Kosovo: Albanian Anti-Ottoman revolt (1690)

[SIZE=-1]PART TWO

That the imagination is, indeed, impressed and excited by certain names, is suggested by the fact that in 1912-1913, only Serbian theories were taken into consideration.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The recent finds in the domain of linguistics, archeology and history have shown that these theories, as they were formulated in the 19th century were based on myths. But myths, on account of their suggestive power, do not die easily. Some of them may prove extremely tenacious. Such had been, for example, the myth mentioned before, connecting the South Slavs with the Illyrians.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]It had been clearly indicated by J.E. Thunmann, back in 1774, that the Albanians alone could possibly be considered as the descendants of the Illyrians. Their origin had been suggested even before (in a letter) by the philosopher Leibniz.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Aside from pointing out historical data, Thunmann also remarked that certain Illyrian names are still used by Albanians: Dasios = Dash; Dida = Dede; Bardhylis = Bardhe, etc. A. Boue, who from 1836 to 1838 journeyed across the Balkans accompanied by various experts, subscribed to Thunmann's theory. J.G. von Hahn exposed the same view in his learned work Albanesische Studien (Jena, 1853) basing his research on ethnography, history and linguistics.36[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]That the Albanians have been living in the coastal areas since ancient times is evidenced by the fact that the Albanian language is greatly influenced by Latin; not merely Balkan Latin, but also Latin in its archaic form, missing not only in Rumanian, but sometimes even in other Romance languages. Latin also affects the vocabulary dealing with the intellectual and spiritual domain. Scholars have explained this influence through long-lasting relations between the Romans and the ancestors of the Albanians. Had the latter not been living since ancient times on the Adriatic coast, these relations would not have been possible.37[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]On the other hand, some Greek words in Albanian show the sound pattern of ancient Greek, an indication that the words were transmitted in an ancient epoch and that the Albanians must have been living in the vicinity of Greece for the past 3 000 years.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]As regards Slavonic, from which the Albanians, like the Rumanians, borrowed many words, it has in no way affected the structure of their language, an indication that the borrowing must have taken place at a date when the Albanian language was already formed. Moreover, its influence is dialectical and concerns vocabulary dealing with material things rather than with spiritual matters. In Albanian, the terminology of the church, both Catholic and Orthodox, is not Slavonic, but overwhelmingly Latin with some Greek.38[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Yet the ancestors of the Albanians did not merely inhabit the coastal areas. As attested also by the Halstatt culture, the domain of the Illyrians was vast; it extended to the east and to the north. Some words, still used in a few Swiss dialects, denote an Illyrian origin. Thus, for example, in the Berner Oberland, the cow is still called lobe as in Albanian. Noteworthy also are the Illyrian finds on the left bank of Lake Neuchatel, connected with a culture known as La Tene culture (500 B.C. to 1 A.D.) and the recent[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]discoveries in Zurich ascribed to a much older civilization.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]However, North Illyria was sparsely populated. The North Illyrian tribes eventually mixed with Celts and other invaders and little by little lost their identity. Only Southern Illyria, more densely peopled, survived. Appian, who wrote in the second century AD, maintained, citing the Greeks, that Illyria at that time stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Danube. This included the important province Dardania, i.e., the region of Shkup (Skopje), Niš and Priština. Ancient authors (Pliny) used to call the Southern Illyrians "Illyrii proprie dicti". They were divided into tribes, some of which managed to form small kingdoms. With its capital Scodra (Shkodra, Scutari) and its main seaport Ulqin, Illyria constituted, in the 3rd century B.C., a powerful federal state.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Fanula Papazoglu, professor of ancient history at the University of Belgrade, who has written extensively on the Illyrians (see among others, Les origines et la destinee de l'Etat illyrien - Illyrii proprie dicti, in Historia, Wiesbaden, 14, 1965, Heft 2), has also devoted a long chapter to the Dardanians in her work The Central Balkan Tribes in Pre-Roman Times...(Engl. Transl. from the Serbo-Croatian, Amsterdam, Hakkert, 1978, 664 p.). In this latter work she indicates that [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Not one of the peoples with whom we have to deal in this book has such a claim to the epithet "Balkan" as the Dardanians... because they appear as the most stable and the most conservative ethnic element in the area where everything was exposed to constant change, and also because they, with their roots in the distant prehomeric age, and living in the frontiers of the Illyrian and the Thracian worlds retained their individuality and, alone among the peoples of that region succeeded in maintaining themselves as an ethnic unity even when they were militarily and politically subjected by the Roman arms...and when at the end of the ancient world, the Balkans were involved in far-reaching ethnic perturbations, the Dardanians, of all the Central Balkan tribes, played the greatest part in the genesis of the new peoples who took the[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]place of the old (p.131).[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]After pointing out that the Dardanians had founded Troy, that Dardanelles is a name derived from them, that Dardanians were also encountered in Italy, Prof. Papazoglu adds that when the Dardanians reappear in our sources as a historically documented people in the central part of the Balkans, they are related to the Illyrians. Illyrian elements have also been noted among the Dardanians in Asia Minor. This all increases the probability of the theory that the Illyrians belonged to the oldest Indo-European element in the Balkan Peninsula (see pp.131-134).[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The Albanian scholar, Zef Mirdita, of the University of Priština, who, like his colleague of the University of Belgrade, has devoted much time to the study of the Dardanians, has also arrived at the same conclusions (see among others, Studime Dardane, Prishtine, 1980).39[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The Dardanians resisted the Roman invasions as much as did the rest of the Illyrians and after the Roman conquest were not annihilated or absorbed as were not annihilated or absorbed the Illyrians of the coastal areas (See Mirdita, "A propos de la romanisation des Dardaniens" St.Alb., 1972 II pp. 287-298).40[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]The extent of the territory inhabited by the Illyro-Albanians at the time of the arrival of the Slavs is suggested by place name. The well known Albanian linguist, E. Cabej, has remarked in "Die aelteren Wohnsitze der Albaner auf der Balkanhalbinsel im Lichte der Sprache und Ortsnamen" (Atti e memorie del VII Congresso internationale di scienze onomastiche, Firenze-Pisa 1961 I, pp.246-251) and in various other articles that names of small localities change in the course of years (thus many place names in present-day Albania, in Kosova and elsewhere in the Balkans are Slav),41 but not so those of cities, mountains and rivers:42 Various toponyms prove that at least since Roman times the Albanians have between living as well on the Adriatic and Ionian coasts as in the Western Macedonia - Kosova region, formerly called Dardania, for many geographical names, be they of Illyrian, Ancient Greek, or Roman origin - were transmitted with changes characteristic of Albanian phonetic rules. Such names are, for example, Nish (Naissos), Shkupi (Scupi), Oher,Ochrid (Oricium = Lychnos), Drisht (Drivastum), Shar (Scardus), Shkodra (Scodra), Mati (Amatia), Buna (Barbena), Ulqin (Ulcinium), Lesh (Lissus), Tcham (Thyamis), Ishm (Ismus), Durres (Durachium), Drin (Drillion), Zara (Zadar), Triest (Tregest), Tomor (Tomarus), Shtip (Astibos), Shtiponje (Stoponion).[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]J. Cvijic described the Albanians as "the most expansive race in the Balkans", and G. Jakšic compared the expansion of the Albanians to a "devastating river". G. Stadtmueller contended that originally they were confined to the Mati area and to the mountains of the north.43 Yet the Albanian scholars maintain that in the light of the data cited above it becomes evident that far from expanding the territory of their ancestors, the Albanians have constantly been restricted to smaller areas.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]However, until very recently, there had been no archeological finds to invest the assumption of the Illyro-Albanian continuity with firm and concrete support.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Before World War II, there were in Albania very few archeological discoveries connected with the Illyrians. Leon Rey, head of the French archeological mission in Albania, expressed doubts as to the possibility of finding any vestiges linked to prehelenic times. Prehistoric objects, numerous in Macedonia, were at that time completely lacking in Albania (L. Rey, "Lettre d'Albanie", Revue internationale des Etudes Bakaniques, 1937, 301-304). In L. Rey's time, among 25 excavation sites, only two were Illyrian and the finds - insignificant ones - were related merely to the Iron age (1 000-450 B.C.).
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Things have changed since then. At the present time there are over 200 excavation sites connected with the Illyrians. In the past 25 years, archeology has acquired in Albania considerable significance. Various meetings have taken place in Tirana and much has been published on the subject by Albanian and foreign scholars.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Among the numerous publications, one may mention:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]a) Les Illyriens et la genese des Albanais, Tirana 1972.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]b) Actes du Congres des Etudes Illyrienns (two volumes), 1974.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]- a) and b) contain the acts of the two important meetings held in Tirana in 1969 and 1972 which were attended by a considerable number of Albanian and foreign scholars).[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]c) Iliria (in Albanian, with abstracts in French), first volume published in 1971; Vol 10, 1980. Vol. 2, entirely in French, is devoted to Illyrian cities.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]d) Two Albanian academic journals, Studia Albanica, and Studime Historike (see especially 1972, nos 2,3,4) also contain articles dealing with the Illyrians and the Albanian genesis.44[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]Tumuli from the Iron Age were found in Mat (north Albania), Dropull (south Albania), Vajze (southeast Albania) and other localities. The archeological finds of these places chow links with the Illyrian necropolia of Glasinac in Bosnia and of Trebnište in Macedonia. This culture, known in archeological literature as Glasinac Culture, is encountered in a region stretching from Epirus to the Drin (Drina) and Morava, comprising Montenegro, Kosova and Bosnia.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]Other discoveries made are connected with a more ancient epoch, the Bronze Age. On account of the unifying elements between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, Albanian archeologists have concluded that the Illyrians as an indigenous population and that their ethos was formed during the Neolithic or Bronze Age - i.e., prior to 1 000 B.C. - and not during the Iron Age as it had been formerly assumed.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Noteworthy is the fact that inventory objects pertaining to the Bronze Age (around 1 500 B.C.), such as the double axe, etc., leave no doubts as to relations between Illyria and Crete, thus confirming what had previously been asserted by F. Nopcza and M.E. Durham by reason of ethnographical data. As regards archeological inventory, the unifying traits linking the Bronze Age to the Iron Age were also noticed relative to finds outside the borders of present-day Albania: at Zocavi near Prijedor, Ptuj. The Yugoslav[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]scholars Josip Korošec, Frane Stare and Alojz Benac, when studying these finds, concluded - prior to the Albanian archeologists - that since there is no cultural interruption between the two layers representing the two different epochs, it becomes evident that one has to deal with one and the same ethnos (see A. Stipcevic, op. cit., pp.17-18).[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Considerable prehistoric agglomerations dating from the Eneolithic Age (1 600 B.C.) were also unearthed in various locations. Albania may now compare with any other European country considered rich in prehistoric finds.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]Of special interest is the inventory connected with a more recent age, namely, the early medieval epoch for which historical data are wanting. Noteworthy, relating to this epoch, is the necropolis of Kalaja Dalmaces in north Albania.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Although more finds have been made recently at this locality, the necropolis was discovered at the end of the 19th century and much had been written about it at that time and later by well-known foreign archeologists: S. Reinach, Th. Ippen, P. Traeger, F.Nopcza, L.M. Ugolini, L. Rey, D. Mustilli and also by A. Degrand, French consul in Scutari, who discovered it. For the history of this necropolis see especially Hena Spahiu, "Gjetje te vjetra nga varezza mesjetare e Kalase se Dalmaces", (Ancient finds from the medieval necropolis of Kalaja e Dalmaces") Iliria I, Tirana, 1971, pp. 227-260; and S. Anamali, "De la civilisation hautemedievale albanaise", Les Illyriens et la genese des Albanais, pp. 184-187.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The finds - most of which are at the Museum St. Germain-en-Laye - were formerly attributed to the Illyrians. Yet archeologists connected them with the Illyrian culture of the Iron Age. At the present time, however, there is incontrovertible evidence that the inventory objects belong to an epoch that stretches from the 6th century to the 8th century A.D.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Similar finds, linked to the same epoch, were made recently in Shurdha, near Shkoder, Bukel (Mirdita), Kruje, Lesh and, not too long ago, also in south Albania. This culture, known in archeological literature as Koman culture (from a village near Kalaja e Dalmaces), shows striking ties with the ancient Illyrian civilization. Despite the differences inherent to each epoch, one can easily recognize the unifying traits: funerary rites, orientation of graves, building methods, etc. They indicate that the Koman culture is the continuation of the ancient Illyrian civilization and not a culture introduced by recent settlers. In certain areas, such as Tren and Maliq, different layers show a continuity stretching from the Neolithic to the medieval epoch.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Despite ethnological and archeological data suggesting that the Illyrian ethnos was formed on Albanian soil prior to the Iron Age, it might perhaps still be premature to maintain a categorical stand as to problems relating to such a distant past. Therefore, Prof. Cabej without opposing the assertion expressed by Albanian archeologists, kept a cautious attitude in its regard. He argued, however, that the Illyro-Albanian continuity from the Classical period to the Middle Ages, both in present-day Albania and in Dardania, is indubitable.45[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]Although in Kosova there have been no systematic excavations similar to those undertaken in Albania in the past twenty five years, the archeological material that is available leads to the conclusion that the ethnos of Kosova's inhabitants belonged to the Illyrian family. Burial tumuli, characteristic of the Illyrian culture, unearthed in Albania at various localities were also found in Kosova (near Priština and in Lastica near Gjilan); in the district of Kukes which has territorial links with Kosova; in the Dukagjini Plateau (Metohija), in Mjele (near Virpazar), Montenegro, and in the region of Ochrida.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The cultural heritage in Kosova shows the same unity of materials and building methods as in present-day Albania. These finds, which denote an advanced urban culture, also indicate the extent of the territory occupied by the Albanians at the time when the Slavs began to settle in the Balkans; they corroborate the claim made by Cabey on linguistic grounds.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]As reported by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (Emp. from 913-919), the Slavs Started to come to the Balkans from the Ural and the Caspian Sea during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (610-641). They were often led by nomadic Turks.46 The region, called at that time Illyria, was inhabited by the aborigine population, the Illyrians, the ancestors of the Albanians.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It is generally admitted that the Slavs settled in the Danube area along the Dalmatian coast, and in Greece. But the question as to the exact territories occupied by them has not been elucidated as yet. From various sources - historical as well as linguistic - the conclusion may, however, be drawn that if the greatest part of the vast Illyrian territories was by the end of the 9th century already colonized by the Slavs, some areas were spared. These were Dardania, New Epirus, the southern part of Prevalitania and North Epirus.47 These territories correspond exactly to the region which before the Treaty of Berlin were inhabited by Albanians.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The Slavs emerge as a strong population in the 10th century. But these Slavs are Bulgarians, not Serbs. It is they who in the 11th century named Belgrade48 the city that at present is Serbia's capital. The Slav toponyms that replaced the Illyrian and the Roman toponyms are also in many areas Bulgarian and not Serb.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It is now time to discuss the three issues mentioned in Part I:[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]a) Practically nothing was known about the Serbs before 1136 when Tihomir, who was merely a shepherd, became Grand Zupan.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]In the 12th century, according to a contemporary chronicler, W. of Tyre, the Serbs were "an uncultured and undisciplined people inhabiting the mountains and the forests" and who "sometimes ...[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]quit their mountains and forests... to ravage the surrounding countries", (cited by W. Miller, Essays on the Latin Orient, 1921, p. 446).[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The Serbs began to gain strength in the 13th century when Stefan Simon Nemanjic - previously Zupan - started using, in 1217, the title of king.49 At that time the Serbs had already taken much land from the Albanians. In 1217, they conquered Peja (Pec) which was to become in 1346 the see of the Serbian Patriarch. The greater part of Kosova, however, was not yet in their power.50 It was afterward that they got hold of it little by little. But the Serbian kingdom, within the short span of its existence was not marked by fixity. Its precarious stability is indicated by a striking array of capitals: Raška, Priština, Belgrade, Kruševac, Smederevo, Belgrade again, Prizren, Banjska, Shkup (Skopje), Prilep, Smederovo, Kruševac again, Kragujevac.51 The names of these short-lived capitals suggest that the Serbs invaded and conquered, but then retreated and lost, because of some kind of opposition that they found. In this regard, it is interesting to note an observation made by V. Cubrilovic in his rather inhumane memorandum:52 "The Albanians are the only people during the last millennium that managed not only to resist the nucleus of our state, but also to harm us". This remark indicates that the Serbs were opposed by the aboriginal population.
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[SIZE=-1]When Stefan Dušan was killed in 1355, the Serbian Empire included not merely Kosova; it encompassed practically all of present Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, and part of Hungary. Yet the Empire had no fixity and lasted merely nine years. It had been built up with the help of mercenaries and it disintegrated immediately after Dušan's death because of the heterogeneous elements of which it was composed: Vlachs, Greeks, Albanians, etc.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]Considering the fact that in the 12th century the Serbs were regarded as an uncultured and undisciplined people, that they began to gain strength in the 13th century; that their kingdom lasted a little over 100 years, and Czar Dušan's Empire merely nine, it is reasonable to assume that during this very short span of time the aboriginal population could not have been annihilated no matter how difficult the living conditions might have been for them.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]As for Kosova - which is incorrectly designated as the cradle of the Nemanjic, for the Serbian nucleus did not start in Kosova, but in Raška, i.e., north of the site of present-day Novipasar53 - the very names of the capitals of that short-lived Serbian state suggest that Kosova was not even abidingly its center. That state, as pointed out by many historians, does not seem to have had any permanence or center.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Neither was Stefan Dušan's Empire lost to the Turks. When the Battle of Kosova took place, Serbia was insignificant and divided among various petty lords. Lazar Hrebljanovic, to whose share had fallen the Kosova Plain was merely a Knez, i.e., a prince or a simple count.54 His capital was Kruševac.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]b) Some nations show restraint, shyness, or reluctance when it comes to exalting historical events and national heroes. India, for example, a country where thousands of myths originated, has refrained from underscoring the deeds of her national heroes.55 Conversely, it has become the characteristic of the Serb nation - as various scholars have observed - to glorify personages and events associated with nationalists pride. For imaginative, sentimental, or other reasons which shall not be examined here, the Serbs have created nationalistic myths as India has created religious ones.56 In so doing, however, they have insisted to the extreme upon the rights of their own nation which clash with those of other nations.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]True, for instance, the Battle of Kosova, so greatly exalted by the Serbo-Montenegrins since Karadzic's time, was an important and sad event for the Slavs. However, when viewed objectively, one must concede that this battle, as specialist have not failed to remark - was not fought by the Serbs alone, but by a coalition of Balkan nations: Bulgarians, Greeks, Vlachs, and Albanians57 (including 10 000 Croats). As a consequence, these nations should be imparted the merit due to them. Various sources suggest that the most numerous troops were the Albanian and that they were placed in the front rows.57 Besides, the victory of the Turks in that battle is said to have been occasioned by the treason of Lazar Brankovic, Knez Lazar's son-in-law, who deserted to the Turks at the critical point of the battle with a large number of Serbs.58 [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The important role of myths becomes evident when one thinks that the Battle of Nikopolis on the Danube, where the army of Sigismond of Hungary fought in 1395 against Beyazit, was just as decisive as that of Kosova, and perhaps as important, according to some scholars, as the very capture of Constantinople by the Turks. Yet we are heedless of its importance because of lack of myths. The Turkish victory on this battle is also due to the Serb troops fighting on the Turkish side, Beyazid being married to the sister of Stefan Lazarevic.59[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]As to the hero of Kosova Battle, widely sung by the Serbs in the 19th century, most people will perhaps show surprise at learning that in all likelihood he was Albanian. His name, which was not recorded in Serbian church documents - perhaps for the simple reason that he might have been Catholic, perhaps also for other motives - became known to us thanks to a casual traveler and through Turkish documents: originally Copal - which is Albanian - it was Serbized, as were at that time other Albanian names, thus becoming Kopilic. In the 18th century, Kopil, Kopilic, underwent another modification and at present is merely known as Obilic.60[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]c) The Serbs did not merely make, by way of myths, the most of Stefan Dušan's short lived Empire as well as of the Kosova Battle. Their purpose was also to prove that prior to the Turkish occupation, state and nationality coincided and that the Albanians in Kosova were but an adventitious population having colonized the region as a result of the Austro-Turkish Wars when the Serbs had to seek refuge in Hungary in order to safeguard their dignity.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Thus it was, and still is, repeatedly underscored that the Serbs who emigrated to Hungary were chiefly from the areas bordering on present-day Albania, i.e., from the region of Prizren, Djakova and Peja (Pec); the area which the Albanians call the Dukagjini Plateau and the Serbs Metohija. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]J.G. von Hahn, who believed in the Illyro-Albanian continuity, had no doubts, when he visited Kosova that the Albanians had been living there since ancient times. He regarded the region of Sitnica as constituting a pure Albanian link between Dardania and Albania.61 [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]As for A. Boue, although the Serbian exodus, which started to receive publicity at the beginning of the 19th century, was by the middle of that same century accepted as an indubitable fact, he was sure, when journeying in Kosova (1836-1838), that at the time of the Emigration the Albanians might have occupied certain districts evacuated by the Serbs in Novipazar and in the Dukagjini Plateau, but in doing so, they were merely recuperating their ancient territory, for, he pointed out, the Albanians are the descendants of the Illyrians and these used to inhabit the territory presently occupied by the South Slavs.62[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]In his turn C.E.N. Eliot argued that[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The Turks are usually thought of as a destructive force, and rightly; they have destroyed a great deal and constructed nothing. But in another sense, they have proved an eminently conservative force for they have perpetuated and conserved as if in a museum, the strange meddling which existed in South-Eastern Europe during the last years of the Byzantine Empire (Turkey in Europe, 1965 ed., p. 16).[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]That some people followed the Austrian army and were allowed to settle in Hungary is a historical fact that cannot be denied. Yet no historical documents are available regarding the number of people who emigrated, nor the exact areas affected by this emigration. The figure of 37 000 families,i.e., about 350 000 people, claimed by some historians, cannot be supported by any indisputable nor plausible evidence. This figure is, as it seems, the result of the arbitrary interpretation of the word void mentioned in some church document.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]Despite the lack of historical proof in support of the Serbian assertion, the exodus, widely and abundantly advertised throughout the 19th century, was unquestionably accepted even by very critical minds. The event was so frequently mentioned and the publicity it received was such that it eventually became a commonplace: it has been mechanically repeated by all those who in various capacities have had to deal with the question. Newspapermen did not fail to refer to it again when reporting on the recent events that took place in Kosova.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Prof. A. Hadri of the University of Priština pointed out that the appeal to the Balkan peoples to rise against the Turks was not merely made by the Patriarch Arsenije Crnojevic, but jointly by him and the Albanian Archbishop of Skup (Skopje), Pjeter Bogdani. According to Hadri, there were about 20 000 rebels, Serbs and Albanians, some of whom emigrated north of the Danube. This figure does not tally with that claimed by the Serbs.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The historical error concerning various aspects of this emigration and the faulty interpretation of the word void used in church documents were already pointed out by a Serb himself - the well-known historian J. Tomic, in a passage which, surprisingly, has not received the attention it deserves considering the fact that it dates from 1913. It is contained in Les Albanais en Vieille-Serbie et dans le Sandjak de Novi-bazar, Paris, Hachette, 1913.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"This retreat of the southern and south-eastern population toward the north is known in Serbian history as the emigration of the Serbian people to Hungary under the Patriarch Arsenije Crnojevic. This event has lead in some instances to a few errors which for more than a century and a half, have been repeated from one book to another. One of those errors concerns the very regions that were hit by this emigration. If one opens at random any history book of the Serbian people one never fails to read everywhere as if it were a firmly established fact that during this emigration the Serbian regions of the Southwest - i.e., the regions of Prizren, Djakovo, Ipek - were the ones that suffered the most and remained vacant. This claim is incorrect and must be amended once and forever. Indeed, when presented in this manner the facts do not correspond to the reality. If this historical error has persisted for so long it is because the question has not been sufficiently studied. One has relied on notes and chronicles written by Orthodox priests and the 'void' mentioned in them has been identified with the ruin of the Serbian people; in reality, it refers to Orthodoxy.[/SIZE]
 
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is an established fact that in the Turkish Empire the Serbian people were equated with the Orthodox element. The Serbs were always inseparable from the Orthodox Church; thus, their interests coalesced with those of Orthodoxy See: Dix ans, etc.)...[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]During the epoch with which we are concerned, Orthodoxy in those regions was very hardly hit. A void was created in the Orthodox Church. Never was any Serbian region diminished by so many priests, dignitaries, and simple ministers as that particular area at that time. Neither had ever such a conjunction of circumstances occurred that rendered the situation of the Serbs as distressful as it was then. As a consequence, deprived of its best defenders and supporters in the battle against Islam, the population of Orthodox Serbia found itself more than ever subjected to the double process of Islamization and Albanization. This population did not evacuate the territories bordering on Albania proper; however, after being subdued, it was forced to an accelerated Islamization and Albanization. In terms of the Serbian national idea, this process may be equated with the disappearance of Serbian life, since it is this Islamized and Albanized population that has produced the worst enemies of the Orthodox faith with which the Serbian people and the national idea are identified. We have sufficient proofs confirming the fact that the stream of the Orthodox Serb emigration did not, indeed, affect the neighboring territories of Albnia proper and that, consequently, the way the facts were presented by priests in their notes and chronicles does not correspond to the reality. The decline of Serbian life in the regions of Prizren, Djakovo, and Ipek must therefore not be interpreted as the result of an emigration, but should more readily be considered as the subjection of the Serbian people to Islamization and Albanization which, owing to the circumstances, had become at that time particularly intense giving rise to the gravest violence on the part of the Moslems.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]A direct proof that the Serbian land was not evacuated by the Orthodox population is the very existence of this same population until now. Still another proof is the steady decline of Serbian life which may be noticed starting with the beginning of the 18th century. However, aside from this fact of foremost importance, these events can also be confirmed by extant information dating back to that very epoch. Indeed, as it was indicated before,63 the Orthodox Serbs of Luma declared themselves against Austria. It goes without saying that these Serbs did not need to emigrate and even less to flee with the Austrian troops, for their attitude gave them the right to remain where they were. In fact, they did not move. Moreover, it is well known to us from extant documents of that era that in this region numerous Serbs as well as Catholic Albanians withdrew from the Austrian Army as a consequence of some unfortunate proceedings on the part of the Duke of Hollstein. These people joined the Turks even before the latter had driven back the invader. Those Serbs did not feel any need, either, to flee from the Turks. Nor could they possibly place themselves under the protection of Austria. A man sent to Ipek during the first half of January 1690 came back with a monk of the patriarchy. Upon his return to Kutchi, this man recounted the looting of the churches and monasteries as well as the slaughters of priests and monks by the Turks, but he did not report any emigration of the people. On the other hand it was indeed not at all easy for the patriarch and his suite to flee because the Austrians were followed very closely by detachments of Turkish soldiers. As a consequence, there could, of course, be no question of any exodus of a slowly moving crowd. After this region was again occupied by the Turks who continued their chase, any flight became impossible for the people. If a mass emigration had taken place, how was it then possible for the same patriarch, Arsenije III, to work the following year, as he did with the Serbs of Brda and Montenegro in order to organize another uprising of the people on behalf of Austria?[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]On the other hand, one should again stress the fact that it was physically impossible for the people of that geographic area to emigrate en masse because the Turks, streaming into the region behind the Austrians, already occupied the greatest part of it even before the secret departure of the patriarch. Lastly, it was in the middle of the winter at a time when the roads are impossible to find.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]As a consequence, there was no mass emigration of Orthodox Serbs from those regions at that time although this has been repeatedly asserted until now. Emigration and flight took place only whenever it was possible, i.e., wherever the Turks did not appear suddenly and the people could leave the area before their arrival. This was the case in the Sandjak, in Kosova, Upper Morava and Serbia within its former boundaries. These regions where the Austrians had made a longer halt were abandoned by the Orthodox Serb population that crossed the Danube and the Save. These emigrants were joined by a flow of people, a progressive migration, still headed for the north. As for the areas bordering on Albania proper, only a few single individuals and those who remained in the army as volunteers were able to flee immediately following the withdrawal of the Austrian army. The others left to side with the Turks. This is established by three facts:[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]a) Among the emigrants with fairly well-known names surrounding the patriarch there is not a single one from the region bordering on Albania proper.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]b) The absence of an ancient population in the Sandjak may be explained solely by a migration that started out from a distant zone.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]c) The traditions among the Serbs who became Moslem and Albanian, is proof that this population is old ...64(see pp. 35-41).[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The recent examination of Turkish catastral registers has revealed that, in fact, J. Tomic was right: the area bordering on present-day Albania could not have been evacuated. In the 16th century, the number of people inhabiting the mountainous areas around Dukadjini Plateau (Metohija) was too insignificant. According to Albanian scholars, even assuming - without any valid reason - that the population had doubled in the 17th century and that all of the highlanders had departed from the mountaineous region, their number would not have sufficed to fill the area, nor to affect the population of Kosova-Metohija (Kosmet) had that population been previously Slav. But Turkish catastral registers clearly indicate that in addition to being small, the population of the mountains was also stable.65[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]J. Tomic argued, besides, that following the Austro-Turkish wars, the population of the region was forcibly Albanized and Islamized.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]To this claim, one may reply that:[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]1) The region of Prizren, Djakova, and Peja is marked by the tribal66 system as North Albania. Aside from the fact that this system constitutes a link between the two units, it must be borne in mind that no outside man can belong to the tribe, least of all Albanized Serbs. Therefore Tomic's remark at the end of the passage that "the tradition among the Serbs who became Moslem and Albanian is proof that this population is old", does not seem to make much sense.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]2) At present, there are two million Moslem Slavs, the Bosnians. In 1974 they have inaugurated a Moslem university, which is the only one of its kind in Europe. Since these Slavs were merely Islamized, the question, of course, arises as to why the other Slavs were, as maintained by Tomic, Albanized in addition to being Islamized.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]3) Contrary to the Vilayet of Kosova which was 90% Albanian, that of the Sandjak of Novipazar was, at the turn of the century, mixed. Whether those Albanians are recent settlers in that region, as claimed by Tomic, has, to my knowledge, not been established. Be it as it may, the fact remains that the two populations did not mix. Although both Moslem, they kept their individuality.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]4) Kosova was not Islamized in the 18th century following the Austro-Turkish Wars. According to the Turkish registers, Kosova as a whole was already 65% Islamized back in 1520.67 In certain areas Islamization seems to have been particularly strong; thus Prizren (which in addition to the Orthodox population also had a Catholic minority) was 80% Moslem (see M. Ternava's article in Fjala, Prishtine, Spring 1980); the population of Shkup (Skopje) in Macedonia, was 74% Islamized.68[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is significant that Peja's population, still mostly Christian in 1483 (105 hearths Christian; 33 Moslem) had turned overwhelmingly Moslem (90%) by 1582 (142 hearths Islamized, 15 Orthodox, the latter mostly with Albanian names).69 This happened at a time when the Patriarch of Peja (Pec) was granted power by the Porte (1557) thanks to the efforts of the Serbian Grand Vizir Sokolovic whose brother - or uncle - was[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]an Orthodox ecclesiastic.70[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]At this point it is opportune to give some consideration to the problem of religion:[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Although there have been conversions also in Bulgaria and Cyprus, the fact, nonetheless, remains that the most significant ones occurred among the Bosnians and the Albanians. In 1520, i.e., eighty years after Bosnia's conquest by the Turks, Sarajevo was 100% Moslem.71[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Bosnians admit that they did not regard the Turks as oppressors, that on the contrary, they welcomed them as liberators.72
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[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Albanians cannot say the same thing about themselves, for their numerous fights against the Turks are an undeniable historical fact. The Albanian national hero who distinguished himself in these combats was compared to Charles Martel73 who in 732 halted the Moorish invasions at Poitiers, thus saving western Europe from the Moslem peril.74[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Voltaire asserted that if the Greek emperors had been comparable to Skanderbeg, the Eastern Empire would have been preserved.75 The French savant Ami Boue, drawing a parallel between the Albanian leader and Stefan Dušan, portrayed the latter as a mere conqueror but pointed out that Skanderbeg is remembered as one of the bravest soldiers that has ever existed.76[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]During the 25-year span that preceded the Turkish invasion, the Albanians were at the height of their power; as regards moral prestige, they had plenty of it. Relating to territories, according to the Byzantine chronicler L. Chalcocondiles, the land of Gjon Castriota, Skanderbeg's father, extended between the kingdom of Sandalj, king of Bosnia, and Epirus.77 N. Iorga mentions a document from the archives of Venice, dating from 1413 which calls Gjon Castriota "dominum partium Bosniae";78 this presupposes that the territories northeast of Shkodra (Scutari) were under Castriota's sway.79 Also, in 1420, Gjon Castriota granted to the inhabitants of Ragusa the privilege to exercise trade in his territories until Prizren,80 an indication that this latter town was under Gjon Castriota's rule. Besides, according to Ami Boue (who points out that between the Greeks and the Albanians the differences are very slight), the Albanians inhabiting Greece were so excited about Skanderbeg's deeds that in 1454, they would have easily subdued the two despots, Demetrios and Thomas, and Greece would have come under their sway.81[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It becomes evident that under these circumstances the Turks would not have been welcomed by them. In fact, the Albanians who fled to Italy following the Turkish invasion of their land were very numerous. They are said to have made up one-fourth of the nation's population.82[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]When thinking of these facts and considering that the fights of the Albanians against the Turks constitute a glorious episode in the history of the Albanian nation, the question, of course, arises as to why so many of these firm opponents of the Ottomans gave up Christianity.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]There is no doubt that in the Balkans the Turks used pressure at times, especially perhaps in regard to the Albanians because they resisted them longer than other Balkan nations, but also on account of their links with the Pope, i,.e., with the West, which were suspect to the Porte. On general, however, the Turks strike as having been extremely tolerant in matters of religion. In fact, various data lead to the assumption that practically all conversions were in a way, voluntary. At the present time, it seems therefore simplistic to think that "after the Battle of Kosova whole populations were butchered or compelled to adopt Islam.83 Neither may those who remained Christian be regarded as angels and martyrs, nor should those who embraced Islam be depicted as opportunists.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The religious problem is, as are most problems, more complicated than it seems at first sight. Up to now, scholars have not been able to study it properly on account of insufficient documents. Therefore, in many respects, there have been conjectures of a controversial order rather than definite conclusions drawn from objective historical evidence. The conversions of the Bosnians, for example, have often been attributed to the eagerness of the Bosnian nobles to secure their feudal rights. Yet the Bosnians themselves consider their acceptance of Islam as a means to preserve their identity for they do not identify themselves with the Serbs.84[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]As far as the Albanians are concerned, since they provided Turkey with numerous energetic and most able statesmen and reformers, various scholars, contending that they had a privileged position in the Turkish Empire, have imputed these conversions to utilitarian motives, such as the desire to have access to high positions,85 if not simply to avoid taxes.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]As regards Islamization, the role played by the Balkan Churches has received very little attention although the pressure wielded by these churches against one another has often been stressed with respect to other matters. It is in connection to these churches that this problem shall be considered in this essay. * * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The corruption of the Greek church has already been pointed out by different scholars.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In this regard, a passage from Sir C.N.E. Eliot's Turkey in Europe (first published in 1900) is illuminating:[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]"There was a strong party for the reelection of Jeremias, who, finding that the Porte refused to accept his candidature, offered 40 000 ducats if his brother Nicephorus could be elected. Metrophanes, by unheard of efforts, collected a like sum and laid it at the Sultan's feet. "The man is worthy of his office", said his Majesty; "let him alone". In 1620, the Grand Vizier demanded from Timotheus 100 000 ducats, on the ground that he had named 300 Metropolitans during his 10 years tenure of office. Cyrillus Lucaris, the successor of Timotheus, was deposed by the Jesuits and their party for 40 000 ducats and reinstated for 180 000 more.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]"Naturally, these enormous sums did not come from the pockets of the Patriarch. As the Turks treated him, so he treated his own subordinates. The tribute of the Patriarchate was paid from the money received from consecrating bishops, the bishop paid his money from consecrating priests, who in their turn found the wherewithal by insisting on payments from their flocks for the performance of the simplest religious rite. The visitations of Metropolitans were dreaded almost as much as those of Pashas, and the whole fabric of the Church seemed converted into a vast mechanism of extorting money from the unhappy Christians for the most shameful purposes" (pp. 246-347 - 1965 ed.).[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Not only ecclesiastical, but also educational matters were in the hands of the Greeks. "Their object was to Hellenise the Christian races of the Ottoman Empire, which meant that those unfortunate populations had to submit to a double yoke: Turkish and Greek".86 Eliot also adds that under these conditions, "It is hardly surprising to find that this dark period was characterized by numerous conversions" (op. cit., p. 50).[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]These conversions become, indeed, understandable when one thinks that the non-Greek populations had to pay huge sums to keep in Constantinople a patriarch whose aim was to prevent the development of their own cultures and to suppress their own languages. In fact, according to Turkish catastral registers, at the beginning of the 16th century, Gjirokastra's and Vlora's populations were overwhelmingly Christian (53 hearths Moslem as against 12 257 hearths Christian for the former city; 1 200 Moslem[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]against 14 304 Christian for the latter).87 At the beginning of the 20th century, the Christian population of these two cities had dwindled; they were overwhelmingly Moslem.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]C.and B. Jelavich have remarked that the Greeks who had high positions in the Turkish Empire88 used their authority to oppress the rights of other nations in the Balkans, especially those of the Serbs.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Also, when examining the Bosnian problem, C. and B. Jelavich have pertinently indicated that the Bosnians, situated as they are, between Orthodox Serbia and Catholic Croatia, found themselves torn by disputes between the two churches and they were compelled first to have recourse to the Bogomil heresy and after the Turkish conquest to embrace Islam.89[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]These two remarks by C. and B. Jelavich are relevant. The first about the Greeks in regard to other nations may apply also to the Serbs with respect to the Albanians. When reflecting on the second remark pertaining to the conversions of the Bosnians, who first turned Bogomil, then Moslem in order to keep their identity, the question arises as to what were the Albanians before embracing Islam.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Of late, the Albanian scholar Dhimiter S. Shuteriqi has expressed the opinion that the Albanians also, like the Bosnians, might have been Bogomil.90 There are, however, no extant documents to support this conjecture with incontrovertible evidence.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is assumed that Skanderbeg was Catholic on account of his close connections with four different popes. Yet, one of his brothers, Reposh, was a monk in an Orthodox monastery as were other north Albanians. These data do not simplify the religious problem as regards the Albanians.

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[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Albanians, we are told, were under the jurisdiction of Rome until 731 when Leo the Isaurian placed Illyricum under the Patriarchate of Constantinople (K. Jirecek, Geschichte der Serben, p. 47). However, as pointed out by N. Iorga, Illyricum had received its first missionaries from Rome quite early,91 which meant that it adhered to Western civilization. The Albanians, on account of the geographical position of their country and for various other reasons, found themselves obliged, in the course of years, to vacillate between the two churches. Yet they managed to keep alive their Western background. Perhaps they never severed completely their ties with Rome. According to A. Cabej, of all the Balkan nations - including even Rumania - Albania sided more with the West than with the East. It is also interesting to indicate that the Albanians who settled in Italy following the Turkish invasion, many of whom still use the[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]eastern rite, were never required to sign any document proclaiming their union with the Vatican as is the case with other Eastern communities. Nor did they abjure Orthodoxy. This presupposes that their links with Rome had never been broken.92[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Serbs, evangelized many centuries after the Albanians, did not receive their missionaries from Rome. In Stefan Dušan's Code of Laws, there are indications that those who had links with Rome were persecuted.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]According to Law no. 6, "The ecclesiastical authority must strive to convert such (i.e., Catholics) to the true faith. If such a one will not be converted..., he shall be punished by death. The Orthodox Tsar must eradicate all heresy from his state. The property of all such as refuse conversions shall be confiscated... Heretical churches will be consecrated and open to priests of Orthodox faith".[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]According to Law no. 8, "If a Latin priest be found trying to convert a Christian to the Latin faith, he shall be punished by death".[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]According to Law no. 10, "If a heretic be found dwelling with the Christian he shall be marked on the face and expelled. Any sheltering him be treated the same way".93[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is evident that under such rigid laws it must not have been easy for the Kosovars to keep their ties with Rome. In fact, the recent examination of Turkish catastral registers has revealed that in the 15th and 16th centuries many Albanians in Kosova were Orthodox.94[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It goes without saying that the Albanians were not persecuted merely on religious grounds. In fact, in 1332, Father Brocardus (Gulielmus Adae, a French Dominican, Archbishop of Antebari) remarked that "The Albanoi are oppressed under the intolerable and very hard servitude of the most hateful and abominable lordship of the Slavs because they are overburdened with taxes, their clergy is lowered and humbled, their bishops and abbots often imprisoned, their monastery and priests lost and destroyed, their nobles deprived of their possessions".95[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]These persecutions against the Catholic Albanians continued during the Turkish occupation.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Yugoslav scholar Jovan Radonic (Rimska Kurija i Juznoslavenske zemlje XVI-XIX veka, Beograd 1950,pp. 269, 473, 511-512) has revealed that the Patriarch of Peja had the authorization of the Porte to place the Catholics under his jurisdiction, threatening to impale the Albanians who would dare to address themselves to the Pope.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In 1664, Andre Bogdani, Archbishop of Shkup (Skopje), informed his congregation in Rome that the Albanians were more persecuted by the Orthodox Church than by the Turks (see Mark Krasniqi "Les Albanais dans l'oevre d'un diplomate russe", "Gjurme e Gjurmine, Prishtine, 1979, pp. 291-391).[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The question of religion is, indeed, closely related to that dealing with national identity.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Being evangelized by Roman missionaries, the Albanians did not have a national church of their own similar to that of the Slavs. Pressed by the Greeks in the south and by the Slavs elsewhere their conversion to Islam seems to have been a means to preserve their national identity.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * * [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The conversions have been detrimental to the Albanians in more than one way: during Ottoman rule, they had to serve as mercenaries in the Turkish army. Sent to far away countries, they were decimated in wars or succumbed to climates to which they were not used while the other nations of the Balkans cultivated their land and grew in population.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In the 19th century, their desperate efforts to shake off Ottoman rule were ignored by the West and whereas the other Balkan nations were not merely allowed but also aided to constitute themselves as states, the Albanians, the oldest nation in the Balkans, were denied the right to do so.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is because of their conversions that they lost the greatest part of their territories to neighboring states for Gladstone favored the Christians whom he considered as the allies of the Western Powers whilst he regarded Moslems as inferior; civilization being - according to him - equated with Christianity.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Religion was also taken as a pretext for plans made by neighboring states to transplant to Turkey the Albanians who as a result of peace treatise had remained in the territories ceded by the Great Powers to neighboring states.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Albanian scholar and diplomat, F. Konitza, pointed out that the Albanians are fully aware that the conversions are cause of many of their grievances and misfortunes while remaining at the same time perfectly conscious that if they had remained Christians, they would have been absorbed by their neighbors. Konitza implies thereby that between the two alternatives, the Albanians had no choice.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Giving further consideration to the Turkish registers pertaining to Kosova - which to this date may be regarded as the most reliable source of information relating to religion and ethnicity - the Albanian scholars have pointed out that in the light of the various data contained in these registers, the conclusion must be drawn that many Albanians had become Orthodox and were in the process of being Slavized. One may notice, for example, that many of them had added Slavic suffixes to their Albanian names. Thus, one encounters names such as Gjon Leshovich, Mark Bushatovich, Gjin Progonovich (Albanian names except for the suffix). Sometimes even the first names are Slavic: Radoslav, Jovan, Bogdan, Radislav, Bozhidar, Petko, etc. There are cases when both names are purely Slavic as to make it impossible to tell that one has to deal with Albanians were it not for certain remarks added to them such as 'son of Gjin', 'son of Tanush', 'son of Arben', (which are indisputably Albanian names) or simply Arbanas, i.e., Albanian. Sometimes, the only indication as to the ethnos is the village which has an Albanian name or the section of the city marked 'Albanian'.96[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]These names have not failed to become the subject of a controversy. In fact, the Albanians consider as Albanian, despite their Slavic names, all those for whom some indication was found as to their Albanian ethnicity.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Yugoslav scholars did not observe the same guideline. A. Handzic,97 for example, who has published various foreign documents attesting that the Albanians were present in Kosova prior to the 17th century and who was also the first to point out that many of the individuals who had Slavic names were in reality Albanians on account of the indications mentioned above, when it came to statistics, he listed as "Slavs" all those who had Slavic names regardless of other data. Therefore the conclusion he reached was that in the 15th century, the Albanians, although present everywhere in Kosova, did not constitute the majority of the population. Conversely, the Albanian scholars maintain that the population was overwhelmingly Albanian, because of the fact that Slavic names - given the political situation - may not be considered as a criterion of ethnicity without taking into account other data.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Be as it may, the fact remains that in the 15th century, according to the registers, the Albanians were, contrary to the opinion that had prevailed until recently, everywhere present in Kosova.

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[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]With regard to the Turkish registers relative to Peja, the Albanian scholars content that, if the population of that city had been Slav, the numerous conversions at the very epoch when the patriarch was granted power by the Porte, would be unfounded and incomprehensible. These scholars regard the conversions as a clear indication that Peja's population was Albanian; they maintain, furthermore, that these conversions were, for their co-nationals, a means to keep their national identity.98[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]That the Albanians in Kosova are an aboriginal population is attested by the very Serbian Chrysobulls of the 13th and the 14th centuries. On the other hand, Turkish chroniclers mention Albanian uprisings in Kosova in the 15th century.99 The archives of Dubrovnik also testify for the same epoch. As for 17th century, important are, among others, the writings of the Turkish chronicle Evlija Celebi which clearly indicate that prior to the Austro-Turkish Wars the Albanian population was overwhelmingly present in Western Macedonia, in Montenegro and in the Vilayet of Kosova (E. Celebi, Putopis, Sarajevo, 1973, pp. 136-137). Mention should also be made, for the same epoch, of pastoral reports - that of the Papal Envoy, Pietro Massarechi (Mazreku, born in Prizren who succeeded M. Bizzi) dating from 1623 specifies that at that time, the population of Prizren was made up of 12 000 Moslem Albanians, 200 Catholic Albanians and 600 Serbs and that the population of Shkup (Skopje) was also mainly Albanian.100 Likewise, the Austrian documents pertaining to the Austro-Turkish Wars give evidence that the Austrian army was continuously in touch with an Albanian population. These documents refer to Prizren as the Capital of Albania and to Pjeter Bogdani, Archbishop od Shkup, as Archbishop of Albania.101 Various incidents linked to the Austro-Turkish Wars, as related by T. Ippen (in Novibazar und Kossovo,(das Alte Rascien) eine Studie, Vienna, 1892), who used Austrian War documents - as did J. Tomic - make it obvious that in Kosova the Austrian army had to deal with an Albanian population.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The fact that Shkup (Skopje) had an Albanian Archbishop, implies that that city had an Albanian population. Also, it is well known that among those who followed the Austrian army was an Albanian tribe, the Kelmendi (Clementi), from the region of Niš, which suggests that the area was inhabited by Albanians.[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The recent study of catastral registers has not only indicated that in the 15th century the Albanians were overwhelmingly present in Kosova and Western Macedonia; it has also shown that they were not merely shepherds, as they were often said to have been, but held all kind of positions and practiced professions which are not normally characteristic of a nomadic population. That study has also revealed that in contrast to the Albanians who were sedentary, the Serbs appear as a nomadic population.102[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Objective research has therefore established that what has been called Old Serbia, a term suggesting Serbian tradition and permanence, is in reality a region inhabited ab antiquo by Albanians which was only for a period of time under Serb rule.[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is undeniable fact that until recently (but especially so during the Middle Ages) state and nationality seldom coincided. The desire to invade and conquer is, indeed, a characteristic of many peoples and races. England was invaded by the Normans and ruled by them; the Arabs held sway in Spain from 756 to 1492; Calais was for two centuries under the domination of the British; Poland stayed for a long time divided between Russia, Germany and Austria. Needless to say that many more examples may be cited. There are places that remained, in fact, for centuries under the nominal rule of various invaders, alien to the population inhabiting them. The South Slavs, who were themselves, as a race and as a nation, under the domination of Turkey, Hungary, and Austria, should be in a better position than most people to feel and admit that in the past state and nationality were very seldom identical and that the transient power over something does not give claim to a permanent possession.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Indeed, temporary conquerors do not normally use the adjective "old" to describe territories which they once held under their sway. The French do not find it appropriate to call "Old France" territories once occupied by the short-lived Napoleon's Empire. Nor do the Turks name "Old Turkey" the Balkans where they ruled for over five centuries. The Bulgarians do not refer to Belgrade as "Old Bulgaria", despite the fact that that city belonged to them from the 9th century until the 11th; neither is this city called "Old Hungary" although Belgrade, which was Serbia's capital only briefly in the 12th century, fell under Hungarian control before being captured by the Turks in 1521. As for Ragusa, recently Dubrovnik, it was founded in the 7th century by the Romans and the Illyrians fleeing the incursions of the Slavs. Later, it fell under the rule of Byzantium, then under that of Venice, and finally of Hungary. The Turks held it from 1526 until 1806. Only since 1918 do the Slavs have control of it.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The term "Old Serbia", which, like all expression that are well chosen, has a tremendous suggestive power, was employed for the first time by Vuk Karadzic at the beginning of the 19th century. Yet Karadzic applied it practically to the whole Balkan peninsula. "Old Serbia" at that time was synonymous with what was also called "Great Serbia". But the chances to annex Bulgaria and Thessaly waned. The term was thus no longer applied to those regions and at present nobody considers these places any longer as "Old Serbia". Curiously on John Bugarsky's map, published in Belgrade in 1845, there is one area marked "Old Serbia or Present-day Albania". It is the region of Bielopolje separating Montenegro from Serbia - a clear indication that the term was used to designate various areas depending on the possibilities regarding territorial claims offered by political circumstances. Thus the limits traced by Prof. Cvijic for "Old Serbia" in 1909 differed considerably from those used by the same scholar in 1911. Since there was nobody to protect Albania's rights, the term was eventually used to designate merely the region that at present is identified with Kosova-Metohija (Kosmet). As for the Albanians, they call "Old Serbia", Serbia before 1878.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]According to Theodor Ippen, if the term "Old Serbia" should be used at all, it should apply solely to that district which is situated between Ibar and Sitnica, whose southern border is the river Lab, i.e., to the area once called "Old Rascia" (Rascia = Serbia) whose capital was Ras located north of present Novipazar. Ippen remarks that this region too used to be Albanian (even the name Ras, he points out, goes back to an Albanian etymology), but it was there that the Southern Slavs formed their first nucleus in the 12th century under Nemanjic; it should in no way be applied to the territory of Kossovo:[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The use of the expression 'Old Serbia' would be, if applied to a limited territory, after all justified, in as much as here (in Raška) the old Serbian state, which in its early stage may be identified with Rascia, originated. But he term 'Old Serbia' is used by chauvinistic Serbs to designate regions, such as Prizren, Gjakova, Ipek on the one hand and, on the other, Iskup, which geographically and ethnographically belong to Albania and Macedonia. 'Old Serbia' is therefore applied, for political purposes, to regions which ethnically speaking were never Serb (Ippen, op.cit., p.4).103[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In the sight of these facts, the Albanians maintain that the principle of history invoked by the Serbs in support to territorial claims, is not based on any solid facts.

[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Serbian Churches in Kosova

[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is an undeniable fact that people feel the need to build whatever they establish themselves. It is therefore normal that when they move away, they leave monuments behind. Suffice it to mention in this regard the famous mosques of Spain where the Arabs ruled for more than seven centuries. Some nations inherit monuments found by them in conquered territories. Thus Istanbul contains, aside from Hagia Sophia, many other Byzantine churches. These Christian places of worship stand amidst a Moslem population. Their fate is - mutatis mutandis - comparable to the Moslem monuments of Spain. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Similar to other nations, the Yugoslavs inherited from those who had previously ruled over the territories presently inhabited by them, various monuments associated with different civilizations that flourished in those areas throughout the centuries - for instance, on the Dalmatian coast, works of art built by the Romans and the Venetians add charm to the beautiful coast attracting a great number of tourists.104 These monuments are well preserved by the Yugoslavs. Conversely, the Serbo-Montenegrins thought it appropriate to destroy practically all Turkish works of art. The beautiful 17th century mosque of Podgorica, recently Titograd, was thus demolished despite the loud protests of the Bosnians. In Belgrade and its surroundings alone over 260 mosques, some of which were of undeniable artistic value, were razed.105 The Serbs have also demolished or damaged Albanian Catholic Churches.106[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is evident that places of worship as well as works of art represent the very spirit of a nation; to destroy them is tantamount to ruining the nation itself. The urge to conquer is more often than not accompanied by the need to annihilate the very spirit of the enemy. In this regard, it is perhaps not inappropriate to point out that the Greeks, who in 1766 eliminated the autocephalous Church of Peja and the following year, the Bulgarian Church of Ochrida, also destroyed Serbian manuscripts and monuments. In 1825, the Metropolitan Ilarion is said to have burned publicly all the Slavonic books in the old library of Trnovo Patriarchate.107[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]One could also point out the fact that during the Balkan Wars, the Bulgarian army, responsible for many other destructions, turned into a stable the monastery of Gracanica, damaging the frescoes on the walls.108[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Many Catholic churches were damaged or demolished by the Serbs.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In the light of these facts, one appreciates more fully the attitude of the Albanians with regard to Serbian places of worship situated in a region where the population is overwhelmingly Albanian and Moslem. But before giving any details a few words about these churches become compelling.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In the region bordering on present-day Albania, there are three important monasteries (restored at high cost between the two World Wars): [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]1) The Patriarchate of Peja, built in the 13th century and aggrandized in the 14th. Its religious importance is well known, but from the point of view of architecture it is not important.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]2) The monastery of Decani, built in 1325-1335. Its architect was Vita of Cattaro, a Catholic brother. It is the most beautiful of the three monasteries.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]3) The Church of Devica in Drenica, built by the Despot Georg Brankovic, mentioned in documents only in 1578. From the point of view of architecture, this church is less important than the two others.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]All three of them are situated in isolated areas. According to A. Slijepcevic, these monasteries were not so much intended to be places of worship; rather, they constituted landmarks either in conquered territories or away from from state rule. In the latter case, they were like attempts to "rapprochments".109[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Medieval Serbian documents clearly indicate that the villages surrounding the Serbian monasteries were inhabited by Albanians, who contributed to their maintenance.110[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is now time to point out that these places of worship would have been destroyed in the course of years had it not been for the Albanians. It is to them that they owe their existence. For centuries, the guardians of these churches - the vojvods, as they are called - have always been Moslem Albanians, elected by the neighboring villages of these churches. There were times when the Albanians experienced bitter and inimical feelings in regard to the Serbs, especially following the Berlin Congress, when tens of thousands of their co-nationals inhabiting the regions ceded to Serbia and Montenegro were brutally driven out of their homes and forced to leave the region. There were also times, especially at the turn of the century, when the Albanians, disobeying the Turks, held sway in those territories, where they constituted over 90% of the population. It was thus in their power to reduce to ashes those places of worship. But they did not do so despite the fact that they were fighting the Serbs. This surprising attitude is due to the Albanian Code of Laws (the Code of Laws of Lek Dukagjini, rightly regarded as the bible of the North Albania), which penalizes those who do not show respect for churches even if they are not their own. Numerous were the vojvods killed while defending one or the other of these monasteries. Orthodox priests sent to their families letters of praise and gratitude.111[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Considering these facts, Serb propaganda that depicts the Albanians as vandals who damage Serbian churches seems both mean-spirited and undignified, especially when one thinks that even poets have put their talents to the service of a defaming propaganda by describing the Albanians as destroyers. In this regard, mention should be made of a widely advertised poem by the well-known Serb poet, Rakic, where an Albanian is described as having damaged the eyes of one of the frescoes at Gracanica112 representing Simonida.113 Since there is irrefutable proof that this act was not committed by any Albanian and owing to the fact that Rakic - who at the turn of the century was consul of the Kingdom of Serbia in Priština - must have been fully aware of the truth, his poem is more than objectionable.114[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Regarding these churches, those who cause damage are Serb school children, who put their signature wherever they can. Mark Krasniqi in one of his two illuminating essays devoted to these churches has even reproduced the signature of the Serbian Consul in Monastir, which he found in Gracanica. Using the Cyrillic alphabet, the Consul had written clearly and in a conspicuous place: "D.Bodi, Srpski Konsul u Bitolju, 1893".115[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]A leap shall now be made into the present time to point out that the unjust attitude of the Serbs has not changed.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]On March 16, 1981, a fire broke out at the convent of the sisters at Peja, a fairly recent construction without architectural value. Although the convent is at a good distance from the patriarchate, which was in no way touched by fire, the casualty was presented to the press in such a manner as to suggest that the patriarchate itself had suffered damages. Accused were the Albanian "irredentists".[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]As a result of a court investigation, Judge Hoti, a Kosovar, declared that the casualty was due to inadequate electrical installation. Although damages had been minimal, the Fedral Government allotted for the restoration of the convent sums that were surprisingly high. The case, however, seemed closed. It has been reopened of late.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It is understandable that, hurt in their pride, the Albanians have come to view these churches, which they have so magnanimously defended, as symbols of injustice.[/SIZE][/FONT]
 
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Part Three[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Kosova Between The Two World Wars[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]At the outbreak of World War I, the illiteracy of the Serbs was over 83%.116 However, the South Slavs, who had been under Austrian rule and subsequently served in the administration of the newly created state of Yugoslavia, enabled Serbia to progress between the two wars. As for the Albanians who remained under Slav rule, the period that began in 1913 and ended in 1941 was one of regression and mourning. Progress was completely denied to them. The few Albanian schools that had finally been permitted by Turkey shortly before the outbreak of the Balkan Wars, were closed by the Yugoslav Government. No education in the Albanian language was tolerated. Unprecedented pressures of all kinds were wielded on the impoverished population. New settlers - non-Albanians - were established in the region. Under a so-called Agrarian Reform, the Albanians were deprived of their land and compelled to cede it to the Serbo-Mongtenegrins, who little by little set out to colonize the whole area. The man responsible for this colonization, which was not performed in a very humane manner, was Djordje Kristic, the head of the agrarian commission that had its headquarters in Shkup (Skopje). In his book The Colonization of South Serbia, published in Sarajevo in 1928, he tells how rapidly the ethnic composition was changing in a region which before 1913 "did not have a single Serbian inhabitant".117[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Yet soon, the Yugoslavs decided upon means even more cruel in order to eradicate Albanian element faster and more efficiently. It was thus resolved that tens of thousands should be removed to Turkey or to the State of Albania.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]There was some concern that obstacles of international import might arise, but in a memorandum to the Royal Government on March 7, 1937, Dr. Vaso Cubrilovic had this to say:[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]At a time when Germany can expel tens of thousands of Jews and Russia can shift tens of millions of people from one point of the continent to another, the shifting of few hundred thousand Albanians will not lead to the outbreak of a World War.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Albanians intended to be expatriated were not to be allowed compensation for their loss of property.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The means that were to be used for this removal are explicitly mentioned by V. Cubrilovic. Below are picked at random and transcribed some recommendations contained in his memorandum:[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]...agitators to advocate the removal by describing the beauties of the new territories in Turkey; refusal to recognize the old land deeds; ruthless collection of taxes; threats; withdrawal of permits to exercise a profession; dismissal from state, private and communal office; destruction of cemeteries; ill-treatment of clergy. Conflicts between Albanians and Montenegrins should be prepared and encouraged and should be either presented as conflicts between clans or attributed to economical reasons. These will be bloodily suppressed with the most efficacious means. In the colonization process, the role of the police should be of foremost importance; settles should be mostly Montenegrins because they are arrogant and merciless and would drive the Albanians away with their behavior; from the ethnic standpoint, the Macedonians will unite with us only when they enjoy true ethnic support from the Serbian motherland, which they have lacked to this day; this they will achieve only through the destruction of the Albanian block. Settlement should begin in villages, then in towns.118[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The plan to begin colonization first in villages was based on previous experience and had worked out well; namely, along the Dalmatian coast. In fact, Austria, thinking that the Italians, on account of their advanced culture, were more of a threat to them than the Slavs, had allowed and encouraged Slav settlements in the rural areas. As a result, Fiume and Triest, whose population had remained Italian, eventually looked like islands immersed in the rural Slavic population surrounding them.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Despite the strong opposition of the Kosovars to the plan for their settlement in Turkey, the agreement with the Turkish government was made. Yugoslavia was prevented from carrying out the plan because of the outbreak of World War II.119[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]+ + + + + + [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Kosova During World War II[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]As a result of Yugoslavia' capitulation in 1941, Kosova - except for some districts ceded to Bulgaria - was annexed to Albania. It was a great relief for the Kosovars to be able to breathe freely after so many years of humiliation, and unspeakable misery. Albanian schools were founded everywhere, books and newspapers started being published and an Albanian radio station was established.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The joy was, however, short-lived, for Albania was at that time engaged in anti-fascist guerilla war and the inhabitants of Kosova joined them in their struggle for freedom. There were several political parties in Albania during the war. As time went on, however, the non-communist parties received less and less support from the West; as a result, the Communist Party eventually grew stronger owing to the ties existing between the communists in Albania, Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Montenegrin writer, Mark Miljan (1833-1901) who, having lived a long time among the Albanians subsequently wrote about them, pointed out their qualities and their shortcomings. He remarked, among other things, that they are quick-tempered but that they would never betray anyone even if it were in their own interest to do so. Trust, he asserted, characterizes them and it is thus quite easy to take advantage of them.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]This trait of their personality is reflected in their attitude toward the Yugoslavs during the war years. The communist Albanians were convinced that the spirit of the Yugoslav communists was totally opposed to that of the former Royal Government of Yugoslavia. They saw in Communism true brotherhood among men and sincerely believed that the miseries of the Kosovars were a thing of the past since they were due solely to the greed of a selfish bourgeois society. Thus, the Communist Albanians helped the Yugoslavs in a selfless manner. The Kosovars, erasing from their minds the atrocious memories of their great sufferings, formed various guerilla bands and fought side by side with the people of the nation which had been toward them most cruel and unjust. Here is what E. Hoxha said with respect to Kosova.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Our aim is to continue the joint struggle (i.e., the resistance movements in Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece) and to forget the past, because we are fighting our common enemy; at the conclusion of the struggle we who have fought shoulder to shoulder with the greatest understanding will settle any misunderstandings. The national liberation movement has the task of making the Kosova people conscious of their aspirations... We must see that the people of Kosova decide for themselves which side to join, Albania or Yugoslavia, and to oppose the Yugoslav regime which would attempt to oppress them.120[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]+ + + + + +[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Kosova After World War II[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]It was agreed that the Albanians of Yugoslavia should be able to chose their destiny with the right to self determination, including secession.121 The Kosovars had fought the Nazis and the Fascists hoping that Kosova would become one with the motherland only to realize that the Yugoslavs did not intend to keep their promise. Bitter and resentful, they rose in protest. But their uprising was bloodily suppressed. Thousands of Albanians were placed in a concentration camp near Priština where they endured unspeakable tortures.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In 1945, when the province of Kosova was officially restored to Yugoslavia by the force of arms, the principle of self-determination was not applied. Kosova was not even annexed with the status of a republic; it was attached to Serbia, first as a "Region" and then as an "Autonomous Province". Yet the question for the Yugoslavs was again how to deal with the Kosovars, since it was no longer possible to do away with them. In order to destroy any hopes that the Kosovars might have to join the rest of their countrymen, Serbia's ambition had always been the partition of Albania between Yugoslavia and Greece. The Serbian Nobel prize winner, Ivo Andric, who admitted this view, expressed his thoughts in a memoir addressed to the Government of the kingdom of Yugoslavia in January 1939. In his opinion it was the only way to solve the problems pertaining to the Kosovars.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Communist Yugoslavia thought of doing better: she strived to annex the whole of Albania. Her efforts were thwarted.
[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]As for the Kosovars, they found themselves in a very difficult plight because of the partition of the territory inhabited by them into three republics: Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Thus, for example, Shkup (Skopje = Uskup), once the capital of the Vilayet of Kosova, was ceded to the Republic of Macedonia. The splitting was done in an arbitrary way, most detrimental to the interests of the Albanian population, for if the Albanians were granted some rights in the recently created Autonomous Province of Kosova, these rights were denied to the other Albanians inhabiting the Republics of Macedonia and Montenegro.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]As regards education, the Albanian schools that had been opened during World War II were not closed. However, they deteriorated rapidly for lack of financial governmental support. Little by little, the teaching of the Albanian language, as well as courses in Albanian history were not tolerated. Although the Albanian population is larger than that of Macedonia, Macedonian is an official language in the SFRY, whereas the Albanian language has no status.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Also, the Albanians started to be harassed by the secret police and to be subjected to discriminations that manifested themselves in all aspects of life. Colonization by Serbs and Montenegrins resumed again, whereas reports were released that the Slavs were leaving the area. Thousands were imprisoned, especially intellectuals. Those who were arrested were not allowed lawyers and were sentenced to several years in jail, where they had to endure the most painful and humiliating tortures. Over 200 000 Kosovars were forced to emigrate.122[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Recently, there has been much talk about the alleged growth of the Kosovars. The ignorance of many journalists concerning an area where not too long ago the Slav population did not exceed 15% is reflected in many of their remarks. One of them wrote that "the birth rate of the Albanians in Kosova is so high that the Albanians will soon outnumber the Serbs". According to Steven Erlager (Globe, June 18, 1981, p.3) the birthrate of the Kosovars is 26 per 1000 (sic), whereas other Yugoslavs average only 3 per 1000 (sic). He adds that on account of this prodigious birthrate, the Kosovars have become in Yugoslavia a butt of jokes.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Yet figures speak for themselves: After World War I, the Albanians in Yugoslavia were almost as numerous as those within the borders assigned to the state of Albania. At present, according to statistics, the SAR had, as of ten years ago, nearly three million inhabitants, whereas the Albanians in Yugoslavia are, at present, according to 1981 statistics, a little over one million and a half. Considering the alleged high birthrate, the question, of course, arises as to why the number of the Albanians does not match their birthrate.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Noteworthy also is the fact that in 1840, the Serbian state had less than 900 000 inhabitants; Montenegro numbered merely 80000. At that time the Albanians were over 1 600 000. At the present time Serbia's population is more than three times larger than Albania's.123[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * * [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In 1966, the Yugoslav Communist Party was shaken by disturbing events that took place within the party. As a result, Tito suddenly realized that the rights and the interests of the Kosovars had been neglected and that there had been arbitrary and impermissible actions taken against them. Although the whole truth was not disclosed, the plight of the Kosovars was - albeit partially - openly admitted. Responsible for the crimes, Tito argued, were Rankovic and his agents.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]As a result of several uprisings in Kosova, the Yugoslav constitution was revised and in 1969, the Kosovars, notwithstanding the fact that they were not allowed to form their own republic, were allegedly granted full equality with the other ethnic groups.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Institute for Albanology was then reopened and in 1970 even an Albanian University was founded in Priština. The Albanians displayed great energy, new magazines and journals started being published and considerable research was undertaken. Despite the fact that professors were very poorly paid, as compared to those teaching outside Kosova, the University of Priština grew so fast that within a very[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]short period of time it became the third largest university in Yugoslavia. As of April 1981, it had over 35 000 students.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The situation in Kosova seemed greatly improved. In reality, it had changed only on the surface. The Serbian conservative circles were working hard underground to repress progress as regards education and culture. In the mid-seventies courses in Albanian language, history and literature were reduced and sometimes abolished in elementary and high schools.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]On other hand, Yugoslav police had been continuously arresting Kosovars much before the mass demonstrations of March 1981.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Among the Kosovars in Yugoslav prisons are some very promising writers and poets. A Kosovar poet who had been living abroad for 15 years was arrested and imprisoned when he went back to visit his native town. After months in jail, he was freed thanks to the intervention of the League of Writers and because the German and the Austrian press took his defense. A prisoner much bewailed by all Albanians is the brilliant writer, Adam Demaci. His novel Serpents of Blood, published in 1958 was an overnight success. Demaci, 48 years old, is almost blind. He has been incarcerated for 20 years. Presently, he is in a prison 500 miles far away from his family.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Of great concern became also the problem dealing with economy. In articles published abroad, Kosova is described as poor. The Yugoslavs call attention to the alleged resentment of richer republics to the financial contributions they are obliged to make to the fund for the development of backward provinces and republics. This claim is granted credibility. Elizabeth pond, staff correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor wrote from Belgrade that the local press and television reports emphasize the ingratitude of the Kosovars for all the money and efforts the more developed parts of Yugoslavia have lavished in trying to modernize Kosova. As a result, those who are unfamiliar with the question may conceive admiration and even pity for the charitable attitude of the Yugoslav government with respect to the Kosovars. However, the Autonomous Province of Kossovo is one of Yugoslavia's richest region, perhaps the richest, in mineral as well as other resources. In fact, the Albanians argue that if the region had not been so rich, the Serbian legends originating in the 18th and 19th centuries would not have been created. The exploitation of Kosova's mines by the Serbs, the billions of kilowatts generated from its thermal power stations, and the selling of Kosova's meat and wheat on European markets bring millions to Yugoslavia. The poverty of the Kosovars is due to the fact that only the most exploitative investments are made in the region.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In The Burden of the Balkans, 1905, M.E. Durham quotes an Albanian newspaper saying: "The Slavs are a brave people; they may have all sorts of other qualities too. That is not the question. Our hatred does not extend to individuals, not even to national groups, but to the spirit of aggression..." (p.56). Also, Justin Godard of the Carnegie Commission who witnessed the ill-treatment of the Albanians by the Serbs praised the Albanians for not blaming the Serbian people, but merely "La Serbie officielle", adding that all nations in their relations with one another should be able to make this distinction between the people and the government (op.cit., p. 234).[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Albanians in the People's Republic of Albania seem to have maintained toward the South Slavs an attitude reminiscent of that spirit pointed out by M.E. Durham and J. Godart. In an article published in Albania (Paris, 1981), the Albanian novelist, I. Kadare, remarks that the Albanian people, although perfectly conscious of the inequalities, have chosen not to react in a chauvinistic way in regard to the chauvinism of the Serbs, i.e., not to use eel against evil, but to maintain an attitude of restrain characteristic of the Albanian spirit.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Yet whereas the Government of Albania, in an effort to maintain good relations with Yugoslavia, has kept purposely in the background illuminating personalities, both national and foreign (such as for example, Father Gjergj Fishta, the greatest of all Albanian poets, and M.E. Durham), on account of the unfriendly sentiments toward the Serbs exposed in their works, the Yugoslavs have not made gesture of a similar order toward the Albanians. Of late, various new books have been published in Yugoslavia, which - mutatis mutandis - are not different from those that were published by the Serbs at the turn of the century. In this regard mention should be made especially of a novel, Zatocnici, in which its author, Mihailo Lalic, uses a language that is most insulting to the Albanians, calling them 'garbage', and using on their behalf various disgraceful epithets. Far from being criticized, Lalic received, instead, recognition and praise. He is the recipient of a national award. The purpose of all these writings is, of course, to humiliate the Albanians and not let them take pride in their identity.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]In the light of all these facts, there is no doubt that the Kosovars were harassed. When thinking of the demonstrations that took place in Kosova in 1981 and calling to mind the brutality of the police and the means used on an unarmed population demonstrating in a peaceful manner, one feels particularly disturbed by some of the recommendations contained in V. Cubrilovic's memorandum, such as "conflicts should be prepared and encouraged...attributed to economic reasons" and then "bloodily suppressed with the most efficacious means...the role of the police should be of foremost importance". The Macedonians should enjoy "ethnic support...through the destruction of the Albanian block".
[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The parallel between the recommendations and the recent events in Kosova is, indeed striking. The Albanians maintain that the details worked out in 1939 are still finding their application at the present time: the Kosovars seem to have been provoked by design. After the bloody suppression of their demonstrations and killing of thousands of their co-nationals, the Kosovars are now being deprived, bit by bit, of that relative freedom granted to them by Tito in 1968.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]This time the target of the repression has been the Kosovar intelligentsia: writers, poets, students, and especially professors of the University of Priština, who by their intensive research in Albanology have revealed the true facts of history in the light of which it has become evident that the Albanians are not an adventitious population in Kosova but indeed have their roots there.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]* * *[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]F. Piy Margall proposed back in 1876 the principle of Federation as a solution to the nationalities problem, expressing the opinion that national minorities included in a foreign state would eventually accept willingly what they would have instinctively rejected, provided they are granted equality of rights and conditions.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Under the SFRY (Socialist Fefederal Republic Yugoslavia) government, the Kosovars have been treated as harshly as they were under the government of the Kingdoms of Serbia and Yugoslavia, despite the fact that the principle of nationality is supposed to constitute its basis.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Very little has been written about the Kosovars, their fate may be described by what a statesman is supposed to have said with respect to oppressed population, "The death of a person is a tragedy; deaths of thousands of people are merely a matter of statistics".

[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]Our comment:[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SIZE=-1]The Berlin Congress in 1878, committed an incalculable blunder, by "empowering the thief to guard the bank". It allowed Serbia to massacre Albanians and destroy their land. As if the Balkan wars were not sufficient, the Serbs started the First World War; the Second World War was the child of the First War. After the abominable savagery in Bosnia, the Serbs are slaughtering the Albanians in Kosova again. The permanent peace in Balkans can be secured only, if the Berlin's blunder is reversed: Serbia must be returned to its pre-Berlin Congress borders, i.e., into its real historical and national Serbia of Belgrade Pashalic.

[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Note: The above material can be FREELY distributed.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]In fact, it is expressly encouraged by Dr. Juka.[/SIZE][/FONT]
 
The Albanians in Yugoslavia in light of historical documents - Some argumented Facts

K O S O V A
The Albanians in Yugoslavia in light of historical documents
By Dr. S.S. Juka edited in New York in 1984
FAKTET E ARGUMENTUARA NGA HISTORIAN TONE DHE TE HUAJ


1. The initiators of the Illyrian movement were G. Krizanic (1618-1683) and P. Ritter —Vitesovic (1652-17 13). The latter identified the ancient Illyrians with the Slays and wanted to create Croatia rediviva, Croatia resuscitated, which was to comprise territories once inhabited by the Illyrians. But he acted in the interest of Austria who, following her victory over the Turks in 1699, had claims over the Balkans. Illyrism was revived in the 19th century by L. Gaj, 1809-1872 (see E.M. Despalatovi~,Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyrian Movement, East European Monographs, Boulder, 1975, dif. Columbia U.P.). In 1935 the 100th anniversary of "lIlyrism" was celebrated (see M. Radojkovic, [and others] "Le centenaire de lIllyrisme," Le Monde Slave,June, 1935, pp. 32 1-457 and F. Sisic, "Genese et caractere general du mouvement illyrien," Le Monde Slave, Feb. 1936, pp. 266-288).

P. Ritter-Vitezovic was not the first to identify the Slavs with the Illyrians; this had already been the opinion of L. Chalkokondylis.

Although Emperor Ferdinand prohibited, in 1843, the use of the terms "Illyrism" and "Illyria," these continued, nonetheless, to be employed.

Noteworthy is the fact that the descendants of those Serbs who settled in Hungary following the Austro-Turkish wars were, later, also called "Illyrians" (see P. Adler, "Nations and Nationalism among the Serbs of Hungary in 1790-1870," East European Quarterly, 1979, no. 3, pp. 272; 273).

2. "Friends of the Slays have derived the word from a root signifying ‘glorious’, enemies, from the roots or terms indicating slavery. Schafarik has proved that the original form of the word was Slovene derived from a locality" (H.W.V. Temperley, History of Serbia, London, 1917, p. 17).

3. See Sisic, art. cit. p. 281. — "Illyrism", as a political movement, should not be confused with the language and literary movement by the same name although links exist between the two.

4. The plan to realize "Great Serbia" goes at least as far back as 1773. In this regard mention should he made of a document published by Vladan Djordjevic in 1913 inExtractsfrom the Vienna Archives about Montenegro: "The following which was told me by a Montenegrin monk is worthy of further consideration: A little after the Russian war was ended in 1773, a plan was made to reconstruct the Old Serbian Kingdom and to include in it, besides Bulgaria, Serbia, Upper Albania, Dalmatia, and Bosnia, also the Banat of Karlstadt and Slavonia. The Turks in all the provinces were to befallen upon at a given moment by the schismatics, and it was resolved that foreign officers should be cleared out of the lands within the Imperial frontier. The late Orthodox Bishop, Jakshitch of Karlstadt, is said to have agreed, and to have carried on a correspondence with the Metropolitan of Montenegro by means of priests. Though the carrying out of such plan is very difficult, yet the project should not be left out of consideration" (Letter of the Austrian Envoy in Montenegro, cited by ME. Durham in The Serajevo Crime, London, 1925, p. 15).

5. A. Bouc, La Turquie d’Europe, 1840, IV, p. 130.

6. According to A. Boue, the "battles" that took place were not fought on the plain, but on its "plates-formes" at Gasimestan, "one and a half hours north of Pristina;" the name of Kossovo, he explained, was applied later to the Plain of Sitnica and the surrounding territory (A. Boue, op. cit., I, p. 142).

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.

8. "Public Record Office," London, FO., 78/2784; The British Museum, "Accounts and Papers" (38) 1878, LXXXIII 83, 298-30 1; reproduced by S. Rizaj in The Albanian League of Prizren in English Documents, Prishtina, 1978, pp. 189-192. Other English documents are published by Rizaj in "Three English Diplomats on the Albanian Question (1879-1880)," GjurmimeAlbanologjike IX, 1979, Prishtina 1980, pp. 337-353. English documents relating to the League of Prizren are quite numerous. They are available in the Foreign Office Archives (Public Record Office), London and in the British Museum (Accounts and Papers), London. Most documents used in this essay are reproduced either by S. Rizaj in op. or art. cit., or by L. Skendo in Albanais et Slaves, Lausanne, 1919.

9. Later, Bismarck is said to have admitted his error.

10. EM., Accounts and Papers (38); 1878-9; LXXIX 79, 574-575. Letter reproduced by Rizaj in op. cit. pp. 24 1-242.

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).

12. Dulcigno (Lat. Olcinium, Gr. Oulkinion, AIb. Ulqin) is made up of the preposition "de" and the Albanian ujk-ulk wolf, as noted byJ.G. von Hahn (Albanesische Studien I, pp. 239, 242). Ulcisa Castra goes back to the same Illyro-Albanian etymology.

13. Archeological finds indicate that the present territory of Montenegro was inhabited by Illyrians. In the Middle Ages, the rulers of the debatable Zeta, the Crnojevics, were Skanderbeg’s allies and connected to him by marriage. Venetian sources suggest that their name is the Slav translation of the Albanian Gurazi. Sometimes, they are referred to merely as Juras. Noteworthy is a passage in Marino Sanudo (4.325): "13 June, 1774.— Drivasto e Alessio tolse Zuan Zernovitch, alhanese.. ." (cited by F. Miklosic, Die Serbischen Dynasten Crnojevic, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte von Montenegro, Vienna, 1886, p. 42). Cf. also: "1435 Jurasevitsch

....wollte sich weder den Serbischen Despoten noch den Venetianern unterwerfen" —"1435 Jurasevic did not want to surrender to the Serbian Despot nor to the Venetians" (GIasnik XIV 14, cited by F. Miklosic, op. cit., p.152). As for the Balshas (Balsic’s), the predecessors of the Crnojevic’s, the concensus among scholars is not to connect their name with the locality of Les Baux, near Marseilles, France, as had been suggested by Du Cange, but to agree with von Hahn who had pointed Out (op. cit. I p. 324) that Balsha is without any doubt an Albanian name (Hahn rightly indicated that it is a first name, not a family name). The Balshas were Catholic and they fought the Serbs. Cf. also M. von Suff1ay, "Ungarisch-alhanische Berubrungen im Mittelalter," in L. von Thall6czy, Illyrisch-Atbanische Forschungen, Munchen und Leipzig, 1916, 1, p. 298: "Der Herr von Nordalbanien, der Katholische Albaner Georg II Balsha

According to F. Miklosic, the name Zeta, employed to designate ancient Doclea (part of present-day Montenegro), is most probably of Albanian origin (F. Miklosic, op. cit., p. 29). As for Montenegro, which may not be strictly equated with the Zeta, it is a geographical name used for the first time in the 15th century, after the Turkish conquest. It is not included in maps until the 17th century.

M.E. Durham (1863-1944), who travelled widely in Albania and Montenegro and devoted much time to the study of Montenegrin and Albanian tribes, came to the conclusion that the Montenegrin is not so much a Slav as a Slavized descendant of the older inhabitants, i.e., of Vlachs, and Albanians (see Some Tribal Origins, Laws, and Customs in the Balkans, London, 1928, PP. 13-59).

That the Montenegrin tribes were originally Albanian tribes was already indicated by K. Jirecek, "Albanien in der Vergangenheit," Illyrisch-Albanische Forschungen, (Munchen und Leipzig 1916, p. 69).

The marked distinction between the Serbs and the Montenegrins was pointed out by Prof. Savo Birkovic in a recent work: 0 postanku i rasvoju Crnogorske nacje, Graficki Zavod, Titograd, 1980.

14. Relating to the Catholics, the French envoy in Shkodra, L.H. (Louis Hecquart?) wrote to his government on 24 July, 1880: "M. Corti a cru de boone foi que les catholiques Albanais accepteraient Ia domination montenegrine plus facilement que les musulmas, et c’est le contraire qui est vrai" — Mr. Corti sincerely believed that it would be easier for the Catholic Albanians than for the Moslems to accept the Montenegrin domination; but it has been the opposite (Letter contained in "Inventaire sommaire des archives de Ia guerre," serie N. 1872-1919, Archives de Ia defense, Chateau de Vincennes. Unpublished document, hand written).


15. The West erroneously believed that the battle was between the Crescent and the Cross which meant between barbarism and civilization. Cf. E. Noel-Buxton: "We are in the field of a great battle between East and West, between barbarism and civilization," (Europe and the Turks, London, 1907, p. 19). Westerners seemed to be completely ignorant of the fact that the fights had purely material causes. M.E. Durham has repeatedly pointed out the barbarism of the acts committed under the cover of Christianity against the Albanians be they Moslems or Christians.

16. As many as 30 Albanian newspapers and magazines were published abroad. This epoch produced a great variety of excellent writers and poets.

17. Reproduced by L. Skendo, op. cit., pp. 42-43.

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).

19. V. Djordjevic,Les Albanais et les Grandes Puissances, 1913 p. 8. No information of this kind is contained in von Hahn’s work.

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.

21. 5. Protic,Das Albanesische Problem und die Beziehungen zwischen Oestereich- Ungarn, Leipzig, 1913, p. 19.

22. "Le journal parisien Le Temps avait mis ses colonnes a Ia disposition de ces detracteurs comme il les avait ouvertes pour les Grecs.. .," — "The Parisian daily Le Temps was at the disposal of these calumniators [i.e., of the Slays] as it was also at the disposal of the Greeks (Lumo Skendo, Albanais et Slaves, Lausanne, 1919, p. 3).

23. SeeR. Marmullaku Albania and the Albanians, Hurst and Co., London, 1975, pp. 23-24.

24. Cited by R. Marmullaku, op. cit., p. 137.

25. Cf. also Aubrey Herbert, M.P.: "Very little was known about Albania. The general opinion was that the Albanians were another branch of the Armenian family, and indeed, as far as massacres were concerned, this was most understandable . . ." (A. Herbert, Ben Kenilim,
London, 1924, P. 24). According to ME. Durham, the slaughters of the Armenians were nothing compared to those of the Albanians: "The massacres of Adana and the resultant misery pale before the scarlet horrors committed wholesale in cold blood by the so-called followers of Christ" (Durham, Struggle for Scutari, London, 1914, p. 303).
About these slaughters see 1. Albaniens Golgotha, Anklageacten gegen die Vernichter des Albanervolkes, gesammelt und herausgegeben von L. Freundlich, Vienna, 1913. — 2. Enquete dans les Balkans, Rapport de Ia Commission d’enquete de Ia Dotation Carnegie pour Ia Paix internationale, Paris, 1914.

26. What surprised ME. Durham quite specially was the religious fanaticism of the Serbs:
"It was not astonishing that the Serbs hated Islam, but that they should fiercely hate every other Christian church, I had not expected. The Catholic was hated the most." According to Durham, the Moslem was to the Serbs "a lesser evil than the Catholic," (Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle, London, 1920, p. 52). "The hatred of the Serb Orthodox for the Catholics was shown in 1913 in the Balkan war, when the Montenegrin troops, whose object was said to be to liberate Christians, fell upon the little church of Mazreku, trampled the Host underfoot, dressed up in the priestly vestments, danced about, and amused themselves by cutting noses from images of the saints and firing bullets into the crufix" (Some Tribal Origins ... p. 28).
In 1913, a number of soldiers led by a bandit clad as an Orthodox priest stripped and bayonetted to death Luigj Palici, an Albanian Franciscan from Gjakova, because he refused to cross himself in the Orthodox manner. "Austria intervened sharply. Had she not done so, in the words of a Catholic refugee, there would not have been a Catholic left" (E.C. Helmreich, The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, Harvard U.P., 1938, p. 317).
In 1919, a treaty concerning minorities was signed at Saint-Germain-en- Laye whereby the Yugoslav Government pledged to protect all citizens without discrimination as to race, nationality, and creed. Yet the persecutions against the Catholic Kosovars continued. Mother Teresa’s father, a native of Shkup (Skopje), and a noted Albanian patriot, was poisoned by the Serbs, as reported by his son Lazer Bojaxhiu in an interview published in Gente (Dec. 1979 andJan. 1980). Mother Teresa’s family was obliged to move to Tirana, where her mother and sister died (the former in 1974; the latter in 1976).
In 1929, was executed Father Shtjefen Gjecovi, a Franciscan, greatly respected by all the Albanians for his erudition and his righteousness. As a result, on May 5, 1930, three Catholic priests, obliged to leave the region, addressed the "League of Nations" a memorandum concerning the tragic plight of the Albanians in Yugoslavia (see H. Kokalari, Kosova, Rome, 1962, p. 165).

27. Cf. E. Noel-Buxton: "Mr. Gladstone said, the Christian, who retained his faith at the price of slavery, when by recanting he could obtain every favour, is entitled to the name of martyr and to him Europe owes the gratitude" (op. cit., p. 27).— That the conversions of the Albanians would be taken as a pretext to expand territory was already pointed out by A. Boue who was for the freedom of all nations and had little respect for those who "for sheer purposes of invasion consider themselves chosen by God to exterminate the Moslems and make people happy." (". . . chez ceux, qui s’intitulent, par pure politique d’envahissement, les elus du Tres-Haut pour l’extermination des Musulmans et le bonheur du genre humain," Boue, Recueil d’itineraires dans Ia Torquie dEurope, 1854, I, "Avant-Propos."

28. No study is available on ME. Durham, except for that of Sh. Shaqiri, "ME. Durham dhe Shqiptar&,"Nentori, Oct. 1981, pp. 149-164. A talented painter and writer,a good historian and an excellent anthropologist (her diaries and other papers are available at the "Royal Anthropological Institute of Gr. Br. and Ireland," London, of which she was a member and to whose journal, Man, she contributed many articles), she also worked as a volunteer in Montenegrin hospitals as well as for the "Macedonia Relief Fund." Her first book was devoted to the Serbs (Through the Land of the Serbs, London, 1904). But, as pointed out by Aubrey Herbert, it was only their revolting cruelty that turned her affection into dislike" (A. Herbert, Ben Kendim , p. 220). Her later attitude toward the Serbo-Montenegrins is conveyed by a passage contained in Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle: "On arriving in London I packed up the Gold Medal given me by King Nikola and returned it to him stating that I had often expressed surprise at persons, who accepted decorations from Abdul Hamid, and that now I knew that he and his subjects were even more cruel than the Turk, I would not keep his blood-stained medal any longer. I communicated this to the English and Austrian press. The order of Saint Sava given me by King Petar of Serbia, I decided to keep a little longer till some pecularly flagrant case" (p. 25).

29. H. Hauser, "Le principe des nationalites," (30-page pamphlet, reprint fromRevuepolitique internationale, March-April, 1916). See also A. van Gennep,Traite des nationalites, 1922, p. 24.

30. A. Herbert, op. cit., p. 216 and M.E. Durham, Twenty-Years p. 83.

31. The tragic fate of many of these Albanians, who remained outside the borders assigned to the state of Albania, was to populate Asia Minor. As indicated (p. 10), the guarantees stipulated by the Treaty of Berlin were not honored by Serbia. Likewise, over 300,000 Albanians inhabiting the regions ceded to Greece were expelled by the Greek Government and obliged to settle in Turkey as a result of an exchange treaty of the Turkish and the Greek Governments (see, among others, A.A. Pallis, "The exchange of populations in the Balkans," Nineteenth Century, March, 1925, pp. 376-387). Pallis begins his article by saying that ‘the exchanges of populations, as a method of settling the problems of minorities, has been condemned in many quarters as a barbarous and dangerous innovation in internal politics." The Greek delegate at the Lausanne Conference had, in fact, declared that ‘Greece agrees that the compulsory exchanges shall not be applicable to her Moslem subjects of Albanian origin." However, the Greeks declared the Moslems of Tchameria as being "merely Albanophones," but in reality Greeks, and on this basis forced them to emigrate (Pallis art. cit.). Pallis argued that they emigrated of their own accord and that they were pleased in Turkey. This, however, is not the opinion of Ruth Pennington who returned to England in 1927 after ten months of work with the immigrants, ‘In Turkey the are 300,000 Albanian-speaking immigrants. Of these at least 10% would willingly shift their quarters and move again seeking for better land, to rejoin cousins and friends, who have already moved. Turkey does not wish for any further depopulation, but in spite of official prohibition, for the next 10 to 20 years there will be a constant leakage . . ." (Near East and India, Sept. 15, 1927, p. 333).
Although in 1913, the population of the south Albanian region ceded to Greece was over 90% Albanian, no Albanian schools or newspapers were ever allowed. This population has been almost extirpated on account of the harsh treatment to which it was subjected.

32. Austria supported the Slavs against the Italians. Cf. M.E. Durham: "The Slavizing process in Dalmatia visibly progressed until the German-Austrians began to realize that they were warming a viper and feel nervous" (Twenty Years p. 13); cC. also U. Biscottini, Sull italianita della Dalmazia, 1930, p. 55.

33. MR. Vesnic, Les aspirations nationales de Ia Serbie (no date) p. 16.

34. In 1880, the French consul in Scutari, when describing Macedonia in an "Aperiu geographique" of Albania, prepared by him for the French Government, did not even mention the Serbs: ‘La Macedonie est en effet partagee entre les Albanais, les Grecs, les KutzoValaques et les Bulgares," — Macedonia is divided between Albanians, Greeks, Vlachs, and Bulgarians," (unpublished document contained in Albanie, Dossier I, "Archives de la Defense," Chateau de Vincennes, Paris). Cf. also M.E. Durham, The Serajevo Crime (London, 1925): "When I was living in Ochrida in the winter of 1903-4, a Serb schoolmaster had but just arrived. The largest school in town was the Bulgar one. The Greeks made a bad second. In spite of all his efforts, the Serb only succeeded in scraping up about 50 persons including his own family, the Greek priest and myself, to celebrate Saint Sava’s day. The majority were poor school children picked up in the town. In those days anyone who said that the Serbs would one day own Ochrida would have been thought insane" (p. 27). II ‘Dr. Milovanovich admitted in 1898 that the Serbs did not begin to think about Macedonia till 1885" (E. Noel-Buxton, Balkan Problems and European Peace, London, 1919, P. 27). /1 In regard to Macedonia, A. van Gennep, citing the Carnegie Report, criticized the Serb scholars Belic and Cvijic, attributing no scientific value to their research, because their sole purpose, according to the Carnegie report, was "to support the political claims of Serbia" (Van Gennep, Traitet· &s nationalites, Paris, ed. Payot, 1922, P. 202).

35. Goethe, Faust I.

36. On account of the paucity of documents, the problem concerning the origin of the Albanians has long been debated. This problem is closely related to that regarding the place of origin of the Rumanians.
J. Thunmann maintained that the Albanians must be indigenous to the areas inhabited by them since there are no historical sources mentioning an Albanian immigration ("Ich habe in ihrer Geschichte keine Spur von einer spaten Finwanderung gefunden," Untersuchungen iiber die Geschichte der iistlichen europaischen Volker, 1774, p. 244). Because these areas were formerly inhabited by Illyrians, Thunmann came to the conclusion that the Albanians must be their descendants. His opinion was shared by Malte-Brun (1809), W. M. Leake (1814), Ami Boue (1 840),J. G. von Hahn (1853),J. Ph. Fallmerayer (1857-1860) and later by P. Kretschmer, H. Pedersen, F. Nopcza, F. Miklosic, G. Meyer, M. E. Durham, among others.
Hahn, who studied the Illyrians from the point of view of various disciplines, regarded the Albanians as aborigines in Kosova, Epirus and Macedonia ("Wir sind zum Schlusse gekommen, dass die unter sich verwandten Epiroten und Makedoner einen selbstandigen Zweig des grossen Illyrischen Volkstammes zu bilden scheinen," — "I have come to the conclusion that the Epirotes and the Macedonians. . . form an independent branch of the Illyrian family." (AIb. St., I, p. 219).
Hahn underscored the Illyro-Albanian linguistic analogies with regard to onomastics and toponomy.
Others — especially M. E. Durham and F. Nopcza — stressed, later, ethnographical elements. They considered the survival among the Albanians of Illyrian beliefs, customs, art motifs, and other traditions, as evidence of the Illyro-Albanian continuity. F. Nopeza linked to prehistoric times some shapes and motifs relating to Albanian costumes, etc., denoting the Illyro-Albanian affiliation (Nopcza, Albanien; Bauten, Trachten und Gerate Nordalbanien.s, Berlin und Leipzig, 1925.
In her turn, M.E. Durham pointed out that the serpent and the dove used as embroidery motifs for certain costumes worn by Shkodra women, were symbols of the mother goddess worshipped at Knossos (M.E. Durham, Some Tribal Origins ... p. 127). She also remarked the use made by North Albanian mountaneers of the rayed sun for decorative purposes (jewelry, grave stones, tatooing, etc.-), indicating that the sun, a special God to the military, was sacred to the Illyrians (Durham, ibidem)
Hahn seemed to have definitely solved the problem concerning the origin of the Albanians. As already indicated, he was seconded by ethnologists. Yet the question was raised again at the turn of the century:
Since the Illyrians are referred to for the last time as an ethnic group in Miracula Sancti Demetri (7th century AD.), some scholars maintain that after the arrival of the Slays the Illyrians were extinct.
N. Iorga had no doubts that the Albanians are the descendants of the Illyrians (lorga, Breve histoire de l’Albanie et du peuple albanais, 1919, p. 3), but the Rumanian archeologist Vasile Parvan contended in 1910 that the Albanians emigrated from Transylvania and the Carpathian mountains between the 3rd and the 6th centuries AD. According to Philippide (1859-1933), the Albanians came from Panonnia, i.e., present-day Hungary. In short, some Serbian and some Rumanian scholars regard the Albanians as an adventitious population.
Yet there are no historical documents mentioning an immigration of Albanians into the areas where they presently live. The Illyrian tribe of the Albanoi, from which the Albanians
derive their name, was already mentioned by the geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria as living in the city of Albanopolis (central Albania) in the second century A.D. When the Albanoi are mentioned again in the 11th century (by Anna Comnena, Joban Skylitzes, and Attaleiates), they are referred to as living in the same locality previously mentioned by Ptolemy. They also appear in Byzantine sources, in contrast to the Vlachs, as a sedentary population with high standing and not as a nomadic people (see A. Ducellier, "L’Arbanon et les Albanais au XIC siecle," Centre de Ia Recherche d’Histoire et de Ia Civilisation Byzantines, Travaux et Memoires, III, 1968, pp. 354-368; see esp. pp. 356-7; see also A.D. "Les Albanais du XIe au XIIIe siecle: nomades ou sedentaires," Byzantinische Forschungen, 1979, pp. 23-36).
The stability of the Albanians is also attested by Western documents: It has been the merit of H. Gregoire to point out that in La Chanson de Roland (11th cent.), Albeigne, Albanie, designate the coastal areas of present-day Albania (H. Gregoire, "La Chanson de Roland de l’an 1085," BARB, 1939, pp. 211-273 and H. Gregoire et R. De Keyser, "La Chanson de Roland et Byzance.. ." Byzantion, Bruxelles 1939, vol. 14, pp. 265-351. See also Kole Luka, "Le nom d’Albeigne-Albanie et l’extension de l’Arbanon du lie au 12e sihcles," Deuxieme Conference des Etudes Albanologiques, II, Tirana, 1970 pp. 199-207 and K.L., "La toponomie albanaise dansLa Chan.son deRoland concernant quelques evenements de 1081-1085,"Stu-dime Historike, I, 1967. pp. 127-144.
Until the 14th century — an epoch which marks the height of the Serbian state — when they started to be encountered as shepherds, the Albanians strike as a sedentary, urban population. K.Jirecek describes them as "ein altebristliches Volk von mehr stadtischer kultur" —"an old Christian people of urban culture" (Jirecek, "Albanien in der Vergangenheit", Illyrisch-Albanische Forschungen, 1916, I p. 70). About Albanian cities see also M. Sufflay, Stadte und Burgen Albaniens hauptsachlich wahrend des Mittelalters, Vienna, 1924.
The urban organization was also important among the Illyrians. The pre-Roman cities of Scodra, Lissius, Dimalium, Bylis, Amanthia, etc. were of high standing (see Frano Prendi, "Urbanisation en Illyrie du Sud ~ Ia lumiere des donnees archhologiques," — "Urbanisation in South Illyria in the light of archeological data," Studime historike, 1972 III, pp. 29-69). According to N.G.L. Hammond, Albania was wealthy and refined even during the neolithic epoch, as attested by archeological finds (See N.G.L. Hammond, "Sepulture ~ tumuli en Albanie et problemes de l’ethnogenese" (Studime Historike, 1972 IV pp. 117-124).

37. E. Cabej, "Das Albanische und seine Nachbarsprachen," Die Sprache XIII, 1976, pp. 39-5 1.
"Albanian, although on the basis of its structure and some of its most common words it is called an independent branch of the Indo-European family, has borrowed so much Latin that it has to be included in comparative grammars of the Romance Languages." "It is usual to reckon Albanian as an independent member of the Indo-European family, but its Romance element is far more important than the Romance element in English" (E.H. Sturtevant, Linguistic change, G.E. Stechert Co., N.Y. 1942 p. 123, 154 or 194). Although Latin plays an important role, linguists in the past 60 years have been realizing more and more the importance in the Albanian language of the pre-Latin substratum.

38. E. Cabej, Die Sprache XIII 1967, art. cit. N. JokI pointed out (in art. cit. in Indogerm. Forsch, p<4l) that when the Serbs arrived in the Balkans the Albanians were already considered as an old Christian population. He remarked that the terminology of the church is derived from Dalmatian Latin, the church center being Salono. See also M. von Sufflay, "Die Kirchenzustande im vorturkischen Albanien ..." Illyr-Aib. Forsch., pp. 188-293.

39. Z. Mirdita’s most recent book isAntraponimia e Dardanise nekohen romake (Die Anthroponymie Dardaniens zur Romerzeit); illustr. with introduct: in Albanian and German, Prishtine, 1981.

40. By reason of the analogies between Rumanian and Albanian, G. Weigand maintained that the cradle of the Albanians is actually Dardania, the region of Nis, north of which, according to him, lived as close neighbors, the ancestors of the Rumanians (see G. Weigand,
"Sind die Albaner die Nachkommen der Illyrier oder der Thraker," Balkan Archiv, 3, 1927 pp. 227-251). To this theory subscribed N.Jokl. These scholars considered the Dardanians as Thracians. They contended that the Dardanians had subsequently moved to the coastal areas where they found an Illyrian population. In their opinion, the Albanians are Thracians mixed with Illyrians. As to when the Dardanians moved to the coastal regions, the opinions differ: according to Weigand, in the Middle Ages; according to Jokl, before the Slav invasions, for the Slays found them there when they reached the Buna (Bojana) river. Jokl argues that the name of the river, Buna, is Albanian. In his opinion, the fact that later its name was transmitted to the Venetians in its Slavic form, Bojana, is due to political circumstances of that particular era. In his later years, JokI was convinced that the Albanians have been living in the Scutari (Shkoder) area at least since the late Roman epoch (see N. JokI, "Zur Geschichte des alb. Diphtongs — ua-ue —," Indogerm Forsch., vol. 50, 1932, pp. 4 1-42). According to V. Georgiev, they started moving to the region in the 2nd mill. B.C. (V.G., "The earliest ethnolog. situation of the Balkan Pen, as evidenced by linguistic and onomastic data" H. Birobaum — S. Vryonis Aspects of the Balkans, p. 64).
The striking analogies between Albanian and Rumanian were already pointed out by Thunmann without prompting him to attribute the Albanians a Thracian origin. Special attention was accorded to these analogies by E. Cabej (see in particular "Rumanischalbanische Lehnbeziehungen," Revue Internationale des Etudes Balkaniques, II 1936, pp. 172-184 and "Betrachtungen uber die rumanisch — albanisehen Sprachbeziehungen," Revue de linguistique, 1965 X pp. 101-115).
These links do not concern merely various linguistic aspects; they also pertain to ethnology. Noticeably numerous, they leave no doubt that these two peoples must have lived, in fact, for a long time as neighhors.
Aside from the Albano-Rumanian analogies, Kosova’s toponomy is another indication that the ancestors of the Albanians must have inhabited Dardania:
Whether Shkiptar, the name of the Albanians in their own language, comes from Shkype (eagle), as it has been claimed by many; may be traced back to other etymologies, as various savants have suggested; or is derived from the city of Shkup (Skopje) in Macedonia as other scholars are inclined to believe (see I. Popovic, Geschichte der Serbo-Crostisclien Sprache, Wiesbaden, 1960, pp. 84-84) has not been as yet convincingly evidenced. A possible connection between Shkype, Shkup, Shkop, Skepter was suggested by von Hahn (AIb. St., I, p. 229).
There seems to be, however, no doubt that the ancient name of Kosova, namely Dardania, is Albanian. A Boue and von Hahn have indicated that it comes from the word Dardhe = pear. And it has been remarked that in the area pear-trees abound. M.E. Durham pointed out that Bertius, mapmaker of Louis XIII of France, who marked the region "Pirustae" added to it "albanese". She also remarked that the name Dardania was used as late as 1770, as attested by a map published in Nuremberg (see Durham, Some Tribal Origins... pp.
236-237). She indicated, furthermore, that Krusevac, which is situated in the very heart of Dardania, may well be the translation of the Illyro-Albanian Dardhe. Dardhe — used also in compounds — is a toponym frequently encountered in present-day Albania.
Relating to place names in Kosova, ME. Durham was struck by the derivation of a large number of them from plants and trees which seems to have been an Illyro-Albanian tradition on account of the fact that such names are quite common in Albania.
That toponyms which strike one as being Slav, might, in reality, be traced back to an Albanian origin, was also the opinion of A. Boue. Impressed by the frequency of toponyms similar to that of Lioubetan, near Kacanik, he contended that their etymology might lead to the Albanian lope, rather than to the Slav Ljuba = love or lub bark, for the cow, he remarked, is in this region of great importance (A. Bouh, Recuejl.. ., pp. 205-206; 245,248).
Various sources (historical documents, chrysobulls, cadastral registers, etc.) point out that in the 14th and 15th centuries many toponyms in Montenegro, Hercegovina, the Dukagjini Plateau, and Kosova in general, were Albanian. Thejuridical sources of the Medieval Serbian state (S. Novakovk, Zakonshi Spomenici . 1912) contain Albanian toponyms. Of late, the toponymy of Kosova has been the object of various studies, especially by Profs. I. Ajeti and A. Hadri of the University of Pristina.
At present, on account of various data pertaining to history, linguistics, and ethnology, the concensus among scholars, with a few exceptions, seems to be: a. to consider the Albanians as the descendants of the Illyrians and not of the Thracians. b. to admit that the Dardanians were considered also by ancient authors as Illyrians, linked ethnically, linguistically and culturally to the Illyrian tribes of the coast. c. to recognize, however, that the Thracians and the Illyrians were populations akin to each other, having started to be differentiated from each other perhaps around 1500 B.C.

41. Slavic place names are encountered in Rumania, in present-day Albania, and in Greece. Konitza (Korca), the name of the south Albanian town, which is unjustly regarded as being Greek, is actually Slavonic; so is Konitza in northern Greece; so was Morea, employed for a long time to designate the Peloponnesus. How easily place names may change is evidenced by the enormous proportions assumed by the Grecianization of Slavic, Albanian, and Turkish toponyms in Greece.

42. Non-Slavic and pre-Roman are the most important rivers in Yugoslavia: the Danube, Sava, Drava, Mura, Tisza, Kupla, Una, Vrbas, Bosna, Drina, Neretva, Zeta, Ibar, Iskur, Maritsa (see Edgar Hosch, The Balkans, EngI. transl. publ. 1968, p. 23).

43. G. Stadtmuller, Forschungen zur Albanzschen Friihgeschichte, 2nd ed., "Albanische Forschungen," Wiesbaden, Harrassovitz, 1966, pp. 95-96.

44. Among numerous other publications on the Illyrians, see also the three volumes containing the publications of the three Sarajevo Symposia on the Illyrians, held in 1964 and in 1966 (see Sympozpum .. . Akademija Nauka i Umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo, 1964 Knj. 4 and 1967 Knj. 5). Of interest for French readers isArcheologia,Jan. 1975, a special number issued on the occasion of the Albanian exhibit in the "Petit Palais" in Paris that same year (Dec. 1974-Feb 1975) as well as the illustrated catalogue of the exhibit (Presses artistiques, Paris). For English speaking readers, aside from the works of Prof. F. Papazoglu, already mentioned, an interesting book is The Illyrians, History and Culture by A. Stipcevic (EngI. trans. Park Ridge, N.J. Noyes Press, 1977); a scholarly work, yet easy to read, it contains an excellent bibliography. Stipcevic has also publishedArte degli Iliri (Ed. del Milione, Milan, 1963) and two Bibliographia Illyrica (the second one being a ‘Suplementum’ of the years 1973-1977; both were publ. in Sarajevo. Akademija nauka umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine (1967 Knj. 6; 1978, Knj. 42).

45. The evidence of this continuity is having a great impact on various disciplines: music, dance, folklore.
E.g., the guzla, formerly considered a Slavonic instrument, is now being regarded as Illyrian and merely borrowed by the Slavs. The Bosnian ethnologist, Cvjetko Rihtman, having done considerable research relating to Balkan musical instruments, attributes them to the Illyrians (see C. Rihtman, "0 ilirskom porijeklu polifonik oblika narodne muzike Bosne Hercegovine."Rad kongresafolkloristaJugoslavije na Bjelafnici 1955 inPuli 1952, Zagreb, 1958, pp. 99-105). The Illyrian origin of the guzla was already pointed out by M.E. Durham (Durham, Man, March 1923 p. 41 and Some Tribal ... p. 236).
ME. Durham held that of Illyrian origin is the Montenegrin dance which consists of jumping over fire. At present, there seems to be no doubt that the dance performed to the sound of rattling swords without any musical accompaniement, is of Illyrian origin (see F. Sako, "De Ia genese de Ia danse pyrrihique," StudiaAlbanica, 1972 pp. 307-10. Of interest is also R. Sokoli’s book Dances and Music of our Ancestors, Tirana 1971 — in Albanian —).
Various tales, folksongs, cults and superstitions, previously regarded as vaguely Balkan, are now said to be Illyro-Albanian. ME. Durham had already suggested the Illyrian origin of some traditional songs and tales of the South Slays (Durham, "A Bird Tradition in the West of the Balkan Peninsula," Man, April 1923 pp. 55-58). She also believed that the cult for Marco Kraljevic may be traced back to the Illyrian God Medaurus (Some Tribal . . . p. 108).
With respect to folklore, Ciro Truhelka (1865-1942) noticed among the South Slavs many Illyrian elements (C. Truhelka, Les restes illyriens en Basnie, Paris 1900)
In his turn, E. Cabej pointed out, citing A. Meyer (Die Sprache derAlten Illyrier, 1116), that the Illyrian name Thana, found in four votive inscriptions at Topusko, may be the older form of the Albanian folkore character Zana — Diana (Serb. Majka Jana). E. Cabej also remarked that Vila, of the South Slav folklore, which has common traits with the Albanian Zana, is hardly known among the Slavic populations outside the Balkans (see F. Cabej, "Disa figura te besimere popullore shqiptare," Studime Gjuhisore, V, Prishtine, 1975 P. 160. About Zana—Diana, see also E. Cabej, "Kult und Fortleben der Gottin Diana auf dem Balkan," Leipziger Vierteljahrschrtft fiir Sudeurapa, V, 1941 pp. 229-240; the AIb. version of this article was published in Hylli i Dritis, Shkoder 1942, pp. 1-2; 3-4, 5-10).
Also, Cabej attributes an Illyrian origin to the two brothers, Muji and Halili, the two main characters of the Albanian and Croatian heroic songs, identifying them with the Greek Dioscuri, who have their counterparts among the Germans, Armenians, Indians, and other ancient peoples, but are unknown among other Slav populations aside from the Bosnians (Cabej, art. cit. in Studime Gjuhisore, p. 160).

46. G. Stadtmflller, Geschichte Siidosteuropa.s, Munchen, Verlag Oldenbourg, 1950, p. 88.

47. 5. PolIo—A. Puto, op. cit. pp. 37-38.

48. "... Belgrade, the white city, whose medieval name, Alba Bulgarica, shows that it was essentially a non-Serbian city (Temperley, op. cit., p. 49-50).

49. Mas-Latrie, "Zupans et Rois de Rascie on Serbie," Tresors de chronolagie, d’histoire et de geographie ... Paris, 1889.

50. See A. Ducellier,"LesAlbanais ont-ils envahi le Kossovo,"Albanie, Paris,June, 198l,pp. 10-14.
 
51. Cf. K. Jirecek: "Quand on fait une comparaison avec Ia Bulgarie et la Russie, on est frappe par l’absence en Serbie d’une residence royale fixe," — "If one compares Bulgaria and Russia with Serbia, the absence among this latter nation of a stable royal residence is striking," (La civilisatian serbe an Moyen Age, I, p.331, French transl., Paris 1920); cf. also N. Jorga: "Cet Empire [lEmpire byzantin] representait Ia centralisation romaine... tandis que l’Etat serbe du 14e s., tel quil resulte des conquetes de l’empereur, n’avait qu’un chef militaire, a peine entoure de quelques dignitaires sans capitale fixe — "The Byzantine Empire represented the Roman centralization . . . whereas the 14th-century Serbian state, originating from the conquests of the Emperor, had merely a military leader surrounded by just a few dignitaries. There was no fixed capital (N. lorga, Petite histoire de l’Albanie et du peuple albanais, p. 41).

52. This memorandum, titled "The expulsion of the Albanians" is kept in the files of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Lately, the memorandum has circulated in the U.S. in English translation (20 pages, no date). Parts of the text have appeared in French translation inAlbanie, Paris,June 1981, pp.24-25. Dr. Vaso Cubrilovic, born 1897, taught for many years at the University of Belgrade. After World War II, he served in the Government of the FSRY. He is the author of the chapter on Kosova in Istorija narodna]ugoslavije (Knida 2, Beograd, 1960), the official history book of Yugoslavia.

53. According to Anna Comnena, in 1080, the river Lab was the southern border of the Serbian territories. The center of the Serbian state was Raska. "It is from Stephan Nemanya, the Grand Zupan of Rashka that modern Serbia has always dated the rise of Serbian national greatness in the Middle Ages" (Temperley, op. cit., p. 38).

54. N. Lorga prefers to render Knez with ‘count,’ despite the fact that it is a Western title of nobility, probably to indicate the limited power of the ruler. Central power had disappeared.

55. Sylvain, Levy, India: "India does not have that worship of great men so important to us ... India has given birth to an exceptional genious, Asvaghosha ... Asvaghosha belongs entirely to Western learning" (cited by J. Grenier, "Imaginary India," Les lIes, Gallimard, 1959).

56. Illustrative of this conception are a few examples picked at random from various books:
"Dusan’s achievement became more than a historical memory. It was to constitute a political programme for the Serbs who, early in the nineteenth century, were liberated from over five centuries of Turkish rule" (H.C. Darby [and others] ,A short history of Yugoslavia from early times to 1966, London, Cambridge U.P. 1966, p. 87) II "Nineteenth-century British statesmen did not use the affairs of Plantagenet England as an argument in forming their policy, but the memory of Dusan’s Empire, kept alive by folk-tales and ballads, was an important factor in the "Eastern Question" and the "Macedonia Problem" (ibidem). // "Urosh III who was murdered by his son Stefan Dushan was regarded as a saint although he had revolted against his own father, murdered his own brother and sought to murder his own son" (Temperley, op. cit., p. 63-64) II "Czar Stefan was named "Dushan" because he strangled his father, but his name is interpreted as ‘victorious’, (K. Jirecek, Geschichte derSerben, p. 365-366). II Plusieurs de leurs rois ont ete eleves au rang des saints de cette eglise sans l’avoir toujours merite par leur conduite" — "In this Church, several of their kings were elevated to the rank of saints without always deserving it through their conduct" (A. Boue, La Turquie d’Europe, II p. 65). II "Historically, Marko Kraljevich is a petty Serbian chieftain who served under the Turks against his Christian brethern when it paid him to do so... but popular imagination had attached to him the attributes of the ancient war-God" (Durham, Some Tribal . . . p. 108).

57. The important role of the Albanians in this battle is attested by Greek and Turkish sources: Hierax, Chronique sur l’Empire des Turcs, Sathas, Bibliotheca Graeca, I, p. 247. See also S. Pulaha, The Albano-Turkish War in Ottoman sources (in Albanian), Tirana, 1968 and Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, knj. 4, Zagreb, 1960, p. 467.

58. At the turn of the century, an attempt was made by the Serbian intelligentzia to deny the betrayal (see A. Arnautovic, La poesie kossovienne, Paris (pamphlet, reprint from Revue You goslave, 1919).

59. .... . This victory of Islam was to no small degree due to the Servian troops fighting on the Turkish side. The Servians recovered Belgrade, but in the long run this gain hardly compensated them for the disaster which they prepared by strengthening the Ottoman Empire," (C.N. E. Eliot, Turkey in Europe, 1965 ed. p. 41).

60. Dragutin, Kostic, "Milos Kopilic — Kobilic — Obilic," Revue Internationale des etudes balkaniques, 1935, I, pp. 232-254. According to Kostic, the absence of the hero’s name from Serbian docments may be attributed to the chroniclers’ habit of mentioning merely names of well-known nobles. Evidently, Milos did not come from a prominent family.
The Balkan word Kopil (non-Slavic) is considered by F. Miklosic (Etym Worterb. d. Slav. Spr.) and by Skok (Juznoslav Fil XII p. 142) as being of Albanian origin. In Albanian it also has the meaning of smart, skilled. Kostic has indicated two localities by that name.
Surprisingly, Kostic attributes also to the first name of the hero an Illyro-Albanian ongin. Duje Rendic-Miosevic has shown clear evidence that some old Croatian names have an Illyrian origin: e.g. Licca, Pleto (Illyr. = Liccavus, Pletor), among many others (see D. Rendk-Miocevic, "Prilog proucavanju nase ranosredovjecne onomastike," Starohrvatska pros vj eta, ser. III, 1949, 1, pp.9-21). Considering that the Illyrians inhabited the Dalmatian coast before the coming of the Slavs, this fact might seem perfectly normal—the very name of Dalmatia is of Illyrian origin. But to attribute to Milos, which has eventually become so popular a name among the Slavs seems curious. Yet Kostic remarks that the name does not appear in Serbian documents before the 13th century and even then is not used by people of high rank. Kostic argues that Milos may be the Slavized form of the Albanian mir and osh. Kostic links the suffix osh (and ush) to Albanian. He points out that it is added to adjectives; thus bardb-bardbosh; kuq-kuqalosh; vogel-voglush, voglosh. The suffix is also used with names; thus Belush, Tanush, Mirush, etc.
Obilic’s hypersensitiveness to suspicions expressed by others as to his word of honor (besa), also reveals, in Kostic’s opinion, his Albanian origin. Finally, Kosticc refers to Elezovic who has pointed out the cult professed by the Albanians for Obilic.
According to Prof. S. Skendi (Balkan Cultural Studies, East European Monographs, Boulder, dif. Columbia Univ., 1980, p. 147, no. 13), M. Budimir has expressed a similar opinion in "Digenis und Marko Kraljevic," Extrait des Actes de 4e Congres international des etudes byzantines (Bul. de l’irist. archeol. bulgare, tome 10, 1936, Sofia, 1936, p. 17. — I have not been able to consult this study.).

61. "Samtliche im Bereiche dieser Bache liegenden Dorfer wurden uns als rein Albanesisch bezeichnet. Da nun auch die Dorfer des Sitniza Thales um die Mundung des Lab grossten Teils albanesisch sind, und in der Metohija Ebene die albanesische Bevolkerung die serbische uberwiegen soll, so durfte sich hochst wahrscheinlich eine ununterbrochene, reine albanesische Verbindungslinie zwischen Dardanien und Albanien durch das Gebiet der Dreniza herstellen lassen" (Reise von Belgrad nach Salonik, Kais Akad, d. Wissenschaft, Phil. hist. Classe. Denksch. Bd. 1111 Wien 1861 p. 55).

62. "Les Serbes n’ont fait que disloquer les anciens Illyriens dont les descendants sont les Albanais actuels.""... les Albanais ne sont que les restes des anciens Illyriens auxquels les Slaves ont pris tant de pays et qu’ils ont accules ca et Ia dans les montagnes eleves.""... ils ne faut jamais perdre de vue que les Albanais sont les restes dune population qui occupait une bonne partie des pays slaves de Ia Turquie surtout occidentale avant l’arrivee des Slaves du midi Recueji d’Itineraies 1854 I p. 205-206 II 332.
63. In a paragraph not contained in this passage.
64. Trans. by S. Juka, published in Dielli, Sept. 1st, 1982, p. 4,8.
65. 5. Pulaha, "Qytetet e Rrafshit te Dukagjinit gjate gjysmes se dyte te shekullit XVI ne driten etc dhenave te reja te regjistrimevc kadastrale" ("The Cities of the Dukagjini Plateau in the second Half of the 16th century in the Light of Turkish Cadastral Registers"), Gjurmime Albanologjike, IX, 1979, publ. 1980, Prishtine, pp. 11-43.
66. Prof. S. Skendi has rightly pointed out that the Albanian fis is closer to "gens" which for convenience we translate as tribe (op. cit., p. 99).
67. 5. Pulaha, art. cit. in footnote 65.
68. 5. Vryonis, Jr., "Religious Changes and Patterns in the Balkans, l4th-l6th centuries," Aspects of the Balkans (Contributions to the National Conference held at UCLA in 1969 edited by H. Birnbaum and S. Vryonis, Jr.), Mouton, The Hague, 1972, p. 163; P.F. Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, Hist. of East Central Europe Ser., Vol. V, Wash. U.P., p. 51.
69. See M. Ternava, "Perhapja e Islamizmit ne territorin e sotem te Kosoves," (The spread of Islam in the territory of present day Kosova),GjurmimeAlbanologjike, IX, 1979, publ. 1980, p. 60.
70. The Serbs had succeeded in forming an autocephalous church. Its center was Zica in the north. This center was moved to Peja after the Serbs conquered the city in 1217. The church was raised to the dignity of Patriarchate in 1346. Excommunicated by the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Patriarch of Peja was recognized in 1374. In 1459, i.e., following the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, Peja was subordinated to the Archbishop of Ochrid. Thanks to Sokolovic, it became again the see of the Patriarchate. It was eliminated by the Greeks in 1766.
71. According to statistics based on Turkish cadastral registers. See S. Vryonis, Jr., "Religious Changes and Patterns in the Balkans, 14th- 16th centuries,’ Aspects of the Balkans (Contributions to the National Conference held at UCLA in 1969, edited by H. Birnbaum and S. Vryonis), Mouton, The Hague, 1972 p. 163. See also P.F. Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule (History of East Central Europe Series, Vol. 5) Wash. U.P., 1977, p. 51.
72. Dr. Mahmud Kermal Muftic, "Hundred Years of Mistakes in Croatian National Politics," Balkania, vol. 5, no. 1, 1971, p. 26
73. The comparison between Charles Martel and Skanderbeg was made especially by the . . . . . . .. ..
French historian Camille Paganel in Histoire de Scanderbeg ou Turcs et Chretiens au 15th siecle, 1855.
74. As known, the decisive battle is called Battle of Tours by the British; Bataille de Poitiers by the French. The chances are that the Saracens were defeated somewhere between Tours and Poitiers. Be it as it may, it must have been for the purpose of pointing out the similarities between Charles Martel and Skanderbeg that on 24 May 1868, on the occasion of the 4th centenary of Skanderbeg’s death "l’Academie d’Humanite" of Poitiers gave a "seance litteraire" followed by the performance of a play entitled Scanderbeg by an anonymous author. See G.T. Petrovitch, Scanderbeg. Essai de bibliographie raisonnde, Paris, E. Leroux, ed. 1881; 2nd ed. with an introduction by F. Babinger, R. Trofenik, Munchen 1967, p. 146-147.
75. Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprzt des nations XCI (may be found in any "Recucil des oeuvres completes" by Voltaire). The statement is contained in the very first two lines of the chapter in question (the previous chapter is devoted to Skanderbeg). Voltaire alludes here to the controversy between the two Christian churches — the Catholic and the Orthodox —which was detrimental to the Christian populations and eventually benefited the Turks.
76. A. Boue, La Turquze d’Europe, 1840, vol. IV, p. 418.
77. L. Chalcocondiles, Histoire . . . (Paris ed. 1650, IV p. 132) cited by A. Gegaj, L’Albanie et linvasion turque au 15~ si&le, Louvain, Bibliot~que de l’Universite, 1937, p. 37.
78. A. Gegaj, op. cit p. 37.
79. Ibidem, p. 37.
80. J. Radonic,Djuradj Kastriot SkenderbegiArbanqa u XV veku, Istoriska gradja — (Spomenik XCV Beograd 1942, p. 2).
81. A. Boue, La Turquie dEurope 1840, IV p. 143.
82. The wretchedness of the Albanian refugees is described by Pope Paul II in a letter addressed by him to the Duke of Burgundy: "It is impossible not to shed tears when watching these refugees who fill the Italian harbors. Torn away from their homes, they walk . . . in rags and hungry .. . bewailing their lot ... (Epistola Pauli II and Philippum Burgundiae ducem apud Cardinalis Papiensis Epostolas, reproduced in French by C. Paganel, op. cit. p. 417).
83. E. Noel-Buxton, Europe and the Turks, p. 21.
84. Cf. Dr. Mahmud Kemal Muftic: "A. Starcevic has recognized that Bosnian Muslims are Croatian, but ‘he excused them for becoming Muslims because they wanted to preserve their property after Turkish occupation.’ He forgets that. . . the Bosnians felt crushed by Catholic Croatia yet did not want to remain under the rule of Serbia (the traditional oppressors of the Croatian people).’ art. cit. p. 27.
85. Yet the high positions held in Turkey by Greeks, Armenians, Christian Albanians, etc. clearly suggest that the high positions were accessible to all and that there was no need to recant in order to obtain them. Cf. footnote 88.
86. "In the introduction of his work, written in poetry and in Greek, Master Dhanil made clear that his aim was to Hellenize the Vlakh, Bulgarian and Albanian populations’ (see the text in E. Legrand, Bibliographie albanaise complet~e et publiec pas H. Guys, Paris and Athens, 1912, entry 121, pp. 50-51; cited by S. Skendi in "The History of the Albanian Alphabet . ., .~ Balkan Cultural Studies, East European Monographs, Boulder, distributed by Columbia NP., N.Y., 1980, p. 213 and p. 229, no. 9).
87. See H. Inalcik, "Timariotes Chretiens en Albanie au l5e s. d’apres un registre de timars ottomans, Mitteilungen des Oesterreichischen Staatsarchievs IV 1952 p. 120, 123, cited by S. Skendi in "The Millet System and Its Contribution to the Blurring of Orthodox National Identity in Albania," op. cit. p. 187 and p. 202 no. 3.
88. "By the beginning of the nineteenth century they had come to hold traditionally three high offices: grand dragoman, a quasi-minister of foreign affairs; the governorship (hospodarship) of the Danubian Principalities, the dragoman of the fleet. These positions were administered with extreme corruption and some, like hospodarships, were used as vehicles of Greek political and cultural domination." C. and B. Jelavich, The EslabI i.shment of the Balkan States, 1804-1920 Wash. U.P. 1977, P. 10.
89. C. and B. Jelavich, The Balkans, Prentice Hall 1965, p.22.
90. Dh. Shuteriqi,Gjurmime letrare (Literary research), Tirana 1974 pp. 24-26. Nor are there documents to inform us as to the proportions — small or large — of the Bosnian population itself affected by the Bogomil heresy. See Vryonis art. cit.
91. N. Lorga, Brave histoire de l’Albanie, Bucharest, 1919, pp. 8-9.
92. According to Soffron Prence of the Grottaferrata Monastery in Sicily, the Albanians of Italy should, on account of this fact, not he called uniates (see his article in Dielli, Sept. I, 1978).
93. Reproduced by ME. Durham in High Albania, 1909 pp. 295- 296.
94. 5. Pulaha, "Lautochtoneite des Albanais a Kosove ...,‘ Studime historike 1982 I pp. 139- 166.
95. See Burchardus de Monte Sion in Ch. Kohler, Recueil des historien.s des croisades. Documents armeniens, v. 2,1906, p. 483; reproduced also in M.E. Durham, Some Tribal ... p. 16.
96. 5. Pulaha, "L’autochtoneite des Albanais h Kosove StudimeHistorike, 1982, no. l,pp. 154-155.
97. 5. Pulaha, ibidem, p. 156.
98. The Turkish registers of Kosova, excluding the Dukagjini Plateau, were published by H. Hadzibegic, E. Kovacevic, Oblast Brankovica, III Sarajevo, 1972. About A. Handzic’s statistics, see A. Handzic, Nekoliko vijesti a Arbanasima na Kosovu i Metohiji . . . pp. 201-209 (cited by S. Pulaha in art. cit. in St. Hist., p. 149, no. 47). The registers for Macedonia, were examined by A. Stojanovski, Eren I, Kratovskata nahija bo XVI vek, Glasnik Nacional-novo Instituta, Skopje, XV-1971, no. I (cited by S. Pulaha ibidem, p. 149 footnote 45).
99. Kemalpashazade, Chronique, p. 254 (cited by S. Pulaha in Lufta Shqiptaro-Tarke ne Shekullin XV, Burime Osmane — The Albano-Turkish War in the 15th cent. Ottoman sources, Tirana, 1968, p. 191).
100. I. Zamputi, Relacjone mbi gjendjen e Shqiperise’ veriore dhe te mesme ne shekullin XVII (Reports concerning the Situation of North and Center Albania in the 17th century), Tirana, 1963, I p. 337, 339. Most of 17th-century pastoral reports, including those of M. Bolizza, G. Gaspri, G. Massarechi, M. Bizzi, were previously published in Starine (see esp. vols. XII, XX, XXV, XXXIX).
101. H. Gerba, Die Kaiserlichen in Albanien, 1689, Mitteilungen des K.K. Kriegs Archiev, Wienna, 1888, p. 136, 148, 340. M. Kostic, "Iz istorije narodnog srbsko-arbanskog ustanka protiv turaka uz austrijsku vojsku 1689-1690," Istoriki Glasnik, 1-2, 1960, Zavrisni bilans polemike o srpsko-arbanskom ustanku protiv turaka iz. . ., Beograd, 1962 pp. 3-5, 8. Contarini, Storia della Guerra di Leopoldo Prima imperatore e de principi collegati contra il Turco dall’anno 1683 fino alla pace, Venezia, 1710. I have not been able to consult Gerba and Contarini; I have relied for information contained in these works on S. Pulaha, "Autochtonia. . .," St. Hist., no. 1, 1980, p. 166.
102. 5. Pulaha, art. cit. in St. Hist. no. 1,1980, p. 164.
103. Die Bezeichnung "Alt-Serbien" ware schliesslich, wenn sie sich auf das abgegrenzte Gebiet beschranken wurde, insoferne richtig, als hier (in Raska) der Ausgangspunkt des alten serbischen Reiches war, welches sohin in semen Anfangen mit Rascien identificiert werden kann. Der Begriff’Alt-Serbien’ wird jedoch von den serbischen Chauvinisten auf Gebiete ausgedehnt, welche wie Prizren, Gjakova, Ipek einerseits und Uskup andererseits geographisch und ethnographiscb zu Albanien und Macedonien angehoren, allein wabrend der Bluteperiode des serbischen Reiches demselben, allerdings durch einige Zeit, als eroberte Provinzen angehorten. Es heisse daher gewissen politischen Bestrebungen Vorschub leisten, wollte man die Bezeichnung "Alt-Serbien’ fur Gebiete gelten lassen, welche in ethuographisehen Beziehungen niemals als serbisch angesehen werden konnten. Der unparteische Fachman wird ihnen daher ihre ethnographisch begrondeten Bennenung Albanien und Macedonien lassen und das wirkliche Alt-Serbien mit der eingangs angefuhrten Begrenzung richtiger Rascien nennen" (Th. Ippen, op. cit. p. 4).
104. About the Italian works of art on the Dalmatian coast, inherited by the South Slavs, see among others, A. Dudan, ‘Dalmazia Italiana," Emporium, 1918, PP. 180-195 (illustrated).
105. H. Kaleshi, "Pocetoci na socialistickiot pecatvo Osmansko Carstvo," GIasnik na institutiot za nacjonalna istaria, br. 2, Skopje, 1973.
106. ME. Durham, Some Tribal p. 28.
107. C.N.E. Eliot, op. cit., p. 251.
108. Mark Krasniqi, "Les yeux de Simonide," Gjurme e Gjurmime, p. 160.
109. P. Slijepcevic, Stare Srpske zadubzine, Beograd, 1934, pp. 92-94 (cited by M. Krasniqi, "Les yeux de Simonide," Gjurme e Gjurmime, Prishtine, 1979, p. 155).
110. Glasnik srpskog ucenag drustva XV, Beograd, 1862, p. 276; Zakonik Stefana Dugana, Beograd, 1870, p. 180; S. Novakovic, Zakonski Spomenici, Beograd, 1912, p. 688, 620, 660; see also M. Ternava, "Shqiptaret ne feudin e Decanit ne vitet 30 te shekullit XIV sipas krisobules Decanit," Zbornik Filosofiskag Fakulteta u Pristini, XI, 1974, pp.255-27 l. The villages given to Serbian monasteries have Albanian names.
111. The Vojvod of Peja, Muk Elezi, lost his life while defending the monastery. This was also the fate of his son Vesel and his grand son Sub. The three sons of Sub died while defending the church. During World War II nobody dared to attack the church because the whole region would have stood up to defend it. For more information concerning the attitude of the Albanians in regard to these churches see Arhimandrit Leontije Ninkovic, Srpska Lavra Visokh Decana, Pec, 1923, pp. 45-46.
112. According to guide books (Nagel), the monastery of Gracanica near Pristina, considered as the most beautiful Serbian monastery, was built by Milutin. In reality, according to Slijepvevic, (op. cit.), this monastery existed, as did other sanctuaries, before the coming of the Slavs. Milutin merely aggrandized and redecorated it. Slijepcevic pointed out that the Serbs had no tradition of their own in the domain of architecture and painting (art. cit., pp. 97, 115. See also V. Petkovic, Pregled crkvenih spomenika, Beograd, 1950, p. 263).
113. Simonida became King Milutin’s fourth wife when she was eight years old.
114. That the fresco was not mutilated by Albanians was pointed out by MiloradJankovic (see M. Krasniqi, art. cit., p. 159). Krasniqi remarked that Rakic’s purpose was merely to describe the Albanians as vandals; he was not able to substantiate his assertions with any plausible evidence.
115. "Les yeux de Simonide," (p. 164). Most of the information contained in this chapter concerning Serbian churches was taken from "Les yeux de Simonide," Gjurme e Gjurmime, Prishtina, 1979, pp. 155-166 and "Les voivodes des monasteres de Kosova," ibidem, pp. 129-154 (in Albanian with abstracts in French). M. Krasniqi’s second study was first published in Glasnik Muzeja Kosova i Metohije, III, Prishtina, 1958. Krasniqi pointed out (Gjurme ... p. 153, no. 36) that the information contained in this study was used from his manuscript by the author of the article on the vojvods, "Poslednji vojvoda Pecka patriarsije," published in Borba, Beograd, May first, 1958.
116. ‘...the illiteracy of new recruits in the Greek army was 30%; in Rumania 41%; in Bulgaria 5%. Serbian statistics were not given, but illiteracy of the whole Serhian nation was 83%" (ER. Huskell, ‘The Truth about Bulgaria," (Reprint from the Oberlin Alumni Magazine, 1918).
117. R. Marmullaku, op. cit. pp. 138-9.
The most complete and the best documented work relative to Kosova’s colonization by the Slavs during the years 1918-1941, is that of Milovan Obradovic,Agrarna Reforma I Kolonizacija Na Kosova (1918-194 1). It was presented as a doctoral dissertaton at the University of Pristina and was published there by Institut za Istoriju Kosova, 1981. This long and painstaking work is based on statistics and other data contained in the archives of the Kingdom of Serbia. In the pages 235-350, Obradovic gives information regarding the origin of all the Slavic families established in the area from 1918-1941, be they of Serb, Montenegrin, Bosnian or Macedonian origin.
118. See footnote 52.
119. The plan to transplant the Albanians to Turkey goes at least as far back as the first half of the 19th cetury; it is mentioned by A. Boue who did not fail to denounce this plan as ruthless, the Albanians having lived in these regions since very ancient times (Recueil d’itineraires dans la Turquie d’Europe, II, p. 331).
120. E. Hoxha, Works I, pp. 357-358 (cited by Marmullaku, op. cit pp. 142-143).
121. See Marm., op. cit. pp. 143-144. Between the two World Wars the Yug. Communist Party denounced the ill-treatment of the Kosovars. In 1940, at the fifth Congress of the Party, held in Zagreb, it was resolved that Kosova be returned to Albania (P. Lendvai,Eagles in cobwebs: Nationalism and Communism in the Balkans (N.Y., Doubleday, 1969, p. 183). In 1943, a letter was sent by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia to the Central Committee of the Albanian Communist Party, saying that it was not opportune to discuss the Kosova question at that particular time, because of the German occupation, adding, however, that in the new state of Yugoslavia there would be no "place for the national oppression of the Albanian minorities," and that Kosova would not constitute a problem (see V. Dedijer, YugoslovenskoAlbanski odnosi 1939-1948 (Yugosl.-ALb. relations 1939-1948), Beograd, 1949, p. 134, cited by Marmullaku, op. cii. pp. 143, 152 note 16.
122. HaIfa million Albanians are said to have emigrated between the two World Wars (see H. Islami, "Kerkimet Anthropogjeografike ne Kosovo," Gjurmime Albanologjike, Prishtine, I, 1971, pp. 115-162).
123. "La Serbie actuelle compterait d’apres les derniers recensements, un peu plus de 900,000 ames... neanmoins, d’autres personnes doutent que Ia population serbe soit si elevee et ne voudraient voir dans les rapports officiels qu’une exageration calculee ou accidenrelle ... Dans le Montenegro, quelques personnes voudraient a present admettre 100,000 Ames ...d’autres 80,000.. . Les Albanais sont estimes par les statiticiens a 1,600,000, estimation plutot au dessous de Ia realite, quand on pense qu’ils s’etendent depuis l’Epire jusque dans Ia partie occidentale de Ia Moesie. . . (A. Boue, la Turquie d’Europe, 1840, II, pp. 3-6). Les statiticiens ne voudraient compter que 200,000 Grecs A Constantinople, 300,000 en Macedoine et 400,000 dans les autres provinces. Nous croyons. . . qu’un million de Grecs seraient encore sous Ia sceptre du Sultan (ibidem, p. 21).
 
Serbian historians claim Anna Komnea describes Kosovo as 'Rascian' in the 11th century when it is actually a vague description, which they admit and even they seem to mainly suggest the Western part, and seems to describe an area close to Dalmatia. In this case, at best Western Kosova or 'Rrafshi Dukagjinit' as known in Albanian, part of it was touched by Serbs until it fell under Byzantine rule again, or some Serbs spread out around there when they invaded Northern Albania in 900 AD. It is interesting how they ignore the whole Bulgarian invasion and focuses mainly on the Serbian aspect even if some Serbs did live there before Dusans Empire.

The previous chapter brought the political history (if such it may be called) of Kosovo up to the final period of Bulgarian-Macedonian rule, before the territory of Tsar Samuel was reconquered by the Byzantine Emperor Basil the Bulgar-slayer. Medieval Kosovo is often referred to in general terms as 'the cradle of the Serbs', as if it had been a Serb heartland from the outset; but the reality was rather different. Just over 800 years separate the arrival of the Serbs in the Balkans in the seventh century from the final Ottoman conquest in the 1450s: out of those eight centuries, kosovo was Serb-ruled for only the last two-and-a-half - less that on-ethird of the entire period. Bulgarian khans or tsars held Kosovo from the 850s until the early eleventh century, and Byzantine Emperors until the final decades of the twelfth. Unfortunately there is very little direct evidence about conditions in Kosovo during those earlier centuries of Bulgarian and Byzantine rule. We can assume that the Slav population that had settled in Kosovo was brought within the cultural realm of the Bulgarian empire, which means that it would have been included in the Bulgarian dioceses of the Orthodox church. Thanks to the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius (and their followers) in the ninth century, the Slavs had a liturgy and other texts in their own language, written in either of two newly invented alphabets: Cyrillic and Glagolitic. The western macedonian town of Ohrid developed strongly as a cultural and religious centre in the ninth and tenth centuries, and by the end of Tsar Samuel's reign the archbishopric of Ohrid included bishoprics in Skopje, Lipljan (Alb.: Lipjan; a town just south of Pristina) and Prizren. [1] Although the formal division of the Christian Church into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox did not occur until 1054, it would not be anachronistic to describe this Bulgarian Christianity as Eastern in the ninth and tenth centuries; the roots of the conflict between East and West went back a long way. (The Slav liturgy was at first violently rejected by the Roman Church, on the grounds that God spoke only three languages: Hebrew, Greek and Latin).
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Point is that they did not rule it until the 12th yet claim it has always been Serb, Even if a Serb population spread out there, how can Bulgarian rule be credited to Serbs ? They were either pushed out or fused into Bulgarians or Bulgarian rule

This text here which I quoted in this thread before seem to suggest a division between the Serbian and Bulgarian language which means they did not spread out in those areas at first:

Obviously some Slavs did spread through all these areas sooner or later. But there is one intriguing line of argument to suggest that the Slav presence in Kosovo and the southernmost part of the Morava valley may have been quite weak in the first one or two centuries of Slav settlement. If Slavs had been evenly spread across this part of the Balkans, it would be hard to explain why such a clear linguistic division emerged between the Serbo-Croat language and the Bulgarian-Macedonian one. The scholar who first developed this argument also noted that, in the area dividing the early Serbs from the Bulgarians, many Latin place-names survived long enough to be adapted eventually into Slav ones, from Naissus (Nish), down through the Kosovo town of Lypenion (Lipljan) to Scupi (Skopje): this contrasts strongly with most of northern Serbia, Bosnia and the Dalmatian hinterland, where the old town names were completely swept aside. His conclusion was that the Latin-speaking population, far from withering away immediately, may actually have been strengthened here (and in a western strip of modern Bulgaria), its numbers swelled, no doubt, by refugees from further north. These Latin-speakers would have thus formed 'a wide border-zone between the Bulgarians and the Serbs'.
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Some of the Serbian dialects that have Bulgarian influence seem to of developed later and they are mainly few dialects.
Had Serbs entirely spread out in those areas it would be totally different.


Yet they seem to argue Serbs dominated the Kosovo area since 600 AD yet absolutely no evidence.
 
Here is some more from the Bulgarian text from 11th century which I mentioned in another thread:

This fragment of a legend from the time
of Tsar Samuel endeavours, in a catechismal question and answer
form, to explain the origins of peoples and languages.
It divides the world into seventy-two languages
and three religious categories: Orthodox, half-believers (i.e non-orthodox Christians)
and non-believers. Though the Serbs go unmentioned, the Albanians,
still a small conglomeration of nomadic mountain tribes at this time,
find their place among the nation of half-believers
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The Serbs claim they dominated the Kosovo area since 600 AD. At best the Serbs expanded into it's Western parts earliest when they battled the Byzantine after the Bulgarian period or during Byzantine rule which is when Anna Komnea's description dates back to, she does also not really describe the Kosovo area. They did not fully conquer it until later. So it is completely rubbish.


Also interesting how the Balkan Slavs claim people who converted to Islam were traitors, the Bosniaks as Muslims are deeme as traitors, yet the Slavs were supposedly good ? In order to legitimize their presence their Slavs claim they are mixed with indigenous Balkan people but that's like people converting to Islam, being Turkified, Romanized etc so why are Islamised people in the Balkans demonized while the Slavs are claimed as legitimate and Slavicization is claimed as something good and legitimate ? How does that change that the Slavs were still a bunch of invaders if the Ottomans or any other population were invaders regardless of how many people the Slavs Slavicized ?
 
Some more from Wiki

After arranging for the publication of the Cuneus Prophetarum, Bogdani returned to the Balkans in March 1686 and spent the next years promoting resistance to the armies of the Ottoman Empire, in particular in Kosovo[a] . He and his vicar Toma Raspasani played a leading role in the pro-Austrian movement in Kosovo during the Great Turkish War.[9] He contributed a force of 6,000 Albanian soldiers to the Austrian army which had arrived in Pristina and accompanied it to capture Prizren. There, however, he and much of his army were met by another equally formidable adversary, the plague. Bogdani returned to Pristina but succumbed to the disease there in 6 December 1689.[10] His nephew, Gjergj Bogdani, reported in 1698 that his uncle's remains were later exhumed by Turkish and Tatar soldiers and fed to the dogs in the middle of the square in Pristina. So ended one of the great figures of early Albanian culture, the writer often referred to as the father of Albanian prose.
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Toma Raspasani (Italian: Tomasso Raspassani, c. 1648-17??) was an Albanian Franciscan friar and vicar, subordinate Pjetër Bogdani, Archbishop of Skopje, with whom he organized an Albanian pro-Austrian movement that would fight in the Great Turkish War against the Ottoman Empire.
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With the outbreak of the Great Turkish War, the Austrian Empire sought allies in Southeastern Europe. On November 1,[5] or November 6, General Enea Silvio Piccolomini reached Prizren, where he according to sources was received by "an archbishop and a patriarch".[6] This has been interpreted by some Yugoslav historians as being Albanian Catholic Pjetër Bogdani, Archbishop of Skopje, and Arsenije III Čarnojević, the Serbian Patriarch.[5][7][8] Those sources claim that Piccolomini consulted with Patriarch Arsenije and Archbishop Bogdani about the organization of newly recruited rebels and providing food for them, and Raspasani helped Piccolomini a lot, as the negotiations went through him as he knew Latin and Italian.[9] However the patriarch could not have been the Serbian Patriarch, since "he was absent from the region at that time".[6] Pjetër Bogdani seemed to have played the leading role in organizing the Albanian pro-Austrian movement in the region, while Raspasani was also prominent.[3] According to some sources, Raspasani was the one who gathered the Albanians by himself.[8]
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Raspasani wrote in 1693 that many of the Catholics of Kosovo had left for Budapest, "where most of them died, some of hunger, others of disease"
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pjetër_Bogdani

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toma_Raspasani
 
Another response to Tim Judah and his so called claim about 'Loyal Servants from Northern Albania' , this is 1621 from Northern Albania:

[FONT=&quot]There are certain other peoples on the plain of Shkodra, the people of Drivasto (Drisht), Pieterspani (Pjetërspan), Zapatensi (Sapa), Sardanensi (Sarda), Lezha, Kruja, Durrës, Issemi (Ishëm), Pretia (Preza), Andronichi (Ndroq), Albassani (Elbasan) and many other places and castles, great in number and all Catholic. Although there are Muslims among them, they are Catholic in the majority. They are all armed and amount to eight thousand fighters most desirous to receive a bit of aid in order to be freed. This is true not only of the Christians, but also of the leaders of the Muslims and of those who deny the faith because they too cannot put up with the tyranny of the Turks. As such, they all want to be liberated once and for all from such great suffering, or to die arms in hand.[/FONT]
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[h=3]1621
Pjetër Budi:
An Albanian Bishop
Calls for an Uprising [/h]
http://albanianhistory.net/1621_Budi/index.html
 
Austrian rule in Kosovo was, in any case, extremely short-lived.
After the disastrous defeat at Kacanik on 2 January 1690 (which is atrributed by some early
account to disaffection among the 'Arnauts' on the Austrian side-though the most direct evidence we have
makes no mention of this), the Austrians withdrew in confusion,
and a joint Tatar-Ottoman force entered the region.
Arsenije fled northwards from Peje; also making a rapid retreat
to the north where the Austrian troops, plus some 'Rascians' and Arnauts,
who had been stationed in Prizren together with the Catholic priest Toma Raspasani.
As he later explained, the rest of the population stayed behind:
'Nobody was able to get out of Prizren or Peje they all remained prey to the barbarian'.
The popular idea promoted by nineteenth-century writers and still encountered in the modern historical
literature, that Arsenije led a great 'exodus' of his people out of Kosovo
is thus simply false. He travelled to Belgrade, and spent most of the summer there;
this strong-hold, still under Austrian control, was a natural destination for many Serb refugees,
and those who gathered there during 1690 presumably
included people from those parts of Kosovo (mainly the eastern half) from which it had been possible to escape
from the Ottoman-Tatar incursion; but the majority of the refugees were probably from other areas.


(In the record of a meeting of Serb dignitaries helf in Belgrade in June, the names of people from many parts
of the Serb lands are specified, but, as it happens, no one from Kosovo apart from the Patriarch himself.)
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Once we accept that 30-40,000 individuals came to Hungary with Arsenije, however, it is still neccessary to ask
what proportion of those may have come Kosovo. As has already been noted, there was no single, continuous collective journey
beginning in Kosovo and ending at Buda; the starting point of the final journey
of those 30-40,000 was probably in or near Belgrade, and we know that people had been gathering there from most parts of the Serbian lands.
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One might expect people to have fled above all from those areas where the Austrian presence had been longest established
(and where, therefore, the degree of local cooperation had been greatest) - in other words, an area stretching from Belgrade to Nish.


On such grounds I previously suggested offering a very rough estimate, that it was unlikely that more than one quarter of the Serbs who arrived in Hungary had come from Kosovo. Since then I have looked more closely at accounts of the Serb population in central Hungary after 1690. Lists survive of the heads of household of the Serb community in Buda in 1702
and 1720, which in some cases give the person's place of origin. An analysis of these by Dusan Popovic gives the following totals:
70 from Serbia (excluding Kosovo); c.30 from Kosovo; c.20 from Montenegro; 11 from Bosnia; 4 from Macedonia; 1 from Bulgaria.
In this sample therefore, the Serbs from Kosovo make up 22 percent of the total.
Among these people (But not included in the figures just mentioned) there were also a few individuals described as 'Arnauts'; Popovic claims that this term just refers
to Vlachs but in view of the evidence already cited of Albanian support for the Austrians in Kosovo (and, indeed, much other evidence of Arnauts continuing to serve in the Austrian military after the withdrawal from
Kosovo in January 1690), it seems much more likely that these were indeed Albanians, some of whom may also have been Muslims.
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- ''Great Migration of the Serbs from Kosovo 1690''


So the claim that all the refugees came from there is obviously false, another claim, which the essay I quoted mentions is that it was hundreds of thousands of people that came from Kosovo as refugees because one author later changed it to 30k-40k families instead of souls, claiming they also all came from Kosovo.
 
Pulaha in 1984 noted that most Christians in Opolje in 1591 had Albanian names
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Opoja/Opolje was part of Sanjak of Prizren

The Ottoman officials noted which heads of families were new arrivals in their places of residence; in the Sanjak of Prizren in 1591 only five new arrivals out of forty-one bore Albanian names
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18 timars were recorded in the 23 villages of Opoja in 1571, and 13 timars in 1591. At the end of the 16th century, in the Nahiya of Opoja, of the 27 newly-Islamised households spread across 9 villages, 24 had Albanian last names and only 3 had Slavic last names. Of the 37 Christian households spread across 8 villages, 36 had Albanian or Albanian-Slav anthroponomy whereas only 1 had Slavic anthroponomy. Of the 23 field owners of the Nahiya, 18 had Albanian names and 5 had Slavic names
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In the nahiye of Pec in 1485, majority of new arrivals had Slavic names
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Seems to be no evidence of any kind of ''mass immigration'' during this period or even for most of the 1600's and 1500's.

[FONT=&quot]And the evidence also suggests that, while there was a steady flow of Albanians from Northern Albania into Kosovo, a major component of the Albanians demographic growth there was the expansion of an indigenous Albanian population within Kosovo itself.[/FONT]
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Yet Dumbrowski and some Serb seem to suggest the demographic growth there happened from immigration yet provides not a single evidence. At the same time admits there are Vlach/Aromanian toponyms in the area which he treats as a ''pre-Slavic'' population''

The study the Serb did on Opoja in the 1950's found at least half of the Albanian inhabitants there belonged to no tribes from Northern Albania which the Serb concluded they must be ''Albanized Serbs'' , his argument was Slavic influence in costumes, of course this could just be Slavic influence in general.

Of course by 1591 the shift had already happened into Albanian but I am just using what I have of records from 1400's and 1500's that claim this demographic shift happened from a mass immigration as it does not seem to be the case since these are most of the Ottoman records. If there was supposedly a mass immigration into Opoja which led to a shift shouldn't there be Ottoman records of it since they noted what families came ?
 
Here in the wiki page regarding the History of Kosovo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kosovo#Ottoman_Period
I have added some information regarding these events, I will add more later, I think it can be done better, I am not an expert in writing on wiki, but lets make sure this information does not get removed.

In 1689 during the Austrian-Ottoman wars, the Albanian Catholic Pjeter Bogdani organized a pro-Austrian movement and a resistance against the Ottomans in Kosovo together with the Albanian Catholic Toma Raspasani that included both Muslims and Christians.[62] Count Veterani wrote of 20,000 Arnauts i.e Albanians having revolted against the Turks.[63]
According to a German Manuscript, the Austrians in Kosovo went to Prizren which they described as the 'Capital of Albania' and where they were greeted by the 'Archbishop of Albania' and Patriarch of Kelmendi and 6,000 Albanian troops.[64] Some Serbian writers have interpreted that the reference to 'Patriarch of Kelmendi in this text refers to the Serbian Patriarch Arsenije Crnojevic but there is evidence to suggest he was absent nor could he a led an exodus of 30,000 - 40,000 Serbs and that the text refers to the Albanian Catholic Pjeter Bogdani[65]
Arsenije Crnojevic had travelled to Belgrade, which had been under Austrian rule and where he gathered 30,000 - 40,000 refugees and led them to Hungary, most were refugees from Nish and Belgrade area that had gathered there and smaller number of Serb refugees from Eastern Eastern Kosovo that had managed to escape.[66]
A German manuscript from 1689 mentions 5,000 Muslim Albanians in Prishtina having revolted against the Turks.[67] Among some of these Albanians that revolted were also mentioned as Serbs or 'Rascians' and the text mentions also some Serbs and Albanians fighting on the Ottoman side of Mahmut Pasha.[68]
An English embassy in Istanbul in 1690 reported of Austrians having made contact with 20,000 Albanians in Kosovo that had turned their weapons against the Turks[69]
Johann Georg von Hahn noted the Albanian population in Kosovo in 1690 had sided with the Austrians against the Turks[70]
Albanian Catholic Pjeter Mazreku reported in the 1600's that in Western Kosovo there had been many Catholics but converted to Islam in order to avoid taxes and impositions[71]
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I have deleted the Serbian claims as it's completely nonsense not backed up by any kind of evidence except that they claim the ''Patriarch of Kelmendi'' refers to Arsenije Crnojevic, still does not explain how he could of led a an exodus of Serbs from Western Kosovo that had a majority Albanian population. I would like more people to contribute with actual sources or books that use sources from these events. Maybe making an entire section within that page regarding the Austrian-Ottoman wars


The Serbian claim about ''500 years of Muslim Albanian oppression'' is also rubbish.

The demographic growth into Albanian mainly happened in Western Kosova where there already was a native Albanian population (although Eastern had some smaller too) , Eastern Kosova had a large Slavic popualtion until the mid 19th century , the region only gained Albanian majority in the entire region after the expulsion of Albanians from more North of Kosovo
 
lol the muppets on wiki removed everything i wrote lol
 
I actually added sources and even pages but since they removed it I added it back again but I couldn't bother finding all the sources again and pages , but it's added back on, please contribute . I am waiting for a single evidence to show me Arsenije Crnojevic led a revolt against Ottomans or an exodus of Serbs from Western Kosova that had majority Albanian population.
It's all pretty much based on one single text where the Serbs claim ''Patriarch of Clemente'' refers supposedly to Arsenije when it seems to refer to the same person 'Archbishop of Albania' Pjeter Bogdani and Catholic Albanian Toma Raspasani


We also don't know much about the whole Dukagjini thing which has been added on the wiki page but it's not that important. We know they operated around the mountains there and we know the name for 'Western Kosovo' in Albanian: Rrafshi i Dukagjinit' comes from that family.

I added regarding the battle of Kosovo 1389 this text from John Musachi from 1515:

Passing through all these countries, he occupied much land, among which was the city of Adrianopole (Edirne). When Murad the Second (5) took power, he seized Serbia and Bulgaria in a huge onslaught. Lazar (6), the Despot of Serbia, and King Marko of Bulgaria and Theodore Musachi, the second-born of our family, and the other Lords of Albania united and set off for battle, which the Christians lost (7). It was there that the above mentioned Theodore, who had a large band of Albanians with him, was slain. The said Lazar of Serbia was taken prisoner and later slain.
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But of course they removed that because there were of course no Albanians there :LOL:


Another point is how they claim oppression of Orthodox people when the revolts were largely organised by Catholic Albanians who were actually the most oppressed after the revolt. Muslims also revolted as many Pashas abused their powers against them.

They claim 500 years of oppresion on Orthodox people supposedly but Muslims and Catholics lived in a fairytale .... When literally Slavs were settling the area throughout the entire Ottoman period and had it not been for the Expulsion of Albanians from more north it would of had a large Slavic Orthodox population on the Eastern part still.
 
Here some more interesting stuff:

Lazaro Soranzo, in the late 1500's , wrote of Albanians who live as Catholics and observed that Prizren was more inhabited by Albanians than Serbs
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And what I added earlier:

The Ottoman officials noted which heads of families were new arrivals in their places of residence; in the Sanjak of Prizren in 1591 only five new arrivals out of forty-one bore Albanian names. In the nahiye of Pec in 1485, majority of new arrivals had Slavic names. In several Kosovo towns in the 1580s and 1590s; twenty five new Albanian immigrants were recorded and 133 immigrants with Slav names, several of them described coming from Bosnia
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''Mass immigration from Northern Albania'' :LOL:
 
In 1689 during the Austrian-Ottoman wars, the Albanian Catholic Pjeter Bogdani organized a pro-Austrian movement and a resistance against the Ottomans in Kosovo that included both Muslims and Christians.[66] The Austrians went to Prizren where they met the Catholic Albanian archbishop Pjeter Bogdani[67]. An original document refers to the Austrians being greeted by 5,000 Albanians who were partly Christian and partly Muslim.[68] Count Veterani wrote of 20,000 Arnauts i.e Albanians having joined the Austrians.[69]. An Italian manuscript states there stood 6,000 and more Albanians in Prizren[70]
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.........................
 
broder said:
Yeah, ‘loyal servants’ lol


Most of these ‘historians’ haven’t even done the most basic research. Or, perhaps they are incentivized to write such rubbish.

For example, as an amateur observer, just by studying the tax system of that period in the region one can see who was that Ottomans mostly preferred in their lands as Raja. Albanian Catholic families in Kosove paid three times more tax than your typical Serbian Raja family. The local Pashas, who were mostly of Albanian extraction, most definitely preferred Serbians to live and work their lands. Or else we wouldn’t see such a disparity in the tax policy.

Such aggressive policies is also what drove Christian Albanians to mass conversion, me thinks. Especially in Kosove.
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You are absolutely right.

It's interesting because according to a source from late 1500's quoted by Noel Malcolm, Prizren was an Albanian Catholic town. Then in 1624 it became Muslim.

Lazaro Soranzo, in the late sixteenth century, writing of 'Albanians, who live as Catholics, and observing that Prizren was inhabited ' more by Albanians than by Serbs')
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The Serb version of history regarding this event is just a false version of history, that ironically has become very famous and even repeated by these so called ''historians'', but it's not even what the texts or letters from these times say. The Albanian version is also exaggerated but totally unknown to the world. If you go to Noel Malcolm's book he explains all the versions in the Chapter ''History'' .

In the Serbian version they claim they were the majority until 1690, led a war against Ottomans, Albanians were just mountain herders that stood aside, then Serbs were pushed out and Albanians mass migrated suddenly either at the hands of Ottomans or forcibly settled. This theory was invented by Serb writers and completely false history that is being repeated to this day as a fact.

The Serbian writer that did this basically changed all the people that led the revolt and were mentioned as Albanian into Serbs, then he added the Albanians as Ottoman collaborators or people that were settled there by the Ottomans. He added Arsenije Crnojevic as the main character instead of Pjeter Bogdani or ''Archbishop of Albania'' . Nowhere in some of the texts I have seen do they ever mention Arsenije Crnojevic, these texts are clearly referring to Pjeter Bogdani. One can also just look at letters these people wrote, where they were, who they met, where they went.

These little chetniks stole our history and made our people look like Ottoman transplants and themselves like some glorious people that fought the Ottomans :LOL:

This is was actually an Albanian led revolt organized by Pjeter Bogdani and Toma Raspasani but these Chetniks stole our history, changed all the people into Serbs and added the chicken Arsenije Crnojevic as the main character :LOL:


Some falsification of history that has become famous :LOL:
 
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