Illyrer - Albaner

From Illyria to Albania.

When the Roman Empire divided into east and west in 395, the territories of
modern Albania became part of the Byzantine Empire. As in the Roman
Empire, some Illyrians rose to positions of eminence in the new empire. Three
of the emperors who shaped the early history of Byzantium (reigning from 491
to 565) were of Illyrian origin: Anastasius I, Justin I, and--the most celebrated
of Byzantine emperors--Justinian I.

In the first decades under Byzantine rule (until 461), Illyria suffered the
devastation of raids by Visigoths, Huns, and Ostrogoths. Not long after these
barbarian invaders swept through the Balkans, the Slavs appeared. Between
the 6th and 8th centuries they settled in Illyrian territories and proceeded to
assimilate Illyrian tribes in much of what is now Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and Serbia. The tribes of southern Illyria, however--including
modern Albania--averted assimilation and preserved their native tongue.

In the course of several centuries, under the impact of Roman, Byzantine, and
Slavic cultures, the tribes of southern Illyria underwent a transformation, and a
transition occurred from the old Illyrian population to a new Albanian one. As a
consequence, from the 8th to the 11th century, the name Illyria gradually gave
way to the name, first mentioned in the 2nd century AD by the geographer
Ptolemy of Alexandria, of the Albanoi tribe, which inhabited what is now
central Albania. From a single tribe the name spread to include the rest of the
country as Arbri and, finally, Albania. The genesis of Albanian nationality
apparently occurred at this time as the Albanian people became aware that
they shared a common territory, name, language, and cultural heritage.
(Scholars have not been able to determine the origin of Shqiperia, the
Albanians' own name for their land, which is believed to have supplanted the
name Albania during the 16th and 17th centuries. It probably was derived from
shqipe, or "eagle," which, modified into shqipria, became "the land of the
eagle.")

Long before that event, Christianity had become the established religion in
Albania, supplanting pagan polytheism and eclipsing for the most part the
humanistic world outlook and institutions inherited from the Greek and Roman
civilizations. But, though the country was in the fold of Byzantium, Albanian
Christians remained under the jurisdiction of the Roman pope until 732. In that
year the iconoclast Byzantine emperor Leo III, angered by Albanian
archbishops because they had supported Rome in the Iconoclastic Controversy,
detached the Albanian church from the Roman pope and placed it under the
patriarch of Constantinople. When the Christian church split in 1054 between
the East and Rome, southern Albania retained its tie to Constantinople while
northern Albania reverted to the jurisdiction of Rome. This split in the Albanian
church marked the first significant religious fragmentation of the country.