Violence against Serbs during the late Ottoman era | |
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![]() Map of the borders of the Principality of Serbia and the Ottoman Empire in 1878. | |
Location | Rumelia, Ottoman Empire (now Balkans) |
Date | 19th-20th centuries |
Target | Serbs |
Attack type | Massacres |
Perpetrators | Albanian refugees and armed bands, Turkish gendarmes |
Motive | Serbophobia |
Violence against Serbs during the late Ottoman era refers to acts of violence committed against ethnic Serbs, primarily by Albanians, during the final stages of the Ottoman Empire and their control of parts of the Balkans (late 19th and early 20th century).
The Ottomans began expanding into the Balkans during the 14th century, initially as part of the Byzantine–Ottoman wars, followed by the Bulgarian–Ottoman wars, the Serbian–Ottoman wars and the Albanian-Ottoman Wars during the 14th-15th centuries. Most of the Balkans came under Ottoman control by the 16th century and were governed as part of Rumelia, corresponding to most of the modern Balkan region.
During the Serbian–Ottoman War of 1876–78, between 49,000 and 130,000 Albanian civilians were violently expelled by the Serb army from the Sanjak of Niš and fled to the Kosovo Vilayet. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Within the context of the Serbian–Ottoman Wars, the Sultan Abdul Hamid II unleashed his auxiliary troops consisting of Kosovar Albanians on the remaining Serbs before and after the Ottoman army's retreat in 1878. [6] Albanian refugees were hostile towards Slavs, and violent acts were carried out on local Kosovo Serbs; the ethnic cleansing of the Albanians from the Sanjak of Nish is considered to be an integral aspect of the ongoing Serbian-Albanian conflict. [7] [8] [5]
Albanian refugees from the Sanjak of Nish were very hostile to the Kosovo Serbs, resulting in an increase of violent acts perpetrated towards the Serbs. [7] Some Serbs were ousted from their positions as merchants. [8]
Serbs in the Ottoman Empire were maltreated and accused of being Serbian agents. [9] Panic ensued, and Serbs, primarily from the border areas fled to Serbia. [9] Albanians who participated in the Greco-Turkish War (1897) used weapons not turned in to the authorities against the Serbs in Old Serbia. [10] In May 1901, Albanians partially set Sjenica, Novi Pazar and Pristina on fire. [10] The Albanians massacred Serbs around Pristina. [11] Ibarski Kolašin (now known as North Kosovo), a forested region made up of 40 villages, largely inhabited by Serbs, where Serbian teachers and priests were active, had long irritated the Albanians and Ottoman government; Serbs were continuously maltreated in the region. [12]
The Serbian government observed the developments in Kolašin, and did not remain idle. [12] The situation became serious, with Serbs being smuggled arms by Serbia to defend themselves. In the summer of 1901, Albanians massacred Serbs in the Kolašin area. The atrocities prompted the Russian government to intervene at the Porte. [10]
Initially, the Sublime Porte did not suppress the Albanian movement nor protect the Serbs. [9] Russia demanded that the Albanians and Turkish gendarmeries be punished and the Serbs be allowed to keep the arms for protection. [10] The Porte answered by mass arrests and criminalizing the Albanian language. [11] The governor ( vali ) was dismissed, and several other anti-Serb officials and Albanian chieftains who had been especially cruel were removed from their posts. [13]
Austria-Hungary supported the Albanians and tried to downplay the massacres. [10] The events were instrumental in the "Kolašin affair" (Serbian Cyrillic : Колашинска афера), a diplomatic conflict between Austria-Hungary, which supported the Albanians, and Serbia, which was supported by Russia. [14]
Ottoman defeat to Serbia alongside new geopolitical circumstances post 1878 opposed by Albanian nationalists resulted in attitudes among them that eventually supported what today is known as "ethnic cleansing" that made part of the Kosovo Serb population to leave. [15]
Prior to the Balkan Wars (1912–13), Kosovo Serb community leader Janjićije Popović stated that the wars of 1876–1878 "tripled" the hatred of Turks and Albanians, especially that of the refugee population from the Sanjak of Niš toward Serbs by committing acts of violence against them. [5]
This article includes information on the demographic history of Kosovo.
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The League of Prizren, officially the League for the Defense of the Rights of the Albanian Nation, was an Albanian political organization that was officially founded on June 10, 1878 in the old town of Prizren in the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. It was suppressed in April 1881.
Sandžak is a historical geo-political region located in the southwestern part of Serbia and the eastern part of Montenegro. The name Sandžak derives from the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, a former Ottoman administrative district founded in 1865.
The history of Kosovo dates back to pre-historic times when the Starčevo culture, Vinča culture, Bubanj-Hum culture, and Baden culture were active in the region. Since then, many archaeological sites have been discovered due to the abundance of natural resources which gave way to the development of life.
The Kingdom of Serbia was a country located in the Balkans which was created when the ruler of the Principality of Serbia, Milan I, was proclaimed king in 1882. Since 1817, the Principality was ruled by the Obrenović dynasty. The Principality, under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, de facto achieved full independence when the very last Ottoman troops left Belgrade in 1867. The Congress of Berlin in 1878 recognized the formal independence of the Principality of Serbia, and in its composition Nišava, Pirot, Toplica and Vranje districts entered the South part of Serbia.
Kuršumlija is a town and municipality located in the Toplica District of the southern Serbia. It is situated near the rivers Toplica, Kosanica and Banjska, southeast of Mount Kopaonik and northwest of Mount Radan. As of 2022 census, the municipality has a population of 15,905 inhabitants.
The Vilayet of Kosovo was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkan Peninsula which included the modern-day territory of Kosovo and the north-western part of the Republic of North Macedonia. The areas today comprising Sandžak (Raška) region of Serbia and Montenegro, although de jure under Ottoman control, were de facto under Austro-Hungarian occupation from 1878 until 1909, as provided under Article 25 of the Treaty of Berlin. Üsküb (Skopje) functioned as the capital of the province and the midway point between Istanbul and its European provinces. Üsküb's population of 32,000 made it the largest city in the province, followed by Prizren, also numbering at 30,000.
Medveđa is a town and municipality located in the Jablanica District of southern Serbia. As of the 2022 census, the municipality has a population of 6,360, while the town has a population of 2,993.
Muhaxhir and Muhaxher are Ottoman Albanian communities that left their homes as refugees or were transferred, from Greece, Serbia and Montenegro to Albania, Kosovo and to a lesser extent North Macedonia during and following various wars.
The Sanjak of Novi Pazar was an Ottoman sanjak that was created in 1865. It was reorganized in 1880 and 1902. The Ottoman rule in the region lasted until the First Balkan War (1912). The Sanjak of Novi Pazar included territories of present-day northeastern Montenegro and southwestern Serbia, also including some northern parts of Kosovo. In modern day terms the region is known as Sandžak.
Kosovo was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1455 to 1912, at first as part of the eyalet of Rumelia, and from 1864 as a separate Kosovo Vilayet.
Albanians in Serbia are a recognized national minority in Serbia. According to the 2022 census, the population of ethnic Albanians in Serbia is 61,687, constituting 0.93% of the total population. The vast majority of them live in the southern part of the country that borders Kosovo and North Macedonia, called the Preševo Valley. Their cultural center is located in Preševo.
The massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars were perpetrated on several occasions by the Serbian and Montenegrin armies and paramilitaries during the conflicts that occurred in the region between 1912 and 1913. During the 1912–13 First Balkan War, Serbia and Montenegro committed a number of war crimes against the Albanian population after expelling Ottoman Empire forces from present-day Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia, which were reported by the European, American and Serbian opposition press. Most of the crimes occurred between October 1912 and the summer of 1913. The goal of the forced expulsions and massacres was statistical manipulation before the London Ambassadors Conference to determine the new Balkan borders. According to contemporary accounts, around 20,000 to 25,000 Albanians were killed in the Kosovo Vilayet during the first two to four months, before the violence climaxed. The total number of Albanians that were killed in Kosovo and Macedonia or in all Serbian occupied regions during the Balkan Wars is estimated to be at least 120,000. Most of the victims were children, women and the elderly. In addition to the massacres, some civilians had their lips and noses severed. Multiple historians, scholars, and contemporary accounts refer to or characterize the massacres as a genocide of Albanians or the Muslim population in the Balkans as a whole. Further massacres against Albanians occurred during the First World War and continued during the interwar period.
Turco-Albanian is an ethnographic, religious, and derogatory term used by Greeks for Muslim Albanians from 1715 and thereafter. In a broader sense, the term included both Muslim Albanian and Turkish political and military elites of the Ottoman administration in the Balkans. The term is derived from an identification of Muslims with Ottomans and/or Turks, due to the Ottoman Empire's administrative millet system of classifying peoples according to religion, where the Muslim millet played the leading role. From the middle of the nineteenth century, the term Turk and from the late nineteenth century onwards, the derivative term Turco-Albanian has been used as a pejorative term, phrase and or expression for Muslim Albanian individuals and communities. The term has also been noted to be unclear, ideologically and sentimentally charged, and an imperialist and racialist expression. Albanians have expressed derision and disassociation toward the terms Turk and its derivative form Turco-Albanian regarding the usage of those terms in reference to them. It has been reported that at the end of the 20th century some Christian Albanians still used the term "Turk" to refer to Muslim Albanians.
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The Serbian–Ottoman Wars, also known as the Serbian–Turkish Wars or Serbian Wars for Independence, were two consequent wars, fought between the Principality of Serbia and the Ottoman Empire. In conjunction with the Principality of Montenegro, Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 30 June 1876. By the intervention of major European powers, ceasefire was concluded in autumn, and the Constantinople Conference was organized. Peace was signed on 28 February 1877 on the basis of status quo ante bellum. After a brief period of formal peace, Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 11 December 1877. Renewed hostilities lasted until February 1878.
During the decline and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Muslim inhabitants living in territories previously under Ottoman control, often found themselves as a persecuted minority after borders were re-drawn. These populations were subject to genocide, expropriation, massacres, religious persecution, mass rape, and ethnic cleansing.
The expulsion of the Albanians, 1877–1878 refers to events of forced migration of Albanian populations from areas that became incorporated into the Principality of Serbia and Principality of Montenegro in 1878 after their initial expulsion from 1830–1876. These wars, alongside the larger Russo-Ottoman War (1877–78) ended in defeat and substantial territorial losses for the Ottoman Empire which was formalised at the Congress of Berlin. This expulsion was part of the wider persecution of Muslims in the Balkans during the geopolitical and territorial decline of the Ottoman Empire.
Kosovo is the birthplace of the Albanian nationalist movement which emerged as a response to the Eastern Crisis of 1878. In the immediate aftermath of the Russo-Ottoman war, the Congress of Berlin proposed partitioning Ottoman Albanian inhabited lands in the Balkans among neighbouring countries. The League of Prizren was formed by Albanians to resist those impositions. For Albanians those events have made Kosovo an important place regarding the emergence of Albanian nationalism. During the remainder of the late Ottoman period various disagreements between Albanian nationalists and the Ottoman Empire over socio-cultural rights culminated in two revolts within Kosovo and adjacent areas. The Balkan Wars (1912–13) ending with Ottoman defeat, Serbian and later Yugoslav sovereignty over the area generated an Albanian nationalism that has become distinct to Kosovo stressing Albanian language, culture, and identity within the context of secession from Serbia. Pan-Albanian sentiments are also present and historically have been achieved only once when part of Kosovo was united by Italian Axis forces to their protectorate of Albania during the Second World War.
In order to hamper the extension of the Macedonian movement, the Turks could rely on the Albanians, who were hostile to Slavs. In May 1901 Albanian bands pillaged and partly set fire to Novi Pazar, Sjenica and Prishtinë. They attacked the Slavs everywhere. The Serbian population suffered most, because of their proximity to the Albanians. The Albanians occupied Kolašin and massacred a considerable number of Serbs. Following this, Russia intervened and demanded that the Albanian raiders and the Turkish gendarmes be punished while the "Christian" population be permiited to keep the necessary arms for protection. Astria-Hungary on the other hand, tried to attenuate the effect of the Kolašin massacre... The Kosovars who took part in the Greco-Turkish War now used against the Serbs in Old Serbia the arms which they did not deliver to the Turkish authorities. In 1901 the situation became grave. The Serbs began to smuggle arms to their compatriots with which to defend themselves. In the summer of 1901, the Kolašin "massacre of Serbs" took place, which compelled Russia to intervene at the Porte..