Shkreli (tribe)
The Shkreli tribe that migrated to Kosovo converted to Islam in the 18th century and maintained the Albanian language as their mother tongue.
[2] In reality, the name of the region was given to it by the kin community, which apart from Shkreli appears throughout northern Albania in the Middle Ages.
[3] Another, more linguistically based approach links the name to shkrelë, a word used in Gheg Albanian for big corn leaves.
These four villages also have additional settlements in Grishaj, Vuç-Kurtaj, Sterkuj, Çekëdedaj, Xhaj, Makaj and Ducaj that are linked to them.
Outside of Albania, people who trace their origin to Shkreli are found in particular in Ulcinj, Sandžak and the nearby Region in western Kosovo.
When the Shkreli tribe arrived in this region of Albania they found a population that was already there and this population was admitted into the tribe; they are called “Anas”: Oral traditions and fragmentary stories were collected and interpreted by writers who travelled in the region in the 19th century and early 20th century about the origins of Shkreli.
French consul in Shkodra, Hyacinthe Hecquard in his 1858 Histoire et description de la haute Albanie ou Guégarie notes that Shkreli descend from an old Albanian family in the region of Pejë, whose chief was called Kerli (Carl).
[5] Baron Nopcsa, a well-known scholar of the Albanian fis system, noted that the mention of an unknown region of Bosnia could well mean an area of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar or adjacent to it.
[7] In the decades that followed analysis of recorded historical material, linguistics and comparative anthropology have provided more historically-grounded accounts.
[8] In 1416, Shkreli appears as a tribe in the process of formation as the village name is also the surname of most of its households, an indication of the kin organization of the settlement.
[3] The fact that about half of the households who bore the surname Shkreli lived outside of the settlement points to the fact that Shkreli in 1416 was closer to being a bashkësi (tribe based on kinship relations but with no communal territorial control) than a fis (a kin community that is also identified with a given communal territory).
With the aim of getting rid of the Ottomans from the Albanian territories[9][10] Scarglieli was mentioned by Mariano Bolizza in 1614, being part of the Sanjak of Scutari.
[13] In later negotiations with the Ottomans, an amnesty was granted to the tribesmen with promises by the government to build one to two primary schools in the nahiye of Shkreli and pay the wages of teachers allocated to them.
A majority of the Shkreli tribe is Catholic, speaks Albanian and they live in Albania (Shkrel-Shkodër-Lezha-Velipoj) and Montenegro (Ulcinj).
However, in the villages of Boroshtica, Ugëll, Doli and Gradac at the Upper Peshter plateau, they managed to maintain the original Albanian language until today.
