akritas
02-18-2006, 02:15 PM
The Albanians are divided into two groups, the Geghs of the north (who tend to be Muslim with a minority that is Catholic) and the Tosks of the south (who also are predominately Muslim, but include a substantial number of Orthodox as well). Additionally, the Geghs (who live in northern Albania and Kosovo) are less urbanized than the Tosks and, traditionally, have been more conservative. The 1913 declaration of Albanian independence was rather rhetorical since the country soon fell into anarchy, and during World War I (1914-18) Serb and Greek forces occupied its northern and southern parts.
The origins of the minority question in Greek-Albanian relations are directly linked with the drawing of the boundary between Albania and
Greece. Following the 1912-13 Balkan Wars, the Great Powers, the Balkan states, and the Ottoman Empire negotiated the final territorial gains that the Balkan states would get from the defeated Ottoman Empire. In these negotiations, Greece was offered a choice between territory in southern Albania and the Aegean Islands. The Greek government chose the Aegean Islands. Consequently, the international committee responsible for finalizing the boundary between
Greece and Albania did not satisfy Greek claims and included a contested region of the south into the Albanian state. Subsequently, the Greeks in the regions of Gyrogaster (Argyrokastro) and Korce (Korytsa) revolted and asked for Greek troops to intervene. To avoid a direct confrontation, the parties signed the Protocol of Corfu (1914), which granted autonomy to the Greek minority. By 1914, following the declaration of World War I and with encouragement by the Entente, Greek forces returned to the region and occupied it militarily. It was during this period that the Greek army conducted a survey of the region and published in 1919 a map of the southern part of Albania where the region is officially called “Northern Epirus.” Subsequently, the term was adopted into Greek discourse, in spite of the fact that the survey was (obviously) biased. In 1920, an international committee set out to redraw the new state's boundaries. The committee's final decision left a portion of the Greek population within Albanian territory and, likewise, a portion of the Albanian population within Greek territory. The former region became known as Northern Epirus, while the latter region, home to approximately 20,000 Albanians, became henceforth known as Chameria(Thesprotia in Greek).
The “minority question” was a concern for Theodoros Pangalos, whose coup d'état took place on 25 June 1925. Pangalos considered himself a friend of Albania, spoke Albanian, and was proud of his half-Albanian origin. Under his regime, the two states moved decisively to normalize relations in a whole range of topics, from commercial relations to citizenship laws. Indeed, the two countries agreed on mutually accepted guidelines and regulations whose goal was to sort out who was Albanian and who was Greek. This was a vexing question because there was no clear-cut way of differentiating between the two. The two states established mutually accepted rules according to which people had to make a choice within a certain period with regard to their preferred citizenship.
Albanian-Greek relations took a negative turn in 1927, when the administration of the Greek Ministry of Agriculture realized the consequences of the original agreement regarding the compensation of land originally owned by Albanian landlords that had been expropriated by the Greek state. These Albanian land properties were estimated to be around one million stremmas (1 stremma = 0.10 hectares). The amount of money required for compensation was deemed exuberant and, consequently, the initial Greek-Albanian agreement was never ratified by the parliament (Mihalopoulos, 1987:66-71).
The resulting impasse led to a new round of Albanian complaints in 1928. The complaints raised two issues: the land question and the treatment of the Chams. With regard to the Chams, the Albanian government complained that the Greek government was persecuting the minority.
There was little evidence of direct state persecution, but the Albanians insisted that the Greek state open minority schools for the Chams, which the Greek side firmly opposed. Also, the Albanian government complained that the Chams' property was expropriated and given to Greek refugees from Anatolia. The Greek government replied that this was done in consultation with the local religious authorities of the Albanian community, and it concerned solely the necessity to find temporary accommodation for the refugees (Mihalopoulos, 1987:95-97). Over time the list of complaints was extended to the Chams' effective denial of their right to get elected in local elections. The reports of a League of Nations committee and the reply by the Greek government reveal that part of the bone of contention concerned the change in the status of the local Albanian landlords. In Ottoman times, the overlords received revenues from neighboring villages. But the peasants refused to pay tribute after their land was occupied by the Greek state and in this case they “expropriated” what the Albanian overlords considered to be their property (Mihalopoulos, 1987:108-9). In June 1928, the League of Nations turned down the Albanian petition against Greece. The compensation for land properties had not been paid until 1933; and when it was paid it fell short of Albanian expectations. As a result of these Greek-Albanian confrontations, the Chams were viewed with suspicion by the Greek state authorities.
The Italian attack onGreece in 1940 took place through Albanian territory; this led toGreece declaring war on Albania. The formal state of war existed until the late 1980s. When Greece entered into war against Italy in October 1940, the Greek authorities disarmed 1,800 Champ conscripts and put them to work on local roads, while the next month they deported all remaining Albanian males to camps or to island exile (Mazower, 2000:25). In 1941, in the aftermath of the German occupation ofGreece , the Albanian government at the time submitted a report to the Italian government where it spelled out the Albanian demands on Greece. These included territorial demands on the Greek province of Epirus, which was deemed by the Albanians to be populated by a majority of Albanians.
During World War II, the Italians who occupied Albania in the post-1939 period organized the creation of a Greater Albania in an effort to attract Albanian support for their occupation (Fischer, 1999:61-88). Indeed, the Albanian government asked for the “unification” of Chameria, Kosovo, and western Macedonia into a single Albanian state (Mihalopoulos, 1987:161-62). This instance is among the few open declarations of Albanian irredentism in the twentieth century. During the occupation of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers, the Italian government arranged to have Kosovo united with Albania (Malcolm, 1998:291). On this occasion, Albanian schools were opened in Kosovo for the first time since the 1910s (Logoreci, 1977:69-70). When Italy surrendered to the Allies, the Germans took over from the Italians and followed a similar policy of fostering Albanian independence and nationalism in Kosovo. They set up a second League of Prizren, named after the first League of Prizren (1878), the first Albanian nationalist organization. They also armed close to 15,000 Kosovo Albanians (Malcolm, 1998:305).
During the occupation of Greece by the Axis powers, the Albanian minority in Chameria campaigned for the annexation of the region into the Albanian state and enrolled in armed units sponsored by the Italians. Additionally, several hundred Chams enrolled in the anti-communist and nationalist movement Balli Kombetar (to be discussed later on in this chapter). From 1943 the armed Chams joined the German forces in burning Greek villages (Mazower, 2000:25; Antonopoulos, 1999:102-3). With the withdrawal of the German forces in 1944, the Greek right-wing guerrilla forces of the National Republican Greek League (Ethnikos Dimorkatikos Ellinikos Syndesmos), commanded by Napoleon Zervas, made an offer to the Chams to join them against the communist guerrilla forces of ELAS. When the Chams turned down this offer, Zervas ordered a general attack against the Chams, an action supported by the peasants whose villages had been burned down by the Chams and who were all too eager to extract revenge. Many of the Chams' villages were burned and most of the Chams (around 18,000) fled to Albania.
During World War II, three military guerrilla movements developed in Albania. The first was organized by the pro-royalist forces of Abas Kupi, a former officer of the germanderie under the reign of King Zogu. Its power base was in the northern part of the country. The second movement was the Balli Kombetar (National Front), under the leadership of distinguished writer, diplomat, and scholar Midhat Frasheri. This was a republican movement and it supported a program of social, political, and agrarian reforms. Frasheri, its leader, was the son of Abdul Frasheri, one of the three legendary Frasheri brothers who were the protagonists of the post-1878 Albanian national movement. The organization's program included the unification of all Albanian areas; this coincided with the Italian-sponsored Greater Albania.5 The third movement was the communist guerrilla movement that developed in close association with the Yugoslav Communist Party. Eventually, civil war broke out, and in the course of the 1943-44 period, the communists were successful in eradicating all resistance by the other two movements (Logoreci, 1977:72-80; for details, see Fischer, 1999).
The origins of the minority question in Greek-Albanian relations are directly linked with the drawing of the boundary between Albania and
Greece. Following the 1912-13 Balkan Wars, the Great Powers, the Balkan states, and the Ottoman Empire negotiated the final territorial gains that the Balkan states would get from the defeated Ottoman Empire. In these negotiations, Greece was offered a choice between territory in southern Albania and the Aegean Islands. The Greek government chose the Aegean Islands. Consequently, the international committee responsible for finalizing the boundary between
Greece and Albania did not satisfy Greek claims and included a contested region of the south into the Albanian state. Subsequently, the Greeks in the regions of Gyrogaster (Argyrokastro) and Korce (Korytsa) revolted and asked for Greek troops to intervene. To avoid a direct confrontation, the parties signed the Protocol of Corfu (1914), which granted autonomy to the Greek minority. By 1914, following the declaration of World War I and with encouragement by the Entente, Greek forces returned to the region and occupied it militarily. It was during this period that the Greek army conducted a survey of the region and published in 1919 a map of the southern part of Albania where the region is officially called “Northern Epirus.” Subsequently, the term was adopted into Greek discourse, in spite of the fact that the survey was (obviously) biased. In 1920, an international committee set out to redraw the new state's boundaries. The committee's final decision left a portion of the Greek population within Albanian territory and, likewise, a portion of the Albanian population within Greek territory. The former region became known as Northern Epirus, while the latter region, home to approximately 20,000 Albanians, became henceforth known as Chameria(Thesprotia in Greek).
The “minority question” was a concern for Theodoros Pangalos, whose coup d'état took place on 25 June 1925. Pangalos considered himself a friend of Albania, spoke Albanian, and was proud of his half-Albanian origin. Under his regime, the two states moved decisively to normalize relations in a whole range of topics, from commercial relations to citizenship laws. Indeed, the two countries agreed on mutually accepted guidelines and regulations whose goal was to sort out who was Albanian and who was Greek. This was a vexing question because there was no clear-cut way of differentiating between the two. The two states established mutually accepted rules according to which people had to make a choice within a certain period with regard to their preferred citizenship.
Albanian-Greek relations took a negative turn in 1927, when the administration of the Greek Ministry of Agriculture realized the consequences of the original agreement regarding the compensation of land originally owned by Albanian landlords that had been expropriated by the Greek state. These Albanian land properties were estimated to be around one million stremmas (1 stremma = 0.10 hectares). The amount of money required for compensation was deemed exuberant and, consequently, the initial Greek-Albanian agreement was never ratified by the parliament (Mihalopoulos, 1987:66-71).
The resulting impasse led to a new round of Albanian complaints in 1928. The complaints raised two issues: the land question and the treatment of the Chams. With regard to the Chams, the Albanian government complained that the Greek government was persecuting the minority.
There was little evidence of direct state persecution, but the Albanians insisted that the Greek state open minority schools for the Chams, which the Greek side firmly opposed. Also, the Albanian government complained that the Chams' property was expropriated and given to Greek refugees from Anatolia. The Greek government replied that this was done in consultation with the local religious authorities of the Albanian community, and it concerned solely the necessity to find temporary accommodation for the refugees (Mihalopoulos, 1987:95-97). Over time the list of complaints was extended to the Chams' effective denial of their right to get elected in local elections. The reports of a League of Nations committee and the reply by the Greek government reveal that part of the bone of contention concerned the change in the status of the local Albanian landlords. In Ottoman times, the overlords received revenues from neighboring villages. But the peasants refused to pay tribute after their land was occupied by the Greek state and in this case they “expropriated” what the Albanian overlords considered to be their property (Mihalopoulos, 1987:108-9). In June 1928, the League of Nations turned down the Albanian petition against Greece. The compensation for land properties had not been paid until 1933; and when it was paid it fell short of Albanian expectations. As a result of these Greek-Albanian confrontations, the Chams were viewed with suspicion by the Greek state authorities.
The Italian attack onGreece in 1940 took place through Albanian territory; this led toGreece declaring war on Albania. The formal state of war existed until the late 1980s. When Greece entered into war against Italy in October 1940, the Greek authorities disarmed 1,800 Champ conscripts and put them to work on local roads, while the next month they deported all remaining Albanian males to camps or to island exile (Mazower, 2000:25). In 1941, in the aftermath of the German occupation ofGreece , the Albanian government at the time submitted a report to the Italian government where it spelled out the Albanian demands on Greece. These included territorial demands on the Greek province of Epirus, which was deemed by the Albanians to be populated by a majority of Albanians.
During World War II, the Italians who occupied Albania in the post-1939 period organized the creation of a Greater Albania in an effort to attract Albanian support for their occupation (Fischer, 1999:61-88). Indeed, the Albanian government asked for the “unification” of Chameria, Kosovo, and western Macedonia into a single Albanian state (Mihalopoulos, 1987:161-62). This instance is among the few open declarations of Albanian irredentism in the twentieth century. During the occupation of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers, the Italian government arranged to have Kosovo united with Albania (Malcolm, 1998:291). On this occasion, Albanian schools were opened in Kosovo for the first time since the 1910s (Logoreci, 1977:69-70). When Italy surrendered to the Allies, the Germans took over from the Italians and followed a similar policy of fostering Albanian independence and nationalism in Kosovo. They set up a second League of Prizren, named after the first League of Prizren (1878), the first Albanian nationalist organization. They also armed close to 15,000 Kosovo Albanians (Malcolm, 1998:305).
During the occupation of Greece by the Axis powers, the Albanian minority in Chameria campaigned for the annexation of the region into the Albanian state and enrolled in armed units sponsored by the Italians. Additionally, several hundred Chams enrolled in the anti-communist and nationalist movement Balli Kombetar (to be discussed later on in this chapter). From 1943 the armed Chams joined the German forces in burning Greek villages (Mazower, 2000:25; Antonopoulos, 1999:102-3). With the withdrawal of the German forces in 1944, the Greek right-wing guerrilla forces of the National Republican Greek League (Ethnikos Dimorkatikos Ellinikos Syndesmos), commanded by Napoleon Zervas, made an offer to the Chams to join them against the communist guerrilla forces of ELAS. When the Chams turned down this offer, Zervas ordered a general attack against the Chams, an action supported by the peasants whose villages had been burned down by the Chams and who were all too eager to extract revenge. Many of the Chams' villages were burned and most of the Chams (around 18,000) fled to Albania.
During World War II, three military guerrilla movements developed in Albania. The first was organized by the pro-royalist forces of Abas Kupi, a former officer of the germanderie under the reign of King Zogu. Its power base was in the northern part of the country. The second movement was the Balli Kombetar (National Front), under the leadership of distinguished writer, diplomat, and scholar Midhat Frasheri. This was a republican movement and it supported a program of social, political, and agrarian reforms. Frasheri, its leader, was the son of Abdul Frasheri, one of the three legendary Frasheri brothers who were the protagonists of the post-1878 Albanian national movement. The organization's program included the unification of all Albanian areas; this coincided with the Italian-sponsored Greater Albania.5 The third movement was the communist guerrilla movement that developed in close association with the Yugoslav Communist Party. Eventually, civil war broke out, and in the course of the 1943-44 period, the communists were successful in eradicating all resistance by the other two movements (Logoreci, 1977:72-80; for details, see Fischer, 1999).