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Beginnings of Albanian Nationalist and Autonomous Trends: the albanian League, 1878-1881

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Stavro Skendi
Stavro Skendi*
Affiliation:
Department of Slavic Studies, University of Toronto
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Extract

During the nineteenth century a series of revolts took place in Albania. These revolts, although some of them were on a relatively large scale, were local in character and aimed neither at national autonomy nor independence. Their primary target was the taxes and the draft which the Ottoman Government, in accordance with its program of reforms—the so-called Tanzimat—was trying to impose upon the Albanian people. It was not until the Congress of Berlin that the movement began to take a different course.

When Russia defeated the Turks at the end of 1877, she imposed upon them the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878), which accorded to the Balkan Slavic nations large pieces of Albanian land. Serbia was allotted a strip of Albanian-inhabited territory in Old Serbia. Bulgaria and Montenegro were especially favored. The first country was to expand westward even into Albania, including the major part of the province of Korea (Koritza).

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 1953 , pp. 219 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1953

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References

1 This article constitutes a part of a political history of Albania since 1878, which the Mid-European Studies Center has sponsored by a research grant to the author.

2 Cf. Articles 1,3, and 6 of the Treaty of San Stefano with respect to the frontiers of Montenegro, Serbia, and Bulgaria, in Effendi Noradounghian, G., Recueil d'actes internationaux de I’Empire Ottoman(Paris, 1902), III, 509-13.Google Scholar

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5 Cf. Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration of Massachusetts, The Albanian Struggle in the Old World and New (Boston, The Writer, Inc., 1939), p. 35.Google Scholar

6 Text in Dosti, H., “Historija e rezistencës dhe e rilindjes kombëtare shqiptare” (History of the Albanian National Resistance and Revival), in Shqiperia (Albania), organ of the National Committee “Free Albania” (New York), November 28, 1951, p. 6.Google Scholar

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11 Ibid., pp. 370-71. Of these districts, Janina, Filat, Margariti, Ajdonat, Parga, Preveza, and Arta are now incorporated in the Greek state.

12 Cf. Selenica, T., Shqipëria më 1921 (Albania in 1927) (Tirana, 1928), p. 14 Google Scholar; Ippen, , op. cit., p. 371.Google Scholar

13 Cf. article 28 of the Berlin Treaty.

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22 Goschen to Granville, September 27, 1880, in ibid., No. 125.

23 Pluncket to Granville, October 6, 1880, in ibid., No. 222.

24 Granville to Her Majesty's Embassies at St. Petersburg, Paris, Rome, Vienna, and Berlin, October 4, 1880, in ibid., No. 182. There follow several letters as to the reactions of the various governments to the British proposal.

25 Article 7 of Acte de cession du district de Dulcigno au Monténégro, November 25, 1880, in Noradounghian, op. cit., IV, 282.Google Scholar

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42 Goschen to Granville, July 26, 1880, in Accounts and Papers, 1880, Vol. 81, Turkey No. 15 (1880), No. 81.

43 The Commission was created by the Treaty of Berlin (Articles 18 and 23) in order “to elaborate, in agreement with the Ottoman Porte, the organization of Eastern Roumelia,” as a province endowed with administrative autonomy.

44 Fitzmaurice to Granville, June 21, 1880, in Accounts and Papers, 1880, Vol. 81, Turkey No. 15 (1880), No. 33.

45 Goschen to Granville, July 16, 1880, in ibid., No. 81.

46 Fitzmaurice to Granville, August 1, 1880; August 17, 1880; and August 24, 1880, in ibid., No. 71, No. 109, No. 134.

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50 Ippen, , op. cit., p. 369.Google Scholar 61 It is a customary code attributed to Lek III Dukagjini, who lived in the fifteenth century.

51 It is a customary code attributed to Lek III Dukagjini, who lived in the fifteenth century.

52 Cf. Sht. K. Gjecov, Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit (Code of Lekë Dukagjini) (Shkodër, 1933), p. xxix; F. Cordignano, L'Albania a traverso Vopera e gli scritti di un grande missionario italiano il P. Domenico Pasi S. J. (1847-1914) (Rome, 1933), I, 390,448.

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54 Sir H. Drummond Wolff, Fitzmaurice's predecessor to the Eastern Roumelian Commission, considered the administrative reforms of Turkey “a sham French centralization” and the system of Prefects and Sub-Prefects “open to very considerable criticism” even in France. Cf. Drummond to Granville, May 4, 1880, in Accounts and Papers, 1880, Vol. 81, Turkey No. 15 (1880), No. 3.

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