European politics after 1871

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, in the following decades, European politics were marked by a period of intense armament, which would finally lead to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. In the meantime, several international crises broke out both in Europe and in its overseas colonies, which could have led Europe to the Great War even before the summer of 1914.

First of all, the danger of a new Franco-German war loomed over Europe because France was striving towards a revanchist policy towards a united Germany, and the question of the territories of Alsace and Lorraine was crucial in that context. Namely, with these two provinces that belonged to Germany in 1871, France lost its two most developed economic areas. The population of both these areas demanded to be returned to France, although their mother tongue was German, but they displayed a French national consciousness.

The second and even more dangerous crisis point in Europe was represented by the Balkans, i.e., its Ottoman provinces inhabited by Christian populations who, in many cases, lived mixed with local Muslims. While Christians strove for national liberation and separation from the Ottoman Empire, local Muslims, regardless of ethnolinguistic affiliation, strove to preserve the Ottoman Empire as their national state. This was especially pronounced in the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Muslim Albanians in Albania and the surrounding countries.

The decline of Ottoman power and authority and the striving of the Balkan Christian peoples towards liberation from the centuries-old Turkish-Muslim rule raised the question of the fate of Ottoman possessions in Europe, i.e., in the Balkans. All major European powers fought for influence in the Balkans (including the UK, which traditionally was preoccupied with its overseas colonial possessions), but with different goals. Only Russia supported the idea of ??forming national states of Christian peoples in the Balkans instead of the Ottoman Empire, which in that case would lose all its European possessions.

The first major crisis in the Balkans broke out in 1875-1878 with a major Christian uprising in Herzegovina, which soon spread to Bosnia and Bulgaria. After the unsuccessful military intervention of Serbia in 1876-1877 against the Ottoman Empire, which supported the Serbian insurgents in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1877 Russia entered the war on the side of the Balkan insurgents and Serbia, and in 1878 broke the Turkish resistance on the Danube and in northern Bulgaria, and thus opened the way to Istanbul. [1]

The “San Stefano Bulgaria”

After the Russian military victory over the Ottoman Empire in the 1877-1878 Russo-Ottoman War, the San Stefano Treaty was signed between these two states on March 03, 1878. According to the treaty, a Greater “San Stefano” Bulgaria, under the direct protection of Russia, had to be established within the borders of the Ottoman Empire (as a state within a state). However, an idea of “San Stefano Bulgaria” directly affected three Balkan nations: the Serbs, Greeks, and Albanians, as some of their ethnic and historical territories had to become parts of a Greater Bulgaria under the Russian protection.

The “San Stefano Bulgaria” was projected by the Russian authorities to cover territory from the Danube River to the Aegean Sea and from the present-day Albania to the Black Sea, including all of geographic-historical Macedonia, the present-day East Serbia, and the present-day Southeast Albania. As a result, the Albanian nation living in present-day Southeast Albania and West Macedonia would become part of a Greater Bulgaria that would be governed by the Russian authorities.[2]

Both the 1878 San Stefano Treaty and the 1878 Berlin Congress conceived parts of the Albanian-populated Balkan territories to be given to the other Balkan states according to the principle of ethnic and historical rights. This does not mean that the ethnic Albanians have been the majority in these territories, and that was the reason why either Russia or Europe delivered them to the Albanian neighbours. The remaining Albanian ethnic space (in which ethnic Albanians were the clear majority of the population) would be within the borders of the Ottoman Empire but without any “special status”, i.e., autonomous rights and ethno-political privileges.

The Ottoman government was too feeble to protect the Albanian-populated territories that had more than 80% the Muslim population, which showed a high degree of political and ideological loyalty towards the Sultan and the Sublime Porte in Istanbul. Nevertheless, the decisions of the 1878 San Stefano Treaty resulted in the organization of the Albanian self-defense system by their (Muslim) political leadership, which considered an autonomous status of Albania, similar to the status of Serbia, Moldavia, and Wallachia, as the only guarantee for a justifiable administration over the Albanians in the future. 

1878 San Stefano Treaty and remapping of Ottoman Balkans

The San Stefano Treaty accorded to the Slavic Bulgaria portions of the following Albanian-settled lands: the district of Korçë and the Debar area. By the same treaty, Montenegro was granted several municipalities in present-day North Albania and the areas of Bar and Ulcinj (today in Montenegro). The border between Ottoman Albania and Montenegro was fixed on the Bojana River and Scodra Lake (up to this day). Nevertheless, an official representative of the Principality of Montenegro, Radonjic, required in Adrianople (Edirne) that the city of Scodra be included in enlarged Montenegro.[3]

However, what was exactly regarded at that time as Albania, and the Albanians as an ethnic identity, was not clear to anyone in Europe. The main reason was that the official Ottoman censuses became quite an unreliable source to fix such problems because they were based on religious identity than on strict ethno-national (ethno-linguistic) basis. Thus, all Ottoman Islamic population, whether Albanians, Bosnians, or Turks, were classified as one category – Muslims (as the nation of Allah). National/ethnic differences were not marked in the Ottoman censuses; only religious affiliation was taken into consideration (confessional “millet” system).

Nevertheless, despite the lack of official statistics, it is possible to reconstruct the dispersion of Albanian ethnicity at that time by using other historical sources. One of such source is a report to the Austro-Hungarian authorities about the northern boundaries of the Albanian language written by the Austro-Hungarian consul F. Lippich in mid-1877 during the Great Eastern Crisis and the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878. According to this report, the northern linguistic border of the Albanians runs from the city of Bar on the Montenegrin Adriatic littoral towards the Scodra Lake, then through two Montenegrin regions of Kolašin and Vasojevics, after that towards the Ibar River and the city of Novi Pazar in Sanjak (Raška) up to the area of the South Morava River at present-day Serbia. The Albanian linguistic borderland was fixed on the East and South-East of Ochrid Lake, the cities of Bitola (Monastir) and Debar, and the upper Vardar River.[4]

In many of these areas, the Albanian language was spoken together with Slavonic languages as they are today – the Serbian, Montenegrin, and Macedonian. Second, in the majority of these “borderlands of spoken Albanian language”, the linguistic Albanians did not compose the ethnic majority, as for instance, with the historical region of Kosovo and Metochia where at that time the ethnolinguistic Serbs still were in an arithmetic majority of the population.

Nevertheless, the 1878 San Stefano Treaty provoked Albanian nationalism and forged the Albanian national renaissance movement. A germ of the Albanian national movement was growing from the 1840s to the time of the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875-1878, when the first demands for the establishment of Albanian-language schools and preservation of the national language were requested by Albanian public workers in the Ottoman Empire (Naum Panajot Bredi, Engel Mashi, Josiph Kripsi, John Skiroj, Hieronim de Rada, Vincenzo Dorsa, etc).

The Albanian national renaissance received a new impetus during the Balkan crisis of 1862 during a new Montenegrin-Ottoman war, when several members of the so-called “Scodra group” (Zef Ljubani, Pashko Vasa, and others) propagated the uprising of the North Albanian tribes in the Mirditë region against Montenegrin territorial pretensions on the Albanian-populated areas. They opposed the Ottoman authorities as they relied on the support of the French Emperor Napoleon III (1852-1870). In case of a successful rebellion, the independent and united principality of Albania would be created in the Balkans. It would include all Albanian-populated territories in the Balkans, even those in which the linguistic Albanians were the ethnic minority.

The main Albanian ideologist was Zef Jubani, born in Scutari in 1818, who claimed that the Albanian population had already become a nation at that time.[5] His primary political goal was the creation of an autonomous, united province of Albania within the Ottoman Empire. Others, like Thimi Mitko and Spiro Dineja, favoured Albania’s separation from the Ottoman Empire and creation of a dual Albanian-Greek confederation state similar to Austria-Hungary (since 1867).

During the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875-1878, the Albanian uprising in Mirditë in 1876-1877, led by Albanian patriots from Scodra, had as its ultimate political goal the creation of an autonomous Albania in the Ottoman Empire. The leaders of the uprising visited the Montenegrin court for financial support from the Montenegrin Prince Nikola I (1860-1910; King 1910-1918). Such support was promised to the leader of the Albanian delegation, Preng Dochi. The Montenegrin Prince stated on this occasion that Montenegro does not have any territorial aspirations towards the “Albanian” territories (whatever that meant at that moment). The Russian diplomat in Scodra, Ivan Jastrebov, pointed out that Europe faced the “Albanian Question”.

During the Great Eastern Crisis, the Albanian tribal chieftains from South Albania and North Epirus under the presidency of a prominent Muslim Albanian feudal lord Abdul-beg Frashëri convoked in 1877 a national meeting in the city of Jannina (Ioannina) and asked the Sublime Porte in Istanbul to recognize a separate Albanian nationality and give them a right to form an autonomous Albanian province (vilayet) within the Ottoman Empire. They required, in addition, that all officials in such Albanian vilayet should be of Albanian ethnic origin (but only the Muslims), Albanian-language schools be opened, and finally, Albanian-language courts be created. The memorandum with such demands was sent to the Sublime Porte, but this supreme Ottoman governmental institution refused to meet any of these Albanian demands.

Endnotes:

1] Mitchel Beazley (ed.), Ilustrovana enciklopedija Istorija, Vol. 2, 1984, 190 (original title: The Joy of Knowledge Encyclopaedia, 1976).

2] Parliamentary Papers, series “Accounts and Papers”, Vol. LXXXIII, Turkey, ? 22, London, 1878, 10. 

3] “Article ? 1” of the San Stefano Peace Treaty in Parliamentary Papers, series “Accounts and Papers”, Vol. LXXXIII, Turkey, ? 22, London, 1878, 9-10; Sumner B. H., Russia and the Balkans, 1870-1880, Oxford, 1937, 410-415.

4] Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Politisches Archiv, XII/256, Türkei IV, Lippich F., “Denkschrift über Albanien”, Wien, June 20th, 1877, 8-9.

5] According to M. Jevtic, the Albanians have not been formed as a nation in a modern European sense of the meaning of the term at that time or they are not a nation even today as the main framework of the Albanian national identity was and is primarily Islam – a religion which does not recognize existence of any ethno-linguistic identity among the Muslims who are considered to be one (confessional) “nation” [?????? ?., ???????? ?????? ? ????????, ???????: ?????? ?? ?????????? ???????? ? ?????? ???????????, 2011; ?????? ?., „???????? ??????? ????????? ???????????? ? ???????? ??????? ????”, ?????????? ????????, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2013, 238]. On the Islamic tradition and political doctrine, see in [Itzkowitz N., Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition, Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980].

(To be concluded…)