Sokol Baci

Sokol Baci

Sokol Baci , also Sokol Baco , Sokol Batzi , Nikola Bacci , ( Serbian - Cyrillic Сокол Баца ; * 1837 , † 1920 in Shkodra ) was an Albanian rebel from the Gruda tribe . He was one of the leaders of the Albanian revolt of 1911. In 1913 he was appointed voivode of Shkodra by the Montenegrin King Nikola I. Petrović Njegoš .

Life

Origin, childhood and youth

Sokol Baci Ivezaj was born in 1837 as the son of Bac, he belonged to the Precaj family from the village of Ivezaj in Gruda. His full name was Sokol Bac Precaj Ivezić Vuksanović (Vuksangeljović) Gruda .

As a boy, Baci was brought to Istanbul by the Ottoman authorities as part of the boy harvest and raised there. Because of his intelligence and athletic ability, Sokol was selected to attend the Military Academy in Paris. As a result of the many fights he fought for the Ottomans, he was eventually elected the Sultan's personal bodyguard along with five other high-ranking young men.

Cooperation with Montenegro

In 1877 Baci was staying in Albania when he received the order to disarm the northern Albanian Malissors (Albanian inhabitants of the mountains) during the Serbian-Ottoman War (1876–1878) and the Russian-Ottoman War (1877–1878) . However, Baci refused to obey because he did not want to become a traitor to his people and led his clan into battle against the Ottoman forces. He managed to behead two high-ranking Ottoman officers, but the Gruda were defeated and had to flee. Baci became a refugee and outlaw in exile in Montenegro , which he himself had previously fought in the 1870s. He sought refuge with the tribe of his wife in Zatrijebač , whose territory had been annexed by the Principality of Montenegro after the Montenegrin-Ottoman War (1876-78). Baci became the Montenegrin representative to the Catholic Albanians. Cooperation had come about through the voivode, Interior Minister Mašo Vrbica . Baci informed Vrbica about the political commitment of Albania and the movement of the Ottoman armed forces in the Malësia e Madhe region . Nevertheless, a document from the French consulate in Shkodra dated September 21, 1879 shows that Baci and other clan chiefs of the Hoti and Gruda had presented the great powers with a memorandum in which they asked not to cede their land to Montenegro.

Sokol Baci

Nikola I of Montenegro donated a house and some land to Baci and employed him in the Montenegrin government as a representative for northern Albanian affairs. After 1883 Nikola I's diplomacy with the Malissors was mainly through Sokol Baci. A Montenegrin document dated November 1891 with a list of Herzegovinian and Albanian leaders showed that Baci received the largest payment from the Montenegrin government: 540 guilders and 967 measure of flour per year for his services. In mid-July 1902, Baci gave Prince Nikola a list of the names of Malissor leaders and their companions who, on the prince's orders, received 1,190 guilders. Sokol Baci financed the construction of a Catholic church in Podgorica in 1904 (which was destroyed in a bomb attack in May 1944). After the Young Turks entered the Ottoman government, he moved back to Gruda for a short time in 1908, but soon returned to Podgorica.

Albanian uprising in 1911

The leaders of the Albanian uprising against the Ottoman Empire included Sokol Baci, Mirash Luca (Kastrati), Ded Gjo Luli (Hoti), Ton Nika (Shkreli), Mehmet Shpendi (Shala), Ljub Mark Gjeloshi, Mirash Pali and Franjo Pali (Selca) and Luigj Gurakuqi . An intelligence document from the British Foreign Office indicates that Sokol Baci, along with Ded Gjo Luli and Mirash Luca, were the main initiators of the Albanian revolt of 1911. It describes Sokol Baci as "a man of culture and considerable intelligence". During the Albanian revolt of 1911 "he organized the service of the insurgents with considerable skill". Nicholas I entrusted Sokol Baci, who was highly respected by the tribesmen, with the task of persuading the Albanian Catholics to emigrate in large numbers to Montenegro and promised them that their wives and children would receive protection if they opposed the Turks would rebel until their country was liberated. They should be given enough weapons and ammunition for this. Nicholas himself promised the tribesmen independence. Sokol Baci agreed to it, but later regretted it.

Copy of the 1911 memorandum signed by Sokol Baci

On June 24, 1911, the Ottoman minister in Montenegro, Saddridin Bey, came to negotiations with the Malissors and promised a longer armistice and an increase in the compensation money. However, Sokol Baci urged the Malissors not to surrender. In 1912 the Gruda and Hoti tribes were allied with Montenegro. Support also came from the larger parts of the Kastrati and Shkreli as well as part of the Kelmendi.

According to British Balkan traveler and writer Edith Durham , in 1912 Montenegro worked hard to persuade the Malissors to revolt in exchange for arms and freedom, who would like to believe that it was Montenegro's intention to “free the brothers”. During their wartime correspondence in the winter of 1913, Durham described their conversation with Sokol Baci and his son Kole Sokoli, who stated that they would fight to free Albania from the Ottomans. After the Montenegrin conquest of Shkodra in 1913, Nicholas I appointed Sokol Baci voivode and commander of Shkodra. On May 26, 1913, 130 leaders of the Gruda, Hoti, Kelmendi, Kastrati and Shkreli sent a petition to British Admiral Cecil Burney in Shkodra against the incorporation of their territories into Montenegro.

With the First Balkan War , Greece, Serbia and Montenegro expelled the Ottoman Empire from Albania and wanted to divide the country. The Albanians now had to defend themselves against these nations and in this situation finally proclaimed the founding of the Republic of Albania on November 28, 1912 by Ismail Qemali in the southern Albanian port city of Vlora . The tribal area of ​​the Gruda and Hoti remained with Montenegro. On November 14, 1918, Luigj Gurakuqi , Anton Harapi and Gjergj Fishta led the leaders of the Hoti and Gruda on a march from Montenegro to Shkodra. A memorandum was drawn up which was presented to the French Colonel Bardy de Fourton and addressed to the Foreign Ministers in Washington, London, Paris and Rome. The tribal leaders called for the union of the area of ​​the Hoti and Gruda with Albania. However, the area still belongs to Montenegro today .

Web links

Commons : Sokol Baci  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Vladimir Stojančević: Srbija i Albanci u XIX i početkom XX veka: ciklus predavanja 10-25. novembar 1987 . Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, 1990, pp. 165f., 183
2. ↑ Stavro Skendi: The Albanian national awakening, 1878-1912 . Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 449 ( digitized version )
3. ↑ Anali Pravnog fakulteta u Beogradu . Pravni facultet, 1955, p. 448
4. ↑ Mihailo Petrovic: Đerdapski ribolovi u prošlosti iu sadašnjosti . Izd. Zadužbine Mikh. R. Radivojeviča, 1941, pp. 47-48
5. ^ Reginald Wyon: The Land of the Black Mountain. The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro . Methuen & Co, London 1905, p. 100 ( digitized version ).
6. ↑ ^{a b} Wyon (1903), p. 314
7. ↑ ^{a b} Wyon (1903), p. 315
8. ↑ ^{a b c} Историски записи . Volume 76, с.н., 2003, p. 18
9. ↑ AMAE, CPC, Konsullata e Frances në Shkoder vëll. 21, fl.350r-351v.
10. ^ ^{A b} Gjergj Fishta: The Highland Lute , IB Tauris, 2006, Canto 28
11. ↑ Kenneth Bourne: British Documents on Foreign Affairs . University Publications of America, 1989, Volume 15, pp. 511ff.
12. ^ ^{A b} Edith Durham: Twenty years of Balkan Tangle . George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London 1920 ( digitized version )
13. ^ Owen Pearson: Albania and King Zog, 1908-39 . (= Albania in the Twentieth Century, A History ). Volume I, IB Tauris, London 2005, ISBN 978-1-84511-013-0 , pp. 19ff.
14. ↑ Srpski etnografski zbornik . Akademija, 1923, p. 111
15. ^ Edith Durham: The Struggle for Scutari . E. Arnold, London 1914, p. 215, ( digitized version ).
16. ^ Owen Pearson: Albania in the twentieth century: a history . IB Tauris, London 2004, ISBN 978-1-84511-013-0 , p. 43