Shortly before the Serbian invasion of Albanian territories began in October 1912, a proclamation was issued from Podujevo (Besiana) addressed to the Albanian people. Titled “To All the Tribes in Albania, O Brothers”, it explicitly acknowledges that Podujevo and the invasion were taking place in Albania. Despite this proclamation, it should be noted that the Serbian army massacred 150,000 Albanian men, women and children and burned villages everywhere they entered, both in Kosovo and Albania.
Transcribed:
“To All the Tribes in Albania, O Brothers
Everyone knows that without the name of the Lord of the Universe, nothing can be done on the face of the earth.
We, in the name and with the help of Allah, have set out and are coming to you with our forces. We are coming to your land and to our land that the Ottomans have occupied for five hundred years and more. But we are not coming to do you injustice; we are coming to heal the injustice done to you.
You yourselves see, O brothers, what the Ottomans (may God curse the Turks) are doing to you. They are doing you great evil. With their army and cannons they have destroyed your houses, burned your villages, trampled your honour, filled the prisons with your sons, and nowhere — not even on the threshold of your homes — have they left the women untouched.
On the threshold of the house and in front of the prisoners, the Ottomans have dishonoured Albanian women. The injustice that one Albanian cannot endure from another Albanian — they are taking your sons from you and sending them to Anatolia and Arabia, spilling their blood for them.
For these reasons, and for many other urgent needs, you have risen up in revolt and have bravely fought against them. And what happened? Since they could not stop you with cannons and rifles, they stopped you with deception, promising you with sweet words everything you asked for — but they did not keep a single promise.
They have stopped the fighting, O brothers, but in the name and with the power of the Lord, we are beginning the war from the very point where you left off. And in the name of the Lord, we will not leave unfulfilled the just demands that you have so bravely raised for them. We will come to you after tomorrow.
We are coming to you, O brothers, to bring you peace and justice, and we say: let the ancient bravery, the ancient humanity, the ancient honour and the ancient trust remain in their place, as they were in the old days. And for these sacred things of yours, we are ready to shed blood as we would for our own.
Do not have any doubt, O brothers, for by the covenant of the Lord, we are not coming with evil, but with the mountain covenant and with honour. Do not doubt that it will be otherwise. You will keep your own faith, your own customs, and your own internal self-government as you wish, and as Albania has had it since the time of Lekë [Dukagjini] and onwards.
We give you the covenant of the Lord as a pledge that we will leave your bad customs as they are now, and we will not allow them to change. But this much can be said to everyone: faith is faith, honour is honour, and property is property, and no one shall do injustice to another.
We will fire our rifles at those who fire at us, and with God’s help we will burn that house and that village which fires upon us. But those who receive us in a brotherly manner, we will embrace brotherly, as a brother embraces his brother. For we are all acting with one hand: the covenant of the Lord, human justice, and with the other we carry weapons and fire.
This covenant we give you, and in this manner we send you this message, for the time has come, O brothers, for the Ottoman yoke to be broken. And we with you — as you with us — shall live brotherly under our King Peter, who sends you this message, this covenant, and this call to rise.
O brothers, we send you the name of the King we have made, and this message together with the covenant of the Lord. We have fulfilled our duty before God and before the people. For our covenant, we have the seal of the Lord of the Universe as proof. And whoever becomes the cause of bloodshed, may God punish him with His own curse.
May we meet for that purpose, O brothers!
Teshernievel 1328 (Hijri year 1912)
In Podujevo
Commander of the Serbian Army
BOZHIDAR JANKO“
Historical Note
It should be noted that the Serbian army massacred 150,000 Albanian men, women and children and burned villages everywhere they entered, both in Kosovo and Albania.
This proclamation was issued by Serbian forces (under commander Bozhidar Janko / Božidar Janković) in October 1912, just as they advanced into Kosovo during the First Balkan War. It is written in a heavily dialectal, old-style Albanian (using many Turkish/Arabic loanwords and Gheg forms) and employs Islamic religious language and tribal appeals in an attempt to win over or pacify the local Albanian population. Albanian historians frequently cite it as evidence that even the Serbian invaders at the time openly referred to the territory as “Shqipni” (Albania).
The text is a classic mix of promises of justice and brotherhood combined with open threats of destruction for those who resist — a pattern seen in many invasion proclamations throughout history.
