Translated and edited by Petrit Latifi. Written by Ali N. Daci.
Albanian history owes a lot to this patriot and homeland, just as it owes a lot to many of his comrades-in-arms, the brave men of Sandzak who refused to accept slavery until their death. The Albanian people must exchange the blood of young patriots for the freedom of the nation and men like Shaban Polluzha, Mehmet Gradica, Azem e Bejta and Shotë Galica, as well as the blood and national work of patriotic men such as Feriz Sallku, Isuf Mehoviqi, Mehmet Kaliqi, Mehmet Spahi, Nexhib and Ferhat Draga, Galan Kërshiqi, Aqif Blyta, Ahmet Daci, Zaim Smail Huka, Murat Lotina and many other patriots who did not spare their lives for freedom and national unity, etc.
The life of Feriz Sallku
Feriz Sallku is known as the leader of the Sandzak kaçaks during the creation of the SKS kingdom. Born in Crnish near Tutinë in 1875, he grew up in a bloody period of our history. Due to the terror that the Serbian gendarmerie of Kosta Pecanac had applied to the Albanian population in the vicinity of Tutin and Rozhajë, Feriz organized the Kaçak detachments to take control of his birthplace and homeland. In the years 1922, we note the mutual cooperation between the committees of Sandzak and the Kosovo Kaçaks, where both sides had the same goal, the fight for liberation from the Serbo-Montenegrin occupiers.
Serbo-montenegrin criminals Kosta Pecanac and General Tomic and their atrocities
In 1923, Kosta Pecanac, with the directive of Nikola Pashic and General Tomic, had come to the Tutinë district. His arrival was malicious, the destruction of Feriz Sallku and his detachment, which numbered 70 selected men from this area, was sought. Upon hearing of the arrival of the Serbian forces, Feriz joined his friends, who happened to leave only the road that led to the village of the chief committee’s birth to Kosta.
As soon as Kosta arrived in Crnish with his Chetniks, Feriz Sallku came out to him and said: “What good has brought you here today? If you have come for good, you will be escorted, but if a grain of sheep is missing, or a hair on my head is missing in the ranks of my friends, not one of you will dare to leave Crnish.” Kosta smiled at Feriz with shame, not believing that anyone could threaten him.
While the latter, to show the chief Chetnik that he was serious, raised his hand in one direction, when suddenly a rifle crackled, then Feriz, Kosta Pecanci showed the four corners of the world with the crack of rifles coming from the ambushes around. Albanian Martins convinced the Serb that he was completely surrounded. Kosta Peqanac on this occasion shook his tail and returned ashamed to Tutin.
Serbian massacres of the Rizvanaj family in 1919
These Chetnik forces had previously, in 1919 in the Ribariq district, killed and massacred 28 members of the Rizvanaj family, among whom were five girls and women. Chetnik forces also killed the three Xhekaj brothers in Mojstir near the village of Feriz. To take revenge, Feriz Sallku had organized an attack on the Chetnik forces stationed in Ribariq in 1923.
Over 200 Chetniks lost their lives in the unexpected and well-organized attack. Feriz Salku was known among the people as a loyal and brave fighter. Under his command were the mountains of Mokra, Hum, Hajla and the Ribariq valley, known as the gate of the Sandzak. For Feriz, the Chetniks said that he could not be hit by an ordinary bullet, but that a golden one had to be found, alluding to betrayal, since he had broken through Chetnik sieges many times without even receiving a wound.
The SKS government had declared Feriz Sallku, Bajarm Curri and Isuf Mehin as the most dangerous persons for the kingdom. World War II found this patriot at an advanced age. Feriz was never rid of Serbian spies, but he never surrendered to the enemy. Taking refuge with his relatives and friends, he escaped Serbian prisons, but he could not escape the treacherous murderous hand.
Since the Serbian gendarmerie followed him every step of the way, Feriz, together with his wife and children, took refuge in Albania. He settled in the city of Fier. The Serbian gendarmerie had paid the traitor Abdyrrahim Brunçeviq from Melaja e Bihor to liquidate the patriot from Tutin. After the traitor had tracked him down in 1943, in an ambush, near his house in Fier, Feriz Sallku was killed.
His death was painful for his comrades in war and ideal. Even after his death, his sons Ismeti, Kadria and Esadi were followed by the Yugoslav UDB and migrated to Albania, and from there they were followed by the communists of Enver Hoxha, as the sons of an anti-communist and emigrated to Australia where they still live today. With the fall of the dictatorship in Albania and the establishment of democracy in 1996, Ismeti returned to Albania.
Albanian history owes a lot to this patriot and homeland, just as it owes a lot to his comrades-in-arms, the brave men of Sandzak who refused to accept slavery until their death.
Murat Lotina, the Martyr of Ethnic Albania
Murat Lotina was born in 1891 in the village of Krushevo, to father Hasani and mother Hata. The Lotina family enjoyed a respect for generosity and patriotism in the Sandzak and beyond. Seeing the Serbian forces did not frighten the Lotinas, they had long targeted the hearth of this tribe. The government that emerged from the partisan war declared him an enemy of the people and an entire partisan unit rose up against him.
In a hand-to-hand fight that took place with the partisan forces in May 1946 in Turjak, Rozhaja, the commander and patriot Murat Lotina heroically fell on the field of honor. The fight to protect Albanian lands from the Chetnik forces was one of the vital tasks of many Albanian patriots of Sandzak on the eve and after World War II.
With the outbreak of World War I, in 1914, the military forces of Austria-Hungary briefly occupied Serbia and Montenegro. The Albanians, being under the brutal rule of the Serbs and Montenegrins, on November 20, 1915, these forces welcomed them in Pazar i Ri as a liberating force after they were fed up with the rule and occupation of Serbia and Montenegro.
This Slavic government, which only in the bloody period of 1913-1914 had applied a genocide and exodus unseen at that time for the Albanians of Sandzak. Being unprotected at that time, the Albanians experienced the fate of small peoples fighting on the account of large forces such as the Austro-Hungarian forces. After six years in the service of the Turkish army (1916-1921) Murat Lotina with a group of compatriots, who escaped the Turkish-English wars, returned to their homeland.
He found his birthplace, Kruševo and Pazari i Ri (Novi Pazar) in a miserable and devastated state due to the siege of the Chetnik forces, who had set themselves the task of thoroughly cleansing this part of the Sandzak from the indigenous Albanian inhabitants by killing and forcibly deporting them to Turkey and across the ocean. In 1939, we find Murat Lotina in Germany, where he had gone on a specific mission.
There, he was going to buy weapons and arm his ideal friends. However, there he was imprisoned and spent a year in the German trenches. He returned to the Sandzak when the Chetnik forces had been defeated by the Albanian volunteer forces. Once there, he took up the rifle to defend the Albanian territorial integrity. Aqif Blyta immediately invited him and entrusted him with the defense of a very large area starting from the village of Lukar to the town of Tregovishte (Rozhajë).
Upon receiving the order from the prefect of Pazar i Ri Aqif Blyta, Murat Lotina mobilized volunteers who would fight under the Albanian flag. Under his command, over 300 men from the Tutina district would line up with weapons in hand and would defend this region with dedication and dignity for four years in a row.
Murat Lotina successfully led the wars for the liberation of the Sandzak from the Chetnik hordes, such as the war of Maja e Zezë, that of Gil, the battle of Golija and that of Rogoz. The Chetnik chetas were stationed in the village of Maja e Zezë near the mountains of Rogozna and Golija. These forces were led by Chetnik commanders such as Radomir Cvetić and Mašan Đurović.
Serbian massacres in Berbërishta where 70 Albanians were killed
The ultimatum sent by Cvetić to Murat Lotina referred to the serious preparations of these forces for a well-prepared attack, which expressed Chetnik anger for the murder and plunder of the villages and the area where Murat Lotina commanded and which included a large area from Ribariq to Tregovishte, that is, on both sides of the Ibar River. In the surprise attacks of the Chetnik forces, the villages of Berbërishta, Trnava, Kalini and many other villages were badly damaged, where over seventy people died, while in the village of Lokva e Ujkut, the Chetniks nailed and massacred the body of an Albanian minor who was no more than sixteen years old and left him nailed like that for several days in a row.
Albanian volunteers, seeing the horror and genocide with their own eyes, organized themselves to defend the town of Tutinë. The Chetnik threats were increasing. Murat Lotina at this time goes to Pazar i Ri and asks for help from Aqif Blyta, help with weapons and ammunition and specifically asks for the largest caliber cannon that the Albanian army possessed at that time.
Aqif Blyta will fulfill Lotina’s request and will start a larger collection to the front line together with the shells he had. Murat Lotina organizes his withdrawal on 16 pens until Krushevo. Under his command, the cannon is placed on the top of Dubla which had a height equal to the mountain opposite Maja e Zezë where the headquarters of the Chetnik forces was.
The cannon, which according to Murat’s command fired towards this point and successfully shot several times over the Chetnik targets positioned there. On this occasion, he brings the enemy considerable losses in men. After three hours of continuous attack, Murat Lotina conquers Maja e Zezë and takes a certain number of Chetniks alive. To release the war hostages, Todor Dobriqi gives up the occupation of over 70 villages in the Tutina district. Murat releases the hostages and the ceasefire is respected for a short time. In the fight for the defense of Krushevo, Murat is seriously wounded.
After the capitulation of the German forces in several European countries, the partisan units in Sandzak launched successful offensives. Murat did not agree with the idea of Slavic communism and returned the rifle to this army. This man never agreed to the rule of foreigners, so in addition to the wars waged against the Serbo-Montenegrin Chetniks, he never stopped firing his rifle against the partisans, against whom he waged two wars, one in the village of Hazan near Berane towards the end of 1943, and the war of September 30, 1944, which took place on the Jaruta mountain near Tutin.
However, the battles waged near Berane and the one on the Jaruta mountain near Tutin have also proven the patriotism and patriotism of this man. Being poorly armed and without ammunition, the Albanian volunteer forces are defeated by the partisan units and are forced to retreat. Thus, at the end of October 1944, Peshteri fell into the hands of the partisans and it was precisely the 7th Montenegrin Brigade that occupied it.
Murat Lotina at the end of October 1944 organized another attack against the partisan units in the village of Gurdiell, causing them considerable losses but failing to completely defeat them. Of all the commanders in this area, he never surrendered his weapons to the partisans. He took refuge for two years in the dense mountains of Tutina and Tregovishte (Rozhajë).
The government that emerged from the partisan war declared him an enemy of the people and an entire partisan unit rose up to search for him. In an unequal fight, one against one hundred and fifty, face to face with the partisan forces in May 1946 in Turjak, Rozhajë, the Albanian commander and patriot Murat Lotina heroically fell on the field of honor. There have been many warriors and patriots like this in the Cave Plain. They seem to have been forgotten by Albanian history and are not remembered as they should be. The time is now for these brave men to be rehabilitated by the nation they belong to. In no way do we dare to forget their blood, for their name and work to be extinguished.
Reference
Balkan Academia 