Drenica-Dukagjin Uprisings | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Kosovo Albanians Committee of Kosovo | Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Hoxha Kadri Azem Galica † Shote Galica Sadik Rama Elez Isufi Prenk Pervizi | Alexander I | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
Kachaks | Royal Yugoslavian Army | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
At least 10,000 | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
Approximately 12,000 Albanian civilians killed between 1918 and 1921 |
The Drenica-Dukagjin Uprisings were a series of Albanian uprisings in the Kosovo regions of Drenica and Dukagjin from 1919 to 1924. The uprisings began after the end of the First World War when Kosovo remained part of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (also known as Yugoslavia). Parts of the Albanian population which resisted Yugoslav rule formed the Kachak movement under the leadership of the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo and conducted guerilla attacks. A 1919 revolt in Drenica involving 10,000 people was quelled by the Yugoslav army, but uprisings continued in the following years.
In response to the rebellions, Yugoslav authorities retaliated by conducting operations against the rebels and the civilian population. During this period, many atrocities were reported against the Albanian population, which included massacres, destruction of villages and looting. It is estimated that approximately 12,000 Kosovo Albanians were killed from 1918 to 1921. By 1924, military confrontations between Albanians and Serbs ended as the Kachak movement was effectively suppressed.
Before the creation of the Independent State of Albania, Kosovo had been a center of Albanian Nationalism. In 1878 the League of Prizren was formed, a political-military organization of Albanian leaders which tried to defend Albanian inhabited lands. It was also the center of the Albanian revolt of 1910 and 1912. Despite having a 70% majority Albanian population, it had a 30% Non-Albanian (mostly Serb) minority, [1] who wished to join the Kingdom of Serbia. While according to Noel Malcolm the Serb population had been under 25%. [2]
Many Albanians in Kosovo and Albania resisted being incorporated in the often changing Yugoslav regimes, knowing that the new Yugoslav forces were the same Serbo-Montengrin troops who had committed massacres of defenseless civilians. Albanians viewed peaceful co-existence as unattainable given the terror and violence they experienced. [3] [4]
After World War I, Serbia suffered greatly from Austro-Hungarian occupation and Kosovo saw clashes between Albanians and Serbs. In 1918, the Allies of World War I rewarded Serbia for its effort with the formation of a Serbian-centralized Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which kept Kosovo as part of Serbia. The conditions for Kosovar Albanians deteriorated as Serbian authorities implemented assimilation tactics such as closing down Albanian language schools while encouraging Albanians to emigrate. The Kingdom promoted the settlement of Serb and Slav settlers to Kosovo, thus beginning the Yugoslav colonization of Kosovo. [3]
Parts of the Albanian population that resisted Serbian rule in Kosovo began military maneuvers and formed the Kachak movement. Under the political leadership of Hasan Prishtina and Bajram Curri, the movement based itself in Shkodër and was led by the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo organization formed on 1 May 1918. [5] [6] Among their demands were the re-opening of Albanian language schools, recognition of Albanian as a co-official language and autonomy, [5] with the goal of uniting Kosovo with Albania. [7]
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On 6 May 1919 the Committee called for a general uprising in Kosovo. This led to a large-scale revolt in Drenica involving around 10,000 people under Azem Galica which was quelled by the Yugoslav army. [8] Despite the revolt being crushed, its brutal oppression would start several other Uprisings throughout 1920-1921.
The Kachaks engaged in uprisings, targeting Serbian army and administrative formations but forbade its members from targeting unarmed Serbs and churches. [5] [8] The Serbian authorities regarded them as mere bandits and in response to their rebellion, retaliated by conducting operations against them as well as the civilian population. [5]
In November 1921 the League of Nations authorized the creation of the Neutral Zone of Junik, which included a couple of villages around Junik and the Highlands of Djakovica along the Kosovo border with Albania. [9] The zone would be used to supply the Kachaks and jeopardize the Yugoslavians. [10] [ page needed ] In late 1921 the Yugoslavian forces attempted to invade the Neutral Zone and Drenica but were pushed back by the Albanian forces under Azem Galica.
It was not until the arrival of Ahmet Zogu in Albania by Yugoslavia in 1924, the assassination of the leadership of the Kosovo Committee, and the Death of Azem Galica on the battlefield that the Neutral Zone and the rebellions would come to an end.
According to Sabrina P. Ramet, approximately 12,000 Albanians were killed in Kosovo between 1918 and 1921. [11] Albanian sources state that 12,346 people were killed. [12] [13] More than 6,000 Albanians were killed by Yugoslav forces in January and February in 1919. [14] Around 2,000 'Albanian patriots' were killed in Kosovo between 1919 and 1924. This number rose to 3,000 between 1924 and 1927. [15]
Following the arrival of Zogu, the Committee of Kosovo, and other Albanian Nationalists, would be assassinated by Zogu's agents.[ citation needed ] By 1924, military confrontations between Albanians and Serbs ended as the Kachak movement was effectively suppressed. [5] Following the revolts, the colonization of Kosovo would be intensified by the Yugoslav authorities and some 58,263 Serbian colonists would settle in Kosovo. In the Second World War, Kosovo was made part of Albania, and during the occupation of Kosovo, 70,000-100,000 Serbians were deported or forced to flee by the Albanian authorities. Albanian authorities also targeted Yugoslav colonists while simultaneously bringing 72,000 Albanian colonists to Kosovo from Albania. [16]
Bajram Curri was an Albanian chieftain, politician and activist who struggled for the independence of Albania, later struggling for Kosovo's incorporation into it following the 1913 Treaty of London. He was posthumously given the title Hero of Albania.
Kachaks is a term used for the Albanian rebels active in the late 19th and early 20th century in northern Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia, and later as a term for the militias of Albanian revolutionary organizations against the Kingdom of Serbia (1910–18) Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–24), called the "Kaçak movement".
Hasan bey Prishtina,, was an Ottoman, later Albanian politician, who served as the 8th prime minister of Albania in December 1921.
Drenica, also known as the Drenica Valley, is a hilly region in central Kosovo, covering roughly around 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi) of Kosovo's total area (6%). It consists of two municipalities, Drenas and Skenderaj, and several villages in Klina, Zubin Potok, Mitrovica and Vushtrri. It is located west of the capital, Pristina.
Skenderaj or Srbica is a town and municipality located in the Mitrovica District of Kosovo. According to the 2011 census, the town of Skënderaj has 9,372 inhabitants, while the municipality has 50,858 inhabitants.
Zajas is a village in the municipality of Kičevo, North Macedonia. Zajas was the seat of the Zajas Municipality, and is now in Kičevo Municipality.
Idriz Seferi was an Albanian leader and guerrilla fighter (rebel). During his 56 year military career, he fought in 35 battles. A member of the League of Prizren and League of Peja, he was the right-hand man of Isa Boletini, with whom he organized the 1910 Uprising against the Ottoman Empire in the Kosovo Vilayet. After the suppression of the uprising, Seferi continued warfare, in the 1912 Uprising. In the First Balkan War, Boletini and Seferi rose up against Serbia, with whom they had previously been allies to during the 1910 and 1912 Uprisings, and continued to attack Serbian posts in the subsequent occupation and initial phase of World War I (1913-1915). In the second phase of the war (1916-1918), he led troops against Bulgarian forces.
Azem Bejta, commonly known as Azem Galica, was an Albanian nationalist and rebel who fought for the unification of Kosovo with Albania.
The Battle of Junik was a battle fought during the Kosovo War between the ethnic Albanian paramilitary organization known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the security forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia over the town of Junik in western Kosovo.
Independent Albania was proclaimed on 28 November 1912. This chapter of Albanian history was shrouded in controversy and conflict as the larger part of the self-proclaimed region had found itself controlled by the Balkan League states: Serbia, Montenegro and Greece from the time of the declaration until the period of recognition when Albania relinquished many of the lands originally included in the declared state. Since the proclamation of the state in November 1912, the Provisional Government of Albania asserted its control over a small part of central Albania including the important cities of Vlorë and Berat.
The colonization of Kosovo was a programme begun by the kingdoms of Montenegro and Serbia in the early twentieth century and later implemented by their successor state Yugoslavia at certain periods of time from the interwar era (1918–1941) until 1999. Over the course of the twentieth century, Kosovo experienced four major colonisation campaigns that aimed at altering the ethnic population balance in the region, to decrease the Albanian population and substitute them with Montenegrins and Serbs. Albanians formed the ethnic majority in the region when it became part of Yugoslavia in early twentieth century.
Shaban Mustafë Kastrati, known as Shaban Polluzha, was a Kosovo Albanian military leader and Nazi collaborationist active in Drenica during World War II. He served in the Royal Albanian gendarmerie and as a commander of the Vulnetari militia. He was briefly a member of the Balli Kombëtar. He was killed by the Yugoslav Partisans.
Shote Galica, born as Qerime Radisheva, was a Kachak Albanian insurgent. She has been declared a People's Heroine of Albania.
The Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo was an Albanian organization founded in Shkodër on 1 May 1918. It was mainly consisted of the political exiles from Kosovo and was led by Hoxha Kadri from Pristina. It existed in looser form since May 1915.
Hysni Curri (?–1925) was a Kosovar Albanian military figure and a prominent leader of the Kachak movement and the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo.
Prenk Pervizi was an Albanian military figure, General of the Albanian army, who also served as Minister of Defence for a short period during World War II. Pervizi attended the Military Academy in Vienna, Austria, from 1914 to 1918, and later in Torino, 1930–1933. As a military figure, he was a protagonist in the foreground of Albanian history in the years between 1918 and 1944. Friend and right-hand man of King Zog, he remained loyal from the beginning to the end to him and the Albanian Kingdom, 1928–1939. During World War II he was involved in military operations. Recruited by the Italians and sent to the first line of combat, he came into conflict with them, withdrawing the Albanian troops from the Greco-Italian War. He also opposed the German SS troops recruitment process in Albania. Bitter opponent of the communists, after failed attempts to engage some serious support from the British emissaries, he was forced to exile, first in Greece and later in Belgium as a political refugee. He spent the rest of his life in Belgium, where he died at age 80, on 6 September 1977.
The Neutral Zone of Junik (1921–1923) was a neutral demilitarized border area between the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Principality of Albania.
Asllan Curri (?-1925) was a member of the kachak movement in early 20th century in Kosovo and North Albania.
Jusuf Mehonjić (1883-1926) was an Albanian leader of the kachak movement and member of the Committee of Kosovo from Šahovici.
Kosovo during the Second World War was in a very dramatic period, because different currents clashed, bringing constant tensions within it. During World War II, the region of Kosovo was split into three occupational zones: Italian, German, and Bulgarian. Partisans from Albania and Yugoslavia led the fight for Kosovo's independence from the invader and his allies. During occupation by Axis powers, Bulgarian and Albanian collaborators killed thousands of Kosovo Serbs and Montenegrins. Tens of thousands were also expelled or were placed into concentration camps.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Kosovo remained Ottoman territory until it was conquered by Serbian forces in 1912. Serbs would say "liberated"; but even their own estimates put the Orthodox Serb population at less than 25%. The majority population was Albanian, and did not welcome Serb rule, so "conquered" seems the right word.
[...] of the state to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (meaning South Slavs) in 1929 brought no respite for the persecuted Albanians. The retribution to which they were subjected (including massacres) continued the now familiar cycle of grievous