Festivities in Tirana honouring the Butrint Foundation and Archive
Albania is a country of marvellous natural beauty which holds a rich, vital culture, a fascinating history and great archaeology including the jewel of the Mediterranean, Butrint.
Throughout the years, Albania has benefited and enjoyed support from key partners diplomatically, socially, and culturally. When one delves through the history books, a great and appreciated friend of the Albanians appears. It is the United Kingdom.
As an Albanian-American, I am aware of the historical contributions and friendship that the United States has with the Albanian people. However, it is in later years that I came to understand how deep and essential the British factor has been as well.
This Centenary, a celebration of 100 years of Albanian-British diplomatic relations, spearheaded by Ambassador Alastair King-Smith, will highlight the role of Britain and the historical events, studies and personalities who helped Albania, “The Land of Eagles”.
The celebration of 100 years of Albanian-British diplomatic relations is an excellent opportunity to bring to light, particularly to the younger generations, our common histories, focusing on luminaries from Lord Byron and Edward Lear, Edith Durham to Aubrey Herbert and Lady Carnarvon, General George Fraser Phillips, Ruth Pennington, Morton Eden, Margaret Hasluck, Dayrell Oakley-Hill, Harry Hodgkinson, and many more.
After the fall of the communist system, a remarkable contributor to Albania’s national heritage has been the Butrint Foundation. Lord Jacob Rothschild and Lord John Sainsbury of Preston-Candover founded this UK charity to preserve, protect and develop this UNESCO World Heritage site of Butrint.
The Butrint Foundation has worked diligently for nearly 30 years on a myriad of critical projects and contributions. Among them, they worked together with Albanian institutions to establish the Butrint National Park, created to protect the outstanding natural beauty and wildlife habitats of the surrounding area.
Remarkably, The Butrint Foundation has curated a vast archive, including photographs, documents, maps and film, which are housed at the exquisite Waddesdon Manor in England. This archive is an essential tool for scholars, students, journalists, and everyone interested in the archaeological history of Albania. Moreover, the library is being digitalised and will soon be available to access online. This is an incredibly important achievement.
This event was designed to promote the ancient city of Butrint, to show our gratitude to the Lords Jacob Rothschild and John Sainsbury, and to The Butrint Foundation.
It was a joy to share all those precious items that include the achievements of Albanian archeologists and institutions, who together with our British friends, leave an indelible mark for us and the future generations.
Excerpt from opening remarks by the British Ambassador in Tirana, HE Alastair King-Smith:
Butrint is a jewel in the crown of Albania’s rich cultural heritage. It is not just an archaeological site, not just a place of history through the centuries, but also a place of connections, of people, and of developments for the
future.
So, it is a real delight for me to be here today with you to celebrate the amazing work of the Butrint Foundation. Originally set up as a UK charity to preserve, protect and develop this UNESCO World Heritage site, I am delighted that the Butrint Foundation is now a fully Albanian organisation dedicated to continuing this work and the protection of Butrint.
I would like to credit the work of so many people who have been involved in making this possible. Many of you are with us today. In particular, Prof. Hodges, for his tireless dedication and passion, and most especially the Rothschild family – represented today by Emily Rothschild. Emmy, please relay our two nations’ thanks to your father for his foresight, his commitment and his perseverance.
May I congratulate you, Emmy, as well on your new role as Chair of the Butrint Foundation.
But today, we also need to reflect on one sad aspect. On behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, I wish to express my condolences over the loss of a great friend of Butrint and Albania – the recent passing of Lord Sainsbury in January. He will be mourned in Albania in light of his remarkable work with Lord Rothschild, in investing in and developing the Butrint Foundation.
Now there is a person who could not join us tonight, to whom I wish to express my sincere appreciation. That is to Sir Patrick Fairweather. Thanks to Sir Patrick’s vision and constant efforts to support Albania that we have been brought together today.
The fascinating material on display at this exhibition forms part of the Foundation’s archive and is testament to the importance of its work. It details the painstaking archaeological work carried out over the past thirty years at Butrint, as well as research over many years before that too. The archive forms a crucial body of research material and visual documentation that will be useful not just for academics and historians, but also the wider public.
Butrint has a promising future. The Albanian government plans to attract more international tourists, and Butrint will play a key part in achieving that goal.
Butrint is also at the forefront of the impact of climate change. This irreplaceable site is already vulnerable to rising sea levels. Few people realize that Albania is one of the countries in Europe most vulnerable to climate change. So, it is reassuring to hear how the Butrint Foundation, with the support of the Albanian American Development Fund are already planning how to ensure that future generations can continue to enjoy the wonders of Butrint.
As you know, the centenary to celebrate 100 years of diplomatic relations between the UK and Albania started in November last year and will continue throughout 2022. During this special year when we commemorate how much our two countries have done for each other. We shall also look to the future. We want to boost relations across the board, including strengthening cultural ties. This is what the centenary is all about: we want to enhance the reputation of Albania and Albanians in the UK and the profile of the UK in Albania. We want to inspire young people to greater activism to shape their future through pride in the past, and we want to create lasting partnerships that will make a positive impact for the future.
The work of the Butrint Foundation is a symbol and jewel in showing how to create such a lasting and tangible impact. A jewel that brings light to these extraordinary achievements. Long may it continue!
Excerpts from the speech of the Scientific-Director of the Butrint Foundation, Prof. Richard Hodges at the event:
Virgil made Butrint eternal in Aeneid. It was Troy for exiled Trojans on the way to create the new Troy at Rome. Agrippa sailed by Butrint to defeat Cleopatra. Crusaders and Ottoman sultans came here. Casanova sought refuge here. Khrushchev visited Butrint and thought it a wonderful place for a submarine base. Today Butrint welcomes everyone. It is timeless.
It is a spiritual place nourished by a Homeric landscape, a place that is truly magical between nature and antiquity, and the Ionian Sea and the Epirote mountains. Few places are as transcendent, reaching across time and cultures.
I remember Prime Minister Majko telling Jacob Rothschild and me that the Canadian prime minister had extolled: ‘you Albanians have the most beautiful capital in the world, Butrint’. He had confused it with Tirana. In some ways the Canadian was right: it is Albania’s spiritual capital.
Few places in the Mediterranean have such a long rich history. Even fewer have been investigated by archaeologists and published so fully. This exhibition offers just a fleeting glimpse of the immense archives – films, photos, paintings and site records, the stores of archaeological finds. The rich documentation of the travelers, the extraordinary Italian Mission directed by Luigi Ugolini, and the great work of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology with names such as Budina, Islami, Ceka, Lako, Nanaj, and Condi.
Then there is our collaborative work supported by the Butrint Foundation. Lord Rothschild and the late Lord Sainsbury in 1992, encouraged by Neritan Ceka and Alexander Meksi and the then tireless British ambassador to Albania, Sir Patrick Fairweather, made it happen. They were the agents of this adventure. Speaking personally, in the presence of Jacob’s daughter Emmy, we/they had no idea of what a huge privilege we had to work as archaeologists and conservators with the Institutes of Archaeology and Monuments.Wonderful collegues had infinite patience with us and me in particular. I think of names such as Muzafer Korkuti, Ilir Gjipali, Telemark Llakana, Luan Perzhita, and Gjerak Karaiskaj who appear in several panels here, to name a few. In making the park in 1999, we had the support of the minister of culture, Edi Rama. Together we have created nothing less than a Mediterranean miracle.
The Butrint Foundation with the Packard Humanities Institute helped to create a human future not just for Butrint but the future of Albania’s past. At Butrint we ran an archaeological training project for 12 years. 300 Albanian students attended. 50 students attended courses in the University of East Anglia, Norwich for a year or two. This was capacity building on an exceptional scale. The destiny of modern cultural heritage in this country has grown from these students and their passion. Butrint, in that sense, is the cultural capital of this country as the Canadian prime minster believed.
There is much to do. From time-to-time, up spring wonderful new treasures. These will nourish new research, new opportunities, new histories because history never ends.
Professor Richard Hodges
Butrint Foundation Scientific – Director
President Emeritus of The American University of Rome
Excerpt from Belisa Muka’s speech
The collaboration between the Butrint Foundation and the Institute of Archeology started in the early 1990’s, during a difficult period in Albania. I would like to highlight some important moments which reveal, among other things, an unusual concept for the time: archeology and cultural heritage play a major role in local, national, and international policies in one of the most important industries, that of tourism.
In the following decades, our approach shifted from excavations for research purposes, to research aimed at simultaneously bringing economic benefits to both communities living near the archeological sites and to the archaeological site itself. There is still a long way to go in this direction…
The work of the Butrint Foundation began in 1993, and many large-scale activities were undertaken. These include Butrints registration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the excavations spanning the palace of Triconch, the Great Basilica, Diaporit Roman Villa, the Vrina plain, and so on, from the study of environmental history, the surveys of the territory around the city and the identification of new centers, previously unknown, and of course the preservation and restoration of historical structures and artifacts. These various endeavors materialized with a considerable number of publications, articles, excavation results, and in-depth studies.
The investment in capacity building, which consisted of the creation of one of the largest field schools known to archeology in our territory, gave many opportunities to Albanian students with the aim of in-depth training at several British universities. In fact, I look around the room and see that many professional journeys have crossed paths in Butrint, marked by the opportunities that the cooperation between the Butrint Foundation and Albanian institutions created. Because of Butrint, many Albanian professionals developed their skills in various fields of archeology, from excavation to management, cultural heritage, conservation, restoration, museology, etc.
The future we looked forward to in those days, is here today!
