Part Two
Memorie.al / “Neither beatings with rods, nor weapons, nor cannon, nor exile, nor imprisonment, nor even death itself move them from their place.” The speaker was a young Albanian who had done part of his schooling in the United States. He has now returned to his homeland, where he is working with great diligence. He is one of the few educated people in Albania, but he aims that the next generation will not count the educated men and women of Albania on their fingers. The words quoted above were preceded by these: “For the moment, from north to south and from east to west of Albania, all classes of people – whether Muslims or Christians – have one desire, almost a passion, for national education. They all understand that, just as in the past the sword was the symbol of power, today education is the goddess of power, and they will be educated, regardless of persecution.”
Continued from the previous issue
This would help create cracks for the future, when Austria hoped that it would inherit this land and would find it necessary to use its cunning tyranny to Austrianise the Albanian. The “Normal” School of Elbasan, with its Latin alphabet and freed from foreign propaganda, was a ray of light in the darkness of Albania.
It had no religious division – Muslims and Christians were brothers, without distinction. The founders had only one aim: the elevation of the Albanian race. They were not revolutionaries in the political sense of the word. They wanted to cooperate with the government of the Young Turks, and only asked that the implementation of the new constitution should have something in common with its fundamental promises.
But when Turkish soldiers came to Elbasan in the summer of 1910, a state of emergency was declared. All those seen as having connections with the “Normal” School or sympathizing with its progress were pursued, brought before the military authorities and beaten in a very cruel manner to make them confess. Beatings with rods and whips were applied to most of the enlightened people of Elbasan. The financier of the “Normal” School was flogged beyond all imagination.
The director and many of the teachers fled. The military authorities sought out and beat the responsible persons over a telegram that had been sent to Constantinople, asking that instruction in Albanian schools should be in the Albanian language and with Latin letters. Then the soldiers marched off to do other work, “having closed that school and taught the Albanians a lesson to remember”.
Albanian uprisings
As 1910 passed, troubles began to increase for the Turks in the chanceries of Europe, especially because of the scandal of the army’s orgies in Albania and the closing of the normal school, as well as the brutal disarming of Christians in Macedonia. In Europe there always exist several parties whose political interests can be advanced by supporting the oppressed. And although it was hypocritical motives that set in motion many European statesmen who helped bring these events to light, the truth of the Young Turks’ deeds in Albania and Macedonia gradually became known to all.
The Young Turk had shown himself to be truly his father’s son. The leaders saw that they had made a mistake, but they would not admit it, and subsequent events have shown that they did not change their minds. In April 1911, an uprising of the highlanders took place in the province of Shkodra, in north‑western Albania along the border with Montenegro. The revolt was one of the premature and unfortunate attempts of a desperate and brave, but divided, people to throw themselves against the intolerable yoke. Instead of turning into a general revolt, the uprising remained limited to the northernmost edge of Albania.
The true patriots of all Albania cast aside their religious and tribal differences when faced with the great facts of a common heritage and against a common yoke. They, the educated members of their race, were fighting hard in the past year for a common effort in search of justice for all Albania. Unfortunately, these leaders were poorly organized, without funding and without experience. They received no support from most of the Muslim tribes, many of whom, however, had been so disarmed that they could not think of joining a rebellion.
The Catholic Mirditors, a strong tribe south of Shkodra, had few rifles, all of them old, and hesitated to come to the aid of the highlanders’ revolt until it was too late. Montenegro was the mainstay of the uprising, through the support that it and its citizens gave to the Albanian refugees who had crossed the border the previous winter and who returned to Albania in the spring, ready for war. In this way, the knife that for generations had been sheathed between the Slavs of Montenegro and the native Albanians was “buried”.
But Montenegro found itself dangerously involved in Albanian affairs, at odds with European diplomacy and especially with its friend, Russia. So, in the end, Montenegro left Albania in the lurch. Despite this fact, the Turks were forced to make peace with the rebellious highlanders, granting them so many concessions that complaints began to appear from the Muslim population of Shkodra, which had not rebelled. “What! You offer favours to the rebels,” they said. “But who has remained loyal to you, despite old wounds?” It was like the complaint of the unprodigal son. Unfortunately, the Turk could not placate his loyal children, as the Jewish father once did. As for the agreement with the highlanders, it was not known how long it would last.
Schools will only make things easier
The future of Albania depends not only on the will of Austria, Italy, Montenegro (backed by Russia), Greece and Turkey itself, each of which is determined to have its own Albanian slice of the cake. The future of Albania depends greatly on how much education can be implemented before the fate of the two million inhabitants is finally decided.
With the exception of Mrs. Edith Durham, the English woman who has herself trodden the wildest and most dangerous areas of Albania, no one knows the country better than Mr. James D. Bourchier, who for a generation has been special correspondent of the “London Times” in the Balkans. His remarkable article on Albania in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, after speaking of the battles of isolated groups of Albanians, concludes: “The growth of a stronger patriotic feeling must depend on the spread of education among the people.”
If education spreads unhindered in Albania, the Albanians will begin to take care of themselves. Many of the Christian Albanians in the city of Shkodra have been educated and have gained prosperity, thanks to the Italians and Austrians. They fear above all the fanaticism of their Muslim brothers, although in the mountains a few kilometres away, among the families of ignorant highlanders, both the Christian and the Muslim faith can find a place under the same roof, and Christian and Muslim rites can be performed even in a single building.
Several times the author of this article has asked educated Muslim Albanians, interested in the cause of their race, why they have not preached to the Muslims of Shkodra and elsewhere the brotherhood between Christians and Muslims. Without hesitation, but with shame and tight lips, the answer has always been the same: “It is impossible. The Muslims are ignorant. First they must be educated, and then they will understand.”
Shortly before the dissolution of parliament, in January 1912, an Albanian deputy, one of the chief spokesmen of his race and for the moment a leader of the rebels, declared: “If the Turks continue to despise not the Turks, they will ruin their country. I say this because I love the Turks, whose existence is necessary for us.” The Albanian deputy was speaking for his people.
The Albanian fears the future
The Albanian fears that, instead of securing the liberty for which he has prayed and fought his beloved mountains and fertile valleys will be divided among the warring states, and that he will be absorbed by a foreign race. Austria threatens to come from the north. Italy threatens from across the Adriatic shores. These are two enemies that the Albanians hate worse than the Turks, despite the schools, hospitals and churches that their representatives have built in north‑western Albania.
The Albanians fear Austria and Italy, just as a prophetic Pole might have feared the three robbers of his motherland. The Albanians also fear a European conference for that purpose, lest Montenegro and Greece be allowed to expand at the Albanians’ expense. The ideal alternative that he would wish for is a well‑governed Turkey, for which he will be one of the “protective bulwarks”.
However, generations of Turkish rule have taught him not to expect justice from the Turks. The revolution of July 1908 offered a temporary ray of hope, but the darkness of despair immediately returned, blacker than before. Punishment with rods, bullets and prison cells has been the only reward after the search for “something better”.
It is true that the Albanians, who had been neglected for centuries, were not ready to accept some of the conditions of “Constitutionalism” with goodwill. The ignorant peasant, who has never paid taxes and has never been registered for military service, did not appreciate the new “equality”, which was manifested to him through the payment of taxes like all other inhabitants of Turkey, as well as through his contribution of quotas for martyrs in the distant lands of Yemen.
The Albanians have many things to learn. Education could have come already through their enlightened leaders. But the foolish Turk did the only thing he knew how to do – he marched with an army into Albania. As a result, instead of exploiting the chances of an enthusiastic loyalty, he further entrenched the long‑standing feelings of mistrust and hatred.
Speculations about the future of Albania lead only to impenetrable labyrinths, since the Albanian problem is closely linked to the Eastern Question, which has tormented Europe for generations. The Crimean War was fought to solve it, but in a more complicated form it returned in the Russo‑Turkish War of 1877‑1878. Europe’s envoys in Berlin in 1878 drew up the Treaty of Berlin. Is it too much to hope that the time has come for the emergence of a more benevolent generation of diplomats?
Yet the Near East always hopes for a solution and for an end to the conditions that, with the old Turks and now the Young Turks, are making the Ottoman Empire merely a legend. Today the Albanians, Arabs, Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs and the Turks themselves are suffering, as has happened for decades, from the scourge of Turkish rule. Of these unfortunate peoples, the Albanians are the first to attract the attention of a non‑selfish world. / Memorie.al
Published by ‘National Geographic’ magazine, November 1912.
