page_title: Albanian nationalism (Kosovo)
section_title: Background: Late Ottoman period
hierarchical_section_title: Albanian nationalism (Kosovo) / History / Background: Late Ottoman period
caption_attribution_description: English: League of Prizren, group photo, 1878. Baca Kurti standing second from the right. Shqip: aca Kurti - i dyti nga e djathta (në këmbë) me pjesëmarrësit e Lidhjes Shqiptare të Prizrenit.
context_page_description: 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 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.
context_section_description: Just as we are not and do not want to be Turks, so we shall oppose with all our might anyone who would like to turn us into Slavs or Austrians or Greeks, we want to be Albanians.
  — Excerpt from the League of Prizren memorandum to the British delegation at the Berlin Congress, 1878, 
  .
  The Albanian National movement first emerged in Kosovo through the League of Prizren that attempted to prevent Albanian inhabited territories from being awarded to neighbouring states and over time has become a focus of discourses within Albanian nationalism. The geopolitical crisis also generated the beginnings of the Rilindja (Albanian National Awakening) period. 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. While the Albanian nationalist movement advocated self-determination and strived to achieve socio-political recognition of Albanians as a separate people and language 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 most of the Muslim Albanian population from the Toplica and Niš regions into Kosovo triggering the emergence of the League of Prizren (1878–1881). Formed as a response to the Eastern crisis and possible partition, the Prizren League was created by a group of Albanian intellectuals to resist neighbouring foreign Balkan states and to assert an Albanian national consciousness by uniting Albanians into a unitary linguistic and cultural nation. Leaders of the Prizren league opposed both Pan-Slavism of southern Slavic peoples and the Greek Megali Idea. The Prizren league opposed territory containing Albanian speakers being awarded to Greece, Serbia and Montenegro with the Ottoman state for a while supporting the league's claims as it saw Albanian nationalism possibly preventing further territorial losses to newly independent Balkan states. During the late Ottoman period, ethno-national Albanian identity as expressed in contemporary times did not exist amongst the wider Kosovo Albanian-speaking population. Instead collective identities were based upon either socio-professional, socio-economic, regional, or religious identities and sometimes relations between Muslim and Christian Albanians were tense. Some people coming from a Balkan Albanian speaking or cultural space and often belonging to the urban elite in Kosovo that migrated to Anatolia did not always identify with a concept of Albanianess. Instead they adopted an Ottoman Turkish outlook and came to refer to themselves as Turks or Ottoman Turkish speaking citizens. Due to the effects of socio-linguistic assimilation, promoters of Albanian nationalism became concerned about migration to Anatolia and degraded Albanians from the lower classes who undertook the journey.
  In 1908 a conference of delegates decided on an Albanian Latin alphabet and the Ottoman government expressed its displeasure alongside other Young Turk policies resulting in a breakdown of relations between Albanian elites and nationalists, many Muslim with Ottoman authorities. The Ottoman Young Turk government was concerned that Albanian nationalism might inspire other Muslim nationalities toward such initiatives and threaten the Muslim-based unity of the empire. The demands for political, cultural and linguistic rights eventually made the Ottomans adopt measures to repress Albanian nationalism which resulted in two Albanian revolts toward the end of Ottoman rule. The first revolt during 1910 in Kosovo and northern Albania was a reaction toward the new Ottoman government policy of centralization. The other revolt in the same areas was in 1912 tha
caption: Group photo of some Prizren League delegates (1878)
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