Mat (region)

Mat (definite Albanian form: Mati) is region in north-central Albania. It takes its name from the Mat River located in the region. The inhabitants are mostly Muslim, traditionally composed of six bajraks: Burrel, Klos, Lis, Lukan, Prell and Xibër.

According to a 1918 census carried out by the Austro-Hungarians, Mat at the time consisted of 3,986 households and 23,643 total individuals.

Etymology

The river name was written in Latin as "Mathis" by the 4th/5th century writer Vibius Sequester and before that in Ancient Greek as "Mάτη" (Máti). The name is also seen as:

• "Mathia" in 1308 in the Anonymi Descriptio Europae Orientalis;^[1]
• "Mat" in 1488 in an Ottoman tax document;
• "Matia" in 1515 in the Breve memoria of Gjon Muzaka;
• "Machia" on the 1554 Mercator map;
• "Mattia" in the 1570 anonymous Relazione dell'Albania;^[2]
• "Ematthia" in the 1591 report of Lorenzo Bernardo [it];
• "Emathia" in 1596 in Jaques De Lavardin's Historie of George Castriot;^[3]
• "Mathia" in 1610 in the report of Marino Bizzi;
• "Matthia" in 1614 in the report of the Venetian writer Mariano Bolizza;
• "Ematia" in 1621 in a letter of Pjetër Budi;
• "Man", a misspelling or misreading for "Mat", in 1662 in the Seyahatnâme of Evliya Çelebi;
• "Emathia" in the 1671 report by Piero Stefano Gaspari;
• "Mathia" in about 1685 in the report of Giorgio Stampaneo;
• "Matis" in 1821 on the map of French consul Hugues Pouqueville; and
• "Máthis" in 1848 in the journal of Edward Lear.^[4]

History

Mati and Dibra aren't tribes in the sense of a fis, with blood ties and a common history and single male ancestor,^[5] but the region has a strong collective identity nonetheless, and formed its own military unit in war (bajrak). The basin of the Mat River consists of rolling hills surrounded by mountains that have long protected the inhabitants. Because it was so isolated, the German historian Georg Stadtmüller (1901–85) postulated that the Albanian people could be traced to this specific region.^[6] Mat has been inhabited since at least the Bronze Age, but no urban areas had developed there until the modest town of Burrel in the mid-20th century.

The Mat region is inhabited by four different clans headed by one or more families, each a primus inter pares in the region: the Bozhiqi in the upper valley, the Çelaj to the south, the Olomani or Alamani, and the Zogolli in the north.^[7]

In the 20th century Mat was the home of Ahmet bey Zogolli (1895–1961), also known as Ahmet Zogu, who ruled Albania 1924–1939, mostly as King Zog. He had become head of the Zogolli when his father, Xhemal Pasha Zogolli (1860–1911) died.^[8][9]

References

1. "1308 | Anonymous: Description of Eastern Europe". www.albanianhistory.net.
2. Anonymous (1570). "1570: Anonymous: A Physical Description of Albania and the Defence of Ulcinj".
3. Jacques de Lavardin (1596). The Historie of George Castriot, Svrnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albanie: Containing His Famous Actes, His Noble Deedes of Armes, and Memorable Victories Against the Turkes, for the Faith of Christ. Comprised in Twelue Bookes. Newly Translated Out of French Into English by Z.I. Gentleman. London: VVilliam Ponsonby – via Google Books.
4. Robert Elsie (2015). The Tribes of Albania: History, Society and Culture. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 271. ISBN 978-0857725868 – via Google Books.
5. Elsie 2015, p.303
6. "1936 | Georg Stadtmüller: Research in Early Albanian History". www.albanianhistory.net.
7. Johann George von Hahn; Robert Elsie (2015). The Discovery of Albania: Travel Writing and Anthropology in the Nineteenth Century Balkans. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1786739735.
8. "Minor Albanian Tribes", The Tribes of Albania, Tauris Academic Studies, 2015, doi:10.5040/9780755621767.ch-011, ISBN 978-1-78453-401-1, retrieved 27 November 2020
9. Robert, Elsie (30 May 2015). The Tribes of Albania,: History, Society and Culture. pp. 314–316. ISBN 978-1-78453-401-1.