Authored by Ernest Koliqi. Translated by Petrit Latifi.
The unfolding line of the national renaissance began in the first half of the 19th century with the publication of Milosau (1836) by Jeronym De Rada and the circular (1840) of Naum Veqilharxhi. Even during the dark centuries of slavery, the national instinct was never extinguished in the depths of the subconscious of the Albanian race, but remained confused with confusing benefits and harmful premonitions that undermined the ethnic feeling and the idea of a brotherhood based on the feeling of blood and common language.
The birth of a national consciousness (better known) starts with the birth of a reflexive literature. The national instinct that sparked the powerful among the anonymous folk songs begins to turn into national self-knowledge in the works of the authors, slowly between prohibitions and obstacles, but with a rhythm that comes to you and increased for every year more.
Shqipnija e Pamvarun, the homeland of all those who call themselves great-grandchildren of Teuta and Skanderbeg, was created mainly with the help of letters. It can be said that it is the daughter of the letter.
Literary creativity took off, the face of the homeland, a common nation, a free square where the people can fraternally weave their own skin and follow their ancestral customs, is drawn forever in the minds and hearts of Albanians. It is enough to browse every publication, notebook, temporary, calendar and book, to find in writings, whether poetry or prose, the confirmation of this phenomenon.
But we have to wait until the League of Prizren (1878) to see how the still undefined idea of an older independent Albania suddenly entered the consolidating stage (of concretization). The Albanian intellectuals, with Abdyl Frashër at the head, were shocked on the one hand by the great dangers that were being threatened to Albania by the evil intentions and on the other hand by the good hopes that the maturity of the times made with the vision of a not distant future.
Even the people instinctively felt that the medieval state in which the life of the country continued to wander towards the end of the 19th century, was returning to a social and political state unthinkable until then. Temporary notebooks are circulated, associations are founded, schools for boys and girls are opened, the Albanian language begins to be taught, uprisings with a liberating tendency break out, assemblies are gathered here and there in Albania where demands for autonomy are formulated day by day, clear and concise for the nation.
It is an unstoppable stream of thoughts and feelings that aims at freedom, the independent, covets a state under the shadow of the Kastriot flag. At the beginning of the 20th century, the revival movement gained momentum.
The slopes (les étapes) are now characterized by a lightning rapture. The Committee of the Albanian Chief is formed in Manastir with the name For the freedom of Shqipnis, which threw the first patriotic troops on the mountain, on March 18, 1908, the Maskullore war broke out (February came out, March ryri Gjinokastrë u vrá bimbashi- Lule Çerçiz Topulli vulose for Albania!…) (1).
On July 23, 1908, the Turks forced Sultan Abdyl Hami to announce the Introduction (Constitution). For a moment, the Albanian people take a breath and wrap themselves in hopes that will soon turn out to be false. Gjergj Fishta dedicates a song to the event, which causes excitement even in Shkodër and its districts, where skepticism peeks through like a shadow:
On Sunday, we were given the news: Well, well, the millet is doing well… In our Shkodër, the farm was sung for the freedom of the King (2).
Frano Ndoja, master-director of the drum of the city of Shkodra, sings the Fishtian verses on the spot and during the day our Shkodra sings the Kanga e Hyrjeti.
But the dream of a reasonable divorce in the bosom of the Ottoman Empire, where through decentralization each nation would enjoy administrative autonomy, is quickly fading away. Gjavid Pasha launched a punitive expedition against Luma in September 1909. The New Turks wanted to Ottomanize the peoples of the Empire, denying them any national rights.
At the end of the same year, the Congress of Manastir convenes to determine a common alphabet. On December 1, 1909, the Elbasan Normal School was opened under the direction of Luigj Gurakuqin, and in 1910 all of Kosovo took up arms against the Turks, but the fierce fighting, which reached its peak in the titanic hundredth of Idriz Seferi at the Kaçanik Scale, did not stop the fury of the armies sent by the new Turks. Shefqet Turgut Pasha with 100 cannons, cannons and machine guns rains furiously on Albania
North and Central. And on March 23, 1911, the Mbishkodra Mountain uprising began. In this March 1971, it turns 60 years old.
This uprising has a special importance in the movement of national renaissance because it attracted the attention of European public opinion. The time in which the crack, as well as the echo it woke up outside, distinguishes the movement led by Ded Gjo Luli from the others, perhaps more rapid, forward-sensitive. The uprising of 1847, which took its name from the Tanzimat, shook Istanbul, but the external opinion did not put in it a desire for national disobedience, (it was said that it was against Nizamlek and Jalepin), but in fact a kind of freedom led to the activities of the fighters.
first from Gjonleka and Rrapo Hekali, as evidenced by the popular songs that flourished around that event.
… In Sinjë the crowd gathered,
what happened to old age…
… Seven vilayets are,
They put Gholeka first,
second Rrapo Hekalë… … Red root, bad root, three hundred and twenty dufeks, you (didn’t) burn for yourself but for the whole village
…you didn’t want Turkey on you (3).
The merit that the bravery of Malisori was presented as an effort with general Albanian goals belongs especially to Ismail Qemal Vlora and Luigj Gurakuqi. These other patriots, who advanced to Podgorica in Montenegro as soon as the first signs of the uprising appeared, compiled a Red Book (4), i.e. a memorandum summarizing in 12 points the demands of the Albanians for an Albanian administration with a language with its own budget, military service in the country, an Albanian governor, etc.
By means of this memorandum, the Malsors presented themselves as fighters representing the aspirations of all Albanians. They presented themselves as such, because many of them died in order to plant the flag of Skanderbeg, a symbol of the brotherhood of the nation, on the top of Deçiç on March 24, 1911.
Among notebooks around the world, this gesture of the insurgents made a big fuss. The name of Shqipní was not pronounced like an empty geographical expression. It showed a country that was bursting into the light of freedom from the darkness of a centuries-old slavery.
Here we are taking permission, noting that bravery and heroic sacrifices are not enough to carry out works for the benefit of the national community: the council and leadership of cultured and intelligent people is begging. The presence in Podgorica of Ismail Qemali, Ekrem Vlora, Luigj Gurakuqi, Fadil Pashë Toptan. Pandeli Calit. Oazim Kokoshi. Hamit Bej Toptan, Risto Siliq, Xhemal Kondit. Hil Mosit, Mark Kakarrić and many others gave the uprising an ideal high face which inspired the notebooks to write articles full of slander on the nobleman of our unfortunate nation who was proving his maturity for independence.
The fights were given a lot of prominence by the correspondents of the notebooks, among the most important ones in Europe, and especially the presence of Miss Edith Durham (5), who the Malsor called their Krajlica. This English woman with flesh and soul was used to alleviate the sufferings of the families of the insurgents and with her great prestige announced to the world the heroic efforts of a forgotten people who begged for own rights. During the summer of 1911, the name of Albania in Europe occupied, with cubital titles, the first pages of notebooks.
Father Gjergji has described the different phases of this uprising in Hylli e Drita of 1914 in a series of articles, unfortunately interrupted, entitled Tears of blood and in Mrizin e Zanave and Lahuta e Malcis he immortalized the bravery of the Malsors in two odes the kuniplote (7).
The writer of these lines was at that time in Podgorica (today Ti-tograd). His father’s store was the headquarters of the Committee formed to support the Malsors. There came Miss Durham and her notebooks. There he saw Ded Gjo Lulin and his first men. In the memory of the eight-year-old boy, the face and events, which he tried, to describe it later (8). In 1911, the Albanian nation was about to step on Lirís land.
Then the Kosovo Uprising of 1912, which was fueled by the mammoth spirit of Bajram Curri, Hasan Prishtina and Isá Boletinittue, spread throughout the Albanian land, which at that time included four vilayets of Shkodër, Skopje, Monastir, Ioannina. from the time of the Tanzimat onwards. Above the horizon there was a ray of light. And, indeed, with 28 years Albania returned the independent for the sake of the blood shed by the martyrs but also for the sake of the mendesquetís of the wise men who knew how to present their sacrifice to the civilized world as a signature of the request for the good national rights.
Reference
Balkan Academia 