Written by Petrit Latifi
What did Missionary Mavromatis report from Ioannina to Prime Minister Harillas Trikupi on July 15 and 19, 1877?
The 19th century followed with serious events for the Albanian nation, such as the outbreak of the Russo-Ottoman war in 1877. Greece, with the Megali Idea, was waiting for the moment to penetrate the territories of southern Albania. The Istanbul Committee, as the nucleus of the future League of Prizren, quite active, entered into negotiations with the Greek representative so that they would not become parties with the Serbs and Montenegrins in the plunder of the Ottoman imperial territories, which were in fact Albanian ones.
The missionary Mavromatis reported from Ioannina to Prime Minister Harillas Trikoupi on 15 and 19 July 1877;
“Our agreements with the representative of the Albanians have been interrupted, since Abdyl Frashëri insists on Albanian sovereignty and does not accept that Epirus be given to the Greek Kingdom, since it is an autochthonous Albanian land”
– Magazine “O neo kuvaras” in Athens, 1962.
It did not take long and Greece began a full-scale invasion in the area of Sranda, Ksamil and Himara, where the leaders of the Kazaz of Vlora and those of Delvina responded immediately to this southern danger. This time, their sons descended on the battlefield, as their duty required, continuing that martial tradition that the homeland did not allow to harden. As an example, we can say that the son of the legendary Zenel Gjoleka, Myslim Gjoleka, is on the front line, this time against the Greeks, those for whom they had once established a state.
Ismail Mekati’s sons, Zeqir and Rushit Mekati, could not leave their father’s name in a temporary position, but rushed as quickly as possible to the battlefield, mobilizing as leaders, a force that quickly came to the aid of the resistance of the first landing in Himara, and then penetrated towards Lëkurës.
The local forces, such as the villages of Nivibë-Bubari and Zhulat-Palavli, which were resisting with difficulty, were attacked. Only from Zhulat’s forces, 46 people were killed in that battle. The Greek forces changed their landing site towards Himara, which caused the Mekatas detachment to withdraw there, as a force from Kuçi Kurvelesh came to help the Ksamil war, and the Mekatas detachment remained blocked in the fighting at Lëkurës, where the Greek forces were large and were constantly landing regular troops.
Not leaving the war of the former in the middle, they returned after the Greek invasion was repelled, forcing them to board ships and flee towards Corfu, leaving hundreds killed. The Ioannina camp arrived very late, which brought a significant loss to the defenders of the resistance.
The new century knocked with abduction on the Albanian lands, where the wars had turned into that of the native language, as well as the opening of Albanian schools after the Turkish revolution throughout the Caucasus. Thus, in the Mekat and Llakatund, the first houses of the leaders were demanding a new struggle for knowledge and history, and they responded without hesitation, both with funding and by establishing schools.
The Toskërës Uprising in 1911-1912 was the prologue to independence
A new wind was blowing, the entire Kazaja of Vlorës was involved in the uprising, which reestablished its epicenter in Mallakastër, a fact that made the Mekati descendants the first to be in the hotbeds of the war, since there a Vjosa separated them. This repeated the deed of their father who went first to defend Rrapo Hekali, his aunt’s son, because Albania was the same everywhere.
The declaration of Albania’s independence, as an urgent act in the face of the Slavic danger, managed, with the help of anti-Slavic powers, to extract Albania from the eternal trap of its neighbors. As contemporaries, but also friends and settled in the same Mekati estates, the military interest this time passes alongside the Senate, where Eqrem Bey and his father Syrja Bey Vlora are like early friends, but also more acceptable as Austrophiles, saviors of Albania.
Hasan Mekati weighed in the storm of time the glory of the ancestors…
The Greek state at the London Ambassadors Conference, tried with all its diabolicalism and evil politics to take Epirus, as a part that should pass to the Greek Kingdom up to the Vjosa. The bell of war rang again and Ismail Mekati’s grandson, Hasan Mekati, could not help but weigh in the storm of time the glory of the ancestors.
The Greek massacres, bringing caravans of refugees, brought a new type of war, that of helping the fate of the Albanians, who were being trampled underfoot by the Greek invaders. Mekat’s force with Hasan Mekat, set off to Glavë of Tepelena, where was the line between the military powers of the new Albanian state and those who sought Albania, for Epirus.
The passage to the Albanian throne of Prince Vid, brought the darkest uprising of the Islamic fanatics Haxhiqamilist against him, to bring back the Ottoman Empire, as a curse to the light that was emerging from the West and the European recovery that was being offered in this unprecedented historical chance.
Caravans with people bent by fate, burying their children on the way, accompanied by a black smoke that had finally burned hundreds and hundreds of villages. Unsparing help by sheltering hundreds and helping them was a common thing of the nobility, and their spirit.
Most arrived in the olive groves of Vlora and this fighting force of Mekat headed for Vlora in July 1914, as the leaders of the provinces needed to be guided and assisted in this humanitarian catastrophe, for which Prince Vidi himself came at this time to see the situation, and stayed in the Vlora palaces.
Reference
Balkan Academia 