by Fahri Xharra. Translation Petrit Latifi

Abstract

This article examines the historical persecution of Albanian Catholics by Serbian authorities from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. It highlights the systematic attempts to eradicate or assimilate Albanian Catholics through forced conversions, killings, and expropriation, reflecting a broader Serbian strategy to consolidate control over newly acquired territories after 1913. Drawing on contemporary newspapers, chronicles, and scholarly sources, the study emphasizes the role of religion in Serbian nationalist policies and the enduring resistance of Albanian Catholics. It also connects historical oppression to modern challenges, including discrimination, migration, and the preservation of Albanian cultural identity in Kosovo.

What I want to discuss today is not unknown to us as Albanians or to the diplomatic circles of Europe.

The world press knows exactly the intention of the Serbs and their game with Albanians of both confessions: Muslim and Catholic. This time I will not discuss the foxy Serbian attitude towards Orthodox Albanians throughout the Albanian lands that remained under Serbian occupation.

Reading the chronicles of the time and making a very simple analysis, we come to the same conclusion that: “The greatest danger to the Serbian Orthodox Church, and this means also to the Serbian people, is posed by the Catholic Church in our new borders. (“Vesnik Srpske Crkve”).

The partition of Albania after 1913 was a great favor for Serbia, but even that partition and that fragmentation of our lands required a “trick” of management in order to successfully colonize those lands and ultimately eliminate the Albanian from the face of the earth.

“The greatest danger to the Serbian Orthodox Church, and this means also to the Serbian people, is posed by the Catholic Church in our new borders. This will be a demon that will not leave us alone and which will continuously be a burden for both the state and the people. Catholicism in these parts has expanded and, what is worse, is spread and has taken root”.

There are few settlements in the new provinces where Catholicism has not captured a Serbian soul and has not gained followers.” The Albanian Catholic priesthood and their believers are guilty, according to priest Bojović, for all Serbian failures “(“Vesnik Srpske Crkve”).

These are their words, not mine, but I trust them very much in their intentions. Their goals are still 100% unrealized. If their realization until the 1940s was carried out without restriction, without fear and with violence, it is still not complete. Today they are looking for other ways for the complete liquidation of the Catholic element from the Albanian lands.

Violence and the emptying of the lands by force is currently not an option thanks to the new circumstances in the world, but cooperation is required and intended from us Albanians ourselves in realizing the total disappearance of the Albanian Catholic element.

On March 20, 1913, the newspaper “Reichpost” wrote: In the area of ​​Janjevo over 400 years ago, about 8000 Catholic Albanians, so-called Laraman or Hidden Catholics, lived there. When the Serbs arrived, hundreds of these Laraman wanted to openly declare themselves Catholic. When the representative of the newly installed Serbian state heard about this, he said: “Either Muslim or Orthodox. Not Catholic”.

But why, either Muslim or Orthodox? Very easy to understand. At the moment when these lands remain completely Muslim, there are two possibilities: either to become the second Sandžak of Novi Pazar or to facilitate their migration to the Islamic world. Čubrilović said in his project. “Once the Albanians are convinced that they belong to another world, the eastern one, then it will be easier for us. But this will take time”

“Uncounted numbers of Catholics were killed in Ponoshec, by the hands of the Slavs (the area of Gjakova). Near Zhuri (Prizren district), the chief of the tribe was killed and crushed by the state, precisely because he was a Catholic. The same thing happened in Gjakova in the parish of Nikaj, when over 70 Catholics were killed by the Montenegrins. (20 03. 1913, newspaper “Reichpost”)

Do I as an Albanian or you also as an Albanian who has accidentally encountered the Muslim faith, do we accept that our fellow Albanians of the Catholic religion should be exiled throughout the world, and in this way become co-participants in the extermination of a large part of the national population, to be on the side of Serbia. ? No. I don’t. But neither do you.

After all, Catholic Albanians are not a commodity with which we can trade.

The newspaper of the time, “Neue Freie Press” on March 20, 1913 writes: “On March 7, a soldiery led by an Orthodox priest, in and around Gjakova wanted to convert the Catholic population to the Orthodox faith by force. Over 300 people, women, men and children under the threat of death had to convert. The Orthodox priest was told: “Either sign the declaration that you have accepted the true religion or these soldiers of God, I will send your souls to hell”.

Everyone signed it except Father Angel. The result was the saddest scene ever seen in that century.

Serbia is not at all worried that today it cannot use the same method as in 1913, for the acceptance of the “true religion” (Slavic-Orthodox fjh), because it is trying to realize its goals in other ways. Why should we today be the “speakers” (voices and spokespeople) of Serbia?. Do we think this?

In 1919 the Yugoslav government “signed” every international act against discrimination. They did the same today. But the persecution of Kosovar Catholics continued. In Skopje, the Albanian patriot, the father of Mother Teresa, was poisoned by the Serbs.

The Serbs saw the danger in the Catholic Albanians, but for them the Muslims had other plans. In 1929, Father Shtjefen Gjeçovi, a Franciscan highly respected by the Albanians, was killed. Although K. Jereqek described the Albanians as “an old people with a civic culture; although civic organization was also important for the Illyrians; the Slavs necessarily carried out the Slavization, and the Turks the Turkization of the Albanians, sometimes separately and sometimes in cooperation. So?

Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes, 1843 writes: “The Serbs were the sworn enemies of the Catholic highlanders (…) the Serbs had an unbridled hatred of the Albanian Catholics.”

Meanwhile, a 19th century historian wrote that the Serbs hated Catholic Albanians for two reasons, firstly because they were their first and last obstacle in the realization of their doctrinal-religious policies in support of Russia and the occasional support of Turkey, and secondly because they, especially their clergy, taught the past generations and kept its heritage in its originality. “

And why do I have unbridled hatred towards someone who speaks Albanian, breathes Albanian? While another chronicler in 1841 says “In the high mountains of Gjakova and Prizren live the Albanian Catholic highlanders and dominate those parts, while the Serbs are their sworn enemies, and that often their hostility has been bloody and destructive.

Settlements of Arnauts of the Christian faith in Serbian territory in the past were mainly in cities such as Pristina, Vidin, Novi Pazar, Krusevac, Prokuplje, Nish and Çupri (Acta Bulgariae polissimum ecclesiastica (Monumenta spectantia historiam Slavorum Meridionalium, vol. XXIII, 339). In every writing of the past you can find the same hatred of the Serbs towards the Albanian Catholic element.

What is being prepared? Are we aware and conscious that something is being prepared?

“They say or create the impression that the time has come for them to decide between the West or the East. But this is a war with a phantom. Neither the Muslims and Catholics (the majority) do not live on the moon, but in Europe. Neither one nor the other questions Kosovo’s European path.

In recent months, a network of pseudo-Islamic fanatics working for various supranationalisms has been observed in Kosovo. They make noise successfully because the media reacts and falls into the trap of their agendas. In recent days, the topic of interdiscrimination in Kosovo has been raised on social networks. Catholics seem to be in a bad situation.

This is also evidenced by their large migration to Europe, which includes young men and women with amazing successes in science and business outside Kosovo. This discrimination must be traced; it must be studied, analyzed and stopped immediately because it is damaging Kosovo to the core. ” (Xhemal Ahmeti, researcher)

Politicians and leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church sometimes quietly and sometimes openly try to call Kosovo a Muslim-type state a fundamentalist type state and when the Albanian Catholic Church has not been found on their side as a falsifier of history and facts then it has become the object of attack and slander. This attack and these slanders as well as the permanent war against Albanians is ancient. (Gjon Marku)

All spiritual leaders and especially Catholic clergy were declared the greatest enemies of the Serbian people not by chance. But Faik Konica in his magazine “Albania” wrote: that Albanian Catholics are the reason that our nationality was kept alive until today.