Summary
In 1905–1907, spontaneous anti-Ottoman resistance continued in northern Albania, especially Kosovo and Kurbin, despite the secret committees’ efforts. Populations refused new taxes on livestock, education, and military equipment. In Kurbin and Kruja (1906), Catholic and Muslim villagers, led by figures like Gjin Pjetri, Dom Nikollë Kaçorri, and At Shtjefën Gjeçovi, rose against fiscal oppression. Ottoman forces under Shefki Bey responded with brutal expeditions, burning villages and massacring civilians. Rebels offered strong resistance in Skuraj and other areas. After prolonged fighting and Great Power pressure, the Porte made concessions in May 1907, abolishing certain taxes and promising reconstruction, allowing the people of Kurbin to return home.
Armed Anti-Ottoman Resistance of 1905–1907: The Events in Kurbin
Despite the propaganda and organizational work of the committees “For the Freedom of Albania,” they did not succeed in centralizing leadership of the movement across the entire country. In many regions, especially in the Vilayet of Kosovo, spontaneous popular movements against Ottoman rule continued. As early as March–April 1905, the populations of Peja, Gjakova, Luma, and Mitrovica rose up, refusing to pay the livestock tax and demanding that the Sublime Porte release political internees sent to Asia Minor and prevent foreigners from interfering in their homeland, Albania.
In December 1905 and early 1906, the anti-Ottoman resistance gained new momentum and spread to Prizren and its surroundings. In mid-January 1906, around 2,000 armed men had gathered in Gjakova alone. The rebels continued to insist on the release of Albanians interned during the 1903–1905 movements and opposed the reforms that would pave the way for the partitioning of the homeland.
The population also hoped that Prizren would become the capital of the expected province formed from purely Albanian territories of the Kosovo Vilayet that had been excluded from the reforms. The Sublime Porte’s proclamation of amnesty for political internees from Peja, Gjakova, Prizren, and Luma at the end of January 1906 temporarily calmed the situation in Kosovo.
In the spring of 1906, the uprising movement again engulfed Kosovo, beginning in Peja and Gjakova before spreading to Vushtrri, Drenica, Llap, and Plavë and Guci, where the population refused to pay taxes on livestock, education, and the purchase of armaments for the Ottoman army. The events in Peja took on a particularly harsh character. During bloody clashes in March in the kaza of Peja between rebels and Ottoman troops, there were more than 50 dead and 200 wounded on both sides. In April, the rebels closed the road between Prizren and Peja.
Similar events occurred in the Sanjak of Prishtina, especially in Vushtrri, where entire villages rose against the new taxes in March 1906. The situation in Vushtrri calmed only after the Sublime Porte, following intervention by Isa Boletini (who had returned from internment), promised to abandon the collection of the new taxes.
In August 1906, the population of Drenica and surrounding villages dependent on the Vushtrri kaza rose up and protested against the collection of taxes for public education and the purchase of armaments. The people of Drenica informed the Ottoman authorities that they would not pay these obligations until the government accepted Albanian-language education and stopped using weapons against Albanians.
To suppress the movement in Drenica, the Sublime Porte sent new military forces commanded by Colonel Hasan Bey, later joined by Shemsi Pasha, who did not hesitate to use artillery against the Drenica rebels, killing about 50 and wounding 60 others.
In the spring and summer of 1906, discontent in Albania had become general. In 1906–1907, resistance by the population of Kruja and the villages of Kurbin against Ottoman fiscal oppression intensified. Living in miserable economic conditions, the people of these districts refused to pay the livestock tax, the military service tax (bedel-i askeriye), and the tithe, which the Turkish government had insisted on collecting since the autumn of 1905.
This decision was taken at a meeting held in August 1906 in the village of Delbinisht by representatives of the notables and common people of the Catholic population of Kurbin, attended also by Dom Nikollë Kaçorri and Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi. The people of Kurbin were joined by the inhabitants of Kthella, Rranza, the Highlands of Lezha, Lura, the Bank of Mat, as well as the Muslim population of Kruja.
Although the movement had a peaceful character, the Vali of Shkodra, Sali Zeki Pasha, to force the Catholic and Muslim population to pay the taxes, sent four battalions of soldiers equipped with artillery in early September 1906 to Kurbin and Kruja, commanded by Shefki Bey, the kaimakam of Durrës. As the Ottoman troops approached the villages of Kurbin and Kruja, the local population, especially women and children, withdrew to the mountains with their livestock to escape massacres. The people of Kurbin took refuge in Rranza, Kthella, the Highlands of Lezha, and Mirdita.
The population of the Catholic villages or those with a Catholic majority (Mali i Bardhë, Skuraj, Milot, Laç, Zhejë), led by Gjin Pjetri and disregarding the advice of the Archbishop of Durrës, Monsignor Bianchi (who went specially to Delbinisht to urge them not to take up arms), resisted the Ottoman army in Skuraj and Zhejë in mid-September 1906. Two fierce clashes lasting several hours took place, after which the Ottoman forces were forced to withdraw.
The Ottoman authorities, aiming to suppress the movement more easily, first entered into negotiations with the Muslim notables of Kruja. However, during a meeting held on 20 September 1906 in Tallajbe of Kruja, in agreement with the kaimakam of the kaza, several hundred representatives of the Muslim population of the city, Peza, and Ishmi were surrounded and treacherously attacked by the Ottoman army, which killed 30 of them, including several headmen of the area, as well as women and children.
On 1 October 1906, Shefki Bey began negotiations with the notables of Kruja in order to divide the Muslims from the Catholics. After the massacre of 20 September and the Ottoman authorities’ promises to ease the livestock tax on Muslim residents, the situation in Kruja calmed on 23 October and Turkish administrative authority was restored in the city.
Meanwhile, the fighting continued in the villages of Kurbin, where the Catholic population refused to submit. About 700 armed men stood against the Ottoman army. They were joined by other forces from neighboring Kthella, as well as the population of the surrounding mountainous regions of Milot, Rrëshen, Pishkash, Lura, etc., the majority of whom were Catholic.
Through the mediation of the Austro-Hungarian consul in Shkodra, Kral, the priest of Durrës Nikollë Kaçorri secured an agreement on 17 October 1906 with the Vali of Shkodra, according to which a limited and previously determined amount was set for each category of taxes. This agreement was accepted by the people of Kurbin, but it was violated by the Ottoman authorities, who continued to demand full tax collection.
From 26 October to 14 November 1906, the Ottoman army launched a new and even harsher military expedition, during which it burned and looted the houses of Gegaj, Milot, Zhejë, Laç, and Gjorm, and devastated their fields. The army also attacked the Highlands of Lezha, where the families of the Kurbin people had taken refuge.
The rebels put up a strong resistance against the Ottoman army, especially in Skuraj where the fighting lasted several hours, and at the Shkalla e Matit. To avoid complete defeat, Shefki Bey, after leaving several dozen soldiers dead in these places, withdrew on 14 November to the plain of Mat, holding only a few road control points. The people of Kurbin, despite being threatened by cold, hunger, and death, continued to resist and remained with their families in the mountains throughout the winter of 1906–1907.
Interventions by the Great Powers, especially those of the Austro-Hungarian representatives with the government in Istanbul, following repeated appeals made by the population of Kurbin in January and February 1907, were not without result. The Sublime Porte, seeing that terror measures could not break the resistance of the Kurbin population and that the prolongation of the uprising in this region was damaging its prestige and giving cause for foreign interventions, decided to make concessions to the people of Kurbin.
After negotiations conducted in Shkodra with representatives of the rebels at the end of April, the new Vali of the province, Mustafa Hilmi Pasha, in early May 1907 promised the rebels that the Sultan would pardon their armed actions, abolish the livestock tax, reduce all other taxes, and that the government would help rebuild the houses burned during the military expeditions. After this, the people of Kurbin, assured that their demands would be met, returned to their villages.
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