Dusan T.Batakovic. The Kosovo Chronicles
сторінка №6
...by V.Stojancevic, Etnicke, konfesionalne i demografske prilike u Metohiji 1830-ih
godina, Zbornik okruglog stola o naucnom istrazivanju Kosova, Beograd 1988,
pp. 99-114.
Population
More detailed information concerning the number, ethnic and religious
affiliation of the inhabitants of Kosovo and Metohia is contained in lists
dating from the thirties of the 19th century.1 The traveling
account of Joseph Muller, based on official Turkish data and personal
inquiries, and a detailed roll of the Rumelian vilayet in 1838 from the
Kriegsarchiv in Vienna provide a precise demographic and confessional
According to Muller, in Pec, 12,000 inhabitants lived in 2,400 houses,
of which 130 were Orthodox and 20 Catholic. The Slavs comprised the majority
of the population, 62 families were Turkish, 100 Albanian and 28
Tzintzar.3 Almost identical data on the populace in Pec is
provided by the list of the War Archives in Vienna.4
Djakovica, according to Muller, had 21,050 inhabitants: 18,000 Muslim,
450 Catholic, 2,600 Orthodox. Among them 17,000 were Albanian, 3,800 were
Slavic (Serbian), 180 were Turkish, and a few Tzintzar houses.5
In Prizren, as noted in the same source, 24,950 people inhabited 6,000
houses. Among them 4,000 were Muslim, 2,150 Catholic and 18,000 Orthodox.
According to Muller's estimate, Serbs comprised 4/5, ethnic Albanians 1/6,
Tzintzars 1/12 and Turks 1/60 with the military company.6
Thus, the ethnic composition, considering many among the Muslims in
Metohia were of Serbian origin and spoke the Serbian language, and that
among the Christians few were Albanian Catholics, the ethnic picture based
Based upon Muller's data, V. Stojancevic calculated the total number of
The cited data exhibits that in Metohia, despite being the most
endangered from violence, devastation and blackmail, the Serbian populace
composed the most numerous ethnic group at the end of the 1830's. Even
though no precise data exists on the then demographic situation in Kosovo,
considering subsequent rolls, one could suppose that the relationship
between the Serbian and Albanian population was at least close to the ethnic
disposition in Metohia.
A more complete picture of the demographic disposition in Metohia and
Kosovo in the first decades of the 19th century could be attained only if
the aforesaid data was compared with available information on the evacuation
of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohia, from Prince Milos. In keeping with a
preserved incomplete documentation of Serbian origin, 180 families moved to
Serbia from the Prizren, Pristina, Pec and Scutari pashalik, and another 160
from the northern regions of Kosovo, all in the period between 1815-1837.
Most of them were farmers; following were handicraftsmen and several
merchants. Keeping in mind the sizes of families, particularly the extended
family groups in Metohia (10-30 persons), the number of Serbs fleeing to
Serbia was considerable.8
The total number of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia during the first half
of the 19th century is hard to determine. Turkish annual censuses
(sal-namas) were generally unreliable, since the real number of family
members was concealed due to taxes, and the Muslims especially refused to
have their wives and female children listed.
Information also varies in the traveling accounts of contemporaries,
foreigners mostly. The data is mainly comprised of the inhabitants of towns
and surrounding areas. A somewhat more voluminous and reliable source is the
traveling account of Russian diplomat and scientist A. F. Hilferding.
Conforming to his data and estimates, there were 4,000 Muslim and 800
Christian families in Pec in 1858; in Podrima 3,000 Albanian and 300
Orthodox families; in Orahovac 50 Albanian and 100 Serbian homes; in the
Sredska zhupa 200 Albanian and 300 Serbian families; in the
Prizren Podgora more than 1,000 Albanian Muslims, 20 Albanian Catholics
and around 300 Orthodox homes; in Pristina 1,500 homes with around 1200
Muslim and 300 Orthodox inhabitants, in Vucitrn 250 Muslim and 150 Orthodox
houses. Furthermore, Hilferding noted 3,000 Muslim, 900 Orthodox and 100
Catholic families with 12,000 inhabitants.9
The relativity of data provided by the travel writers is demonstrated
by the statistics of Austrian consul Johan Georg von Hahn (1863), who relied
on official information when he cited that Prizren contained 11,540 houses
with 46,000 inhabitants, of whom 8,400 were Muslim, 3,000 Orthodox and 140
Catholic. The salnama of 1874 noted 3,687 homes in Prizren whereas data of
the then Russian consul, Ivan Stepanovich Yastrebov, in reference to the
same year, recorded 4,089 houses.10
Yastrebov was the most reliable researcher; he spoke Albanian, Turkish
and Serbian well, and as consul to Prizren had the opportunity to personally
check on official documents and determine the exact results. Between 1867
and 1874 Yastrebov provided information regarding Serbs and ethnic Albanians
in Metohia, classifying them in relation to the traditional territorial
division between Albanian tribes and religious affiliation:11
All this data exhibits that, notwithstanding the emigration of the
Serbian populace to Serbia, Islamization and Albanization, still in progress
(excluding only Gora), the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia still comprised the
largest ethnic group.
1 J. Muller, Albanien, Rumelien und die Osterreichisch-montenegrinische
Granze, Frag 1944; A. Ivic, Rumelijski vilajet u godini 1838, Prilozi za
knjizevnost, jezik, istoriju i folklor, XIII, 1-2 (1933), pp. 117-126. An
elaborate analysis of data provided by V. Stojancevic, Etnicke,
konfesionalne i demografske prilike u Metohiji 1830-ih godina, Zbornik
okruglog stola o naucnom istrazivanju Kosova, Beograd 1988, pp. 99-114.
2 J. Muller, op. cit,. p. 12; V. Stojancevic, Etnicke, konfesionalne i
demografske prilike, p. 102.
3 J. Muller, op. cit., pp. 73-74.
4 A. Ivic, op. cit., pp. 122.
5 J. Muller, op. cit., pp. 77-78; same data stated by the Kriegsarchiv
in Vienna (A. Ivic, op. cit., p. 122).
6 J. Muller, op. cit., pp. 82-83; A. Ivic, op. cit., p. 122.
7 V. Stojancevic, Etnicke, konfesionalne i demografske prilike, pp.
104-104.
8 V. Stojancevic, Drzava i drustvo obnovljene Srbije (1815-1839), pp.
45-63.
9 A. F. Giljferding, op. cit, pp. 157,183,193, 214.
10 J. G. Hahn, Putovanje kroz porecinu Drina i Vardara, Beograd 1876,
pp. 127-128; I. Jastrebov, op. cit., p. 40.
11 I. Jastrebov, op. cit., pp. 52-91; V. Stojancevic, Juznoslovenski
narodi u Osmanskom Carstvu, p. 331.
Political Action of Serbia
From the Middle Ages, until the First Serbian Insurrection of 1804, the
lands comprising Serbia were considered to range from Belgrade to Veles, and
from Kladovo to the plateau of Malissia. However, the creation of an
insurgent state in north Serbia (1804-1813), brought on a new apprehension
of its frontiers. Ever since the downfall of the Insurrection, Milos
Obrenovic strove, with patience, perseverance and cunning diplomatic
actions, to create an autonomous principality of the subjugated pashalik (of
which the foundations for restoring the Serbian state were laid under
Karadjordje), within the boundaries of the Bucharest treaty (1812), giving a
new name to those Serbian regions remaining beyond its range. Vuk Karadzic
united all spacious lands south and southwest of Milos's Serbia, close to
the courses of the Drina and Lim rivers, and the river basin of the Juzna
Morava (regions that were seats of the Nemanjic state), under a common name
- Old Serbia.1
The growing political independence of Serbia, that by 1833 formed an
autonomous Principality under Turkish sovereignty, territorially and
politically, revived the hopes of Serbs in Metohia and Kosovo. French travel
writer Ami Boue remarked that the Serbs in Metohia, even though oppressed by
all sorts of brutalities, looked upon Prince Milos as their messiah who
would one day liberate them of the harsh bondage of Turkish rule. The
Principality of Serbia, during the first reign of Prince Milos (1830-1839),
became an attractive place for all Serbs who lived in lands under Turkish
domain.2
Prince Milos never disregarded the severe destiny of Serbs in Kosovo.
Even during the reigns of independent pashas, he undertook efforts to
mitigate the position of his compatriots through ties with the Rotulovic
family of Prizren and the Mahmudbegovic family of Pec. The Prince received
and bestowed gifts upon the monks of Old Serbia, gave them permission to
collect donations for their monasteries in Serbia, and sent gifts whenever
he could to the impoverished fraternities in Metohia and Kosovo. He is to be
credited for the restoration of the Visoki Decani palace in 1836. In
complaints lodged to him, mostly from Visoki Decani, monks bewailed that
ethnic Albanians were arrogating monastic lands, notwithstanding the firmans
of former sultans, giving warrant for their estates. They pleaded for him to
intermediate with the Porte, requesting that a new firman be issued for the
fraternity of Decani. Sultan Abdul Mejid confirmed all monastic estates in
1849, but nothing changed, since in the mountains, no one heeds for the
firman".3
During the reign of the constitutionalist and Prince Aleksandar
Karadjordjevic (1842-1858), Serbia continued to aid churches, monasteries
and schools in Old Serbia, but was unable to improve the position of the
unprotected rayah. In the mid-19th century, little was known about the
political situation of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia. Sporadic connections
were made through monks and teachers, who drew attention to the unbearable
position of the Serbian populace by sending pleas to the Prince, government
or metropolitan. The harsh fate of the people in Old Serbia, as far as the
public of the Principality and the Serbian intelligentsia in Austria were
concerned, fell into a vague picture of hard life under Turkish rule.
The mid-19th century saw no solid grounds enabling closer contact with
Albanian chiefs in Kosovo and Metohia. The Nacertanije, by Ilija Garasanin
(1844), the first modern Serbian national program within the framework of a
foreign-policy plan, spoke of "liberating all non-Ottoman people of the
Balkan Peninsula from this bitter bondage through a well-conceived plan";
winning over the ethnic Albanians was part of the plan, as a potential to
rely on for the entire Christian uprising against the Turks. The aim to
secure a free trade route for the future state by way of Ulcinj and Scutari
to the Adriatic shores, compelled Garasanin to cooperate with Albanian
Catholics in north Albania.
Serbian political propaganda in north Albania was administrated by
Matija Ban. According to the Ustav politicke propagande (Constitution of
Political Propaganda) of 1849, north Albania belonged to the Southern
region". Several agents were assigned to work on winning over north Albanian
tribes but most of the burden fell upon the Catholic miter bearer, abbot don
Caspar Krasnik, of Albanian nationality, who, after his first successes, was
named an agent, receiving annual payment of 270 talers from the Serbian
government. Owing to his efforts, Bib Doda, heir to the great Catholic tribe
Mirdit, had been won over for cooperation with Serbia. At the time, Bib Doda
told Krasnik "that he, with the Mirdits, would be ready to join in the rise
for liberation, so the Mirdits would have an autonomy and the freedom to
practice their religion under Serbian rule". Abbot Krasnik arrived at
Belgrade in 1849, informed Garasanin of the situation in north Albania and
confirmed the readiness of the Mirdits to start an uprising against the
Turks if they were given gunpowder and flints.
Due to Garasanin, lord of Montenegro, Prince-Bishop Petar II Petrovic
Njegos, established tolerable relations with the Mirdits, there until in
hostile relations with Montenegrin tribes. Prince-bishop of Montenegro and
Bib Doda contracted an alliance at the end of 1849 for attack and defense
against the Turks. In 1851, a relative of Bib Doda, Marko Prokljes, arrived
at Cetinje and in Belgrade, promising "the Prince and Serbian government up
to 2,000 soldiers any time they may require them". Cooperation with the
Mirdits soon evolved through Montenegrin ties. At the same time, Krasnik won
over Domazen, the Catholic bishop in Scutari.4
International circumstances, especially the political situation on the
European side of the empire, would not allow for a great Serbian uprising,
nor military cooperation with the Mirdits. The campaigns of Omer Pasha Latas
in Walachia, Old Serbia and Bulgaria, from 1849-1851, the great rise of the
Serbs in Herzegovina under the leadership of Luka Vukalovic in 1852, and the
1853 war between Montenegro and Turkey, brought on new campaigns and a
concentration of Turkish troops in Albania, Old Serbia and at its borders
with Montenegro. The Mirdits did not, for the first time in long while,
respond to a call to war with Montenegro. The Turks blamed and arrested
Abbot Krasnik for this weak response; he evaded penalty due to French
intervention.
At the same time, in 1853, Ilija Garasanin, the instigator of national
action in Turkey, was replaced. Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, pressured
by the Porte, which regarded Serbia as the source of all subversive action
on the Peninsula, ceased all national action outside the boundaries of the
Principality and prohibited public anti-Turkish manifestations. At the
beginning of the Crimean War, 1853, the loyalty of Prince Aleksandar to the
Porte grew, thus incurring the cessation of all propaganda actions. The
Mirdits were compelled to join the Danube Ottoman army.5
Following several years of slowdown, particularly during the reign of
Prince Mihailo, when Garasanin occupied the seat of prime minister and
minister of foreign affairs (1861-1867), plans revived for the Balkan
uprising against the Turks. Garasanin believed, with the cooperation of
Montenegro and Greece, that Serbia, as the most powerful Balkan force,
should bear the heaviest load in the organization and in preparations for
the uprising. Following the plan, Serbia was to encompass, through
propaganda, a larger part of Bulgaria, Macedonia, Old Serbia and the
northern and mid-regions of Albania. In a memoir addressed to Prince Mihailo
in 1860, Garasanin underscored the explicit necessity for the ethnic
Albanians to be politically neutralized. The aim was to separate them from
the Turks, to prevent them from hindering the Serbian-Greek alliance. He
intended to exert influence over their clans and prominent tribal chiefs,
warning him that the people were mostly illiterate, had no national center,
and were segregated by three religions.
Anticipating the creation of a common Serbian-Bulgarian state,
Garasanin believed that Albania, after liberating itself from the Turks, as
well as Greece, should be an independent country, allied with the new Slavic
state for purposes of defending common and special interests. In
negotiations with Greece, in 1860, Serbia agreed, in principle, to divide
Albania, whereby the northern territories, Durazzo and Elbasan, would be
annexed to Serbia, and Berat and Korea, to the Greek state. However, this
contract was never signed. The final text of the contract on the alliance
between Greece and Serbia (1866) allowed for the creation of an independent
Albania, or its annexation to either Serbia or Greece.6
Both Serbian and Greek statesmen observed how important Albanian
determination was in case of a total Christian uprising on the Balkans, due
to Albania's geopolitical position and the role of Albanian warriors in the
Turkish army. According to a belief of the contemporary French minister to
Athens, the stand of the ethnic Albanians was a knot in all controversial
matters regarding Turkey and the Christian population.
The formation of the Balkan alliance for a joint struggle against the
Turks helped reestablish contacts with north Albania. Gaspar Krasnik was
interned at Constantinople in 1865, so Garasanin assigned a Slovenian
priest, Franz Mauri, secretary of the bishop of Scutari, to be the agent
instead. However, cooperation was soon severed due to suspicions that he was
working for Austria and Turkey.
Albania most severely opposed the Forte's reforms; this discontent was
thus used for contracting new alliances. In 1866, Djelal Pasha, member of
the powerful Zogu clan and influential chief of the Mati region, who was
interned at Constantinople, was won over for cooperation. For the first
time, contacts, though only in principle, were established with ethnic
Albanians of the Muslim faith. Since there were no Serbian settlements in
Mati, no intolerance existed like in Old Serbia. Djelal Pasha was to head
the great uprising against the Turks. When it was learnt in Constantinople
that the Porte was working on winning over and arming the ethnic Albanians
for the Christian uprising, the Serbian government, bolstered by the until
then reserved Russian diplomacy, activated its tasks among the ethnic
Albanians. In Belgrade in 1868, six Albanian chiefs were sojourning. After
being won over by gifts, they were familiarized with the preparations for
the uprising and sent to Albania to await the beckon to rise. Cooperation
with Dzelal Pasha was not realized for his instability and the unreliability
of his nearest retinues. There could be no political nor military
organization, for everything depended upon the competence of a handful of
chiefs.7
Serbia had high hopes for the Albanian revolt against Turkish
authorities, until abandoning the idea of rising in Turkey in 1868. However,
Belgrade did not apprehend that the readiness of ethnic Albanians to rise
evolved out of the desire to resist Turkish reforms and retain tribal
privileges. During the sixties of the 19th century, the ethnic Albanians
were void of national awareness, in the modern sense of the word, nor did
they comprehend, excepting a small number of educated tribal chiefs, their
problems as national, beyond narrow tribal and confessional frameworks. As
soon as imminent danger from the introduction of reforms was past, the
ethnic Albanians would again respond to calls from the sultan to defend
Islam and pay their dues of loyalty with abundant spoils and devastated
Christian countries.
1 V. Karadzic, Danica za 1827, Budim 1827. G. J. Jurisic considered the
following nahis part of Old Serbia in 1852: Novi Pazar, Pec, Djakovica,
Prizren, Skoplje, Kosovo, Pristina, Vucitrn, Vranje, Leskovac and Nis. A. F.
Giljferding, nevertheless, included the Novi Pazar nahis with Kosovo and
Metohia as part of Old Serbia (More detailed analysis in: V. Stojancevic,
Jugoslovenski narodi u Osmanskom Carstvu, p. 327).
2 A. Bou , Recueil d'itin raires dans la Turquie d'Europe, Paris 1854,
p. 198.
3 Zaduzbine Kosova, 611-612; V. Stojancevic, Juznoslovenski narodi u
Osmanskom Carstvu, p. 235.
4 D. Stranjakovic, Juznoslovenski nacionalni i drzavni program
Knezevine Srbije iz 1844. god., Beograd 1931, pp. 3-29; idem, Politicka
propaganda Srbije u juznoslovenskim pokrajinama 1844-1858. godine, Beograd
1936, pp. 20-25.
5 V. Stojancevic, Juznoslovenski narodi u Osmanskom Carstvu, pp.
292-293.
6 D. Stranjakovic, Albanija i Srbija u XIX veku, Srpski knjizevni
glasnik, 52 (1937), pp. 624-627; G. Jaksic - V. J. Vuckovic, Spoljna
politika Srbije za vlade kneza Mihaila. Prvi balkanski savez, Beograd 1963,
pp. 137.
7 G. Jaksic, Jedan izvestaj o Albaniji, Arhiv za Arbansku stranu, jezik
i etnologiju, II (1924), pp. 169-192; G. Jaksic - V. J. Vuckovicic, op.
cit., pp. 240-246, 413-416, 468, Srbija i oslobodilacki pokret na Balkanu od
Pariskog mira do Berlinskog kongresa (1856-1878), I (ed: V. Krestic- R.
Ljusic), Beograd 1983, pp. 435-444, 558-563.
Restoration of Religious and Cultural Life
National life evolved under the wing of the church. After the
abolishment of the Pec Patriarchate in 1766, gone was the only national
institution around which the Serbs congregated; gone was the guider of
national living. It was in 1807, by the edict of Sultan Mustafa, that the
Serbian Janicije was named metropolitan of the Raska-Prizren Eparchy. Owing
to himself and his successor, Hadzi-Zaharije (1819-1830), during the first
three decades of the 19th century, the Raska-Prizren Eparchy helped maintain
national awareness with the assistance of lower clergy of Serbian
nationality, even though remaining under the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
The people in Kosovo and Metohia were bound, perhaps more strongly than
those in other Serbian lands, to their national heritage. Living memories of
the sacred rulers and heroes of Kosovo, of past glory and the unfortunately
lost empire were kept alive by priests and monks from the fraternities of
medieval endowments. In Visoki Decani and the Pec Patriarchate, in Gracanica
and Devic, the most powerful seats of national and spiritual life, the cults
of ruler-martyrs, patriarchs and ascetics were cherished. Beside the
tradition of the once glorious Serbia under the Nemanjices, the minds of the
people were kept alive with the memories of uprisings and migrations of
centuries past. The endurance sustaining the Serbs despite all their
miseries, evolved out of a profound attachment to the spiritual and national
heritage of the medieval Serbian state.
Not with standing the raging anarchy that shook Old Serbia, waning only
from time to time, the Serbs in Metohia and Kosovo were able to organize and
restore their spiritual and educational lives with assistance from official
Serbia. Continuity of work, with periodical suspensions during times of
turbulence, was maintained by monastic schools in the Pec Patriarchate,
Visoki Decani, Devic and Gracanica (containing a press at one time). Here
pupils from different areas of Serbia under Turkish rule were being taught
the clergyman's vocation. The first more deeply felt financial support given
to the monastic schools, began to arrive from Prince Milos during the third
decade. During the reign of Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic and the
constitutionalist regime in Serbia (1842-1858), financial aid began to
arrive more regularly for the restoration of churches and the maintenance of
monasteries, and gifts were sent in books for religious service. Excluding
the most renown medieval endowments, aid from the Serbian government also
arrived to fraternities of the monasteries St. Marko and the Holy Trinity
near Prizren, the Holy Transfiguration near Pec, and to priests of the
Prizren and Djakovica churches.
Since the mid-18th century, Serbian church-school communities operated
in Metohia and Kosovo, founded first in towns and then in village parishes,
the cores of township and village self-government. Until the Rasko-Prizren
metropolitans were of Serbian nationality, they nominated members for the
governing bodies of church-school communities, usually for no limited time.
The selection was limited to the most noted priests, wealthy merchants and
guild representatives. Communities saw to the maintenance of religious
schools and the education of monastic progeny, strove to establish contact
with Serbia and effect relations with Turkish authorities, both on religious
and educational grounds, and when possible, on economic ones, too. Members
of church-school boards collected contributions for the repairement of
monasteries and churches. Beside many monasteries and churches (Gracanica,
Visoki Decani, Devic, Duboki Potok, Vracevo, Draganac), palaces were built
for the operation of monastic or religious schools, and subsequently secular
ones.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the inauguration of schools was
urged by Raska-Prizren Metropolitans Janicije and Hadzi Zaharije. When the
bishopric chair was taken over in 1830 by Greek bishops, endeavors were
undertaken, especially during Metropolitan Ignjatije's time (1840-1849), to
open Tzintzar schools where lessons in Greek would also be attended by
Serbian children.1 The Phanariot bishops strove to sustain the
subjugation and ignorance of the Serbian clergy, so as to facilitate their
manipulation of The flock. Some of them sold their clerical positions for
money and fined the people with large church taxes. Being of open
anti-Serbian determination, they impeded or hampered the restoration or
construction of new churches, attempted to Hellenize the populace by
imposing the celebration of the name-day feast, instead of the Slava
(Serbian family feast for its patron saint), a definitely Serbian
custom.2
In the first half of the 19th century, religious schools existed in all
major towns (Pristina, Pec, Mitrovica, Vucitrn, Gnjilane, Djakovica) and in
some villages (Musutiste, Vitina, Korminjan). Private schools were opened
usually under the name of a notable leader who was to finance its operation,
but the burden of maintenance usually fell upon church-school communities
and guilds. Private schools provided lessons in subjects both religious and
secular. The best among them were at Prizren, Vucitrn, Mitrovica, and the
Donja Jasenovo and Kovaci villages. The inauguration of new private schools
falls with the Turkish reforms at the middle of the century. Merchant and
craftsmen guilds in Pec, Prizren and Gnjilane introduced funds for opening
new schools and obtaining better teaching staff. The constitutionalist
government sent the schools money, books and other facilities through
merchants and other members of church boards. According to available data,
several dozens of schools in Metohia and Kosovo were attended by around
1,300 pupils during the sixties.
The oldest and most renown Serbian church-school community was in
Prizren, the economical center of Serbs in Metohia, where a community school
aiming to prevent Greek propaganda was established in 1836. Hilferding
recorded that the male school had 200 pupils in 1857. Other important seats
of scholastic life were at Pristina (150 pupils in 1865) and Pec (150 pupils
in 1866), in which Serbian teachers from different regions (Srem, Serbia,
Croatia) lectured according to secular programs from Serbia. Special schools
were opened for female children. The highest degree of education was
provided by an extensive school at Prizren, a kind of high school, though of
lower level.3
A number of talented pupils from Kosovo and Metohia aspiring to the
teaching vocation, were being prepared in Serbia from the beginning of the
sixties, owing to scholarships received from wealthy Prizren merchant Sima
Andrejevic Igumanov (1804-1882). Their number greatly increased already
after 1868, when in Belgrade, at the proposition of Serbian Metropolitan
Mihailo, an Educational Board was formed for schools and teachers in Old
Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under the patronage of the Board,
works on the improvement of teaching conditions soon produced significant
results. New schools were opened and old ones given financial support, and
the curriculum contained better programs. The tasks of teachers educated in
Serbia were not solely to educate, but were, above all, aimed to maintain
national awareness of the people, prevent conversions and prepare the
progeny to carry on the duties of national enlightenment.
The turning point in the educational life of Serbs in the Ottoman
Empire, was marked by the Bogoslovija (Seminary), founded in Prizren in
1871. Even though some suggestions for its inauguration were directed at
Pec, the prevailing attitude in Belgrade was that Prizren was the most
favorable place, being the center of economical life for Serbs in Old Serbia
and seat of the vilayet. Sima Andrejevic Igumanov lived in Prizren, the
contemporaneously greatest benefactor who bequeathed his riches obtained by
trades in Russia, to the people. He was a Russian subject and was thus able,
with assistance from the Russian consulate at Prizren, to obtain a license
from the Turkish authorities to found a Seminary. It soon became the seat of
the overall spiritual and educational life and the stronghold for political
work on national affairs. More important was the fact that for the first
time, contact had been established with the government in Belgrade, able
thus to exert immediate influence on national operations amongst Serbs in
Old Serbia.
From its inauguration in 1871, until the liberation in 1912, the
Seminary worked according to instructions given by the Serbian government.
At the beginning, its operation was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry
for Education and Religious Affairs, and then the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs. All expenses of the Seminary were paid by the Serbian government,
but important means for its maintenance came from various funds founded by
the church and from the endowment of Sima Igumanov. The first rector of the
Theological college was a monk from Decani, Sava Decanac, a graduate of the
Spiritual Academy in Kiev.4
Owing to the Bogoslovija, primary schools operated in all larger
settlements in Metohia and Kosovo until 1912, and graduated theologians from
Prizren became teachers and priests all over the Ottoman Empire, from
Macedonia to Bosnia. According to incomplete data, around 480 students
graduated from the Seminary (subsequently transformed to a
theological-teaching school) until 1912, among whom 196 were from Metohia
and Kosovo.
The inauguration of the Seminary in Prizren proved to be a secure dam
against any attempts undertaken by the Constantinople Patriarchate to
Hellenize the Serbian populace through Tzintzar oases in Metohia and against
the aims of the Bulgarian Exarchate (1870) to build strongholds in the
Gnjilane region. Until the Serbian consulate was opened in Pristina in 1889,
the Seminary was the center of Serbian political life in Metohia and Kosovo.
From Belgrade, by way of the School, books, journals and newspapers were
delivered, for expanding liberational ideas and consolidating national
awareness. From the beginning of its operations, the Turkish authorities and
ethnic Albanians suspected the School of being the center of Serbian
national action, thus political contacts with Belgrade were carried out
through the Russian consulate in Prizren which secured the transmission of
confidential mail.5
In Prizren (seat of the vilayet from 1868-1874), from 1871, until the
abolition of the vilayet, the paper Prizren was published in two languages,
Turkish and Serbian, in which official news, laws, orders, new regulations,
verdicts over violators, and columns on events taking place in Turkey and in
other countries were published. The Serbian section of the paper was
editored by Ilija Stavric, rector of the Seminary, and texts were translated
into Serbian by a distinguished national worker and subsequent Serbian
consul to Pristina, Todor P. Stankovic. In Pristina, where the Kosovo
vilayet was formed in 1877, a similar vilayet paper Kosovo was instigated,
also in the Serbian and Turkish language. When the seat of the Kosovo
vilayet was moved to Skoplje in 1888, the paper resumed its publication only
in Turkish.6
1 See most important works: P. Kostic, Crkveni zivot pravoslavnih Srba
u Prizrenu i njegovoj okolini u XIX veku, (with writer's memories), Beograd
1928; idem, Prosvetno-kulturni zivot pravoslavnih Srba u Prizrenu i njegovoj
okolini u XIX veku i pocetkom XX veka, (with writer's memories), Skoplje
1933; J. K. Djilas, Srpske skole na Kosovu od 1856. do 1912. godine,
Pristina 1969.
2 J. Popovic, Zivot Srba na Kosovu 1812-1912, pp. 222-226.
3 The most distingushed teachers during the sixties were Nikola Musulin
and Milan Novicic in Prizren, Milan D. Kovacevic in Pristina, and Sava
Decanac in Pec.
4 J. K. Djilas, op. cit., pp. 53-104.
5 Spomenica Sezdesetogodisnjice prizrenske Bogoslovske uciteljske Skole
1871-1921, Beograd 1925, pp. 133-160; J. K. Djilas, op. cit., pp. 105-110.
6 T. P. Stankovic, Putne beleske po Staroj Srbiji 1871-1897, pp. 67-72;
H. Kalesi - H.J. Kornrumpf, op. cit., pp. 117-122.
The Economy
The essence of Serbian economy in Metohia and Kosovo lay in the town
and village handicrafts and trades. Centers of Serbian society in Metohia
and Kosovo were the towns Prizren, Pristina and Pec, and during the last
quarter of the century - Mitrovica. In Prizren, a large town on an important
crossroad toward Scutari and Salonika, trade and craftsmanships flourished
in the preceding centuries. The local Serbs called it "small
Constantinople", since most of the trade and crafts traditionally belonged
to Serbian citizens.
According to available sources, life in Serbian towns evolved under
irregular circumstances during the entire 19th century. The perpetual shifts
of anarchy, wars and uprisings, and continual peril upon one's life and
property, compelled the small-in-number Serbian citizens in Kosovo to adapt
to the existing conditions with haste. Using bribes and tips, common means
with bribable government representatives, they somewhat expanded narrow
economic frameworks, and discovered, always coinciding with momentous
political conditions, new opportunities for work and ways to protect their
estates and families. Life in the Serbian towns of Kosovo and Metohia
continued parallel to the Turkish and Albanian ones dictating the terms.
Even though corroded by irregular conditions, Serbian tradesmen and
craftsmen, gathered in church-school communities and parishes, united in
times of hardship, succeeded in organizing their lives. Acted as a unity
toward the authorities and tyrants, they often quarreled when settling
matters in local communities. The obstinacy with which they resisted
temptations to move to Serbia - a land that soon trod the path of national
and economic emancipation by European standards - proves that among the best
national representatives, a high degree of awareness existed on the need for
survival on Kosovo grounds.
Anachronic methods of trade, insecurity on roads and competition of
cheap European goods impeded the development of trade and handicrafts among
Serbs. The Muslims forbade the Christians to deal in crafts of wider
significance, for instance, the gunsmiths', leather dealers', and even the
barbers' trade. Beside the Muslims, who were mostly Turks, the Tzintzars,
Jews and Catholic Slavs of Janjevo were also in the handicraft business. Yet
the Serbs did very well in all the permitted trades. A larger part of their
produces satisfied their domestic needs and provided for nearby bazaars in
Old Serbia and Macedonia. Only a smaller portion of handicraft produces,
particularly of the goldsmiths', leather dealers' and tailors' guild
(especially in Prizren, Pristina and Pec), were vended on larger markets.
Costly decorative pieces of silver and gold, as well as saffian, had their
buyers on markets in Salonika, Constantinople and other Levant towns. Bulk
traders of Prizren, Vucitrn and Pristina sold various articles in Serbia,
mostly produces of different guilds, and purchased larger livestock. The
Vucitrn tradesmen of the Camilovic family had successful dealings with
Sarajevo, while merchants from Pec and Pristina traded with other towns in
Bosnia. Enterprising Prizren tradesmen held warehouses with leather and wool
in Belgrade from where their goods were delivered to Pest, Vienna and
Constantinople.1
The dynamic development of enterprises accomplished by Serbian
merchants in the mid-19th century provoked religious intolerance in
conservative competitive circles - tradesmen of Muslim faith. The commercial
successes of Serbs also disturbed the Turkish authorities, who reckoned them
to be signs of national rising. As a result, in 1859 and 1863, Serbian shops
were burnt in Prizren, Pec and Pristina, which incurred a sudden economic
downfall in these towns. Hadji Serafim Ristic recorded that when the army
occupied Prizren in 1860, 12 shops were burnt, and in Pristina, at two
strokes, 90 shops belonging to reputable merchants blazed, with values
amounting to almost a million coins.2 Yet, commerce remained in
Christian hands in Prizren, according to the attestation of Austrian Consul
J. G. von Hahn.3 A new commercial swing came with the opening of
the railway track from Mitrovica to Salonika in 1873-1874, while handicrafts
recorded a decrease in sales due to competition from cheap European goods
brought to Kosovo by Jewish merchants from Salonika. Nevertheless, the
revival of handicrafts and trade among the Serbs in the mid-19th century,
despite irregular conditions, considerably influenced the slowdown of
emigration to Serbia. In towns, contrary to the villages, a certain amount
of legal security existed and a possibility for developing ventures.
The position of Serbs living in villages was incomparably harder.
ethnic Albanians of Muslim faith organized raiding parties and mercilessly
sacked Serbian villages. Being Muslims, being privileged in every way, they
united into compact communities of blood brotherhoods or tribes, socially
homogeneous, maintaining their clans by terrorizing the Serbs, seizing their
lands or exacting taxes. By curbing Serbian farmers from certain regions,
they made space for the settlement of their fellow tribesmen living in the
indigent plateaus of north Albania. Unused to life in the plains and hard
work in the fields, the ethnic Albanians who settled from the hilly regions
rather picked up guns than hoes.4
There was no public safety on the roads of Kosovo and Metohia during
the 19th century. Passageways were controlled by bands of outlaws or tribal
companies, thus roads could be passed only with military escorts of the
Turkish police or with protection from Albanian clans supervising parts of
tribal territory, lurking about for an opportunity to fleece merchants and
passengers.
The Serbian peasant could not hope to be protected even in the fields,
where he could be assaulted at any moment by a wandering outlaw, or
blackmailed, and if he resisted, killed. Being the rayah, the Serbs had no
right to carry weapons, and when they contrived to obtain them, they had
nowhere to hide from the vengeance of the Albanian clan with which they
clashed. The haiduk tradition, characteristic of Serbs living in all regions
under Turkish domain, had no effect in the plains of Kosovo and Metohia.
Haiduk activity occurring from time to time on the ranges of Mount
Prokletije, in the vicinity of the Decani and Pec monasteries, took place
with the assistance and protection of Serbs from Montenegro, but still it
could not be sustained. In times of peace, rule in towns was maintained by
Turkish military garrisons. Passage through roads depended upon the will of
numerous Albanian clan companies until 1912. Villages inhabited by ethnic
Albanians and situated along the roads of Metohia where interspersed with
high stone towers, small fortresses from where passengers were attacked and
where concealment lay from members of other companies.
Both day and night, Serbian homes, made of glued mud, were open to
attack by individuals or bands of outlaws without fear of sanctions. French
travel writer Ami Boue recorded that his escort terrorized and robbed the
inhabitants of a Serbian village. When the host opposed the assailant with
an axe, the latter threatened to notify Pristina, from where the
"janissaries" and the tax collector would pop out. Under such threats, the
head of the Serbian home was compelled to comply to the demands of the
assailant, and even to part with him on "friendly" terms.5
During the second and third decade of the 19th century, when
independent pashas reigned, the position of Serbian village populaces was
extremely difficult. Agrarian-legal relations depended not on Turkish
regulations but on physical force. Feudal lords forced free farmers to the
position of chiflik farmers, especially in Drenica, and the Pec, Vucitrn and
Pristina nahis. Many free farmers fled to Serbia, while Islamization and
Albanization decreased the resistance of Serbian villages toward chiflik
labor. The seized estates were returned to some of the Serbs in 1832, owing
to the merit of Grand Vizier Reshid Pasha. The vizier then attempted to
permanently settle agrarian-legal relations in Rumelia with a decree issued
in Vucitrn, but in practice it was all different. Agas and subpashas settled
in villages to control the division of incomes of Serbian chiflik laborers.
Fearing sanctions, the Serbs were forbidden to collect income from the lands
they tilled unless given permission.
By the Hattisherif of Gulhane, the chiflik-sahibi system was legalized;
private ownership of land was recognized legally. The chiflik-laboring Serbs
tilled the lands of their lords and gave them part of their income. In
Kosovo and Metohia, until the Tanzimat reforms, the transformation of
sipahiliks to chifliks was executed by force. Chiflik-laboring was most
expressed in districts where Serbs and ethnic Albanians lived admixed.
Landowners were mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians and Turks, free farmers -
ethnic Albanians, and chiflik-laborers mainly Serbs with a small portion of
Catholic ethnic Albanians.6
Pressure exerted upon the Serbian chiflik inhabitants following 1839
was so great that when a large Christian uprising was prepared in Bosnia and
Rumelia, serious thought was given to rising. When the plans to rise were
divulged, the position of farmers grew worse. Muslims in Prizren routed the
tax collector in 1841, but Christian Serbs were compelled to pay. Having no
one to seek protection from, the Serbs of the Vucitrn and Pristina nahis
addressed the government in Belgrade in 1842, requesting help. Weighed down
by high taxes, which in some areas amounted to half of their total incomes,
Serbian farmers became impoverished. Economic pressure did not exclude
violent deeds which became daily events at the end of the fifth and sixth
decade. Blackmail, fleecing, arrogation of incomes and estates were followed
by countless acts of violence over Serbian inhabitants under Albanian
raiding bands. Only a part of these oppressive acts were divulged by
archimandrite of the Decani monastery, Hadji Serafim Ristic, in his
complaints to the sultan, Serbian Prince and Russian ruler.7
1 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, pp. 235-260.
2 Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji 1852-1912, D. Mikic,
Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba, pp. 236-237.
3 J. G. Hahn, Putovanje kroz porecinu Drina i Vardara, 130.
4 T. P. Stankovic, op. cit., pp. 131-138.
5 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, p. 90.
6 D. Mikic, Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba, pp. 236-239
(with earlier bibliography).
7 Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji 1852-1912, pp. 22-52. 104
PART TWO: THEOCRACY, NATIONALISM, IMPERIALISM
ENTERING THE SPHERE OF EUROPEAN INTEREST
The Albanian national movement was born during the great Eastern crisis
(1875-1878). The basis for its gathering contained the direct denial of
liberatory aims of Serbian states and of the political and national rights
of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia. Bound, in its matrix course, to the
Islam concept of tribal autonomy within the framework of the Ottoman state,
the Albanian movement radiated a peculiar intolerance toward European
comprehensions of society. The movement for autonomy was, to the Muslim
masses of Kosovo and Metohia, synonymous to the preservation of tribal and
feudal privileges; to the conservation of the anachronous regime in which
the Serbs had no place.
The outcome of the Eastern crisis brought Kosovo and Metohia under the
direct influence of Great Powers. Subsequent to the occupation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and the entrance of Austro-Hungarian troops in the northern
parts of the Kosovo vilayet, the remote Turkish province became the key of
dominion on the Peninsula. In Vienna, strong argumentation underscored that
the Ottomans conquered the Balkan Peninsula only after the battle of Kosovo
in 1389.
The formation of oppositional power blocks in Europe, with
Austria-Hungary and Russia as their main exponents in the Balkans, was
conducive to a clearer refraction of their mutual conflicting interests in
Kosovo, Metohia and Macedonia than in other Ottoman provinces.
Internationalization of the problem of Old Serbia, which intercepted German
penetration to the east, heavily affected the local Serbian populace.
Russia's influence on political issues in the Balkans, since the Congress of
Berlin until the Young Turk Revolution (1908), was diminishing despite aims
for its restoration and consolidation. Austro-Hungarian supremacy on the
Balkans, destroyed in World War I, was based on mercilessly checking Serbian
national interests and liberatory aims (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Novi Pazar
sanjak, Old Serbia, Macedonia). Favorizing the ethnic Albanians and the
conservative regime of Abdulhamid II, the Dual Monarchy made the Serbs of
Kosovo and Metohia victims of a policy aiming to a total expulsion of Serbs
in areas between the Una river and the Vardar river basin, mid Hungar...