Kanuni Skanderbeg. Malformation of Kanuni into a terrifying nightmare

Kanuni Skanderbeg.

During the communist years, legal rule in Albania rested less on formal law than on the authority of Hoxha and his subordinates. In the absence of the kinds of social laws typical of representative government, older codes of conduct and jurisprudence continued through the Albanian Kanuni, a literary monument of jurisprudence dating to the early 1500s. The Kanuni formalised Albanian social life and is associated with Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, the fifteenth-century warrior and leader who resisted the Ottoman Empire. With the dismantling of religiously based systems of social morality, Skanderbeg’s ancient Kanuni became the default framework for much of Albanian society, especially outside Tirana.

Modern Albanian governance has been unable to break the Kanun’s hold over the population for many of the same reasons that Enver Hoxha could not. Skanderbeg remains one of the strongest symbols of Albanian identity, and his life and rule still occupy a central place in Albanian and Kosovar culture. For at least five centuries, Albanian customary laws codified by the Kanuni have served as a principal social contract among families and tribes.

The Kanun combines strong pre-Christian elements with later Christian influences. Although secular, it has long exercised cross-religious authority among both Muslim and Christian Albanians. It is also regarded as a literary monument of interest to Indo-European studies because it preserves legal practices of great antiquity.

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The Kanun emphasizes the importance of family and kinship ties, with powerful rules governing family relations, property inheritance, marriage, hospitality, proper conduct, and other aspects of social interaction.

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The Kanun has shaped Albanian society for centuries through orally transmitted rules governing family life, property, conflict resolution, hospitality, and social conduct. Though not a formal legal code in the modern sense, it has profoundly shaped Albanian culture and identity. Deeply rooted in Albania’s tribal structure, it centres on honour and “besa” (a sacred promise or vow), both regarded as essential to social cohesion and stable relationships. It also provides frameworks for dispute resolution, often through elders or appointed mediators, and regulates land, water, and other property matters. One part of the Kanun concerns blood feuds (“giakmarria”), which were severely distorted under the authoritarian pressures of Hoxha’s communist regime. During his rule, Hoxha tried to suppress the Kanun and eliminate references to the Kanuni i Leke Dukagjinit, and popular adherence to it became part of hidden resistance. After Hoxha’s death, the Kanun re-emerged openly as a replacement for totalitarian rule, but its practices had changed during the intervening half century, and not for the better.

Malformation of Kanuni into a terrifying nightmare.

Much of the Kanun’s tradition of conflict resolution was lost during the communist era, especially as Hoxha’s regime targeted clan and tribal elders as threats to his power. Without effective mechanisms for resolving disputes, many conflicts deteriorated into violence causing injury and death. Justice under the Kanun became corrupted, with both sides claiming victimhood and asserting a right to exact “giakmarria,” or vengeance, on the other family. Under traditional Kanuni rules, when a feud ends in murder, the aggrieved party may kill a male member of the offending family in retribution. But the code came to be applied in far more distorted ways, despite having no formal recognition in Albanian law. The traumatic psychosocial deformation of Albanian society under Hoxha’s violent authoritarian rule turned even minor disputes into existential struggles for family survival.

By eliminating elders, clan leaders, and family` property rights, Hoxha broke down centuries of Albanian social order, replacing ordinary family and social life with conflicts generated by his violence but redirected inward against the population, which could not openly resist the regime. One major corruption of the Kanun was the transmission of family culpability across generations. Many children and adults now living under a Kanun sentence of giakmarria, or blood death sentence, bear the burden of verdicts imposed before they were born. Other distortions concern who may be held responsible for a family member’s acts.

Traditionally, only a male member of the offending family could be targeted, yet a 16-year-old girl, Marija, was reportedly executed under the Kanun in place of her brother when the aggrieved family could not find him. Other rules require that vengeance not be carried out against someone inside the family home. As a result, many families remain trapped in blood feuds for decades, unable to let their sons or daughters leave the house. Children do not attend school and dare not go beyond the front yard, where the Kanun holds they cannot be harmed. “The Kanun still exists in Albania. It is somewhere in people’s minds.” The current judicial code of Kanuni allows blood penalties to fall on present and future generations. Many children and adults under threat of execution were not even born when the alleged original crime was committed. Many of the actual perpetrators are in prison, have been released, or have long since died, yet their relatives continue to live under Kanuni sentence. “We grew up with the reality of Kanuni, so how to not ….” “We have had these problems of blood debts for years now… it’s getting more and more complicated because they are angry, very angry in the other families…” At the centre of Albanian participation in the Kanun—as victims, perpetrators, and bystanders—are unresolved trauma, alienation, shame, and rage. The Albanian government’s inability to regulate or halt Kanun practices reflects long standing anger, pride, ignorance, and intransigence as the country struggles to emerge as a modern and prosperous democracy. The police are likewise unable to cope with the population’s continued reliance on the Kanun, and they also struggle to combat illegal drug production, which rivals a significant share of the country’s economy and contributes to the corruption that democratic institutions attempt to address.

One example of police powerlessness is the work of a schoolteacher named Liliana, who travels by small bus with a two- to three-car police escort to collect children living under blood-feud death sentences. Parents entrust their children, aged 6 to 18, to her so they can attend school and social events without being killed. On each trip, Liliana and the children are guarded by police. She ensures that their faces are not photographed or filmed and carefully selects routes and venues that her small security detail can protect. Parents wait anxiously in their front yards as she takes charge of their children, pleading with her to keep them safe. Liliana says, “I swear to God they are like my own children.”