by Xhafer Shatri. Translation Petrit Latifi

In this article Albanian author Xhafer Shatri gives us a shocking discovery; Xhavit Pasha who killed and terrorised Albanians for 20 years, was actually a Serb named Manolo Vojic from the village of Užice.

“Dear friends, Recently, the arrest of a person suspected of being a spy for Serbia has become the central object of media and public discourse.
All this cacophony is disturbing when, instead of the sound logic of leaving this serious file to the judicial authorities alone to follow the case to the end, the path is opened to the collective and primitive euphoria of the crowd.

However, in two sequels I will describe some drastic cases when we discover spies only after they have completed their task, that is, after they have caused us colossal damage, or after they have died.

MANOJLO VOJIC ALIAS XHAVIT PASHA

In the distant year 1870, a Serbian army lieutenant named Manojlo Vojic, originally from a village near Užice, due to an alleged serious crime, fled the army and sought refuge in Turkey. Of course, this was a classic staging.

After several decades, the young Serbian lieutenant became a well-known general in the Turkish army under the name Xhavit Pasha. History teaches us that this general, who served mainly and not by chance in Albanian lands throughout the Vilayet of Kosovo, was the most bloodthirsty and unbridled soldier who suppressed with fire and iron the successive uprisings of the Albanians at the turn of two centuries and on the eve of the declaration of Independence, in 1912.

This was the general who, among other things, demolished the towers of Isa Boletini with cannons and who, in close cooperation with the Serbian clergy of the Patriarchate of Peja and the Monastery of Deçan, set the fuse and badly divided two large villages of Deçan, Isniq and Strellci, causing a fratricidal war.

Wherever this Serbo-Turkish general set foot, entire villages were burned and countless graves were dug. During the Balkan Wars, Xhavit Pasha was one of the leading generals of the Turkish Army in Europe.
During the Battle of Kumanovo, this probably created safe penetration paths for Serbian commandos who wreaked havoc on the Turkish troops, many of whom were Albanians.

At the time when the Turkish army suffered a complete defeat in the Battle of Kumanovo and when it began to retreat towards Turkey, Xhavit Pasha, with some of his units, set off towards Albania with the aim of preventing the Declaration of Independence.

Some officers of his staff, finally, after understanding his true role, somewhere on the Mati River, massacred him with spears and swords. But it was too late, he had already accomplished his task. What is most serious in this story should be this:

For about 20 consecutive years, Xhavit Pasha, namely Manojlo Vojić, has terrorized Albanians in almost the entire Vilayet of Kosovo with weapons, soldiers and the Turkish army, while the Albanian elites had a lot of influence in the administration of the Sublime Porte. It is enough to read the books of Syrja and Eqrem bej Vlorës to understand this.

But none of the influential Albanian personalities of that time thought to ask who this infamous general is who is killing and burning Albanians, did they lead them to rebellion or not? And to take measures against him, whether to expose or liquidate him. This case is enough to understand why, even at decisive and dramatic turning points in history, the Albanian elites behaved, and continue to behave today, like Buridan’s donkeys.”