A Turkish tour guide, Talha Ugurluel, posted a video online trying
to denigrate the figure of Albania’s national hero, Skanderbeg, causing harsh reactions.
Skanderbeg was kidnapped as a toddler by Turkish occupying armies and was raised as a soldier. Growing up, he left the Turkish army to return to his birthplace, where he unified Albanian leaders, declared independence and formed the first state of Albania that was recognized by then world powers.
This came at the cost of resisting against many other Turkish retaliation attempts and also against other invaders, and he always succeeded to keep the country free from occupation. Skanderbeg has since been the most inspiring unification figure among Albanians, who have always been divided by other occupiers.
But Ugurluel said in his video, posted on Youtube, (while touring Lezha, the place where tourists visit today the grave of our national figure,) that Skanderbeg had betrayed the Ottoman Empire and had lived illegally with Albanians. He says he was baptized by the Pope for this, and even compared him to today’s Kurdish communist parties.
Ugurluel calls Skanderbeg’s battles to defend his country as “attacks against the empire carried out by an illegal thief who had declared war to the Ottomans”.
The video was removed from Youtube for the faul language and a petition is undergoing for declaring him non-grata in Albania.
Ugurluel received fame in Turkey because he travels to countries that used to be under the Ottoman Empire and tells his offensive variant of their history.
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