This memorial may not mean much to those from Britain, but is fundamental to Albanians. For them, Skanderbeg, as we know him, is the archetypal national hero. His main claim to fame rests on his success in limiting Ottoman expansion in the Balkans in the 15th century. But with the fame comes the myth, as well as contested allegiances. These include Serbian and Macedonian beliefs that Skanderbeg was actually ‘one of theirs.’ His attributes are also mythologised, with stories attached to his name and sword, and even his horse. Above all, the man and the myth are figures of heroic resistance that have taken on a distinctive role as nationalist symbols. And nationalism, as we continue to see, can have its darker side, moving from resistance against oppression to the reverse, the right to oppress those who consider themselves different. Our visit to other memorials in Kosovo, Albania and North Macedonia was, apart from anything else, a powerful reminder of how our national heroes and heroines can be used and misused, and that we could do well to think more deeply before we expand them into representations of something that they were not.
