Voisava Kastrioti

Voisava (fl. at least 1402–05) was a noblewoman and wife of Gjon Kastrioti, an Albanian feudal lord from the House of Kastrioti. They had nine children together, one of whom was the Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti, better known as Skanderbeg.

Early life

The wife of Gjon Kastrioti is mentioned for the first time by Albanian authors Marin Barleti and Gjon Muzaka about 70–80 years after her death as Voisava. Both authors lived in the immediate generation after Skanderbeg's death and mention her origin as being in the Polog area. Barletius explicitly states that "Polog" stretched from the mountains of Mokra in Southern Albania, to Skopje. It has also been argued that another Polog, closer to the town of Bitola in the plain of Pelagonia, may be the location of the Polog mentioned by Barleti. She was married to Gjon Kastrioti likely around 1390.

Origin

The issue of the origin of Voisava has been a matter of debate among scholars. Based on a statement by Marin Barleti who described her father nobilissimus Tribalorum princeps (most noble prince of the Triballians) which was adopted in another form by Muzaka several theories have been proposed. As such, a number of scholars believe that Voisava was of South Slavic descent, while others propose that she came from the Albanian Muzaka family based on Gjon Muzaka's assertion that she was related to his family. A modern theory interprets the reference to a nobilissimus Tribalorum princepsas referring a Serbian origin and some modern scholars consider her as coming from the Branković dynasty. Although there are no primary or archival sources which connect Voisava to the Branković. Other scholars interpret the same statement to be referring to a Bulgarian background. While the name does not refer to a particular ethnic origin, the name Voisava is a feminine rendition of the Slavic name Vojislav from voj (war, struggle) and slava (fame, glory). The name was in use among Albanian nobility; Karl Thopia and Gjergj Arianiti both had daughters named Voisava. The picture is further complicated by the fact that a notary act from the archives of the Republic of Ragusa dated July 10, 1439, names Gjon Kastrioti's widow Jella.

Family

Voisava married Gjon Kastrioti, the "Lord of a part of Albania" (dominus partium Albanie) or the Albanian Lord, closely linked to Orthodoxy, as shown by the foundation of the so-called "Albanian Tower" (Serbian: Arbanaški pirg) in Hilandar and the monastic life of Gjon's son Reposh. She bore 9 children to Gjon, four sons and five daughters:

• Reposh (fl. 1426–d. 1431), retired as an Orthodox monk in the Serbian monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos. Reposh died and was buried in the monastery, in King Stefan Milutin's narthex, beside the north wall, his tomb bearing the inscription "duks ilirski" (Illyrian duke).
• Stanisha (fl. 1426–d. 1445), commander.
• Konstandin (fl. 1426),
• Mara, married Stefan Crnojević, Lord of Zeta (r. 1451–65)
• Skanderbeg (Gjergj Kastrioti, 1405–1468), Albanian magnate and general; Ottoman subaşi of Krujë, sanjakbey of Dibra, later organizer of the League of Lezhë, and Neapolitan vassal as of 1451
• Jelena (or Jela), married Pavle Balšić with whom she had, according to Noli, three sons.
• Mamica, married Muzak Thopia in 1445
• Angelina, married Vladan Arianiti, brother of Gjergj Arianiti.
• Vlajka, married Gjin Muzaka, secondly Stefan Strez Balšić with whom she possibly had sons Ivan and Gojko.

Early sources

The earliest works mentioning Voisava are:

• Marin Barleti, the Albanian-Venetian historian, wrote in his biography of Skanderbeg (published between 1508 and 1510), that her father was "a noble prince (or ruler) of the Triballi" (pater nobilissimus Triballorum princeps). In another chapter, when talking about the inhabitants of Upper Debar that defended Svetigrad, he calls them "Bulgarians or Triballi" (Bulgari sive Tribali habitant...). The term "Triballians" (Triballoi) was also used in Byzantine works as an exonym for Serbs.
• Gjon Muzaka, a member of the Albanian Muzaka family in Italy, mentioned her in his chronicle first as Visava Tribalda and then as Voisava Tripalda, and says that she "came from a beautiful place". Furthermore, he says that his family is related to her father through his mother's side. This led Fan Noli and Harry Hodgkinson to theorize that Voisava was a Muzaka. According to William Miller, and Johann Georg von Hahn, the surname (Tripalda) added by Muzaka is a corruption, a derivative from Barleti's quote on the Triballi.

In historiography

• Johann Georg von Hahn (1811-1869), an Austrian expert in Albanian studies, had several theses on the genealogy of Albanian noble families in Albanesische Studien (1854). In Reise durch die Gebiete von Drin und Wardar (1867/69), he theorized that if one of Vrana Konti's descendants held the title "Marchese di Tripalda", that Vrana and Voisava Tripalda were related by blood.
• Karl Hopf (1832–1873), a German historian and expert in Byzantine studies, in Chroniques Greco-romanes (1873) concluded that Voisava was daughter of a Serbian lord from Polog.
• William Miller (1864-1945), an English medievalist, said the following, in his review of Athanase Gegaj's work which claimed that Skanderbeg was purely Albanian: "...Skanderbeg's mother had a Slav name, and the epithet 'Tripalda' given to her is a corruption of the tribal name 'Triballi', which the pedantic Byzantine historians applied to the Serbs. Moreover, if he had no connexion with Serbia, why should he have given two villages to Chilindar ... the famous Serbian monastery on Mount Athos, immemorially connected with Serbian kings, medieval and modern?".
• In Bulgarian historiography, historian-medievalist Vasil Zlatarski (1866-1935), mentioned her as the daughter of a Serbian nobleman. Historian Strashimir Dimitrov (1892–1960) said that she was a daughter of a local Bulgarian lord (boyar) from Macedonia.
• Fan S. Noli, an Albanian-American writer, in his biography of Skanderbeg (1947), adopted the view that Vojsava came from the Muzaka family. British writer and Balkans expert Harry Hodgkinson (1913–1994) considered her a member of the Muzaka family as well. Oliver Schmitt stated that Hodgkinson had done no archival research.
• Boban Petrovski, a Macedonian historian and author of Voisava Tribalda (2006), hesitantly concluded that there is a chance Voisava was of Slavic origin, most likely Serb, as she was possibly the daughter of a lord of the "Triballians" (Serbs) in Polog, that had ruled before the Ottoman conquest. He had several theses on the ultimate identity of Voisava's father: "If the Branković family indeed governed Polog in the last decade of the 14th century, it arises the chance that Voisava was a daughter of Grgur Branković or even Vuk Branković." However, he says, "the word "Tribalda" associated with Scanderbeg's mother's name does not necessarily mean ethnic determination, but could represent a state qualification, or could refer to his father's service to Đurađ Branković, king and heir of medieval Serbia".
• Oliver Schmitt, a professor of South-East European history at Vienna University, in his biography Skanderbeg: Der neue Alexander auf dem Balkan (2009) writes that she was a Serbian noblewoman, probably of the Branković family and sister to Mara Branković.
• Robert Elsie (born 1950), an Albanologist, mentioned her as "a Slavic woman ... related to the noble Serbian Brankovići family".
• Boško Bojović, a medievalist with a research focus on the relations of the Kastrioti family to Mount Athos (Hilandar) considers her a member of the Muzaka family.

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