Greater Albania

Presence of Albanians in neighboring countries and regions.
Purple dot.PNG Albanian majority (Alb. 1989 census)[1]
Blue dot.PNG Albanians 20-50%
Green dot.PNG Albanians 10-20%
White dot.PNG Albanians less than 10%
Black line.PNG Administrative division's borders
Red line.PNG Country borders

The term Greater Albania[2] or Ethnic Albania as called by the Albanian nationalists themselves,[3] refers to an irredentist concept of lands outside the borders of the Republic of Albania which are considered part of a greater national homeland by some Albanians, based on the present-day or historical presence of Albanian populations in those areas. The term incorporates claims to Kosovo, as well as territories in southern Montenegro, northwestern Greece (Chameria), the western part of the Republic of Macedonia, and the Presevo Valley, Medveda, and Bujanovac in Serbia.

The unification of an even larger area into a unique territory under Albanian authority had been theoretically conceived by the League of Prizren, an organization of the 19th century whose goal was to unify the Albanian inhabited lands into a single autonomous vilayet within the Ottoman Empire.[4] However, the concept of a Greater Albania, as in greater than Albania within its 1913 borders, was only ever implemented de facto and de jure under the Italian and Nazi German occupation of the Balkans during World War II.[5]

Contents

Ethnic Albania

The 4 Ottoman vilayets (Kosovo, Shkodër, Monastir and Janina), proposed as Albanian vilayet, by the League of Prizren in 1878.

Ethnic Albania is a term used primarily by Albanian nationalists to denote the territories claimed as the traditional homeland of the ethnic Albanians. These territories include Albania, Kosovo, Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac in Serbia, western parts of Republic of Macedonia and parts of Montenegro (Podgorica, Ulcinj, etc.) Parts of the Epirus region of Greece referred to by Albanians as Çamëria are also sometimes included in this definition.[3]

History

Albanians under Ottoman Turkey

Prior to the Balkan wars of the beginning of the 20th century, Albanians were subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The Albanian independence movement emerged in 1878 with the League of Prizren (a council based in Kosovo) whose goal was cultural and political autonomy for ethnic Albanians inside the framework of the Ottoman Empire. However, the Ottomans were not prepared to grant The League's demands. Ottoman opposition to the League's cultural goals eventually helped transform it into an Albanian national movement.

World War II

Albania in World War II
The Italian Protectorate of Albania established by Italy in August 1941.

The Albanian Fascist Party became the ruling party of the Italian Protectorate of Albania in 1939 and the prime minister Shefqet Verlaci approved the possible administrative union of Albania and Italy, because he wanted the Italian support in order to get the union of Kosovo, Chameria and other "Albanian irredentism" into Greater Albania. Indeed, this unification was realized after the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece from spring 1941. The Albanian fascists claimed in May 1941 that nearly all the Albanian populated territories were united to Albania.[5][6]

So, between May 1941 and September 1943, Benito Mussolini placed nearly all the land inhabited by ethnic Albanians under the jurisdiction of an Albanian quisling government. That included the Republic of Kosovo, parts of the Republic of Macedonia and some small border areas of Montenegro. In Chameria an Albanian high commissioner, Xhemil Dino, was appointed by the Italians; but the area remained under the control of the Italian military command in Athens and so technically remained a region of Greece.

When the Germans occupied the area and substituted the Italians, they maintained the borders created by Mussolini, but after World War II the Albanian borders were returned by the Allies to the pre-war status.

Current status

The recent independence of Kosovo could be interpreted as a degree of success in the creation of a Greater Albania (were such territory to be annexed to Albania or federated with the state), although the United Nations (UN) has stated that if as a result Kosovo becomes independent, annexation to another state would not be possible. In a survey carried out by United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, and published in March 2007 only 2.5% of the Albanians in Kosovo thought unification with Albania is the best solution for Kosovo. 96% said they wanted Kosovo to become independent within its present borders.[7]

Parts of 'Ethnic Albania' out of Albania

Kosovo

Kosovo presently has an overwhelmingly Albanian majority, estimated to be around 88%. [8]

Montenegro

Montenegro also contains sizeable Albanian populations mostly concentrated in areas such as southern Malësia, Podgorica (Potgorica), the Ulcinj (Ulqini) municipality on the coast, the Tuzi area near Podgorica, and parts of the Plav (Plava), Gusinje (Guci) and Rožaje (Rozhajë) municipalities.

Greece

According to the 1928 census held by the Greek state, there were around 20,000 Muslim Cams in Thesprotia prefecture. They were forced to seek refuge in Albania at the end of WWII after a part of them collaborated and committed a number of crimes together with the Nazis during the 1941-1944 period. In the first post-war census (1951), only 123 Muslim Çams were left in the area. Descendants of the exiled Muslim Chams (they claim that they are now up to 170,000, living in Albania) claim that up to 35,000 Muslim Çams were living in southern Epirus before World War II. Many of them are currently trying to pursue legal ways to claim compensation for the properties seized by Greece. For Greece the issue "does not exist".[9]

Republic of Macedonia

See also: Albanians in Republic of Macedonia and 2001 Macedonia conflict

The western part of the Republic of Macedonia is an area with a large ethnic Albanian minority. The Albanian population in Republic of Macedonia is variously estimated to make up 25% of the population.[10] Cities with Albanian majorities or large minorities include Tetovo (Tetova), Gostivar (Gostivari), Struga (Struga), Debar (Diber), Kumanovo (Kumanova) and Skopje (Shkup)[11]. In 1992 Albanian activists in Struga proclaimed also the founding of the Republic of Illyriade (Albanian: Republika e Iliridës)[12] with the intention of autonomy or federalization inside the Republic of Macedonia. The declaration had only symbolic meaning and the idea of an autonomous State of Illyriade is not officially accepted by the ethnic Albanian politicians in the Republic of Macedonia[13] [14].

Preševo Valley

In Central Serbia the municipalities of Preševo (Albanian: Preshevë), Bujanovac (Albanian: Bujanoc) and part of the municipality of Medveđa (Albanian: Medvegjë) include an Albanian population. According to the 2002 census, Preševo contained an overwhelming Albanian ethnic majority of over 90%. Bujanovcac around 54.69% and Medveđa 26.17%. Tense relations between ethnic Serbians and Albanians and also the increased hatred after the Kosovo War, resulted in military actions after the Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac (Albanian: Ushtria Çlirimtare e Preshevës, Medvegjës dhe Bujanocit, UÇPMB) was formed. One of UÇPMB's roles entails seceding these specific municipalities from Serbia and annex them to the independent Republic of Kosovo.

Political uses of the concept

The Albanian question in the Balkan peninsula is in part the consequence of the decisions made by Western Powers in late 19th and early 20th century. Both the Treaty of San Stefano and the Treaty of Berlin (1878) assigned Albanian inhabited territories to other States, hence the reaction of the League of Prizren.[15] One theory posits that the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary wanted to maintain a brittle balance in Europe in the late 19th century following the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The term "Greater Albania" has also been kept alive in recent years by Serbian nationalist circles in order to justify a Greater Serbia.[16][17]

The degree to which different groups are working towards, and what efforts such groups are undertaking in order to achieve a Greater Albania is disputed. There seems no evidence that anything more than a few unrepresentative extremist groups are working towards this cause; the vast majority of Albanians want to live in peace with their neighbors. However, it must be noted that they also want the human rights of the Albanian ethnic populations in Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Greece to be respected. An excellent example is the friendly relationship between the Republic of Montenegro and the support towards the integration of the Albanian population in Republic of Macedonia - there is Albanian representation in government, the national parliament, local government, and the business sector, and no evidence of systematic discrimination on an ethnic or religious basis against the Albanian (or indeed any other minority) population.

In 2000, then-secretary of state Madeleine Albright said, that the international community would not tolerate any efforts towards the creation of a Greater Albania.[18]

International Crisis Group Research

International Crisis Group researched the issue of Pan-Albanianism and published a report titled "Pan-Albanianism: How Big a Threat to Balkan Stability?" on February 2004.[19]

International Crisis Group advised in the report the Albanian and Greek governments to endeavour and settle the long-standing issue of the Chams displaced from Greece in 1945, before it gets hijacked and exploited by extreme nationalists, and the Chams' legitimate grievances get lost in the struggle to further other national causes. Moreover, the ICG findings suggest that Albania is more interested in developing cultural and economic ties with Kosovo, whilst maintaining separate statehood.[20]

See also

References

  1. ↑ The last census conducted on the size of ethnic minorities in Albania was under the communist regime in 1989
  2. ↑ http://www.da.mod.uk/colleges/csrc/document-listings/balkan/07%2811%29MD.pdf,"as Albanians continue mobilizing their ethnic presence in a cultural, geographic and economic sense, they further the process of creating a Greater Albania. "
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Bogdani, Mirela; John Loughlin (2007). Albania and the European Union: the tumultuous journey towards integration. IB Taurus. p. 230. http://books.google.com/books?id=32Wu8H7t8MwC&pg=PA230&dq=ethnic+albania&cd=4#v=onepage&q=ethnic%20albania&f=false. Retrieved 2010-05-28. 
  4. ↑ Jelavich, Barbara (1983). History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Cambridge University Press. pp. 361–65. ISBN 0521274583. http://books.google.com/books?id=qR4EeOrTm-0C&pg=PA361&dq=league+of+prizren. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Zolo Danilo. Invoking humanity: war, law, and global order. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002. ISBN 9780826456557, p. 24: "It was under the Italian and German occupation of 1939-1944 that the project of Greater Albania... was conceived."
  6. ↑ see map
  7. ↑ UNDP: Early Warning Report. March 2007, p. 16 (Online text)
  8. ↑ CIA. "The World Factbook". https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kv.html. Retrieved 27 July 2010. 
  9. ↑ http://www.da.mod.uk/colleges/csrc/document-listings/balkan/07%2801%29MV.pdf Despite the Cham-induced controversy, during a visit to Albania in mid-October 2004, Greek President Konstantinos Stephanopoulos stated at a news conference that the Cham issue did not exist for Greece and that claims for the restoration of property presented by both the Cham people and the Greek minority in Albania belonged to a past historical period which he considered closed. "I don't know if it is necessary to find a solution to the Cham issue, as in my opinion it does not need to be solved,” he said. “There have been claims from both sides, but we should not return to these matters. The question of the Cham properties does not exist," he said. When speaking of claims from both sides, Stephanopoulos was referring (also) to the Greek claims over Northern Epirus, which include a considerable part of southern Albania.
  10. ↑ "2002 Census of Republic of Macedonia". http://www.stat.gov.mk/english/glavna_eng.asp?br=18. Retrieved 14 May 2010. 
  11. ↑ Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization, Yearbook 1995 Page 41 By Mary Kate Simmons ISBN 904110223X
  12. ↑ Whose Democracy? Nationalism, Religion, and the Doctrine of Collective rights in post-1989 eastern Europe Page 80 By Sabrina P. Ramet (1997) ISBN 0847683249
  13. ↑ Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe Page 116 By Janusz Bugajski (1995) ISBN 1563242826
  14. ↑ Macedonia: Authorities Allege Existence Of New Albanian Rebel Group
  15. ↑ Jelavich, p.361
  16. ↑ Elsie, Robert (October 2004). Historical dictionary of Kosova. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.. pp. 71-72. ISBN 0810853094. http://books.google.com/books?id=Fnbw1wsacSAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
  17. ↑ Balkan War Report (1993). (in English)Balkan War Report: bulletin of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (Institute for War & Peace Reporting) (Issues 17-20; Issue 22). http://books.google.com/books?id=ex1pAAAAMAAJ&q=greater+albania+justify+greater+serbia&dq=greater+albania+justify+greater+serbia&hl=en&ei=el9PTMH2K8L98Ab9i6m7AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=8&ved=0CE0Q6wEwBw. "...the notion of a Greater Albania is in fact the coinage of Greater Serbian propaganda by Slobodan Milosevic to try to justify and legalise his policy...". 
  18. ↑ [1]
  19. ↑ http://www.da.mod.uk/colleges/csrc/document-listings/balkan/07%2801%29MV.pdf "Cham demonstrators was enough to galvanise Greece into defensive mode. The country embarked upon a series of military and diplomatic initiatives, which suggested a fear of Pan-Albanian expansion towards north-western Greece. Serbian and Macedonian media reports were claiming that new Pan-Albanian organisations were planning to expand their operations into north-western Greece to include Meanwhile, Chameria in their plans for the unification of “all Albanian territories.” international observers were concerned that Kosovo politicians might start speculating with the Cham issue. The report observed that the "notions of pan-Albanianism are far more layered and complex than the usual broad brush characterisations of ethnic Albanians simply bent on achieving a greater Albania or a greater Kosovo." Furthermore, the report stated that amongst Albanians "violence in the cause of a greater Albania, or of any shift of borders, is neither politically popular nor morally justified."
  20. ↑ Pan-Albanianism: How Big a Threat to Balkan Stability?, Europe Report N°153, 25 February 2004

Sources

External links

Irredentism
Greater Albania · Greater Armenia · Greater Bulgaria · Greater Croatia · Greater Finland · Greater Germany · Greater Hungary · Greater Italy · Greater Mongolia · Greater Netherlands · Greater Portugal · Greater Romania · Greater Russia · Greater Serbia · Greater Somalia · Korean reunification · Megali Idea · Països Catalans · United Ireland · United Macedonia · Greater America · United Slovenia