Kelmend region
Coordinates: 42°28′N 19°41′E / 42.467°N 19.683°E
Kelmendi (Albanian: Kelmendi) is a Northern Albanian tribe and region (Kelmendi mountains, Malet e Kelmendit) in the mountainous borderlands of Albania towards Montenegro, of the wider Malësia-region. Part of the region lies within the Kelmend municipality, and is composed of a Roman Catholic majority and Muslim minority. The Kelmendi speak a subdialect of Gheg Albanian as the other northern Albanian tribes.
Families hailing from Kelmendi can also be found in Plav, Montenegro, Kraja, Montenegro and Rugova, Kosovo, where they are Muslim. The name is derived from Saint Clement, the patron saint of the region.
The Kelmendi are first mentioned in an Ottoman defter (tax registry) of 1497, along with the tribes of Hoti, Kuči and Piperi. They are recorded as having 152 households divided by five small shepherding communities. Robert Elsie thus assumes that they were known as a tribe from the last decades of the 15th century. The defter mentions them as derbendci, mountain-pass keepers, and having tax privileges. The derbendci guarded the Shkodër–Altun-li and Medun–Kuči roads. The defter bears witness to the fact that the tribes of Klimenti, Hoti and Kuči were flooded with pure Serb katuns or families, among whom were Miholjani, Pobrežani, Brežani, Ljubicite, Pavlovići, Petrovići, Lješovići, and others.
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