The so-called “Kabash Affair” was the name of an episode which occurred in the village of Kabash, near Prizren in 1915, where Albanians from the Kabash villages attacked Serbian invasion troops and executed 60 to 180 soldiers.

While Serbian sources portray the event as a massacre of retreating Serbian soldiers by local Albanians, the historical backdrop reveals a a different picture: one of Albanian retribution for war crimes and atrocities committed by the Serbian army during its 1912–1913 conquest of Kosovo. We must also note that the Serbian army committed atrocities against Albanians during the entire World War I, but also during its retreat.

I. Background: Serbian conquest and Albanian resistance (1912–1913)

The First Balkan War (1912) marked Serbia’s military entry into Kosovo, then part of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. This expansion was followed by systematic violence against the local Albanian (Arnaut) population, especially in villages like Kabash.

Numerous independent and diplomatic reports—such as those by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1914)—documented massacres, forced expulsions, and destruction perpetrated by Serbian forces during the occupation of Kosovo. Villages were burned, civilians executed, and property seized, especially in areas like Prizren, Gjakova, and Kaçanik. Kabash was no exception.

Thus, when Serbian forces retreated through Kabash in late 1915, following Bulgaria’s entry into WWI and the Central Powers offensive, they passed through villages that had fresh memory of Serbian atrocities from just two years earlier.

II. The 1915 Incident: Revenge or massacre?

According to Serbian/Yugoslav accounts—particularly those resurfacing after WWII—the villagers of Kabash, led by Jusuf Uka, ambushed a company from the Morava Division of the Serbian army near the Monastery of St. Peter of Koriški. Estimates vary, but claims include the killing of 60–180 Serbian soldiers and officers.

Some versions allege that:

• The Albanians deceived the soldiers into thinking they would be protected from the Bulgarians.
• Weapons were seized during the night.
• Prisoners were tortured and executed.
• A monastery servant, Sulja Islam, later testified against the accused.

Critically, these accounts emerged decades later, often within post-war Yugoslav propaganda, and notably after 1945 when land reform and resettlement efforts were used to displace Albanians and settle Serbs in Kosovo. The “Kabash Affair” became a useful myth to justify anti-Albanian policies.

III. Post-war trials and the construction of a narrative (1926–1945)

In 1926, a court in Prizren held trials related to the 1915 killings. The primary accused, including Jusuf Uka and Adem Rustem, were convicted. Others, such as Ibrahim Uka, fled to Albania. The court proceedings were highly politicized, with contradictory testimony, allegations of coercion, and defense claims of fabricated evidence.

Some of the accused were sentenced to prison, while others escaped. Testimonies, such as that of Sulja Islam, shifted under pressure and acted more as a part of a political agenda. Yet, these trials laid the groundwork for how the Serbian state memorialized the Kabash Albanians — not as victims of aggression, but as traitors and butchers.

In 1945, during the communist-led Agrarian Reforms, the “Kabash Affair” resurfaced as legal and ideological justification to seize Albanian land:

• “The Kabash Affair was resolved in favor of the Shiptars at the Agrarian Council session on October 16, 1945.” (Source 1)
• Montenegrin settlers were brought in to take over the “abandoned” or confiscated properties of the accused.
• Calls were made to prevent future “Kabash affairs,” indicating the term had become a coded reference to Albanian resistance.

IV. Colonization, displacement, and the propaganda

Throughout the interwar and early Yugoslav period, the Kabash case was continually invoked in Serbian nationalist and colonial discourse:

• It was cited as evidence of the “dangerous” and “disloyal” nature of Albanians.
• Used to justify the arming of Serb settlers, especially in places like Dušanovo and Kačanik.
• Albanians were presented as a threat to national security, even as they were being dispossessed and politically marginalized.

Even publications such as Kolonizacija u južnoj Srbiji and Agrarna reforma i kolonizacija u Jugoslaviji embed the Kabash Affair within broader narratives that portray Albanians as aggressors, obscuring the systemic violence committed by the Serbian army in 1912–1913 that provoked such reprisals.

V. Historical interpretation and the need for balance

What is often missing in Serbian historical accounts is the context of retribution: The actions of the Kabash Albanians, if accurately reported, were not isolated crimes but part of a cycle of violence rooted in conquest, dispossession, and trauma.

To understand Kabash, one must also understand:

• The mass killings of Albanians in Kosovo in 1912–13.
• The militarized colonization policies of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
• The use of propaganda and show trials to erase local memory and impose a nationalist version of history.

Moreover, the selective memory of the Yugoslav state — reviving the Kabash Affair only when it suited its political objectives — reveals how myths of treachery were manufactured to facilitate ethnic engineering in Kosovo.

The Kabaška Affair: the trial and its aftermath

The Kabaška Affair, which began in November 1915, continued to shape the narrative surrounding the Albanian village of Kabash, specifically regarding the mass killings of Serbian soldiers during their retreat. The event remains one of the most contentious in the historical discourse of the region, often cited by Serbian sources as evidence of Albanian hostility. However, there is significant debate about the motivations behind the massacre, with some claiming it was an act of revenge for earlier Serbian atrocities against Albanians.

Conclusion

The “Kabash Affair” serves as a case study in the weaponization of history. While Serbian soldiers may well have been killed in 1915, the broader context — Serbian occupation, war crimes, and colonization — paints a different picture.

Rather than a senseless massacre, the Kabash incident can be seen as an act of revenge rooted in remembered suffering, twisted into propaganda to serve expansionist and settler-colonial aims.

Any honest historical reckoning with the region’s past must include both the violence inflicted by the Serbian state and the resistance of the local Albanian population — not just as an emotional reaction, but as a political struggle for survival.

Sources

1. Odbrana no. 333 (PDF: odbrana333-str34-37.pdf)
2. Agrarna reforma i kolonizacija u Jugoslaviji (1946)
   https://www.google.se/books/edition/Agrarna_reforma_i_kolonizacija_u_Jugosla/G6kvAAAAMAAJ
3. Kolonizacija u južnoj Srbiji
   https://www.google.se/books/edition/Kolonizacija_u_ju%C5%BEnoj_Srbiji/v_sDAAAAMAAJ
4. Simpozijum Seoski dani Sretena Vukosavljevića
   https://www.google.se/books/edition/Simpozijum_seoski_dani_Sretena_Vukosavlj/7WJpAAAAMAAJ
5. Vreme (May 21–22, 1926) – Court reporting from the Kabash trial
   https://pretraziva.rs/prikaz/vreme/1926-05-22/3