Sulltana’s Unknown and Heart-Rending Story
By: Bajram Karabolli
May my hand wither. It has been ten years since I first learned of this story—at once tragic and glorious—yet I have written nothing about it. It was the summer of 1913 when Serbian barbarians, in the early hours of the morning, launched a surprise, bandit-like raid on the Albanian village of Qafë in North Macedonia. Do you know where this village is?
Ah, what am I saying. We Albanians from Albania know nothing about our brothers across the borders. During the half-century of communism—or the “Enver Hoxha era,” as it is otherwise known—we never had a single lesson about Kosovo or the Albanian lands outside Albania. To us, during that period, beyond our borders there were Yugoslav brothers, Russian brothers, Chinese and Vietnamese brothers, and God knows what other kinds of brothers (oh God, the shame)… but certainly not Albanian brothers.
To us, the territories inhabited by Albanians might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. This is a long, dark, and shameful story—one about which very little has been said. Qafa was an Albanian village in the mountainous area between Kërçova and Gostivar. It was there that a band of Serbian barbarians arrived and carried out a massacre, killing all the peaceful, innocent inhabitants of this Albanian mountain village.
Sulltana, a girl of sixteen or seventeen, was in the barn where the sheep were being sheared that day. When she saw her mother, father, and loved ones being tortured and killed, the heart of the young girl transformed into the heart of a hero.
She snatched up a pair of sheep-shearing shears, hid them against her chest, and walked toward the killers. It never crossed the minds of those barbarians that such a frail girl would do what she did; they saw her only as prey to satisfy their inhuman lusts. Young Sulltana approached their leader, drew the shears, and plunged them into his heart.
The Serbian vandals were horrified by the extraordinary courage of this Albanian girl. One of them shot and killed her. Then, they massacred and killed all the village’s inhabitants. Today, there are no longer any residents in the village of Qafë. There are only abandoned houses that time is slowly crumbling.
There are also graves. Nothing but graves. Among the graves of the victims lies that of Sulltana. There, migrants from Kërçova and Gostivar have erected a monument to Sulltana—a truly remarkable figure in the history of Albanian heroines.
Ten years ago, a friend from Kërçova took me to the village of Qafë and recounted this entire story—one as tragic as it is heroic. I was deeply saddened to see that Albanian village left desolate. I vowed to write something about that barbaric massacre and Sulltana’s heroic act. Yet, I have not managed to do so. I feel utterly insignificant in the face of her greatness; I fear that instead of illuminating her story, I might only diminish it.
Nevertheless, I would like Albanians—who travel all over the world—to visit this village, the now-deserted village of Qafë, and see the monument to Sulltana.
Original title: “THE VILLAGE OF QAFË AND THE HEROINE SULLTANA”
Article
https://fjala.info/fshati-shqiptar-qafe-ne-maqedoni-dhe-heroina-sulltane/
