Petrit Latifi

A. Handzic, for example, who has published various foreign documents attesting that the Albanians were present in Kosova prior to the 17th century and who was also the first to point out that many of the individuals who had Slavic names were in reality Albanians on account of the indications mentioned above.

“When it came to statistics, he listed as “Slavs” all those who had Slavic names regardless of other data. Therefore the conclusion he reached was that in the 15th century, the Albanians, although present everywhere in Kosova, did not constitute the majority of the population. Conversely, the Albanian scholars maintain that the population was overwhelmingly Albanian, because of the fact that Slavic names – given the political situation – may not be considered as a criterion of ethnicity without taking into account other data.

That the Albanians in Kosova are an aboriginal population is attested by the very Serbian Chrysobulls of the 13th and the 14th centuries. On the other hand, Turkish chroniclers mention Albanian uprisings in Kosova in the 15th century.99  The archives of Dubrovnik also testify for the same epoch. As for 17th century, important are, among others, the writings of the Turkish chronicle Evlija Celebi which clearly indicate that prior to the Austro-Turkish Wars the Albanian population was overwhelmingly present in Western Macedonia, in Montenegro and in the Vilayet of Kosova (E. Celebi, Putopis, Sarajevo, 1973, pp. 136-137).

Mention should also be made, for the same epoch, of pastoral reports – that of the Papal Envoy, Pietro Massarechi (Mazreku, born in Prizren who succeeded M. Bizzi) dating from 1623 specifies that at that time, the population of Prizren was made up of 12 000 Moslem Albanians, 200 Catholic Albanians and 600 Serbs and that the population of Shkup (Skopje) was also mainly Albanian.

Likewise, the Austrian documents pertaining to the Austro-Turkish Wars give evidence that the Austrian army was continuously in touch with an Albanian population. These documents refer to Prizren as the Capital of Albania and to Pjeter Bogdani, Archbishop od Shkup, as Archbishop of Albania. Various incidents linked to the Austro-Turkish Wars, as related by T. Ippen (in Novibazar und Kossovo,(das Alte Rascien) eine Studie, Vienna, 1892), who used Austrian War documents – as did J. Tomic – make it obvious that in Kosova the Austrian army had to deal with an Albanian population.”

Reference

https://phdn.org/archives/www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/Kosovo/juka2.htm