Both Serbian and Greek statesmen observed how important Albanian
determination was in case of a total Christian uprising on the Balkans, due
to Albania's geopolitical position and the role of Albanian warriors in the
Turkish army. According to a belief of the contemporary French minister to
Athens, the stand of the ethnic Albanians was a knot in all controversial
matters regarding Turkey and the Christian population.
The formation of the Balkan alliance for a joint struggle against the
Turks helped reestablish contacts with north Albania. Gaspar Krasnik was
interned at Constantinople in 1865, so Garasanin assigned a Slovenian
priest, Franz Mauri, secretary of the bishop of Scutari, to be the agent
instead. However, cooperation was soon severed due to suspicions that he was
working for Austria and Turkey.
Albania most severely opposed the Forte's reforms; this discontent was
thus used for contracting new alliances. In 1866, Djelal Pasha, member of
the powerful Zogu clan and influential chief of the Mati region, who was
interned at Constantinople, was won over for cooperation. For the first
time, contacts, though only in principle, were established with ethnic
Albanians of the Muslim faith. Since there were no Serbian settlements in
Mati, no intolerance existed like in Old Serbia. Djelal Pasha was to head
the great uprising against the Turks. When it was learnt in Constantinople
that the Porte was working on winning over and arming the ethnic Albanians
for the Christian uprising, the Serbian government, bolstered by the until
then reserved Russian diplomacy, activated its tasks among the ethnic
Albanians. In Belgrade in 1868, six Albanian chiefs were sojourning. After
being won over by gifts, they were familiarized with the preparations for
the uprising and sent to Albania to await the beckon to rise. Cooperation
with Dzelal Pasha was not realized for his instability and the unreliability
of his nearest retinues. There could be no political nor military
organization, for everything depended upon the competence of a handful of
chiefs.7
Serbia had high hopes for the Albanian revolt against Turkish
authorities, until abandoning the idea of rising in Turkey in 1868. However,
Belgrade did not apprehend that the readiness of ethnic Albanians to rise
evolved out of the desire to resist Turkish reforms and retain tribal
privileges. During the sixties of the 19th century, the ethnic Albanians
were void of national awareness, in the modern sense of the word, nor did
they comprehend, excepting a small number of educated tribal chiefs, their
problems as national, beyond narrow tribal and confessional frameworks. As
soon as imminent danger from the introduction of reforms was past, the
ethnic Albanians would again respond to calls from the sultan to defend
Islam and pay their dues of loyalty with abundant spoils and devastated
Christian countries.
1 V. Karadzic, Danica za 1827, Budim 1827. G. J. Jurisic considered the
following nahis part of Old Serbia in 1852: Novi Pazar, Pec, Djakovica,
Prizren, Skoplje, Kosovo, Pristina, Vucitrn, Vranje, Leskovac and Nis. A. F.
Giljferding, nevertheless, included the Novi Pazar nahis with Kosovo and
Metohia as part of Old Serbia (More detailed analysis in: V. Stojancevic,
Jugoslovenski narodi u Osmanskom Carstvu, p. 327).
2 A. Bou , Recueil d'itin raires dans la Turquie d'Europe, Paris 1854,
p. 198.
3 Zaduzbine Kosova, 611-612; V. Stojancevic, Juznoslovenski narodi u
Osmanskom Carstvu, p. 235.
4 D. Stranjakovic, Juznoslovenski nacionalni i drzavni program
Knezevine Srbije iz 1844. god., Beograd 1931, pp. 3-29; idem, Politicka
propaganda Srbije u juznoslovenskim pokrajinama 1844-1858. godine, Beograd
1936, pp. 20-25.
5 V. Stojancevic, Juznoslovenski narodi u Osmanskom Carstvu, pp.
292-293.
6 D. Stranjakovic, Albanija i Srbija u XIX veku, Srpski knjizevni
glasnik, 52 (1937), pp. 624-627; G. Jaksic - V. J. Vuckovic, Spoljna
politika Srbije za vlade kneza Mihaila. Prvi balkanski savez, Beograd 1963,
pp. 137.
7 G. Jaksic, Jedan izvestaj o Albaniji, Arhiv za Arbansku stranu, jezik
i etnologiju, II (1924), pp. 169-192; G. Jaksic - V. J. Vuckovicic, op.
cit., pp. 240-246, 413-416, 468, Srbija i oslobodilacki pokret na Balkanu od
Pariskog mira do Berlinskog kongresa (1856-1878), I (ed: V. Krestic- R.
Ljusic), Beograd 1983, pp. 435-444, 558-563.
National life evolved under the wing of the church. After the
abolishment of the Pec Patriarchate in 1766, gone was the only national
institution around which the Serbs congregated; gone was the guider of
national living. It was in 1807, by the edict of Sultan Mustafa, that the
Serbian Janicije was named metropolitan of the Raska-Prizren Eparchy. Owing
to himself and his successor, Hadzi-Zaharije (1819-1830), during the first
three decades of the 19th century, the Raska-Prizren Eparchy helped maintain
national awareness with the assistance of lower clergy of Serbian
nationality, even though remaining under the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
The people in Kosovo and Metohia were bound, perhaps more strongly than
those in other Serbian lands, to their national heritage. Living memories of
the sacred rulers and heroes of Kosovo, of past glory and the unfortunately
lost empire were kept alive by priests and monks from the fraternities of
medieval endowments. In Visoki Decani and the Pec Patriarchate, in Gracanica
and Devic, the most powerful seats of national and spiritual life, the cults
of ruler-martyrs, patriarchs and ascetics were cherished. Beside the
tradition of the once glorious Serbia under the Nemanjices, the minds of the
people were kept alive with the memories of uprisings and migrations of
centuries past. The endurance sustaining the Serbs despite all their
miseries, evolved out of a profound attachment to the spiritual and national
heritage of the medieval Serbian state.
Not with standing the raging anarchy that shook Old Serbia, waning only
from time to time, the Serbs in Metohia and Kosovo were able to organize and
restore their spiritual and educational lives with assistance from official
Serbia. Continuity of work, with periodical suspensions during times of
turbulence, was maintained by monastic schools in the Pec Patriarchate,
Visoki Decani, Devic and Gracanica (containing a press at one time). Here
pupils from different areas of Serbia under Turkish rule were being taught
the clergyman's vocation. The first more deeply felt financial support given
to the monastic schools, began to arrive from Prince Milos during the third
decade. During the reign of Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic and the
constitutionalist regime in Serbia (1842-1858), financial aid began to
arrive more regularly for the restoration of churches and the maintenance of
monasteries, and gifts were sent in books for religious service. Excluding
the most renown medieval endowments, aid from the Serbian government also
arrived to fraternities of the monasteries St. Marko and the Holy Trinity
near Prizren, the Holy Transfiguration near Pec, and to priests of the
Prizren and Djakovica churches.
Since the mid-18th century, Serbian church-school communities operated
in Metohia and Kosovo, founded first in towns and then in village parishes,
the cores of township and village self-government. Until the Rasko-Prizren
metropolitans were of Serbian nationality, they nominated members for the
governing bodies of church-school communities, usually for no limited time.
The selection was limited to the most noted priests, wealthy merchants and
guild representatives. Communities saw to the maintenance of religious
schools and the education of monastic progeny, strove to establish contact
with Serbia and effect relations with Turkish authorities, both on religious
and educational grounds, and when possible, on economic ones, too. Members
of church-school boards collected contributions for the repairement of
monasteries and churches. Beside many monasteries and churches (Gracanica,
Visoki Decani, Devic, Duboki Potok, Vracevo, Draganac), palaces were built
for the operation of monastic or religious schools, and subsequently secular
ones.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the inauguration of schools was
urged by Raska-Prizren Metropolitans Janicije and Hadzi Zaharije. When the
bishopric chair was taken over in 1830 by Greek bishops, endeavors were
undertaken, especially during Metropolitan Ignjatije's time (1840-1849), to
open Tzintzar schools where lessons in Greek would also be attended by
Serbian children.1 The Phanariot bishops strove to sustain the
subjugation and ignorance of the Serbian clergy, so as to facilitate their
manipulation of The flock. Some of them sold their clerical positions for
money and fined the people with large church taxes. Being of open
anti-Serbian determination, they impeded or hampered the restoration or
construction of new churches, attempted to Hellenize the populace by
imposing the celebration of the name-day feast, instead of the Slava
(Serbian family feast for its patron saint), a definitely Serbian
custom.2
In the first half of the 19th century, religious schools existed in all
major towns (Pristina, Pec, Mitrovica, Vucitrn, Gnjilane, Djakovica) and in
some villages (Musutiste, Vitina, Korminjan). Private schools were opened
usually under the name of a notable leader who was to finance its operation,
but the burden of maintenance usually fell upon church-school communities
and guilds. Private schools provided lessons in subjects both religious and
secular. The best among them were at Prizren, Vucitrn, Mitrovica, and the
Donja Jasenovo and Kovaci villages. The inauguration of new private schools
falls with the Turkish reforms at the middle of the century. Merchant and
craftsmen guilds in Pec, Prizren and Gnjilane introduced funds for opening
new schools and obtaining better teaching staff. The constitutionalist
government sent the schools money, books and other facilities through
merchants and other members of church boards. According to available data,
several dozens of schools in Metohia and Kosovo were attended by around
1,300 pupils during the sixties.
The oldest and most renown Serbian church-school community was in
Prizren, the economical center of Serbs in Metohia, where a community school
aiming to prevent Greek propaganda was established in 1836. Hilferding
recorded that the male school had 200 pupils in 1857. Other important seats
of scholastic life were at Pristina (150 pupils in 1865) and Pec (150 pupils
in 1866), in which Serbian teachers from different regions (Srem, Serbia,
Croatia) lectured according to secular programs from Serbia. Special schools
were opened for female children. The highest degree of education was
provided by an extensive school at Prizren, a kind of high school, though of
lower level.3
A number of talented pupils from Kosovo and Metohia aspiring to the
teaching vocation, were being prepared in Serbia from the beginning of the
sixties, owing to scholarships received from wealthy Prizren merchant Sima
Andrejevic Igumanov (1804-1882). Their number greatly increased already
after 1868, when in Belgrade, at the proposition of Serbian Metropolitan
Mihailo, an Educational Board was formed for schools and teachers in Old
Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under the patronage of the Board,
works on the improvement of teaching conditions soon produced significant
results. New schools were opened and old ones given financial support, and
the curriculum contained better programs. The tasks of teachers educated in
Serbia were not solely to educate, but were, above all, aimed to maintain
national awareness of the people, prevent conversions and prepare the
progeny to carry on the duties of national enlightenment.
The turning point in the educational life of Serbs in the Ottoman
Empire, was marked by the Bogoslovija (Seminary), founded in Prizren in
1871. Even though some suggestions for its inauguration were directed at
Pec, the prevailing attitude in Belgrade was that Prizren was the most
favorable place, being the center of economical life for Serbs in Old Serbia
and seat of the vilayet. Sima Andrejevic Igumanov lived in Prizren, the
contemporaneously greatest benefactor who bequeathed his riches obtained by
trades in Russia, to the people. He was a Russian subject and was thus able,
with assistance from the Russian consulate at Prizren, to obtain a license
from the Turkish authorities to found a Seminary. It soon became the seat of
the overall spiritual and educational life and the stronghold for political
work on national affairs. More important was the fact that for the first
time, contact had been established with the government in Belgrade, able
thus to exert immediate influence on national operations amongst Serbs in
Old Serbia.
From its inauguration in 1871, until the liberation in 1912, the
Seminary worked according to instructions given by the Serbian government.
At the beginning, its operation was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry
for Education and Religious Affairs, and then the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs. All expenses of the Seminary were paid by the Serbian government,
but important means for its maintenance came from various funds founded by
the church and from the endowment of Sima Igumanov. The first rector of the
Theological college was a monk from Decani, Sava Decanac, a graduate of the
Spiritual Academy in Kiev.4
Owing to the Bogoslovija, primary schools operated in all larger
settlements in Metohia and Kosovo until 1912, and graduated theologians from
Prizren became teachers and priests all over the Ottoman Empire, from
Macedonia to Bosnia. According to incomplete data, around 480 students
graduated from the Seminary (subsequently transformed to a
theological-teaching school) until 1912, among whom 196 were from Metohia
and Kosovo.
The inauguration of the Seminary in Prizren proved to be a secure dam
against any attempts undertaken by the Constantinople Patriarchate to
Hellenize the Serbian populace through Tzintzar oases in Metohia and against
the aims of the Bulgarian Exarchate (1870) to build strongholds in the
Gnjilane region. Until the Serbian consulate was opened in Pristina in 1889,
the Seminary was the center of Serbian political life in Metohia and Kosovo.
From Belgrade, by way of the School, books, journals and newspapers were
delivered, for expanding liberational ideas and consolidating national
awareness. From the beginning of its operations, the Turkish authorities and
ethnic Albanians suspected the School of being the center of Serbian
national action, thus political contacts with Belgrade were carried out
through the Russian consulate in Prizren which secured the transmission of
confidential mail.5
In Prizren (seat of the vilayet from 1868-1874), from 1871, until the
abolition of the vilayet, the paper Prizren was published in two languages,
Turkish and Serbian, in which official news, laws, orders, new regulations,
verdicts over violators, and columns on events taking place in Turkey and in
other countries were published. The Serbian section of the paper was
editored by Ilija Stavric, rector of the Seminary, and texts were translated
into Serbian by a distinguished national worker and subsequent Serbian
consul to Pristina, Todor P. Stankovic. In Pristina, where the Kosovo
vilayet was formed in 1877, a similar vilayet paper Kosovo was instigated,
also in the Serbian and Turkish language. When the seat of the Kosovo
vilayet was moved to Skoplje in 1888, the paper resumed its publication only
in Turkish.6
1 See most important works: P. Kostic, Crkveni zivot pravoslavnih Srba
u Prizrenu i njegovoj okolini u XIX veku, (with writer's memories), Beograd
1928; idem, Prosvetno-kulturni zivot pravoslavnih Srba u Prizrenu i njegovoj
okolini u XIX veku i pocetkom XX veka, (with writer's memories), Skoplje
1933; J. K. Djilas, Srpske skole na Kosovu od 1856. do 1912. godine,
Pristina 1969.
2 J. Popovic, Zivot Srba na Kosovu 1812-1912, pp. 222-226.
3 The most distingushed teachers during the sixties were Nikola Musulin
and Milan Novicic in Prizren, Milan D. Kovacevic in Pristina, and Sava
Decanac in Pec.
4 J. K. Djilas, op. cit., pp. 53-104.
5 Spomenica Sezdesetogodisnjice prizrenske Bogoslovske uciteljske Skole
1871-1921, Beograd 1925, pp. 133-160; J. K. Djilas, op. cit., pp. 105-110.
6 T. P. Stankovic, Putne beleske po Staroj Srbiji 1871-1897, pp. 67-72;
H. Kalesi - H.J. Kornrumpf, op. cit., pp. 117-122.
The essence of Serbian economy in Metohia and Kosovo lay in the town
and village handicrafts and trades. Centers of Serbian society in Metohia
and Kosovo were the towns Prizren, Pristina and Pec, and during the last
quarter of the century - Mitrovica. In Prizren, a large town on an important
crossroad toward Scutari and Salonika, trade and craftsmanships flourished
in the preceding centuries. The local Serbs called it "small
Constantinople", since most of the trade and crafts traditionally belonged
to Serbian citizens.
According to available sources, life in Serbian towns evolved under
irregular circumstances during the entire 19th century. The perpetual shifts
of anarchy, wars and uprisings, and continual peril upon one's life and
property, compelled the small-in-number Serbian citizens in Kosovo to adapt
to the existing conditions with haste. Using bribes and tips, common means
with bribable government representatives, they somewhat expanded narrow
economic frameworks, and discovered, always coinciding with momentous
political conditions, new opportunities for work and ways to protect their
estates and families. Life in the Serbian towns of Kosovo and Metohia
continued parallel to the Turkish and Albanian ones dictating the terms.
Even though corroded by irregular conditions, Serbian tradesmen and
craftsmen, gathered in church-school communities and parishes, united in
times of hardship, succeeded in organizing their lives. Acted as a unity
toward the authorities and tyrants, they often quarreled when settling
matters in local communities. The obstinacy with which they resisted
temptations to move to Serbia - a land that soon trod the path of national
and economic emancipation by European standards - proves that among the best
national representatives, a high degree of awareness existed on the need for
survival on Kosovo grounds.
Anachronic methods of trade, insecurity on roads and competition of
cheap European goods impeded the development of trade and handicrafts among
Serbs. The Muslims forbade the Christians to deal in crafts of wider
significance, for instance, the gunsmiths', leather dealers', and even the
barbers' trade. Beside the Muslims, who were mostly Turks, the Tzintzars,
Jews and Catholic Slavs of Janjevo were also in the handicraft business. Yet
the Serbs did very well in all the permitted trades. A larger part of their
produces satisfied their domestic needs and provided for nearby bazaars in
Old Serbia and Macedonia. Only a smaller portion of handicraft produces,
particularly of the goldsmiths', leather dealers' and tailors' guild
(especially in Prizren, Pristina and Pec), were vended on larger markets.
Costly decorative pieces of silver and gold, as well as saffian, had their
buyers on markets in Salonika, Constantinople and other Levant towns. Bulk
traders of Prizren, Vucitrn and Pristina sold various articles in Serbia,
mostly produces of different guilds, and purchased larger livestock. The
Vucitrn tradesmen of the Camilovic family had successful dealings with
Sarajevo, while merchants from Pec and Pristina traded with other towns in
Bosnia. Enterprising Prizren tradesmen held warehouses with leather and wool
in Belgrade from where their goods were delivered to Pest, Vienna and
Constantinople.1
The dynamic development of enterprises accomplished by Serbian
merchants in the mid-19th century provoked religious intolerance in
conservative competitive circles - tradesmen of Muslim faith. The commercial
successes of Serbs also disturbed the Turkish authorities, who reckoned them
to be signs of national rising. As a result, in 1859 and 1863, Serbian shops
were burnt in Prizren, Pec and Pristina, which incurred a sudden economic
downfall in these towns. Hadji Serafim Ristic recorded that when the army
occupied Prizren in 1860, 12 shops were burnt, and in Pristina, at two
strokes, 90 shops belonging to reputable merchants blazed, with values
amounting to almost a million coins.2 Yet, commerce remained in
Christian hands in Prizren, according to the attestation of Austrian Consul
J. G. von Hahn.3 A new commercial swing came with the opening of
the railway track from Mitrovica to Salonika in 1873-1874, while handicrafts
recorded a decrease in sales due to competition from cheap European goods
brought to Kosovo by Jewish merchants from Salonika. Nevertheless, the
revival of handicrafts and trade among the Serbs in the mid-19th century,
despite irregular conditions, considerably influenced the slowdown of
emigration to Serbia. In towns, contrary to the villages, a certain amount
of legal security existed and a possibility for developing ventures.
The position of Serbs living in villages was incomparably harder.
ethnic Albanians of Muslim faith organized raiding parties and mercilessly
sacked Serbian villages. Being Muslims, being privileged in every way, they
united into compact communities of blood brotherhoods or tribes, socially
homogeneous, maintaining their clans by terrorizing the Serbs, seizing their
lands or exacting taxes. By curbing Serbian farmers from certain regions,
they made space for the settlement of their fellow tribesmen living in the
indigent plateaus of north Albania. Unused to life in the plains and hard
work in the fields, the ethnic Albanians who settled from the hilly regions
rather picked up guns than hoes.4
There was no public safety on the roads of Kosovo and Metohia during
the 19th century. Passageways were controlled by bands of outlaws or tribal
companies, thus roads could be passed only with military escorts of the
Turkish police or with protection from Albanian clans supervising parts of
tribal territory, lurking about for an opportunity to fleece merchants and
passengers.
The Serbian peasant could not hope to be protected even in the fields,
where he could be assaulted at any moment by a wandering outlaw, or
blackmailed, and if he resisted, killed. Being the rayah, the Serbs had no
right to carry weapons, and when they contrived to obtain them, they had
nowhere to hide from the vengeance of the Albanian clan with which they
clashed. The haiduk tradition, characteristic of Serbs living in all regions
under Turkish domain, had no effect in the plains of Kosovo and Metohia.
Haiduk activity occurring from time to time on the ranges of Mount
Prokletije, in the vicinity of the Decani and Pec monasteries, took place
with the assistance and protection of Serbs from Montenegro, but still it
could not be sustained. In times of peace, rule in towns was maintained by
Turkish military garrisons. Passage through roads depended upon the will of
numerous Albanian clan companies until 1912. Villages inhabited by ethnic
Albanians and situated along the roads of Metohia where interspersed with
high stone towers, small fortresses from where passengers were attacked and
where concealment lay from members of other companies.
Both day and night, Serbian homes, made of glued mud, were open to
attack by individuals or bands of outlaws without fear of sanctions. French
travel writer Ami Boue recorded that his escort terrorized and robbed the
inhabitants of a Serbian village. When the host opposed the assailant with
an axe, the latter threatened to notify Pristina, from where the
"janissaries" and the tax collector would pop out. Under such threats, the
head of the Serbian home was compelled to comply to the demands of the
assailant, and even to part with him on "friendly" terms.5
During the second and third decade of the 19th century, when
independent pashas reigned, the position of Serbian village populaces was
extremely difficult. Agrarian-legal relations depended not on Turkish
regulations but on physical force. Feudal lords forced free farmers to the
position of chiflik farmers, especially in Drenica, and the Pec, Vucitrn and
Pristina nahis. Many free farmers fled to Serbia, while Islamization and
Albanization decreased the resistance of Serbian villages toward chiflik
labor. The seized estates were returned to some of the Serbs in 1832, owing
to the merit of Grand Vizier Reshid Pasha. The vizier then attempted to
permanently settle agrarian-legal relations in Rumelia with a decree issued
in Vucitrn, but in practice it was all different. Agas and subpashas settled
in villages to control the division of incomes of Serbian chiflik laborers.
Fearing sanctions, the Serbs were forbidden to collect income from the lands
they tilled unless given permission.
By the Hattisherif of Gulhane, the chiflik-sahibi system was legalized;
private ownership of land was recognized legally. The chiflik-laboring Serbs
tilled the lands of their lords and gave them part of their income. In
Kosovo and Metohia, until the Tanzimat reforms, the transformation of
sipahiliks to chifliks was executed by force. Chiflik-laboring was most
expressed in districts where Serbs and ethnic Albanians lived admixed.
Landowners were mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians and Turks, free farmers -
ethnic Albanians, and chiflik-laborers mainly Serbs with a small portion of
Catholic ethnic Albanians.6
Pressure exerted upon the Serbian chiflik inhabitants following 1839
was so great that when a large Christian uprising was prepared in Bosnia and
Rumelia, serious thought was given to rising. When the plans to rise were
divulged, the position of farmers grew worse. Muslims in Prizren routed the
tax collector in 1841, but Christian Serbs were compelled to pay. Having no
one to seek protection from, the Serbs of the Vucitrn and Pristina nahis
addressed the government in Belgrade in 1842, requesting help. Weighed down
by high taxes, which in some areas amounted to half of their total incomes,
Serbian farmers became impoverished. Economic pressure did not exclude
violent deeds which became daily events at the end of the fifth and sixth
decade. Blackmail, fleecing, arrogation of incomes and estates were followed
by countless acts of violence over Serbian inhabitants under Albanian
raiding bands. Only a part of these oppressive acts were divulged by
archimandrite of the Decani monastery, Hadji Serafim Ristic, in his
complaints to the sultan, Serbian Prince and Russian ruler.7
1 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, pp. 235-260.
2 Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji 1852-1912, D. Mikic,
Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba, pp. 236-237.
3 J. G. Hahn, Putovanje kroz porecinu Drina i Vardara, 130.
4 T. P. Stankovic, op. cit., pp. 131-138.
5 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, p. 90.
6 D. Mikic, Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba, pp. 236-239
(with earlier bibliography).
7 Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji 1852-1912, pp. 22-52. 104
The Albanian national movement was born during the great Eastern crisis
(1875-1878). The basis for its gathering contained the direct denial of
liberatory aims of Serbian states and of the political and national rights
of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia. Bound, in its matrix course, to the
Islam concept of tribal autonomy within the framework of the Ottoman state,
the Albanian movement radiated a peculiar intolerance toward European
comprehensions of society. The movement for autonomy was, to the Muslim
masses of Kosovo and Metohia, synonymous to the preservation of tribal and
feudal privileges; to the conservation of the anachronous regime in which
the Serbs had no place.
The outcome of the Eastern crisis brought Kosovo and Metohia under the
direct influence of Great Powers. Subsequent to the occupation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and the entrance of Austro-Hungarian troops in the northern
parts of the Kosovo vilayet, the remote Turkish province became the key of
dominion on the Peninsula. In Vienna, strong argumentation underscored that
the Ottomans conquered the Balkan Peninsula only after the battle of Kosovo
in 1389.
The formation of oppositional power blocks in Europe, with
Austria-Hungary and Russia as their main exponents in the Balkans, was
conducive to a clearer refraction of their mutual conflicting interests in
Kosovo, Metohia and Macedonia than in other Ottoman provinces.
Internationalization of the problem of Old Serbia, which intercepted German
penetration to the east, heavily affected the local Serbian populace.
Russia's influence on political issues in the Balkans, since the Congress of
Berlin until the Young Turk Revolution (1908), was diminishing despite aims
for its restoration and consolidation. Austro-Hungarian supremacy on the
Balkans, destroyed in World War I, was based on mercilessly checking Serbian
national interests and liberatory aims (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Novi Pazar
sanjak, Old Serbia, Macedonia). Favorizing the ethnic Albanians and the
conservative regime of Abdulhamid II, the Dual Monarchy made the Serbs of
Kosovo and Metohia victims of a policy aiming to a total expulsion of Serbs
in areas between the Una river and the Vardar river basin, mid Hungary and
the Adriatic Sea.
The great Eastern crisis inaugurated the issue on the survival of the
Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. Uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina compelled
the Porte, fearing interference from the Great Powers, to issue a firman of
reforms for the whole Empire. The following year a reform plan, designed by
Austria-Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Count Gyula Andrassi, was imposed
upon the Porte to prevent Russian intervention. Serbia and Montenegro,
emboldened by successful insurrections and the rebellion in Bulgaria,
prepared for a liberation war and the unification of the Serbs. Crucial
support was expected from Russia, but a somewhat larger response came only
from Slavophile circles which sent around 3,000 volunteers to Serbia.
Heading a Serbian army (subsequently the entire army), entirely devoid of a
trained military cadre, was Russian General Mihail Grigorievich Chernaiev.
With the agreement in Reichstadt (1876) and the military convention in
Budapest (1877), Russia negotiated with Austria-Hungary: with free action
and the declaration of war to Turkey the Dual Monarchy would be able to
occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina at the appropriate time. The destiny of the
liberation movement was thereby settled beforehand.
The beginning of the uprising in Herzegovina and Bosnia in 1875 revived
the hopes of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia that the time of liberation was
drawing near. Harbingers voicing the approaching liberation were seen in
dreams, interpreted by portents and extraordinary occurrences, while Serbian
merchants demanded the payment of their dues before deadlines.1
Unfamiliar passengers seen in various parts of Metohia and Kosovo were
regarded as Serbian Prince Milan in disguise, observing the battlefields of
the upcoming combats. Shortly before the war, emissaries did actually arrive
from Serbia. In Nis in 1874, a secret committee was formed with the task of
preparing an uprising against the Turks. Before the commencement of war, a
general of the Serbian army, Franz Zach, sent Todor P. Stankovic, member of
the Nis committee and an authority on the local situation to Kosovo, to
confer with notables in Pristina, Vucitrn, Gnjilane and Prizren on the
upcoming war. The report was submitted to General Chernaiev who disapproved
of the Serbs rising in Kosovo, expounding that Russia had not yet decided to
engage in war. Several notables from Kosovo did, however, arrive in Serbia
with the desire to obtain detailed instructions for the Joint action.
Aksentije Hadzi Arsic, a merchant from Pristina, contacted the Russian
diplomacy in Belgrade, endeavoring, with its assistance in Constantinople,
subsequently in Odessa, to organize a course for transferring volunteers to
Serbia.2
When the war began in June 1876, masses of Serbs from Kosovo and
Metohia crossed over to Serbian territory, and with Macedonian volunteers,
fought within the composition of the Serbian army. Numerous refugees fleeing
Albanian terror sought shelter in Serbia. Serbs in Prizren and other places
were called to join the Ottoman army in the composition of irregular troops
(bashibazouk) and war with Serbia. Most of them saved themselves by paying
high ransoms.
The ethnic Albanians and Turks received the declaration of war vexed
and anxious. Around 35,000 (72 units with 550 men) Albanian volunteers
responded to the sultan's call to defend their homeland. The first to
advance to the front towards Serbia were ethnic Albanians of the Ljuma
mountainous region. On their way toward the border, at the beginning of
July, around 3,000 of them descended to Prizren, sacking the Serbian town.
The Albanian volunteers took every advantage to pillage regions lying on
their way. Again Kosovo and Metohia became a battleground where ethnic
Albanians settled their accounts with the Serbs, blaming them for the
outbreak of war.
Serbia and Montenegro fought with unequal success. The Montenegrins won
two great victories whereas the poorly armed and insufficiently trained
Serbian troops suffered defeats. Serbia soon agreed to a truce and then a
peace treaty with Turkey on a status quo basis. In Constantinople the insane
Murad V was deposed and Abdulhamid II proclaimed sultan. At the end of 1876,
the Constitution was proclaimed, warranting freedom of religion and civil
equality for all subjects of the Ottoman Empire.
Yet, nothing changed in Kosovo and Metohia. Terror upon the Serbs did
not abate. At the end of December 1876, the church-school community of Pec
complained to the pasha of Prizren that fifty Serbs were killed in the town
and its vicinity from May to December. Complaints of oppression were sent to
the grand vizier and Russian and Austro-Hungarian consuls in Prizren. An
English Committee received refugees returning from Serbia to Kosovo
following the unsuccessful war.3
A conference of ambassadors of the Great Powers disputed the destiny of
the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, at the beginning of January in 1877.
The destiny of Serbs in other Balkan provinces except in Bosnia and Bulgaria
was not mentioned. Thus a "Committee for the Liberation of Old Serbia and
Macedonia" was founded in Belgrade presided by Archimandrite Sava Decanac.
National notables composed a petition at the end of February with a hundred
signatures, thus authorizing the Board was able to represent them with the
Great Powers. The petition demanded that all countries in which Serbs lived
be annexed to Serbia so as to sustain their faith and nationality. An
alternate demand was to found a Serbian Exarchate, following the example of
the Bulgarian one, with its seat at Pec, and encompassing Bosnia and
Herzegovina.4
Russia's entrance to war with Turkey in April 1877, which Serbia and
Montenegro were to join, had delayed the submission of the petition, but,
nonetheless, the Committee resumed its work. Shortly before Serbia's
repeated engagement in war, the Serbian prince and the Russian tzar received
news from Kosovo on the slave-like treatment of the Turkish authorities upon
the Christians.
At Russia's demand, after lengthy hesitation, Serbia entered war at the
end of December, 1877, but only after Russia's conquest of Plevna, which
sent off an unfavorable echo to the ruling Russian circles. A favorable
condition for a move to liberate Skoplje and emerge in Kosovo was missed.
The Kosovo ethnic Albanians advanced once more toward the border. The
regular Turkish troops were engaged at the front with the Russians, while
ethnic Albanians comprised the main force against the Serbs. Anxiety among
them was higher than military enthusiasm. Fear of Russian victory
("Moskovits") and of its allies wrought commotion upon the ethnic Albanians,
anxious about their future religious and tribal rights. Life in a Christian
and Slavic state was inconceivable for the majority of ethnic Albanians; in
combats with the Serbian army they put up stubborn resistance, especially in
struggles for Prokuplje and Kursumlija.
But the Serbs were advancing steadily. Liberating Nis, Leskovac, Vranje
and Prokuplje, the Serbian army emerged in Kosovo. Not knowing that Russia
and Turkey had agreed to a truce, the voluntary regiment of Major Radomir
Putnik took Gnjilane, while the advance guard of the Serbian army, under the
command of Lieutenant Milos Sandic, reached the Gracanica monastery near
Pristina toward the end of January 1878. On January 25, a solemn liturgy was
performed in Gracanica to honor the victory of the Serbian army and Prince
Milan, and a commemoration was held for the heroes of Kosovo in 1389.
However, the concluded truce was inclusive of the Serbian army. The units
were compelled to withdraw from Kosovo.5
According to the Peace Treaty between Russia and Turkey concluded in
San Stefano on March 3rd, 1878, a bulk of the liberated territories,
including those liberated by the Serbian army, were alloted to Bulgaria.
prince Milan informed the Russian supreme command that "the Serbian army
will not abandon Nis even if it were attacked by the Russian army". As a
compensation, Serbia's border was extended to Mitrovica on Kosovo. Old
Serbia remained under Ottoman rule. By the agreement, the Porte was
obligated to issue a special regl ment organique for Albania.6
The Committee of Sava Decanac then expanded its actions. Signatures for
petitions were collected and sent to the Serbian prince, Russian tzar and
delegates of the European powers. All the petitions demanded the annexation
of Old Serbia and Macedonia to Serbia. The news that the Congress of Berlin
had been convoyed for the revision of the San Stefano Peace Treaty was
received by the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia as a possibility of emphasizing
again the demands for annexation to Serbia. Delegates of the Pristina,
Prizren, Djakovica, Pec and Vucitrn regions sent a petition to the
participants of the Congress with 272 signatures, stamped with 126 county
and monastic seals. On June 28, the Serbs of Gnjilane, Skoplje and Tetovo
sent to the Russian tzar and British delegate in Berlin an appeal with
nearly 400 signatures. A similar authorized appeal was sent to the Serbian
knez. In a memorandum submitted to Russian Tzar Alexander II, national
representatives complained of unbearable violence and the inferior position
of the Orthodox people.7
Sava Decanac set off to Berlin with a petition signed by around 2,000
national representatives - priests, serfs, merchants and craftsmen. He
submitted the petition to the German Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck who
promised that the participants of the Congress would be told about the
demands. Archimandrite Sava wrote a general appeal to every other delegate
of the Great Powers, demanding the annexation to Serbia, or, at least, if
possible, the restoration of the Pec Patriarchate. His memorandum dated June
3, 1878, reads: "This nation has been enduring sufferings unheard-of because
it was left to the mercy of Turkish and Albanian renegades. Now, since the
position of all the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula has improved, is it
right that we should remain shackled to tyranny, is it right that we should
further endure butchery from the Turks, that our homes should be burnt by
ethnic Albanians, is it right that we should be subject to deeds worse than
those committed upon animals in Europe. Considering we took part in the war
for liberation, considering we rebelled against exploitation, considering we
expressed our desires for freedom and unification with our brothers; if the
old system is restored, Muslim fanaticism will be without limit, more
brutal, we will be forced to endure sufferings never experienced before. We
raise our voices once more to the European assembly, asking for mercy, not
to leave us to this gory and cruel bondage. If it is unable to grant us
freedom, let at least autonomy and personal safety be secured."8
Austria-Hungarian and Russian rivalry for dominance over the Balkans
was not favorable to Serbia's requests. Delegates from Serbia and Montenegro
delegates were not permitted to take part in the Congress. The Serbian
government, relying upon Austria-Hungary, requested of Gyula Andrsssi the
annexation of the Gnjilane region, beside the Nis sanjak. Minister of
Foreign Affairs Jovan Ristic, in a memoir submitted to participants of the
Congress, underscored that if Old Serbia were to remain under Turkish rule,
the Serbs would be left to the merciless revenge of Muslims, which would
bring Serbia to an unenviable position and only incur new
troubles.9 Even though both countries acquired independence at
the Congress of Berlin, the decision that Old Serbia was to remain under
Turkish rule was received with great disappointment by the Serbs in Kosovo
Metohia. Liberation from the Turkish yoke was delayed
indefinitely.10
The decisions of the Congress of Berlin caused great discontent in
Serbia. In a public proclamation, announced after the Congress, Prince Milan
underscored: "Within a brief time of six weeks, you penetrated to Kosovo at
the speed of lightning, where the victorious song of Serbia was sung at the
gloomy church of Gracanica five hundred years later. [...] Your brilliant
leap needed only a step further and victorious Serbian banners would have
unfurled in Pristina, Skoplje and Prizren, the old capitals of the
Nemajices, but alas, a truce concluded on January 19, [31] this same year,
forestalled and stopped you."11
Fighting along with Serbia against the Turks, Montenegro tried to win
over the Catholic Mirdits. In 1874 the Serbian agency in Constantinople
contacted the Mirdit captain Marko, cousin of Bib Doda. In mid-1876 the
Mirdits were ready to engage in war against the Turks if Montenegrin Prince
Nikola warranted, in writing, that he would recognize their independence
after the war. Receiving from Belgrade the reply "we accept completely", the
Montenegrin Prince made his promise. Even though of anti-Slavic disposition,
the. Mirdit Prince Prenk Bib Doda entered into conflict with Turkish
authorities well rewarded.12
In the second war with the Turks, Montenegro came into conflict with
north Albanian Catholic tribes, the Grudas and Hotis, and waged major
battles with the Muslim bashibazouks. ethnic Albanians and Muslims of
Serbian origin, on the stretch from Ulcinj on the Adriatic Sea to Plav and
Gusinje in the mountainous region toward north Albania, severely clashed
with Montenegrin forces. At the Congress of Berlin, aside to the
independence granted it, Montenegro's territorial expansion had been
confirmed: among other territories, Plav and Gusinje had been alloted to it,
with strong resistance incurring from the Albanian populace. 13
determination was in case of a total Christian uprising on the Balkans, due
to Albania's geopolitical position and the role of Albanian warriors in the
Turkish army. According to a belief of the contemporary French minister to
Athens, the stand of the ethnic Albanians was a knot in all controversial
matters regarding Turkey and the Christian population.
The formation of the Balkan alliance for a joint struggle against the
Turks helped reestablish contacts with north Albania. Gaspar Krasnik was
interned at Constantinople in 1865, so Garasanin assigned a Slovenian
priest, Franz Mauri, secretary of the bishop of Scutari, to be the agent
instead. However, cooperation was soon severed due to suspicions that he was
working for Austria and Turkey.
Albania most severely opposed the Forte's reforms; this discontent was
thus used for contracting new alliances. In 1866, Djelal Pasha, member of
the powerful Zogu clan and influential chief of the Mati region, who was
interned at Constantinople, was won over for cooperation. For the first
time, contacts, though only in principle, were established with ethnic
Albanians of the Muslim faith. Since there were no Serbian settlements in
Mati, no intolerance existed like in Old Serbia. Djelal Pasha was to head
the great uprising against the Turks. When it was learnt in Constantinople
that the Porte was working on winning over and arming the ethnic Albanians
for the Christian uprising, the Serbian government, bolstered by the until
then reserved Russian diplomacy, activated its tasks among the ethnic
Albanians. In Belgrade in 1868, six Albanian chiefs were sojourning. After
being won over by gifts, they were familiarized with the preparations for
the uprising and sent to Albania to await the beckon to rise. Cooperation
with Dzelal Pasha was not realized for his instability and the unreliability
of his nearest retinues. There could be no political nor military
organization, for everything depended upon the competence of a handful of
chiefs.7
Serbia had high hopes for the Albanian revolt against Turkish
authorities, until abandoning the idea of rising in Turkey in 1868. However,
Belgrade did not apprehend that the readiness of ethnic Albanians to rise
evolved out of the desire to resist Turkish reforms and retain tribal
privileges. During the sixties of the 19th century, the ethnic Albanians
were void of national awareness, in the modern sense of the word, nor did
they comprehend, excepting a small number of educated tribal chiefs, their
problems as national, beyond narrow tribal and confessional frameworks. As
soon as imminent danger from the introduction of reforms was past, the
ethnic Albanians would again respond to calls from the sultan to defend
Islam and pay their dues of loyalty with abundant spoils and devastated
Christian countries.
1 V. Karadzic, Danica za 1827, Budim 1827. G. J. Jurisic considered the
following nahis part of Old Serbia in 1852: Novi Pazar, Pec, Djakovica,
Prizren, Skoplje, Kosovo, Pristina, Vucitrn, Vranje, Leskovac and Nis. A. F.
Giljferding, nevertheless, included the Novi Pazar nahis with Kosovo and
Metohia as part of Old Serbia (More detailed analysis in: V. Stojancevic,
Jugoslovenski narodi u Osmanskom Carstvu, p. 327).
2 A. Bou , Recueil d'itin raires dans la Turquie d'Europe, Paris 1854,
p. 198.
3 Zaduzbine Kosova, 611-612; V. Stojancevic, Juznoslovenski narodi u
Osmanskom Carstvu, p. 235.
4 D. Stranjakovic, Juznoslovenski nacionalni i drzavni program
Knezevine Srbije iz 1844. god., Beograd 1931, pp. 3-29; idem, Politicka
propaganda Srbije u juznoslovenskim pokrajinama 1844-1858. godine, Beograd
1936, pp. 20-25.
5 V. Stojancevic, Juznoslovenski narodi u Osmanskom Carstvu, pp.
292-293.
6 D. Stranjakovic, Albanija i Srbija u XIX veku, Srpski knjizevni
glasnik, 52 (1937), pp. 624-627; G. Jaksic - V. J. Vuckovic, Spoljna
politika Srbije za vlade kneza Mihaila. Prvi balkanski savez, Beograd 1963,
pp. 137.
7 G. Jaksic, Jedan izvestaj o Albaniji, Arhiv za Arbansku stranu, jezik
i etnologiju, II (1924), pp. 169-192; G. Jaksic - V. J. Vuckovicic, op.
cit., pp. 240-246, 413-416, 468, Srbija i oslobodilacki pokret na Balkanu od
Pariskog mira do Berlinskog kongresa (1856-1878), I (ed: V. Krestic- R.
Ljusic), Beograd 1983, pp. 435-444, 558-563.
National life evolved under the wing of the church. After the
abolishment of the Pec Patriarchate in 1766, gone was the only national
institution around which the Serbs congregated; gone was the guider of
national living. It was in 1807, by the edict of Sultan Mustafa, that the
Serbian Janicije was named metropolitan of the Raska-Prizren Eparchy. Owing
to himself and his successor, Hadzi-Zaharije (1819-1830), during the first
three decades of the 19th century, the Raska-Prizren Eparchy helped maintain
national awareness with the assistance of lower clergy of Serbian
nationality, even though remaining under the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
The people in Kosovo and Metohia were bound, perhaps more strongly than
those in other Serbian lands, to their national heritage. Living memories of
the sacred rulers and heroes of Kosovo, of past glory and the unfortunately
lost empire were kept alive by priests and monks from the fraternities of
medieval endowments. In Visoki Decani and the Pec Patriarchate, in Gracanica
and Devic, the most powerful seats of national and spiritual life, the cults
of ruler-martyrs, patriarchs and ascetics were cherished. Beside the
tradition of the once glorious Serbia under the Nemanjices, the minds of the
people were kept alive with the memories of uprisings and migrations of
centuries past. The endurance sustaining the Serbs despite all their
miseries, evolved out of a profound attachment to the spiritual and national
heritage of the medieval Serbian state.
Not with standing the raging anarchy that shook Old Serbia, waning only
from time to time, the Serbs in Metohia and Kosovo were able to organize and
restore their spiritual and educational lives with assistance from official
Serbia. Continuity of work, with periodical suspensions during times of
turbulence, was maintained by monastic schools in the Pec Patriarchate,
Visoki Decani, Devic and Gracanica (containing a press at one time). Here
pupils from different areas of Serbia under Turkish rule were being taught
the clergyman's vocation. The first more deeply felt financial support given
to the monastic schools, began to arrive from Prince Milos during the third
decade. During the reign of Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic and the
constitutionalist regime in Serbia (1842-1858), financial aid began to
arrive more regularly for the restoration of churches and the maintenance of
monasteries, and gifts were sent in books for religious service. Excluding
the most renown medieval endowments, aid from the Serbian government also
arrived to fraternities of the monasteries St. Marko and the Holy Trinity
near Prizren, the Holy Transfiguration near Pec, and to priests of the
Prizren and Djakovica churches.
Since the mid-18th century, Serbian church-school communities operated
in Metohia and Kosovo, founded first in towns and then in village parishes,
the cores of township and village self-government. Until the Rasko-Prizren
metropolitans were of Serbian nationality, they nominated members for the
governing bodies of church-school communities, usually for no limited time.
The selection was limited to the most noted priests, wealthy merchants and
guild representatives. Communities saw to the maintenance of religious
schools and the education of monastic progeny, strove to establish contact
with Serbia and effect relations with Turkish authorities, both on religious
and educational grounds, and when possible, on economic ones, too. Members
of church-school boards collected contributions for the repairement of
monasteries and churches. Beside many monasteries and churches (Gracanica,
Visoki Decani, Devic, Duboki Potok, Vracevo, Draganac), palaces were built
for the operation of monastic or religious schools, and subsequently secular
ones.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the inauguration of schools was
urged by Raska-Prizren Metropolitans Janicije and Hadzi Zaharije. When the
bishopric chair was taken over in 1830 by Greek bishops, endeavors were
undertaken, especially during Metropolitan Ignjatije's time (1840-1849), to
open Tzintzar schools where lessons in Greek would also be attended by
Serbian children.1 The Phanariot bishops strove to sustain the
subjugation and ignorance of the Serbian clergy, so as to facilitate their
manipulation of The flock. Some of them sold their clerical positions for
money and fined the people with large church taxes. Being of open
anti-Serbian determination, they impeded or hampered the restoration or
construction of new churches, attempted to Hellenize the populace by
imposing the celebration of the name-day feast, instead of the Slava
(Serbian family feast for its patron saint), a definitely Serbian
custom.2
In the first half of the 19th century, religious schools existed in all
major towns (Pristina, Pec, Mitrovica, Vucitrn, Gnjilane, Djakovica) and in
some villages (Musutiste, Vitina, Korminjan). Private schools were opened
usually under the name of a notable leader who was to finance its operation,
but the burden of maintenance usually fell upon church-school communities
and guilds. Private schools provided lessons in subjects both religious and
secular. The best among them were at Prizren, Vucitrn, Mitrovica, and the
Donja Jasenovo and Kovaci villages. The inauguration of new private schools
falls with the Turkish reforms at the middle of the century. Merchant and
craftsmen guilds in Pec, Prizren and Gnjilane introduced funds for opening
new schools and obtaining better teaching staff. The constitutionalist
government sent the schools money, books and other facilities through
merchants and other members of church boards. According to available data,
several dozens of schools in Metohia and Kosovo were attended by around
1,300 pupils during the sixties.
The oldest and most renown Serbian church-school community was in
Prizren, the economical center of Serbs in Metohia, where a community school
aiming to prevent Greek propaganda was established in 1836. Hilferding
recorded that the male school had 200 pupils in 1857. Other important seats
of scholastic life were at Pristina (150 pupils in 1865) and Pec (150 pupils
in 1866), in which Serbian teachers from different regions (Srem, Serbia,
Croatia) lectured according to secular programs from Serbia. Special schools
were opened for female children. The highest degree of education was
provided by an extensive school at Prizren, a kind of high school, though of
lower level.3
A number of talented pupils from Kosovo and Metohia aspiring to the
teaching vocation, were being prepared in Serbia from the beginning of the
sixties, owing to scholarships received from wealthy Prizren merchant Sima
Andrejevic Igumanov (1804-1882). Their number greatly increased already
after 1868, when in Belgrade, at the proposition of Serbian Metropolitan
Mihailo, an Educational Board was formed for schools and teachers in Old
Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under the patronage of the Board,
works on the improvement of teaching conditions soon produced significant
results. New schools were opened and old ones given financial support, and
the curriculum contained better programs. The tasks of teachers educated in
Serbia were not solely to educate, but were, above all, aimed to maintain
national awareness of the people, prevent conversions and prepare the
progeny to carry on the duties of national enlightenment.
The turning point in the educational life of Serbs in the Ottoman
Empire, was marked by the Bogoslovija (Seminary), founded in Prizren in
1871. Even though some suggestions for its inauguration were directed at
Pec, the prevailing attitude in Belgrade was that Prizren was the most
favorable place, being the center of economical life for Serbs in Old Serbia
and seat of the vilayet. Sima Andrejevic Igumanov lived in Prizren, the
contemporaneously greatest benefactor who bequeathed his riches obtained by
trades in Russia, to the people. He was a Russian subject and was thus able,
with assistance from the Russian consulate at Prizren, to obtain a license
from the Turkish authorities to found a Seminary. It soon became the seat of
the overall spiritual and educational life and the stronghold for political
work on national affairs. More important was the fact that for the first
time, contact had been established with the government in Belgrade, able
thus to exert immediate influence on national operations amongst Serbs in
Old Serbia.
From its inauguration in 1871, until the liberation in 1912, the
Seminary worked according to instructions given by the Serbian government.
At the beginning, its operation was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry
for Education and Religious Affairs, and then the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs. All expenses of the Seminary were paid by the Serbian government,
but important means for its maintenance came from various funds founded by
the church and from the endowment of Sima Igumanov. The first rector of the
Theological college was a monk from Decani, Sava Decanac, a graduate of the
Spiritual Academy in Kiev.4
Owing to the Bogoslovija, primary schools operated in all larger
settlements in Metohia and Kosovo until 1912, and graduated theologians from
Prizren became teachers and priests all over the Ottoman Empire, from
Macedonia to Bosnia. According to incomplete data, around 480 students
graduated from the Seminary (subsequently transformed to a
theological-teaching school) until 1912, among whom 196 were from Metohia
and Kosovo.
The inauguration of the Seminary in Prizren proved to be a secure dam
against any attempts undertaken by the Constantinople Patriarchate to
Hellenize the Serbian populace through Tzintzar oases in Metohia and against
the aims of the Bulgarian Exarchate (1870) to build strongholds in the
Gnjilane region. Until the Serbian consulate was opened in Pristina in 1889,
the Seminary was the center of Serbian political life in Metohia and Kosovo.
From Belgrade, by way of the School, books, journals and newspapers were
delivered, for expanding liberational ideas and consolidating national
awareness. From the beginning of its operations, the Turkish authorities and
ethnic Albanians suspected the School of being the center of Serbian
national action, thus political contacts with Belgrade were carried out
through the Russian consulate in Prizren which secured the transmission of
confidential mail.5
In Prizren (seat of the vilayet from 1868-1874), from 1871, until the
abolition of the vilayet, the paper Prizren was published in two languages,
Turkish and Serbian, in which official news, laws, orders, new regulations,
verdicts over violators, and columns on events taking place in Turkey and in
other countries were published. The Serbian section of the paper was
editored by Ilija Stavric, rector of the Seminary, and texts were translated
into Serbian by a distinguished national worker and subsequent Serbian
consul to Pristina, Todor P. Stankovic. In Pristina, where the Kosovo
vilayet was formed in 1877, a similar vilayet paper Kosovo was instigated,
also in the Serbian and Turkish language. When the seat of the Kosovo
vilayet was moved to Skoplje in 1888, the paper resumed its publication only
in Turkish.6
1 See most important works: P. Kostic, Crkveni zivot pravoslavnih Srba
u Prizrenu i njegovoj okolini u XIX veku, (with writer's memories), Beograd
1928; idem, Prosvetno-kulturni zivot pravoslavnih Srba u Prizrenu i njegovoj
okolini u XIX veku i pocetkom XX veka, (with writer's memories), Skoplje
1933; J. K. Djilas, Srpske skole na Kosovu od 1856. do 1912. godine,
Pristina 1969.
2 J. Popovic, Zivot Srba na Kosovu 1812-1912, pp. 222-226.
3 The most distingushed teachers during the sixties were Nikola Musulin
and Milan Novicic in Prizren, Milan D. Kovacevic in Pristina, and Sava
Decanac in Pec.
4 J. K. Djilas, op. cit., pp. 53-104.
5 Spomenica Sezdesetogodisnjice prizrenske Bogoslovske uciteljske Skole
1871-1921, Beograd 1925, pp. 133-160; J. K. Djilas, op. cit., pp. 105-110.
6 T. P. Stankovic, Putne beleske po Staroj Srbiji 1871-1897, pp. 67-72;
H. Kalesi - H.J. Kornrumpf, op. cit., pp. 117-122.
The essence of Serbian economy in Metohia and Kosovo lay in the town
and village handicrafts and trades. Centers of Serbian society in Metohia
and Kosovo were the towns Prizren, Pristina and Pec, and during the last
quarter of the century - Mitrovica. In Prizren, a large town on an important
crossroad toward Scutari and Salonika, trade and craftsmanships flourished
in the preceding centuries. The local Serbs called it "small
Constantinople", since most of the trade and crafts traditionally belonged
to Serbian citizens.
According to available sources, life in Serbian towns evolved under
irregular circumstances during the entire 19th century. The perpetual shifts
of anarchy, wars and uprisings, and continual peril upon one's life and
property, compelled the small-in-number Serbian citizens in Kosovo to adapt
to the existing conditions with haste. Using bribes and tips, common means
with bribable government representatives, they somewhat expanded narrow
economic frameworks, and discovered, always coinciding with momentous
political conditions, new opportunities for work and ways to protect their
estates and families. Life in the Serbian towns of Kosovo and Metohia
continued parallel to the Turkish and Albanian ones dictating the terms.
Even though corroded by irregular conditions, Serbian tradesmen and
craftsmen, gathered in church-school communities and parishes, united in
times of hardship, succeeded in organizing their lives. Acted as a unity
toward the authorities and tyrants, they often quarreled when settling
matters in local communities. The obstinacy with which they resisted
temptations to move to Serbia - a land that soon trod the path of national
and economic emancipation by European standards - proves that among the best
national representatives, a high degree of awareness existed on the need for
survival on Kosovo grounds.
Anachronic methods of trade, insecurity on roads and competition of
cheap European goods impeded the development of trade and handicrafts among
Serbs. The Muslims forbade the Christians to deal in crafts of wider
significance, for instance, the gunsmiths', leather dealers', and even the
barbers' trade. Beside the Muslims, who were mostly Turks, the Tzintzars,
Jews and Catholic Slavs of Janjevo were also in the handicraft business. Yet
the Serbs did very well in all the permitted trades. A larger part of their
produces satisfied their domestic needs and provided for nearby bazaars in
Old Serbia and Macedonia. Only a smaller portion of handicraft produces,
particularly of the goldsmiths', leather dealers' and tailors' guild
(especially in Prizren, Pristina and Pec), were vended on larger markets.
Costly decorative pieces of silver and gold, as well as saffian, had their
buyers on markets in Salonika, Constantinople and other Levant towns. Bulk
traders of Prizren, Vucitrn and Pristina sold various articles in Serbia,
mostly produces of different guilds, and purchased larger livestock. The
Vucitrn tradesmen of the Camilovic family had successful dealings with
Sarajevo, while merchants from Pec and Pristina traded with other towns in
Bosnia. Enterprising Prizren tradesmen held warehouses with leather and wool
in Belgrade from where their goods were delivered to Pest, Vienna and
Constantinople.1
The dynamic development of enterprises accomplished by Serbian
merchants in the mid-19th century provoked religious intolerance in
conservative competitive circles - tradesmen of Muslim faith. The commercial
successes of Serbs also disturbed the Turkish authorities, who reckoned them
to be signs of national rising. As a result, in 1859 and 1863, Serbian shops
were burnt in Prizren, Pec and Pristina, which incurred a sudden economic
downfall in these towns. Hadji Serafim Ristic recorded that when the army
occupied Prizren in 1860, 12 shops were burnt, and in Pristina, at two
strokes, 90 shops belonging to reputable merchants blazed, with values
amounting to almost a million coins.2 Yet, commerce remained in
Christian hands in Prizren, according to the attestation of Austrian Consul
J. G. von Hahn.3 A new commercial swing came with the opening of
the railway track from Mitrovica to Salonika in 1873-1874, while handicrafts
recorded a decrease in sales due to competition from cheap European goods
brought to Kosovo by Jewish merchants from Salonika. Nevertheless, the
revival of handicrafts and trade among the Serbs in the mid-19th century,
despite irregular conditions, considerably influenced the slowdown of
emigration to Serbia. In towns, contrary to the villages, a certain amount
of legal security existed and a possibility for developing ventures.
The position of Serbs living in villages was incomparably harder.
ethnic Albanians of Muslim faith organized raiding parties and mercilessly
sacked Serbian villages. Being Muslims, being privileged in every way, they
united into compact communities of blood brotherhoods or tribes, socially
homogeneous, maintaining their clans by terrorizing the Serbs, seizing their
lands or exacting taxes. By curbing Serbian farmers from certain regions,
they made space for the settlement of their fellow tribesmen living in the
indigent plateaus of north Albania. Unused to life in the plains and hard
work in the fields, the ethnic Albanians who settled from the hilly regions
rather picked up guns than hoes.4
There was no public safety on the roads of Kosovo and Metohia during
the 19th century. Passageways were controlled by bands of outlaws or tribal
companies, thus roads could be passed only with military escorts of the
Turkish police or with protection from Albanian clans supervising parts of
tribal territory, lurking about for an opportunity to fleece merchants and
passengers.
The Serbian peasant could not hope to be protected even in the fields,
where he could be assaulted at any moment by a wandering outlaw, or
blackmailed, and if he resisted, killed. Being the rayah, the Serbs had no
right to carry weapons, and when they contrived to obtain them, they had
nowhere to hide from the vengeance of the Albanian clan with which they
clashed. The haiduk tradition, characteristic of Serbs living in all regions
under Turkish domain, had no effect in the plains of Kosovo and Metohia.
Haiduk activity occurring from time to time on the ranges of Mount
Prokletije, in the vicinity of the Decani and Pec monasteries, took place
with the assistance and protection of Serbs from Montenegro, but still it
could not be sustained. In times of peace, rule in towns was maintained by
Turkish military garrisons. Passage through roads depended upon the will of
numerous Albanian clan companies until 1912. Villages inhabited by ethnic
Albanians and situated along the roads of Metohia where interspersed with
high stone towers, small fortresses from where passengers were attacked and
where concealment lay from members of other companies.
Both day and night, Serbian homes, made of glued mud, were open to
attack by individuals or bands of outlaws without fear of sanctions. French
travel writer Ami Boue recorded that his escort terrorized and robbed the
inhabitants of a Serbian village. When the host opposed the assailant with
an axe, the latter threatened to notify Pristina, from where the
"janissaries" and the tax collector would pop out. Under such threats, the
head of the Serbian home was compelled to comply to the demands of the
assailant, and even to part with him on "friendly" terms.5
During the second and third decade of the 19th century, when
independent pashas reigned, the position of Serbian village populaces was
extremely difficult. Agrarian-legal relations depended not on Turkish
regulations but on physical force. Feudal lords forced free farmers to the
position of chiflik farmers, especially in Drenica, and the Pec, Vucitrn and
Pristina nahis. Many free farmers fled to Serbia, while Islamization and
Albanization decreased the resistance of Serbian villages toward chiflik
labor. The seized estates were returned to some of the Serbs in 1832, owing
to the merit of Grand Vizier Reshid Pasha. The vizier then attempted to
permanently settle agrarian-legal relations in Rumelia with a decree issued
in Vucitrn, but in practice it was all different. Agas and subpashas settled
in villages to control the division of incomes of Serbian chiflik laborers.
Fearing sanctions, the Serbs were forbidden to collect income from the lands
they tilled unless given permission.
By the Hattisherif of Gulhane, the chiflik-sahibi system was legalized;
private ownership of land was recognized legally. The chiflik-laboring Serbs
tilled the lands of their lords and gave them part of their income. In
Kosovo and Metohia, until the Tanzimat reforms, the transformation of
sipahiliks to chifliks was executed by force. Chiflik-laboring was most
expressed in districts where Serbs and ethnic Albanians lived admixed.
Landowners were mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians and Turks, free farmers -
ethnic Albanians, and chiflik-laborers mainly Serbs with a small portion of
Catholic ethnic Albanians.6
Pressure exerted upon the Serbian chiflik inhabitants following 1839
was so great that when a large Christian uprising was prepared in Bosnia and
Rumelia, serious thought was given to rising. When the plans to rise were
divulged, the position of farmers grew worse. Muslims in Prizren routed the
tax collector in 1841, but Christian Serbs were compelled to pay. Having no
one to seek protection from, the Serbs of the Vucitrn and Pristina nahis
addressed the government in Belgrade in 1842, requesting help. Weighed down
by high taxes, which in some areas amounted to half of their total incomes,
Serbian farmers became impoverished. Economic pressure did not exclude
violent deeds which became daily events at the end of the fifth and sixth
decade. Blackmail, fleecing, arrogation of incomes and estates were followed
by countless acts of violence over Serbian inhabitants under Albanian
raiding bands. Only a part of these oppressive acts were divulged by
archimandrite of the Decani monastery, Hadji Serafim Ristic, in his
complaints to the sultan, Serbian Prince and Russian ruler.7
1 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, pp. 235-260.
2 Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji 1852-1912, D. Mikic,
Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba, pp. 236-237.
3 J. G. Hahn, Putovanje kroz porecinu Drina i Vardara, 130.
4 T. P. Stankovic, op. cit., pp. 131-138.
5 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, p. 90.
6 D. Mikic, Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba, pp. 236-239
(with earlier bibliography).
7 Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji 1852-1912, pp. 22-52. 104
The Albanian national movement was born during the great Eastern crisis
(1875-1878). The basis for its gathering contained the direct denial of
liberatory aims of Serbian states and of the political and national rights
of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia. Bound, in its matrix course, to the
Islam concept of tribal autonomy within the framework of the Ottoman state,
the Albanian movement radiated a peculiar intolerance toward European
comprehensions of society. The movement for autonomy was, to the Muslim
masses of Kosovo and Metohia, synonymous to the preservation of tribal and
feudal privileges; to the conservation of the anachronous regime in which
the Serbs had no place.
The outcome of the Eastern crisis brought Kosovo and Metohia under the
direct influence of Great Powers. Subsequent to the occupation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and the entrance of Austro-Hungarian troops in the northern
parts of the Kosovo vilayet, the remote Turkish province became the key of
dominion on the Peninsula. In Vienna, strong argumentation underscored that
the Ottomans conquered the Balkan Peninsula only after the battle of Kosovo
in 1389.
The formation of oppositional power blocks in Europe, with
Austria-Hungary and Russia as their main exponents in the Balkans, was
conducive to a clearer refraction of their mutual conflicting interests in
Kosovo, Metohia and Macedonia than in other Ottoman provinces.
Internationalization of the problem of Old Serbia, which intercepted German
penetration to the east, heavily affected the local Serbian populace.
Russia's influence on political issues in the Balkans, since the Congress of
Berlin until the Young Turk Revolution (1908), was diminishing despite aims
for its restoration and consolidation. Austro-Hungarian supremacy on the
Balkans, destroyed in World War I, was based on mercilessly checking Serbian
national interests and liberatory aims (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Novi Pazar
sanjak, Old Serbia, Macedonia). Favorizing the ethnic Albanians and the
conservative regime of Abdulhamid II, the Dual Monarchy made the Serbs of
Kosovo and Metohia victims of a policy aiming to a total expulsion of Serbs
in areas between the Una river and the Vardar river basin, mid Hungary and
the Adriatic Sea.
The great Eastern crisis inaugurated the issue on the survival of the
Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. Uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina compelled
the Porte, fearing interference from the Great Powers, to issue a firman of
reforms for the whole Empire. The following year a reform plan, designed by
Austria-Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Count Gyula Andrassi, was imposed
upon the Porte to prevent Russian intervention. Serbia and Montenegro,
emboldened by successful insurrections and the rebellion in Bulgaria,
prepared for a liberation war and the unification of the Serbs. Crucial
support was expected from Russia, but a somewhat larger response came only
from Slavophile circles which sent around 3,000 volunteers to Serbia.
Heading a Serbian army (subsequently the entire army), entirely devoid of a
trained military cadre, was Russian General Mihail Grigorievich Chernaiev.
With the agreement in Reichstadt (1876) and the military convention in
Budapest (1877), Russia negotiated with Austria-Hungary: with free action
and the declaration of war to Turkey the Dual Monarchy would be able to
occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina at the appropriate time. The destiny of the
liberation movement was thereby settled beforehand.
The beginning of the uprising in Herzegovina and Bosnia in 1875 revived
the hopes of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia that the time of liberation was
drawing near. Harbingers voicing the approaching liberation were seen in
dreams, interpreted by portents and extraordinary occurrences, while Serbian
merchants demanded the payment of their dues before deadlines.1
Unfamiliar passengers seen in various parts of Metohia and Kosovo were
regarded as Serbian Prince Milan in disguise, observing the battlefields of
the upcoming combats. Shortly before the war, emissaries did actually arrive
from Serbia. In Nis in 1874, a secret committee was formed with the task of
preparing an uprising against the Turks. Before the commencement of war, a
general of the Serbian army, Franz Zach, sent Todor P. Stankovic, member of
the Nis committee and an authority on the local situation to Kosovo, to
confer with notables in Pristina, Vucitrn, Gnjilane and Prizren on the
upcoming war. The report was submitted to General Chernaiev who disapproved
of the Serbs rising in Kosovo, expounding that Russia had not yet decided to
engage in war. Several notables from Kosovo did, however, arrive in Serbia
with the desire to obtain detailed instructions for the Joint action.
Aksentije Hadzi Arsic, a merchant from Pristina, contacted the Russian
diplomacy in Belgrade, endeavoring, with its assistance in Constantinople,
subsequently in Odessa, to organize a course for transferring volunteers to
Serbia.2
When the war began in June 1876, masses of Serbs from Kosovo and
Metohia crossed over to Serbian territory, and with Macedonian volunteers,
fought within the composition of the Serbian army. Numerous refugees fleeing
Albanian terror sought shelter in Serbia. Serbs in Prizren and other places
were called to join the Ottoman army in the composition of irregular troops
(bashibazouk) and war with Serbia. Most of them saved themselves by paying
high ransoms.
The ethnic Albanians and Turks received the declaration of war vexed
and anxious. Around 35,000 (72 units with 550 men) Albanian volunteers
responded to the sultan's call to defend their homeland. The first to
advance to the front towards Serbia were ethnic Albanians of the Ljuma
mountainous region. On their way toward the border, at the beginning of
July, around 3,000 of them descended to Prizren, sacking the Serbian town.
The Albanian volunteers took every advantage to pillage regions lying on
their way. Again Kosovo and Metohia became a battleground where ethnic
Albanians settled their accounts with the Serbs, blaming them for the
outbreak of war.
Serbia and Montenegro fought with unequal success. The Montenegrins won
two great victories whereas the poorly armed and insufficiently trained
Serbian troops suffered defeats. Serbia soon agreed to a truce and then a
peace treaty with Turkey on a status quo basis. In Constantinople the insane
Murad V was deposed and Abdulhamid II proclaimed sultan. At the end of 1876,
the Constitution was proclaimed, warranting freedom of religion and civil
equality for all subjects of the Ottoman Empire.
Yet, nothing changed in Kosovo and Metohia. Terror upon the Serbs did
not abate. At the end of December 1876, the church-school community of Pec
complained to the pasha of Prizren that fifty Serbs were killed in the town
and its vicinity from May to December. Complaints of oppression were sent to
the grand vizier and Russian and Austro-Hungarian consuls in Prizren. An
English Committee received refugees returning from Serbia to Kosovo
following the unsuccessful war.3
A conference of ambassadors of the Great Powers disputed the destiny of
the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, at the beginning of January in 1877.
The destiny of Serbs in other Balkan provinces except in Bosnia and Bulgaria
was not mentioned. Thus a "Committee for the Liberation of Old Serbia and
Macedonia" was founded in Belgrade presided by Archimandrite Sava Decanac.
National notables composed a petition at the end of February with a hundred
signatures, thus authorizing the Board was able to represent them with the
Great Powers. The petition demanded that all countries in which Serbs lived
be annexed to Serbia so as to sustain their faith and nationality. An
alternate demand was to found a Serbian Exarchate, following the example of
the Bulgarian one, with its seat at Pec, and encompassing Bosnia and
Herzegovina.4
Russia's entrance to war with Turkey in April 1877, which Serbia and
Montenegro were to join, had delayed the submission of the petition, but,
nonetheless, the Committee resumed its work. Shortly before Serbia's
repeated engagement in war, the Serbian prince and the Russian tzar received
news from Kosovo on the slave-like treatment of the Turkish authorities upon
the Christians.
At Russia's demand, after lengthy hesitation, Serbia entered war at the
end of December, 1877, but only after Russia's conquest of Plevna, which
sent off an unfavorable echo to the ruling Russian circles. A favorable
condition for a move to liberate Skoplje and emerge in Kosovo was missed.
The Kosovo ethnic Albanians advanced once more toward the border. The
regular Turkish troops were engaged at the front with the Russians, while
ethnic Albanians comprised the main force against the Serbs. Anxiety among
them was higher than military enthusiasm. Fear of Russian victory
("Moskovits") and of its allies wrought commotion upon the ethnic Albanians,
anxious about their future religious and tribal rights. Life in a Christian
and Slavic state was inconceivable for the majority of ethnic Albanians; in
combats with the Serbian army they put up stubborn resistance, especially in
struggles for Prokuplje and Kursumlija.
But the Serbs were advancing steadily. Liberating Nis, Leskovac, Vranje
and Prokuplje, the Serbian army emerged in Kosovo. Not knowing that Russia
and Turkey had agreed to a truce, the voluntary regiment of Major Radomir
Putnik took Gnjilane, while the advance guard of the Serbian army, under the
command of Lieutenant Milos Sandic, reached the Gracanica monastery near
Pristina toward the end of January 1878. On January 25, a solemn liturgy was
performed in Gracanica to honor the victory of the Serbian army and Prince
Milan, and a commemoration was held for the heroes of Kosovo in 1389.
However, the concluded truce was inclusive of the Serbian army. The units
were compelled to withdraw from Kosovo.5
According to the Peace Treaty between Russia and Turkey concluded in
San Stefano on March 3rd, 1878, a bulk of the liberated territories,
including those liberated by the Serbian army, were alloted to Bulgaria.
prince Milan informed the Russian supreme command that "the Serbian army
will not abandon Nis even if it were attacked by the Russian army". As a
compensation, Serbia's border was extended to Mitrovica on Kosovo. Old
Serbia remained under Ottoman rule. By the agreement, the Porte was
obligated to issue a special regl ment organique for Albania.6
The Committee of Sava Decanac then expanded its actions. Signatures for
petitions were collected and sent to the Serbian prince, Russian tzar and
delegates of the European powers. All the petitions demanded the annexation
of Old Serbia and Macedonia to Serbia. The news that the Congress of Berlin
had been convoyed for the revision of the San Stefano Peace Treaty was
received by the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia as a possibility of emphasizing
again the demands for annexation to Serbia. Delegates of the Pristina,
Prizren, Djakovica, Pec and Vucitrn regions sent a petition to the
participants of the Congress with 272 signatures, stamped with 126 county
and monastic seals. On June 28, the Serbs of Gnjilane, Skoplje and Tetovo
sent to the Russian tzar and British delegate in Berlin an appeal with
nearly 400 signatures. A similar authorized appeal was sent to the Serbian
knez. In a memorandum submitted to Russian Tzar Alexander II, national
representatives complained of unbearable violence and the inferior position
of the Orthodox people.7
Sava Decanac set off to Berlin with a petition signed by around 2,000
national representatives - priests, serfs, merchants and craftsmen. He
submitted the petition to the German Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck who
promised that the participants of the Congress would be told about the
demands. Archimandrite Sava wrote a general appeal to every other delegate
of the Great Powers, demanding the annexation to Serbia, or, at least, if
possible, the restoration of the Pec Patriarchate. His memorandum dated June
3, 1878, reads: "This nation has been enduring sufferings unheard-of because
it was left to the mercy of Turkish and Albanian renegades. Now, since the
position of all the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula has improved, is it
right that we should remain shackled to tyranny, is it right that we should
further endure butchery from the Turks, that our homes should be burnt by
ethnic Albanians, is it right that we should be subject to deeds worse than
those committed upon animals in Europe. Considering we took part in the war
for liberation, considering we rebelled against exploitation, considering we
expressed our desires for freedom and unification with our brothers; if the
old system is restored, Muslim fanaticism will be without limit, more
brutal, we will be forced to endure sufferings never experienced before. We
raise our voices once more to the European assembly, asking for mercy, not
to leave us to this gory and cruel bondage. If it is unable to grant us
freedom, let at least autonomy and personal safety be secured."8
Austria-Hungarian and Russian rivalry for dominance over the Balkans
was not favorable to Serbia's requests. Delegates from Serbia and Montenegro
delegates were not permitted to take part in the Congress. The Serbian
government, relying upon Austria-Hungary, requested of Gyula Andrsssi the
annexation of the Gnjilane region, beside the Nis sanjak. Minister of
Foreign Affairs Jovan Ristic, in a memoir submitted to participants of the
Congress, underscored that if Old Serbia were to remain under Turkish rule,
the Serbs would be left to the merciless revenge of Muslims, which would
bring Serbia to an unenviable position and only incur new
troubles.9 Even though both countries acquired independence at
the Congress of Berlin, the decision that Old Serbia was to remain under
Turkish rule was received with great disappointment by the Serbs in Kosovo
Metohia. Liberation from the Turkish yoke was delayed
indefinitely.10
The decisions of the Congress of Berlin caused great discontent in
Serbia. In a public proclamation, announced after the Congress, Prince Milan
underscored: "Within a brief time of six weeks, you penetrated to Kosovo at
the speed of lightning, where the victorious song of Serbia was sung at the
gloomy church of Gracanica five hundred years later. [...] Your brilliant
leap needed only a step further and victorious Serbian banners would have
unfurled in Pristina, Skoplje and Prizren, the old capitals of the
Nemajices, but alas, a truce concluded on January 19, [31] this same year,
forestalled and stopped you."11
Fighting along with Serbia against the Turks, Montenegro tried to win
over the Catholic Mirdits. In 1874 the Serbian agency in Constantinople
contacted the Mirdit captain Marko, cousin of Bib Doda. In mid-1876 the
Mirdits were ready to engage in war against the Turks if Montenegrin Prince
Nikola warranted, in writing, that he would recognize their independence
after the war. Receiving from Belgrade the reply "we accept completely", the
Montenegrin Prince made his promise. Even though of anti-Slavic disposition,
the. Mirdit Prince Prenk Bib Doda entered into conflict with Turkish
authorities well rewarded.12
In the second war with the Turks, Montenegro came into conflict with
north Albanian Catholic tribes, the Grudas and Hotis, and waged major
battles with the Muslim bashibazouks. ethnic Albanians and Muslims of
Serbian origin, on the stretch from Ulcinj on the Adriatic Sea to Plav and
Gusinje in the mountainous region toward north Albania, severely clashed
with Montenegrin forces. At the Congress of Berlin, aside to the
independence granted it, Montenegro's territorial expansion had been
confirmed: among other territories, Plav and Gusinje had been alloted to it,
with strong resistance incurring from the Albanian populace. 13