.”74
Pelasgians being the eldest, Sami lists all the names of the people of antiquity in the
Balkans, with stereotypical knowledge of that time: Pelasgians and the tribes (fise) as
their branches - Illyrians, Epiriots, Macedonians and Thracians.75 There, he also gives
the etymology of the name of the people of the ancient times on the Balkans to show that
they were ethnic Albanian.76
The second (rather short) section of the first part of the book is devoted to the Illyrians
and the Epirots. It is interesting to recognize that the idea of an uninterrupted direct
relation between the Illyrians and the Albanians of today (hence the continuity between
them), which as a dominant theory (or myth among the Albanians) of the twentieth
century has overshadowed the Pelasgian one, is not explicitly displayed here.77
However, it is hinted at an implicit relation between the Illyrians and the Albanians,
because Illyrians are believed to constitute one of the Pelasgian tribes, who were, as
71
Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, 3.
72
Coakley, Mobilizing the Past, 542-543.
73
For the construction of the ‘mythologized image of Sami in the Albanian and Turkish historiography’, see Bülent
Bilmez, Mythologization of an Ottoman Intellectual, passim; and Bilmez Bülent Can, ‘Arnavut ve Türk Tarih
yazımında Şemsedin Sami: Arnavut Milliyetçisi mi, yoksa Türk Milliyetçisi mi?’, Toplumsal Tarih, Istanbul, No 114
(Haziran), 2003, Istanbul, 54-57. For the role of the press of the both countries in this mythologozation, see my
forthcoming article on the place of Sami in the Albanian and Turkish press: Bülent Bilmez, ‘Modern Türkiye ve
Sosyalist Arnavutluk Basınında Şemsetin Sami Frashëri İmajı’, proceedings of a conference in December 2003 in
Tirana to be published by IRCICA in autumn 2006 in Istanbul.
74
Anthony D. Smith, Chosen Peoples, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 173.
75
76
For such ‘etymology game’s in the Albanology and among the Albanian intellectuals, see Malcolm, Myths of
Albanian National Identity, passim, especially 78.
77
For the theories on Pelasgians and Illyrians as the ancestors of Albanians, see the section below on
‘intertextuality’.
10
be cited.
claimed by Sami in the previous chapter of the book, ancestors of today’s Albanians.
Furthermore, it is stated there that
“according to the ancient Greek historians and authors the Illyrians and
Epirots spoke the same language and had the same customs and traditions.
From their language and customs developed (stemmed), later on, those of
today’s Albanians.”78
The Turkish article, on the other hand, starts with the question about the proper name of
“our language”, Turkish, and about its origin:
“We do not think the term ‘Ottoman language’ is quite correct, because this
term is used only as the title of the State according to the name of the family
of the well known conqueror, first of the Sultans who founded this state. Yet,
the language (lisan) and nationality/ethnicity (cinsiyet) are older than the birth
of the mentioned person and the formation of this state. The name of the
people (kavim) who speak this language is really ‘Turks’ (Türk) and the name
of the language they speak is Turkish language (lisan-ı Türki). This name,
which is seen as a derogatory term by ignorant people and used by some for
the peasants of Anatolia, is the name of a great community (ümmet) which
should be proud to be called so.”79
If one is aware of the pejorative use of the term ‘Turk’ in the late Ottoman Empire,
which was not used by any ethnic group as an endonym, these sentences can be read as
clear appeal for the emergence of national consciousness among the Turkish-speaking
people, for whom this kind of self-perception was new.80 Apart from the important fact
that Sami obviously includes himself into this group (nation), it is interesting to see the
reference to the ‘roots’ of the Turks before the formation of the Ottoman Empire.81
Sami describes in this article also what Ottoman means: All people living as the subjects
of the Ottoman state are called Ottoman (Osmanlı).82 For him, the term Turk, on the
other hand, is the name of the great community, only a fraction of which is the subject of
the Ottoman state:
“The relationship between Ottoman and Turk is similar to the one between
Austrian and German: Austrian is used for all people who are subjects of the
Austrian State, the Germans of Austria being the dominant community among
them. German [on the other hand] is used for all members of this big community,
in Austria and in Prussia and Germany, as well as in Switzerland, Russia and
elsewhere. Similarly, also members of all the peoples subject to the Ottoman
dynasty are called Ottomans, whereas Turk is the name of a great community
extending from the shores of the Adriatic to the borders of China and interior of
Siberia.”83
According to Sami, the reason why people should not feel insulted by being called
Turks and, on the contrary, feel proud carrying this name is that “our language”, which
78
79
Sami, Lisan-ı Türki (Osmani).
80
Kushner, The Rise of Turkish nationalism, 8-9.
81
Below, in the section on ‘intertextuality’, the emergence of the interest (first among the Western ‘scholars’ and
then Ottoman intellectuals) in the pre-Islamic history of the Ottoman Turks and discovery of the ‘Turkic people’,
the construction of the discourse of the ‘brotherhood of all Turkic peoples in Asia’ and the influence of these
studies on Sami (and other modern Ottoman intellectuals) will be discussed.
82
This definition can also be found in Article 8 of the first Ottoman constitution of 1876: Şeref Gözübüyük &
Suna Kili, Türk Anayasa Metinleri, Tanzimattan Bugüne Kadar, Ankara: Ajans-Türk Matbaası, 1957, 26.
83
Sami, Lisan-ı Türki (Osmani).
11
be cited.
had already existed for a long time by the time of the formation of the Ottoman state, is
shared by lots of people in Asia outside the territories of the Empire as well. The
language spoken by those people and “our language” are, according to Sami, two major
branches of the same language.84
After discussing the brotherhood of all Turkish-speaking people, Sami deals with the
issue of the ancestors of the Turks: When “our ancestors” (ecdadımız) came from inner
Asia, they did not bring their literature and the grammar of their language (lisanlarının
imlasını), but gradually invented a new one and modified it several times in history.
When he talks abut the Turkic people in Asia, whom he calls “Eastern Turks” (Şark
Türkleri), Sami uses the term hem-cinsler, meaning ‘of the same ethnic group
(nationality)’. He includes himself into the ‘Western Turks’ living in the Ottoman
Empire through constant use of the pronouns “we” and “our”:
“As I see it, since the language of the Turks in those distant regions is one with
ours, it is perfectly proper to give them the common name of Turkish and, cases
where it is desirable for the for difference between them to observed, to call
theirs Eastern Turkish and ours Western Turkish.”85
The rest of the article is mainly about the modernization of the language and
purification of it from the ‘foreign’ words of Arabic and Persian origin.
The problematic use of the terms like cins/cinsiyet, ümmet, kavim, millet, halk, anasır,
etc. (race, stock, nation, people, religious group, etc.) by Sami in his Turkish writings
should be discussed (together with other discursive elements) in a separate project, in the
framework of both `conceptual history` in Koselackian sense86 and ‘conceptual-
historical analysis’ of ‘discursive construction’ of Albanian and Turkish nations.87
However, it could be shortly stated here, however, that these terms were used by Sami
without clear definitions and distinctions. It was rather in later years after the emergence
of ‘political nationalism’ among Muslim intellectuals that the ambiguity started fading
84
Op. cit.
85
Op. cit.
86
See Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Einleitung’, Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-
soziallen Sprache in Deutschland, Band 1: A-D, Otto Brunner, Werner Conze & Reinhart Koselleck, eds.,
Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1972, xiii-xxvii; idem, ‘Begriffsgeschichte und Sozialgeschichte’, Peter Christen Ludz, ed.,
Kölner Zeitschrift für Sozilogie und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderheft 16: Soziologie und Sozialgeschichte, Opladen:
Westdeutscher Verlag, 1972, 116-131 (later re-published in idem, Historishce Semantik und Begriffsgeschichte,
Stuttgart: Klett-Kota, 1978, 19-36 and idem, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik Geschichtlicher Zeiten, Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp, 107-129. For the English translation of the latter book, see idem, Futures Past. On the
Semantics of Historical Time, (Transl. by Keith Tribe), (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought),
Cambridge (Mass.) & London: MIT Press, 1985. For a leter article of Koselleck on conceptual history, see idem,
‘Sozialgeschichte und Begriffsgeschichte’, Wolfgang Schieder & Volker Sellin, ed., Sozialgeschichte in
Deutschland: Entwicklungen und Epochenbewustsein, Göttingen:Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1986, 89-109. (For the
English transation of this article, see Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Social History and Conceptual History’, in idem, The
Practice of Conceptual History. Timing History, Spacing Concepts, Translated by Todd Samuel Presner and
others, Introduction by Hayden White, (Cultural Memory in the Present), Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press, 2002, 20-37. For the analysis of the German concepts in same semantic field of the above mentioned
Ottoman terms on collective identity (cins/cinsiyet, ümmet, kavim, millet, halk, anasır, etc.), see the entry on
‘People, Nation, Nationalism, Mass’ in the standard work of conceptual historical studies, Basic Historical
Concepts: ‘Volk, Nation, Nationalismus, Masse’ in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze & Reinhart Koselleck, ed.,
Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-soziallen Sprache in Deutschland, Band 7:
Verw-Z, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1992. Also see Melvin Richter, The History of Political and Social Concepts. A
Critical Introduction. New York: Oxford UP, 1995.
87
For ‘conceptual-historical analysis’ and ‘discursive construction’ of national identities see Ruth Wodak, Rudolf de
Cillia, Martin Reisigl & Karin Liebhart, The Discursive Construction of National Identity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2001; Ruth Wodak, & Michael Meyer, ed. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, Sage, 2001 and
A. Triandafyllidou & R. Wodak, ‘Conceptual and methodological questions in the study of collective identity: An
introduction’, Journal of Language and Politics, 2003, vol. 2, no. 2, 205-223.
12
be cited.
away and the idea of ‘racial difference’ in an ethnocentric sense gradually gained more
importance in Turkish nationalism. Indeed,
“in the political rather than the scientific sphere, what is normally meant by
‘racial’ difference is a general sense of the ‘alienness’ or ‘otherness’ of
communities or individuals that come from radically different cultures and
religions, or whose appearance – in terms of skin-colour or even costume – is
manifestly different.”88
Another set of terms to be studied in such analysis would be the pronouns “we”, “our”,
etc. used in the definition of different collective identities:
“At the heart of any discussion of the nation and nationalism lies the issue of
identity. And, if we go beyond the purely personal level, questions of identity
divide the world between ‘we/us’ and ‘they/them’. By defining who we are,
we naturally exclude all those who cannot be fitted into the definition.”89
What makes Sami’s case remarkable is that, he also uses the term of “we” meaning the
Albanians at many places in his Albanian book.90 If one considers that Albanianness was
defined by the Albanian intellectuals of that time through not being Turkish, inter alias,
Sami’s case becomes more striking because these two ‘we’s meeting in one ‘author’
have actually been conflicting with, and ,at least in case of the definition of
Albanianness, excluding each other.
In the last paragraph of Sami’s Turkish article, Sami openly mentions the ‘political’
dimension of his Turkish nationalist ideas, by claiming that through the unification of a
reformed/standardized Turkish language, there will emerge a unified great Turkish
people/nation (Türk ümmeti), with a population of twenty million, in the place of the
present Western Turks that are “not more than eight to ten millions.” He doesn’t mention
any state-like organization, or other political entity of this Turkish-speaking people such
as nation, and it is not clear what kind of unity he foresees. However, it is obvious that
these revolutionary and groundbreaking expressions could be taken as first steps in the
process of the ‘emergence of linguistic nationalism’ among Turkish-speaking people,
and that they evidently maintain characteristics of cultural Pan-Turkism.91 What is
striking here is that they are written by a native Albanian speaker using similar rhetoric
to contribute at the same time to the emergence of Albanian nation, to which he also
feels loyal.
This becomes more interesting when we see similar rhetoric on Turkish language in a
text published almost in the same year as the publication of Shqiperia: In the preface of
Kamus-i Türki, after almost twenty years, Sami repeats his theory of “one Turkish
language with two (Eastern and Western) branches”; and uses again the pronouns “we”
and “our” when he talks about the Turkish-speaking people (Turks) and Turkish
language. He also explains once again why their language should not be called Ottoman,
but Turkish. This explanation, together with the fact that the dictionary was published
under this title (i.e. “Turkish Dictionary”), can be taken as an open appeal in favour of
Turkish (cultural) nationalism in that period.
88
Clive Christie, Race and Nation: A Reader, London & New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1998, 230.
89
Op. cit., 1.
90
Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, passim.
91
For the emergence of Pan-Turkism and its history in the late Ottoman Empire, see Jacob M. Landau, Pan-
Turkism in Turkey: From Irredentism to Cooperation, London: Hurst & Company, 1995 [1981], 7-73; and for the
essential role of Sami in this process, see Jacob M. Landau, Pan-Turkism in Turkey: From Irredentism to
Cooperation, London: Hurst & Company, 1995 [1981], 31.
13
be cited.
It is more remarkable in the framework of this paper to read the following line in his
Turkish article: “we have had a written and literary language for thousand years”. Here,
as in the Albanian case, the antiquity of the people is claimed because of the antiquity of
the language. Of course in the Turkish case, it was very clear that the Turks are not the
autochthones of their new homeland (Anatolia). It is worth noting, therefore, that the
question of the ‘autochthones of Anatolia’ is not problematised by Sami at all.92
IV) The question of intertextuality and interdiscursivity

The texts analysed in this study can be seen as direct ‘products’ of a broader historical
context: emergence of nationalism and the first attempts towards the construction of
Albanian and Turkish national identities. Therefore, it is always likely to ‘read’ some
previous or contemporary texts of others and/or different discourses embedded within
Sami’s texts. A more precise study of the rhetoric in these texts and their discourse
analysis would be most productive, though such an analysis is beyond the scope of this
essay. However, different texts and discourses absorbed in Sami’s ones can be discussed
here.
First of all, it is widely known that ‘Albanian people’ as an ‘ethnic’ group and
‘Albanianness’ as an imaginary collective identity had already been discovered by
European scholars and intellectuals when Sami published his book. It is also known at
least by specialists that before the publication of the book this discovery had already
imposed its influence on some Albanians, who can be seen as the real standard-bearers
of proto-nationalism, serving the emergence of Albanian ethnocentrism among
Albanians outside Albania.93 If this background, which can be ‘read’ in Sami’s book, is
well understood, one can better evaluate the pioneering role of the book in the
transformation of Albanian ethnocentrism into political nationalism and in the discursive
construction of Albanian national identity.
The Albanian ‘nation’ as an entity did not exist in the Ottoman Empire in pre-modern
times. The Albanian language might have been a kind of ‘binding element’ for some
people in certain circumstances; however it did not play any role in the formation of a
collective identity. The main component of collective identities then had rather been
religious loyalty, i.e. being a ‘member’ of a religion (millet) in general, or more
specifically, of a confession/sect (mezhep) and/or an order (tarikat). Besides, loyalty to
some secular (tribal, occupational and/or regional) groups like clans, large families,
tribes, etc. could sometimes be even stronger. Therefore, the discursive construction of
modern national identity among the existing ‘we-groups’ of the Ottoman Balkans by
modern(ist) intellectuals had to be based on an act of neglecting, ignoring, denying
and/or underestimating the existence or importance of these loyalties; and by
overestimating, on the other hand, language and history as the modern (progressive) and
92
For a critical account of the discussions in Turkey on the question of autochthony and ethnogenesis, see Suavi
Aydın, Kimlik Sorunu, Ulusallık ve Türk Kimliği, Ankara: Öteki Yayınevi, 1999, 60-73.
93
Almost all Albanian intellectuals who played decisive role in the discursive construction of Albanian nation and
emergence of Albanian nationalism lived outside Albania. In the same sense as ‘people like Gandhi, Nehru, and
Coomaraswamy have all discovered their India by leaving it’ (Sethi, Myths of the Nation, 198, fn. 51), all of these
Albanian intellectuals ‘discovered’ their Albania only after leaving their ‘home’ and contacting with the ‘West’.
Indeed it is very unclear what should be understood under the terms ‘Albania’ and ‘Albanian’ used in that period.
While traditional non-ethnic (religious, tribal, regional and/or imperial) identities were still dominant among the
most Albanians, they also had strong influence on the intellectuals who experienced a kind of epistemological
break through some kind of intellectual contact with West.
14
be cited.
most important cohesive elements and insisting that they had always played the same
role in the past.94
However, this new understanding of ‘we group’, which was an inseparable component
of a broader Eurocentric and modern episteme, did not emerge among the Balkan
peoples through indigenous dynamics. It was rather a direct import from the Western
world, which was imported by the ‘local’ intellectuals, influenced by the modern
Western knowledge and ideas. It was this process that made these intellectuals perceive
themselves and the groups they belonged to, differently. Therefore, they strived for the
‘enlightenment’ of their ‘people’ by imposing the new episteme on them, i.e. convincing
them that common language and history should play the decisive role in the definition of
their collective identity. The most significant role in this new perception was played by
the accumulation of (new) knowledge through Orientalism: ‘grasping’ and studying the
non-European world with the terms and values of the modern paradigm.
Likely motives for these modern Western studies were multifold: intellectual curiosity,
the aim of serving/contributing to their countries’ imperialistic interests, etc.; however,
their regular influence on the intellectuals of the Balkans has almost always caused a
kind of epistemological break, not only through the transfer of the new (linguistic,
ethnographical and historical) findings articulated in modern terminology, but also (and
more importantly) through the change in the way of ‘seeing’ themselves, their
surroundings (‘we-group’s) and their past, by using the ‘scientific’ methods of every
possible ‘–ology’ with which they have became familiar.
The interest in the culture, history and language of the Albanians by modern Western
scholars started at the end of the eighteenth century. However, actual scholarly
ethnographic, folkloristic, linguistic and historical studies were to emerge from the
beginning of the next century on, which can be taken as the beginning of ‘Albanology’.
There are implicit and explicit references in Sami’s book to the earlier texts of this very
Albanology in the context of the ancient history of Albanians and their language and
culture.
Sami mentions once “the great German linguist (philologist) of the nineteenth century”,
Austrian scholar Johann Georg von Hahn (1811-1869), who has been known as the
“father of Albanology.”95 This ‘reputation’ and Sami’s admiration is mainly due to
Hahn’s Studies on the language and origins of the Albanians: Albanesische Studien,
1854.96 As Sami did not know German and Hahn’s works had not been translated into
any language that Sami knew, it is not clear how and to what extent Sami could have
made use of his writings.97 Sami states that Hahn discovered some texts on a tombstone,
the letters of which were Phoenician and the language of which was Albanian. From this
94
Some traditional (pre-modern) religious elements, the role which in the construction of national identity is
sometimes misinterpreted and overemphasized by some scholars like Anthony Smith, were used only after a kind
of re-evaluation, and after giving them a new meaning through a process that could be called ‘invention of
tradition’ Eric Hobsbawm & Ternce Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1984.
95
Arshi Pipa, The Politics of Language in Soicalist Albania, New York: Columbia University Press for East
European Monographs (No 271), Boulder, Colorado, 1989.
96
Johann Georg von Hahn, Albanesiche Studien, Vol I, (reprint), Athens: Reprint Verlag Dion. Karavias, 1981
[1854]. (It was originally published by Verlag Friedrich Mauke in Jena.)
97
In the preface of Sami’s unpublished translation of Kutadgu Bilig, Sami writes that his daughter Samiye and his
son Mithat (actually Sami’s son-in-law and real son of Sami’s eldest brother Abdyl) helped him working on the
German book because of his little knowledge of German. (Dağlıoğlu, Şemsettin Sami Bey, 54. Also see Tural,
Şemsettin Sami, 121 and Levend, Şemsedin Sami, 96) This book, which was translated into Ottoman-Turkish in
the last years of Sami’s life through the help of Vambery’s (1832-1913) German translation published together
with the original text in 1870, played an important role in the construction and/or strengthening of the myth of
antiquity and continuity of the Turkish ‘nation’ from the Turkic people of Asia among the first Turkish
nationalists.
15
be cited.
Hahn concluded, according to Sami, that the Albanians could already write their
language that early in history.98 Sami also refers to “the ancient Greek historians and
authors”99, and talks about the “great geographer [deshkronjes] Strabo”100 who described
“our [Albanian] territories circa two thousand years ago...”101 It is worth noting that both
Strabo’s work and the Epirot king Pyrrus (Pyrrua a Burri) mentioned in Sami’s book,
were cited by Hahn in his Studies.102
Besides explicit signs of influence of the texts of nineteenth-century Albanology on
Sami, which can be observed through direct references, we can also see their implicit
influence on Sami throughout his book, where he reflects the common ‘Albanological’
knowledge of that time on Albania and the Albanians. Many materials, including some
terms, techniques, developed in the tradition of these studies, were borrowed by the
Albanian intellectuals of that time, Sami being one of the most important of them; and
they were used in the discursive construction of the national identity. Many facts and
myths in Sami’s book are borrowed from this very tradition. This can be best observed
in Sami’s book where he emphasizes ‘the antiquity of the Albanian people and their
language’. This myth of antiquity, serving the creation of the national pride among
Albanians, was based on the novel information found in the works of European scholars.
Although there were different theories competing with each other during the nineteenth
century, Sami was certainly devoted, as seen above, to the Pelasgian theory also
encompassing the Illyrian one.103
According to Arshi Pipa, “The romantic theory of the Pelasgian origin of the Albanians
has long been discarded as ‘absurd.’ Georg von Hahn, the father of Albanology, was
among the first to maintain that Albanians are the descendants of Illyrians, a thesis
accepted by many Albanologists.”104 However, this is not exactly the case: The Illyrian
theory cannot be separated from the Pelasgian one that plainly and undoubtedly, because
the history of the theories of origins of the Albanians and their language is much more
complicated: It is important, first of all, to underline that the Pelasgian and Illyrian
theories have overlapped, rather than contradicted each other.
There have also been other theories, contradicting the Pelasgian and Illyrian theory,
some of which were assuming a later migration of the ancestors of the Albanians to the
region and, hence, rejecting the proposition of the autochthony of the Albanians. These
theories could be classified according to the proposed Ur-Homeland and/or Ur-
Ancestors as follows 1) The ‘Italian theory’ supported by some Renaissance writers; 2)
the ‘Tatars theory’, that was essentially discarded in 1835 by Joseph Ritter von
Xylander,105 who put forward the still sustaining theory of the ‘Indo-Germanic’ origin
of the Albanians; and 3) the once very popular ‘Caucasus theory’, advocated since the
Renaissance by Aeneas Silvius Piccolimini (1509),106 the French diplomat François
98
99
100
Greek geographer, historian, and philosopher Strabo (ca. B.C. 63- ca. A.D. 24), mostly known for his
Geographika (‘Geography’), a 17-book work containing history and descriptions of people and places all over the
world as known to him.
101
102
Hahn, Albanesiche Studien, 216, 254, 301, 328 and 307.
103
For a concise account of different theories of Albanian ethnogenesis among the European scholars and their
reception among the Albanian nationalist intellectuals, see Pipa, The Politics of Language in Soicalist Albania,
155-161; Noel Malcolm, Kosovo. A Short History, London: Papermac, 1998, 28-40 and Malcolm, Myths of
Albanian National Identity, 73-79.
104
Pipa, The Politics of Language in Soicalist Albania, 155.
105
Xylander, Die Sprache der Albenesen oder Skipetaren, Frankfurt am Main: Andreasische Buchhandlung,
1835.
106
Eneo Silvio Piccolomini (Pope Pius II), Cosmograhia Pii Papae in Asiase & Europe eleganti descriptione,
Paris, 1509.
16
be cited.
Pouqueville (1820-1821)107 and the Greek student in Göttingen (Germany) Nikolaos

Nikokles (1855).108 These three theories had partly lost their credibility by the last
quarter of the nineteenth century.
“One last attempt to salvage the [Caucasus] theory, however, was made by an
Arbëresh109 writer, Francesco Tajani,110 who suggested that Ur-Albanians
were Scythians who spoke an Indian language but whose place of residence,
before they moved to Albania, was in the Caucasus.”111
The Pelasgian-Illyrian theory, which was supported in Sami’s text, became gradually
more dominant in the second half of the nineteenth century, though without being
undisputed among academics and without all other theories being totally discarded and
eliminated. The publication of the book Untersuchungen über die Geschichte der
östlichen europaeischen Völker in 1774 by the German scholar Johann Thunmann112 is
usually taken in Albanology as the beginning of the Pelasgian theory, which was based
on the mythological people described as the non-Greek and/or pre-Greek inhabitants of
the region by several ancient Greek authors, including Strabo who was mentioned by
Sami in his text.113
The Pelasgian-Illyrian theory was later established through the works of the Arbëresh
scholar Angelo Masci (Engjël Mashi);114 the French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun
who first published the French translation of Maci’s text with his own critical
annotations115 and then identified the Ur-language of the Albanians as Pelasgian in a
later publication;116 and through an Arbëresh writer, Giuseppe Crispi (Zef Krispi).117
“The author who removed these confusions and finally established the
Pelasgian theory in what was to become its classic form was the great
Albanologist Johann Georg von Hahn, in his Albanesische Studien of 1854.
Von Hahn reverted to Masci’s original classification of Illyrians, Epirots and
Macedonians as a single linguistic group (constituting the Ur-Albanian
107
François C. H. L. Pouquevile, Voyage dans le Grece, 5 Volumes, Paris, 1820-1821.
108
Nikolaos Nikokles, De albnensium sive Shkiptar origine et prosapia, Göttingen 1855.
109
The Arbëresh are the Albanians who settled in Italy in the Middle Ages and kept their peculiar language and
culture in remote villages.
110
Francesco Tajani, Le istorie albenesi, Slaerno 1886.
111
Malcolm, Myths of Albanian National Identity, 74.
112
Johann Thunman, Untersuchungen über die Geschichte der östlichen europaeischen Völker, Leipzig, 1774.
113
For a detailed account of these ancient Greek writings on the Pelasgians, see Fritz Lochner-Hüttenbach, Die
Pelasger, Wien: Gerold & Co., 1960, 1-92 and J. L. Myres, ‘A History of the Pelasgian Theory’, The Journal of
Hellenic Studies, Vol. 27, 1907, 170-225. In contrary to its title, the latter has nothing to do with the ‘history of the
Pelasgian theory’ in modern times; it is a study on the ancient sources. Furthermore, it is not understood under
coinage ‘Pelasgian theory’ the theory that Pleasgians are the ancestors of the Illyrians and the Albanians. For
information on the part of Strabo’s book on the Pelasgians referred to by Sami, see Lochner-Hüttenbach, Die
Pelasger, 126. For two modern studies not on the Pelasgian themselves or the history of the studies on them, but
rather on Pelasgian language, from which no text has sustained, see A. J. van Windekens, Le Pelasgique Essaisur
une langue indo-europenne prehellenique, Louvain Publications Universitares (Institue Oriantaliste), 1952 and A.
J. van Windekens, Etudes Pelasgiques, Louvain Publications Universitares (Institue Oriantaliste), 1960.
114
Angelo Masci (Engjël Mashi), Discorso sull’ origine, costume e stato attuale della nazione Albanese, Naples,
1807. Masci ‘…argued that the languages spoken by the Illyrians, Epirots and Macedonians in classical times
were substantially the same, and that this was the source of the Albanian language; he did not however, identify
this Ur-language as Pelasgian.’ Malcolm, Myths of Albanian National Identity, 75.
115
Angelo Masci, ‘Essai sur l’origine, les moers et l’etat actuel de la nation albanaise,’ in Conrad Malte-Brun (ed.)
Annales des voyages, de la geographie de l’historie, 24 vols, Paris: F. Buisson 1808-1814, vol. 3, 145-234.
116
Conrad Malte-Brun, Precis de la geographie universelle, ou description de toutes les parties du monde, 2nd
edn, 8 vols, Paris: F. Buisson 1812-29. “According to Malte-Brun the Albanians were descended from Illyrians
tribesmen who had spoken a language ‘affiliated’ to that of the Pelasgians, Dardanians, Greeks and Macedonians.
However, while identifying the Albanians as ‘Illyrian’ and their language as basically ‘Pelasgian’ (‘The Albanian
language is an ancient, important and distinct link in the great chain of Palesgo-Hellenic languages’), Malte-Brun
described Pelasgian as a primitive version of Greek, and distinguished it from Illyrian, which he regarded as a
branch of the Thracian language.” (Malcolm, Myths of Albanian National Identity, 75-76)
117
Guiseppe Crispi, Memoria sulla lingua albenese, Palermo, 1831.
17
be cited.
language), and added to this theory of Malte-Brun’s identification of the Ur-

Albanians as Pelasgians: this meant the language spoken by the Pelasgians
was not a version of Greek, but something different and perhaps more
ancient.”118
Sami could also have made use of the discussions of the ‘Pelasgian question’ in the
beginning of the 1890s in Ellis Hesselmeyer’s German book,119 and/or in Eduard
Meyer’s book, where it was claimed that the question of whether the Pelasgians, who
lived only in Thessaly and Crete, were Greek or pre-Greek was still open.120
We know that Sami could understand most of the languages necessary to read the
ancient scholars’ works used by the Western Albanologists. However, we don’t know
whether Sami made use of these texts by reading them himself or rather through reading
the informative Albanological texts on them. It is an important and unfulfilled duty to
find out more about possible use of these texts in Sami’s works. However, any possible
influence of Western Albanology on Sami does not always have to be directly from the
texts of these Albanologists; it may sometimes take an indirect route: via the writings of
other Albanian intellectuals who were the pioneers of Albanian cultural nationalism.
This is not the place to offer an in-depth discussion on the term cultural nationalism
“which is a selective and partial category, and where imagination and
manoeuvre play a vital role in fashioning identity. Cultural nationalism
derives its strength from the past – mainly folk traditions, religion, rural
dialects …- in order to demonstrate cultural uniqueness and thereby stimulate
national consciousness.”121
Both the earlier works of the Albanian intellectuals (before 1870s) and those of Sami’s
contemporaries (from 1870s to 1904) were transmitting the accumulation of Albanology
to a broader readership, though their success was still relatively marginal in this
period:122
“The main myths created by those who were the so-called ‘men of the
Albanian renaissance’ (Alb.: rilindja), who nourished Albanian national
romanticism, are typical myths of European romanticism of the nineteenth
century, creating the pride in Albanian of being a unique people. Among the
main myths are those exalting the antiquity of the Albanian people and
Albanian as one of the oldest languages.”123
Sami was not alone in the popularisation of the Pelasgian-Illyrian theory among the
Albanian intellectuals of his time; most of his contemporaries were playing a similar
role, as this was the only dominant theory among them. Already in 1860-61, one of the
first Albanian periodicals, which was published weekly in Albanian and Greek
languages in Lama (Greece), was entitled Pellazgu, the Pelasgian.124 In the introductory
118
Malcolm, Myths of Albanian National Identity, 76.
119
Ellis Hesselmeyer, Die Pelasgerfrage und Ihre Losbarkeit, Tubingen: Verlag von Franz Fues, 1890.
120
Gustav Meyer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Albanesischen Sprache, Strassburg: Verlag von Karl J.
Trübner, 1891. For Meyer’s claim see also Lochner-Hüttenbach, Die Pelasger, 136. For the later discussions on
the ‘Pelasgian question’ in the twentieth century, see Lochner-Hüttenbach, Die Pelasger, 136 ff.
121
Sethi, Myths of the Nation, 5. An alternative term used in the literature for cultural nationalism is ‘scholarly
nationalism’. In this context, the term ‘scholarly Turkism’ is sometimes used here for Turkish cultural nationalism
and ‘scholarly Albanianism’ for the Albanian cultural nationalism.
122
The question of the readership in Albania during this period hasn’t been studied much. However one can find
valuable information in many secondary sources about the extent to which the circles that could follow these
discussions in different languages, including Albanian were limited.
123
Fatos Lubonja, ‘Between the Glory of a Vritual World and the Misery of a Real World’, in Stephanie
Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer, eds., Albanian Identities Myth and History, London: Hurst & Company,
2002, 91-103, 92.
124
Palok Daka, ‘Bibliografi retrospektive e shtypit periodik shqiptar e mbi Shqiperine e viteve 1848-1944, (I.
1848-1908)’, Studime Historike, Vol 25 (13), No 3, Tiranë, 1971, 139-170, 141; Seit Mansaku, ‘Pellazgishtja’, in
18
be cited.
section of his well-known pamphlet The Truth on Albania and the Albanians which was
published in 1878 and 1879 in different languages, Wassa Efendi (Pashko Vasa), who
was collaborating with Sami in the cultural-political activities in Istanbul, also advocated
the idea of the Pelasgians (and Illyrians as their later branch) as the ancestors of the
Albanians in order to prove the autochthony of his people.125
The so-called national poet of modern Albania, Naim Frashëri, who was Sami’s brother,
also lived in Istanbul and showed radical nationalist tendencies, wrote in his poem
“Shqipëria” (Albania), printed in Faik Konitza’s journal Albania of 25 May 1897, that
the first Albanians were called Pelasgians. He published another poem with the title
“Pellasgët-Shqiptaret” (Pelasgians-Albanians) in the following issue of the same journal,
in which he re-produces the myth of the Pelasgian origins of the Albanians while
referring to the ancient Greek writer Herodotus. 126
In many cases, Sami might have had an indirect access to such Western knowledge and
ideas on the history of the Albanians through the books and press articles of the
Albanian intellectuals of his time, with whom, we know, he had organic relations.127
There may also be borrowings from others’ texts in Sami’s other examples of the
modern “myths of military valour, of resistance and aristocracy”128: the Epirot king
Pyrrus (Pirro, Pyrrua, Burri) and the Illyrian queen Teuta (Tevta) were praised by Sami
because of their resistance against the Roman invasion.129 It was within the context of
the abovementioned theories of ‘Pelasgian-Illyrian origin and continuity’ (as the
products of Albanology) that “… the myths of the great Albanian men of antiquity were
created, among whom were Alexander the Great and Pirro of Epirus.”130
A kind of amalgamation of different discourses, i.e. explicit ‘interdiscursivity’ in Sami’s

book can be observed more surely. As an interesting case, one can discuss the
interception of the usual modernist paradigm observed especially in the last part of the
book, where Sami paints a modern(ist) picture of the future Albanian society and state
on the one hand, and his romanticist attitude, in the same book, on the other hand. There,
he underlines the positive side of the centuries-long isolated life of Albanians remote
from civilisation in the ‘barbarian times’:
“How did it happen that Albanians were able to preserve their language during
all these barbarian times? How was it possible that the Albanian language
survived without changes or damages despite the lack of letters, writing, and
schools, while other languages written and used with great care have changed
and deteriorated so much that they are now known as other languages? The
answer to all these questions is very simple: Albanians preserved their
language and their nationality not because they had letters, or knowledge, or
civilization, but because they had freedom, because they always stood apart
Aleks Buda, et al. eds., Fjalori enciklopedik shqiptar, Tiranë: Akad , e Shkencave e RPSSH, 1985, 817 and
Xhevat Lloshi, ‘‘Pellazgu’ (1860)’, in Aleks Buda, et al. eds., Fjalori enciklopedik shqiptar, Tiranë: Akad , e
Shkencave e RPSSH, 1985, 817. Another Albanian periodical with the same name would be published in 1907.
(Zihni Reso, ‘‘Pellazgu’ (1907)’, in Aleks Buda, et al. eds., Fjalori enciklopedik shqiptar, Tiranë: Akad , e
Shkencave e RPSSH, 1985, 817)
125
Wassa Efendi [Pashko Vasa] The Truth on Albania and the Albanians, Historical and Critical Issues,
(Translation by Edward Saint John Fairman), London: Centre for Albanian Studies, 1999 [1879], 3-13.
126
For an annotated re-publication of both poems, see Naim Frashëri, Vepra të Zgjedhura, Vellimi I, Tiranë: Naim
Frashëri, 1980, 242-247, 249-254.
127
As mentioned above, Sami was the leader of the secret Albanian nationalist Istanbul Committee until the end of
1890s.
128
George Schöpflin, ‘The Nature of Myth: Some Theoretical Aspects’, in Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers &
Bernd J. Fischer, eds., Albanian Identities Myth and History, London: Hurst & Company, 2002, 26-32.
129
130
Lubonja, ‘Between the Glory, 92.
19
be cited.
and didn’t mix with other people or let foreigners live among them. This
isolation from the world, from knowledge, civilization and trade, in one word
- this savage mountain life allowed the Albanians to preserve their language
and nationality.”131
This romanticist picture of isolated ‘barbarian’ life might remind us of Rousseau’s idea
of the ‘noble savage’, which is also displayed, though implicitly, when Sami admires the
Albanians for being brave warriors at several places in the book. Nevertheless Sami’s
main goal is the modernisation of Albania, which logically means elimination of all
those pre-modern values and institutions however romantic they are. It is noteworthy,
therefore, to remember also that the Ottoman government had actually been attempting
modernisation of the empire, including Albania. It is not astonishing to see this
ambivalence in other regions of the world as well: Writing on India during the British
colonial period, Rumuna Sethi states that
“… the writing of indigenous history has spread to take two self-contradictory
courses: configuration within the orientalist constellation by an emphasis on
the ancient past, and urge to break away from that very past. In terms of
modernity and development, the nation-state could follow hardly any direction
other than what had been modelled by the British. The ambivalence is seen in
the abandonment of ancestral culture for a more advanced standard and the
demand that the ancient be retained as a mark of identity. Both the reliance on
antiquity and the affirmation of modernity persistently held the emerging
nation-state within the orbit of Orientalism, representing what Partha
Chatterjee calls the ‘liberal-rationalist dilemma’ of nationalist thought.”132
One can observe a similar amalgamation of different texts and discourses within Sami’s
Turkish articles as well. Here, again, the referred facts (directly or indirectly), terms and
information are from the texts on the history, language and culture of Turkish-speaking
people produced either by Western scholars and intellectuals, or Turkish-speaking
‘transmitters’ through their earlier works influenced by modern Western studies.
It is important to note, first of all, that the honour of ‘discovery’ of ‘Turkey’ as a country
and of the ‘Turkish’ people belongs to Western scholars, contributing to the emergence
of Turcology, “a source of future inspiration for Turkish nationalism”.133 Even the
ethnonym “Turk” for all Turkish-speaking people of the Ottoman Empire (and
sometimes for all Muslims) and the very ambiguous toponym “Turkey” with a new
meaning were imported by Ottoman intellectuals from European languages: The term
‘Turk’, had been used in the Ottoman official idiom for ‘crude, ignorant, nomadic’
people in a patronizing manner: “… until the 18th and 19th centuries the Turks, usually
thought of as the heart of the empire, took only a limited part in governing, and the very
name of ‘Turk’ was used to mean ‘uncouth peasant lout’. … ‘Turk’ was an insulting
epithet not only among the meritocracy, but also the Istanbul populace at large.”134 The
emergence of cultural Turkish nationalism based on cultural studies in the fields of
linguistics and history attributed a new meaning to the word ‘Turk’. It started to be used
to signify a noble nation which had in the past been the founders of glorious
131
Shqipëria. Ç’ka qënë, 17-18.
132
Sethi, Myths of the Nation, 17.
133
İlber Ortaylı, ‘The Problem of Nationalities in the Ottoman Empire Following the Second Siege of Vienna’, in
idem, Studies on Ottoman Transformation, Istanbul: ISIS, 1994, 19-32, 32.
134
Op. cit., 21-22.
20
be cited.
civilisations. These studies possessed at the same time a kind of defensive character and
were counterpoised against the modernist characterization of Turks as ‘barbarians’.135
Turcological studies in the West played an important role in not limiting Turkish history
to the Ottoman period and tracing the history of the Turks back to the pre-Islamic era:
The emergence of interest in the pre-Islamic history of the Ottoman Turks, the discovery
of the ‘Turkic people’ and the construction of the discourse of the ‘brotherhood of all
Turkic peoples in Asia’ were also contributed by Western Orientalists/Turcologists.
Using Chinese, Islamic and the Turkish sources, Western Orientalists, had already from
the eighteenth century on began with to write books about the ‘Turks’ as founders of
great civilisations before the Ottomans, and had a rich language and history. The novel
interest of these Western scholars in the pre-Islamic history of the Ottoman Turks and in
the ‘Turkic people’ outside the Empire, and the construction of the discourse of the
‘brotherhood of all Turkic peoples in Asia’ were voluntarily taken over by some
Ottoman intellectuals136 in the second half of the nineteenth century. As a result of
linguistic, historical and literary studies among the first Turkish cultural nationalists,
increasing attention of the Turkists was devoted to the civilization of the Turks in the
world:
“In the later part of the nineteenth century, partly under European impact,
there developed in the Empire much interest in Turkish studies. Native
scholars ‘rediscovered’ their past history, the riches of their language and the
beauty of heir literature. Although interpretations and conclusions obviously
varied, many historians and linguists found their research was uncovering a
past going back hundreds years and even thousands years, embracing other
peoples of kindred origins.”137
The most influential books that played vital role in the introduction of the sentiment of
Turkishness among some Ottoman intellectuals were: Joseph de Guignes’ (1721-1800)
Historie generale des Huns, des Turcs, des Mongoles, et autres Tartares occidenteaux,
etc., avant et depuis Jesus-Christ jusqa a present, Paris, 1756-1758; Arthur Lumley
Davids’ (1811-1832) A Turkish Language Grammar. With preliminary discussion on the
language and literature of the Turkish nations, a copious vocabulary, dialogues, a
collection of extracts in prose and verse, etc., London, 1832;138 and Leon Cahun’s
(1841-1900), Introduction a l’historie de l’Asie, Paris, 1896. In this latter book, which
135
Kushner, The Rise of Turkish nationalism, 12.
136
As in the cases of two of ‘fathers of Turkish nationalism’ Sami and later Ziya Gökalp (1876-1924), inter alias,
and in the case of more radical Turkist intellectuals of the later periods, these intellectuals were sometimes not
even ‘originally’ Turkish or ‘native’ Turkish speakers. Furthermore, “It is interesting to note that none of the
founders of the first nucleus of the main Young Turk organisation, the Committee of Union and Progress,
[founded in 1889] in the Royal Medical Academy was of Turkish origin, and they represented the important
Muslim groups in which a strong sense of nationalism was yet to develop – Albanians, Kurds, Circassians.” Şükrü
M. Hanioğlu, ‘Turkish Nationalism and the Young Turks, 1889-1908’, in Fatma Muge Göçek, ed., Social
Constructions of Nationalism in the Middle East, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002, 85- 97, 87.
137
Jacob M. Landau, Pan-Turkism in Turkey: From Irredentism to Cooperation, London: Hurst & Company,
1995 [1981], 30.
138
This “was important not only as the first systematic grammar of Turkish to be published but also as an
historical work. Its introduction contained a history of Turkish peoples, a survey of Turkish languages or dialects
still being spoken, and an account of the cultural and literary output of the Ottoman Turks, was imbued with
respect and admiration for the Turks’ role in civilization.” Kushner, The Rise of Turkish nationalism, 9. Four years
after the original publication (and also the death of the author), a French translation by Davids’ mother was
published in Paris: Grammaire torque, Traduite de l’anglais par Madame Sarah Davids, London, 1836. (See
Devereux’ note in Ziya Gökalp, The Principles of Turkism, translated from Turkish and annotated by Robert
Devereux, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968 [1920], 2, fn 4.)
21
be cited.
“was at this time en vogue, having appeared in Constantinople bookstores in 1896”139

and which “aroused interest in Turkism in all quarters”,140 Cahun
“… put forward again a Turanian, or Fino-Japone, race – the forerunners of
civilization in Europe. (…) In a highly romantic style sure to influence his
Turkish readers, Cahun described the positive features of the early Turks and
their cultural endeavours.”141
In this very context of the emergence of the interest in the origins of the Turks (or Turkic
people in general),142 which was a direct result of the acquaintance with the Turcology
studies abroad,143 Sami translated, as mentioned above, the monumental eleventh-
century Turkic text of Yusuf Has Hacip Balasagun, Kutadgu Bilig (Kudatku Bilik) into
Ottoman Turkish, using also Armin Vambery’s (1832-1913) German translation
published together with the original text in 1870.144 In the preface of this translation,
which has never been published, Sami openly thanks Vambery in the name of the whole
Turkish nation [umum Türk kavmi]. Because, according to Sami, it is thanks to
Vambery’s efforts that “it is now understood that our language is older than ancient
literary Persian and most European languages, and that it can be used in schools.”145
Another example of the attempts by Sami for transmitting the outcomes of the recent
139
Charles Warren Hostler, Turkism and the Soviets. The Turks of the World and Their Political Objectives,
London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1957, 141.
140
Gökalp, The Principles of Turkism, 6. “Among certain Turks, this work and others served to increase pride in
Turkish origins and heritage (in contrast with Ottoman and Muslim roots) and foster a yet unknown sentiment of
nationalism. In addition, such publications stimulated interest in kindred peoples, mostly those of Central Asia, whose
history, language or literature had an affinity with those of the Turks themselves.” (Jacob M. Landau, Pan-Turkism in
Turkey: From Irredentism to Cooperation, London: Hurst & Company, 1995 [1981], 31)
141
Kushner, The Rise of Turkish nationalism, 10.
142
For another example of work in the same realm of ‘interest in the origins of Turks’ abroad, see E. H. Parker,
‘The Origins of the Turks’, The English Historical Review, XI, London, 1896, 431-445.
143
“One of the most important sources of these [Turkist] ideas was the new European science of Turcology. From
the 18th century onwards as a series of scholars ... had studied the history and languages of the eastern and pre-
islamic Turks. From the work of scholars like Joseph de Guignes (1721-1800), Abel-Remusat (1788-1832),
Stanislas Julien (1799-1873), Hendrich J. Klaproth (1783,1835), Edouard Chavannes (1865-1918), Vilhelm
Thomsen (1842-1927), Wilhelm Radloff (1837-1918) and others, a new light was thrown on the hitherto obscure
history of the Turks before they entered Islam.” (Bernard Lewis, ‘History-Writing and National Revival in
Turkey’, Middle Eastren Affairs, 4, 1953, 218-227, 221 quoted by Jens peter Laut, Das Türkische als Ursprache?
Sprachwissenschaftliche Theorien in der Zeit des erwachsenden türkischen Nationalismus, Wieasbaden:
Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000, 19, fn. 11.) Kushner adds two more names to this list of the “Orientalists of the
nineteenth century”, who “had considerable influence on Turkish intellectuals”: the Frenchman A. I. de Sacy and
the Englishman E. J. W. Gibb. Kushner, The Rise of Turkish nationalism, 10.
144
H. Vambery, Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku-Bilik, Innsbruck, 1870. For information on
Vambery, his being in the pay of the British Government and his peculiar role in the emergence of Turkish
nationalism, see Mim Kemal Öke, ‘Professor Arminius Vambery and Anglo-Ottoman Relations 1889-1907’
Bulletin of the Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1985 and Mim Kemal Öke, Vambery Belgelerle Bir
Devletlerarasi Casusun Yaşam Öyküsü, Istanbul: Bilge Yayıncılık, 1985. See also his autobiography Arminius
Vambéry: his life and adventures, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1884.
145
Dağlıoğlu, Şemsettin Sami Bey, 48. See also Tural, Şemsettin Sami, 121. According to one of the first political
Turkists Necip Asım [Yazıksız] (1861-1935), he gave a copy of Radloff’s translation of Kutadgu Bilig to Sami
who had been using Vambery’s translation, after informing him that Vambery had translated only some parts of
the work and although Vambery’s translation was, according to Necip Asim, ‘more pro-Turkish’, Radloff’s one
was complete. (Levend, Şemsedin Sami, 96-97) For the first published facsimile of the full text of Kutadgu Bilig
by Radloff, see Kudatku Bilik, Facsimile der Uigurischen Handschrift der K.K. Hofbibliothek in Wien, im
Auftrage der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu St. Petersbug, Herausgegeben von Dr. W. Radloff, St.
Petersburg, 1890. For the fırst trasncription of the text by Radloff, see Das Kudatku Bilik des Jusuf Chass-
Hadschib aus Bälasagun, Theil I, Der Text in Transcription heraussgegeben von Dr. W. Radloff, St. Petersburg,
1891. For the first translation of the coplete text into Russian and German, see Das Kudatku Bilik des Jusuf Chass-
Hadschib aus Bälasagun, Theil II, Text und Übersetzung nach den Handschriften von Wien und Kairo,
heraussgegeben von Dr. W. Radloff, St. Petersburg, 1910. For the first published text and anotated translation of
the Kutadgu Bilig into modern Turkish, see Reşid Rahmeti Arat, Kutadgu Bilig I: Metin, Istanbul: MEB, 1947;
Reşid Rahmeti Arat, Kutadgu Bilig II: Tercüme, Ankara: TTK, 1959 and Reşid Rahmeti Arat, Kutadgu Bilig III:
İndeks, Istanbul: TKAE, 1979.
22
be cited.
Turcology studies into the Ottoman Empire was his unpublished translation of the Old
Turkish inscriptions on the river Orhon known as Orhon (Orkhon) Inscriptions, which
started to be deciphered by the Danish scholar Vilhelm Thomsen (1842-1927) from 1893
onwards, and since then used by the Turkish nationalists as an evidence for the antiquity
of Turkishness.146 This effort of Sami to popularise the findings Turcology studies on
Orhon Inscriptions (as well as on Kutadgu Bilig), which was the first attempt in the
Ottoman Empire, has always been represented in modern Turkey as one of the strongest
evidence for his Turkish nationalism, and even his being one of the fathers of Turkish
nationalism.147
The direct influence of Turcology studies on Sami’s Turkish texts studied here is not that
clear, as there is no direct reference to any other ‘source.’ It can be stated, however, that
Sami was transmitting in these texts the common knowledge and ideas of European
Turcology (as a component of Orientalism) of his time while, in related articles, talking
about the Turkish language and its (potential) role in the definition of Turkish nation and
brotherhood of all Turkic people in the related articles.148 The rather decisive role of
Western Turcology (as an initiator of a ‘paradigm shift’ in the minds of many Ottoman
Muslim intellectuals) have also been acknowledged with gratitude by the ‘founders’ of
Turkish nationalism themselves.149
Instead of referring to these and other Western works, Sami might have used the earlier
works of the first Ottoman intellectuals under the influence of Turcology studies as an
important component of Orientalism, the following ones being the most well-known
examples: Mustafa Celaleddin Pasha’s (a.k.a. Konstantin [Konstanty] Polzokic-
Borzecki, 1826-1876) Les Turcs anciens et modernes (Old and Modern Turks), which
was published in French in Istanbul in 1869, is generally taken as the first work in the
Ottoman Empire written under the influence of Western Turcology. Then comes Ahmed
Vefik Pasha’s (1823-1891) translation of Şecere-i Türk, (Genealogies of Turks) from
Eastern Turkish into Ottoman Turkish published under the title Efsal-i Şecere-i Türki in
1864, written by Ebul Gazi Bahadır Han (1603-1639), ruler of Khiva from 1643 to his
death. Another work of Ahmed Vefik Pasha that was important in this context is his
book Lehçe-i Osmani (The Ottoman Dialect) published first in 1876 and later reprinted
146
Necip Asım himself would later publish a work on Orhon Inscriptions. (Levend, Şemsedin Sami, 97, fn. 1). On
Orhon Inscriptions and history of their discovery and deciphering, see Talat Tekin, Orhun Yazıtları, Ankara:
AKDTKYK Yayınları, 1988.
147
Dağlıoğlu, Şemsettin Sami Bey, 40-56; Levend, Şemsedin Sami, 150-151; Çalık, Şemseddin Sami, 64-65 and
204; and Tural 1999, 28.
148
On Sprachnationalismus in general see Miroslav, Hroch, The Social Interpretation of Linguistic Demands in
European National Movements, Florence: European Forum, 1994. For the Sprachnationalismus in the Balkans,
see Karl Gutschmidt & Claudia Hopf, ‘National Sprachen und Sprachnationalismus in Sudosteuropa’ in Uwe
Hinrichs, ed., Handbuch der Sudosteuropa-Linguistik, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1999, 803-805. For a
study on Sprachnationalismus in Turkey, see Hüseyin Sadoğlu, Türkiye’de Ulusçuluk ve Dil Politikaları, İstanbul:
Bilgi Universitesi Yayınları, 2003. For a study on the process of ‘linguistic modernisation’ in the late Ottoman
Empire, which encompassed also the emergence of cultural nationalism among various intellectual groups, see
Agah Sırrı Levend, Türk Dilinde Gelişme ve Sadeleşme Evreleri, (İkinci Basım), Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu,
1960.
149
Ziya Gökalp Türkçülüğün Esasları, İstanbul: Varlık Yayınevi, 1966 [1920], 5-9 and Yusuf Akçuraoğlu, Türkçülük
ve Dış Türkler, İstanbul: Toker Yayınları, 1990, 34-35. This rather appreciative way of citing the European
Turcologists can also be observed in the works of some nationalist intellectuals of later years: Huseyin Namik Orkun,
Türkçülüğün Tarihi, Istanbul: Berkalp Kitabevi, 1944, 28-36 and Ali Kemal Meram, Türkçülük ve Türkçülük
Mücadeleleri, İstanbul: Kültür Kitabevi, 1969. For a brief account of the Turcology studies and their influence on the
Ottoman intellectuals, see Ali Engin Oba, Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Doğuşu, İmge Yayınları, İstanbul, 1994, 121-128. See
also, Charles Warren Hostler, Turkism and the Soviets. The Turks of the World and Their Political Objectives,
London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1957, 140-142, David Kushner, The rise of Turkish Nationalism, 1876-1908,
London: Cass, 1977, 9-12 and İlber Ortaylı, ‘Türkoloji ve Slavistik: Türkiye Türkolojisi ve Rusya ve Sovyet Türk
Aydınlarının Türkolojisi Üzerine’, in idem, Osmanlı İmaratorluğu’nda İktisadi ve Sosyal Değişim, Makaleler 1,
Ankara: Turhan Kitabevi, 2000, 387-394.
23
be cited.
in 1888 and 1889, in the introduction to which the author wrote that the Turks and the
Turkish language did not just refer to the Ottomans and the Ottoman language, but to a
people spanning the territories from Asia to Europe and to their language. Maybe more
influential than these was the book of the minister of military schools, Süleyman Hüsnü
Pasha (1838-1892), entitled Tarih-i Alem (History of the World) published in 1876, a
part of which was devoted to the pre-Islamic Turkish history.150 He also played an
important role in the emergence of the Turkish cultural nationalism through introducing
national history into the curriculum of military schools and through another book on
Turkish (not Ottoman!) language entitled İlm-i Sarf-ı Türki (The Turkish Grammar)
published in 1874. One of the three leaders of the Young Ottomans, Ali Suavi (1839-
1878), who displayed a kind of ambivalent ‘Turkism’ through his books and writings in
the 1870s in his newspapers Muhbir and Ulum, has also been counted among the
initiators of the awareness among the Ottoman Turkish intellectuals of the ‘Turks’
outside the Ottoman Empire.151
Beside these intellectuals preceding him, Sami might also have used the works of the
Turkish intellectuals of his own time, who were actively involved in the construction of
the Turkish nation. These contemporary intellectuals were called “the first Turkists” by a
Turkish radical nationalist author.152 Cultural Turkism, alongside the ideas of ‘Ottoman
nationhood’ (Ottomanism) and ‘Islamic unity’ (Islamism), continued to attract the
intellectuals of a new generation in the second phase of the ‘scholarly Turkism’ from the
1880s on, from which the first political Turkists emerged. The adoption of Turkish in the
Constitution of 1876 as the official language of the state153 and Ahmed Vefik Pasha’s
warning in the first Ottoman parliament (1877-1878) to Nakkaş Efendi, a Christian
deputy from Syria, that he should learn Turkish154 can hardly be seen a sign of Turkism.
However, the number of such signs was increasing in the articles on non-political issues
like language, literature and history published during the following decades in both
150
This part of Süleyman Pasah’s book was based mainly on the abovementioned work of Joseph de Guignes
(Historie generale des Huns, des Turcs, des Mongoles, et autres Tartares occidenteaux, Paris, 1756-1758): “De
Guignes’s history had clearly influenced Süleyman’s Turkism, for the later, the first man in Turkey to write a
history of Turks on the basis of Chinese sources, cited De Guignes in his Tarih-i Alem (History of the World)”
(Gökalp, The Principles of Turkism, 4)
151
The recognition (and praise) of these publications in the ‘first phase of the scholarly Turkism’ as the initiators
of (cultural) Turkism can be seen in the later works of later Turkish nationalists: For three different examples, see
Akçuraoğlu, Türkçülük ve Dış Türkler, 22-61; Gökalp Türkçülüğün Esasları, 7-10 and Meram, Türkçülük ve
Türkçülük Mücadeleleri, 91-115. It is also repeated (without much elaboration on the content of these works) in
almost all summaries of the emergence of Turkish nationalism in the scholarly works in the twentieth century:
See, for example, Uriel Heyd, Foundations of Turkish nationalism: the life and teachings of Ziya Gökalp, London:
Luzac, 1950, 105-107; idem, Language Reform in Modern Turkey, Jerusalem: Hadassah Apprentice School of
Printing, 1954, 9-18, Charles Warren Hostler, Turkism and the Soviets. The Turks of the World and Their Political
Objectives, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1957, 142-146; Kushner, The Rise of Turkish nationalism, 8-10,
Ali Engin Oba, Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Doğuşu, İmge Yayınları, İstanbul, 1994, 189-205, Jacob M. Landau, Pan-
Turkism in Turkey: From Irredentism to Cooperation, London: Hurst & Company, 1995 [1981], 33-35; Geoffrey
Lewis, The Turkish Language Reform, A Catastrophic Success, Oxford, 1999, 12-19 and Jens peter Laut, Das
Türkische als Ursprache? Sprachwissenschaftliche Theorien in der Zeit des erwachsenden türkischen
Nationalismus, Wieasbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000, 18-20.
152
Orkun, Türkçülüğün Tarihi, 50.
153
According to the article 18 of the constitution “a prerequisite for Ottoman subjects’ employment in State
service is that they know Turkish, which is official language of the state.” (Gözübüyük & Kili, Türk Anayasa
Metinleri, 26. The translation here is from Geoffrey Lewis, The Turkish Language Reform, A Catastrophic
Success, Oxford, 1999, 16.)
154
Hakkı Tarık Us, ed., Meclis-i Mebusan Zabıt Ceridesi, 1293=1877, Istabul: Vakit Gazetesi, 1940, 313. It must
be stated that it is impossible to agree with Ortaylı’s claim that this act could be interpreted as one of the “first
unmistakable examples of Turkish nationalism…”, although it cannot be elaborated more thereupon here. One of
the reasons for my recejtion of this claim is the fact offered by Ortaylı himself in the sentence immediately after
the previous one: “… it would take until the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century
for Turkishness to become the seed of a nationalism.” (Ortaylı, ‘The Problem of Nationalities in the Ottoman
Empire, 31)
24
be cited.
books and in such newspapers as Sabah (from 1875/76 onwards), Tercüman-ı Hakikat
(from 1878 onwards) and İkdam (from 1894 onwards), because of the prohibition of
publishing on political issues by Abdulhamid’s regime. Two examples of such books
were, Ahmet Mithat Efendi’s (1844-1912) Mufassal Tarih-i Kuran-i Cedid (A Detailed
History of the Modern Age) and Mizancı Murad’s (1854-1917) 6-volume work Tarih-i
Umumi (General History) published between 1881 and 1883 drawing on the Turkish
history that preceded the Ottomans and Islam. An abridged one-volume version of this
work was published in 1886 under the title Muhtasar Tarih-i Umumi. A more important
book, Türk Tarihi (Turkish History) published in 1900 by Necip Asım [Yazıksız] (1861-
1935), was based mainly on Cahun’s above-mentioned book Introduction a l'histoire de
L'Asie : Turcs et Mongols; des origines a 1405 published in Paris in 1896. His two
previous pamphlets had also played a pioneering role in attempts to invoke the interest
of the Ottoman intellectuals for the pre-Islamic history of the Turks: Ural ve Altay
Dilleri (The Ural and Altay Languages) published in 1895 and En Eski Türk Yazısı (The
Oldest Turkish Inscription) published in 1899. Another example of a book with some
Turkist elements, in Sami’s time, was Bursalı Mehmet Tahir’s (1861-1926) biographical
and bibliographic book Türklerin Ulum ve Fünuna Hizmetleri (The Contribution of the
Turks to Learning and Sciences) published in 1898, glorifying the role played by the
Turks in Islamic civilisation. In this period, one more important publication, which can
be rather seen as the initiator of the new phase of ‘literary Turkism’ (following the
scholarly one), was Mehmet Emin’s [Yurdakul] (1869-1944) poetry book Türkçe Şiirleri
(Turkish Poems) published in 1897. Reflecting strong feelings of patriotism and
nationalism as a reaction against the disappointment caused by Turkish-Greek war in
1897, which was ‘won’ by the Ottoman armies on the battlefields, but ‘lost’ on the
diplomatic ground according to the common perception in Turkey, this book is important
for the study of Sami’s Turkish nationalism: Sami was one of the few prominent
‘Turkish’ intellectuals who were asked to write their comments on the book and whose
letter of praise was published in the book itself.155 Finally, at the end of nineteenth and
beginning of the twentieth centuries, political Turkism gained momentum first among
the Turks of Russia and then in the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. Sami’s texts
always played an important role during this period in the continuous re-production
and/or consolidation of the historical and linguistic myths in the initial production and/or
popularisation of which Sami played important role.
It must be underlined that Sami’s role as an (direct and/or indirect) ‘importer’ of
ethnocentric knowledge and ideas from the West was more revolutionary in the Turkish
case than in the Albanian one, for Turkish (cultural or political) nationalism was not as
developed as the Albanian version, when Sami, like his contemporaries,156 was playing
the similar role for cultural Turkish nationalism through his writings. It is difficult to
speak of a political Turkish nationalism in the period of the publication of Sami’s texts
analysed here (i.e. before 1880s) and even immediately afterwards (before his death in
155
For the reprint of Sami’s letter, see Şemseddin Sami ‘Mehmet Emin Yurdakul’a Mektup’, (Sadeleştiren:
Cevdet Kudret), Türk Dili, Yıl 24, Vol. XXX, No 274 (Temmuz), 1974, 165-166. To give an idea about the
content of the book, it might be meaningful to quote the following lines from the first poem ttiled ‘Anadoludan bis
ses yahut Cenge giderken’ (A Voice from Anatolia or Going to War), which became very famous among the later
Turkists: “I am a Turk, my faith and race are great; / My breast and soul are full of fire. / He who serves his native
land - he is a man; / The sons of Turks will not stay at home; I go! [to battlefield]” (The translation here is from
Geoffrey Lewis, The Turkish Language Reform, A Catastrophic Success, Oxford, 1999, 18.)
156
It is commonly acknowledged, both by scholars and Turkish nationalists, that Ali Suavi, Mustafa Celaleddin
Paşa, Ahmed Vefik Paşa were, together with Sami the pioneers of the Turkish (cultural or proto-) nationalism, i.e.
‘fathers’ of Turkish nationalism. See, for an example: İlber Ortaylı, İmparatorluğun En Uzun Yüzyılı, (2nd ed.),
Istanbul, 1987, 211.
25
be cited.
1904).157 However, it is remarkable to see Sami in close relationship with Turkish

intellectuals some of whom would also become the leaders of political Turkish
nationalism: Veled Çelebi [İzbudak] (1869-1950) and Necip Asım mentioned above
were among the few people who sometimes visited Sami at his home, where he was de
facto interned by the government.158 Sami had friendly relations with the
owner/publisher and writers of the journal İkdam published with the subtitle of ‘Turkish
Newspaper’, and which had an important place in the spread of cultural Turkism and the
promotion of the idea of nationalism in Turkey.
V) Conclusion: Hybridity and Ambiguity as Normality

In order to be able to understand the (possibly) paradoxical case of Sami’s texts
contributing to both Turkish and Albanian nationalisms, this problematic must be put
into the broadest context, which has been conventionally described as Westernisation,
Europeanization, civilization, modernisation, etc. There were concurrently various
alternative (political, social, linguistic, cultural) projects for future, some of which were
in strong contrast. It was the all encompassing ‘master project’ of modernization that
offered a framework within which it became consistent to support simultaneously
different (secondary) projects that are intercepting and conflicting. It was this master
project that rendered all others ‘instruments’ in the march towards the ultimate target of
‘civilization’. Holding the aim of reaching that all-encompassing goal above everything
else, Sami was, first of all, a modernist, who regarded instrumental other (secondary)
projects for the construction of a modern collective identity within modern (civilised)
society. This identity could be either ethnocentric national or religious (Islamic), or
imperial (Ottomanism). According to many modernist intellectuals like Sami, the
modern ‘nation’ was the most developed (civilized) form of human society, a ‘national
identity’ was the ideal collective identity, and the ‘nation state’ was the ideal political,
economic and cultural institution for it.
There is a clear consistency, in this broader context, in Sami’s approach of contributing
to the discursive construction of a modern national identity both for the ‘Turks’ and for
the ‘Albanians’.159 The question arises rather within the paradigm of nationalism,
according to which every individual is supposed to have one national identity only. As it
has been clearly shown in recent studies on nationalism, a national identity is usually
defined not only through the use of cohesive elements (invented values and traditional
ones that have been attributed a new meaning and importance), but also through not
being confused with ‘the others’, who are separated from the targeted group sometimes
very artificially. As ‘not being Turkish’ was one such determinant for ‘being Albanian’
in the case of Albanian nationalism, it is very paradoxical in the framework of the
paradigm of nationalism to support, and even, to contribute to both nationalisms. To be
157
For the history of the cultural and political Turkish nationalism in general, see Kushner, The Rise of Turkish
nationalism, pasim. For the lack of Turkish nationalism in the oppositional political movement of the Young Turks
between 1889 and 1908, see Hanioğlu, Turkish Nationalism and the Young Turks, passim and idem, The Young
Turks in Opposition, New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. For a very good contextualisation of
“the emergence of Greek, Armenian, Turkish, and Arab Nationalisms”, see Fatma Muge Göçek, ‘Decline of the
Ottoman Empire and the Emergence of Greek, Armenian, Turkish and Arab Nationalisms’, in idem, ed., Social
Constructions of Nationalism in the Middle East, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002, 15-83.
158
Both Necip Asım and Veled Çelebi have univocally been counted among the first Turkish nationalists and were
praised in later Turkish nationalist historiography as the ‘first Turkists’: See, for example, Orkun, Türkçülüğün
Tarihi, 50-53 (for Veled Çelebi) and 53-56 (for Necip Asım). Orkun states that Sami was befriended with Necip
Asım (Orkun, Türkçülüğün Tarihi, 49), and that Veled Çelebi helped Sami in the translation of old Turkish texts in
his last years. (Orkun, Türkçülüğün Tarihi, 51)
159
This was attempted to be accomplished thorough developing a new language (ethnocentric re-interoperations of
the old words, invention of the new ones, working on linguistic reform etc.) and giving the language itself a new
role and meaning.
26
be cited.
able to understand this paradox of Sami, one may imagine a comprehensive psycho-
historical study on Sami that might contribute to the explanation of this individual case.
However, the question may lie rather in our mentality that sees multiple-national-identity
as a paradox. This becomes more probable when we study such ‘transition periods’ such
as the one in which Sami was active, an era of radical and rapid shift in mega-paradigms
(civilization) which rendered interception and conflict a normal condition.
27

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MYTHS OF ORIGIN AND AUTOCHTHONY IN

II) Contextualisation: Sami and his texts

monolingual (Turkish-Turkish)11 and bilingual (French-Turkish12 and Turkish-French13)

opening Albanian schools in 1885-87.21 Sami pursued his activities as a nationalist

The ‘biographies’ of the analyzed texts and their canonization

III) Analysis of the Text Corpus

IV) The question of intertextuality and interdiscursivity

Pouqueville (1820-1821)107 and the Greek student in Göttingen (Germany) Nikolaos

language), and added to this theory of Malte-Brun’s identification of the Ur-

A kind of amalgamation of different discourses, i.e. explicit ‘interdiscursivity’ in Sami’s

“was at this time en vogue, having appeared in Constantinople bookstores in 1896”139

1904).157 However, it is remarkable to see Sami in close relationship with Turkish

V) Conclusion: Hybridity and Ambiguity as Normality

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