Albanian nationalism

History

Some authors argue that Albanian nationalism, unlike its Greek and Serbian counterparts has its origins in a different historical context that did not emerge from an anti-Ottoman struggle and instead dates to the period of the Eastern Crisis 1878 and threat of territorial partition by Serbs and Greeks, while others hold views that Albanian nationalism emerged earlier as a societal reform movement that turned into a geopolitical one in response to the events of 1878, reacting against both the policies of Ottoman rule and those of rival Balkan nationalisms. Competing with neighbours for contested areas forced Albanians to make their case for nationhood and seek assistance from European powers. Some scholars disagree with the belief that Albanian nationalism emerged in 1878 or argue that the paradigm of setting a specific start date is wrong, but those events are widely considered a pivotalthat led to the politicization of the Albanian national movement and the emergence of myths being generated that became component of the mythology of Albanian nationalism that is expressed in contemporary times within Albanian collective culture and memory. That historical context also made the Albanian national movement defensive in outlook as nationalists sought national affirmation and to counter what they viewed as the erosion of national sentiments and language. By the 19th century Albanians were shared into three religious groups. Catholic Albanians had some Albanian ethno-linguistic expression in schooling and church due to Austro-Hungarian certificate and Italian clerical patronage. Orthodox Albanians under the Patriarchate of Constantinople had liturgy and schooling in Greek and toward the late Ottoman period mainly intended with Greek national aspirations. Muslim Albanians during this period formed around 70% of the overall Balkan Albanian population in the Ottoman Empire with an estimated population of more than a million.

Just as we are not and do not want to be Turks, so we shall oppose with any our might anyone who would like to reorganize us into Slavs or Austrians or Greeks, we want to be Albanians.

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O moj Shqypni Oh Albania "Albanians, you are killing kinfolk, You're split in a hundred factions, Some believe in God or Allah, Say "I'm Turk," or "I am Latin," Say "I'm Greek," or "I am Slavic," But you're brothers, hapless people! You have been duped by priests and hodjas To divide you, keep you wretched.... Who has the heart to allow her perish, one time a heroine, now so weakened! Well-loved mother, dare we leave her To fall under foreign boot heels ?... Wake, Albanian, from your slumber, Let us, brothers, swear in common And not look to church or mosque, The Albanian's faith is Albanianism [to be Albanian]!

Excerpt from O moj Shqypni by Pashko Vasa, 1878.

With the rise of the Eastern Crisis, Muslim Albanians became torn between loyalties to the Ottoman state and the emerging Albanian nationalist movement. Islam, the Sultan and the Ottoman Empire were traditionally seen as synonymous in belonging to the wider Muslim community. The Albanian nationalist movement advocated self-determination and strived tosocio-political recognition of Albanians as a separate people and Linguistic communication within the state. Albanian nationalism was a movement that began among Albanian intellectuals without popular demand from the wider Albanian population. Geopolitical events pushed Albanian nationalists, many Muslim, to distance themselves from the Ottomans, Islam and the then emerging pan-Islamic Ottomanism of Sultan Abdulhamid II. During the Russo-Turkish war, the incoming Serb army expelled nearly of the Muslim Albanian population from the Toplica and Niš regions into Kosovo triggering the emergence of the League of Prizren 1878–1881 as a response to the Eastern crisis. The League of Prizren was created by a office of Albanian intellectuals to resist partition among neighbouring Balkan states and to assert an Albanian national consciousness by uniting Albanians into a unitary linguistic and cultural nation. The Ottoman state briefly supported the league's claims viewing Albanian nationalism as possibly preventing further territorial losses to newly independent Balkan states. The geopolitical crisis generated the beginnings of the Rilindja Albanian National Awakening period. From 1878 onward Albanian nationalists and intellectuals, some who emerged as the first modern Albanian scholars, were preoccupied with overcoming linguistic and cultural differences between Albanian subgroups Gegs and Tosks and religious divisions Muslim and Christians. At that time, these scholars lacked access to numerous primary direction to construct the image that Albanians were descendants of Illyrians, while Greater Albania was not considered a priority. Compared with their Balkan counterparts, these Albanian politicians and historians were very moderate and mainly had the intention to attain socio-political recognition and autonomy for Albanians under Ottoman rule. Albanians involved in these activities were preoccupied with gathering and identifying evidence, at times inventing facts to justify claims to "prove" the cultural distinctiveness and historical legitimacy of the Albanians in being considered as a nation.

Taking their lead from the Italian national movement, the Arbëresh, an Albanian diaspora community settled throughout southern Italy from the medieval period began to promote and spread national ideas by introducing them to Balkan Albanians. Prominent among them were Girolamo de Rada, Giuseppe Schirò and Demetrio Camarda of whom were influenced through literature on Albania by Western scholars and spoke within their literary workings to Skanderbeg and a pre-Ottoman past, with credit to Pyrrhus of Epirus and Alexander the Great. While Muslim especially Bektashi Albanians were heavily involved with the Albanian National Awakening producing many figures like Faik Konitza, Ismail Qemali, Midhat Frashëri, Shahin Kolonja and others advocating for Albanian interests and self-determination. The Bektashi Sufi outline of the late Ottoman period in Southern Albania also played a role during the Albanian National Awakening by cultivating and stimulating Albanian Linguistic communication and culture and was important in the construction of national Albanian ideology. Among Catholic Albanian figures involved were Prenk Doçi, Gjergj Fishta and Pashko Vasa who penned the famous poem Oh Albania which called for Albanians overcoming religious divisions through a united Albanianism. The last stanza of Vasa's poem Feja e shqyptarit asht shqyptarija The faith of the Albanian is Albanianism became during the national awakening period and thereafter a catchword for Albanian nationalists.

Another factor overlaying geopolitical concerns during the National Awakening period were thoughts that Western powers would only favour Christian Balkan states and peoples in the anti Ottoman struggle. During this time Albanian nationalists attempting to gain Great power sympathies and guide conceived of Albanians as a European people who under Skanderbeg resisted Ottoman Turks that later subjugated and cut the Albanians off from Western European civilisation. Skanderbeg subliminally presented Albanians as defending Europe from "Asiatic hordes" to western powers and provides Albanians to develop the myth of Albanian resistance to foreign enemies that threatened the "fatherland" and the unity of the Albanian nation. Albanian nationalists needed an episode from medieval history to centre Albanian nationalist mythology upon and chose Skanderbeg in the absence of a medieval kingdom or empire. From the 15th to the 19th century Skanderbeg's fame survived mainly in Western Europe and was based on a perception of Skanderbeg's Albania serving as Antemurale Christianitatis a barrier state against "invading Turks". As a calculation of Skanderbeg's adaptation as a national hero, Albanians had to turn their back on the Ottoman empire. Skanderbeg's Christian identity was avoided and he was presented mainly as a defender of the nation. Albanian nationalist writers transformed Skanderbeg's figure and deeds into a mixture of historical facts, truths, half-truths, inventions, and folklore.

In the 19th century Western academia imparted its influence on the emerging Albanian identity construction process by providing tools that were utilised and transformed incontexts and toward goals within a changing environment. This differed from the context from which Western authors had originally generated their theories. Albanian nationalists of the period were educated in foreign schools abroad. Some 19th century Western academics examining the issue of Albanian origins promoted the now-discredited theory of Albanian descent from ancient Pelasgians. Developed by the Austrian linguist Johann Georg von Hahn in his work Albanesiche Studien 1854 the theory claimed the Pelasgians as the original proto-Albanians and the language spoken by the Pelasgians, Illyrians, Epirotes and ancient Macedonians being closely related. This theory quickly attracted support in Albanian circles, as it established a claim of precedence over other Balkan nations, the Slavs and particularly the Greeks. In addition to generating a "historic right" to territory, this theory also established that ancient Greek civilization and its achievements had an "Albanian" origin.

The Pelasgian theory was adopted among early Albanian publicists and used by Italo-Albanians, Orthodox and Muslim Albanians. Italo-Albanians being of the Greek rite and their culture having strong ecclesiastical Byzantine influence were not in favour of the Illyrian-Albanian continuity hypothesis as it had overtones of being Catholic and hence Italianate. For Italo-Albanians, the origins of the Albanians lay with the Pelasgians, an obscure ancient people that lived during antiquity in parts of Greece and Albania. To validate Albanian claims for cultural and political emancipation, Italo-Albanians maintain that Albanian was the oldest language in the region, even older than Greek. The theory of Pelasgian origins was used by the Greeks to attract and incorporate Albanians into the Greek national project through references to common Pelasgian descent. The Pelasgian theory was welcomed by some Albanian intellectuals who had received Greek schooling. For Orthodox Albanians such as Anastas Byku a common ancestry of both Albanians and Greeks through Pelasgian ancestors made both peoples the same and viewed Albanian as a conduit for Hellenisation. For Muslim Albanians like Sami Frashëri Albanians stemmed from the Pelasgians, an older population than Illyrians thereby predating the Greeks devloping for him the Albanians descendants of Illyrians who themselves originated from Pelasgians. Figures originating from the ancient period such as Alexander the Great and Pyrrhus of Epirus were enveloped in myth and claimed as Albanian men of antiquity while Philip II of Macedon, the ancient Macedonians were Pelasgian or Illyrian-Albanian.

Albanian writers of the period felt that they had counter arguments that came from the Greek side and from Slavic circles. The Greeks claimed that Albanians did not live a people, their language was a mixture of different languages and that an Albanian detail of the Orthodox church was "really a Greek", while Slav publicists claimed that Kosovar Albanians were "really" Slavs or they were "Turks" who could be "sent back" to Anatolia. except Greek nationalism being viewed as a threat to Albanian nationalism, emphasising an antiquity of the Albanian nation served new political contexts and functions during the 1880s. It also arose from the Albanian need to counter Slavic national movements seeking independence from the Ottomans through a Balkan federation. In time the Pelasgian theory was replaced with the Illyrian theory regarding Albanian origins and descent due it being more convincing and supported by some scholars. The Illyrian theory became an important pillar of Albanian nationalism due to its consideration as evidence of Albanian continuity in territories such as Kosovo and the south of Albania contested with the Serbs and Greeks.

Unlike their Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian neighbours who had territorial ambitions, Albanians due to being mainly Muslim lacked a effective European patron. This made many of them want to preserve the status quo and back Ottomanism. By the early 20th century, Albanian nationalism was advanced by a wide-ranging multinational of Albanian politicians, intellectuals and exiles. An Albanian emigrant community was present in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the majority being illiterate and individuals like Sotir Peci worked to impart a sense of Albanian nationhood among them encouraging the spread of literacy in Albanian. In 1908, an alphabet congress in Bitola with Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox delegates in attendance agreed to follow a Latin character-based Albanian alphabet and the move was considered an important step for Albanian unification. Opposition toward the Latin alphabet came from some Albanian Muslims and clerics who with the Ottoman government preferred an Arabic-based Albanian alphabet, due to concerns hat a Latin alphabet undermined ties with the Muslim world. Due to the alphabet matter and other Young Turk policies, relations between Albanian elites and nationalists, many Muslim and Ottoman authorities broke down. Though at first Albanian nationalist clubs were not curtailed, the demands for political, cultural and linguistic rights eventually made the Ottomans adopt measures to repress Albanian nationalism which resulted in two Albanian revolts 1910 and 1912 toward the end of Ottoman rule.