Kelmendi (tribe)

Kelmendi
Kelmendi
Gheg tribe
Location	Malësia e Madhe, Kelmend, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia
Descended from	Clement
Branches	Kelmendi Ceklin; Kuçi; ;

Kelmendi is a historical Albanian tribe (fis) and region in Malësia (Kelmend municipality) and eastern Montenegro (parts of Gusinje Municipality). It is located in the upper valley of the Cem river and its tributaries in the Accursed Mountains range of the Dinaric Alps. The Vermosh river springs in the village of the same name, which is Albania's northernmost village. Vermosh pours into Lake Plav.

Copperplate etching of Kelmendi in Syrmia by Jacob Adam (1748-1811). It is possibly the first depiction of the Kelmendi *fis*.

Kelmendi is mentioned as early as the 14th century and as a territorial tribe it developed in the 15th century. In the Balkans, it is widely known historically for its longtime resistance to the Ottoman Empire and its extensive battles and raids against the Ottomans which reached as far north as Bosnia and as far east as Bulgaria. By the 17th century, they had grown so much in numbers and strength that their name was sometimes used for all tribes of northern Albania and Montenegro. The Ottomans tried several times to expel them completely from their home territory and forcefully settle them elsewhere, but the community returned to its ancestral lands again and again.

Kelmendi's legacy is found throughout the region. Kelmendi is found beyond the Cem valley (Selcë, Vukël, Nikç and others), Gusinje (in particular, the villages Vusanje, Doli, Martinovići and Gusinje itself) and Plav (Hakaj) to the east in Rožaje and the Pešter plateau. In Kosovo, descendants of Kelmendi live in the Rugova Canyon and western Kosovo mainly. In Montenegro, half of the tribe (pleme) of Old Ceklin and a part of Kuči which settled there in the 16th century come from Kelmendi. The northernmost settlement from Kelmendi is in the villages of Hrtkovci and Nikinci in Syrmia when 1,600 Catholic Albanian refugees settled there in 1737.