Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

17

Djordje MIKI

OTTOMAN AND ALBANIAN VIOLENCE AGAINST

THE SERBS OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
Abstract: The Ottoman and Islamic reign resting on the law of
discrimination and absolutist rule, left its most drastic effects on the Serbs of
Kosovo and Metohija. The power of the Albanian penetration from
mountainous northern Albania into the pastoral plains and valleys of
Metohija, whether individual or in large groups, rested on their significant
degree of Islamization, which took place as early as the 16th and especially
during the 17th century, leading either to Serb emigration or to their
Islamization and Albanization.
The initial impulse of the great Albanian migration lay in the economic
hardship of the Albanians living in the rocky and infertile slopes of central
and northern Albania. This Albanian migration, founded on Islamization and
the specific model of Ottoman military political expansion, resulted in the
mass Albanian colonization of Kosovo and Metohija. The fact that the
Serbian liberation movements took the side of the Christian powers resulted
not only in the Albanian settlement of the Serbian ethnic spaces but also in
the Albanians acquiring the status of ruling and privileged class relative to the
disfranchised Christian raya. In this way, the Albanian Muslim newcomers
became, through political rather than economic reasons, the main and the
harshest tool of Turkeys repressive policy in the wake of the Serbian
liberation wars at the beginning of the 19th century. Thus, each liberation
movement among the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija inevitably turned into a
clash with the Albanians.
Amidst the increasing Ottoman powerlessness to defend the integrity of
the empire, the Albanians sought new ways to defend against the renewal of
the Balkan states, as well to form an independent and autonomous Albania,
on the foundations of the previous ethnic changes and conquests at the
expense of the Balkan Christians, which extended far beyond the boundaries
that the Albanian migration process had in fact reached. With that aim in
mind, with the benevolent tolerance of the Turkish authorities, from the

Djordje Miki

18

highest to the lowest levels, the Albanians went on a centuries-long rampage,

filled with scores of killings, assaults, pillage, banditry, church and cemetery
desecrations, and kidnappings of Serbian women and young maids, even girls.
Left behind is a substantial, sorry historical legacy, recorded and described by
many foreign European authors and travel writers, Serbian consuls, scholars
and contemporaries. This sad state of affairs was ended by the Balkan War of
1912 and the liberation of Kosovo from centuries-long Turkish rule.
Key words: Kosovo and Metohija, Albanization of the Serbs, Islamization of
the Christians, Ottoman empire, Balkan War of 1912, Serbian liberation of
Kosovo from centuries-long Ottoman rule.

Through the centuries of Ottoman bondage, Kosovo and Metohija

carried the great burden of the survival, trials and sufferings of the Serbian
people. In taking Kosovo, Ottoman force endangered the Serbs freedom,
muted their spoken word and song, assaulted their cities and villages,
monasteries and churches the holies and beacons of enlightenment and
faith. In introducing its own rule and the faith of martial Islam, Ottoman
policy enforced its own order and regime on the Serbs of Kosovo and
Metohija and on the Albanian herdsmen in the hills of todays Albania.
However, the Albanian nomads easily crossed from Christianity to Islam and
descended from their hills into the plains of Metohija and Kosovo, exchanging
their faith for new pastures, in accordance with need and personal benefit.
As Islamized soldiers, the Albanians became the favorites of Ottoman
Islam, which gave them high positions and privileges, as reward for loyalty to
the Ottoman authority and for violence against the Christian raya (non-Muslim subjects, of inferior status), especially the Serbs. Not only did the
Albanians join in the Ottoman violence against the Serbs, they became its
main vehicles a whip in the hands of the Ottoman emperor. Becoming
oppressors and aggressors, the Islamized Albanians seized from the
indigenous Serbs their lands and property, turned their churches into mosques,
Albanized the Serbian people, assaulted their dignity and honor. It can be said
that the Ottoman policy, resting on the Islamization and colonization of the
Albanians, and wars against the Christian powers, the restive Serbs and the
Catholic Albanian tribes, was to settle Islamized Albanians in Kosovo, the
center of medieval Serbia and the place of their initial clash with the Serbs,
while expelling or Islamizing the indigenous Serb landholders.
Historical records, both Turkish and Serbian, in the first place rulers
charters and monastery documents, mention only small numbers of Albanian
herdsmen on highland and summer pastures of Kosovo and Metohija at the
time of the Serbian medieval state and the beginning of Ottoman rule.1 All

T. Vukanovi, Srbi na Kosovu I (The Serbs in Kosovo I), Vranje 1986, 155162.

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

19

who came subsequently were either newcomers or Albanized Serbs, the socalled Arnautai. The newcomers unjustly cultivated a tradition and
consciousness by which Kosovo was their perpetual holding, to which the
Serbs lost rights after the Battle of Kosovo. In 1896, the following exchange
took place between Jovan Hadi Vasiljevi and an Albanian on a train from
Skoplje to Mitrovica: See this field [said the Albanian], showing the Kosovo
field with his hand, we and you fought together here once upon a time, and
thats where you dropped the banner, which we took over and heroically carried
forth, adding that the banner was dropped by Milo Obili and picked up by
Skender-beg, and that this story was passed on to the Krasniqi clan by their
grandfathers and great-grandfathers.2 Reviewing the history of Kosovo and
Metohija in the 19th century and the changes that took place after the Battle of
Kosovo, Ivan Yastrebov, Russian consul and scholar, said the following in a
conversation with Panto Srekovi in 1873: The Serbs lost the Kingdom in
Kosovo, and it is in Kosovo that a decisive battle shall decide the future of the
Balkan peninsula and the future of the Serbian people.3
The Ottoman and Albanian Muslim system of violence over Christians
rested on the religious and social order of the Ottoman Empire. Being, in the
first place, an Islamic state, with a strict religious hierarchy and class order, it
divided its subjects into two categories: Muslims (the right believers) and
infidels (mainly Christians). By this division, Muslim citizens had all the
rights, while non-Muslims were second-class citizens.4
This division did not secure identical treatment to the Christians in
Albania and medieval Serbia. Although classified into raya, the Christians in
Albania, especially in the mountains north, with its dominant patriarchal-tribal (fis) society, retained loose ties to Ottoman feudalism and its authority.
The Christian in Kosovo and Metohija, with a once-developed feudal society
that was destroyed along with the state, excepting some leftover lower feudal
structures, regardless of whether they had remained Christian or became
Islamized, were firmly incorporated into Ottoman feudalism.5 These differing

2 . -, ( )
(18781882) (J. Hadi-Vasiljevi, The Albanian League /Arnaut Kongra/ and the
Serbian People in the Turkish Empire /18781882/), Belgrade 1909, 2223.
3 . . , (I. S. Yastrebov, Old Serbia and Albania),
, XLI, II (Serbian Royal Academy Historical Publication, XLI, II
class), Belgrade 1904, V.
4 . ,
1829. 1856. (V. Stojanevi, South Slavic Peoples in the Ottoman
Empire from the Peace of Adrianople in 1829 to the Paris Congress in 1856), Belgrade 1971, 70.
5 . , : XVII (R. Trikovi,
Toward the Hardest Trials: the 17th Century), in
(Kosovo and Metohija in Serbian History), Belgrade 1989, 119.

Djordje Miki

20

circumstances under the same Ottoman brutality did not lead to an equal
level of Islamization and to the equal social position of Albanians and Serbs
under the Ottomans. The feudalized Albanians, according to Sali-bey
Frasheri, began accepting the Turkish faith and becoming Mohammedans
before they came under Ottoman rule, with Islam subsequently spreading
according to the principle: The faith follows the sword.6 According to
Jovan Radoni, the influence of Islam in Albania strengthened in the time
after Skender-beg.7 According to a Catholic legate, the Islamization of
Albanians was strong between 1620 and 1650, when more than 300,000
Albanians converted.8 Differently from Albania, the Christian raya in Kosovo
and Metohija, as a protected raya, with its old estate owners (spahi) and
old timarnici (holders, of timars, i.e., lands or revenues granted by the
sultan in exchange for services) who gradually disappeared from the social
scene during the 16th century as a result of the atomization of timar holdings,
did not Islamize to a significant degree.9 This is confirmed by the Turkish
defters (cadastral tax census books) from the end of the 15th century and the
1630s. According to Omer Lifta Barkan, there was not a single Muslim in the
Dukadjin sanjak (Turkish province) around 1630. Not counting the cities,
Atanasije Uroevi says that concentrated groupings of Muslim households
numbering about 250 could be found only in Metohija (near Pe) and in the
Lab region.10
Ottoman violence against Orthodox Christians in Kosovo and
Metohija and the Albanian tribes was especially pronounced during the time
of Sultan Selim II (15661574). As the state began to weaken and the crisis
of its feudal order grew, the Islamized Albanians in Metohija also began to
take part in the violence. The state crisis began after the defeat of the

. , -
(Serbian-Albanian Relations through the Centuries with a Particular Look at the Newer Era),
Himmelstier 1983, Second Revised Edition, 63.
7 . , XV (J. Radoni, George
Kastriot Skenderbeg and Albania in the XV Century), (Serbian Academy of
Sciences Historical Publication), 95, Belgrade 1942, 5.
8 . , , (M. Ekmei, Historiography
Only According to the Mantle) in, .
(Response to Noel Malcolms Book, Kosovo A Brief History), Belgrade 2000, 36.
9 . , (O. Zirojevi, The First Centuries
of Foreign Rule) in (Kosovo and Metohija in Serbian
History), Belgrade 1989, 4767.
10 . ,
XVI (A. Uroevi, The Population of the Balkan Peninsula in the First Half of the
XVI Century), in , . 4 (Works of the Ethnographic
Museum, book 4), Belgrade 1962, 130, 134.
6

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

21

Ottoman navy in 1571 at Lepant, which strengthened the role of Albanians

in Constantinople as well as in Old Serbia, although they had never previously
stood out in any way in the Ottoman military. Previously, the Ottomans had
prevented larger crossings of Albanians, who were mostly herdsmen, to
Kosovo and Metohija, the main granary for Ottoman military operations.
With the coming of crises and shifts in Kosovo and Metohijas agriculture
from grain farming to livestock farming came the era of Albanian influx,
although Albanian farmers in Kosovo and Metohija were still few in number
as late as the end of the 16th century.11
The more intense Albanian colonization of Metohija and Kosovo
during the time of Sultan Selim II was preceded by the appearance of more
powerful Islamized feudal lords, but also of bandits. A written record from
1574 gives the following account: And there came a great pogrom from the
Arnauts (Albanians), especially the Mahmud-begovies in Pe, the Ivanbegovies (Turkicized Buatlijas) in Skadar, the Sinan-pai Rotulovies in
Prizren, the Elasu-paies in Djakovica; two thousand Christians around this
town cut down. Woe to us, oh God, look down from the heavens and deliver
your flock.12 Even earlier, violence and banditry over Orthodox Christians
was waged by Kukli-bey, a feudal lord in Opolje, near Prizren (died in 1537).
He forced the local Serbs to either Islamize or emigrate, which is why he
came to be known as infamous among the folk.13 Raids by Albanian
bandits and robbers were recorded during the 1570s and 1580s in the vicinity
of Prizren, Djakovica and Pe, as well as in the Kaanik canyon (Kaanika
klisura) in Metohija. Here, the French envoy at the Porte, Phillippe Differin-Cannais, recorded how the bandits killed five qadi (Muslim judges) with
their entire escort.14 Some time later, bandits also appeared in the Pritina
qadiluk (judicial district), waging terror mainly over the raya and travelers.

11 . ,
(B. Hrabak, The Expansion of Albanian Herdsmen
over the Plains and the Slavic Farmers of Medieval Albania) in , . I
(Albanian Studies, book I), Belgrade 2005, 4546; . ,
(On Albanians in Old Serbia and in Sanjak), Belgrade 1913, 13.
12 . , , . I, . 876 (Lj. Stojanovi, Old
Serbian Manuscripts and Inscriptions, book I, no. 876), Belgrade 1983, 252.
13 . . , (I.S.
Yastrebov, Facts for the History of the Serbian Church from a Travel Journal), Belgrade 1879,
110; . . , (M. S. Lutovac, Gora and Opolje), Belgrade 1955, 262.
14 . , , XVIXVII
(R. Samardi, Belgrade and Serbia in the Writings of French Contemporaries, XVIXVII
Century), Belgrade 1961, 129130.

Djordje Miki

22

The Albanian influx and violence against the Serbs in Metohija and
Kosovo was predicated on the wars of the Christian powers and the uprisings
of the Christian raya against the Ottomans. With the Austro-Turkish war of
15931606, and the Serbian uprising under Patriarch Jovan around Prizren
and Pe in 1594, Turkey began to readily receive and settle Albanians from
the nearby mountains into the rebellious areas.15 They gave them a free hand
to pillage and plunder. In their increased repression against the raya, the
Ottoman authority increasingly turned to and made use of Albanian
Muslims.16 By this time (1598), Lazar Soranci could state explicitly that the
Albanians should not be counted on in insurrection, as they are all for the
Turkish state.17 After the Polish victory over the Ottomans in 163134, the
brunt of the terror was borne by the Catholics, both Serb and Albanian,
especially in the Prizren nahiya (Turkish district) and in Metohija, which were
Islamized by force; the turn of the Orthodox came during the liberation
campaign of 16301656, when a part of them fled, while another was
Islamized. In this way, while the Albanians in Kosovo and in Metohija were
still few in number during the 16th and 17th centuries, Islam became the
factor of force that imposed Albanian power on the raya, compelling it to
either subjugation, Islamization or flight. To the incoming and Islamized
Albanians, violence and pillage brought power and riches. These riches also
lay in the land grabbed in Metohija, which the Albanian highland tribes,
amidst their struggles against the Skadar and Dukadjin pashas and the blood
that fell between them, increasingly rushed in an organized manner, not only
to loot but also to settle the land worked by Orthodox Christians.18 As this
immigration and Islamization of Catholic Albanians at the end of the 16th
and the beginning of the 18th centuries overwhelmed and filled up all of
Serbia, a contemporary Catholic bishop wrote that the Albaniansare the
people (race) that multiplies the most rapidly and which is massively settling
Kosovo. He called for prayers in Catholic churches19
In some parts, the Ottoman authorities lost control over the Albanian
tribes as early as the beginning of the 17th century. The Archbishop of Bar,

15

1989, 27.

. , (R. Savi, Albanians on Serbian Soil), Belgrade

. . , op. cit., 15.

. , op. cit., 35.
18 . , , ,
XIII (M. Filipovi, Chaos Under the Patrik, Scholarly Society of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Works XIII) Sarajevo 1958, 21; . , op. cit. 119; . ,
op. cit., 84.
19 . , op. cit. 30.
16
17

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

23

Djordje Bjanki, writes in 1638 that the sanjak-bey of Skadar, Mehmed-bey,

from the Albanian gens Suma or Begony, had created such a state of
insecurity serving as his father-in-laws deputy in the Dukadjin sanjak, that no
one dared take up tax collecting concessions there.20
During the Austro-Turkish wars of 168990 and 173739, and Serbian
uprisings joined by a smaller number of Albanian Catholics, the Ottomans
used the Islamized Albanians in a twofold manner: for the destruction of the
Christian movement and its power base the raya, and for the spread of
Islam. Both the wars and the raya uprisings led to Serbian migrations to the
Habsburg monarchy, better known as the First and Second Great Serbian
Migrations (the second included a certain number of Albanians), as well as to
a corresponding influx of Albanians into Old Serbia. During the first war and
the Serbian uprising that accompanied it, it seemed as though there existed
some plan for the destruction of Serbs and the settlement of Albanians.
The leader of the punitive expedition, Mahmud-pasha Hasanbegovi, an
Albanian, ravaged the Patriarchate, devastated Janjevo, and turned villages
into infernos, while sparing the deserted cities and settling them with the
Albanians who had come with the Ottoman army to spend the winter.
To the Albanian Klimenti tribe that immigrated into the Vuitrn region
and Islamized, the Porte granted the deserted Serbian lands, so that they
could apply the law of the stronger against the natives. After the war and
the migration of 1739, the Ottomans, joined by the large masses of Islamized
Albanians, took retribution against the Serbs who had remained behind in
Old Serbia and the Hills, but also against those who had withdrawn with the
Austrian army, burning and looting their territories. In the petitions of the
Serbs and some of the Turks that stayed behind, it was said that the Albanian
newcomers terrorized the people, stole cattle, assaulted wives and daughters,
and forced the raya to leave their hearths and flee to other territories, after
which they took possession of their homes and lands.21
Between the two Serbian migrations, the Albanians made a migrational
shift of 200 kilometers from their ethnic base into the Serbian lands, while
the Serbs either emigrated or were Islamized.22 Sreten Vukosavljevi sees the
Albanian population shifts and their takeover of both deserted and still-occupied Serbian holdings in the light of the advantages they had over the

20 . , XVI XIX (J. Radoni, The

Roman Curia and the South Slavic Lands from the XVI to the XIX Century), Belgrade 1950, 101.
21 . , op. cit., 134135, 144, 164; . , op. cit., 9899.
22 . . , , , 3, . 34 (R.T. Nikoli, The Albanian Expansion into Serbian Lands, Gazette of the
Serbian Geographical Society, 3, booklet 34), Belgrade 1914, 110111, 125126.

Djordje Miki

24

Serbs: their conversion to Islam (equalization with the Turkish conqueror),

their reliance on blood organizations (gens, brotherhood, tribe, fis), their
pastoral economy (expansionist mobility) which could sustain long periods of
sparse i.e., pastoral settlement, and their settling of land already
ordered, i.e., brought to cultivation. He also underlines the difference in the
relationship toward the raya between the Turkish and Albanian newcomers:
The Turk needs the raya to work for him; he does not need land. The Albanian wants to raise cattle and till the land himself. He needs the land and the
raya is in his way. That is why he forces it out or destroys it. He does not seek
to Islamize it. And when it does Islamize, it is in order to get the protection
of the authorities from the Albanians. Vukosavljevi emphasizes that the
Albanians first occupied villages in mountain areas, forming new migrational
bases from which they would then continue their spread into the surrounding
villages, first in the mountains, then in the plains. Their immigration did not
bring about population increase because the Serb element left in greater numbers than those in which the Albanians came. The Albanians always kept the
regions they settled sparsely populated, while continuing their gradual move
forward, to the end23 In their shifts from their ethnic motherland, the
Albanians mostly used transversal communications. The paths were chosen by
herds of sheep, not by people, moving first over mountain regions by way of
existing communications, water holes and Serbian pastoral settlements, and
then descending into the plains.24 The fact that the Serbs were compelled to
forced migration by the Albanians, a subjugated people, and not by the Turkish
conquerors, Vojislav Radovanovi explains by the fact that, having accepted the
ideology of the ruling nation, the Albanian also gained privileges that secured
them superior status, enabling them, in their organized movements, which took
the form of metanostasic streams, to penetrate the other ethnic group as the
stronger party, and slowly push it out of the affected areas, house by house,
village by village.25
In both Metohija and Kosovo, only Islamized Albanians could secure
advantage over the Serbian raya. Wherever the fis organization of the folk
was preserved and sanctioned, such as in Malesia and Mirdita,26 Islamization

. , I (S. Vukosavljevi, The History of

Peasant Society I), Belgrade 1953, 4548.
24 . , , . I (M. Ekmei, The Creation of Yugoslavia,
book I), Belgrade 1989, 316.
25 . . , I (V.S. Radovanovi, General
Anthropogeography I), Belgrade 1959, 172.
26 On these organizations internal order, see: . ,
XVIII (B. Hrabak, Albania from the Final Fall
under Turkish Rule to the End of the XVIII Century), in a , . I
(Albanian Studies, book I), Belgrade 2005, 308.
23

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

25

had very little success (among the Malisori) or was totally unsuccessful
(among the Mirditans). Their fis organization ensured the preservation of
their old social and folk (ethnic) order, retaining many of the autonomous
rights and distinctions characteristic of Albanian national institutions. In the
Dukadjin mountain areas, conversion to Islam meant freedom from paying
taxes, military duty and, especially, the taxes on small livestock the agnam
and the chibuk. In parts where feudalization had already taken root, with their
changed social relations and abolished ancient autonomous rights,
Islamization spread among the Albanian peasants as a way of easing their
legal-agrarian obligations. In the feudalized parts of Metohija and Kosovo, it
was necessary. Soon upon their arrival, coming under the Turkicized feudal
lords and mixing with their already Islamized compatriots, the Albanians
from Malesia and Mirdita would convert to Islam. In the way they settled the
land, they were even more expansionistic than their predecessors.27
The Islamized Albanians settled the abandoned and usurped Serbian
lands as conquerors and the Sultans cutthroats against the rebellious raya.28
At the beginning of the 18th century, the Porte advised Tahir-pasha
Mahmudbegovi in Pe to cut off all food supplies to the Klimenti, who,
perched in their home highlands, were absolutely refusing submission,
explaining that, when compelled by hunger, they would descend to the
plains themselves and thereby accept certain obligations. As to what these
obligations were is illustrated by the example of the Gashi tribe, recently
arrived to the vicinity of Pe, which immediately began to pillage both the
city and the surrounding areas. And, excepting the Serbs, no one paid any
heed to Mahmudbegovis tax collecting efforts for the imperial treasury. In
Novo Brdo, the supposed dispensers of justice imposed their own taxes,
seized cattle, violated the rayas households and committed scores of
crimes.29 The Albanian tribes even fought between themselves. Deacon Jovan
of Deani monastery wrote the following in 1756: The accursed Arnauts
started fighting among themselves, the monasterys vojvoda (commander of
the guards) was killed, the monastery is greatly taxed and there has been great
poverty during this time and many Arnauts have met their death30
Describing Muslim Albanian behavior toward the Christians, Bishop Petar

27 . , 18041912 (V. Stojanevi, Serbs and Albanians 18041912), Novi Sad 1994, 1015.
28 . , op. cit., 117.
29 . , , XVIII (R. Trikovi,
Uprisings, Migrations and Sufferings in the XVIII Century), in
(Kosovo and Metohija in Serbian History), Belgrade 1989, 146147.
30 18701900 (Letters of Serbian Consuls from
Pritina), Belgrade 1985, 12, (edited by Branko Perunii).

Djordje Miki

26

Masarek wrote in 1764 that they were especially dangerous because they are
Turks and can commit any evil they like.31 Apart from emigrating in order to
save their lives and property, the Kosovo and Metohija Serbs had no other
choice but to Islamize. After the abolition of the Pe Patriarchate in 1766,
Serb Islamization became more frequent. On the national-political level, the
abolition of the Patriarchate was a second Serbian Kosovo, which, besides
national-political bondage, brought the Serbian people church-spiritual
bondage to the Greek Phanariot bishops. The Islamized Serbs among the
Turks, having accepted the religion of the ruling nation, also accepted the
Turkish state idea. Over time, regardless of the degree of Albanian presence,
they drew closer to the Albanians through language and marriage, turning
into so-called Arnautai.32
Following the final Austro-Turkish war at the end of the 18th century,
as reward for wartime service, the Porte distributed not only honors and titles
but also turned the administration in Old Serbia over to the old pasha houses:
the Buatlijas in Skadar, the Rotuli (Rotulovies) in Prizren, the Begoli
(Mahmudbegovies) in Pe, the Kruezijas (Crnojevies) in Djakovica, who, in
turn, laid the foundations for the Islamization and Albanization of Metohija.
In Kosovo, Islamization and Albanization processes were strengthened by
bringing the Islamized Jinoglus (Dinies) from the Krasniqi fis in Ljima to a
visible position in the administration of the Pritina sanjak.33 Amidst the
disintegration and decay of the old regulations and institutions, anarchy
increased throughout Kosovo and Metohija. Turkish pashas and beys in Old
Serbia, mostly of Albanian descent or making themselves out as such
raised their own troops and organized their own pillaging raids, while
allowing the same to the Albanian tribes that were coming down from the
barren hills, not only into Metohija and Kosovo but also into the Morava and
Ibar river valleys. At the same time, after a long crisis of the feudal land
system the timar-spahia (fief) system the so-called ayans (local lords) and
Albanian pashas usurped feudal rights for themselves and introduced chitluk-sahib (renter-tenant) relationships. They turned the spahia-raya holdings into
their own chifluks (feudal land holdings) and the raya into chifchi (landless
tenant-farmers), thus doubling their burdens and making them personally
dependent.34

. , , 646, 648.
. , op. cit., 134135, 141.
33 . , 18041876 (V.
Stojanevi, The Renewed Serbian State and the Albanians 18041876), in
..., 1011.
34 . , , ..., 144, 164165.
31
32

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

27

Even though the introduction of chifluks in the Ottoman empire as

early as the 17th century was the price of progress in the modernization of
agriculture, but also in social oppression,35 Ottoman policy toward the
Albanians did not change. For as Vuk Vinaver writes: through this policy, the
Islamized portion of the Albanians became a part of the ruling class and,
with their military conservative force, were preventing the states more
rapid disintegration even as they participated in it, wanting nothing more
than no one elses authority anywhere near their sheep and chifchi, and weak
authority in parts they aimed to pillage next.36 Watching the weakening of
Ottoman authority in the provinces starting with the beginning of the 17th
century, the Islamization of the majority of Albanians by around 1600, the
Albanian shepherd warriors and their increased influx from northern Albania
beginning with the 17th century, German observer Georg Stadtmuller saw in
these processes the subjugation and transformation of the ancient Serbian
regions of Old Serbia and western Macedonia into Albanian soil, carrying the
mark of Albania.37 However, despite the Albanian colonization and
Islamization, Catholic papal inspectors, starting with Marin Bitzi in 1610, and
all the way up to the end of the 18th century, continued to identify the ethnic
border between Albanians and Serbs along its earliest defined line the Crni
Drim and Beli Drim rivers with pockets jutting out into both sides.38
In their battles against the Serbian insurgents during the First Serbian
Uprising, their resistance against a restored Serbia, their participation in the
war against Russia, in their rejection of reforms made by the Turkish sultans
the Albanians were defending not only the Ottoman Empire but also their
own privileged position and lawlessness, for which they did not answer to
anyone, because in a teetering state an element such as they was necessary.39
As they fought against the Serbian insurgents and defended against their
penetration into Kosovo, Ibrahim-pasha Bushatlija, Numan-pasha of Pe,
Mali-pasha of Pritina, and Mahmud-pasha of Prizren used the occasion to
strengthen and expand their authority and increase their wealth through
usurpation and pillage, with Islamic religious reasons serving as the
ideological motive, while the struggle for land was the true one.
In the course of the uprising, Mali-pasha moved the Serb chifchis out
of the northern parts of the Lab basin and moved Albanians in. His cousins

35..

, ..., 36
. , XVIII (V. Vinaver, Dubrovnik and Turkey
in the XVIII Century), Belgrade 1966, 32, 34.
37 According to . , op. cit., 97, 110.
38 . , op. cit., 9798, 101.
39 . , op. cit., 105; . . , , 13.
36

Djordje Miki

28

in Gnjilane robbed travelers, killed merchants and burned forests all the way
up to Pritina and Novo Brdo. Passing through these parts in 1807,
Frenchman Henry Pouqueville wrote the following about Mali-pasha: It
didnt seem to me appropriate to visit this Albanian, a sworn mortal enemy
of Christians. His nephew, Yashar-pasha of Pritina, was even more
merciless toward Serbs. He persecuted them without mercy, destroyed their
land, ravaged their villages, forced them to convert, and confiscated church
and monastery lands. In place of the Serbs expelled from the border regions
he settled Albanians from Malesia, Metohija and the vicinity of Skadar.
The Serb position in Old Serbia could not be improved even by the
planned reforms of the sultan-reformers in the first half of the 19th century,
with which the Porte sought to modernize and centralize the administration
and protect the Christian raya. The independent Albanian pashas did not just
resist the reforms that called for the abolishing of tribal autonomies, Albanian disarmament and service in the regular army, their acceptance of
modern jurisprudence instead of the customary law of Leka Dukadjin, and
recognition of the central authority, all of which cut deeply into Albanian
feudal and tribal relations: they demanded the retention of everything old
that secured their privileges and gave them a free hand in dealing with the
Christian tribes, which they brutally exploited, being freed of all state levies.
Many Albanian outlaws took advantage of the era of the independent pashas.
Each Mohammedan, if he wished it, could kill any Serb without any consequences as long as he sought the protection of a Muslim temple, mosque or
tekiye. Even Sharia law was not respected in regard to the Christian raya.
After the abolition of the janissary order in 1826, the intra-Albanian
clashes in Old Serbia with Mustafa-pasha Bushatlija in 1827, the Peace of
Adrianople in 1829 and the rejection of reforms at the meeting in Skadar in
1831, as well as the defeats of the Albanian and Bosnian beys in 183132, the
liberal great vizier Mahmoud Rashid-pasha introduced many useful edicts
in Pritina and Vuitrn in the summer of 1832, through which he improved
the unbearable life of the Christian raya in the Kosovo villages. Restoring to
the Serbs lands illegally usurped from them though the chitluk system, he
placed them under direct imperial protection. However, since the lot of the
Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija was not improving due to the lawlessness and
usurpation of the Turko-Albanian beys, after putting down the most
prominent captains in Bosnia, the Porte pacified the revolting tribes in central
and southern Albania, chiefly through the use of troops in 183536, arrested
the independent pashas in Old Serbia and confiscated their property.40

40

. , , 1423.

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

29

With the goal of centralizing the Empire, in 1839 the Porte issued the
Gioulhan Hatiserif (edict) on the so-called Tansimat Reforms, by which,
among other things, it abolished the spahi feudal system and introduced the
chitluk system (with estates). This did not end the feudal system because in
place of the spahia, the renter became the state itself, which held title to the
land. In this way, instead of using the Tansimat Reforms as a way of initiating
a general transformation of the Empire, the Porte was dragged into the battle
between the former spahias and the peasants. This battle was accompanied by
Turko-Albanian clashes and Albanian attacks on Serbs and the rayas land.
The Albanian resistance to reforms and their treatment of the Serbs was a
result of the increasing significance of the monetary economy, the
penetration of European trade, impoverishment due to increased fiscal
obligations toward the state and adjustment to the laws of the capitalist
marketplace, all of which opened up a wide field of economic activity to the
Christians. In this way, the Albanian struggle against reforms in the Empire
was as much an attempt to protect the old Sharia norms and traditional
Islamic-Turkish public institutions, as it was an attempt to prevent the
Christians from benefiting from these reforms.41
The unceasing Albanian terror led the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija to
launch an ever-growing number of appeals to the diplomacies of the
European powers, to the Serbian government and to the Porte itself.
However, the entire history of Turkish reforms shows that the Porte always
remained faithful to the doctrine that the Muslim populace is more important
than the non-Muslim one and that there can be no equalization between
Muslims and Christians. Its primary goal was to keep landed property in
Muslim hands, even as it worked to shed the decadence of the old system.42
The anti-Orthodox and anti-Slavic orientation of the Porte became
especially evident during the Crimean War of 185356 and the persecution of
the Serbs in the Pritina and Prizren pashaluks, which started under the
Dinies and the Rotuli and reached its culmination in a great new wave of
Islamization and Albanization, after which Metohija lost its Serbian character.
France also contributed to this process after it received from the Porte the
right of exclusive influence over all Albanians, and especially the Catholic
Fandas. French agents encouraged these highland Catholics to migrate into
Metohija and parts of Kosovo, in order to pit them against the local Serbian

Ibid, , 142, 373374, 377378.

Ibid, op. cit., 408, 411; . ,
(M. Ekmei, The Role of Islam in the Social and Political Development of the
Balkans), in , (XIVXX ), (Islam, the Balkans and the
Great Powers /XIVXX Century/) Belgrade 1997, 25.
41
42

Djordje Miki

30

populace. Thus the Fandas also started appearing among the outlaw kachaks
(brigands), plundering the Serbian villages in the Pe kaza.43
And while the Albanian Catholics were linking up with the European
states, including Serbia and Montenegro, the Porte took to increasing its
influence among the Muslim Albanians, in part by restoring the Albanian
beys to state employ, which was observed by Jovan Risti in 1864, when he
served as a Serbian diplomat in Constantinople. The effects of this policy of
the Porte was noted by both domestic and foreign contemporaries, who left
cheerless accounts about the position of the Serbs: Serafim Hadi Risti, a
monk at Deani monastery, in his 1864 booklet, The Weeping of Old Serbia,
Aleksandre Gilferding, Russian consul in Sarajevo in his Travel Journal from
1858, British women missionaries Irby and Mackenzie in 1863, Russian
consul in Prizren, Evgeny Timayev, in his reports from 186667, and Prizren
resident Sima Andrejevi-Igumanov in his letters to the Belgrade
Metropolitan, Mihailo, in 18661870.44 Presenting the facts about Albanian
terror over the Serbs in Old Serbia and about the forced colonization and its
consequences, Consul Timayev writes in 1866: The Albanian folk is
increasingly conquering the lands it is settling The massive settling of the
Prizren sanjak is not encountering any obstacles. It seems that the Turkish
government would be very happy if no Christians were left in this
province45 In the same year, Sima Igumanov writes in a letter from Kiev:
I am receiving blacker and blacker news from Prizren while in 1870,
having returned to Prizren, he continues: With us here, the devil is a
thousand times blacker than people paint him. Ever since our glorious
Prizren was made the vilayet capital, there has been no evil that has not come
down on the heads of our poor Serbian folk Everywhere are still the
remnants of the old disbanded janissaries there is not a church which has
not been ravaged, some more than once Since Ismail-pasha has come as
governor, more than 300 souls in our own vicinity have been killed. He reigns
in Prizren, while Cusra of the Zatries reigns over the nearby area with equal
Honors and levies his own dues on the vilayet; such evildoers also reign on
the other side. And truly, if we didnt have Mr. Yastrebov here, they would
have destroyed our church here long ago and taken Mr. Stavri (the teacher
Dj. M.) from here, and all kinds of iniquities would have been done to us by

. , , 25.
18521912 (Contemporaries on Kosovo and Metohija
18521912), Belgrade 1998 (edited by D. T. Batakovi).
45 . , 18041875 (D.
Batakovi, From the Serbian Revolution to the Eastern Crisis 18041875), in
(Kosovo and Metohija in Serbian History), Belgrade 1989, 188.
43
44

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

31

the Turks, Cincars, Bulgarians and Latins here. Mr. Yastrebov is a true
Russian gentleman and very much loves our people.46 Yastrebov himself
wrote between 1855 and 1870 that he found 165 Serbian households in the
twenty or so villages around Deani during his first visit, but only 50 during
the second.47
During the time of the Eastern Crisis, in 18751878, and subsequently,
during the Albanian League, the terror over the Serbs increased even more
and continued to the end of Turkish rule. According to Petar Kosti, the acts
of terror committed about ten years prior to 1876 and the Russo-Turkish War
of 187778, were solely a consequence of the terrorists fanaticism and had
no political goal, while subsequently, the purpose was to wipe out the Serbs
completely48 The roots of this Albanian terror lay in the pan-Islamistic
policy of the new sultan, Abdul Hamid II, and the identical policy of the
newly emergent Albanian League, formed in Prizren in 1878, whose Statute
and activity had a pronounced anti-Serbian character, both in regards to Old
Serbia and to the Serbian state itself. The anti-Serb terror was the same in the
period when the Porte and the League cooperated and after they ended their
cooperation in 1880. In reality, the Serbs gained two masters: the Turks and
the Albanians; to each they had to pay taxes and feed their armies, without
having any rights or protection for themselves.49
Both foreign and domestic contemporaries wrote about the huge scale
of Turkish and Albanian terror that started with the end of the Eastern
Crisis, and continued during the work of the Berlin Congress and afterwards,
during the period of the Albanian League. French diplomats reported that,
between the beginning and the middle of June 1878, 112 Serbs were killed,
while at least 60 fled from Pritina to Serbia.50 Serbs from the Pe, Djakovica
and Prizren kazas wrote to Prince Milan Obrenovi on October 14, 1878,
that, since the Berlin Congress, over a thousand Serbs had been killed and
robbed in the Prizren and Pe nahiyas separately, while no house in the

. , , , . 3
(Dj. Slijepevi, Several Letters of Sima Igumanov, Christian Deed, booklet 3), 1940, 227;
Ibid, booklet 6, 1940, 457.
47 . . , e , 86.
48 (Atrocities of the Agas and Beys in the Kosovo
Vilayet), Belgrade 1989, 5867, (edited by B. Perunii).
49 . , - , 224225; . -,
..., 109.
50 . ,
(B. Hrabak, The First Reports of the Diplomats of the Great Powers about the Prizren
League), Balkanika, IX, Belgrade 1989, 253.
46

Djordje Miki

32

Pritina and Vuitrn areas had been spared destruction and looting.51 The
Serbs from Pe informed Russian tsar Alexander about the killings of over
100 people after 1875, as well as the looting of the Pe Patriarchate and
Deani monastery.52 The Russian consul in Prizren, Yastrebov, writing in 1879
about the rape of a 13 year-old girl and the fear of reporting the perpetrators
to the authorities, notes: People say that, up till now (1879), such atrocities
werent committed even after the Crimean War, and that they have the
impression that everything has conspired to wipe out the Serbian element.
His reports from 1880 and 1881 are filled with accounts of killed Serbs, of
plunder and burned houses and farms, of attempts at forced Islamization,
and in one report he exclaims: The position of the Christians in those parts
is deplorable everywhere53 During the five years of the work of the
military tribunal, the so-called urfia, which was set up in 1882, around 7,000
Serbs were executed for high treason while 300 were sentenced to terms
ranging from six to 101 years.54 Sima Andrejevi Igumanov published a book
about the crimes committed by the Turks and the Albanians during the first
days of the Turkish military tribunal, entitled
(The Current Unhappy State of Affairs in Old Serbia and
Macedonia).
Even after the suppression of the Albanian League and the
rapprochement between the Albanians and the Porte, the position of the
Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija did not change. The Turks, such as, for
example, Kosovo governor Abdi-pasha, estimated in 1883 that, in case of
war, the faithful Albanians would be sufficient for the defense of Old
Serbia.55 Stojan Novakovi noted that the Turkish Portes policy after the

. , , II (M. Ekmei, The Forming of

Yugoslavia, book II), Belgrade 1989, 116; . ,
1878, , XXI,
(M. Kosti, From the History of the Serbs in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar after the
Berlin Congress in 1878, Gazette of the Skoplje Learned Society, XXI, Skoplje), 1940, 101.
52 . , a 18761878.
, (V. Stojanevi, Complaints of Serbs from Pe about Turkish
Atrocities 18761878, Archival Review), 12, Belgrade 1978, 151160.
53 . , . -
. . (V. Bovan, Yastrebov in
Prizren. Cultural-Educational Conditions in Prizren and the Work of Russian Consul I. S. Yastrebov
in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century), Pritina 1983, 146, 160.
54 . , , (Dj. Miki,
Political, Cultural and Economic Strivings) in: (History of the
Serbian People), V/1, Belgrade 1983, 293294.
55 . , op. cit., 180, 183184.
51

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

33

Berlin Congress had taken the Albanians under its special protection,
extending them great privileges.56 The Austro-Hungarian consul in Prizren,
Prohaska, was of the opinion that the maintaining of the existing system of
administration is of mutual interest, in tandem with the accompanying
campaign against the Serbs in Kosovo, through which policy bad blood has
been created between the Serbian population and the Albanian tribes In
this way, by sacrificing the Tansimat reforms and refeudalizing society, AbdulHamid was extending Turkish rule in Kosovo and Metohija, leaving the Serbs
to the mercy of the Turko-Albanian lords.57 The Albanians from Toplica, the
so-called muhajirs, were settled and distributed throughout Kosovo and
Metohija in 1878 in such a way as to form a chain of settlements transecting
the dense network of Serbian settlements, by which the sultan formed a sort
of a military border toward Serbia.58
Violence against the Kosovo and Metohija Serbs was waged by all
segments of the stratified Albanian society: the members of the feudal class
of the old pasha houses, the tribal-fis organizations, the professional Turkish
military and civil officers, peasants and especially, the so-called fukara
(rabble), formed out of runaway chifchis from feudal estates, landless
peasants and the city proletariat, from which kachaks, brigands, extortionists
and the like were recruited.59 The Turkish authority was loose, law-breaking,
corrupted: soft towards the Albanians, harsh against the Serbs, arming the
Albanians while disarming the Serbs.
The daily reports of the Serbian consuls from Pritina, starting with
the first Luka Marinkovi in 1889, who was killed there, to the last Milan
Milojevi in 1912, registered the daily history of Albanian terror against the
Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija. In the words of Consul Marinkovi, the
Pritina mutesarif (governor) viewed the Consulate as a gate through which
Serbia would come to Kosovo. That is why Constantinople instructed the

56 (The Atrocities of the Beys and the Agas in the

Kosovo Vilayet), 7880.
57 . , XIX XX
(Dj. Miki, The Social and Economic Conditions of the Kosovo Serbs in the XIX and the
Beginning of the XX Century), Belgrade 1988, 2425.
58 . . , 18781903,
(D. T. Batakovi, The Origins of Albanian Predominance in Kosovo and Metohija 18781903,)
, Belgrade 1988, 2425.
59 . , -
1902/1903,
, . XI (V. Stojanevi, Socio-Political Conditions among the
Albanians in the Kosovo Vilayet at the Beginning of the XX Century and Albanian Resistance to
Turkish Reforms 1902/1903, Historical Magazine, book XI), Belgrade 1961, 209210.

Djordje Miki

34

local authorities to tolerate all the violence perpetrated in these parts by the
Albanians against the Serbs, which they are forcefully exterminating by way
of expulsion. Consul Branislav Nui observed that the Serbs were pressed
with equal force from above and below from both the Albanians and the
authorities, and that all that could be done was to fold ones arms and wait
not for better times but for better people
Contemplating the role of the Porte in the Albanian violence against
the Serbs in Old Serbia, Serbias envoy in Constantinople, Vladan Djordjevi
writes in 1895: It would not be just to suppose that the Turkish government
approves of this the Turkish government is too weak to control the
Albanians it is further true that, besides custom and the inbred Albanian
instinct for brigandage and violence, there is also a secret agentur, which
influences them and their tribal chieftains from the outside, to continue their
terror over the Christians, in order to keep a permanent state of anarchy in
European Turkey.
The consuls reports followed the violence committed against the Serbs
with precision and registered its perpetrators: in the Pritina sanjak, these
were Suleyman-aga (later pasha), the Lab vojvoda (local military
commander), the Pritina mufti Mustafa-efendi, Yusuf Feta, while in the Pe
sanjak the main culprit was Mula Zeka. All the others were linked to them,
but all concerned had their own henchmen.60
The Greco-Turkish war of 1897 whipped up religious fanaticism in
Turkey and increased the anarchy in Kosovo and Metohija. Frenchman Victor
Brard, who toured these parts in 1897, described the state of affairs in the
following way: The Albanians in this Slavic land are playing and will play the
same role as the Kurds in the Armenian land. Captives of Islam and servants
of the Master (sultan), they shall enjoy double impunity no matter how great
their crimes. For the European public as well as the 1899 peace conference
at The Hague, Serbia prepared its Blue Book Correspondence about Albanian
Violence in Old Serbia 189899, which, however, was not put on the agenda at
The Hague.61
In the convening of an Albanian parliament in Pe at the beginning of
1899, the Serbian envoy in Constantinople, Stojan Novakovi, saw the intention to kill our complaints against the Albanian atrocities that the Porte
was not letting up let come what may.62 Montenegrin vojvoda Gavrilo

..., 1517, 61, 176.

. . , 18971912 (D. T.
Batakovi, Anarchy and Genocide over the Serbs 18971912) in
(Kosovo and Metohija in Serbian History), Belgrade 1989, 1617.
62 ..., 327333.
60
61

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

35

Vukovi, commenting on the relationship between Constantinople and the

Albanians, wrote the following: Albania was the apple of the sultans eye.63
At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, in
addition to the everyday violence against the Serbs, several pogroms also took
place, such as the burning of the village of Verii near Pe, which was
organized by Mula Zeka, the killings in the village of aglavica at the nod of
the mufti of Pritina, in Mitrovica by Isiyah Ferhat-agi (all in 1899), and, the
most numerous, in Ibarski Kolain in the summer of 1901, organized by Isa
Boljetinac. The Albanians were roused to their feet by the proposed reforms
at the turn of the century, which led to clashes with Turkey in 1901 and 1902.
hey settled down at the beginning of 1904, having secured exemption from
the reforms for the northwestern portion of the Kosovo vilayet.64
Amidst the growing brigandage of the kachaks in Kosovo and Metohija, a new leadership appeared within the Albanian movement, consisting of
beys and leaders of fises, such as Isa Boljetinac, Bajram Curi, Hasan Pritina
and some others, with a minuscule number of intellectuals mixed in. The majority of the former behaved like local lords with a large entourage, armed
units, and covert ties with other states.65 Their policy toward Christians rested
on a religious Muslim platform and ideology rather than on a national movement, as Italian scholar and political emissary Antonio Baldacci emphasized
in 1899.66 It was the feudal-administrative and religious-Islamic circles that
molded the uniform stance toward the Christians in Turkey and so skillfully
imposed this ideology on the Albanians. The Islamized Serbian Arnautai
were the Serbs bitterest enemies, wrote the famous British historian Harold Temperley.67 Having in mind the career of Isa Boljetinac and the treatment of the Serbs at the hands of the most hardened criminals, who subsequently became the sultans adjutants, generals and pashas, B. Jugovi wrote
the following in 1904, as he toured Kosovo: Thats the way Turkey is as
long as things in it continue going this way, there wont be any progress.68

. , - , 133.
. , - ..., 209.
65 . , , book II, 456.
66 Ibid, ..., 27.
67 . , :
(S. Terzi, Old Serbia in the Eyes of Merciful Angel: the
Phenomenon of the Historians Destructiveness), in
. (Answer to Noel Malcolms Book, Kosovo. A Brief History),
Belgrade 2000, p. 91.
68 . , ( ) (B.
Jugovi, One Rare Book /Memories of a Journey to Devi Monastery/), II, 1906,
XLI/II, 241.
63
64

Djordje Miki

36

Somewhat earlier, Serbian consul Sveta Simi characterized the Turkish

policy and Albanian atrocities in the following way: The policy of both the
Turkish authorities and the Albanian terrorists toward the Serbs is an
expression of a policy whose task is: the disappearance of Serbs from these
parts and the encirclement of Serbia with a strong wall made up of the worst
Albanians69
The news from Serbia about the violence against Serbs and their
emigration to Serbia are also confirmed by English historical records. Sir John
Bonham wrote in 1901 about the flight of 40 Serbian families to Serbia
because of Albanian terror, while English diplomat Young added the
following in the same year: Old Serbia is still a restive region because of the
Albanians lawlessness, vengeance and racial hatred. He noted that 600
Albanians, aided by 50 Turkish soldiers, succeeded by constant persecution in
reducing a village of 60 Serbian households to one-fourth the number and
that, between springtime and December of that year, 250 Serbian families
had fled to Serbia.70 And British traveler Brailsford writes the following in
1906: There are few Serbian villages that have not been looted bare on one
occasion or another A village suffers total deprivation for two or three
years at a time and then, thanks to hard work, it manages to start a herd, only
to have it stolen as well.71 This Briton underlined that the Albanians
manifested semi-feudal terrorism against the Slavic element.72
When, with the support of Austro-Hungarian diplomacy and its
increasing propaganda against the Serbs, Old Serbia was excluded from the
reforms in 1904, Serbias consul in Pritina, Miroslav Spalajkovi, found the
trail leading to the Albanian committee for the liquidation of Serbs, which
was newly formed in Pe. In the project of bringing down the remaining
Serbian ramparts, the Catholic Fandas began to play a more prominent
role than the Albanian Mohammedans. At the head of the organization stood
the Austro-Hungarian consuls in Old Serbia, while its soul was the clergy
the bishop with the friars. The Catholic leaders in Pe, such as Petar Angelo,
consoled the Serbs with the words: Just endure the pogroms for now; later,
when Austria comes, there will be peace; for now it has to be like this,
because those are the orders of the consulos and the friars.73 This Catholic
activity was also observed by B. Jugovi in 1904, who noted: Austria is

..., 442.
. , op. cit. 100.
71 H. Zdravkovi, Politika rtve na Kosovu (Victim Politics in Kosovo), Belgrade 2005,
69
70

4344.

72
73

. , op. cit., 91.

..., 232, 351.

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

37

rubbing its hands with pleasure, for now the road to Thessalonica is wide
open for her. The Serbian tribe is disappearing, and humane Europe has
sanctioned this at an inconvenient hour.74
In 1908, the Mohammedans concentrated in the Gnjilane area, where
the Serbs outnumbered the Albanians, using the methods previously used by
Albanian Mohammedans in Metohija and, after them, the Catholics. Similar
areas in Kosovo were not spared either.75
The violence against the Serbs did not stop even after the Young Turks
came to power in Turkey in 1908. They merely exchanged Abdul-Hamids
pan-Islamism for pan-Ottomanism.76 And, despite the ceaseless clashes
between the Albanians and the Young Turks, neither sought separation. In
connection with this, Albanian Sami-bey Frasheri said: [T]he Turks found
in the Albanians loyal and brave comrades-in-arms, while the Albanians
found with the Turks a government that totally suited their tastes Ekrem-bey Vlora says that well-known Young Turk Talat-pasha told him: You have
made much more avail of the power of the empire than have the Turks
themselves.77
Just as under the old regime, the Albanians plundered, burned,
murdered and forced the Serbs from their property and their territory.
Through the law on the return of abandoned and usurped properties from
19081909, the Young Turks transferred the properties of the Serbian exiles
from Old Serbia into Mohammedan hands without any legal proof or
property deeds, even before the law passed through the parliament in
Constantinople. In this way, the Young Turks succeeded in legalizing the
centuries-long Albanian appropriation of Serbian properties in Kosovo and
Metohija. They also tolerated the pressure exerted by the Albanian
landholders against the Serbian chifchis and the bringing of Albanians to
replace them. This legalization of the Albanian usurpation further degraded
the conditions for Serbian survival, not only of the chifchis but of the few
remaining landowners as well.78 Even the lands of Deani monastery and the
Pe Patriarchate were transferred to Mohammedans. This Young Turk policy
and the pressures of the beys upon the chifchis in Old Serbia led to the

. , op. cit., 236240.

, , 1908, 307, , 4. 1908, . 157, (. 653)
(The Archive of Serbia Belgrade, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Educational-Propaganda
Section 1908, line 307, Pritina, February 4, 1908, no. 157 /no. 653/).
76 . , , 64, 65.
77 . , - , 106.
78 ..., 2122, 525.
74
75

Djordje Miki

38

opening of the so-called chifchi question, and their expulsion would have
meant the end of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija.79 For, according to
official data from 1911, more than 40% of the entire land of the Kosovo
vilayet at the time lay in the hands of the landholders the so-called beglers
and agalars while the greatest numbers of chifchis were located north of
Kaanik.80 The status of the Serbian tenants was described by British traveler
Brailsford in 1906 with the following words: I tried to find out about what
kind of a system of land rent this was. As a rule, my questions were met with
a smile. The system of land rent in that land, where the Kuran and the rifle
were the only law, was what the Albanian area chieftain chose it to be. The
Serbian peasants, the children of that soil, are tenants according to someones
whim, exposed to every caprice of their domestic conquerors. Albanian
highlanders conquer more of the plains each year, while the Serbian peasants
flee before them year after year. Hunger, want and disease are the natural
companions of that daily abuse. 81
As it was easier for the landholders to exploit the Christian Serbs than
the Albanian Muslims and Catholics, it may be said that it was the chifluk
system that preserved what little of the Serbian peasants remained by the
time of liberation in 1912. Their exact numbers can gathered from the
records for about 330 villages in Kosovo, as well as some oases in Metohija,
containing the first and last names of all the agas, beys and their Serbian
chifchis.82
Sometimes even a single source, such as the book by Englishwoman
Mary Edith Durham, Through the Serbian Lands from 1904, can aid in
understanding the entire Ottoman and Albanian policy toward the Serbs in
Kosovo and Metohija, as well as the state of these lands under the Ottomans.
After traveling through Metohija in 1903, she summed up the entire picture in
several sentences: The story of Old Serbia is one of uninterrupted pain. The
suffering of the Christian people in the Balkans is nothing new. It started
with the coming of the Turks and shall continue as long as they are there. As
far back as the year 1690, the unbearable lot of Old Serbias Serbs led to the
emigration of no less than 37,000 cooperatives (family groups including
uncles and their children) to Hungary. The Albanians proceeded to fan out
over the deserted landholdings, and were subsequently allowed to perpetually
plunder them with impunity.83

. , ..., 124136.
(Vardar), June 12, 1911, no. 46.
81 . , op. cit., 44.
82 . , ..., 137234.
83 . , op. cit., 90.
79
80

Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija

39

A small number of contemporaries in all periods, aware of the

historical Ottoman and Albanian violence against the Serbs in Metohija and
Kosovo, searched for the answers to the causes of such a condition.
Atanasije, a teacher living at the end of the 17th century and contemporary of
the Serbian migration into Hungary and the increasing influx of Albanian
tribes into Old Serbia, found the causes of the violence in the Islamization of
these highlanders. As such, the Islamized nomads could take possession of
the land belonging to the Serb emigrants and exiles, and kill them
unobstructedly and without fear of blood retribution, as there was no
protection of the state to speak of. And even when they converted to Islam,
the Serbs were faced with harsher ramifications than were the Albanians: with
the change of religion and language, they would also gain the label of
Arnautai (Albanized Serbs) in folklore. Austria, the protectress of the
Christians, having withdrawn its army from a war in which it had invited the
disenfranchised Christians to join it, left them to the terrible vengeance of
the Ottomans, Tatars and Albanians. He observes: The Serbs battled for
freedom, but won even greater bondage.84 Hieromonk and spiritual
shepherd of the Serbs exiled from Kosovo and the surrounding areas, Gavril
Stevanovi Venclovi, gave an account in his
(Prayer Against Bloody Waters) of how the people escaped from under the
Turkish and Albanian sword, where not even the Devil can hold the tyrant
back, for, before the lawless, terrible oppressors, all our rights are nothing
more than a cobweb85
The end of Ottoman rule was the same as its beginning. Nothing
changed with the Turks and the Albanians. Thus, Bishop Nikolaj wondered:
Was there anyone in the world who did not take part in pushing the Balkan
slave into his centuries-long darkness, closing all the windows through which
light could shine on him. He explained how the Turks had received from the
Arabs their religion but not the Arab enterprise and creative spirit, and how,
as nomads, they had retained two characteristics of nomadic peoples
warfare and sloth. This was why it was easy for the Turks to win the Albanian
nomads over to the same way of life, i.e., to wage terror over the
disenfranchised Serbian raya, and destroy everything that opposed their
whim by flame and sword. Gligorije Boovi testifies that brigands ruled
from the sea to the Danube and that the general weakening of imperial

. , (V. Djuri, The Battle of Kosovo in

Serbian Literature), Belgrade 1990, 289.
85 , , (Gavril Stefanovi
Venclovi, A Black Bull in the Heart), Prosveta, Belgrade 1967, 124.
84

Djordje Miki

40

authority brought terrible disobedience and chaos everywhere: The outlawry

of the pashas gave abominable examples. The beys and the agas became
oppressors raising their heads up with no regard to any authority or
obligation All manner of bandits are attacking the chifchis, no one can go
out into the field from the terror. The poor raya cannot feed even itself, much
less send to the pasha what is customary, yet they act with shame and
embarrassment in order to escape reprimand: All among the living are
abandoning their hearths and fleeing to other pashaluks or to Serbia.86 This
picture of the harsh lot of the Serbs living on Kosovo and Metohijas fertile
land, and its abandonment amidst the all-out Turkish and Albanian violence
and lawlessness, is magnified by the words of Marko Miljanov: Barren are
the hills and mountains around Pe and Djakovica, around Deani and the
Patriarchate, around Kosovo and Prizren, all the way to ar mountain! ...All
the places are desolate and sad, up to the ara and Kom In all the places
now rules the terrorist evildoers handThere are no more of those that
exchanged springs of tears for springs of blood! ...No mountain sons who
defended liberty from their slopes and withstood all sufferings! ...No martyrs
in those heights whose hearts did not allow them to look upon tears and
listen to sighs! ...No! Such hearts have no peace or satisfaction spiting not
only the evildoers force and misdeeds but also the natural forces, the cold
and the heat, and all troubles one could think of, despising death and lifes
sufferings, which are often worse than death There are none left that give
themselves up to the hardest pains for the most shining oath which the blood
of man and Gods truth recommend: to defend the blood of the just; to
nurse the wounds of the Serbian martyred people, to never forget to elevate
this candle to the altar of the Serbian tribe and of its name87
And that is the picture of todays Kosovo as well, by the eternal Marko
Miljanov!
Translation: Aleksandar Pavi

. , , (G. Boovi, The Chifchi Dabiiv, a

Tale), Belgrade 1940, 15.
87 . , (M. Miljanov, The Life
and Customs of the Albanians Serbian Brigands), , Titograd, 1967, 199.
86