Dusan T.Batakovic. The Kosovo Chronicles
сторінка №7
...y andthe Adriatic Sea.
Eastern Crisis and the Serbian-Turkish Wars
The great Eastern crisis inaugurated the issue on the survival of the
Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. Uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina compelled
the Porte, fearing interference from the Great Powers, to issue a firman of
reforms for the whole Empire. The following year a reform plan, designed by
Austria-Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Count Gyula Andrassi, was imposed
upon the Porte to prevent Russian intervention. Serbia and Montenegro,
emboldened by successful insurrections and the rebellion in Bulgaria,
prepared for a liberation war and the unification of the Serbs. Crucial
support was expected from Russia, but a somewhat larger response came only
from Slavophile circles which sent around 3,000 volunteers to Serbia.
Heading a Serbian army (subsequently the entire army), entirely devoid of a
trained military cadre, was Russian General Mihail Grigorievich Chernaiev.
With the agreement in Reichstadt (1876) and the military convention in
Budapest (1877), Russia negotiated with Austria-Hungary: with free action
and the declaration of war to Turkey the Dual Monarchy would be able to
occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina at the appropriate time. The destiny of the
liberation movement was thereby settled beforehand.
The beginning of the uprising in Herzegovina and Bosnia in 1875 revived
the hopes of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia that the time of liberation was
drawing near. Harbingers voicing the approaching liberation were seen in
dreams, interpreted by portents and extraordinary occurrences, while Serbian
merchants demanded the payment of their dues before deadlines.1
Unfamiliar passengers seen in various parts of Metohia and Kosovo were
regarded as Serbian Prince Milan in disguise, observing the battlefields of
the upcoming combats. Shortly before the war, emissaries did actually arrive
from Serbia. In Nis in 1874, a secret committee was formed with the task of
preparing an uprising against the Turks. Before the commencement of war, a
general of the Serbian army, Franz Zach, sent Todor P. Stankovic, member of
the Nis committee and an authority on the local situation to Kosovo, to
confer with notables in Pristina, Vucitrn, Gnjilane and Prizren on the
upcoming war. The report was submitted to General Chernaiev who disapproved
of the Serbs rising in Kosovo, expounding that Russia had not yet decided to
engage in war. Several notables from Kosovo did, however, arrive in Serbia
with the desire to obtain detailed instructions for the Joint action.
Aksentije Hadzi Arsic, a merchant from Pristina, contacted the Russian
diplomacy in Belgrade, endeavoring, with its assistance in Constantinople,
subsequently in Odessa, to organize a course for transferring volunteers to
Serbia.2
When the war began in June 1876, masses of Serbs from Kosovo and
Metohia crossed over to Serbian territory, and with Macedonian volunteers,
fought within the composition of the Serbian army. Numerous refugees fleeing
Albanian terror sought shelter in Serbia. Serbs in Prizren and other places
were called to join the Ottoman army in the composition of irregular troops
(bashibazouk) and war with Serbia. Most of them saved themselves by paying
high ransoms.
The ethnic Albanians and Turks received the declaration of war vexed
and anxious. Around 35,000 (72 units with 550 men) Albanian volunteers
responded to the sultan's call to defend their homeland. The first to
advance to the front towards Serbia were ethnic Albanians of the Ljuma
mountainous region. On their way toward the border, at the beginning of
July, around 3,000 of them descended to Prizren, sacking the Serbian town.
The Albanian volunteers took every advantage to pillage regions lying on
their way. Again Kosovo and Metohia became a battleground where ethnic
Albanians settled their accounts with the Serbs, blaming them for the
outbreak of war.
Serbia and Montenegro fought with unequal success. The Montenegrins won
two great victories whereas the poorly armed and insufficiently trained
Serbian troops suffered defeats. Serbia soon agreed to a truce and then a
peace treaty with Turkey on a status quo basis. In Constantinople the insane
Murad V was deposed and Abdulhamid II proclaimed sultan. At the end of 1876,
the Constitution was proclaimed, warranting freedom of religion and civil
equality for all subjects of the Ottoman Empire.
Yet, nothing changed in Kosovo and Metohia. Terror upon the Serbs did
not abate. At the end of December 1876, the church-school community of Pec
complained to the pasha of Prizren that fifty Serbs were killed in the town
and its vicinity from May to December. Complaints of oppression were sent to
the grand vizier and Russian and Austro-Hungarian consuls in Prizren. An
English Committee received refugees returning from Serbia to Kosovo
following the unsuccessful war.3
A conference of ambassadors of the Great Powers disputed the destiny of
the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, at the beginning of January in 1877.
The destiny of Serbs in other Balkan provinces except in Bosnia and Bulgaria
was not mentioned. Thus a "Committee for the Liberation of Old Serbia and
Macedonia" was founded in Belgrade presided by Archimandrite Sava Decanac.
National notables composed a petition at the end of February with a hundred
signatures, thus authorizing the Board was able to represent them with the
Great Powers. The petition demanded that all countries in which Serbs lived
be annexed to Serbia so as to sustain their faith and nationality. An
alternate demand was to found a Serbian Exarchate, following the example of
the Bulgarian one, with its seat at Pec, and encompassing Bosnia and
Herzegovina.4
Russia's entrance to war with Turkey in April 1877, which Serbia and
Montenegro were to join, had delayed the submission of the petition, but,
nonetheless, the Committee resumed its work. Shortly before Serbia's
repeated engagement in war, the Serbian prince and the Russian tzar received
news from Kosovo on the slave-like treatment of the Turkish authorities upon
the Christians.
At Russia's demand, after lengthy hesitation, Serbia entered war at the
end of December, 1877, but only after Russia's conquest of Plevna, which
sent off an unfavorable echo to the ruling Russian circles. A favorable
condition for a move to liberate Skoplje and emerge in Kosovo was missed.
The Kosovo ethnic Albanians advanced once more toward the border. The
regular Turkish troops were engaged at the front with the Russians, while
ethnic Albanians comprised the main force against the Serbs. Anxiety among
them was higher than military enthusiasm. Fear of Russian victory
("Moskovits") and of its allies wrought commotion upon the ethnic Albanians,
anxious about their future religious and tribal rights. Life in a Christian
and Slavic state was inconceivable for the majority of ethnic Albanians; in
combats with the Serbian army they put up stubborn resistance, especially in
struggles for Prokuplje and Kursumlija.
But the Serbs were advancing steadily. Liberating Nis, Leskovac, Vranje
and Prokuplje, the Serbian army emerged in Kosovo. Not knowing that Russia
and Turkey had agreed to a truce, the voluntary regiment of Major Radomir
Putnik took Gnjilane, while the advance guard of the Serbian army, under the
command of Lieutenant Milos Sandic, reached the Gracanica monastery near
Pristina toward the end of January 1878. On January 25, a solemn liturgy was
performed in Gracanica to honor the victory of the Serbian army and Prince
Milan, and a commemoration was held for the heroes of Kosovo in 1389.
However, the concluded truce was inclusive of the Serbian army. The units
were compelled to withdraw from Kosovo.5
According to the Peace Treaty between Russia and Turkey concluded in
San Stefano on March 3rd, 1878, a bulk of the liberated territories,
including those liberated by the Serbian army, were alloted to Bulgaria.
prince Milan informed the Russian supreme command that "the Serbian army
will not abandon Nis even if it were attacked by the Russian army". As a
compensation, Serbia's border was extended to Mitrovica on Kosovo. Old
Serbia remained under Ottoman rule. By the agreement, the Porte was
obligated to issue a special regl ment organique for Albania.6
The Committee of Sava Decanac then expanded its actions. Signatures for
petitions were collected and sent to the Serbian prince, Russian tzar and
delegates of the European powers. All the petitions demanded the annexation
of Old Serbia and Macedonia to Serbia. The news that the Congress of Berlin
had been convoyed for the revision of the San Stefano Peace Treaty was
received by the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia as a possibility of emphasizing
again the demands for annexation to Serbia. Delegates of the Pristina,
Prizren, Djakovica, Pec and Vucitrn regions sent a petition to the
participants of the Congress with 272 signatures, stamped with 126 county
and monastic seals. On June 28, the Serbs of Gnjilane, Skoplje and Tetovo
sent to the Russian tzar and British delegate in Berlin an appeal with
nearly 400 signatures. A similar authorized appeal was sent to the Serbian
knez. In a memorandum submitted to Russian Tzar Alexander II, national
representatives complained of unbearable violence and the inferior position
of the Orthodox people.7
Sava Decanac set off to Berlin with a petition signed by around 2,000
national representatives - priests, serfs, merchants and craftsmen. He
submitted the petition to the German Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck who
promised that the participants of the Congress would be told about the
demands. Archimandrite Sava wrote a general appeal to every other delegate
of the Great Powers, demanding the annexation to Serbia, or, at least, if
possible, the restoration of the Pec Patriarchate. His memorandum dated June
3, 1878, reads: "This nation has been enduring sufferings unheard-of because
it was left to the mercy of Turkish and Albanian renegades. Now, since the
position of all the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula has improved, is it
right that we should remain shackled to tyranny, is it right that we should
further endure butchery from the Turks, that our homes should be burnt by
ethnic Albanians, is it right that we should be subject to deeds worse than
those committed upon animals in Europe. Considering we took part in the war
for liberation, considering we rebelled against exploitation, considering we
expressed our desires for freedom and unification with our brothers; if the
old system is restored, Muslim fanaticism will be without limit, more
brutal, we will be forced to endure sufferings never experienced before. We
raise our voices once more to the European assembly, asking for mercy, not
to leave us to this gory and cruel bondage. If it is unable to grant us
freedom, let at least autonomy and personal safety be secured."8
Austria-Hungarian and Russian rivalry for dominance over the Balkans
was not favorable to Serbia's requests. Delegates from Serbia and Montenegro
delegates were not permitted to take part in the Congress. The Serbian
government, relying upon Austria-Hungary, requested of Gyula Andrsssi the
annexation of the Gnjilane region, beside the Nis sanjak. Minister of
Foreign Affairs Jovan Ristic, in a memoir submitted to participants of the
Congress, underscored that if Old Serbia were to remain under Turkish rule,
the Serbs would be left to the merciless revenge of Muslims, which would
bring Serbia to an unenviable position and only incur new
troubles.9 Even though both countries acquired independence at
the Congress of Berlin, the decision that Old Serbia was to remain under
Turkish rule was received with great disappointment by the Serbs in Kosovo
Metohia. Liberation from the Turkish yoke was delayed
indefinitely.10
The decisions of the Congress of Berlin caused great discontent in
Serbia. In a public proclamation, announced after the Congress, Prince Milan
underscored: "Within a brief time of six weeks, you penetrated to Kosovo at
the speed of lightning, where the victorious song of Serbia was sung at the
gloomy church of Gracanica five hundred years later. [...] Your brilliant
leap needed only a step further and victorious Serbian banners would have
unfurled in Pristina, Skoplje and Prizren, the old capitals of the
Nemajices, but alas, a truce concluded on January 19, [31] this same year,
forestalled and stopped you."11
Fighting along with Serbia against the Turks, Montenegro tried to win
over the Catholic Mirdits. In 1874 the Serbian agency in Constantinople
contacted the Mirdit captain Marko, cousin of Bib Doda. In mid-1876 the
Mirdits were ready to engage in war against the Turks if Montenegrin Prince
Nikola warranted, in writing, that he would recognize their independence
after the war. Receiving from Belgrade the reply "we accept completely", the
Montenegrin Prince made his promise. Even though of anti-Slavic disposition,
the. Mirdit Prince Prenk Bib Doda entered into conflict with Turkish
authorities well rewarded.12
In the second war with the Turks, Montenegro came into conflict with
north Albanian Catholic tribes, the Grudas and Hotis, and waged major
battles with the Muslim bashibazouks. ethnic Albanians and Muslims of
Serbian origin, on the stretch from Ulcinj on the Adriatic Sea to Plav and
Gusinje in the mountainous region toward north Albania, severely clashed
with Montenegrin forces. At the Congress of Berlin, aside to the
independence granted it, Montenegro's territorial expansion had been
confirmed: among other territories, Plav and Gusinje had been alloted to it,
with strong resistance incurring from the Albanian populace. 13
1 V. Topic, Istocno pitanje, Sarajevo 1966 , pp. 168-170. J. H.
Vasiljevic, Pokret Srba i Bugara u Turskoj posle srpsko-turskih ratova 1876.
1877-1878. godine i njegove posledice (1878-1882), Beograd 1908, pp.
266-274.
2 D. Mikic, Srbi Kosova u istocnoj krizi 1875-1878, Obelezja, 5 (1982),
pp. 98-111; ibid., Kosovo prema radu Berlinskog kongresa i realizovanju
njegovih odluka, Pristina 1980, pp. 243.
3 D. Mikic, Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba u XIX veku, pp.
243-345.
4 Ibid.
5 V. Stojancevic, Prvo oslobodjenje Kosova od strane srpske vojske u
ratu 1877-1878, in: Srbija u zavrsnoj fazi velike istocne krize (1877-1878),
Beograd, 1980, pp. 462-468; J. Popovic, op. cit., pp. 230-233; Savremenici o
Kosovu i Metohiji 1852-1912, pp. 286-292.
6 D. Mikic, Albansko pitanje i albansko-srpske veze u XIX veku (do
1912), M. misao, 3 (1985), p. 143.
7 J. Hadzi-Vasiljevic, Pokret Srba i Bugara u Turskoj, pp. 17-36;
Srbija 1878, Documents (edited by M. Vojvodic, D. R. Zivojinovic, A.
Mitrovic, R. Samardzic), Beograd 1978, pp. 322-327.
8 Srbija 1878, 503; Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, pp. 291-292.
9 "In provinces located on this side of the rivers [Drina and Lim],
events have created an entirely new situation. The Princedom [Serbia] was
compelled to take up arms for the second time, and due to continual
advancements, the region of its action covered almost all of Old Serbia. How
was it to withdraw from the region and leave its populace to the revenge of
Musloman without the land sinking again to another horrifying state by which
no one would gain? The best way to secure the benefits of eternal peace in
the region would be to satisfy the legitimate wishes of the people, to
liberate and conjoin it to mother Serbia. "(Srbija 1878, pp. 449.)
10 Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, pp. 291-292.
11 B. Perunicic, Zulumi aga i begova u kosovskom vilajetu, Beograd
1989, p. 43.
12 D. Mikic, Prizrenska liga i austrougarska okupacija Bosne i
Hercegovine i zaposedanje novopazarskog sandzaka (1878-1879. godine),
Balcanica, IX (1978), p. 294; D. Bogdanovic, Knjiga o Kosovu, 137-138; more
elaborate in: B. Hrabak, Katolicki Arbanasi za vreme istocne krize
(1875-1878), Istorijski zapisi, XXXV, 1-2 (1978), pp. 5-59.
13 N. Raznatovic, Crna Gora i Berlinski kongres, Cetinje 1979; D.
Bogdanovic, Knjiga o Kosovu, pp. 141.
The Albanian League
Military operations during the 1877-1878 war brought demographic
disturbances in Old Serbia. From 1875, a surge of refugees from Kosovo and
the neighboring areas crossed over to Serbian territory. At the bordering
regions of Serbia, stretching between Mount Kopaonik and Jastrebac, around
200,000 Serbs sought shelter from the terror of ethnic Albanians, Turks and
Cherkezes.
The triumph of the Serbian army and the liberation of southern Serbia
caused a contrary migratory process. In the spaces from Prokuplje to
Leskovac and Vranje, during the 19th century, the ethnic Albanians had
settled, and, like their compatriots in Kosovo and Metohia, had supremacy in
political relations, occupying frontal positions in the governing apparatus.
When Serbian units liberated the Nis sanjak, withdrawing ahead of them,
together with the defeated bashibazouks, were Albanian inhabitants of that
region. In accordance with the consecrated Turkish traditions, in case of
defeat, Muslims were called to leave the lost territories with the army.
From Toplica and southern Pomoravlje, around 30,000 ethnic Albanians
retreated with the Turkish troops, seeking refuge on the plains of Kosovo
and Metohia. These refugees (muhadjirs), looking for space to settle, bereft
of their belongings and lands, began to take vengeance upon local Serbian
inhabitants, to plunder property and arrogate lands. The administrative
authorities existed only nominally, since power was held by local ethnic
Albanians who also attacked the Serbian inhabitants.1 In a
complaint lodged to Prince Milan, the Serbs of Gnjilane stated that
following the retreat of the Serbian army from Kosovo, acts of violence were
tripled: "The exasperated ethnic Albanians broke into our houses and estates
on the day the Serbian army withdrew from Gnjilane, devastating everything,
fleecing us to our bare skin! And, alas, there is more! Every day one our
brothers is killed, either secretly or in public."2
The ethnic Albanians were disturbed by the military fiasco, the arrival
of muhadjirs and decisions brought by the San Stefano Peace Treaty. The
penetration of the Serbian army caused panic and the flight of many ethnic
Albanians further into Ottoman territory, toward Djakovica and Pec. Albanian
leaders considered the expansion of Serbia and Montenegro, particularly
their evident aspirations to acquiring Old Serbia, perilous to Albanian
interests. Tribal chiefs from Pec, Djakovica, Gusinje, Ljuma, Debar and
Tetovo conferred upon whether to accept, in peace, their in war lost lands,
which they believed were "Albanian" territories, or to resist in arms the
alteration of former frontiers, despite the Forte's standpoint. Toward the
end of April, precautionary measures were undertaken in Djakovica in case of
another Serbian, Montenegrin or Russo - Bulgarian offensive and to protect
the supplies of arms, ammunition and food.3
The news of the Berlin Congress being convoked accelerated the national
assemblage of ethnic Albanians. Even in the preceding decades, Albanian
migr s in Italy, Bulgaria and Romania pledged for the educational and
national emancipation of their people, but their influence among the
illiterate commoners of Muslim faith, bound to the tradition of the sheriat
and tribal privileges, was entirely negligible. The "Italo - Albanian
Committee" acted under the patronage of the Italian government, which saw it
as a means of economic and political penetration to the Balkans. In
Constantinople, an influential literary-political circle of Albanian
intellectuals grew to become, in 1877, the "Central Committee for Defending
Albanian Rights", propagating territorial-administrative autonomy within the
framework of the Ottoman Empire. The plan of the Committee, published in the
Tercuman - i Sark paper, anticipated the founding of a single Albanian
vilayet that would encompass the Kosovo, Bitolj, Scutari and Janjevo
vilayets. Plans were then already voiced for including even of the Salonika
vilayet.4
For the first time since their foundation, the activities of Albanian
committees met with some response from wider Albanian circles, due to a
perilous psychosis on account of aspirations arising from the neighboring
Serbian countries. Around 300 delegates assembled in Prizren from different
regions, but mostly big landholders (pashas and beys), tribal chiefs and
religious heads. At a congregation in the Prizren mosque, a "League for
defending the rights of the Albanian people", more widely known as the
Albanian League, was founded. The main board, composed of 60 members,
presided over by Abdul Bey Frasheri, sent a memorandum to the Great Powers
in Berlin on June 15, requesting for the territorial integrity of the
Ottoman Empire to be preserved with its borders as they were prior to the
war.5
The statute of the League, called Kararname (Book of Decisions)
underscored fidelity to the sheriat law, Islam and the Porte, and the
determination to defend in arms the totality of Ottoman territories. The
first article of the Kararname underlines the League's "aim not to accept
and to remain distanced from any government except that of the Porte and to
struggle in arms to defend the wholeness of the territories". Article 2
states: "Our aim is to preserve the imperial rights for his revered majesty
the sultan, our lord." Article 6 states a definite attitude toward the
neighboring Balkan countries: "Having Balkan soil before us, we should not
allow foreign armies to tread our land. We should not recognize Bulgaria's
name. If Serbia does not leave peacefully the illegally occupied countries,
we should send bashibazouks (akindjias) and strive until the end to liberate
these regions, including Montenegro."6
The main demand of the Albanian League was to form from the territories
of four vilayets: Scutari, Janjevo, Kosovo and Bitolj, a single "Albanian
vilayet" in the Ottoman Empire. With its first step, the Albanian national
movement defined the range of its territorial pretensions. The spaces of
these four vilayets contained 44% ethnic Albanians, 19,2% Macedonian Slavs,
11,4% Serbs, 9,2% Greeks, 6,5 Walachs, 9,3% Ottoman Turks, 0,4% Jews,
Armenians and Gypsies.7 The territorial demands of the national
movement expanded to Old Serbia and Macedonia, regions where ethnic
Albanians did not comprise the majority of the populace, thus bearing the
germ of new clashes with the two Serbian states. It was based on extremely
anti-Slavic and anti-Serbian determination.
The activities of the League pointed to a breach in religious beliefs,
varying degrees of national awareness and opposing conceptions of national
future, all within the Albanian national movement.
The political activities of the League were controlled by notable
landholders, religious heads and tribal chiefs who were by their positions,
faith and conceptions profoundly bound to the Ottoman state and its
ideology. Relying upon the lower layers of the Albanian and Muslim people,
whose hostility for the Serbs paralleled the victories of Serbian armies,
they gave the whole movement a pro-Islamic and legitimist character in the
first year of its work. Abdul Bey Frasheri and delegates from south Albania,
advocates of the so-called "radical movement", remained a minority in their
propositions to sever all ties with the Porte. Yet, they coincided in
designating the territorial extension of "Albanian countries":
the new independent state was to be composed of four principalities: 1)
south Albania with Epirus and Janina; 2) north and mid Albania with the
regions around Scutari, Tirana and Elbasan; 3) Macedonia with the towns
Debar, Skoplje Gostivar, Prilep, Veles, Bitolj and Ohrid; 4) Old Serbia with
the towns: Prizren, Pec, Djakovica, Mitrovica, Pristina, Gnjilane, Presevo,
Kumanovo, Novi Pazar and Sjenica.8
In the conceived "Great Albania", their privileged position was taken
for granted. Until the Eastern crisis, it was based upon their place in the
system of the Ottoman state organization which allowed for the heedless
exploitation of the subjugated populace. In the national programs of the
League, preserving religious, tribal and political privileges, there was no
room for non-Albanian peoples: their political inequality was not
anticipated nor legal and economic protection warranted. Religious and
ethnic intolerance acquired, on the other hand, a new content. The Serbs in
Prizren were even compelled to sign and seal the petition of the League sent
to the Berlin Congress.
The leadership of the Albanian national movement, originating mainly
from feudal circles, saw, in the activities of the League, a means to
preserve the existing privileges, an opportunity to liberate the lower
strata from paying taxes, a continuity for free tribal self-government and
space for demographic expansion. Common interests soon made the League an
instrument of the new Sultan Abdulhamid II (1876-1909), inspirator of the
pan-Islamic ideology. Its anti-Slav disposition was to benefit the sultan in
revising the San Stefano Peace Treaty, to prevent international confirmation
of territorial losses or new concessions at the Berlin Congress. The League
was to act as a deterrent through which to preserve the totality of the
Ottoman state. Thus, at the inaugural assembly of the Albanian League, there
were delegates from Bosnia and Muslims from the sanjak of Novi Pazar, and
subsequently, though with little success, Albanian volunteers were mustered
to resist Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.9
The pro-Islamic and pro-Turk character of the League met with
disapproval among Catholic Albanians in north Albania. Italian consul to
Scutari, Bernardo Berio, believed that only the Catholics were true carriers
of the idea of Albanian autonomy and breakup with the Turks. Prenk Bib Doda,
hereditary prince of the Mirdits, did not wish to participate in the
activities of the League for the preponderance of Albanian Muslims in its
orders, beside holding different claims. A council in Scutari, independent
of the League in Prizren, addressed the British Premier Benjamin Disraeli
with the request for the formation of an independent Albania to bar Slavic
invasion toward the Adriatic sea.
Diplomats of Great Powers with consulates in Prizren and Scutari
(Russia, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, Italy) reported that the formation
of the Albanian League was urged directly through aid from the Porte and
haste from vilayet officials and military commanders. The Italian consul to
Scutari observed "strange connections between the official bodies of Turkish
authorities and a lawfully illegal movement", since the Turkish authorities
paid for the arrival of Albanian delegates to Prizren and supplied the
followers of the League with arms and ammunition.10 The same
conclusions were drawn by a diplomat of the Dual Monarchy who warned that
the activities of the League's local committee in Prizren evolved through
conference with the highest officials in the vilayet, who "[...] armed the
local Muslim Albanians with excellent guns, provided them with ammunition
and granted authority upon their leaders exceeding the authorities of
government bodies [...]". He had anticipated that the Porte "would no longer
be able to induce the people to lay down their arms, and the consequences
soon to arise will be situations on which the Porte will have to
count".11
The decisions of the Berlin Congress sanctioned the expansion of Serbia
and Montenegro, and, among other things, obligated the Porte to cede Plav
and Gusinje. The failure of the Turkish state to defend its interests before
the European powers caused the leadership of the League to gradually turn to
ideas of total autonomy. Councils and branches had around 16,000 men in arms
directed toward the Turkish authorities and army, being discontented by the
outcome of events. The first attempt of the Porte to restore order caused a
massive Albanian rebellion. The Empire's emissary, Marshall Mehmed Ali
Pasha, who arrived to interpret the decisions of the Berlin Congress, was
killed at the end of August 1878 in Djakovica.12
Resistance to the Porte increased with its attempts to collect taxes
from the ethnic Albanians and carry out recruitment. In May 1879, the
leadership of the League, overcome by the so-called "autonomous movement",
demanded judicial and complete administrative autonomy from the Porte, and
already in July, the decision was set to depose Turkish rule. Bodies of the
League took over rule in Djakovica, Prizren, Pec, Mitrovica and Vucitrn.
This kind of parallel rule lasted until 1880, when the demand for the total
independence of Albania was underscored. All attempts made by Constantinople
to pacify the ethnic Albanians were futile. The Porte then resorted to
military measures. As it no longer needed favors from the League, a military
campaign under the command of Dervish Pasha was dispatched to the rebelling
regions. Beside sporadic conflicts with the ethnic Albanians, it took the
towns controlled by the League and established Turkish rule. Instead of Plav
and Gusinje, Ulcinj and its shores were ceded to Montenegro. Destroyed by
military force, the League soon ceased to exist, while its most prominent
leaders were arrested and deported to Asia Minor.13
Cautiously encroaching upon the political vacuum created after the idea
for Albanian independence was expressed, was Austria-Hungary. To bar the
expansion of the Slavic states, it defended the rights of ethnic Albanians,
mainly the Mirdits. Count Andrassi believed that it was in the best interest
of the Monarchy to direct Albanian resistance against the Serbs and
Montenegrins, thereby sustaining traditional hostility between the ethnic
Albanians and Slavs. Plans were discussed in Vienna for the creation of
autonomous Albania to dam up Italian consolidation on the shores of the
Adriatic.
Even though feudal layers abhorred the aspirations of the Dual Monarchy
regarding the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the military
occupation of the Novi Pazar sanjak, the ethnic Albanians received these
decisions comparatively peacefully. The Austria-Hungarian diplomacy aided
Albanian requests in its border dispute with Montenegro, while its agents,
infiltrated from Bosnia, commended the order, security and improved living
conditions introduced by the new government in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The
Forte's emissaries were convincing the ethnic Albanians that the
Austria-Hungarian troops in the Novi Pazar sanjak arrived at the invitation
of padishah. As it already had secure political strongholds in the Catholic
missions in north Albania, the Dual Monarchy strove to win over the ethnic
Albanians of Muslim faith. Its further penetration into the depths of the
Ottoman Empire by way of the Novi Pazar sanjak depended mostly upon the
ethnic Albanians and their political orientation. The destruction of the
League was the first encouraging step in that direction.15
1 R. Pavlovic, Seobe Srba i Arbanasa u ratovima 1876 i 1877-1878.
godine, Glasnik etnografskog instituta, 4-6 (1955-1957), pp. 53-104; D.
Bogdanovic, Knjiga o Kosovu, 137-138.
2 Srbija 1878, p. 324.
3 B. Hrabak, Prvi izvestaji diplomata velikih sila o Prizrenskoj ligi,
Balcanica, IX (1978), p. 237.
4 B. Hrabak, Ideje o arbanaskoj autonomiji i nezavisnosti 1876-1880.
godine, Istorijski casopis, XXV-XXVI (1978-1979), pp. 160-165.
5 S. Skendi, Albanian National Awakening 1878-1912, Princeton 1967, pp.
31-53.
6 B. Hrabak, Prvi izvestaji diplomata velikih sila o Prizrenskoj ligi,
pp. 238-239. Article Kararname in: A. Hadri, Prilog rasvetljavanju
Prizrenske lige (1878-1881), Perparimi, 1 (1967), 36-37; useful survey on
the Albanian League by D. Bogdanovic, Knjiga o Kosovu, pp. 142-148; cf.
Lidhja Shqiptare ne dokumentet osmane 1878-1881, Tirane 1978; P. Bartl. Die
Albanische muslime zur Zeit der Nationalen Unabh ngigkeitsbrewegung
(1878-1912), pp. 115-192.
7 By confessions, 52.8% were Muslim, 27.8% Orthodox, 15% Catholic.
Among the Albanians 77% were of Muslim faith (H. D. Schanderl, Die
Albanienpolitik Osterreich Ungarns und Italiens 1877-1908, Wiesbaden 1971,
pp. 9-10). A statistics of the population in Old Serbia complied prior to
the wars, by Austro-Hungarian consul to Prizren, Lipic, indicated that
Albanians were not the ethnic majority in the Nis sanjak liberated by
Serbia. In Leskovac 48.58% of Albanians lived, in Vranje 27.55%, whereas in
Nis they were not even listed in the statistics. The Albanians were the
majority in Toplice only in Prokuplje (57.86%) and Kursumlija (92.68%); B.
Hrabak, op. cit., pp. 256-257.
8 B. Stulli, Albansko pitanje 1878-1882, Rad JAZU, 318, (1959), pp.
321-323; D. Bogdanovic, Knjiga o Kosovu, pp. 144.
10 B. Stulli, op. cit., pp. 337-341; B. Hrabak, Arbanasi i njihova liga
prema okupaciji Bosne i Hercegovine, Prilozi instituta za istoriju u
Sarajevu, 16 (1979), pp. 37-48; Cf. H. Kalesi, Napredne ideje nekih ideologa
albanskog nacionalnog pokreta u drugoj polovini XIX veka o saradnji
balkanskih naroda, in: Oslobodilacki pokreti jugoslovenskih naroda od XVI
veka do pocetka Prvog svetskog rata, Beograd 1976, 225-242; D. T. Batakovic,
Osnove arbanaske prevlasti na Kosovu i Metohiji 1878-1903, Ideje, 5-6
(1987), pp. 36-38.
11 B. Hrabak, Italijanski konzul u Skadru B. Berio o arbanaskom pitanju
1876-1878. godine, Casopis za suvremenu povijest 3 (1978), pp. 32-33.
12 B. Hrabak, Prvi izvestaji diplomata velikih sila o Prizrenskoj ligi,
pp. 252, 262-263; B. Stulli, op. cit., p. 323.
13 B. Hrabak, Prvi izvestaji diplomata velikih sila o Prizrenskoj ligi,
pp. 268-270.
14 J. Hadzi-Vasiljevic, Arbanaska liga, pp. 100-102,109-127; B. Stulli,
op. cit., pp. 343-348; S. Skendi, op. cit., pp. 93-107.
15 D. Mikic, Prizrenska liga i austrougarska okupacija Bosne i
Hercegovine, 297- 328; H. D. Schnaderl, op. cit., pp. 43-47.
Court-Martial in Pristina
The entire activity of the Albanian League was of clear and explicit
Anti-Serbian character. The motives for its formation and the decisions of
the Berlin congress caused severe oppression upon the Serbian populace.
Albanian attacks on the Serbian border ended, as a rule, by depredating
Serbian villages on the Turkish side. From the beginning to mid June 1878
alone, according to the information of French diplomats, 112 Christian Serbs
were killed, mostly distinguished village hosts. Serbian houses were burnt,
and those who attempted to escape were ambushed. In Gnjilane nine women were
abducted and brutally tortured. Shortly before convoking the Congress of
Berlin, at least 60 Serbs escaped terror from Pristina alone, even though,
at the time, the bashibazouk leaders officially spoke favorably of Christian
Serbs in petitions sent to the Porte.1
Fanaticized followers of the League believed the Serbs of Kosovo and
Metohia to be the major cause for all Albanian misfortunes. An Albanian
leader openly stated to Russian Consul Yastrebov: "We will attack the
Montenegrins on Christmas and kill them. And if we fail - we will return to
Pec and the vicinity and burn and saber all the Christians."2
Yastrebov's following report indicated that these were not mere
threats:
"Three Albanians raped a thirteen-year-old girl from Dobrotin. The
Serbs dare not complain to the authorities. Those who complained paid with
their heads, and none of them trust the protection of a foreign government
any longer. People are saying that atrocities as these [1879] were not
committed even after the Crimean war, the general impression is that all
have conspired to crush the Serbian element."3 In a complaint
lodged to the Russian tzar in July 1879, the Serbs of Pec stated that since
the beginning of the Eastern crisis, over 100 people were killed in the Pec
district alone and that many atrocities were committed. The citizens of Pec
pleaded with Alexander II to take them under his wing and help the Visoki
Decani monastery in the Pec Patriarchate against plunder and blackmail
committed by outlaws at the orders of Pec agas.4
Terror over the Serbs did not wane during the entire period of the
Albanian League rule. Since 1880, when its leadership severed all tied with
the Porte, the position of the Serbian populace was aggravated, since
tribute had to be paid to both the Turks and ethnic Albanians: "The Serbs
had two lords; they paid tribute to two rulers, maintained two armies,
without having any protection or security."5 Yastrebov's reports
dating 1880 and 1881 are filled with information on the plight of the Serbs
- murders, robberies, arsons of houses and estates, and attempts to forceful
conversion to Islam. One characteristic report reads: "The situation of the
Christians in these regions is gloomy everywhere. Refugees from Serbia and
Bosnia (muhadjirs) pillage Christian houses, especially in the Pristina,
Gnjilane and Pec district. The same atrocities are committed by local ethnic
Albanians, even though they gave their bessa not to disturb them, but the
bessa is valid only for Muslims, it holds no obligation toward the
Christians."6
Incursions into Serbian state territory were at full swing during the
Albanian League, when the new Serbian frontiers were not yet secured.
Military advance guards were attacked, cattle was raided and Serbian
villages along the demarcation line were burnt. Following the Berlin
Congress, Albanian incursions into Serbia increased: their raiding
companies, sacking and burning everything in their wake, reached even
Kursumlija. On their return, all Serbian villages on the Turkish side were
attacked. Expecting an outcome and avoiding new conflicts, the Serbian
government did not persecute the assailants out of territory. The petitions
it sent to the Porte to stop the incursions remained without
response.7
The ethnic Albanians assaulted the teachers of the Serbian Seminary at
Prizren. They looked all over town seeking to kill one of them, someone
named Petar Kostic, for writing a letter on the political situation in
Prizren. Kostic was saved from certain death be fleeing to the Russian
consulate; following a hearing in front of the Turkish authorities in the
presence of Yastrebov, he was sent to Bitolj, since the Prizren authorities
could nor warrant him safety.8
The reign of the Albanian League left hard consequences on the position
of the Serbs in Old Serbia: "Created upon a reaction to the realization of
the national liberational programs of Balkan Christians, especially the
Serbs" - underscored Dimitrije Bogdanovic - "it was laid on the foundations
of the Great Albania ideas, ignoring the rights of Serbs and other Slavic
peoples of the Balkans, and of the Greeks, to live on their lands protected
under the law. A clash was inevitable, and the aggressive anti-Serbian
concept of the League permanently placed a burden upon the relations of
these two peoples. Simultaneously, the Great Albanian concept of the League
was offering itself to certain European powers as an instrument for their
own penetration to the Balkans."9 Violence upon the Serbs had
become, owing to the political programs of the League, one of the strategic
determinations in the Albanian national movement. Until the Eastern crisis,
violence upon the Serbs had been elemental rather than the result of a
conceptualized policy. Routing Serbs from their hearths by perpetual
oppression had become, owing to the political will of the League, a kind of
religious and national duty obligatory to all ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo
vilayet. The target of Albanian crimes in the decades to come were the Serbs
of the Pec, Pristina and Prizren sanjaks.10
After the Serbo-Ottoman wars the Serbs were looked upon with distrust
by both the Turks and ethnic Albanians. Even though they were unarmed,
decimated and pressured by the surge of newly settled muhadjirs, the Serbs
were considered an unreliable and potentially revolutionary element.
Following the 1878 war, Turkey promised a pardon by a general decree for all
subjects who had in any way violated authority. The Empire's amnesty was
officially proclaimed, but the movements and behavior of the Serbs were
regarded very suspiciously.
A false tip that the Serbs were preparing to rise in Kosovo on the very
day Serbia was proclaimed a kingdom, resulted in the formation of a drumhead
trial in Pristina, 1882. During five years of active work, based on
suspicion but without substantial evidence, around 7,000 Serbs were
butchered "for seditious conduct", and another 300 were sentenced to hard
labor from 6 to 101 years. The most respected people were convicted,
teachers and merchants, priests and serfs. Upon the pronouncement of a
sentence, they were sent to prisons in Salonika or exiled to Asia Minor.
Only in 1888, some of convicts that survived in prison were pardoned owing
to the intermediation of the Russian and British diplomacy.11
Sima Andrejevic Igumanov published a book in 1882 Sadanje nesretno
stanje u Staroj Srbiji (The currently unfortunate times in Old Serbia)
filled with information on atrocities committed by the Turks and ethnic
Albanians at the beginning of the drumhead trial's activities. Disturbed
because Serbia would pay more attention to the sufferings of its compatriots
in Turkey, he attempted to draw the public eye to the new swing of violence:
"Our homeland has been turned into hell by dark crazed blood-suckers and
masses of melting Asian tyrants, since banditry, violence, deletion,
espionage, denunciation, daily arrests, accusations, trials, sentences,
exiles, arrogation of property and life in many ways, the wails, mourns and
burial of the executed, all these have become ordinary events everywhere in
Old Serbia and Macedonia."12 Since Dervish Pasha's campaign
against the League, the position of the Serbs in Pec and Djakovica has
continually deteriorated; thus the people were preparing to emigrate to
Serbia. From the Pec region alone, according to data collected by Yastrebov,
around 1,500 families emigrated to Serbia since the wars to 1883. Upon
collection of the tribute and tithe, the Serbs in Metohia were compelled to
pay, beside for themselves, for those who moved, and often a part instead of
Albanian Muslims. Their complaints to the authorities remained unanswered.
13
1 B. Hrabak, Prvi izvestaji diplomata velikih sila o Prizrenskoj ligi,
p. 253.
2 V. Bovan, Jastrebov u Prizrenu, Kulturno-prosvetne prilike u Prizrenu
i rad ruskog konzula I. S. Jastrebova u drugoj polovini devetnaestog veka,
Pristina 1983, p.147.
3 Ibid., p. 146.
4 V. Stojancevic, Zalbe Srba Pecanaca na turske zulume 1876-1878.
godine Arhivski pregled, 1-2 9 (1978) pp. 151-160.
5 J. Hadzi-Vasiljevic, Arbanaska liga, pp. 109.
6 V. Bovan, op. cit., pp. 160.
7 J. Hadzi-Vasiljevic, Arbanaska liga, pp. 6-10.
8 R. M. Grujic, Dva izvestaja konzula Jastrebova o akciji Albanske lige
u Prizrenu 1880. god., Zbornik za istoriju Juzne Srbije, I (1936), pp.
403-406.
9 D. Bogdanovic; Knjiga o Kosovu, pp. 147-148.
10 P. Orlovic [Svetislav St. Simic], Pitanje o Staroj Srbi]i, Beograd
1901, pp. 3-11; D. T. Batakovic, Osnove arbanaske prevlasti, p. 37.
11 J. Popovic, op. cit., pp. 247-248; V. Bovan, op. cit., 168-171;
Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, pp. 323-326
12 Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji 1852-1912, pp. 101.
13 Around 60 Serbian families from the Pec nahi that had returned to
Turkey refused to resettle in the Pec nahi but instead, inhabited the
villages on the slopes of Kopaonik where there were not many Albanians (V.
Bovan, op. cit; pp. 174,178).
Albanians Under the Sultan's Protection
Abdulhamid II discontinued the reform tradition of his predecessors,
encouraged refeudalization and underscored pan-Islamism as the basic
principle of his reign. As supreme head of Islam, he strove to consolidate
the country internally through pan-Islamic ideology, and by restoring
religious fanaticism had hoped to create a counterbalance to all national
movements in the ethnically heterogeneous Empire. He believed the Muslim
Albanians were natural enemies of the Orthodox Slavic population -Serbs
above all - not wholely by religion, but also by race, historical traditions
and national aspirations. Thus Muslim Albanians had imposed themselves as
the best allies in crushing all Christian movements; the Christian revolts
and national movements were, according to the sultan's most profound
conviction, the basic cause of all unrest in the Ottoman Empire.
The padishah sought support for the new policy with the conservative
feudal circles. He invited the most prominent Albanian chiefs of Old Serbia
to Constantinople with the aim of binding them to him by bestowing gifts,
decorations and promotions. Among his followers from Kosovo, the most
outstanding were Ah Pasha of Gusinje and Hadzi Mula Zeka of Pec. Religious
heads, the mullahs and softas, stirred up religious fanaticism among the
illiterate and ignorant believers. Together with the feudal notables and
upper classes of Albanian society, they blamed the Serbs as the source
hazardous to Albanian interests and the stability of the Ottoman Empire. The
formation of the drumhead court martial in Pristina marked the opening of a
joint activity of Turkish authorities and Albanian notables in routing the
Serbian populace of the Kosovo vilayet.1
The sultan's policy to use ethnic Albanians as the striking force in
weakening the Serbian ethnicon in spaces neighboring Serbia and Montenegro,
began to take on the form of a long-term political program toward the end of
the eighties of the 19th century. With the chain of new muhadjir settlements
the dense network of Serbian habitats was severed. The sultan and the Porte
were creating a sort of Albanian military frontier toward
Serbia.2
The settlement of the muhadjirs was encouraged by the Porte, while the
Albanian feudal lords of Kosovo saw to their being properly settled in new
habitats. Supporting them, however, was another burden upon the Serbs. Lab
soon became an ethnically pure Albanian region. Along the northern borders
of the Kosovo vilayet, in the Novo Brdo rivers, Kriva Reka and Gornja Morava
with Izmornik, new muhadjir settlements were springing. In Kriva Reka alone
the number of Albanian homes increased from 52% to 65%. The demographic
situation was rapidly improving to the advantage of the ethnic Albanians;
the muhadjirs had inundated mountainous rims hovering over the valley of
Kosovo. Serving as an impenetrable rampart, Albanian villages provided a
safeguard for the northern borders of Turkey.3
The policies of the Porte and the sultan's protection contributed to
the consolidation of a belief held among the ethnic Albanians that a
division of Turkish provinces in Europe would cause a division of the four
vilayets they considered their own territory. Such policy promoted a
stronger bondage of Muslim Albanians to the Ottoman state ideology. The
destruction of the League did not raise the question of joint
Albanian-Turkish resistance against the enemies of the Empire. Vali of
Kosovo, Abdi Pasha, estimated, in 1883, that in case of war, the faithful
ethnic Albanians would be sufficient in defending Old Serbia. Albanian and
Turkish relations toward the Serbs as the seditious element encouraged new
acts of violence. When a Serbian monk Martirije was murdered on his way to
Pec, Albanian outlaws announced their scheme - all Serbian priests and noted
people in Pec should be murdered. Then, they believed, there would be no
fear in case they were to fall under Serbian of Austro-Hungarian rule. The
vali came to Pec, but they told him there that the complaints of Christian
Serbs were unfounded.4
Aside to practical political tasks assigned to them, the ethnic
Albanians had partly to thank the immen...