were written during their stay in Kosovo, comprise the present-day classics
of Serbian literature. These young highly patriotic men, delegates of a new
generation of the Serbian intelligentsia, accepted distasteful tasks to help
the mission of national liberation at the hardest place for a diplomatic
position, in Pristina.6
Ties with Serbia and its attendance to the national affairs had immense
importance in preserving national awareness with the people. An intensive
action for education followed. Money for these educational activities in
Kosovo arrived regularly, and new teachers were engaged. Within a short time
a large number of new schools were opened and work was resumed in many of
the old ones. The administration of Greek metropolitans over the
Raska-Prizren Eparchy, which encompassed almost all of Old Serbia, hindered
Serbia's aims to encircle its work on the national affairs. In 1885, Serbia
began negotiations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, requesting for a
Serb to be the metropolitan in Prizren and for Serbian archpriests to take
over bishopric chairs in Skoplje, Veles, Debar, Bitolj and Ohrid. However,
negotiations with the ecumenical patriarch were not successful. The Serbian
government had, nevertheless, begun to prepare a monastic progeny for high
ecclesiastical duties in Turkey. The monks selected accepted Turkish
subjugation and went to study theology in Constantinople. 7
1 D. Mikic, Nastojanje Srba 1885. godine da saradjuju sa Arbanasima,
posebno preko Marka Miljanova, Obelezja, 4 (1982), pp. 89-102.
2 V. Popovic, Istocno pitanje, p. 182.
3 P. Kostic, Prosvetno-kulturni zivot pravoslavnih Srba u Prizrenu, pp.
70-73.
4 S. Jovanovic, Vlada Aleksandra Obrenovica, I, Beograd 1929, p. 98;
Dj. Mikic, Delatnost "Drustva Sv. Save" na Kosovu (1886-1912), Nasa
proslost, VII-IX (1973-1974), pp. 61-87.
5 Spomenica Stojana Novakovica, Beograd 1921, pp. 171-173; daily
reports on the position of Serbs and the political situation in the Kosovo
vilayet were sent from Serbian consulates in Skoplje and Pristina until
1912. Several thousand documents of which only a part have been published
were stored at the Archive of the Serbian Foreign Ministry: Arhiv Srbije,
Beograd, Ministarstvo inostranih dela, Prosvetno-politicko i politicko
odeljenje 1878-1912; Prepiska o Arbanaskim nasiljima u Staroj Srbiji
1888-1889, Beograd 1889; V. Corovic, Diplomatska prepiska Kraljevine Srbije,
I, Beograd 1933; B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900,
Beograd 1985; ibid., Svedocanstvo o Kosovu 1901-1912, Beograd 1988; ibid.,
Zulumi aga i begova u kosovskom vilajetu, Beograd 1988; Zaduzbine Kosova,
Prizren - Beograd, 1987, (edited by R. Samardzic) pp. 607-738; Milan Rakic,
Konzulska pisma 1905-1911, Beograd 1985 (ed. by A. Mitrovic).
6 J. M. Jovanovic, Nusic kao konzul, Srpski knjizevni glasnik, LIII
(1938), 259- 269; M. M. Rajic, Konzulska pisma 1905-1911, pp. 8-23.
7 Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, p. 302.
Already the first reports from the consulate in Skoplje showed that the
position of Serbs was harder than it had been supposed in Belgrade
diplomatic circles. In fall 1887, the government was informed of anarchy
flaring on the stretch from Pristina and Prizren to the Montenegrin border.
ethnic Albanians controlled the roads, attacked passengers and assailed
Serbs in villages. Prior Rafailo of Decani sent the following message to the
consul: "Sir! Old Serbia is lost! The Christians are being killed like
animals; there are victims of death every day; we are like prisoners
deprived of freedom - no one dares to move."1
The waning power of the Turkish authorities strengthened the obstinacy
of ethnic Albanians. Their clans clashed in blood feuds. When the conflicts
came to inter-tribal bloodshed, they ended by agreements confirmed by the
bessa, not valid for Christian Serbs. Incursions into Serbian territory
continued with increasing anarchy. Serbian garrisons were reinforced at the
frontier. Serbian notes sent to the Porte demanding an end to these
incursions remained unreplied. Stojan Novakovic believed "that the Turkish
authorities themselves feared the Albanians; they were never able to
undertake decisive measures against them; particularly the small authorities
who carry out their orders in the rear lines, thus frequently good orders
sent by older authorities remain without consequences".2
In an elaborate annual report on the position of the Serbian population
in Serbia, 1888, Rector of the Prizren Seminary Petar Kostic underscored the
danger of anarchy and violence upon the Serbs spreading. Certain villages,
unable to defend themselves, sought protection from outlaws and their
companies, paying in return high annual monetary compensations and often
working for free (kuluk). Similar to the ancient endowments, Visoki Decani
and the Pec Patriarchate which hired local Albanian clans for considerable
material compensation and gifts in kind to protect them against bandits from
other regions, the villages too soon felt the bitter side attending this
protection - various additional expenditures. Without license and special
monetary payments, local protectors would not approve weddings. Protecting
villages soon became such a lucrative business that the raiding companies
frequently battled over who would guard Serbian villages. Most of the
Serbian villages, however, could not afford continual protection. A frequent
occurrence, stated Kostic, was "for one family to bury two of its deceased
killed by the rage of Albanians, at the same time".3
Again, like many times before, Serbian shrines bore the brunt of
Albanian bandits. A dispute between two Albanian clans over the estate of
the Decani monastery ended in an armed clash with many killed on both sides.
The dispute arose over who would use the arrogated monastic land, cut down
the trees in the Decani forests and benefit from the bans. The authorities
would not get involved, while the monastic fraternity was compelled to feed
and provide for both tribal armies. When the energetic Prior Rafailo of
Decani attempted to oppose them, he was thrown out of the monastery and
arrested by Turkish authorities who interned him in
Constantinople.4
The beginning of activity undertaken by the Serbian consulate in
Pristina (1889) coincided with a period of great pressure exerted upon the
Serbs and open hostility toward everything that was Serbian. The opening of
the consulate itself was interpreted by the ethnic Albanians as a policy of
provocation and an intolerable attempt to supervise their activities. The
seat of the Kosovo vilayet was moved to Skoplje in 1888, thus the Serbian
consulate remained a solitary diplomat watchtower in a weakly supervised
district.
Reports from Pristina were filled with information on innumerable
atrocities - murders, arsons, blackmail, abduction of women, rapes,
cattle-raids and so on. A petition sent by the Serbian consul to the
district chief received an answered that Albanian tyrants were shielded by
the vali of Kosovo himself: "Evil comes by itself, emanating form disharmony
originating in Skoplje. I send all the guilty Albanians to Skoplje from
where they are soon discharged with arms."5 Marinkovic warned
that the ethnic Albanians were systematically assailing certain Serbian
villages, urging them to move by threats and murders. A common slogan was:
"Go to Serbia - there is no survival for you here." It was the hardest in
the Pec nahi. Reports demonstrate that ethnic Albanians forcibly invaded
Serbian houses. On their way to the Serbian frontier, the refugees were
fleeced as a rule. Seven families of 73 members on their way to Serbia from
a village near Pec were robbed of both their cattle and movables by the
ethnic Albanians.6
The anarchy soon took on the form of a movement to drive out the Serbs.
The Russian consul to Prizren, Teodosie Lisevich, upon evaluating the
anarchy in Kosovo and Metohia, concluded that the ethnic Albanians aimed to
squeeze in between Serbia and Montenegro and thus deprive Old Serbia of its
Serbian character. Albanian terror spread toward the Novi Pazar sanjak,
where the inhabitants were almost all Orthodox and Islamized Serbs. In April
and May 1889 alone, around 700 persons fled Kosovo and Metohia to Serbia.
All refugees gave warnings that the remaining Serbs would also be compelled
to seek salvation by flight.7 All these events were followed by
the decreasing number of Serbs who owned estates. The Turks imposed taxes so
high, thus compelling the Serbs to sell their estates at reduced prices, or
they were left without them on account of Albanian outlaws using the right
to adopt abandoned lands, upon which the Turkish authorities looked with
affinity.8
The culmination of anti-Serbian disposition was the murder of consul
Luka Marinkovic in Pristina in June, 1890. The Serbian government
maintained, upon information received from Serbs in Pristina, that an
Albanian conspiracy was responsible, but the Porte tried to present the
murder as a display of Muslim intolerance toward Christian foreigners.
Serbia demanded of the Porte to undertake drastic measures against the
ethnic Albanians, and the Russian ambassador to Constantinople, supporting
the Serbian demands, warned the Turkish officials that anarchy would spread
to such dimensions that any step taken toward pacification would be
difficult to effect. But the Porte had not the slightest intention to
intercept the unbridling ethnic Albanians. Pressured by the Serbian and
Russian diplomacies, the murderers of the Serbian consul, muhadjirs from
Prokuplje, were severely punished, but the inspirators of the assassination
were never found. The Serbs who appeared as witnesses at the trial fled to
Serbia fearing vengeance.9
The situation in Kosovo did not change much after the arrival of the
new consul Todor P. Stankovic. The consulate was no longer the target of
attack, instead, reports sent to Belgrade brought new black lists of
numerous atrocities. Stating forbidding numbers of terror committed upon the
Serbs, Stankovic underscored that due to the flaring of anarchy and weak
connections with agents in regions remote from Pristina, he had been able to
discover only about an eighth of the committed crimes. He warned that the
Turkish authorities in the Pristina sanjak extended scarcely more than a
degree from the city districts. Since he had lived in Metohia before the
Eastern crisis, Stankovic took to comparing figures of the population census
at the beginning of the seventies with those of the nineties and reached a
figure pointing to three quarters of the total population inhabiting the Pec
nahi being driven out by ethnic Albanians.10 Following accounts
related by some Serbs from Pec in 1907, twenty years earlier around 20,000
Serbs moved to Serbia and Montenegro before the Albanian terror, while 300
Albanian families from Malissia were settled in there place by Pec notable
Hadji Mula Zeka.11
The Serbian emissary to the Porte endeavored through diplomatic means
to protect the Serbian populace in Old Serbia. However, it was all futile.
He met with no compassion in Yildiz, the sultan's court, nor with the
Turkish ministers. Having scrutinized the situation, Stojan Novakovic warned
the government in May, 1891, that the sultan, and perhaps the Porte, "were
working on destroying our element and strengthening the Albanian one. This
activity began right after the war during the Albanian League and has not
been ceased since."12
Some progress to bridle the Albanian anarchy in Kosovo and Metohia was
made through intermediation of the Russian diplomacy in 1892. It requested
of the Porte to curb the anarchy, secure public safety and protection for
the Christians. When the European press took more interest in events taking
place in Old Serbia, news of violence committed upon the Serbs reached the
European public. The Porte ordered the authorities in the vilayet to end all
pursuit of the rayah, punish the bandits and stop the killings among ethnic
Albanians on account of blood feuds.13
Official Serbia, torn asunder by internal dissension and impeded by its
political duties to Austria-Hungary, was unable to aid its compatriots in a
more decisive manner. Activities on national affairs evolved solely through
diplomatic legations, often owing to the personal initiative of an official.
Unable as diplomatic representatives of a small country to effect
anything more tangible for their people, the Serbian consuls wielded all
their faculties to promote education. The extent of lawlessness and
increasing distrust toward everything that was Serbian resulted in some
schools closing down, and the hindering and impeding of efforts undertaken
to promote education. Todor Stankovic earned great merits as a consul in the
opening new schools in Kosovo and parrying Bulgarian propaganda. Branislav
Nusic, a renown Serbian comedist, who worked several years at the consulate
in Pristina, helped open the first Serbian bookstore and renovate of a
primary and secondary school in Pristina. The promotion of education in 1893
was regarded as a considerable success in Serbia, since through the Serbian
schools Serbian nationality was indirectly recognized, presented in all
regulations as rum millet, i.e. a religious category belonging to the
Constantinople Patriarchate. The success was even more greater since the
Bulgarian Exarchate, and under its influence the Turkish authorities,
continually strove to present the Serbian schools as Bulgarian. Under the
imperial irada of 1893 and the regulation on education of 1896, the Serbs in
Kosovo and Metohia could freely open schools and thus indirectly acquire
recognition of their nationality.14 However, insurmountable lists
of oppression upon the Serbs often exceeding all known ways of torture with
their brutalities, continued to arrive in the seat of the Serbian
government. Within only six months Nusic reported on the devastation of
eight Serbian churches and the persecution of priests.15
Extremely dissatisfied and disturbed by the development of political
conditions and the position of Serbs in Old Serbia, the Serbian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs considered the possibility of wielding a more favorable
influence on the educational and national development of Old Serbians by
reorganizing the network of consulates and uniting national actions.
Slobodan Jovanovic, one of the greatest Serbian historians and lawyers, then
young official at the Ministry, was sent in 1894 on a tour to visit
consulates in Turkey, while Branislav Nusic, the vice-consul in Pristina,
obtained approval to travel through the region between Prizren and Scutari.
Jovanovic informed that there was little the consul could do to protect
the people from Albanian violence; that it was isolated and continually
under surveillance; and proposed a move to Mitrovica, which had a railroad
track and livelier merchants contacts. But, consequential to the serious
violence and the helplessness of the Serbian consul before the authorities,
he observed growing disagreements and quarrels among the people and that
some citizens of Pristina strive to adapt to the hard conditions by
cooperating with Turkish authorities.16 Traveling through Metohia
and north Albania, Nusic noted that the Serbs in Pec and the vicinity were
extremely estranged; the breach was so deep that they informed against each
other to the authorities.
Disharmony among the Serbs, as an expression of an insufferable
political situation and continual living under extraordinary conditions,
dangerously undermined their ability of a joint resistance against Albanian
terror and the abuse of Turkish authorities. Nusic wrote on it in his book
on the life of Serbs in Kosovo: "Public life in Turkey is a bad example of
citizenry virtues since it is regulated by laws that are bad, or very good
but not enforced, or even worse, enforced upon people whose prejudices and
vices are stronger than law. While the law applies to one, it fails to apply
for another [...]. Conditions like these compel the people to contrive
conditions for peace and survival. Thus upon encountering these people one
often comes across reservation and dishonesty, traits not indigenous to
these people. Frequently betrayed and exposed, more often innocently
destroyed, it has became distrustful and will rarely reveal its inner
feelings."17
The Serbs were not very successful in courts either. A qadi boasted in
1891 of having solved two cases out of one thousand, for a period of over 18
years, in favor of the Serbs. When the litigants were Serbs, he made his
decision according to which side gave him a bigger bribe. 18
1 B. Perunicic, Zulumi aga i begova u kosovskom vilajetu, pp. 48-50..
2 Ibid., p. 52.
3 Ibid., p. 62.
4 D. T. Batakovic, Memoari Save Decanca o visokim Decanima 1890.
godine, Mesovita gradja, XV (1986), pp. 117-136.
5 B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900, p. 30.
6 Ibid., pp. 40-41, 67-73.
7 B. Perunicic, Zulumi ago i begova u kosovskom vilajetu, pp. 69-78.
8 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, p. 42.
9 B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900, J.
Popovic, op. cit., Pp. 251-153.
10 B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900, pp.
94-97.
11 B. Mikic, Nastojanje Srba na otvaranju ruskog ili engleskog
konzulata u Peci 1908. godine, Obelezja, 1 (1977), p. 154.
12 Istina o Kosovu, Beograd 1988 (M. Vojvodic).
13 Ibid.
14 Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, p. 301.
15 Zaduzbine Kosova, pp. 631-636; B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula
iz Pristine, pp. 152-188, 190-191.
16 R. Ljusic, Izvestaj Slobodana Jovanovica o poseti srpskim
konzulatima u Turskoj iz 1894. godine, Istorijski glasnik, 1-2 (1987), pp.
193-215.
17 B. Nusic, Opis zemlje i naroda, Beograd 1986 , pp. 88.
18 "Velika Srbija", No 51, Beograd, 8/20. XII 1891.
Serbian national gatherings in Turkey were possible only under the wing
of the church. Since plans for restoring the Pec Patriarchate could not be
realized, Serbia and Montenegro undertook a joint action in the mid-90's,
demanding for the bishopric chairs in the Raska-Prizren and Skoplje
Eparchies to be occupied by metropolitans of Serbian nationality. The
transition of these two Eparchies to the rule of Serbian metropolitans
through ecclesiastical institutions, would strengthen national and political
activity in Old Serbia.
Following the death of Greek Metropolitan Melentije, a Serb,
Archsyncellus Dionisije Petrovic (1896-1900) was consecrated the
Raska-Prizren bishop with the joint effort of the governments of Serbia and
Montenegro, bolstered by the Russian diplomacy in Constantinople. Carrying
out orders from the Serbian government, the new metropolitan implemented a
wide reorganization in ecclesiastical and educational institutions, opened
new schools, renewed teaching staff, created new church-school communities,
and, in keeping with the orders of the Serbian government, united the
activities on national affairs.1 Serbia endeavored to open a
consulate in Prizren to enable facile communication with the metropolitan.
Due to great resistance from ethnic Albanians who threatened to burn Serbian
towns and sent critical protests to the Porte, the consulate was never
opened.2
The national, ecclesiastical and educational activity pursued by
Dionisije and his successor Nicifor Peric (1901-1911) reflected mostly in
the opening of new schools and invigorating the educational autonomy of the
Serbs. Turkish administrators and Austro-Hungarian diplomats regarded them
as agents of "Great Serbian propaganda" and tried to obstruct every move
they made. The Turkish authorities were determined to limit the religious
and legal rights of Serbs in Old Serbia. Considering schools seedbeds of
national propaganda, Turkish authorities endeavored to impose a compulsory
study of the Turkish language and to implement a rigorous supervision of the
curriculum and teachers in Serbian schools.3
The metropolitans also clashed with the administration of church-school
communities, who, being unused to central church governing, showed no
appreciation for measures undertaken by the former, thus giving cause for
misunderstandings and mutual suspicion. The harshest conflict occurred when
the administration of the Visoki Decani monastery was deferred to Russian
monks from Mt. Athos. With the principle agreement from the Serbian
government, Metropolitan Nicifor negotiated in 1903 to defer the
administration of Decani to the monks of the Russian skits St. John the
Eloquent on Mt. Athos. The Russian monks were brought to protect the Serbs
in Metohia from Albanian oppression, to restore monastic life in the
impoverished monasteries and to bar Austro-Hungarian influence and Catholic
propaganda. As far as the protection of Serbs was concerned, the Russian
diplomacy was expected to provide assistance aside to the monks of Mt.
Athos. The agreement concluded in 1903 without instructions from the Serbian
government caused many misunderstandings. The Russian monks usurped power of
the monastery. The metropolitan and Serbian government endeavored to
supplement the agreement and limit their administration, causing a breach
between the Serbs of Metohia, those who were followers and those who opposed
the Russian monks. A dispute between the Russian and Serbian government
entailed. Dissension and quarrels resulting from the Decani issue
considerably affected national activity in Metohia.4
After the Eastern crisis the Serbian farmers were faced with new
troubles. Emigration to Serbia and the settlement of the muhadjirs disturbed
relations in villages. The muhadjirs and various other tyrants, unhampered
by the Turkish authorities, assailed Serbian estates, committing brutalities
of all sorts. Toward the end of the eighties, when economic pressure had
become too hard to bear, entire villages were preparing for emigration to
Serbia, particularly in the Ibarski Kolasin. The Turkish authorities replied
to complaints lodged by the Serbs: "If you cannot take it, seek better",
thus encouraging emigration.5
Even though there were no principle differences between Serbian and
Albanian chiflik farmers, the Muslim and Catholic ethnic Albanians were
nevertheless in a better situation. Overall lawlessness, assails and murders
compelled many Serbs to turn from previously free heirs or herdsmen to
chiflik farmers. Unlike the Serbs, ethnic Albanians were unreliable serfs,
being used to robbery and seizure, and the feudal lords dared not pursue
them. Halil Pasha Mahmudbegovic complained of their obstinacy and
recalcitrance to the Serbian consul: "[...] while we still own Serbian
chiflik farmers you could say we are lords of the chifliks, but when they
move out, and the ethnic Albanians take their places, then we are no longer
lords of the chifliks. When an Albanian settles on a chiflik, he is peaceful
2-3 years, and gives a quarter to his master; but as soon as he builds his
tower, he becomes a greater lord than the real lord."6
Collection of the land tithe was leased. The leasees fined the Serbs
without limits, while their complaints remained unanswered. Common hostility
toward the Serbs had spread among Albanian feudal lords. To expand and
reinforce their estates, they assisted the settlement of Albanian chiflik
farmers in spite of sporadic conflicts. In certain regions of Kosovo,
overbearing beys and agas succeeded, through oppression, to compel compact
Serbian villages to massive emigrations. In a village near Pec, the agas
drove out even those Serbs who owned land. In the vicinity of Prizren, by
terrorizing Serbian chiflik farmers for twenty years, ethnic Albanians of
the Kabash clan succeeded in decreasing the number of Serbian houses of a
single village from 40 to nine. In the sanjak of Pristina, particularly in
Lipljan and Gracanica, where the inhabitants were solely Serbs, until 1904,
feudal lords drove away the Serbs and settled Albanian chiflik
farmers.7
Serbian town-dwellers, mostly merchants and craftsmen, lived
comparatively safely in towns. The main obstacle for expanding their
businesses was the regard of the Muslim trade district. With the renewal of
Muslim fanaticism in 1897, ethnic Albanians and Muslims began the boycott of
Serbian goods, lasting intermittently until 1912. Upon the initiative of
Metropolitan Nicifor, Rector of the Prizren Seminary, and a series of
notable Serbs in Prizren, an idea was initiated to found a Serbian monetary
bureau to revive staggering businesses. With financial support from the
Belgrade capital, the Serbian government, the consulate in Pristina and
support from Russian consuls in Prizren and Mitrovica, the first monetary
bureaus sprang up. In Prizren in 1901 the "St. George Church Fund" was
founded to aid operations of the Serbian trade district. In subsequent years
similar funds or societies in Pristina were founded ("St. Nikola Church
Fund"), in Mitrovica (St. Sava Church Fund) in Fenzovic ("St. Tzar Uros
Church Fund"), and many merchant-guild societies were founded in Gnjilane
and Vucitrn. With their unification around 1912 the first Serbian banks
emerged in Kosovo. 8
1 N. Raznatovic, Rod vlade Crne Gore i Srbije na postavljanju srpskih
mitropolita u Prizrenu i Skoplju 1890-1902. godine, Istorijski zapisi, XXII,
2 (1965), pp. 218-275; Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, pp. 303-305;
Archimandrite Firmilijan Drazic was appointed administrator of the Skoplje
metropolitan in 1897, and as Serbian metropolitan, in 1902.
2 D. T. Batakovic, Pokusaji otvaranja srpskog konzulata u Pristini
1898-1900, Istorijski casopis, XXXI (1984), pp. 249-250.
3 Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, pp. 305-307.
4 D. T. Batakovic, Decansko pitanje, Beograd 1989 (with earlier
literature).
5 D. Mikic, Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba u XIX veku, pp.
247-248.
6 T. P. Stankovic, Putne beleske po Staroj Srbiji 1871-1898, p. 105.
7 D. Mikic, Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba u XIX veku, pp.
250-251.
8 B. Hrabak, Poceci bankarstva na Kosovu, Istorijski glasnik, 1-2
(1982), pp. 57-83.
Violence and emigrations caused a continual decline of Serbs in Kosovo
and Metohia since the Eastern crisis until liberation in 1912, despite a
high birthrate. In his book Kosovo, Opis zemlje i naroda (Kosovo, A
Description of the Country and People), (1902), B. Nusic expounded the
reason for emigration most clearly: "Following the Serbian-Turkish war,
emigrations of broad dimensions took place for two reasons. The ethnic
Albanians, citizens of Kosovo, took to avenge themselves upon the Serbs, who
were their rayah, on account of the war. While going to the war and
returning from it, they set fire to Serbian homes, raided their cattle and
to Serbia, the frontier of which was now closer, thus facilitating their
flight. On the other hand, the bulk of ethnic Albanians who were driven out
stayed in Kosovo, there being the closest to the lands they abandoned in
Serbia. These newcomers, known as muhadjirs, inundated Kosovo and drove out
the Serbs from their lands to make space for themselves.[...] Thus the
ethnic Albanians simultaneously flooded Serbian villages from two sides:
from the mountains, by descending toward the Sitnica, and from the Serbian
borders. Today, one could hardly finger out villages void of ethnic
Albanians, whereas countless of villages inhabited by Serbs existed just
until recently. The latter have retained their Serbian names but there is
not a single Serbian house in them."1
An unreliable, but indicative Turkish state census, listed shortly
before the Eastern crisis in 1873, exhibits the following ethnic and
religious picture: in the Pristina, Vucitrn and Gnjilane kazas (districts),
there were 19,564 Christian and 34,759 Muslim male tax-heads. The Serbs
numbered the most in the Gnjilane kaza: 11,607 to 12,544 Muslims. In the
Vucitrn kaza there were 250 Christian toward 800 Muslim heads, in the
Pristina 400 to 3,000, in Gnjilane 400 to 250. Of 7,850 male Muslims in
Pristina, one half spoke Turkish, the other Albanian. In Pec, of 9,105
persons one third spoke Serbian, the second Turkish and the third
Albanian.2
A list of Serbian homes in the Raska-Prizren Eparchy composed in 1899
by Metropolitan Dionisije, amounts to 8,323 Serbian village houses and 3,035
houses in the towns of Kosovo and Metohia, which comes to 113,580 persons
with the average number of 10 persons per family. In comparison with
official information from the Serbian government that from 1890 to 1900
around 60,000 Serbs emigrated from Kosovo, Metohia and the neighboring
regions to Serbia, statistics show that the number of Serbs in villages had
declined by at least a third since the Eastern crisis. Serbian houses
remained most numbered in towns, where they were comparatively protected
from violence: in Prizren (982), Pristina (531), Pec (461), Gnjilane (407)
and Orahovac (176), and the least in the small towns Djakovica (70) and
Fenzovic (20).3
Statistics of the population of the European vilayet of the Ottoman
Empire carried out in Vienna in 1903, based on official Turkish censuses and
research conducted by consular departments, shows the following ethnic
disposition in Kosovo and Metohia:4
According to Austro-Hungarian statistics, the immediate region of
Kosovo and Metohia was composed of 111,350 Orthodox, 69,250 Muslim and 6,600
Catholics Serbs, totaling 187,200. Albanian Muslims numbered 215,050,
Catholics 14,350, and Orthodox 900, totally 230,300. The Austro-Hungarian
statistics should not be wholely trusted, considering the political interest
of the Dual Monarchy for ethnic Albanians, and the time of its collection:
at the beginning of the reform action in Old Serbia and Macedonia.
The most complete statistic of the population of Kosovo and Metohia is
the census composed by the Serbian consulate in Pristina in 1905. Three
sanjaks were encompassed in the census: the Pristina, Prizren and Pec
sanjaks. The total number of Orthodox Serbs in this particular census
amounted to 10,346 homes with 206,920 inhabitants. Official data, sent by
officials of the Raska-Prizren Eparchy to the consulate, totaled to 10,164
homes.5
Shortly before the liberation of Kosovo in 1912, according to research
conducted by Ivan Kosancic, the number of Serbian houses in the Pristina,
Pec and Prizren sanjaks were the following:6
The stated statistics show a relative increase in the number of Serbian
homes. It is hard to suppose their number increased in the first decade of
the 20th century, since the entire documentation preserved points to an
increase of emigrations to Serbia. The increasing number of Serbian homes
noted by the consulate in Pristina, and subsequently by Kosancic, would more
likely refer to disintegration of family groups, when from one family group,
comprised of 20-30 members, several new hearths were created.
The man of most authority concerning ethnic relations in Old Serbia is
Jovan Cvijic. In 1911 he published the results of his research: in the
Pristina sanjak there were 14,048, in the Pec sanjak 3,826, and in the
Prizren sanjak 2,400 Serbian houses, with around 200,000 inhabitants. If
this data were compared with the statistics from the first half of the
century, indicating the existence of about 400,000 Serbs in Kosovo and
Metohia, then Cvijic's evaluation that from 1878 to 1912, around 150,000
persons moved to Serbia, is quite convincing.7
1 B. Nusic, Kosovo, Opis zemlje i naroda, pp. 76-77.
2 V. Nikolic-Stojancevic, Leskovac i oslobodjeni predeli Srbije
1877-1878, Leskovac 1975, p. 10
3 S Novakovic, Balkanska pitanja, Beograd 1906, pp. 515-527; Prepiska o
arbanaskim nasiljima u Staroj Srbiji, Beograd 1899, pp. 136.
4 Haus. Hof, und Staatsarchiv - Wien, Politisches Archiv, XII, k. 272,
Nationalitaten und Religions-karte der Vilajete Kosovo, Salonika, Scutari,
Janina, und Monastir; cf also P. Barti, op. cit., pp. 52-64.
5 B. Perunicic, Svedocanstvo o Kosovu 1901-1913, pp. 246-248; the
consul increased the final number by 20%, (not taken into account in the
above table), believing the information provided by parish regents
inaccurate, since the latter reduced the number of parishoners for the sake
of their income.
6 I. Kosancic, Novopazarski sandzak, Beograd 1912, 16-18; Istorija
srpskog naroda, VI/1, p. 266.
7 J. Cvijic, Osnove za geografiju i geologiju Makedonije i Stare
Srbije, III, Beograd 1911; ibid., Balkanski rat i Srbija, Beograd 1912; cf.
J. Dedijer, Stara Srbija. Geografska i etnografska slika, Srpski knjizevni
glasnik, XXIX (1912), pp. 674-699.
This era was marked by anarchy in Kosovo and Metohia. Following the
great Eastern crisis (1878), anarchy encroached the bases of state policy,
and its driving force became genocide upon the Serbs. Developing into a
movement, the purpose of which was to exterminate a people, Albanian anarchy
was adjusted by circumstances, lead by political motives, tribal, economic
or personal gains, displaying itself in various ways. Muslim fundamentalism
and religious fanaticism were interwoven with feelings of national and
tribal belonging. Wavering between lucrative raids, blackmail, abduction and
radical solutions by murder or the routing of entire families, the policy
conceived to exterminate the Serbian people was never doubted. But it never
could be carried out to the end, since every attempt of massive physical
destruction or collective pursuit was threatened by subsequent international
clashes and the military interference of neighboring Christian countries.
Thus the ethnic Albanians applied the method of persistent violence day
after day which, being radicalized in periods of crises, lead to a sure
completion of their purpose - the extermination of Serbs in the Kosovo
vilayet. The decisive turning point came with the Greek-Turkish war (1897).
Recognized as an announcement of the approaching disintegration of the
Ottoman Empire on the Balkans, it moved an avalanche of Albanian violence
upon the Serbs.
Following the Kurds' brutal massacre of the Armenians, the European
public, appalled by the barbaric methods of Sultan Abdul Hamid's policy,
rightfully named him "the bloody Sultan". The Kurds of the Asia Minor
expanses seemed to have proved their act in the same role as the ethnic
Albanians had in the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The Greek
Insurrection on Crete in 1896 anticipated a new danger for the safety of the
empire. News on the massacre of Muslim followers upset conservative Albanian
circles in Kosovo. At councils, held in the houses of notables and in
mosques, they confirmed their readiness for vengeance.1
Pressured by the Great Powers, the Sultan announced a program of new
reforms in 1896, anticipating equality for Muslims and Christians under the
law and the introduction of Christians to administrative bodies. The
announcement of the reforms exacerbated Muslim ethnic Albanians in Old
Serbia and Macedonia. Their leaders, pashas and beys, tribal chiefs and
standard bearers strove to maintain the possession of specially privileged
positions in the structure of the feudal society and to sustain political
supremacy in their regions. The Albanian migr s and notables of southern
Albania, used the announcement of reforms to renew the idea of autonomy.
Feudal circles of Kosovo sent a delegation to Constantinople, headed by Mula
Zeka of Pec, expressing readiness to defend in arms its homeland from
external threat and requested for the reforms not to be implemented in Old
Serbia. Beys in Pristina refused to give any consideration to the reforms,
due to the "Serbian threat". The Sultan accepted their requests without
hesitating.2
The declaration of war upon Crete was threatened by the possible
involvement of Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro in the crisis. The Great
Powers, especially parties holding most direct interest - Russia and
Austria-Hungary, warned the Balkan state not even to think of warfare with
the Turks. The beginning of the Greek-Turkish war in April 1897, accelerated
negotiations between the two powers. The Dual Monarchy and Russia concluded
a secret agreement in May to preserve the status quo on the Peninsula.
Several months subsequently Austria-Hungary came to terms with Italy for
joint influence in Albania.3
The 1897 war with Greece was a test of Albanian loyalty to the sultan.
Around 10,000 Albanian volunteers enlisted in the Turkish army. The
declaration of war stirred Muslim fanaticism among the ethnic Albanians,
thus invigorating identification with the interests of the Ottoman Empire.
It was due to them that Turkish troops penetrated deep into Thessaly, with
Albanian volunteers exceeding in sacking Greek villages. Greece was defeated
but Crete, with the aid of Great Powers, was on its way of achieving
autonomy with the Greek prince as governor.
Albanian volunteers from Kosovo and Metohia regarded the outcome of the
Crete crisis as an announcement of new divisions in the Turkish countries.
Like many times before, they blamed the Serbs as the guilty party,
suspecting their conniving with the authorities in Serbia. Following the
conclusion of the truce, the ethnic Albanians retained their arms, since the
Turks believed they would successfully defend the northern borders of the
empire in case of another war. Embittered by the failure of their rumoring
Serbia's preparation to war with Turkey, the ethnic Albanians then turned
upon the unprotected Serbian populace more severely than ever.4
The Turkish authorities and Muslim clergy stirred the apprehensions of
ethnic Albanians with news of imminent war with Serbia. In such an
atmosphere, mass murders, robbery and violence spread to broad dimensions.
The consulate in Pristina reported that following the victory over Greece,
ethnic Albanians "have literally become enraged, perpetrating atrocities
upon the Serbian rayah they never dared do before, even in their wildest
years."5
Already next year, in 1898, the terror grew to a general movement to
exterminate the Serbian rayah in Old Serbia. Reports from Serbian consulates
in Pristina and Skoplje indicate that, in its scope and cruelty, this one
exceeded all previous ones. The consul in Pristina, Svetislav St. Simic,
warned that the position "of our [Serbian] people in Kosovo is no better
than the position of the Armenians in Asia Minor in the years from 1894 to
1896".6 Lists of hundreds of severe crimes all pointed to the
fact that the Serbs would soon disappear from Old Serbia unless preventive
measures were undertaken. The consuls proposed for people in the Kosovo
vilayet to secretly arm for defense against the tyrants. Frequent border
conflicts effected a strain in Serbian-Turkish relations.
1 A large number of Albanians, especially those from Djakovica, took
part in the Armenian massacre; see V. Berard, Politique du sultan. Pans
1897; for Albanian agitation: B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz
Pristine 1890-1900, pp. 198.
2 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, pp. 44-45; D.
T. Batakovic, Osnove arbanaske prevlasti, p. 40.
3 S. Skendi, op. cit., pp. 242-244.
4 Ibid., pp. 199-202.
5 B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900, pp. 269;
Lists of violence, pp. 269-277, 293-299.
6 Ibid., pp. 311.
Political conditions in Serbia did not allow for any broader actions to
protect the Serbs in Turkey. Having returned to the country, King Milan
undertook to govern the foreign policy. Requesting of the sultan religious
concessions in Macedonia, the government of Vladan Djordjevic waged a
Turkophilic policy. The foreign policy course pursued by King Milan, an old
Austrophilic, induced the Serbian government to lose Russian support in the
Porte, gained in 1895-96, during Stojan Novakovic's government. Becoming
again the envoy to Constantinople, Novakovic proposed for the Serbian people
in Kosovo and Metohia to be supplied with guns, and then the issue of their
protection may be raised. When the proposition was not adopted, he then
proposed, to the government, at least diplomatic action with the Porte. With
the assistance of consuls in Pristina (Todor P. Stankovic, then Svetislav
of Serbian literature. These young highly patriotic men, delegates of a new
generation of the Serbian intelligentsia, accepted distasteful tasks to help
the mission of national liberation at the hardest place for a diplomatic
position, in Pristina.6
Ties with Serbia and its attendance to the national affairs had immense
importance in preserving national awareness with the people. An intensive
action for education followed. Money for these educational activities in
Kosovo arrived regularly, and new teachers were engaged. Within a short time
a large number of new schools were opened and work was resumed in many of
the old ones. The administration of Greek metropolitans over the
Raska-Prizren Eparchy, which encompassed almost all of Old Serbia, hindered
Serbia's aims to encircle its work on the national affairs. In 1885, Serbia
began negotiations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, requesting for a
Serb to be the metropolitan in Prizren and for Serbian archpriests to take
over bishopric chairs in Skoplje, Veles, Debar, Bitolj and Ohrid. However,
negotiations with the ecumenical patriarch were not successful. The Serbian
government had, nevertheless, begun to prepare a monastic progeny for high
ecclesiastical duties in Turkey. The monks selected accepted Turkish
subjugation and went to study theology in Constantinople. 7
1 D. Mikic, Nastojanje Srba 1885. godine da saradjuju sa Arbanasima,
posebno preko Marka Miljanova, Obelezja, 4 (1982), pp. 89-102.
2 V. Popovic, Istocno pitanje, p. 182.
3 P. Kostic, Prosvetno-kulturni zivot pravoslavnih Srba u Prizrenu, pp.
70-73.
4 S. Jovanovic, Vlada Aleksandra Obrenovica, I, Beograd 1929, p. 98;
Dj. Mikic, Delatnost "Drustva Sv. Save" na Kosovu (1886-1912), Nasa
proslost, VII-IX (1973-1974), pp. 61-87.
5 Spomenica Stojana Novakovica, Beograd 1921, pp. 171-173; daily
reports on the position of Serbs and the political situation in the Kosovo
vilayet were sent from Serbian consulates in Skoplje and Pristina until
1912. Several thousand documents of which only a part have been published
were stored at the Archive of the Serbian Foreign Ministry: Arhiv Srbije,
Beograd, Ministarstvo inostranih dela, Prosvetno-politicko i politicko
odeljenje 1878-1912; Prepiska o Arbanaskim nasiljima u Staroj Srbiji
1888-1889, Beograd 1889; V. Corovic, Diplomatska prepiska Kraljevine Srbije,
I, Beograd 1933; B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900,
Beograd 1985; ibid., Svedocanstvo o Kosovu 1901-1912, Beograd 1988; ibid.,
Zulumi aga i begova u kosovskom vilajetu, Beograd 1988; Zaduzbine Kosova,
Prizren - Beograd, 1987, (edited by R. Samardzic) pp. 607-738; Milan Rakic,
Konzulska pisma 1905-1911, Beograd 1985 (ed. by A. Mitrovic).
6 J. M. Jovanovic, Nusic kao konzul, Srpski knjizevni glasnik, LIII
(1938), 259- 269; M. M. Rajic, Konzulska pisma 1905-1911, pp. 8-23.
7 Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, p. 302.
Already the first reports from the consulate in Skoplje showed that the
position of Serbs was harder than it had been supposed in Belgrade
diplomatic circles. In fall 1887, the government was informed of anarchy
flaring on the stretch from Pristina and Prizren to the Montenegrin border.
ethnic Albanians controlled the roads, attacked passengers and assailed
Serbs in villages. Prior Rafailo of Decani sent the following message to the
consul: "Sir! Old Serbia is lost! The Christians are being killed like
animals; there are victims of death every day; we are like prisoners
deprived of freedom - no one dares to move."1
The waning power of the Turkish authorities strengthened the obstinacy
of ethnic Albanians. Their clans clashed in blood feuds. When the conflicts
came to inter-tribal bloodshed, they ended by agreements confirmed by the
bessa, not valid for Christian Serbs. Incursions into Serbian territory
continued with increasing anarchy. Serbian garrisons were reinforced at the
frontier. Serbian notes sent to the Porte demanding an end to these
incursions remained unreplied. Stojan Novakovic believed "that the Turkish
authorities themselves feared the Albanians; they were never able to
undertake decisive measures against them; particularly the small authorities
who carry out their orders in the rear lines, thus frequently good orders
sent by older authorities remain without consequences".2
In an elaborate annual report on the position of the Serbian population
in Serbia, 1888, Rector of the Prizren Seminary Petar Kostic underscored the
danger of anarchy and violence upon the Serbs spreading. Certain villages,
unable to defend themselves, sought protection from outlaws and their
companies, paying in return high annual monetary compensations and often
working for free (kuluk). Similar to the ancient endowments, Visoki Decani
and the Pec Patriarchate which hired local Albanian clans for considerable
material compensation and gifts in kind to protect them against bandits from
other regions, the villages too soon felt the bitter side attending this
protection - various additional expenditures. Without license and special
monetary payments, local protectors would not approve weddings. Protecting
villages soon became such a lucrative business that the raiding companies
frequently battled over who would guard Serbian villages. Most of the
Serbian villages, however, could not afford continual protection. A frequent
occurrence, stated Kostic, was "for one family to bury two of its deceased
killed by the rage of Albanians, at the same time".3
Again, like many times before, Serbian shrines bore the brunt of
Albanian bandits. A dispute between two Albanian clans over the estate of
the Decani monastery ended in an armed clash with many killed on both sides.
The dispute arose over who would use the arrogated monastic land, cut down
the trees in the Decani forests and benefit from the bans. The authorities
would not get involved, while the monastic fraternity was compelled to feed
and provide for both tribal armies. When the energetic Prior Rafailo of
Decani attempted to oppose them, he was thrown out of the monastery and
arrested by Turkish authorities who interned him in
Constantinople.4
The beginning of activity undertaken by the Serbian consulate in
Pristina (1889) coincided with a period of great pressure exerted upon the
Serbs and open hostility toward everything that was Serbian. The opening of
the consulate itself was interpreted by the ethnic Albanians as a policy of
provocation and an intolerable attempt to supervise their activities. The
seat of the Kosovo vilayet was moved to Skoplje in 1888, thus the Serbian
consulate remained a solitary diplomat watchtower in a weakly supervised
district.
Reports from Pristina were filled with information on innumerable
atrocities - murders, arsons, blackmail, abduction of women, rapes,
cattle-raids and so on. A petition sent by the Serbian consul to the
district chief received an answered that Albanian tyrants were shielded by
the vali of Kosovo himself: "Evil comes by itself, emanating form disharmony
originating in Skoplje. I send all the guilty Albanians to Skoplje from
where they are soon discharged with arms."5 Marinkovic warned
that the ethnic Albanians were systematically assailing certain Serbian
villages, urging them to move by threats and murders. A common slogan was:
"Go to Serbia - there is no survival for you here." It was the hardest in
the Pec nahi. Reports demonstrate that ethnic Albanians forcibly invaded
Serbian houses. On their way to the Serbian frontier, the refugees were
fleeced as a rule. Seven families of 73 members on their way to Serbia from
a village near Pec were robbed of both their cattle and movables by the
ethnic Albanians.6
The anarchy soon took on the form of a movement to drive out the Serbs.
The Russian consul to Prizren, Teodosie Lisevich, upon evaluating the
anarchy in Kosovo and Metohia, concluded that the ethnic Albanians aimed to
squeeze in between Serbia and Montenegro and thus deprive Old Serbia of its
Serbian character. Albanian terror spread toward the Novi Pazar sanjak,
where the inhabitants were almost all Orthodox and Islamized Serbs. In April
and May 1889 alone, around 700 persons fled Kosovo and Metohia to Serbia.
All refugees gave warnings that the remaining Serbs would also be compelled
to seek salvation by flight.7 All these events were followed by
the decreasing number of Serbs who owned estates. The Turks imposed taxes so
high, thus compelling the Serbs to sell their estates at reduced prices, or
they were left without them on account of Albanian outlaws using the right
to adopt abandoned lands, upon which the Turkish authorities looked with
affinity.8
The culmination of anti-Serbian disposition was the murder of consul
Luka Marinkovic in Pristina in June, 1890. The Serbian government
maintained, upon information received from Serbs in Pristina, that an
Albanian conspiracy was responsible, but the Porte tried to present the
murder as a display of Muslim intolerance toward Christian foreigners.
Serbia demanded of the Porte to undertake drastic measures against the
ethnic Albanians, and the Russian ambassador to Constantinople, supporting
the Serbian demands, warned the Turkish officials that anarchy would spread
to such dimensions that any step taken toward pacification would be
difficult to effect. But the Porte had not the slightest intention to
intercept the unbridling ethnic Albanians. Pressured by the Serbian and
Russian diplomacies, the murderers of the Serbian consul, muhadjirs from
Prokuplje, were severely punished, but the inspirators of the assassination
were never found. The Serbs who appeared as witnesses at the trial fled to
Serbia fearing vengeance.9
The situation in Kosovo did not change much after the arrival of the
new consul Todor P. Stankovic. The consulate was no longer the target of
attack, instead, reports sent to Belgrade brought new black lists of
numerous atrocities. Stating forbidding numbers of terror committed upon the
Serbs, Stankovic underscored that due to the flaring of anarchy and weak
connections with agents in regions remote from Pristina, he had been able to
discover only about an eighth of the committed crimes. He warned that the
Turkish authorities in the Pristina sanjak extended scarcely more than a
degree from the city districts. Since he had lived in Metohia before the
Eastern crisis, Stankovic took to comparing figures of the population census
at the beginning of the seventies with those of the nineties and reached a
figure pointing to three quarters of the total population inhabiting the Pec
nahi being driven out by ethnic Albanians.10 Following accounts
related by some Serbs from Pec in 1907, twenty years earlier around 20,000
Serbs moved to Serbia and Montenegro before the Albanian terror, while 300
Albanian families from Malissia were settled in there place by Pec notable
Hadji Mula Zeka.11
The Serbian emissary to the Porte endeavored through diplomatic means
to protect the Serbian populace in Old Serbia. However, it was all futile.
He met with no compassion in Yildiz, the sultan's court, nor with the
Turkish ministers. Having scrutinized the situation, Stojan Novakovic warned
the government in May, 1891, that the sultan, and perhaps the Porte, "were
working on destroying our element and strengthening the Albanian one. This
activity began right after the war during the Albanian League and has not
been ceased since."12
Some progress to bridle the Albanian anarchy in Kosovo and Metohia was
made through intermediation of the Russian diplomacy in 1892. It requested
of the Porte to curb the anarchy, secure public safety and protection for
the Christians. When the European press took more interest in events taking
place in Old Serbia, news of violence committed upon the Serbs reached the
European public. The Porte ordered the authorities in the vilayet to end all
pursuit of the rayah, punish the bandits and stop the killings among ethnic
Albanians on account of blood feuds.13
Official Serbia, torn asunder by internal dissension and impeded by its
political duties to Austria-Hungary, was unable to aid its compatriots in a
more decisive manner. Activities on national affairs evolved solely through
diplomatic legations, often owing to the personal initiative of an official.
Unable as diplomatic representatives of a small country to effect
anything more tangible for their people, the Serbian consuls wielded all
their faculties to promote education. The extent of lawlessness and
increasing distrust toward everything that was Serbian resulted in some
schools closing down, and the hindering and impeding of efforts undertaken
to promote education. Todor Stankovic earned great merits as a consul in the
opening new schools in Kosovo and parrying Bulgarian propaganda. Branislav
Nusic, a renown Serbian comedist, who worked several years at the consulate
in Pristina, helped open the first Serbian bookstore and renovate of a
primary and secondary school in Pristina. The promotion of education in 1893
was regarded as a considerable success in Serbia, since through the Serbian
schools Serbian nationality was indirectly recognized, presented in all
regulations as rum millet, i.e. a religious category belonging to the
Constantinople Patriarchate. The success was even more greater since the
Bulgarian Exarchate, and under its influence the Turkish authorities,
continually strove to present the Serbian schools as Bulgarian. Under the
imperial irada of 1893 and the regulation on education of 1896, the Serbs in
Kosovo and Metohia could freely open schools and thus indirectly acquire
recognition of their nationality.14 However, insurmountable lists
of oppression upon the Serbs often exceeding all known ways of torture with
their brutalities, continued to arrive in the seat of the Serbian
government. Within only six months Nusic reported on the devastation of
eight Serbian churches and the persecution of priests.15
Extremely dissatisfied and disturbed by the development of political
conditions and the position of Serbs in Old Serbia, the Serbian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs considered the possibility of wielding a more favorable
influence on the educational and national development of Old Serbians by
reorganizing the network of consulates and uniting national actions.
Slobodan Jovanovic, one of the greatest Serbian historians and lawyers, then
young official at the Ministry, was sent in 1894 on a tour to visit
consulates in Turkey, while Branislav Nusic, the vice-consul in Pristina,
obtained approval to travel through the region between Prizren and Scutari.
Jovanovic informed that there was little the consul could do to protect
the people from Albanian violence; that it was isolated and continually
under surveillance; and proposed a move to Mitrovica, which had a railroad
track and livelier merchants contacts. But, consequential to the serious
violence and the helplessness of the Serbian consul before the authorities,
he observed growing disagreements and quarrels among the people and that
some citizens of Pristina strive to adapt to the hard conditions by
cooperating with Turkish authorities.16 Traveling through Metohia
and north Albania, Nusic noted that the Serbs in Pec and the vicinity were
extremely estranged; the breach was so deep that they informed against each
other to the authorities.
Disharmony among the Serbs, as an expression of an insufferable
political situation and continual living under extraordinary conditions,
dangerously undermined their ability of a joint resistance against Albanian
terror and the abuse of Turkish authorities. Nusic wrote on it in his book
on the life of Serbs in Kosovo: "Public life in Turkey is a bad example of
citizenry virtues since it is regulated by laws that are bad, or very good
but not enforced, or even worse, enforced upon people whose prejudices and
vices are stronger than law. While the law applies to one, it fails to apply
for another [...]. Conditions like these compel the people to contrive
conditions for peace and survival. Thus upon encountering these people one
often comes across reservation and dishonesty, traits not indigenous to
these people. Frequently betrayed and exposed, more often innocently
destroyed, it has became distrustful and will rarely reveal its inner
feelings."17
The Serbs were not very successful in courts either. A qadi boasted in
1891 of having solved two cases out of one thousand, for a period of over 18
years, in favor of the Serbs. When the litigants were Serbs, he made his
decision according to which side gave him a bigger bribe. 18
1 B. Perunicic, Zulumi aga i begova u kosovskom vilajetu, pp. 48-50..
2 Ibid., p. 52.
3 Ibid., p. 62.
4 D. T. Batakovic, Memoari Save Decanca o visokim Decanima 1890.
godine, Mesovita gradja, XV (1986), pp. 117-136.
5 B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900, p. 30.
6 Ibid., pp. 40-41, 67-73.
7 B. Perunicic, Zulumi ago i begova u kosovskom vilajetu, pp. 69-78.
8 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, p. 42.
9 B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900, J.
Popovic, op. cit., Pp. 251-153.
10 B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900, pp.
94-97.
11 B. Mikic, Nastojanje Srba na otvaranju ruskog ili engleskog
konzulata u Peci 1908. godine, Obelezja, 1 (1977), p. 154.
12 Istina o Kosovu, Beograd 1988 (M. Vojvodic).
13 Ibid.
14 Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, p. 301.
15 Zaduzbine Kosova, pp. 631-636; B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula
iz Pristine, pp. 152-188, 190-191.
16 R. Ljusic, Izvestaj Slobodana Jovanovica o poseti srpskim
konzulatima u Turskoj iz 1894. godine, Istorijski glasnik, 1-2 (1987), pp.
193-215.
17 B. Nusic, Opis zemlje i naroda, Beograd 1986 , pp. 88.
18 "Velika Srbija", No 51, Beograd, 8/20. XII 1891.
Serbian national gatherings in Turkey were possible only under the wing
of the church. Since plans for restoring the Pec Patriarchate could not be
realized, Serbia and Montenegro undertook a joint action in the mid-90's,
demanding for the bishopric chairs in the Raska-Prizren and Skoplje
Eparchies to be occupied by metropolitans of Serbian nationality. The
transition of these two Eparchies to the rule of Serbian metropolitans
through ecclesiastical institutions, would strengthen national and political
activity in Old Serbia.
Following the death of Greek Metropolitan Melentije, a Serb,
Archsyncellus Dionisije Petrovic (1896-1900) was consecrated the
Raska-Prizren bishop with the joint effort of the governments of Serbia and
Montenegro, bolstered by the Russian diplomacy in Constantinople. Carrying
out orders from the Serbian government, the new metropolitan implemented a
wide reorganization in ecclesiastical and educational institutions, opened
new schools, renewed teaching staff, created new church-school communities,
and, in keeping with the orders of the Serbian government, united the
activities on national affairs.1 Serbia endeavored to open a
consulate in Prizren to enable facile communication with the metropolitan.
Due to great resistance from ethnic Albanians who threatened to burn Serbian
towns and sent critical protests to the Porte, the consulate was never
opened.2
The national, ecclesiastical and educational activity pursued by
Dionisije and his successor Nicifor Peric (1901-1911) reflected mostly in
the opening of new schools and invigorating the educational autonomy of the
Serbs. Turkish administrators and Austro-Hungarian diplomats regarded them
as agents of "Great Serbian propaganda" and tried to obstruct every move
they made. The Turkish authorities were determined to limit the religious
and legal rights of Serbs in Old Serbia. Considering schools seedbeds of
national propaganda, Turkish authorities endeavored to impose a compulsory
study of the Turkish language and to implement a rigorous supervision of the
curriculum and teachers in Serbian schools.3
The metropolitans also clashed with the administration of church-school
communities, who, being unused to central church governing, showed no
appreciation for measures undertaken by the former, thus giving cause for
misunderstandings and mutual suspicion. The harshest conflict occurred when
the administration of the Visoki Decani monastery was deferred to Russian
monks from Mt. Athos. With the principle agreement from the Serbian
government, Metropolitan Nicifor negotiated in 1903 to defer the
administration of Decani to the monks of the Russian skits St. John the
Eloquent on Mt. Athos. The Russian monks were brought to protect the Serbs
in Metohia from Albanian oppression, to restore monastic life in the
impoverished monasteries and to bar Austro-Hungarian influence and Catholic
propaganda. As far as the protection of Serbs was concerned, the Russian
diplomacy was expected to provide assistance aside to the monks of Mt.
Athos. The agreement concluded in 1903 without instructions from the Serbian
government caused many misunderstandings. The Russian monks usurped power of
the monastery. The metropolitan and Serbian government endeavored to
supplement the agreement and limit their administration, causing a breach
between the Serbs of Metohia, those who were followers and those who opposed
the Russian monks. A dispute between the Russian and Serbian government
entailed. Dissension and quarrels resulting from the Decani issue
considerably affected national activity in Metohia.4
After the Eastern crisis the Serbian farmers were faced with new
troubles. Emigration to Serbia and the settlement of the muhadjirs disturbed
relations in villages. The muhadjirs and various other tyrants, unhampered
by the Turkish authorities, assailed Serbian estates, committing brutalities
of all sorts. Toward the end of the eighties, when economic pressure had
become too hard to bear, entire villages were preparing for emigration to
Serbia, particularly in the Ibarski Kolasin. The Turkish authorities replied
to complaints lodged by the Serbs: "If you cannot take it, seek better",
thus encouraging emigration.5
Even though there were no principle differences between Serbian and
Albanian chiflik farmers, the Muslim and Catholic ethnic Albanians were
nevertheless in a better situation. Overall lawlessness, assails and murders
compelled many Serbs to turn from previously free heirs or herdsmen to
chiflik farmers. Unlike the Serbs, ethnic Albanians were unreliable serfs,
being used to robbery and seizure, and the feudal lords dared not pursue
them. Halil Pasha Mahmudbegovic complained of their obstinacy and
recalcitrance to the Serbian consul: "[...] while we still own Serbian
chiflik farmers you could say we are lords of the chifliks, but when they
move out, and the ethnic Albanians take their places, then we are no longer
lords of the chifliks. When an Albanian settles on a chiflik, he is peaceful
2-3 years, and gives a quarter to his master; but as soon as he builds his
tower, he becomes a greater lord than the real lord."6
Collection of the land tithe was leased. The leasees fined the Serbs
without limits, while their complaints remained unanswered. Common hostility
toward the Serbs had spread among Albanian feudal lords. To expand and
reinforce their estates, they assisted the settlement of Albanian chiflik
farmers in spite of sporadic conflicts. In certain regions of Kosovo,
overbearing beys and agas succeeded, through oppression, to compel compact
Serbian villages to massive emigrations. In a village near Pec, the agas
drove out even those Serbs who owned land. In the vicinity of Prizren, by
terrorizing Serbian chiflik farmers for twenty years, ethnic Albanians of
the Kabash clan succeeded in decreasing the number of Serbian houses of a
single village from 40 to nine. In the sanjak of Pristina, particularly in
Lipljan and Gracanica, where the inhabitants were solely Serbs, until 1904,
feudal lords drove away the Serbs and settled Albanian chiflik
farmers.7
Serbian town-dwellers, mostly merchants and craftsmen, lived
comparatively safely in towns. The main obstacle for expanding their
businesses was the regard of the Muslim trade district. With the renewal of
Muslim fanaticism in 1897, ethnic Albanians and Muslims began the boycott of
Serbian goods, lasting intermittently until 1912. Upon the initiative of
Metropolitan Nicifor, Rector of the Prizren Seminary, and a series of
notable Serbs in Prizren, an idea was initiated to found a Serbian monetary
bureau to revive staggering businesses. With financial support from the
Belgrade capital, the Serbian government, the consulate in Pristina and
support from Russian consuls in Prizren and Mitrovica, the first monetary
bureaus sprang up. In Prizren in 1901 the "St. George Church Fund" was
founded to aid operations of the Serbian trade district. In subsequent years
similar funds or societies in Pristina were founded ("St. Nikola Church
Fund"), in Mitrovica (St. Sava Church Fund) in Fenzovic ("St. Tzar Uros
Church Fund"), and many merchant-guild societies were founded in Gnjilane
and Vucitrn. With their unification around 1912 the first Serbian banks
emerged in Kosovo. 8
1 N. Raznatovic, Rod vlade Crne Gore i Srbije na postavljanju srpskih
mitropolita u Prizrenu i Skoplju 1890-1902. godine, Istorijski zapisi, XXII,
2 (1965), pp. 218-275; Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, pp. 303-305;
Archimandrite Firmilijan Drazic was appointed administrator of the Skoplje
metropolitan in 1897, and as Serbian metropolitan, in 1902.
2 D. T. Batakovic, Pokusaji otvaranja srpskog konzulata u Pristini
1898-1900, Istorijski casopis, XXXI (1984), pp. 249-250.
3 Istorija srpskog naroda, VI/1, pp. 305-307.
4 D. T. Batakovic, Decansko pitanje, Beograd 1989 (with earlier
literature).
5 D. Mikic, Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba u XIX veku, pp.
247-248.
6 T. P. Stankovic, Putne beleske po Staroj Srbiji 1871-1898, p. 105.
7 D. Mikic, Drustveno-politicki razvoj kosovskih Srba u XIX veku, pp.
250-251.
8 B. Hrabak, Poceci bankarstva na Kosovu, Istorijski glasnik, 1-2
(1982), pp. 57-83.
Violence and emigrations caused a continual decline of Serbs in Kosovo
and Metohia since the Eastern crisis until liberation in 1912, despite a
high birthrate. In his book Kosovo, Opis zemlje i naroda (Kosovo, A
Description of the Country and People), (1902), B. Nusic expounded the
reason for emigration most clearly: "Following the Serbian-Turkish war,
emigrations of broad dimensions took place for two reasons. The ethnic
Albanians, citizens of Kosovo, took to avenge themselves upon the Serbs, who
were their rayah, on account of the war. While going to the war and
returning from it, they set fire to Serbian homes, raided their cattle and
to Serbia, the frontier of which was now closer, thus facilitating their
flight. On the other hand, the bulk of ethnic Albanians who were driven out
stayed in Kosovo, there being the closest to the lands they abandoned in
Serbia. These newcomers, known as muhadjirs, inundated Kosovo and drove out
the Serbs from their lands to make space for themselves.[...] Thus the
ethnic Albanians simultaneously flooded Serbian villages from two sides:
from the mountains, by descending toward the Sitnica, and from the Serbian
borders. Today, one could hardly finger out villages void of ethnic
Albanians, whereas countless of villages inhabited by Serbs existed just
until recently. The latter have retained their Serbian names but there is
not a single Serbian house in them."1
An unreliable, but indicative Turkish state census, listed shortly
before the Eastern crisis in 1873, exhibits the following ethnic and
religious picture: in the Pristina, Vucitrn and Gnjilane kazas (districts),
there were 19,564 Christian and 34,759 Muslim male tax-heads. The Serbs
numbered the most in the Gnjilane kaza: 11,607 to 12,544 Muslims. In the
Vucitrn kaza there were 250 Christian toward 800 Muslim heads, in the
Pristina 400 to 3,000, in Gnjilane 400 to 250. Of 7,850 male Muslims in
Pristina, one half spoke Turkish, the other Albanian. In Pec, of 9,105
persons one third spoke Serbian, the second Turkish and the third
Albanian.2
A list of Serbian homes in the Raska-Prizren Eparchy composed in 1899
by Metropolitan Dionisije, amounts to 8,323 Serbian village houses and 3,035
houses in the towns of Kosovo and Metohia, which comes to 113,580 persons
with the average number of 10 persons per family. In comparison with
official information from the Serbian government that from 1890 to 1900
around 60,000 Serbs emigrated from Kosovo, Metohia and the neighboring
regions to Serbia, statistics show that the number of Serbs in villages had
declined by at least a third since the Eastern crisis. Serbian houses
remained most numbered in towns, where they were comparatively protected
from violence: in Prizren (982), Pristina (531), Pec (461), Gnjilane (407)
and Orahovac (176), and the least in the small towns Djakovica (70) and
Fenzovic (20).3
Statistics of the population of the European vilayet of the Ottoman
Empire carried out in Vienna in 1903, based on official Turkish censuses and
research conducted by consular departments, shows the following ethnic
disposition in Kosovo and Metohia:4
Pec sanjak | Pristina sanjak | Prizren sanjak | |
Orthodox Serbs | 23,750 | 73,400 | 14,200 |
Catholic Serbs | - | 6,600 | - |
Muslim Serbs | 13,250 | 43,000 | 13,000 |
Muslim Albanians | 96,250 | 73,500 | 45,300 |
Catholic Albanians | 9,300 | 50 | 5,000 |
Orthodox Albanians | - | - | 900 |
Tzintzars (Romanians) | 300 | 270 | 2,000 |
Turks | 250 | 3,000 | 6,400 |
Jews | 50 | 350 | 100 |
Gypsies | 1,350 | 8,530 | 4,300 |
According to Austro-Hungarian statistics, the immediate region of
Kosovo and Metohia was composed of 111,350 Orthodox, 69,250 Muslim and 6,600
Catholics Serbs, totaling 187,200. Albanian Muslims numbered 215,050,
Catholics 14,350, and Orthodox 900, totally 230,300. The Austro-Hungarian
statistics should not be wholely trusted, considering the political interest
of the Dual Monarchy for ethnic Albanians, and the time of its collection:
at the beginning of the reform action in Old Serbia and Macedonia.
The most complete statistic of the population of Kosovo and Metohia is
the census composed by the Serbian consulate in Pristina in 1905. Three
sanjaks were encompassed in the census: the Pristina, Prizren and Pec
sanjaks. The total number of Orthodox Serbs in this particular census
amounted to 10,346 homes with 206,920 inhabitants. Official data, sent by
officials of the Raska-Prizren Eparchy to the consulate, totaled to 10,164
homes.5
homes | inhabitants | |
Orthodox Serbs | 10,346 | 206,920 |
Muslim Serbs who became Albanians | 15,600 | 390,010 |
Catholic Serbs | 108 | 1,750 |
Muslim Serbs from Bosnia | 50 | 1,200 |
Protestant Serbs | - | 1 |
Catholic Albanians | 260 | 1,560 |
Albanians | 1,000 | 20,000 |
Turks | 270 | 3,230 |
Jews | 50 | 300 |
Shortly before the liberation of Kosovo in 1912, according to research
conducted by Ivan Kosancic, the number of Serbian houses in the Pristina,
Pec and Prizren sanjaks were the following:6
sanjak | in towns | in villages | total |
Pristina | 1,531 | 12,517 | 14,048 |
Pec | 643 | 3,238 | 3,026 |
Prizren | 982 | 1,148 | 2,400 |
The stated statistics show a relative increase in the number of Serbian
homes. It is hard to suppose their number increased in the first decade of
the 20th century, since the entire documentation preserved points to an
increase of emigrations to Serbia. The increasing number of Serbian homes
noted by the consulate in Pristina, and subsequently by Kosancic, would more
likely refer to disintegration of family groups, when from one family group,
comprised of 20-30 members, several new hearths were created.
The man of most authority concerning ethnic relations in Old Serbia is
Jovan Cvijic. In 1911 he published the results of his research: in the
Pristina sanjak there were 14,048, in the Pec sanjak 3,826, and in the
Prizren sanjak 2,400 Serbian houses, with around 200,000 inhabitants. If
this data were compared with the statistics from the first half of the
century, indicating the existence of about 400,000 Serbs in Kosovo and
Metohia, then Cvijic's evaluation that from 1878 to 1912, around 150,000
persons moved to Serbia, is quite convincing.7
1 B. Nusic, Kosovo, Opis zemlje i naroda, pp. 76-77.
2 V. Nikolic-Stojancevic, Leskovac i oslobodjeni predeli Srbije
1877-1878, Leskovac 1975, p. 10
3 S Novakovic, Balkanska pitanja, Beograd 1906, pp. 515-527; Prepiska o
arbanaskim nasiljima u Staroj Srbiji, Beograd 1899, pp. 136.
4 Haus. Hof, und Staatsarchiv - Wien, Politisches Archiv, XII, k. 272,
Nationalitaten und Religions-karte der Vilajete Kosovo, Salonika, Scutari,
Janina, und Monastir; cf also P. Barti, op. cit., pp. 52-64.
5 B. Perunicic, Svedocanstvo o Kosovu 1901-1913, pp. 246-248; the
consul increased the final number by 20%, (not taken into account in the
above table), believing the information provided by parish regents
inaccurate, since the latter reduced the number of parishoners for the sake
of their income.
6 I. Kosancic, Novopazarski sandzak, Beograd 1912, 16-18; Istorija
srpskog naroda, VI/1, p. 266.
7 J. Cvijic, Osnove za geografiju i geologiju Makedonije i Stare
Srbije, III, Beograd 1911; ibid., Balkanski rat i Srbija, Beograd 1912; cf.
J. Dedijer, Stara Srbija. Geografska i etnografska slika, Srpski knjizevni
glasnik, XXIX (1912), pp. 674-699.
This era was marked by anarchy in Kosovo and Metohia. Following the
great Eastern crisis (1878), anarchy encroached the bases of state policy,
and its driving force became genocide upon the Serbs. Developing into a
movement, the purpose of which was to exterminate a people, Albanian anarchy
was adjusted by circumstances, lead by political motives, tribal, economic
or personal gains, displaying itself in various ways. Muslim fundamentalism
and religious fanaticism were interwoven with feelings of national and
tribal belonging. Wavering between lucrative raids, blackmail, abduction and
radical solutions by murder or the routing of entire families, the policy
conceived to exterminate the Serbian people was never doubted. But it never
could be carried out to the end, since every attempt of massive physical
destruction or collective pursuit was threatened by subsequent international
clashes and the military interference of neighboring Christian countries.
Thus the ethnic Albanians applied the method of persistent violence day
after day which, being radicalized in periods of crises, lead to a sure
completion of their purpose - the extermination of Serbs in the Kosovo
vilayet. The decisive turning point came with the Greek-Turkish war (1897).
Recognized as an announcement of the approaching disintegration of the
Ottoman Empire on the Balkans, it moved an avalanche of Albanian violence
upon the Serbs.
Following the Kurds' brutal massacre of the Armenians, the European
public, appalled by the barbaric methods of Sultan Abdul Hamid's policy,
rightfully named him "the bloody Sultan". The Kurds of the Asia Minor
expanses seemed to have proved their act in the same role as the ethnic
Albanians had in the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The Greek
Insurrection on Crete in 1896 anticipated a new danger for the safety of the
empire. News on the massacre of Muslim followers upset conservative Albanian
circles in Kosovo. At councils, held in the houses of notables and in
mosques, they confirmed their readiness for vengeance.1
Pressured by the Great Powers, the Sultan announced a program of new
reforms in 1896, anticipating equality for Muslims and Christians under the
law and the introduction of Christians to administrative bodies. The
announcement of the reforms exacerbated Muslim ethnic Albanians in Old
Serbia and Macedonia. Their leaders, pashas and beys, tribal chiefs and
standard bearers strove to maintain the possession of specially privileged
positions in the structure of the feudal society and to sustain political
supremacy in their regions. The Albanian migr s and notables of southern
Albania, used the announcement of reforms to renew the idea of autonomy.
Feudal circles of Kosovo sent a delegation to Constantinople, headed by Mula
Zeka of Pec, expressing readiness to defend in arms its homeland from
external threat and requested for the reforms not to be implemented in Old
Serbia. Beys in Pristina refused to give any consideration to the reforms,
due to the "Serbian threat". The Sultan accepted their requests without
hesitating.2
The declaration of war upon Crete was threatened by the possible
involvement of Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro in the crisis. The Great
Powers, especially parties holding most direct interest - Russia and
Austria-Hungary, warned the Balkan state not even to think of warfare with
the Turks. The beginning of the Greek-Turkish war in April 1897, accelerated
negotiations between the two powers. The Dual Monarchy and Russia concluded
a secret agreement in May to preserve the status quo on the Peninsula.
Several months subsequently Austria-Hungary came to terms with Italy for
joint influence in Albania.3
The 1897 war with Greece was a test of Albanian loyalty to the sultan.
Around 10,000 Albanian volunteers enlisted in the Turkish army. The
declaration of war stirred Muslim fanaticism among the ethnic Albanians,
thus invigorating identification with the interests of the Ottoman Empire.
It was due to them that Turkish troops penetrated deep into Thessaly, with
Albanian volunteers exceeding in sacking Greek villages. Greece was defeated
but Crete, with the aid of Great Powers, was on its way of achieving
autonomy with the Greek prince as governor.
Albanian volunteers from Kosovo and Metohia regarded the outcome of the
Crete crisis as an announcement of new divisions in the Turkish countries.
Like many times before, they blamed the Serbs as the guilty party,
suspecting their conniving with the authorities in Serbia. Following the
conclusion of the truce, the ethnic Albanians retained their arms, since the
Turks believed they would successfully defend the northern borders of the
empire in case of another war. Embittered by the failure of their rumoring
Serbia's preparation to war with Turkey, the ethnic Albanians then turned
upon the unprotected Serbian populace more severely than ever.4
The Turkish authorities and Muslim clergy stirred the apprehensions of
ethnic Albanians with news of imminent war with Serbia. In such an
atmosphere, mass murders, robbery and violence spread to broad dimensions.
The consulate in Pristina reported that following the victory over Greece,
ethnic Albanians "have literally become enraged, perpetrating atrocities
upon the Serbian rayah they never dared do before, even in their wildest
years."5
Already next year, in 1898, the terror grew to a general movement to
exterminate the Serbian rayah in Old Serbia. Reports from Serbian consulates
in Pristina and Skoplje indicate that, in its scope and cruelty, this one
exceeded all previous ones. The consul in Pristina, Svetislav St. Simic,
warned that the position "of our [Serbian] people in Kosovo is no better
than the position of the Armenians in Asia Minor in the years from 1894 to
1896".6 Lists of hundreds of severe crimes all pointed to the
fact that the Serbs would soon disappear from Old Serbia unless preventive
measures were undertaken. The consuls proposed for people in the Kosovo
vilayet to secretly arm for defense against the tyrants. Frequent border
conflicts effected a strain in Serbian-Turkish relations.
1 A large number of Albanians, especially those from Djakovica, took
part in the Armenian massacre; see V. Berard, Politique du sultan. Pans
1897; for Albanian agitation: B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz
Pristine 1890-1900, pp. 198.
2 D. Mikic, Drustvene i ekonomske prilike kosovskih Srba, pp. 44-45; D.
T. Batakovic, Osnove arbanaske prevlasti, p. 40.
3 S. Skendi, op. cit., pp. 242-244.
4 Ibid., pp. 199-202.
5 B. Perunicic, Pisma srpskih konzula iz Pristine 1890-1900, pp. 269;
Lists of violence, pp. 269-277, 293-299.
6 Ibid., pp. 311.
Political conditions in Serbia did not allow for any broader actions to
protect the Serbs in Turkey. Having returned to the country, King Milan
undertook to govern the foreign policy. Requesting of the sultan religious
concessions in Macedonia, the government of Vladan Djordjevic waged a
Turkophilic policy. The foreign policy course pursued by King Milan, an old
Austrophilic, induced the Serbian government to lose Russian support in the
Porte, gained in 1895-96, during Stojan Novakovic's government. Becoming
again the envoy to Constantinople, Novakovic proposed for the Serbian people
in Kosovo and Metohia to be supplied with guns, and then the issue of their
protection may be raised. When the proposition was not adopted, he then
proposed, to the government, at least diplomatic action with the Porte. With
the assistance of consuls in Pristina (Todor P. Stankovic, then Svetislav