Kaninë

P3

Remains of the Castle

Kanina ( Albanian: Kaninë ) is a village in southern Albania. It is located about six kilometers southeast of the port city of Vlora on a hill, which belongs to the northern reaches of Ceraunischen Mountains. The center of the village are the remains of an old fortress from which overlooks both the nearby coast of the Adriatic Sea and the city of Vlora.

It was settled in the 4th century BC, when the Illyrians moored a small fortress. In the 4th century AD, the town was re-attached because of the barbarian invasions in the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire. Emperor Justinian had the fastenings to expand, in whose protection arose a small urban settlement. Probably at the time of the Bulgarian rule in the 10th century was Kanina seat of a bishop who was under the Metropolitan of Ohrid.

In the late Middle Ages, the town remained strategically important. The despots of Epirus held a garrison in Kanina. In the second half of the 13th century Kanina was passed as the dowry Helena Angelina Dukaina from the family of the Angels to her husband Manfred of Sicily. This left it to one of his vassals to manage.

The Castle of Kanina was then about 1270 to 1330 more than once the residence of the governor, which managed the Angevin possessions in Albania. After that she made for several decades the center of a small principality, which was successively vassal princes of Epirus, the Serbian Tsar and the Venetians. The princes were members of Stratsimir family, a branch line of the Bulgarian royal family Asen. The Prince of Epirus, as well as the Angevinen and Stratsimirs, recruited many of their soldiers among the Albanians, which is why in the 13th and 14th centuries settled in large numbers in the area and soon formed the majority.

1417 the Ottomans conquered Kanina and annexed it into their empire. Ruđina Balšić, the last Princess of Kanina went to Corfu from exile. The place was as devastated many other Albanian cities and counted in 1431 only 216 houses. For a long time the castle to protect the port of Vlora was militarily important. When the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi in 1670 came to Kanina, he found the fort still in good condition and provided with a garrison of 400 men. He counted 300 houses in the village, to 20 in the citadel and mentioned the mosque built by the Ottomans and the nearby Tekke. Eqrem Bej Vlora writes in his memoirs that his family have lived in the castle of Kaninë as the land of plenty - with 200 to 300 employees. 1820, the family had moved to a large property in Vlora.

When the English painter Edward Lear Kanina visited in 1848, the fort was in ruins. End of the 19th century Kanina developed summer resort of the wealthy citizens of Vlora, ordered to be built country houses here. In the communist period (until 1990 ) the place was a quiet farming village. In the presence Kanina is frequently visited because of its views of the Bay of Vlora of tourists who stop at the nearby coastal vacation. The area of ​​the castle was used several times for theater performances and television shows.

Personalities

• Donika Kastrioti ( 1428-1505/06 ), Albanian princess, Wife Skanderbegs and close friend of the royal family in Naples