SCUTARI (anc. Scodra, Slay. Skadar, Albanian Shkoder, or with the definite

See also:

• ARTICLE (from Lat. articulus, a joint)

article Shkedr-a)  , the capital of the vilayet of Scutari and principal city of Albania, European Turkey; op the south-eastern shore of Lake Scutari, near the confluence of the Drin and Boyana rivers, and 14 M. inland from the Adriatic Sea . Pop . (1905) about 32,000 . The plain in which Scutari is built extends southwards to Alessio and northwards to the Montenegrin frontier . It is enclosed by lofty mountains, on every side except where it adjoins the lake . It is very liable to be flooded, and this liability was greatly increased towards the close of the 19th century by the deflection of the Drin and its junction with the Boyana . Its bazaar and mosques give Scutari an oriental appearance, but the finest of its buildings are Italian—an old Venetian citadel on a high crag, and a Roman Catholic cathedral . The city is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop and a Jesuit college and seminary, which are subsidized by the Austrian government . The trade of Scutari tends to decline and to be diverted to Salonica and other ports connected with the main European railways . Grain, wool, hides and skins, tobacco and sumach are exported; arms and cotton stuffs are manufactured; and textiles, metals, pro-visions and hardware are imported . Large quantities of a kind of sardine, called scoranze by the Italians and seraga by the Albanians, are caught in the Boyana and cured for export or home consumption . The Boyana is navigable by small sea-going vessels as far as Oboti, 12 M. from its mouth; cargoes for Scutari are then transhipped into light river craft .

The steamers of the Anglo-Montenegrin_ trading

company ply on the lake . Livy relates that Scodra was chosen as capital by the Illyrian king Gentius, who was here besieged in 168 n.e., and carried captive to Rome . In the 7th century Scutari fell into the hands of the Servians, from whom it was wrested by. the Venetians, and finally, in 1479, the Turks acquired it by treaty .