In the rugged borderlands of 19th-century Montenegro, northern Albania, and the Sandžak, where the Kuçi tribe lived, tribal identity often proved deeper and more stubborn than religious or emerging national divisions. The Kuçi were originally an Albanian tribe that largely converted to Orthodoxy and increasingly identified with the Montenegrin/Serb highland population, especially in their resistance to Ottoman rule. Yet ancestral memory lingered. One documented case from the mid-to-late 19th century (roughly 1850s–1870s) painfully illustrates the human cost of this fractured heritage: when assimilated Albanians, divided by faith, turned violence upon their own kin.

The central figure on the perpetrator’s side is Dem-Alija (Dem Ali), also known as Dem-Alija Rugovac — a Muslim Albanian from the Rugova region, portrayed in oral and literary traditions as a fierce “Rugova eagle,” a boastful warrior-brigand operating according to the harsh codes of the mountains. Driven by what one account describes as “unstoppable irrational hatred” and the crude desire “to kill at least one Serb just so that there would be one less Vlach,” Dem-Alija surprised and murdered a young Kuçi shepherd who had fallen asleep at the end of a sheepfold in the (Vermosh) forests near the Hoti khans.

Before killing him and cutting off his head — a common trophy and humiliation in such raids — the victim managed to speak words that would echo through later retellings. In Marko Miljanov’s version, the Orthodox Kuçi lad said:
“Don’t cut me down, for I have brothers in Kuçi who will avenge me, and you will perish.”

Dem-Alija later boasted about the killing. When he recounted it, a certain Bey Ganić (or Gani Begu, Ganić-beg or Murat-aga Ganić), himself of Kuçi origin, reacted with spontaneous shock and denial: “It won’t be, čoče” (“It can’t be, brother/man”). Dem-Alija swore it was true. The revelation carried bitter irony: the murdered boy was not some distant “other,” but from the same ancestral Kuçi stock as the listener.

Ganić-beg, who in different accounts served as a gendarmerie commander in Prizren or was based near Bijelo Polje, eventually took revenge. He killed Dem-Alija — described variously as shooting him with a revolver or firing two pistols and escaping among the Turks. The act closed one cycle of the blood feud, but the story itself survived because of its tragic resonance.

Two Accounts, One Painful Truth

The event is recorded in overlapping but slightly differing versions by two important figures:

Grigorije Božović, in his short story The Relative (Srodnik), presents a more literary, dramatic narrative. Here the victim is explicitly a “young lad” tending sheep, and Ganić-beg’s reaction highlights the shared blood across religious lines.

Marko Miljanov (1833–1901), the renowned Kuçi vojvoda, warrior, and chronicler of highland customs, mentions the incident in Life and Customs of the Albanians and Examples of Humanity and Heroism. Miljanov, himself of mixed heritage (Orthodox father, Catholic Albanian mother), notes that Ganić-beg was “of Kuçi origin, a family of Kuçi stock.” He records the beheading and the victim’s defiant last words in nearly identical form, though details of the setting and exact weapons differ.

Later testimony strengthens the story’s historical grounding. In his travel notes, Božović mentions that a relative of Ganić-beg (a certain Mahmutović/Mahmuti) showed him the avenger’s grave in a Muslim cemetery, lending credence to the idea that Ganić-beg was a real person and that the blood revenge actually occurred.

The Deeper Tragedy

The real poignancy of this anecdote lies in its premise: members of the same original Albanian tribe — the Kuçi — had diverged along religious lines. Some remained Muslim and aligned more closely with Ottoman/Albanian Muslim networks; others became Orthodox, assimilated into Montenegrin Serbian identity, and fought against Ottoman incursions. When Dem-Alija, acting out of religious-ethnic hatred, killed the sleeping shepherd, he was not striking a pure foreigner but, in ancestral terms, one of his own people. Ganić-beg’s shocked reaction (“It won’t be, čoče”) and his subsequent revenge underscore how painfully this reality registered.

Such incidents were probably not rare in the porous, mixed border zones of the time. The Kanun of the mountains and parallel Montenegrin customs of krvna osveta (blood revenge) governed these relations, demanding retaliation regardless of how thin the ethnic or religious boundary had become. Hospitality, fictive kinship, and shared pastoral life often coexisted uneasily with raids and feuds. The result was a recurring tragedy: Albanians of different faiths killing each other while both sides claimed continuity with the same tribal roots.

This case also reveals the limits of 19th-century national awakenings. For some, religion became the dominant marker — Muslim vs. “Vlach”/Orthodox. For others, like Marko Miljanov or the Kuçi who fought alongside Montenegrins, language, territory, and ancestral name mattered more. Yet the mountains did not easily forget older blood ties. When those ties surfaced in the moment of violence or revenge, they produced not reconciliation, but a sharper sense of loss.

The water mill built by Kosta Jeremić (a Brvačani prince and relative who once fled as an outlaw to Rozhaje) still turning today serves as a quiet metaphor in the broader text: life and kinship connections persist across generations and faiths, even as violence repeatedly tries to sever them.

In the end, the story of Dem-Alija Rugovac and the murdered Kuçi shepherd is a small but telling chapter in the long Balkan drama of assimilation, division, and cyclical revenge. It reminds us that when “assimilated Albanians” (or any group split by faith and politics) turn on their distant kin, the tragedy is compounded: not only is a life taken, but a deeper continuity is denied — often in the name of identities that were never as absolute as the killers believed.

Sources

Božović, Grigorije. Ličnost i književno delo Grigorija Božovića. Google Books edition, n.d. https://books.google.se/books/edition/Li%C4%8Dnost_i_knji%C5%BEevno_delo_Grigorija_Bo/e6ZiAAAAMAAJ

Zbornik za društvene nauke. Google Books edition, n.d. https://books.google.se/books/edition/%D0%97%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%B7%D0%B0_%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%83%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B5/IUBpAAAAMAAJ

Pripovetke. Google Books edition, n.d. https://books.google.se/books/edition/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BA%D0%B5/J5XFE9fATSQC