Mark Mazower Quotes

“Hasan Pasha also gave the green light for Turks and Greeks to take whatever action they pleased against any Albanians they found: killing them was not a crime. Continuing his march, he executed all the Albanians he encountered, setting fire to a monastery where other were hiding and offering five sequins for every Albanian head brought him.”

“Albania’s future is towards Christianity, since it is connected with it culturally, old memories, and its pre-Turkish nostalgia. With the passing of time, the late Islamic religion that came with the Ottomans should evaporate (at first in Albania and then in Kosova), until it will be replaced by Christianity or, to be more exact, Christian culture. Thus from one evil (the prohibition of religion in 1967) goodness will come. The Albanian nation will make a great historical correction that will accelerate its unity with its mother continent: Europe”

“Religion mattered at a deep level, which must help to explain why none of these people went over to Islam; but in most cases it did not direct their lives, nor did it prevent some of them from cultivating their connection with a powerful relative who was a Muslim convert. Whilst the fact that they were Catholics from one of Christendom’s frontier zones may have given them an enhanced sense of their Catholicism, the fact that they were Albanians, connected by language, blood and history to Ottoman subjects and Ottoman territory, gave them an ability to see things also from something more like an Ottoman perspective”

“If you lend you either lose the money or gain an enemy.”

“Every guest hates the others and the host hates them all.”

“At least as coherent as the Gettysburg Address backwards in Albanian, anyway.”

“Albanians are a nation of freedom fighters who know something about living under oppression.”

“Even if we have to go without bread, we Albanians do not violate principles. We do not betray Marxism - Leninism.”

“I love eating at my dad's pub, the Queens Arms in Kilburn. It does a traditional Albanian spinach pie.”

“Do whatever you want, as long as you say you want to be a part of Europe. And then you’ll get away with anything. Look, the Albanians do God knows what. They sell weapons and women, they take hostages. And the world forgives then, as long as they’re pro-Europe and pro-NATO. They’ll forgive us, too. That’s the trend in today’s world.”