League of Prizren
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The League of Prizren (Albanian: Lidhja e Prizrenit) was created on June 10, 1878 in a mosque in Prizren, Kosovo by 300 Albanian nationalist leaders, mostly from Kosovo, Western former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Muslim leaders from Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Sandzak, in order to achieve an autonomous Albanian state, representing the former Ottoman vilayets of Shkodėr or Skutari centered near Montenegro, the Illyria region, the Chameria region, Janina or Janjevo centered in Northern Epirus, Bitola in Republic of Macedonia and Kosovo-Metohija. The League was the first major attempt to create a unified Albanian region since the Middle Ages when Albanian forces under Gjergj Kastrioti, Skanderbeg, had failed.
History of the League
The league was formed after the Treaty of San Stefano, which had given Albanian-populated lands to Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878. Albanian leaders from Pec, Djakovica, Gusinje, Ljuma, and from Dibra and Tetovo met in present-day (former Yugoslav) Republic of Macedonia to discuss how to reclaim their land. Italy sponsored an Italian-Albanian Committee to further Albanian nationalism and gain allies in the Balkans and Turkey did the same with a Central Committee for Defending Albanian Rights in Istanbul in 1877. The Committee's members were Zija Prishtina, Sami Frasheri, Jani Vreto, Pashko Vaso, and Abdul Bey Frasheri, and its manifesto is contained within the Kanararname, or 'Book of Decisions, the statue of the Leaugue.
The League of Prizren was meant as a political and military organization that would help Albania receive international recognition, though initially as an autonomous region. The San Stefano treaty was superseded by the Treaty of Berlin at the insitence of Austria-Hungary and Britain. This latter Treaty, however, still meant that Albanian lands could be split amongst other nations.
In July of 1878, the 60 member board of the league, led by Abdul Bey Frasheri, sent a letter to the Great Powers at the Congress of Berlin, asking for the settling of the Albanian issues resulting from the Turkish War. The memorandum was ignored by the congress, which gave territory that Albanians considered theirs to Serbia and Montenegro. The league feared that Albanians would also lose Epirus to Greece, and organized an armed resistance in Gusinje, Shkodėr, Prizren, and Janina.
The Albanian resistance was successful enough to alter the borders established by the Great Powers and regain some of the lost lands, however some lands were still ceded to Greece by 1881.
The Prizren League had 16,000 armed members under its control who launched a revolution against the Ottoman Empire after the debacle at the Congress of Berlin and the official dissolvement of the League ordered by the Ottomans who feared the League would seek total independence from the empire. The Albanian insurgents were able to kill Mehmed Ali Pasha, the Turkish emissary, in Djakovica in August, 1878. The League took over control from the Turks in the Kosovo-Metohija towns of Vucitrn, Pec, Kosovska Mitrovica, Prizren, and Djakovica. Guided by the autonomous movement, the League rejected Turkish authority and sought complete secession from Turkey. The Ottoman Empire sought to suppress the League and they dispatched an army led by Turkish commander Dervish Pasha, that by April 1881 had captured Prizren and crushed the resistance at Ulcinj. The leaders of the league and their families were either killed or arrested and deported.
While it was active, the league managed to bring Albanian national interests before the Great Powers and paved the way for the Pec League of 1899, which had greater foreign support from both Italy and the Austria-Hungarian Empire, and the Second League of Prizren which formed with help from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1943.
See also
External Links
- Nation Master Encyclopedia Entry (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/League-of-Prizren)
- The City of Prizren (http://www.albanian.com/main/countries/kosova/prizren/)
- The Free Dictionary Prizren Entry (http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/League+of+Prizren)
- "The Birth of Albania" (http://www.4reference.net/encyclopedias/wikipedia/National_awakening_and_the_birth_of_Albania.html)
- Kosovo Chronicles (http://www.snd-us.com/history/dusan/index.htm)