Today, we may be in good relations and we hope that these will be preserved in the future, but we must remind children in schools, or today's young people, of the painful history. This history is not made, as is claimed today in the world of globalization, by deleting textbooks in schools, but by honestly writing about the things that have happened and that still hang in the balance between us today. Perhaps this is what made the Serbs, a few years ago, pour out so much anger in the stadium against a country that they do not even have on their border, or what makes the Greeks today not recognize the Cham reality. There are a series of platforms, ideas and memoranda that have been carried out over the decades by high-ranking Serbian, Montenegrin, and Greek officials, through their kings, military men, prime ministers and ministers, seeking to exterminate all of Albania. To think that the well-known names include prominent families of the Balkan dynasty, as well as Nobel-winning writers, makes you shudder.
They are the creators of their nations, but thinking about the extermination of our nation, which they usually called unnecessary, or that in the future they could even lead to biological expansion in the peninsula, as they usually refer to the Albanians. Today, history has turned upside down, but fortunately for the better, since the Kosovars, the most martyred people of the Peninsula, have their own state and even a mother state on the border, while the Greeks, not far in time, will really face the problem of Chameria.
And the Serbs have shriveled to the point of absurdity. Right may delay but it can never forget. Time proved this and Albania is not only a factor in the Balkans, but also one of the most important elements of the peace and existence of this peninsula. We are revealing some of these moments, when Albanians were seen as worthy elements to drive them from their homes, simply for the pure hegemonic interests of Greek, Serbian, Montenegrin, etc.
Ilija Grashanin's "Nacertanija" – minister and ideology
The proposal for this platform was suggested to Ilia Grashanin by the Czech Pan-Slavist František A. Zach (1807-1892), from Moravia, then part of the Austrian Empire. Zach represented the organization of Polish emigrants, founded by Prince Adam Czartorysky. The goal is clear: Zach, who knows Belgrade well, suggests to the Serbian authorities to stay away from Russian influence. Ilia Grashanin was a functionary of the Internal Structures of Serbia.
A figure of the 19th century (1812-1874), he became a key figure of the constitutional regime, as well as the originator of the supporters of the expansion of the Serbian state. He is considered the founder of the foundations of the Greater Serbian policy of unification. Garašanin presented his synthesized platform in a secret document that he called “Načertanie” (1844), which translates as “Project”, i.e. “Plan”. In fact, it is believed that the basic project was the head of Zahu’s memorandum, which envisioned the new Serbia as a continuation of the medieval empire of Stefan Dušan (1308-1355).
Garašanin was the right person and he immediately argued why it should “embrace all the Serbian peoples that surround it.” Zach thought that the Serbs should be the originators and leaders of a formation of South Slavs, “that is not limited to its present borders, but aims to embrace all the Serbian peoples that surround it.”
According to Garashanin's "Naçertanie", part of the great Serbian state would also be Northern Albania. For his program, Garashanin envisaged the organization of a secret service and a developed propaganda system. The platform of "Naçertanie", with its conquest goals in the Balkans, also implied expansion into Albanian territories.
Since then, the Serbian people, for the Slavs, are a divine and historical people. According to him:
– Bosniaks are Serbs of the Islamic religion, i.e. Muslimized Serbs; the language they speak is Serbian;
– Montenegrins are Serbs, both in language and religion;
- Macedonia is Southern Serbia;
- Croats, meanwhile, are Serbs of the Catholic religion and the language they speak is Serbian.
- Albanians are considered as Turkish remnants in the Balkans.
"Nacertania" was realized to a considerable extent during the First Balkan War (1912) when Serbia, based on the decisions of the Conference of Ambassadors in London (1912-13), annexed Kosovo and other eastern regions of Albania with a denationalization policy.
Vaso Čubrilović: “The Expulsion of the Albanians” (1937)
The one who continued the policy of “Načertania” was Vasa Čubrilović (1897-1990). In his memorandum “Iseljavanje Arnauta” (Expulsion of Albanians), which he drafted for the government of Stojadinović (Milan Stojadinović (Çačak, Serbia 1888 – Buenos Aires, 1961); lawyer and economist, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the years 1935-1939), he proposed methods, but also ways of solving the “Albanian problem”. Vaso or Vasa, was an academic in the field of History and in his youth was one of the organizers of the assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand.
His memorandum speaks in detail about the Serbization of Kosovo and also speaks mercilessly about his government, which could not colonize this space after the First World War. The memorandum was submitted on March 7, 1937 to the government of Milan Stojadinović and there is a physical expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo to Turkey and Albania. It is the first detailed ethnic cleansing of Serbs. For this he quotes another nationalist, Jovan Cvijić, who said that; "Albanians are the most expansive race in the Balkans" - former rector of the University of Belgrade and president of the Royal Serbian Academy of Sciences.
Here is what the memorandum says in its preamble: "The problem of the Albanians in our national and state life did not arise yesterday. It played a major role in our life in the Middle Ages, but it took on an extremely important place from the end of the 17th century, when the Serbian population, from lands that were once hotbeds of war, moved northwards and were replaced by Albanian highlanders. Gradually, from their hills they settled in the fertile valleys of Metohija and Kosovo and, penetrating northwards, extended towards the western and southern Morava; through the Sharr Mountains they fell into Polog and from there towards the Vardar.
By the 19th century, the Albanian triangle was created in this way, a wedge which, thanks to the ethnic support of the Dobar-Rogozna line, was deeply embedded in our lands and reached as far as Niš, separating our old lands of Raška from Macedonia and the Vardar valley...! Serbia began to erode this Albanian wedge from the first uprising by expelling the Albanian population of the northernmost areas, starting from Jagodina!
Ivo Andriq: The cleansing of the Albanians
Nobel Prize winner for literature and renowned diplomat Ivo Andrić prepared a document that he published in Belgrade on January 30, 1939.
“The Partition of Albania”
In evaluating this whole matter, we must bear in mind that we must in every way look to avoid any conflict, whether secret or open, with Italy. We must also avoid the invasion of the whole of Albania by Italy, because in this way it would endanger us in the most sensitive places - in Boka Kotor and in Kosovo. Taking into account all that we said above, the separation of Albania could only be considered for us as a necessary and unavoidable evil, which we would not be able to withstand, and as a harm great from which we must derive as much benefit as possible, means that of two evils we must choose the one that is smaller.
Our compensations
These compensations are found in the material elaborated 20 years ago, when the issue of the division of Albania was raised. The maximum we requested at that time was the border that would extend along the banks of the Mat and Drini i Zi and that would give us the strategic security of Montenegro and Kosovo. It should also secure the valleys and lakes of Ohrid and Prespa, including Pogradec and the Slavic villages of Mali i Thatë, as well as those between Prespa and Korça. The capture of Shkodra, in this case, would have great moral and economic importance. This would enable us to develop large hydrotechnical works and benefit from fertile land for the food of Montenegro.
Northern Albania, within the framework of Yugoslavia, would enable the creation of new communication links between Northern and Southern Serbia and the Adriatic. With the division of Albania, the center of attraction for the Albanian minority in Kosovo would disappear, which, in a new situation, would assimilate more easily. We would eventually have 200.000 to 300.000 more Albanians, but these are mostly Catholics, whose relations with Muslim Albanians have never been good. The resettlement of Albanians to Turkey would also take place under new circumstances, because there would be no stronger action to prevent it. (Excerpt taken from the book by Hivzi Sulejmani)
Dobrica Çosić: Albanians, a burden for the Balkans
The famous Serbian writer Dobrica Čosić passed away just a few years ago. He is considered the "father of the Serbian people" and although he was also a dissident against Tito, when it came to Albanians, he is considered one of the supporters of the policy of Ranković, the infamous former Minister of the Interior during Tito's time. As an academic and writer, he was one of the people who often drafted national ideas and had polemics with many people.
Çosić has called Albanians "the barbaric burden of the Balkans", while it is said that he agreed with the ideas for Greater Serbia and has spoken that as parts of Croatia and Bosnia, they should be returned to Serbia. However, a few years ago he confessed to the magazine "Nedeljnik", at the age of 93, that Kosovo was lost and appealed to the new generations, not to waste energy since this issue has been resolved by history against their ideas.
Slobodan Milosevic: The final purge
The Kosovo independence movement gained momentum in the mid-80s, but Serbs were opposed to autonomy, and in 1987 Slobodan Milošević, then ascendant in the Serbian ruling hierarchy, was elected leader of the Serbian Communist Party, promising to restore Serbian rule in Kosovo. In 1989, Milošević became President of Serbia and immediately intervened in Kosovo, reducing autonomy altogether in 1990 by sending in military troops that overthrew the Kosovo government.
But the calculations were wrong, as this policy led the Yugoslav Federation towards destruction in 1991, and in 1992, while Kosovo a few years earlier, would declare its own state. The epilogue was that Milosevic, who thought of putting an end to the Albanian problem, ended up in the Hague Tribunal and died before the process of crimes against humanity, which weighed heavily on his shoulders, was closed. He carried out an almost biblical displacement of Albanians in the late '90s, one of the most notorious of the last century.
Greece
From 1913-1922, a time in which Albania experienced many vicissitudes, Greece continued to systematically carry out the ethnic cleansing of Albanians. Greece expelled over 80 Albanians from Albanian lands, sending some of them to Turkey, and scattering the rest to the islands of death.
"Protocol of Corfu"
It is a document that defines the borders of Northern Epirus, where the concept of Northern Epirus extended to Durrës, since ancient Epidamus was a Greek colony! Others took this border to Shkumbi. The “Protocol” defined as Northern Epirus, the regions of Korça, Gjirokastra, Saranda and Himara.
"The Law of War"
The history of the “Law of War” begins on November 10, 1940, when the Greek royal decree, law 2636, was promulgated on the state of war between Greece and Italy and Albania. After the German occupation, the quisling government of Greece under Prime Minister Giorgos Xolagoklus abolished the Law of War. But after the end of the war, the newly formed government in 1945 reinstated it by declaring war on Albania again, with a new decree numbered 13. On August 28, 1987, the government of Andreas Papandreou, with Karolos Papoulias present, abolished the law inciting war between Greece and Albania.
The massacre of Zerva, the Greek general on the Chams
The collaborationist General Napolan Zerva, on his deathbed, said: “I die peacefully because I did what I wanted. After I left streams of blood, smoke, soot, rubble; screams of children, naked brides and women, who were thrown into the burning ovens, so that no more Albanians would be killed… men hanged, pierced with bayonets, the Albanian language will no longer be spoken on Greek soil. This pleases me, just as it pleases all Greek souls.” In 1944, Zerva and the other generals had received orders to completely annihilate the Cham population of 30-35 thousand inhabitants.
The paradox was that the Allies turned a blind eye, or as Colonel Chris Voodhanse, head of the Allied military mission, put it, when he declared: “With the encouragement of the Allied military mission, which I led, Zerva expelled the Chams from their homes”! The genocide began on June 27, 1944. Zerva’s soldiers demolished everything they found in front of them and razed over 5800 houses in 68 villages and hundreds of thousands of Chams were killed and the owners were completely looted…
Peace Conference (1946)
At the Paris Peace Conference in 1946, Greece demanded a change in the border with Albania, demanding southern Albania. In 1949, the Greek army moved its forces closer to the border, to enter Albania. In 1968, relations between Tirana and Athens reached the point of open war, following Greek claims to annex southern Albania.
The Greek aggression of August 2, 1949 in the South
On August 2, 1949, the southern Albanian territory in the southeast, based on the Korça region, but also up to Konispol of Saranda in Lycia, became the object of a military attack by Greece. It was not a provocation as the Albanian state called it in 1949, but a Greek military attack against our country. Hundreds of Albanian families were displaced to escape this unprecedented aggression.
Greece rushed towards Albania with over 70 armed forces, over 50 aircraft, 80 tanks and an artillery column with nearly 400 shooters, mainly cannons. The Albanian state mobilized and deployed 10 soldiers in the defensive war, while keeping another 30 troops on standby near the attacked area.
Italy - Annexation of Albania
On 7 April 1939, Italy invaded Albania, and the country fell completely under the Italian Empire. The most important man in the country was the Lieutenant General of His Majesty the King Emperor in Albania (Luogotenente Generale di SM il Re Imperatore in Albania), attached to the government in Tirana. This post was given to the former envoy Francesco Iacomoni of San Marino, to whom a staff of 120-140 people reported. Albanian authorities were not allowed to promulgate legal acts or make important decisions without his approval.
The Albanian press was controlled by Piero Parini, who enjoyed a special status in the structures of the occupation apparatus. During the years 1940-1942, they numbered 100.000 – 150.000 people. Until November 1949, they were under the command of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in Albania, General Sebastiano Visconti Praska. The military mission of General Manlio Gabrieli was temporarily located there. Later, the command of the forces that invaded Greece was established in Albania. The collaborationist government in Tirana was led by Shefqet bey Vërlaci, a feudal lord and large landowner, who had been Zog's rival for many years. / Memorie.al
