On this 1913 Austro-Hungarian military map (scale 1:200,000, or 1 cm = 2 km), one can see the original name of this region, “LUMA,” as well as the names of the villages.
The letter “J” was added because Slavic languages lack the pure “L” sound found in Albanian; instead, it is written as either “LJ” (Л) or “LL” (Љ). We frequently encounter this issue with Albanian names in documents—for instance, writing “Ljuan” instead of “Luan,” or “Ljuljzim” instead of “Lulzim.” The same problem occurs with other names; for example, “Xhemil” is written as “Djemil” or “Dzemil.”
The red arrows mark only those villages (Shtiravica, Reçi, D’bova, Leskova, Tarrnica) that were burned and razed to the ground by Slavic armies during 1913 and 1918.
Research by Burim Proi
