PRESIONI SERB PËR ASIMILIMIN E SHQIPTARËVE ORTODOKSË (SHEK. XIX DERI NË VITIN 1913)
SERBIAN PRESSURE FOR THE ASSIMILATION OF ORTHODOX ALBANIANS (XIX CENTURY TO 1913)

Summary/Abstract: During the XIX century, the Balkan Peninsula was characterized by development of nationalist movements. These movements, being in rivalry with one another for dominance over the territories still part of the Ottoman state, were committed to increasing the number of their compatriots in those territories as much as possible. In the statistics published by them, the Orthodox Albanian population was introduced as Serbian, Greek or Bulgarian, depending on which government was behind those statistics. The Serbian government, having had claims over the northern Albanian territories, made constant efforts to present the Serbian minority in Kosovo in as large numbers as possible. The Orthodox Albanian population, regardless of the language they spoke, their origin, historical past, etc., was considered Serbian. This standpoint was also favored by the policy that the High Porte enforced over the Albanian territories. The Ottoman government, supporting the concept of the millet, denied the existence of the Albanian nation and in this context did not even allow opening of schools in the Albanian language, much less the establishment of an Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. This policy of the Ottoman state was exploited by the Serbian government to open schools and to establish its churches and cultural associations in the northern Albanian territories, thereby an intense propaganda was conducted in favor of the serbization of the Orthodox Albanians. As a result of this propaganda, many Orthodox Albanians gradually lost their national identity, their mother tongue and got serbicized. The process of assimilation of the Albanian population had continued even after the Serbian occupation of the eastern and northeastern Albanian territories. This process already took on an institutional character, and in addition to the Albanian Orthodox population, it included a part of the Albanian Catholic population and a part of the Albanian Muslim population. Violence was widely used for purposes of achieving conversion and assimilation of the population as quickly as possible. The process of assimilation of the Orthodox Albanian population kept continuing during the XX century. It was quite significant in the region of Reka, where the population was subject to continual violence to give up their mother tongue and their national identity.

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