Rilindja

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The three brothers Abdyl , Naim and Sami Frashëri were among the most important personalities of the Rilindja in the 19th and 20th centuries.

With Rilindja which is Albanian national movement and nation building in the period between about 1870 and the Declaration of Independence of Albania called on 28 November 1912th Rilindja Kombëtare means national rebirth , other names are national renaissance and national awakening . Their supporters are called revivalists ( Albanian  Rilindas ).

background

Borders in the Balkans between 1878 and 1912

Minority in the Ottoman Empire

In the 19th century, nationalism was far less developed among the Albanians than among other Southeastern European peoples. It was not until the 1870s that a movement of national awakening, called Rilindja , emerged among the Albanians . The formation of the Albanian national consciousness began much later than among the Greeks and Serbs and was also a direct consequence of these and other Southeast European nationalisms and the founding of states. The social prerequisites for nation-building among the Albanians were extremely unfavorable for creating an Albanian instead of an Ottoman identity among the people , because there was practically no Albanian society and public. In the north in particular, social life took place exclusively within patriarchal family associations ( Albanian  fis ) and tribes. Central and southern Albania, on the other hand, were ruled by large conservative landowners who kept the bulk of the population in quasi-feudal dependency and who counted themselves to the Ottoman upper class.

The Albanians lived in four vilayets (Ottoman provinces) with no geographical or political center. The main thing the Albanians had in common, their language , lacked a unified standard language and even a standardized alphabet. Each of the options available for the alphabet, the Latin , Arabic and Greek script , were associated with different political and religious directions and were rejected by certain population groups. In 1878 there were no Albanian schools even in the most developed Albanian areas, so that only schools of the Greek Orthodox Church, Catholic monastery schools and state schools with teaching in Turkish were available.

In addition, the Albanians were religiously divided into Sunnis , Bektaschi , Catholics and Orthodox , so that unlike the Serbs and Greeks, for example, religion could not create identity for the Albanian nation; the majority of Muslim Albanians were even religiously connected to the ruling Ottomans. Because of the different religions of the Albanians, the leaders of the national movement had to give them a purely secular character, which sometimes turned the religious dignitaries against them. Nevertheless, clergymen of different denominations played an important role in the formation of the Albanian nation, because they were almost the only members of their people with a higher education. By 1900 over 90% of Albanians could neither read nor write. Only in the cities of Shkodra , Prizren and Korça was there a small middle class - mainly merchant families who had come into contact with Western education. Besides the clergy, this small group provided most of the supporters of the Albanian national movement. In contrast to their neighbors, the Albanians also lacked the historical model of a former unifying Albanian state to which one could refer.

Prehistory in the period from 1831 to 1878

In 1830 around 500 Albanian Beys and their guards were killed by the Ottomans in Monastir . In 1831 the Ottomans besieged Rozafa Castle in Shkodra and deposed the Albanians who ruled the Paschalik Shkodra . The Paschaliks of Berat and Janina had already lost their relative independence after the murder of Ali Pascha Tepelena in 1822. The Albanian defeat prevented a planned alliance between the Albanians and the Bosnians , who had striven for autonomy in a similar way . The Shkodra paschalik was replaced by the Vilayets Shkodra and Kosovo .

Bushati- friendly uprisings in Shkodra between 1833 and 1836 were unsuccessful. As a reaction to the Tanzimat reforms, major revolts followed in 1844 in northern Albania under the leadership of Dervish Cara and in 1847 in southern Albania under Zenel Gjoleka , Rrapo Hekali and Hodo Nivica . The uprisings were suppressed but strengthened national identity and ties among the Albanians. In this respect, they played an important role in sparking the Albanian rebirth.

Emergence of Albanian nationalism

For wider circles of the Albanian elite, the national question first became evident in connection with the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and the Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878. The Turkish defeat was a decisive blow to Ottoman power in the Balkan Peninsula . The Russian peace dictate would have placed parts of the Albanian settlement area under the rule of the Christian states Bulgaria and Montenegro . On the other hand, Albanian resistance was formed on a national basis for the first time, because it was not only supported by the Sunnis and Bektashi, but also by the Catholic counterparts .

Austria-Hungary and Great Britain prevented the implementation of the San Stefano Agreement because it would have given Russia too predominant a position in the Balkans, which would have disturbed the European balance of power . Renegotiations took place at the Berlin Congress later that year. The threatened division of the settlement area gave Albanian nationalism its first impetus and drove the Albanians to organize a defense of their homeland.

Buildings in the old town of Prizren where the league was founded.
Group photography of league members (before 1888); first row on the left the military leader Ali Pascha Gucia

In the spring of 1878, influential Albanians in Constantinople formed a secret committee to direct the resistance of their compatriots. One of the participants was Abdyl Frashëri , the most important leader of the early Albanian national movement. At the initiative of this committee, more than 80 delegates - mostly Islamic clergy, Muslim landowners and various tribal leaders - came together on June 10, 1878 from the four Vilayets with Albanian population in the Kosovar city ​​of Prizren . As a permanent organization they formed the League of Prizren , headed by a central committee , the aim of which was to form troop units to defend the Albanian settlement area against division and the claims of foreign powers. In return, she also took on tax collection. Furthermore, the league sought the formation of a united autonomous Albanian administrative district within the Ottoman Empire. An independent Albania, however, was not intended.

Inevitably, the weakened Ottoman government initially supported the activities of the League, only demanding that the Albanians declare themselves primarily as Ottomans and as such act in the interests of the state as a whole. This was controversial among the Albanians. Some of the delegates relied on the common Ottoman-Muslim identification - which also included today's Bosnia and Herzegovina - others around Abdyl Frashëri focused on working for Albanian interests across religions and tribes. Last but not least, they wanted to win over the Christian Albanians for the league's program. Since the majority was Muslim, the League of Prizren supported the maintenance of Ottoman suzerainty.

In July 1878 the league sent a memorandum to the representatives of the great powers at the Berlin Congress . The league demanded that the entire Albanian settlement area should remain as an autonomous province under Turkish rule. Congress ignored this request; The negotiator in Berlin , Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , stated apodictically that an Albanian nation did not even exist, which is why such a demand was irrelevant: "Albania is only a geographical term." Accordingly, the congress decided on Montenegro, the cities of Bar and Podgorica as well to award the villages of Plav and Gusinje , which were considered Albanian territories by the Albanian leaders. The border changes and the fear that the whole of Epirus could fall to Greece sparked bloody uprisings by the Albanians, more or less controlled by the League and supported by its troops. The Albanians, the majority of whom were loyal to the empire, were in part armed with weapons by the Sublime Porte . The league's armed resistance focused on Plav and Gusinje, Shkodra, Prizren, Preveza and Ioannina, with the associations temporarily controlling the disputed area between Ulcinj , Shkodra, Plav and Prizren.

In August 1878, the Berlin Congress appointed a commission to determine the border between the Ottoman Empire and Montenegro. Congress also directed Greece and the Ottoman Empire to negotiate a solution to their border conflict. The great powers expected the Ottomans to ensure that the Albanians would respect the new borders without taking into account that the sultan's military was too weak to push through an agreement and that the Ottomans could only benefit from the Albanian resistance. On the contrary, the Sublime Porte even armed the Albanians and allowed them to raise taxes. So without further ado, Albanian tribesmen of the Catholic faith took control of the areas when the Ottoman army withdrew from the areas assigned to Montenegro. A tribesman from the border area described the border as swimming in blood . The successful Albanian resistance to the agreement - including the Battle of Nokšić - forced the great powers to change the borders, so that Plav and Gusinje remained in the Ottoman Empire and Montenegro was awarded the coastal town of Ulcinj, which was inhabited by the majority of Albanian Muslims. The Albanians there, however, resisted the disclosure. After a blockade of the port of Ulcinj by the great powers, the Ottoman authorities were forced to bring the Albanians under control. In 1881 the great powers decided to cede only the region of Thessaly and the city of Arta on the Ionian Sea to Greece.

After the border issue had been resolved for the time being, the Prizren League turned to its domestic political demand for autonomy. The Ottoman regime, which was again halfway stabilized, was not prepared to make concessions. Under increasing international pressure to pacify the stubborn Albanians , the Sultan sent a large army of around 10,000 men, led by Dervish Turgut Pasha , to crush the League of Prizren and hand Ulcinj over to Montenegro. This took Prizren in April 1881 and dispersed the troops of the league. They later broke the resistance in Ulcinj. It was important to note that many Muslim Albanians did not want to fight the Sultan's soldiers.

The leaders of the league and their families were arrested and deported. Abdyl Frashëri, who was first sentenced to death, was in prison until 1885 and was not allowed to return to Albania until his death seven years later. During its three years of existence, the Prizren League had at least managed to make the great powers aware of the Albanians and their national interests. Montenegro and Greece also received much less territory inhabited by Albanians than they would have received without League resistance.

After the league of Prizren was broken, there was no political movement of the Albanians for two decades. The national activists in the country itself, but especially those who emigrated, were mainly involved in the cultural field in the following period, while the Muslim landowners and the Islamic clergy, insofar as they were involved in the Albanian movement from 1878 to 1881 at all to reintegrate into Ottoman society.

The creation of a national culture

Albanezul , newspaper of the Albanian minority in Romania (1889)
The Board of the Monastir Congress (1908)

The cultural movement of the Albanians was concentrated in a few places at home and abroad at the end of the 19th century. The individual groups of national activists acted relatively isolated from one another, which was not least due to the unfavorable traffic and communication conditions in the Balkans. But this was by far not the only obstacle to the establishment of an Albanian cultural life. In most of the centers of the Albanian-settled Vilayets, other languages ​​and cultures dominated the urban upper classes: in Skopje and Monastir Turkish and Bulgarian , in Janina Greek and Turkish, in Prizren Turkish and Serbian . Only in Shkodra was Albanian the main language of the urban bourgeoisie. In Korça, on the other hand, Greek was just as strongly represented as Albanian. The coastal cities of Durrës and Vlora, which were important in the 20th century, were not cultural centers for the Albanians at the end of the 19th century . Its importance lay in the good connection to Western Europe. Here, as in Shkodra, Italian was an important language of communication and culture.

In 1880 there was no school with Albanian as the language of instruction. The printing of Albanian books was temporarily forbidden in the Ottoman Empire. A standardized Albanian written language did not even begin to exist. If Albanian was written at all, it was in the Gegic or Tuscan dialect. The Arbëresh in southern Italy also had their own spelling. In addition, depending on the denomination, either the Latin or the Greek alphabet , and less often the Arabic script , was used.

Around 1870 the efforts of Albanian intellectuals began to standardize the written language. In Elbasan they created their own Albanian alphabet, but it was only used there and could not prevail. The efforts of some Albanians in Constantinople were more successful: a group that included Pashko Vasa , Hasan Tahsini , Jani Vreto and Sami Frashëri published a font in 1878 with the title The Latin alphabet adapted for the Albanian language . This laid down important principles for the Albanian spelling, some of which are still valid today.

In Constantinople, the Society for Printing Albanian Scripts (alb. Shoqëria e të shtypuri shkronja shqip ) was founded in 1879 . Members were Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox Albanians. Sami's brother, Naim Frashëri , a famous poet, wrote the first Albanian-language school books in the 1890s. Since 1884, the first newspapers in Albanian appeared in the vicinity of the association. Albanian emigrants in Bulgaria , Egypt , Italy , Romania and the United States also developed cultural activities: Other places where Albanian books were printed were Bucharest , where there was a large community of emigrants, and various Italian cities.

In 1887 the Mësonjëtorja , the first school in Albania, was opened in Korça .

Greeks, who influenced the education of the Orthodox Albanians, assisted the Turks in suppressing Albanian culture and especially Albanian-language teaching. In 1886 the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople threatened to excommunicate anyone caught reading or writing in Albanian. Priests taught that God would not understand prayers spoken in Albanian. Despite the rejection of Albanian as the school, administrative and church language by the Greek Orthodox Church , the first Albanian-language school was founded in Korça in the immediate vicinity of the Orthodox Cathedral in 1887. This private school was also the first secular education facility in the country open to students of all denominations. By the time independence was proclaimed, barely three dozen such schools had been established across the country. Albanian was also at Catholic schools in the north and in many Tekken taught the Bektashi. The schools of the Catholic orders, like the Bektashi, did a lot for the further development and spread of the Albanian language. In 1902 the Franciscan priest and poet Gjergj Fishta took over the direction of the grammar school of his order in Shkodra. He also worked as an editor of various magazines.

Like other movements of national romanticism across Europe , the Albanians were looking for a national founding myth that would best create a national identity that goes as far back as possible into antiquity. At first the nationalist Albanian authors favored the Pelasgians as the ancestors of the Albanians. Over time, however, these were ousted by the Illyrians , which also received some support from research. The theory of descent from the Illyrians soon became a pillar of Albanian nationalism, mainly because it demonstrated the continuity of Albanian presence since ancient times in both Kosovo and southern Albania, i.e. in ethnically disputed areas. Albanians claimed that Alexander the Great was a Pelasgian, Illyrian, and thus Albanian, and that ancient Greek culture and civilization were thus spread through Albanians; Macedonians were considered the ancestors of the Albanians. Greek gods were also considered Albanian .

Disintegration of the Ottoman Empire: On the Way to the Nation-State

Ethnic distribution of the Albanians in 1898

Even after the Berlin Congress, the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire continued. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the internal crisis of the Ottoman Empire worsened again. The financial problems kept Sultan Abdülhamid II from reforming the military. He sought refuge in repression to keep order. The authorities unsuccessfully tried to control the political situation in the Albanian-inhabited Vilayets by imprisoning alleged nationalists. After the sultan refused to unite the four vilayets, the Albanian leaders reassembled the league in Peja . They instigated uprisings that almost resulted in anarchy in the Albanian areas and especially in Kosovo . In 1900 the Ottoman authorities dissolved the League again, executed its president and banned Albanian-language books and writings.

Gangs of thieves of various nationalities operated in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia , whose national targets often only served as a pretext for robbery and murder. In Macedonia, where guerrilla troops supported by Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia fought against the Ottomans and among themselves, Muslim Albanians were attacked. Albanian resistance fighters retaliated. A Secret Committee for the Liberation of Albania was founded by the Albanians in Monastir in 1905 . In September 1906 Albanian nationalists murdered the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Korça who had turned them against him. The last years of Ottoman rule over Albania were in chaos and were overshadowed by acts of violence by government troops and various groups of insurgents as well as gangs of robbers.

The political manifesto Shqipëria - ç'ka qenë, ç'është e ç'do të bëhet (Albania - what it was, what it is and what it will be) by Sami, published anonymously in Bucharest in 1899, was of the greatest importance for the Albanian national movement Frashëri . In this much-read pamphlet, the demand was made for the first time to establish an Albanian nation state.

The Young Turks take power

During this time of turmoil, the Young Turkish Revolution also fell , which had its center in the remaining European provinces of the Ottoman Empire (Albania, Macedonia and Thrace ). A number of Albanians also belonged to the reform-oriented political movement of the Young Turks. In 1907 young Turkish members of parliament met in Thessaloniki and founded a revolutionary committee. In July 1908, under the leadership of Enver Pascha and Talaat Pascha, a successful military revolt began against the absolutist ruling Sultan Abdülhamid II, which brought the movement to government. At the beginning of their rule, the Young Turks tried to set up a parliamentary-constitutional government in the Ottoman Empire, which also tried to take into account the aspirations for codetermination or autonomy of Christian and non-Turkish Islamic minorities. One wanted to cooperate in particular with the organized representatives of the Armenians and the Albanians.

During the liberal early phase of the Young Turkish regime, Albanian intellectuals from all parts of the country met in November 1908 for the Monastir Congress . At this meeting it was finally decided that from now on the Albanian language should be written exclusively in Latin script. They also agreed on a strict phonetic notation with only two special characters. Since these regulations are still valid today, the Monastir Congress is seen as the birth of a modern, uniform Albanian orthography.

Street scene in Tirana around 1900

The constitutional experiment of the Young Turks failed because of the resistance of the old conservative elites and the general crisis of the empire, which the new government could not get under control. Conditions similar to civil war prevailed in Albania and Macedonia. Here the supporters of the Young Turkish government fought against the old elites and against the supporters of the national movements who wanted to achieve independence, regardless of whether the empire should prove capable of reform or not. At the end of 1909, the Young Turkish government suspended the constitution and the regime turned more and more into a military dictatorship. This soon relied on an aggressive Turkish nationalism as the ideological basis for their rule and renewed the pressure on the ethnic minorities. This brought the Ottoman rule into disrepute among the Albanians. Even before the First Balkan War broke out in 1912/13 , the government in Istanbul had hardly any supporters even among the Muslim Albanians. The new government called for Muslim solidarity to break Albanian unity and used Muslim clergy to enforce the Arabic script.

The Albanians opposed the Young Turks campaign to allow themselves to be Ottomanized through violence . In 1910, an armed uprising against Ottoman rule broke out in Kosovo, which in the course of the following year spread to northern Albania. The rebels now wanted to enforce state independence by force of arms. The army suppressed this rebellion after three months, banned Albanian organizations, disarmed the entire region and closed schools and newspapers. Montenegro, which wanted areas inhabited by Albanians for itself, supported an uprising of the hill tribes against the Young Turks in 1911, which developed into an extended revolt. An important leader at this time was the Kosovar Isa Boletini .

Uprising of the highlands in 1911

Insurgent mirdites

The revival of Albanian nationalism was further fueled by the Battle of Deçiq , which took place near Tuzi on April 6, 1911 . The uprising of the Malësors , the Albanian inhabitants of the mountains, was led by Dedë Gjon Luli Dedvukaj . They faced Turkish troops under Durgut Pasha. The long, bloody struggle ended in a victory for the Albanians. During the battle, the Albanian flag was hoisted for the first time since the fall of Shkodra in 1479. Strengthened by the victory, the Albanians found confidence and national awareness. This led to events that culminated in the Declaration of Independence on November 28, 1912. Even today, songs and stories are recited that remind of the important struggle on the way to independence.

Albanian uprising of 1912

Albanian insurgents in Skopje after driving the Ottoman army out of the city in August 1912.

The Albanian uprising of 1912 was one of many revolts in the Ottoman Empire and lasted from January to August 1912. After a few minor successes, Albanian rebels managed to take Skopje , the administrative center of the Vilayet Kosovo .

Soon only the larger cities were under the control of the Ottoman forces. The uprising ended after the Ottoman government agreed on September 4, 1912, to comply with the rebels' demands, including autonomous authorities and justice in the Albanian vilayets, concessions on schools, military service, taxes, and the use of the Latin alphabet for the Albanian language . In contrast, the government opposed the demand to unite the four Albanian-inhabited Vilayets .

Balkan Wars and the Formation of an Independent Albania

Before a final agreement could be reached, the First Balkan War broke out. The Balkan League armies of Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Greece quickly pushed the Ottomans back to the walls of Constantinople. The Montenegrins besieged Shkodra.

The insurgents got into a difficult position. If they had previously tried to weaken the Turkish garrisons in the country, it was now necessary as they fight against the invasion of the armies of Montenegro and Serbia into the Albanian settlement area in order to achieve a unified national state, because Serbs, Montenegrins and Greeks planned that to divide up the Albanian settlement area to their already existing states. After a short time, however, the armies of these states had gained the upper hand. At the end of November 1912, only Shkodra and Janina were in Turkish hands; Kosovo, parts of northern Albania and Macedonia were occupied by Serbs and Montenegrins, respectively; the Greeks were in Epirus. Serbian associations arrived in Durrës on November 29, 1912. Only a relatively small area between Elbasan in the north and Vlora in the south was controlled by local Albanian groups.

Skanderbeg's double-headed eagle served as a model for the flag of Albania .
Declaration of independence on November 28, 1912 in Vlora

The Albanians quickly realized that they finally had to act, even if many were still skeptical about breaking away from the Ottoman Empire. When the First Balkan War broke out, Ismail Qemali traveled to Austria-Hungary via Bucharest. In Budapest he received a promise from Foreign Minister Leopold Graf Berchthold that the Danube Monarchy would support the establishment of an independent Albanian state. On November 19, 1912, Qemali returned to Albania on an Austrian ship. He immediately traveled from Durrës to Vlora, where he headed the hastily convened National Assembly on November 28, 1912, at which many representatives were still missing. Under the chairmanship of Qemali, the independent state of Albania was proclaimed and a provisional government was appointed. Together with Isa Boletini and Luigj Gurakuqi , Qemali, who had been appointed prime minister, hoisted the red flag with Skanderbeg's double-headed eagle as a symbol of the national independence of the Albanians. The fundamental questions were decided by the Ambassadors' Conference in London , which opened in December 1912, and were finally settled in May 1913.

One of the basic goals of Serbian warfare was to get a port on the Adriatic , preferring Durrës and Shëngjin ( San Giovanni di Medua ). Austria-Hungary and Italy opposed these plans because they feared Russian influence in the Mediterranean . That is why they supported the formation of an independent Albanian state. Russia, on the other hand, supported the claims of Serbia and Montenegro on Albanian territories. Great Britain and Germany were neutral. The ambassadors conference chaired by British Foreign Minister Edward Gray first decided that an autonomous Albania would be created under Ottoman rule and under the protection of the great powers. However, after it became obvious that the Ottoman Empire would lose Macedonia and thus the land connection with Albania, this decision was rejected in spring 1913. In the peace treaty of May 1913, Albania was recognized as an independent, neutral state. A constitutional monarchy under the leadership of a foreign prince and under the protection of the great powers was determined as the form of government. The boundaries still to be defined in detail covered an area of ​​28,000 square kilometers, which was inhabited by around 800,000 people. Montenegro had to give up Shkodra after around 10,000 men lost their lives in conquering the city. Serbia reluctantly bowed to an ultimatum from Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy to withdraw from northern Albania. Large areas with an Albanian majority, in particular Kosovo and western Macedonia , remained outside the new state, so that the treaty could not solve the many ethnic problems in the region.

The recognized borders of Albania since 1913

When the great powers recognized Albania's independence, they also founded the International Control Commission , which endeavored to expand its powers, and the Provisional Government in Vlora and the rival government of Essad Pasha Toptani , which was supported by the great landowners of Central Albania and boasted an impressive militia to put aside. The Control Commission drafted a constitution that provided for a national assembly of locally elected deputies, the leaders of the main religious groups, ten persons appointed by the prince and other notable figures. After the great powers the Germans Wilhelm zu Wied to Prince of Albania had appointed Qemali resigned on 22 January 1914th

The formation of a nation was to take a long time: Albania was occupied during the First World War , and it was not until the late 1920s that the situation between the rival powers stabilized under Ahmet Zogu , who later proclaimed himself king . In 1939 Albania was occupied by the Italians. The communists , who took power after the Second World War , created a particularly strong Albanian nationalism, which was characterized by an intense policy of isolation. In Kosovo, the territorial disputes between Albanians and Serbs continued until the Kosovo war turned around in 1999 and in 2008 the Albanian majority proclaimed the country's independence. The Albanians claim Kosovo because their relatives have made up the majority of the population there since at least the 18th century. Albanian nationalism experienced a true rebirth there, so that the demand for a Greater Albania can be heard more and more again.

See also

literature

  • Zuzana Finger: The Albanian Nation Building . In: Peter Jordan, Karl Kaser, Walter Lukan, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Holm Sundhaussen (eds.): Österreichische Osthefte . Volume 45, issue 1/2. Peter Lang, 2003, ISSN  0029-9375 , p. 135-149 .
  • Albania Library of Congress Country Study
  • Mark Mazower : The Balkans: A Short History . In: Modern Library Chronicles . Random House, New York 2000, ISBN 0-679-64087-8 .
  • Schwandner-Sievers, Bernd J. Fischer: Albanian Identities: Myth and History . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2002, ISBN 0-253-21570-6 .
  • Stavro Skendi: The Albanian national awakening, 1878-1912 . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1967 ( excerpt from Google Books).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Karl Kaser, Frank Kressing: Albania - A country in transition Aspects of changing identities in a south-east European country . Nomos-Verlag Extracts, Baden-Baden 2002, p. 15 .
  2. ↑ Michael Hurst: The Albanian National Awakening, 1878-1912. By Stavro Skendi. Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 1968. Pp. 498.110s . In: The Historical Journal . tape 12 , no. 2 . Cambridge 1969, p. 380 , doi : 10.1017 / S0018246X00004416 ( journals.cambridge.org [accessed October 17, 2012]).
  3. ↑ a b c Leften Stavros Stavrianos, Traian Stoianovich: The Balkans since 1453 . 2nd Edition. C. Hurst, London 2000, ISBN 978-1-85065-551-0 ( excerpt from Google Books ).
  4. ↑ Miranda Vickers: The Albanians: A Modern History . IB Tauris, New York 1999, ISBN 978-1-86064-541-9 ( excerpt from Google Books ).
  5. ↑ Barbara Jelavich: History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, ISBN 978-0-521-27458-6 , pp. 349 ( excerpt from Google Books ).
  6. ↑ Arthur Bullard: The Diplomacy of the Great War . BiblioBazaar, 2009, ISBN 978-1-110-00529-1 ( description on Google Books ).
  7. ↑ a b c d e f Helga Turku: Isolationist States in an Interdependent World . Ashgate Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7546-7932-5 ( excerpt from Google Books ).
  8. ↑ Ulrich M. Schmid: Albania's fate . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 219 . Zurich September 21, 1999, p. 67 ( PDF ). PDF ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alexandria.unisg.ch
  9. ↑ a b Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Bernd J. Fischer (Ed.): Albanian Identities: Myth and History . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2002, ISBN 978-0-253-34189-1 .
  10. ^ Albania, general information . 8 Nëntori, Tirana 1984 ( description on Google Books ).
  11. ↑ a b c Barbara Jelavich: History of the Balkans: Twentieth century . In: Joint Committee on Eastern Europe (Ed.): Joint Committee on Eastern Europe Publication Series . Volume 2, No. 12 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983, ISBN 0-521-27459-1 ( preview on Google Books ).
  12. ↑ Dimitrije Bogdanović: Knjiga o Kosovu . Ed .: Antonije Isaković. Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade 1986 ( online article ).
  13. ^ John Phillips: Macedonia: warlords and rebels in the Balkans . IB Tauris, London 2004, ISBN 1-86064-841-X , The rise of Albanian nationalism ( excerpt from Google Books ).
  14. ↑ Taru Bahl: Encyclopaedia of the Muslim World . Anmol publications PVT., New Delhi 2003, ISBN 81-261-1419-3 , The Balkan Wars and creation of Independent Albania ( description on Google Books ). Description on Google Books ( Memento of the original from November 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / books.google.ch
  15. ^ Stanford J. Shaw: History of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey . Volume 2 - Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808–1975. The Press Syndicate of University of Cambridge, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-29166-6 , Clearing the Decks: Ending the Tripolitanian War and the Albanian Revolt ( excerpt from Google Books ).
  16. ↑ Ekrem Bey Vlora: Memoirs (1912 to 1925) . In: Mathias Bernath (Ed.): Southeast European works . tape II . R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-486-47571-1 .
  17. ↑ Noel Malcolm: Is it true that Albanians in Kosova are not Albanians, but descendants from Albanianized Serbs? In: Anna di Lellio (Ed.): The case for Kosova: passage to independence . Anthem Press, London 2006, ISBN 1-84331-245-X ( excerpt from Google Books).