SHQIPTARËT NË TREVAT E TYRE VERILINDORE NËN PUSHTIMIN BULLGAR TË VITEVE 1941-1943
THE NORTHEASTERN ALBANIAN TERRITORIES UNDER THE BULGARIAN OCCUPATION (DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR)

Summary/Abstract: The establishment of the Bulgarian occupation zone in Kosova and in the Albanian northeastern territories, in parallel with the Italian and German zones formed on the occupation of Kingdom of Yugoslavia capitulation in April 1941, possess a pre history starting from the timeline 1916-1918. It corresponds in a way as Bulgarian geographic area in both periods and also from the perspective of treatment of the Albanian population from the occupation authorities. In both periods, the Albanian population was politically and economically situated in a very difficult position. The Bulgarian civil and military administration at all levels was instructed to almost treat Albanians the same as the Serbs and the Macedonian-Bulgarians that had shown themselves as supporters of Serbia. In addition of the Albanian men internments in the concentration camps, was also made the compulsory military mobilization of theirs to mainly use them for strategic constructions. The Albanian population was massively robbed from the soldiers and clerks through individual actions and through requisitions and heavy taxation etc. All these methods suffocated the trade and the craftsmanship, devaluated the currency and especially during the First World War brought famine to the extreme for the most part of the population. During the First World War was exercised violence and massive special terror through the pretext of disarmament what brought massive displacements, destruction of whole Albanian villages and genuine ethnic cleansing, especially in the peripheral territories of mixed population. Nevertheless the Albanians during the First World War and even in the Second World War were considered as allies respectively from Austro-Hungary and Turkey and from Germany and Italy, the Bulgarian authorities considered them enemies nearly as the Serbs. The strategic aim in this region of the Balkans was defined in both those historic periods as an anti Albanian attitude from the Bulgarian occupation authorities, meanwhile should have been kept another attitude. Anyhow, if both these periods are compared, comes out that the most rude violence has been in the years of the First World War, when the established situations in the course of the Balkan Wars and of the First World War that followed, allowed the extreme explosions of violence in the entire Balkan peninsula. The reaction of Albanians for self defense in front of this permanent violence was made by all means and as much as was possible to the armed resistance.

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