A Zog’s life in Albania
QUESTION Why did King Zog I of Albania adopt the name Skanderbeg III?
ZOG I carved out a throne for himself following hundreds of years of Ottoman rule of Albania. He added the name of Skanderbeg, the national hero, to his title to reinforce his position.
Zog was born Ahmed Bey Zogolli in 1895, the son of an Albanian noble.
When the Ottomans left in 1913, Prince Wilhelm of Weid became Albania’s figurehead and adopted the title Skanderbeg II.
He was exiled a year later. During World War I, Albania was in disarray as other Balkan countries vied to seize parts of the country.
From 1920, there was a succession of short-lived governments in which Zogolli, going by the name Zogu, held various posts until he was exiled in 1924.
He returned at the end of the year and, backed by an army of Yugoslav mercenaries financed by international oil companies, established himself as Albania’s dictator with the title of president.
Zog began a fateful association with Italy in 1925: a major financial loan was followed in 1927 by a 20year defensive military alliance.
In 1928, with Italian approval, Zogu made his dictatorship permanent, proclaimed Albania a monarchy and took the title Zog I, King of the Albanians.
He also styled himself as Skanderbeg III to tap into the allure of the national hero.
The original Skanderbeg was George Kastrioti, born to a noble family in 1405 in northern Albania.
After the Ottoman invasion, he converted to Islam, became a ward of the court and studied at a military school in Turkey.
Sultan Murad II gave him the name Iskander, after Alexander the Great, and the rank of bey, which means chieftain or governor, hence Skanderbeg.
During the defeat of the Turks at Ni in Serbia in 1443, Skanderbeg rebelled, embraced Christianity and reclaimed his family possessions.
In 1444, he led a league of Albanian princes against the Ottoman Empire.
He repulsed 13 Turkish invasions, making him a hero throughout the Western world.
In 1463, he joined forces with Venice and launched an offensive against the Ottomans. Within a few years of his death in 1468, his citadel at Kruje had fallen and Albania succumbed to Ottoman rule.
The story of Skanderbeg became the foundation of the Albanian nationalist movement in the late 19th century.
When it achieved independence, Skanderbeg’s standard of a double-headed eagle was adopted as the national flag.
In the run-up to World War II, Zog lost his grip on his country. Mussolini made Albania his bridgehead to the Balkans, and by 1939 Italy controlled the country’s finances and army.
On April 7, 1939, Mussolini made Albania into a protectorate, Italy’s Victor Emmanuel III became its king and Zog went into exile.
His hopes of returning after the war were disappointed by the establishment of a communist republic under Enver Hoxha in 1945.
Marcus Allen, Plymouth, Devon.
QUESTION In Pisa, I saw billboards for Eighties band Tears For Fears. What other
British bands are more famous on the Continent than at home? THE London-born pop singer Kim Wilde was a huge hit in Britain in the early Eighties. Kids In America, her 1981 debut single, was a global hit and she had Top Tens with Chequered Love, You Keep Me Hanging On and You Came.
She won a Brit award and toured with Michael Jackson before disappearing from the British pop scene in the early Nineties.
However, she has remained popular on the Continent, particularly in Germany.
All of her albums achieved a better chart position in Germany than in the UK.
In 2003, she teamed up with Nena of 99 Red Balloons fame on a new version of the German singer’s Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime, which went to Number Three. Wilde appears at festivals and concerts all over Europe with her band.
Luke Grainger, Birmingham. GLAMOUR model Samantha Fox launched her music career in 1986 with her debut single Touch Me (I Want Your Body), which was Number One in 17 countries.
While she quickly fell out of favour in Britain, she has continued her popularity in Europe and beyond. She recently appeared on TV in France, Germany, Greece and Spain. Her gigs take her all over Europe, the US and the Middle East.
Rachel Moorhouse, Monmouth. A1 WERE a British boy band that formed in London 1998. They had nine Top Ten hits, including the Number Ones Take On Me and Same Old Brand New You.
Thanks to Norwegian member Christian Ingebrigtsen, their five albums charted higher there than in the UK.
Their last UK Top Ten hit was 2002’s Caught In The Middle, after which they split.
They reformed in 2009 and had three Top 20 hits in Norway, but none in Britain.
In their heyday of the early 2000s, they were massive in Asia, particularly Indonesia, where tragedy struck in 2001 – four fans were killed in a stampede to see them during a mall signing in Jakarta.
Katie Hollyoak, Wilmslow, Cheshire.
QUESTION When and where was the Turin Shroud discovered? When did it move to Turin?
THE initial answer was quite correct as to the name of the knight in whose possession a shroud of Jesus Christ is first said to have been found in 1353.
However, this was not the Geoffroi de Charney who had been the Templar Preceptor for Normandy. He had been executed in 1314 alongside Grand Master Jacques de Molay, two years after the Templar Order had been dissolved by Pope Clement V.
The Geoffroi de Charney, or Charny, who is alleged to have owned the Shroud was born in 1300 and may have been a nephew of the other.
This later Geoffroi was a secular knight, killed at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.
He is also remembered as the author of at least three works on the subject of chivalry.
However, there is no clear link to the Turin Shroud, which was repudiated by Bishop d’Arcis in 1390 in a letter to Pope Clement VII. This is the earliest record of its existence.
David Bradford, Belmonte, Portugal.
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