In this interview, Professor Nexhmi Ganiu says that in 1774, during the Agreement of the Kucukurname, the Ottoman authorities allowed the Russian empire to take responsibility of the “Orthodox” peoples of the Balkans. This was in fact a secret plan to mass-assimilate the Albanian population of the Balkans – both Catholic and Orthodox Albanians – to convert them into the artificial Slavic identities of modern day Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria.

The regions affected mostly were Vllahia, Timok, Belgrad, Buchurest, Bosnia, Srem, and others. In these territories, Russian scholar priests and military agents began with projects to encourage Pan-Slavism.