Talk:Albanian exodus
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Several issues to be solved: 1. Sanjak of Nis was not a part of the Viyalet of Kosova; but was a viyalet itself 2. Greater Serbia does deserve a mention; but why the mention of the Schkumbin river? 3. Why is there a mention autochtonous; this might be incorrect and even if it itsn't; it's POV
--HolyRomanEmperor 17:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Sources needed
This article makes A LOT of claims without sources to back them up. Especially the claims about the number of people who were ethnically cleansed. Whoever added those figures into the article needs to provide some sources. Edrigu 20:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Source
Owing to the efforts of the committee headed by A. Frasheri,7 80 delegates representing all four provinces convened at the city of Prizren, in the Vilayet of Shkup (Kosova) in June 1878, three days prior to the opening of the Congress of Berlin, whose purpose was to reconsider the decision reached by San Stefano's preliminary Peace Treaty. The assembly of these delegates was henceforth called The League of Prizren. Its task was to defend Albania's rights.
Kosova became thus for the Albanians the center of their resistance and they have ever since regarded this territory as a symbol of their struggle for independence.
- 7. An Albanian patriot of broad culture (1839-1894). His younger brother, Sami, wrote in Turkish as well as in Albanian. Greatly admired for his Universal Dictionary of History and Geography (a six-volume encyclopedia) and for other writings, he is considered in Turkey as one of its most prominent poets. Having fought for Albania’s rights, he spent five years in prison. The sec.ond of the three brothers, Naim, is the most popular South Albanian poet.
As soon as the Serbs occupied the ceded territories, the Albanians were asked to evacuate them. With respect to the Albanians inhabiting those areas, Mr. Gould, Consul of Great Britain in Belgrade, wrote to the Marquis of Salisbury, Secretary of the Foreign Office of Great Britain, on Nov. 26, 1878:
I hear that the Servian Government has behaved with great and unnecessary harshness, not to say cruelty, toward the Albanians in the recently ceded districts. If my information is correct, and I have every reason to believe it to be so, the peaceful and industrious inhabitants of over 100 Albanian villages in the Toplitza and Vranja Valley were ruthlessly driven forth from their homesteads by the Servians in the early part of this year. These wretched people have ever since been wandering about in a starving condition in the wild country beyond the Servian frontier. They have not been allowed to gather in their crops on their own lands, which were reaped by the Servian soldiery... I ... casually stated to his Excellency (Ristic) that these facts had come to my knowledge, and that should they be confirmed I felt certain Her Majesty's Government and the majority of the Great Powers would call the Servian Government to account, and insist upon strict justice being done to these unfortunate people, whose only crime was their belonging to an alien race and another creed...10
- 10. EM., Accounts and Papers (38); 1878-9; LXXIX 79, 574-575. Letter reproduced by Rizaj in op. cit. pp. 24 1-242.
As to the number of the Albanians inhabiting those territories, various statistics and extant documents give contradictory figures. According to a note of the administrative divisions dating from 1873, the district of the Sandjak of Niš had about 100 000 Albanians. As regards the number of refugees, the figures given by Prof. J. Cvijic for those who settled in Kosova is 30 000, that furnished by English documents, 100 000. According to Turkish sources, the number of the Albanians who were forced to leave the region amounted to 300 000.
On June 3, 1978, Rilindja (p.7), published a letter addressed by these miserable people (who were deprived of all means and many of whom were sick) to the European Powers requesting that at least a commission be set up to look into their serious problem.11
Leaving these helpless refugees to their sad fate, the Serbs colonized the region with astounding rapidity. Referring to the colonization of the area by the Serbs, V. Cubrilovic stated in his "Memorandum" (about which more will be told later) that "Toplica and Kosanica, once Albanian regions of ill-repute, gave Serbia the finest regiment in the wars of 1912-1918".
- 11. For the data concerning the Albanians of these territories, see E. PlIana, "Les raisons et Ia maniere de Ia migration des refugies albanais du territoire du Sandjak de Nish a Kosova (1877-1878)," Gjurmime Albanologjike IX 1979, Prishtine, 1980, pp. 129-156. Cf. also R. MarmullakuAlbania and the Albanians , London, 1975, p. 24 (does not contain details).
The Great Powers eventually left the Balkans in the hands of Austria and Russia. The influence of the latter, however, grew stronger as time went by.
In regard to Kosova, Russia sent priests to Serbian monasteries situated in the region exalting, together with the Orthodox faith, heroes and deeds pertaining to Serbian legends.18 They opened schools which were hotbeds of Slav propaganda. Clearly, her purpose was to colonize the province where the Serbs were but an insignificant minority.
The West knew little at that time about the Balkan states. In fact, the ignorance was such that some missionaries who went to Macedonia to support the Bulgarian cause confessed that formerly they had been ignorant of the fact that there were Bulgarians in the Peninsula; they had thought that only Greeks lived there. Practically nothing was known, of course, relative to the Albanians; those unfamiliar with the question could be told anything. Thus, when two Russian consuls in Kosova and Monastir were killed by Albanians (who acted in self-defense), these acts were described as being committed by 'Moslem fanatics'. The two propaganda agents were presented as martyrs; their funerals were grandiose. Since Christianity was equated with civilization and Islam with backwardness, the Christians were regarded as the allies of the Great Powers. Thus the Catholic Albanians who are animated by patriotic feelings were ignored by design. The Albanians were depicted merely as backward Moslems and as allies of the Turks.
- 18. "It seemed sheer folly to make a large and costly Serb theological school in a Moslem Albanian town and to import masters and students, when funds are so urgently needed to develop free Serb land" (ME. Durham,High Albania, London, 1909, p. 275). Even E. Noel-Buxton, of the Balkan Committee, whose attitude was pro-Slav, had to admit that "The spirit of chauvinism is but thinly veiled under the garb of churchmanship. Religion is degraded to the level of pretext for exciting national zeal" (Noel-Buxton, op. cit. p. 50).
Many books and articles were published by the South Slavs for the purpose of showing the ferocity of the Albanians, their backwardness, their despicable behavior, their lack of discipline, etc. Vladan Djordjevic, former Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbia, went even so far as to claim that until "as late as the 19th century", there had been Albanians with tail in their rear! Djordjevic even referred the reader to J.G. Von Hahn's scholarly work, Albanesische Studien, where, he asserted, he had found the information.19
- 19. V. Djordjevic,Les Albanais et les Grandes Puissances, 1913 p. 8. No information of this kind is contained in von Hahn’s work.
The purpose of all these writings was, of course, to draw a picture that gives to the non-specialist a very poor idea of the Albanians so that these, by dint of being despised by others may, in their innermost soul, start to despise themselves.20
- 20. According to Felix Adler, "The vice of vices is when we are held cheap by others sod then in our innermost soul start to think cheaply of ourselves." Protic, Gopcevic, Zupanic, Tomic, Djordjevic are some of the Slav authors who criticized the Albanians in a particularly uncivil way. Many others may be cited.
To be sure, there are established scholars - be they geographers, historians, anthropologists, or serious travelers and explorers - who have expressed opinions of a very different kind: H.N. Brailsford went even so far as to maintain that "from Byron's day downward it would be hard to find a Western European who has learned to know the Albanians without admiring them" (The New Republic, March 1, 1919). In fact those who had nice words on behalf of the Albanians were so numerous that the Serb S. Protic (Balkanicus) considered the tendency to praise the Albanians as highly ethical individuals and to describe them as "unusually gifted", to have become a fashion.21
- 21. 5. Protic,Das Albanesische Problem und die Beziehungen zwischen Oestereich- Ungarn, Leipzig, 1913, p. 19.
