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• 460-year
struggle for Albanian homeland, and 540 for Kosovo
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Albanians: The 460-year
struggle for a homeland, and 540 years in Kosovo
by James Mayfield (Chairman, European Heritage Library)
 Print
this Article • About
the Author • Bibliography/Sources
This essay analyzes the long
history of the Albanian struggle for the establishment of
an independent national homeland in both Albania and Kosovo.
It is an effort not only to reveal the difficult and unique
history of the Albanian people, but also to bring light to
both sides of the Kosovo conflict to balance with the
Serb perspective. You
can get a rare inside look (with pictures) of my experiences
in this remote and unique Muslim nation of Albania in my article
Inside Albania.
Note on the mathematics: 460 refers
to the date of Ottoman conquest (1468) through the reign of
King Zog (1928), as Albania was still a puppet in 1914. 540
for Kosovo includes 1468-2008.
Shortcut: Ethnic
background •
Albanian nation forms vs. Islamic jihad •
Albanian culture forged •
Albanians struggle for independence •
A kingdom declared, then falls to the Axis •
Albania independent under dictatorship •
The Kosovo struggle
Ethnic
and Linguistic Background, Albanian origins
The Albanians are easily
Europe's most linguistically, culturally, and historically
unique ethnicity. Similar to the Armenians, a huge portion
of the Albanian people lives in diaspora, populating not only
Albania and Kosovo, but Montenegro, Greece, Italy, the United
States, Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia. They speak one of the
most unique languages on the continent (Shqip), one which
linguists do not trace to any other group. They rabidly define
themselves as being racially independent from the Slavs, the
Mediteranneans, the Turks, the Greeks, and any other cultural
orbit. So too, they are Europe's only Muslim culture, although
the Bosnians have a large Muslim constituent.
The Albanians proudly trace
their ancestory back to the ancient Illyrians, a people of
disputed and mysterious origins who straddled what are now
Albania, Montenegro, likely Kosovo, and northwestern Greece
at least after 500BCE before being forever incorporated into
the Roman dominion by the 2rd century. The Illyrians have
been disputed by archeologists and historians (and especially
Serbs) as to their ethnic roots. Most historians intently
aver that the modern Albanians have little connection with
their homeland's ancient residents. However, the Illyrian
heritage is significant because Albanians emphasize the ancient
Illyrian presence in the whole region (including Kosovo) that
gives them the right to control it. See our article on the
debate over Albanian Illyrian
origins.
The Albanians spent 460 years
to finally establish an independent homeland, and struggled
for another 120 before Kosovo was recognized as an independent
nation from Serbia in 2008, although most countries in the
world (especially Serbs) refuse to acknowledge their sovereignty.
Their constant struggle against what they view as foreign
domination has imbued them with an unparalleled hermit culture
of resistance and independence.
The flag of Albania, based upon
the Byzantine emblem, that was designed after the Albanian
unifier Skanderbeg who rallied the Albanian Christians against
the Islamic jihad of the Ottoman Turks
The geography of Albanians make
them vulnerable to more advanced powers
An Albanian national consciousness emerges
in the face of Ottoman Islamic jihad; the Albanians convert
to Islam
Before the 15th century,
there was no unified Albanian state or culture. The region
was, as it remained even as late as the 20th century, bitterly
divided between warring tribes, clans, and chiefdoms. The
mountains of Albania were split between the Tosk tribe of
the south and the Gheg (pronounced “Jeg”) tribe of the north
and Kosovo. Although the region was dominated by foreign powers
almost uninterrupted since the fall of Illyria to the Romans,
most of the Albanian people lived independently in the remote
hills and mountains. The majority of foreign settlement and
construction were only at the coastal ports of Skoder, Durres,
and Vlore. They lacked their own written language and national
political structure. The lack of unified identity among “Albanians”
has historically acted as a problematic obstacle to the establishment
of Albanian nationhood in both Kosovo and Albania. It was
not until the rule of Enver Hoxha and the Communists after
1945 that the intense family, tribal, and clan loyalties were
forever obliterated and replaced by a pan-Albanian national
consciousness. The Albanians were also highly divided in matters
of religion. Catholic missionaries from the Italian states,
as well as Orthodox clerics from Byzantium and Serbia brought
both Christian sects to the Albanian tribes, and the deadlock
of religious heterogeneity further stifled collective development
and enculturation. It is likely that most Albanians adhered
to a syncretism of the ancient tribal religion (Albanians
may say the Illyrian religion) and Christianity. It is also
a matter of vicious debate between Serbs and Albanians whether
or not Albanians populated Kosovo as a majority. Serbs insist
that the Albanians were an infinitesimal, ephemeral minority
until the hated Muslim Ottomans brought them to occupied Kosovo.
The genesis of an Albanian
national consciousness began in only the early 15th century.
Although the tale has become exaggerated into mythology and
was likely not nearly as pervasive as is claimed, the disunified
Albanian tribes effectively united into a type of pan-Albanian
national consciousness in the face of an invading scourge
from the east. From the late 14th to the 17th centuries, the
Ottoman Empire of the Muslim Turks delivered jihad
into the Balkans with the ultimate goal of destroying already-broken
Constantinople, expanding the realm of the Caliphate, and
spreading the doctrine of Islam as espoused by the Sultan's
rendition of Hanafi jurisprudence. The legacy of Ottoman conquest
has been hotly debated. It
is short-sighted to describe a period of brutality, violence,
forced conversion, stagnation, and murder. It is also illusory
and fanciful to, as modern American academia espouses, depict
a period of multi-cultural tolerance and free religious worship.
Indeed, the Ottoman Empire was unusual of Muslim realms in
its granting of inordinate autonomy to religious communities
and regions. The Europeans in the Balkans, however, enjoyed
almost none. The ancient lands of the European Balkan states
were taken, their great palaces and treasures becoming the
property of a hated and very foreign enemy. The conquest of
these free peoples was not provoked at all. Christians lived
as second-class citizens in their own homelands, unable to
enjoy political franchise unless they either betray their
nation and families by converting to Islam and fighting their
own countrymen and fellow Christians in the Ottoman armies
(the Janissaries). A blood tax called devshirme (دغشرمي) forced
Christian European mothers to give up every few male family
members (varies by population census) to be forcibly conscripted
into the Janissary elite in Istanbul after forced conversion
to Islam, with many returning to their nations to fight against
the villages of their birth. The majestic wealth and education
the Islamic world had to offer at this time of Muslim conquest
was often quite appealing to many families for their sons
instead of death or starvation. Albanians benefited from Ottoman
occupation more than any other European culture in this respect.
Nonetheless, their options were to adopt a very similar religion
to Christendom (Islam) or, in many cases, starve to death.
Many families under Islamic rule professed submission to Islam
solely to inherit the benefits, but instead practiced the
faith of their heritage in private to avoid persecution or
death. Apostacy from the Ottoman perception of Islam was punished
by death. The Christian natives also paid inordinate taxes.
Balkan subjects, often prone to famine and underproduction
of grain at this time, were barely able to survive, let alone
pay large taxes. Most Europeans view this today as a period
of foreign occupation and injustice. Although Ottoman policy
is often portrayed unjustly negatively, modern attempts to
depict them as liberal and tolerant are very improvident and
foolish, especially in an age when all peoples are supposed
to live free from foreign empires. To lessen the guilt of
the Ottomans for colonially conquering the Balkans -- almost
always without provocation -- at the same time that the Europeans
are demonized for the colonial era is rather foolish.
Our exclusive map of the history
of Islamic conquest in Europe. The red is the domain of the
Turkish Muslims. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
What are now Serbia, Macedonia,
Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, southern Ukraine, Greece, Bosnia,
southern Croatia and Hungary, Kosovo, and Albania all fell
to the invading Islamic jihad by the 16th century. Disunified
Albania was overrun almost immediately. In order to repel
a Muslim empire that was conquering most of southeastern Europe,
many crusader-kings from Hungary, Germany, Poland, Transylvania,
Serbia, Romania (Wallachia), and Moldova worked in tandem
on the scorched battlefields of Varna and Kosovo to expel
the invading Muslims. It was during these wars that the nascent
form of the Albanian national identity was born.
When Albania's tribes were
conquered without provocation by the Ottoman Muslims, wealthy
Albanian grandees were forced by the Sultan to leave Albania
for Istanbul, where they were compulsorily converted to Islam
and molded to become miltary and political elites in the Ottoman
Empire. One of these hostages was Gjergj Kastrioti, who after
being forced to submit to Islam was called by the Turks Gjergj
"Skanderbeg" (the Turkish equivalent
of Alexander Bey). He served the Ottoman armies loyally against
the European Christians until he fought against the Transylvanian
regent Janos Hunyadi. In battle, Skanderbeg abandoned the
empire that had pillaged his country and forced his conversion
and joined the Christian crusaders in defense of Albania.
A national Albanian revolt ensued against the Ottoman occupiers
with the now-Christian Skanderbeg as its crusader-king that
lasted until 1468, when he died of disease. Immediately after
his death, Albania was re-conquered personally by the Sultan's
armies. Albania endured 400 years of foreign rule before their
nation would resurface. It must be acknowledged that the Albanians'
romantic depiction of this unified Albanian revolt is likely
an exaggerated retrojection.
 
Gjergj Skanderbeg, hero
of the Albanians and the father of the national struggle.
Ironically, he is beloved as the defender of the then-Christian,
now-Muslim Albanians against the Muslim Turks.
A solidified
Albanian national culture is forged during Ottoman Muslim
occupation
During Ottoman rule, Albanians
increasingly coalesced into a unified cultural and national
consciousness in reaction to foreign rule. This new Albanian
culture -- from which the 460-year national struggle would
derive -- eclectically drew from Ottoman and native Albanian
(or "Illyrian" perhaps) elements. Albanians and
Bosnians were the two occupied cultures that rapidly converted
to Islam. There are many reasons for this. Albanians lacked
a firm cultural and religious identity. The Albanian Christians
already vaccilated between Orthodoxy and Catholicism from
their neighbors. Islam, which is very similar to Christendom,
must have seened no more different than the two Christian
sects were. So too, Albanians converted to Islam en masse
when their tribal leaders did, whereas in Serbia and the rest
of the Balkans the leadership brutally resisted all invading
Islamic elements. Albanians also saw that by converting to
Islam, they could instantly alleviate the second-class status
of Christians and rapidly attain high station in Istanbul
as viceroys and landed janissary nobles. Some of the Turks'
greatest leaders were Albanian converts. Lastly, the Albanians
may have converted to Islam to instantly elevate themselves
above the Greeks, Serbs, and Slavic Christians around them.
As a result of this occupation, Albanians became Europe's
only Muslim-majority culture, with the Bosnians only about
half Muslim. It must be noted that the Albanian form of Islam
is incredibly liberal.
Regarding the Albanian struggle
for Kosovo, it is agreed by most that the Albanian settlement
in Kosovo began during Ottoman hegemony. Although Albanians
insist that they were in Kosovo as the majority since ancient
Illyria, most evidence indicates that it was occupied by Serb
Christians as an integral part of that nation for 500 years
before that nation became conquered by the Ottomans. The Serbs
thus argue that Kosovo was rightfully their territory until
the perfidity of Ottoman conquerers warped its demographics.
During Ottoman rule, Albanians intensely settled in the region
to the point that it would become majority Albanian Muslim
as it remains today (likely 88% [1]). This is the beginning
of the Albanian struggle for Kosovo.
The EHL map of Kosovo. Note that
Albanian nationalists consider a land almost twice this size
to be proper Albanian land
A close relationship was
forged between the Ottomans and the Albanians, although later
on this would degenerate into brutal inter-ethnic war and
competition. Throughout the Ottoman Empire's history, many
of the most esteemed and powerful lords were ethnically Albanian
Muslims. One of the most sublime Ottoman rulers was Muhammad
Ali Paşa. Ali led a massive revolt against the breaking
Ottoman Caliphate in 1805 that cleaved the whole empire into
shambles. He became the sovereign of Egypt and its environs,
and upon receiving autonomy by the Sultan himself, waged a
bloody jihad against the Sudanese and surrounding dissenters.
His revolt in many ways marked the progressive collapse of
the Ottoman Empire. Muhammad Ali Pasha is one of the key figures
of pride for the Albanian culture.
The Albanian Muhammad Ali Pasha
of Egypt
My photo of a new and
obviously simple mosque in Albania. Albanian culture, from
which the national struggle derived, is very unique.
My
photo of a relatively old Christian church in Albania
Albanians struggle for independence, and become
mere puppets again
After 400 years of foreign
Ottoman occupation, the Albanian culture that had developed
alongside a national consciousness increasingly rallied for
independence. By the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was
a broken realm of infighting, revolt, perfidity, and a crippling
devolution of power from the Sultan to regional beys, lords,
and janissaries. Liberalizing reforms left the nation weak.
The janissaries -- the reason for Ottoman power altogether
-- frequently attempted to overthrow the sultans and direct
state interests themselves. In response, by the 1830's, the
Sultan had dismantled the janissaries and executed thousands
of their best officers. Ottoman sultans increasingly responded
to this instability with a strong reversal of the previous
regional autonomy. Albanian efforts for more autonomy were
ignored. Once again, the Albanian people were forced to ignite
their struggle for the independence of their nation.
By 1878, the Ottoman Empire
was close to collapse. Greece, Romania (with Moldova), Bulgaria,
and Serbia were all independent after massive revolts sponsored
by Russia. Albania, now suffering a stranglehold from Ottoman
far-right nationalist rule, sought to seize its chance for
an independent national homeland. At the League of Prizren,
Albanian nationalists like Sami Frasheri declared a unified
Albanian national state. Albanian hopes for independence or
at least superior autonomy failed miserably. The Ottomans,
especially after the Young Turk ultranationalist revolution
of 1908, brutally cracked down on any dissent and discord,
making the Albanians now a victim of direct oppression.
As the Ottoman Empire was
sufficiently weak and the European Balkan powers were cogent
enough, the Balkan Wars of 1913-14 began,
ostensibly to liberate Macedonia and Albania from Ottoman
domination. The Muslim Turks were obliterated. Albanians hoped
to become the independent nation of Albania (including Kosovo),
but the weakness of the Albanian leadership and the lack of
interest of greater European powers made these dreams fail.
Kosovo was annexed by Serbia, the beginning of the bitter
ethnic conflict that would last almost without interruption
until 2008. Seizing
the opportunity after finally being free from Turkish rule,
Albanian political lobbyists under Ismail Kemal formally declared
the establishment of an independent and unified Albania for
the first time in history. This was merely a hopeful illusion;
Albanians would not see full independent statehood until 1928.
The Albanian lobbies in Kosovo
continued to defend the interests of the Albanian majority,
but the ultra-nationalist monarchy of Serbia (then Yugoslavia)
absolutely refused to concede. Muslim massacres of Christian
civilians in Kosovo and Greece (South Epirus) were met with
bitter reprisals by the Serbian military. In the early years
alone following “independence”, some 12,371 Albanians were
killed by the Serbs, and 22,000 jailed [2]. Obstinent Serbian
governmental refusal to negotiate with the Kosovar Albanians'
interests would resume until the NATO bombings of 1999 seized
the whole area from Serbia.
Ismail Kemal, the first "president"
of Albania
Completely unable to organize
any form of a stable nation and a government, Albanians begged
European powers to assist it through economic subsidy and
support. The result, instead, was ultimately that the Albanians
would become pawns to yet another colonial power. As Albanians
owed their independence to European powers, it was the British,
Italians, and Germans (Austrians) who agreed to place the
German prince Wilhelm von Wied on the illusory throne of Albania
as the king of the new nation. This puppet king was considered
illegitimate in comparison with the “legitimate” council government
under Kemal and Essad Pasha. Wilhelm had never even been to
Albania nor likely heard of it. Albania was effectively a
vassal under the Italian, German, and British authority. The
situation in Albania deteriorated so rapidly that King Wied
of Albania left and never returned, leaving Albania in a state
of total civil war, leaving the Albanian struggle for a national
homeland completely unresolved. From 1912 until 1928, Albania
lacked a functional government.
The German prince Wied, King
of Albania
Albania solidifies under a monarchy
in reaction to foreign intrusion, then falls under Axis rule
The so-called “nation” of
Albania still remained a buffer zone between colonial expanding
empires. Mussolini's ultranationalist and expansionist Italy,
seeking to reverse the humiliation of being the nation with
the only colonial failure in Africa (Ethiopia), gradually
began to erode the partial autonomy of Albanians altogether.
Intense development and investment by Italian entrepreneurs
and politicians created a dependency that ultimately made
Albania an Italian colony. This fiscal expansion also allowed
for the stabilization and comparative prosperity of Albania.
By 1925, an upstanding local Muslim leader and political lobbyist
for Albanian independence called Ahmed Zogu was elected leader
of the Albanian people. In 1928, in large measure in reaction
to Albanian fears of being colonized by the next imperial
power, Zogu formally declared the total independence of the
Albanian nation, changed his name to the more Europeanized
Zog, and was crowned the king of the first united Albanian
nation as King Zog I. The Albanian national struggle for a
homeland, after 400 years, was complete as Albania was recognized
as a sovereign power.
King Zog (Ahmed Zogu) of Albania, its
first true modern leader, indeed responsible for stability
The independence after 1928
was ephemeral. Albania was invaded by Mussolini's Italy in
1939 and conquered in only a few days. Albania's autonomy
was aggressively silenced, and Italy became a province of
the Italian Empire. In 1943, following Italy's defeat in the
war, Albania was absorbed into the Third Reich's occupied
realm. Significantly, Hitler merged Kosovo with Albania
for the first time in history. This would fuel irredentist
pan-Albanian nationalism for the next 50 years.
Throughout World War II,
Yugoslavia and Albania became a warground between ideological
and ethnic competition of Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, and
Albanians. Serbs had dominated the Albanians of Kosovo, the
Bosnians, and the Croats until Hitler destroyed Yugoslavia
in 1940. Upon independence, the Croats and Bosnians fervently
allied with the Nazis and actively participated in some of
the worst atrocities and ethnic cleansings of World War II
(see here). Large
portions of the Albanian population, and a great bulk of the
Bosnians, rapidly volunteered for the Nazi SS killing squads
against Serbian Communists, Jews, anarchists, and partisans.
One of the most active volunteer groups of the SS in the Balkans
was the SS-Skanderbeg legion that included
Albanians from Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania who sought to
rally for an independent national Albania (with Kosovo) against
longstanding Serbian hegemony. Muslims of the Balkans, especially
Albanians and Bosnians, were rallied for a jihad against Jews
and atheistic Communists by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin
al-Husayni. Albanians resumed their struggle for sovereignty
throughout the war.
Skanderbeg-SS emblem. Albanians
in Kosovo, as with most of the Muslim world from the Grand
Mutfi of Jerusalem to the Tatars of Russia, supported the
Nazi invasion
SS Muslim soldiers from Kosovo or Greater Albania
A Bosnian Muslim SS legion supporting
the Axis against the Soviets, Communists, and Jews. "Traitors!"
say the Serbs and socialist Yugoslavs fighting to protect
their freedom from Axis brutality and genocide.
Grand Muftiy of al-Quds (Jerusalem) shows his support for
the Axis and their Bosnian Muslim (and some Albanians) legions
to promote Jihad against the Jews and atheistic Communists.
His Islamist movement was prompted by fears for the coming
establishment of a Jewish state (Israel) in Palestine.
Albania's total isolated retreat from the
world in the interests of a sovereign independent state
The end of World War II and
the triumph of the Soviet Union and its ideology again completely
redesigned the political experience of the Albanians. The
Communist guerrilla campaigns of Jozip “Broz” Tito in the
Balkans led to the re-establishment of Yugoslavia as a new
socialist state. Yugoslavia included the Albanians of Kosovo,
Montenegro, and Macedonia, and would remain as such until
the seizure of Kosovo from Serbia by the Americans and NATO
in 1999. With the Germans in retreat, Albania was united and
independent under the brutal Communist dictatorship of the
hard-line atheist Enver Hoxha ("Hoed-ja"). Hoxha,
drawing from longstanding Albanian cultural fears of foreign
intrusion and fueled by near-obsessive paranoia, pursued a
course of strict independence from all foreign dependency.
Although Enver Hoxha effectively completed the Albanian struggle
for a completely independent and sovereign homeland in Albania,
his bizarre policy of complete isolation from the outside
world would drive Albania to the ground to become one of Europe's
most backward and ruined nations.
Enver Hoxha, Communist dictator
of Albania. Despite being often viewed as the source of Albania's
economic collapse (although it is difficult to collapse a
bankrupt nation in the first place), Hoxha is often considered
Albania's national hero because he, finally, created a completely
stable and free Albania.
Although not occupied by
Russian or Yugoslav troops, Albania would remain economically
and political aligned and reliant upon socialist Yugoslavia
and the USSR for more than a decade. Excluding the few years
of independence under King Zog, the “Albanian nation” still
had yet to exist with total independence. Enver Hoxha's reign
would epitomize the struggle for Albanian self-determination
and total freedom, making Hoxha the Albanians' prime cultural
hero next to Skanderbeg.
Yugoslavia under president
Tito politically considered Albania – with Kosovo and Macedonia
– a dependent vassal of the Socialist People's Republic of
Yugoslavia. Although Albania enjoyed its own government, it
was de facto ruled by the more powerful, wealthy, and stable
Yugoslav state. As a part of the Soviet Communist sphere of
world influence, Albania was equally dependent upon the USSR.
It was a member of the Warsaw
Pact, the mutual alliance of Soviet vassal states in Eastern
Europe, from 1955-1968. Yugoslavia was responsible for funding
over 58% of Albania's total GDP [3], and was the sole reason
why this impoverished, broken, and tribally-divided state
was able to transform into an agrarian and comparably industrialized
society with a firm central government administration. Despite
this blatant dependency, Albania's radical anti-imperialist
doctrine caused Enver Hoxha and the Albanians to perceive
the Yugoslavs as the next phase of foreign domination who
impeded Albania's national struggle. As a result, by 1950,
Albania completely embargoed and cut all trade and diplomatic
relations with Yugoslavia. It must be remembered that Albania's
self-defeating rejection of its benefactors was perceived
as being part of a long struggle for independence.
Albanians in Kosovo lived
under the rule of Yugoslavia under Tito. The province of Kosovo
and Metohija was passively acknowledged as being autonomous
by the 1974 Constitution, but Tito has been criticized for
simply delaying dormant inter-ethnic conflict that would,
after his death, foment into the total collapse of Yugoslavia.
Inter-ethnic competition for franchise in the region would
resume until the Yugoslav Wars, fueled by increasing massacres
committed by Albanians against Serbs and vice versa.
Albania turned to the Soviet
Union for total economic support after it severed its ties
with Yugoslavia, which then covered the Albanian budget and
provided its experts. After the Soviet Union then pursued
a highly unorthodox ideology under Nikita Khrushchev that
Hoxha considered "un-Communist," and after it invaded
its own Communist ally of Hungary in 1956, Albania then perceived
the Soviet Union as the next imperialist oppressor. Albania's
independence was now threatened. Albania completely broke
from the Soviet Union, and, after Brezhnev's invasion of Czechoslovakia
in 1968, from the Warsaw Pact altogether. Albania then gravitated
towards support from the People's Republic of China, but after
Mao Zedong pursued an increasingly pro-American policy that
Hoxha deemed un-Communist, Albania then embargoed China.
Nikita Khrushchev
Hoxha's Albania and their bond
with Mao's China (from http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/ff-al.html)
Despite this backward and
industrially primitive nation's complete fiscal dependency
on foreign allies, Enver Hoxha's Albania pursued a path of
bizarre closure that was more isolated than any other economy
in the world, easily rivaling modern North Korea. All outside
entry was barred, and no Albanians could leave the country.
All religion was destroyed in what he called the "world's
first atheist state," and Albanians effectively were
forced to embrace "Hoxhaism" (his rendition of Communism)
as a state and religious doctrine. As evident in his ideological
writings, Hoxha pursued this policy in part because it fulfilled
the Albanian struggle for total independence and the final
establishment of an Albanian national homeland ruled by its
own hand. This desire is evident in the fact that the paranoid
Hoxha built over 10,000 family pillboxes across the country,
calling Albanians to be ready for an imminent invasion by
an outside predatory imperialist power. In reality, no one
had any interest in coming anywhere near Albania. Indeed,
he succeeded in making Albania completely independent. However,
with the expertise and subsidy of developed world superpowers
like China and the USSR now expelled from this primitive isolated
country, Albania tumbled into such obsolescence that much
of Albania today is reminiscent of the feudal age.
In conclusion,
the Albanian national struggle for over 460 years had been
finally achieved, but it came at an absurdly unbearable price
from which Albanians today are still suffering as one of the
poorest nations in Europe.
My photograph of an Albanian
family concrete bunker built under the isolation, proof of
the Albanians' enduring struggle for an independent homeland
My photo of Albania. It is horrifically
poor outside of the capital of Tirana, a cost in part of Hoxha's
isolation.
The
Albanian struggle for an independent homeland continues in
Kosovo
Read the Serbian perspective
on this conflict here.
Any argument will be guaranteed to be rejected by the other
faction.
Albanians had succeeded in
forging an independent national homeland in Albania, but the
massive Albanian community in Macedonia, Montenegro, and Yugoslavia/Serbia
still struggled for their independence. Albanians are intense
in their involvement in ethnic nationalism, irredentism, and
the desire to break from what they perceive as the Slavs'
brutal oppression.
During the reign of Yugoslavia's
Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslavia reversed its previous policy
of an autonomous federation (that included Kosovo) to one
of strict pan-Yugoslav nationalism whereby Serbs asserted
that all minority groups must obey the dictates of the Belgrade
government for the good of the nation. This caused Albanian
claims for autonomy (alongside those of the Croats and Bosniaks)
to be interpreted as treason, and were met by brutal crackdowns
and censorship that further pressured an Albanian revolt in
Kosovo for independence. The independence of Croatia and Bosnia
(caused by the same reason) after 1991 came with a bloody
Albanian revolt that included the incineration of Serbian
churches and the massacre of civilians through Albanian nationalist
organizations like the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Many
Albanians found in their Islamic religion and the Qur'an a
vehicle for a perceived social justice against Christian oppression,
and employed Islamic jihad against the Serbs with foreign
support from Arab, Pakistani, and Afghan Mujahidin. Author
Christopher Deliso, in his rather oversimplified book The
Coming Balkan Caliphate, analyzes the role of jihadists
in Albania, and the American support for their jihad against
the Serbs, as a prescient source of future calamity for Europe.
At the same time, Serbian mobs burnt Albanian mosques and
slaughtered Albanian civilians in villages at the same time
as they massacred dissenting Bosnian and Croatian civilians.
Most Serbs fled Albanian terrorist bombings and massacres
to Serbia. Albanians rightfully respond to this argument of
"Albanian terrorism" by citing the equally horrendous
murders of Albanian Muslims by Serbian militias at the same
time.
The war continued with increasing
intensity in Serbia until 1999, when the Clinton administration
of the United States led a NATO air assault on Serbia-Montenegro,
ostensibly to stop mutual inter-ethnic genocide between Serbs
and Albanian Kosovars. The American and NATO campaign greatly
benefited the Albanians: Kosovo was forcibly seized from Serbia-Montenegro
and declared an indepedent UN-administered protectorate. Although
Serbs refused to acknowledge the independence of what they
believed to be their integral territory for 1,000 years, Muslim
Albanian-populated Kosovo was now completely independent of
Serbia from 1999 until 2008.
Albanian communities still
live in Macedonia (33% of the population), Kosovo (90%), Montenegro
(>17%), and northern Greece (Epirus), where they have historically
engaged in continuous political and physical revolt for “liberation”
(CIA World Factbook). This has led to brutal inter-ethnic
conflict that today causes Albanians to be the victims of
some of the most incendiary and universal racism in Europe.
A revolt by the Albanian minority in 2001 brought Macedonia
into a full-blown civil war that ended in their regional autonomy
in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Longstanding
desires for Albanian autonomy in Greece's South Epirus continue
to this day to no avail. Today, Macedonians, Greeks, and Serbs
brutally hate the Albanian race and vice versa.
Kosovo, ruled by the UN and
NATO (in reality, mostly the United States) since 1999 thanks
to the Clinton administration, was given freedom in 2008 as
Europe's newest Muslim nation. From the Serbian perspective,
this was an illegal seizure of a huge territory from an independent
nation, the same crime that the Americans accused the Yugoslavs
of doing in Croatia and Bosnia. The vast majority of world
nations agree that Serbia's sovereign land was stolen. However,
as this essay illustrates, from the Albanian perspective,
the Albanians were only fulfilling a 560-year struggle for
an independent national homeland in Kosovo against the brutal
massacres, genocides, and murders of Albanian civilians by
the Serbian oppressors. Both sides are equally correct. Kosovo
today is recognized by the European Union and the United States.
Most of the rest of the world does not acknowledge the independence.
UN, NATO, and Americans remain in Kosovo to ensure its stability.
Kosovo is among the poorest nations in Europe, with a per
capita income of only $2,300 and a 40% unemployment rate [1].
The Albanian struggle for
an independent homeland in Albania lasted at least 460 years,
from the struggles against Islamic jihad by Gjergj Skanderbeg
to the monarchy of King Zog I in 1928. The struggle in Kosovo
took 540, from Skanderbeg's crusade until 2008 at the cost
of tremendous bloodshed and genocide on both sides. Although
most European cultures continue to depict the Albanians as
a near-subhuman culture of rebels and Mujahidin, the Albanians
will continue to emphasize their obstinent struggle against
foreign hegemony. In addition, Greeks, Montenegrins, and Macedonians
are increasingly concerned that their large Albanian minorities
may be incited by Kosovo's independence into an expansion
of their long struggle to their sovereign lands. Albanian
nationalists, drawing from the Albanian national struggle
that in their mind goes back to ancient Illyria, will continue
to challenge what they perceive as the subjugation of ethnic
Albanian minorities.
The flag of independent Kosovo, based on the EU flag. Most
Serbs see this as proof of the rape of "Serbian Kosovo"
from the Albanians. In their protests of 2008, Serbs did not
burn Kosovar flags, but American and EU flags.
Revolting Albanians, many using the ideology of Islamic jihad,
massacred Serbian civilians and burnt down churches. At the
same time, Serbs murdered Albanians door-to-door in much of
Kosovo.
Serbs consider Kosovo their sovereign land. Albanians, who
are the overwhelming majority in Kosovo, insist that it is
their territory. Americans, the EU, and NATO all agree to
the Albanian claim.
________________________________________
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
James Mayfield is a historian
and the Chairman of the European Heritage Library. I have
a Cum Laude BA in History with a Minor in Germanic Studies
(language and history), am presently working for my Masters
in History, and plan to immediately progress to my PhD Doctorate.
I have a special academic interest in Europe's diverse ethnic
identities, languages, and cultures, and the political struggles
of native European and immigrant minority identities. See
my staff entry for more information.
I also have a tremendous
academic and historiographic interest in Albanian history
and culture. I wrote my baccalaureate research dissertation
on the Albanian struggle against foreign domination. I have
also traveled to Albania. I wrote a highly unique semester
dissertation on Enver Hoxha's project towards a post-modern
Albanian state, affording me an understanding of both the
dominant perspectives on Kosovo and Albania and the Albanian
perspective.
BIBLIOGRAPHY/SOURCES
USED:
-For more sources see our
History of Islamic Conquest
in Europe Map
-For more sources see our
Islamic populations in
Europe Map
-See Illyrians.org
for an ultra-nationalist Albanian perspective on Albanians'
national struggle
-Vickers, Miranda. The
Albanians: A Modern History. London: I.B. Taurus, 2001.
-Vickers, Miranda, and James
Pettifer. Albania: From Anarchy to Balkan Identity.
New York, NY: NYU Press, 2000.
-Deliso, Christopher. The
Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe
and the West. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International,
2007.
-personal observations, photos,
and interviews from my research trip to Albania
-images that lack an EHL
watermark are not our property. If no link is provided, we
were unable to isolate the original owners. If you find your
property is being used, feel free to notify us.
[1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/KV.html
[2] Swire, Joseph. Albania:
Rise of a Kingdom. New York: R. R. Smith Publishers,
1930. Page 291.
[3] Vickers, Miranda. The
Albanians: A Modern History. London: I.B. Taurus, 2001.
Page 174.
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