By Prof. Dr. Sabile Keçmezi-Basha
Part One
Memorie.al / Based on the political spirit of the authentic writings of the participants in the founding Assembly, on September 16-19, 1943, the Second League of Prizren is a national democratic Albanian political-military organization. According to Tahir Zajmi, the founding Assembly also worked on September 20. Since then, this date has been mistakenly entered into historiography. The opinion of many publicists that “the initiative for the League of Prizren was taken by Xhafer Deva after the capitulation of fascist Italy” is also not valid! This has some support in Ali Hadri’s findings that; “the main person in the initiative group for calling the founding Assembly of the Second League of Prizren was Xhafer Deva, a great supporter of the German intelligence service”!
The clear beginnings of the Second League of Prizren are marked by the political activity of the veteran of the Albanian Independence, Rexhep Mitrovica, from the end of July 1943. The organ of the Kosovo Committee clearly noted these indisputable beginnings: “Afterhad a wide exchange of views with a number of Kosovar personalities in the capital, he left together with some friends for Prizren where, in connection with many other patriots, he would organize the movement for the defense of Kosovo, against every imperialist wave…”.
These friends of Mitrovica were: Qazim Bllaca and Muhamet Frashëri, former sub-prefect of Theranda (former Suhareka). It was a time when the Italian fascist government was shaking the ground under its feet in Albanian lands, after the departure of Benito Mussolini from the post of Prime Minister of Italy (July 25, 1943). Rexhep Mitrovica and his friends were arrested on August 2, 1943, as soon as they arrived at the “Post-blok” of the Prizren carabinieri. They were held for a while in the Military Prison and the Prizren District Prison. They were badly bound and sent to the “Komanda-tapa” in Shkodra and, from there, to the Military Prison in Tirana and to the “Porto-Romano” concentration camp near Durrës. In the dungeons of this camp, they would have suffered even worse if fate had not smiled on them with the help offered by the earliest prisoners: Idriz Ajet Gashi from Drenica and Abdullah Musliu from Ferizaj, prominent anti-fascists.
Qazim would be released on the eve of Italy’s capitulation, with the help of Fejzi Alizoti, while Rexhepi and Muhameti, only after the capitulation of fascist Italy, on September 8, 1943. In these circumstances, the establishment of the Second League of Prizren, to take the local Albanians into their own hands the protection of the ethnic borders of Kosovo and Albania, was postponed until the first days of the complete occupation of Ethnic Albania by the Hitlerite army. In reality, on September 9, 1943, the Prime Minister of the Albanian Kingdom, Ekrem Libohova, addressed an Appeal to the nation, which emphasized that the Albanian governments under the Italian occupation had striven “for order and fraternal unity”, so that the Albanian people “would emerge physically and economically unharmed from this global conflict” – World War II.
On September 11, 1943, the Council of Ministers of Albania, under the chairmanship of Iljaz Agushi, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of World Affairs, proclaimed the “Full Independence of Albania (…) with the borders determined by language and blood”. The Proclamation, among other things, specified: “The Government assumes all sovereign powers, until the new Assembly is elected…”! On this very day, September 11, 1943, the prefect of Prizren, lawyer Asllan Isa Boletini, brought Qazim Ramë Bllaca from Bllaca to Prizren by courier, to participate in the Meeting of the Organizing Council of the Second League of Prizren. According to Tahir Zajmi, the initiative group consisted of: Xhafer Deva, Musa Sheh Zade, Sheh Hasani, Tahir Zajmi, Lukë S. Mjeda, Qazim Bllaca and Pjetër Vuçaj! According to Qazim Bllaca, the founding meeting of the Organizing Council was chaired by Asllan Boletini! In the authentic records of the participants in the founding Assembly, this Council is called the “Initiating Group of the Prizren Congress”.
On the first day, this Council was composed of patriots: Sheh Musa Shehzade (chairman), Shefqet Shkupi, Sheh Hasani, Asllan Boletini, Qazim Bllaca, Pjetër Vuçaj, Tahir Zajmi, Hevzi Meraku, Luk Simoni, Qemal Balila, Haxhi Fahriu and Sokol Dobroshi (members). The importance of the event prompted the preparations for holding the founding Assembly to develop rapidly. On September 14, 1943, the General Executive Committee was established in Tirana, with the task of the Provisional Government – to convene the National Assembly of Albania, in the extension of ethnic Albanian lands. And, two days later in Prizren, the Prizren Congress would begin its work in circumstances of an atmosphere of all-Kosovo celebration. Meanwhile, the first information about the establishment of the Second League of Prizren was published by the newspaper “Kombi” on September 23, 1943.
The informant was a participant in the founding Assembly, and he specified: “Known Kosovar patriots took the initiative to convene a (Congress of) Kosovo, Dibra and Struga, where the general will of the inhabitants of these regions would be expressed, for the permanent union with Mother Albania, and for the security of these regions from any enemy attack”. Therefore, the Second League of Prizren neither started nor would it end as an all-Albanian League, nor a copy of the Albanian League of Prizren 1878-1881. Fully in line with the anti-Albanian Cominternist policy, there was also the statement: “The formation of this organization is a joint work of Albanian quislings and the German intelligence service”. The correspondent of the newspaper “Kombi”, a participant in the founding Assembly, informed the readers: “The first point of the program of talks contains the demand for the permanent and indissoluble union of all the provinces, inhabited for thousands of years, by Albanian populations”;
The second point of the Program “contains the union with Albania of the provinces of Mitrovica, Vučiterna, Pazar i Ri and Senica – Albanian lands threatened from many sides by the Slavic world”; “The fourth point of the conversation contains the formation of a Central Committee in Prizren, with its branches in all the Prefectures, Sub-Prefectures and municipalities of the provinces of Kosovo, Dibra and Struga, which will take over the military and political organization of Kosovo”; “The fifth point of the program contains the collection of all historical, political and diplomatic documents that strengthen the Albanian identity of the liberated lands, as well as the events and endless suffering of the inhabitants of these areas during the Yugoslav rule, as a document in case of a future peace. A complete and very faithful presentation of the developments in the founding Assembly of the Second League of Prizren was made by the newspaper “Kosova” of October 1943.
It informed the public: “The glorious day of September 16, 1943 dawned finding Prizren decorated in an extraordinary way with national flags, with triumphal arches, on which stand the figures of all the most prominent martyrs and fighters of the national efforts of the Albanian people”!
The founding Assembly of the Second League of Prizren held its proceedings at the School “Bajram Curri”. It was opened by the chairman of the Organizing Council, Sheh Musa Shehzade, a great scholar and a leading figure of the Second League of Prizren. He strongly challenged the violence of the Italian occupier and reflected the Albanian political and armed opposition against the Italian occupier:
“After the defeat of the Italian army, which, for four consecutive years, killed, cut down, destroyed and devastated, burned and burned in our lands, carrying out a truly oppressive activity of an oppressor without any scruples, the problem of the life of our Nation, of our future, appears more complicated. The reason is known to all: The Italians, as you all know, despite our joint efforts, did not leave us, by eliminating us, interning us and imprisoning us, any possibility of organizing internally, to be ready, if not, to withstand the insidious attacks of the Serbian, Montenegrin and Greek imperialists.
The great sage Musa Shehzade outlined the Albanian political stance towards the German invader. He clearly presented it as a foreign, imposed and temporary power and demanded that it be used for the benefits of the Albanian nation. He wisely emphasized: “Now that we have all the possibilities of a general organization of national powers, we must win, within a short time, all the period we lost during the recent past (…). We must therefore think of the measures and ways of our defense, for all possibilities and for all circumstances. The goal that will inspire our effort, a life-or-death effort, will be one and only; Ensuring our ethnic unity”. The Chairman of the Organizing Council of the Second League of Prizren, Sheh Musa Shehzade, sent a powerful message to the invaders and dismemberer’s of Ethnic Albania in 1878, 1913, 1919 and 1941, emphasizing: “We are openly declaring, we do not have the slightest claim on any piece of land that is not ours. We only want everything that is Albanian land, inhabited by an Albanian population. Therefore, our neighbors have no reason to fear us …”!
The other members of the Organizing Group would highlight to the delegates the demands for the program and statute of the Second League of Prizren, which would be put on the agenda on the second and third days of the proceedings of the Founding Assembly. The veteran of the fight for the freedom of historical Kosovo, Shefqet Shkupi, would specify: “The goals are those mentioned by our President himself and that are closely related to the common will of the entire People of Kosovo, Dibra, Struga and Tetovo; that is to say, firstly, ensuring the unification of all these countries with Old Albania, to which they belong from every point of view: from the historical, geographical and ethnographic point of view; secondly, to ensure the completion of our ethnic unity, including in the circle of our national Votra, of the Free, independent, Albanian State, all those places that, for one reason or another, are still hidden under slavery; thirdly, being inspired by the unforgettable patriotic work of the League of Prizren, by laying, as of now, the foundations of a protective organization political, diplomatic and military of these undeniable rights and, as such, inviolable before any right, even before the most basic one”.
The orator, a very important personality of Albanian history, would advocate for the unification with the Albanian King of other Albanian territories which were still under Bulgarian occupation and the indirect administration of the Kingdom of Montenegro and Nedić’s Serbia. Shefqet Shkupi emphasized to the delegates: “Our country is targeted by unbridled imperialist greed, because, among its neighbors, it has made little, if any, steps towards the understanding of true justice, and because, the leaders of various former military cliques, like Mihajlović, continue to dream of artificial creations, completely impossible now, like the former Yugoslavia, which devastated and ruined, for thirty consecutive years, the Arbënwer Tribe in our Kosovo”.
The purpose of establishing the Second League of Prizren was reflected in a simple sentence: “Everything for Freedom!” by Dr. Rexhep Krasniqi, the first Albanian historian, the most profound of the Albanian League of Prizren of 1878, which, as he stated: “will remain, sooner or later, indelible in the minds and souls of all Albanians, because the existence and salvation of our Tribe from the lies of the Russian puppets is owed to that League”!
The request for Albanian unity to realize the aspiration of the unity of Ethnic Albania was given the meaning of a bequest by the patriot Tahir Zajmi. He emphasized: “The will of the entire people that we have the honor to represent in this meeting is to achieve the perfect union between Kosovo, Dibra and Struga with Old Albania. Therefore, we, faithfully interpreting this will, must, together, proclaim this union in a plebiscite form (…), for the realization of our ethnic unity.” A political personality, Zajmi, skilled with a rifle and a pen, conceived the political platform – “The Peaceful Will of Kosovo”, in which, among other things, he specified: “The current Assembly of Prizren is the great gathering of the entire Albanian people who, the injustices of imperialist Europe, had left, for two consecutive times, under the yoke of the imperialists of the Balkans” and concluded: As soon as these rights are secured, which even the criterion of the most basic justice cannot deny, the Albanian people will inspire their internal and external policy from directions that will contain all the same inviolable fundamental norms, towards their neighbors (…)”.
An enthusiastic, united patriotic atmosphere was created at the founding Congress of the Second League of Prizren by the speech of the Mitrovica teacher Bedri Gjinaj: “The delegation of Mitrovica participates in this historic meeting, convinced that from its conversations and works what the entire Albanian people expect will emerge: the decision to create, with justice and blood, the Albania dreamed of by all our Martyrs: Ethnic Albania”. On September 17, 1943, the General Executive Council of Tirana informed the people that it had declared the “independence of Albania” and called on them “for the necessity of defending Ethnic Albania”. On this day, precisely on September 17, 1943, the Second Session of the Founding Assembly of the Second League of Prizren held its proceedings. The Chairman of the Initiating Council, Musa Shehzade, in this session of the founding Assembly of the League, proposed the Presidency of the Congress consisting of: One Chairman, Two Vice-Chairmen, and One Secretary, to “chair the meetings and direct the development of the interesting discussions of the historic meeting”!
According to Tahir Zajmi, 42 delegates participated in the founding Assembly. By secret ballot, the Assembly elected the scholar Sheh Musa Shehzade as Chairman with 38 votes, and as Vice-Chairmen: Aqif Bluta and Dr. Rexhep Mitrovica, with 17 votes each. “Upon the proposal of the Chairman (Musa Shehzade), the meeting accepts, by acclamation, as Secretary of the Congress Mr. Bedri Gjinaj”. At the request of the Chairman of the Assembly, the proceedings of all sessions would be led by Dr. Rexhep Krasniqi. The organ of the Kosovo Committee – “Kosova”, was also dedicated to the biographies of the leading personalities of the founding Assembly of the Second League of Prizren. It was emphasized: “Mr. Musa Shehu, from Prizren, is one of the oldest figures, a veteran well-known throughout the Albanian world, as a tireless effort, at all times and in all circumstances, to fulfill the sacred aspirations of the Albanian Nation; a man one hundred percent honest, courageous and steadfast in following the fundamental principles that have inspired, sooner or later, the national movements of our country and, as such, an inseparable friend of the Elder of the Mountains, the unforgettable Bajram Curri. His election at the head of the Congress, therefore, clearly indicates the path that the Congress itself intends to follow (…)”.
And, speaking of Aqif Bluta, the representative of Sandzak, Kosovo, among other things, he wrote: “This bloody man, one of the most distinguished officers to emerge from the Turkish School, is the most representative figure of Sandzak; he is the Man who, at all times, under every occupation, has never stopped fighting for the realization of the will of the Kosovar people, to be one and indivisible against every destructive wave; he is the Man who, the imperialist military clique of Belgrade, set traps for him, more than once, to eliminate him from circulation, to kill him, so that his powerful voice would cease, in the bosom of Skupčina, against tyranny, against terrorism, against massacres and against the war of denationalization, which imperialist Serbia was waging on the Albanian people of the purely Albanian Visevets of Kosovo (…); he is the Man, finally, who has decided, as far as his sector is concerned, to unite, by any means and with any sacrifice, the New Market, a purely Albanian place, as he has declared with the blood he shed generously in every case of danger, with the common Albanian Homeland”.
Speaking about the historian Dr. Rexhep Krasniqi, the newspaper “Kosova”, specified: “…the youngest in the Presidency, is the boy who was raised and nurtured with the aspirations and ideals of the immortal Old Man of the Mountains (Bajram Curri), a patriotic boy who, for Albania, thinks and lives and who, like all the young men of Christian Kosovo, is inspired by the unwavering will to carry out, this time, once and for all, the Order of the First: the creation of Ethnic Albania…”. In the proceedings of the Second Session, the largest time span was taken up by: “Discussion on the Union of Kosovo, Dibra and Struga with Albania”. The founding assembly decided: “These Regions should join our common Mother; Albania to Mother”. Jurist Esad Berisha, representative of the Gjilan sub-prefecture, reflected the dimensions of Bulgarian violence in the Albanian regions occupied by Bulgaria and concluded: “The tasks that await us for the realization of the will of all Albanians: the creation of Ethnic Albania, are numerous and extremely difficult. To achieve this task, there is only one way; to follow the message that the Nightingale of the Albanian language, Naim Frashëri, has left us: “Work, work, night and day, so that we may see a little light”. Memorie.al
Continued in the next issue
