Opinion by  Rexhep Shahu

It is being said, according to a patriotic photographic exhibition opened this mid-September in Tirana, at the Art Gallery, that 100 years ago, 200 thousand Serbian soldiers lost their lives in Albania. Note 200 thousand Serbian soldiers. Can you imagine how terrible the Albanian violence was? So strong and powerful were the Albanians and their winter and hunger that they killed and strangled and left 200 thousand Serbian soldiers dead. Where are so many Serbian soldiers buried.

This is according to an episode that in Serbian historiography is called the “Great Retreat” and according to them, about 200.000 Serbs lost their lives in Albania, mainly from hunger and cold. Maybe it is true, absolutely true. Maybe there were 400 thousand, maybe a million Serbian soldiers, two or three million. This event is now being remembered with great fanfare in Tirana, which I believe was invented, to reconcile us with the Serbs, as they are saying that the summer of Albanian-Serbian reconciliation has begun or the autumn of Albanian-Serbian reconciliation has begun.

And this reconciliation with the Serbs that Tirana wants to make, with a little help from the Serbian ambassador in Tirana, with a few prime ministers, with a few amateur invented artists, erasing the loud and silent Albanian demand that reconciliation can and should happen but that the Serbs ask for a great and deep apology from Kosovo, forgetting that the burden of reconciliation and forgiveness lies with Kosovo and not Tirana, which under no circumstances has the shoulders to hold Kosovo on its shoulders.

Reconciliation will happen and must happen between Albanians and Serbs as two peoples condemned to coexist, but it is unseemly, to say the least, to invite Albanians to mourn for Serbs, for 200 thousand Serbian soldiers who left their bones in Albania 100 years ago. Albanians mourn for themselves and no one has the right to put us in a line and force us to mourn for lost Serbian soldiers.

We have something to mourn for Albanians lost in the last Albanian-Serbian war. Or the great reconcilers do not care about the Albanians lost in Serbia, for the Albanians massacred by the Serbs and the Serbs do not even show the mass graves where they have buried Albanian civilians.

The big reconcilers who want political benefits for the great Albanian-Serbian reconciliation should not beg, should not spend a lot of money on reconciliation exhibitions, on pity exhibitions for the 200 thousand missing Serbian soldiers throughout Albania, even photographed by a Russian photographer, because they were not Serbian civilians, Serbian women and children, but Serbian soldiers, the ones who massacred Albanian women and children as they massacred in the last war, not 100 years ago but only 16 years ago.

        The sensational exhibition in Tirana to take the minds and mourn the 200 thousand Serbian soldiers who died in Albania, even though photographed by a Russian photographer, is made miserable and washed up by the Serbian soldier Kosta Novakovic in his diary Four months in Albania in 1913. How did the splendor of Serbian violence and cruelty in 1913 end with the death of 200 thousand Serbian soldiers two years later? Eh!
        But I am asking in vain, when 200 thousand Serbs have died, how many Serbs are left alive?
How many Serbian soldiers have invaded Albania 100 years ago?
        For 200 thousand soldiers to die, according to some military theories (I mean this), over two million Serbian soldiers must have been here, for 10 percent of them to die. Or at least, for 6 percent of them to die, as much as it is said that an army accepts to have its soldiers killed.
        How much was Serbia’s military strength 100 years ago. I don’t believe it’s a secret and unknown. Serbia has archives and the world has archives for Serbia, as it has for Albania, even though Albanians don’t think about those archives, because our governments want to convince us that our life and history begins with them.
        How many soldiers did Serbia have in total 100 years ago. How many war fronts did it have and did it send all of its troops towards Albania. How many soldiers did Serbia have left after 200,000 military troops died in Albania. How many million people did Serbia have 100 years ago, when it had so many troops, that 200,000 more would have died in Albania? Are we talking about Serbia or China? Are we talking about a defensive war where even house cats can fight or are we talking about an invasion and offensive war far from Serbian lands and territories. The questions are endless.
        Were these 200 thousand Serbian soldiers who died alive, or were they dead and came dead? Did the Drini and Mati bring their bodies to the Adriatic Sea-the Serbian dream.
        Another question, were they people, soldiers, or were they Serbian pensioners with tickets for death?
        Or were they millions and came by train to be buried in Albania and to declare Albania a Serbian cemetery after 100 years?
        Oh, they don’t have them, they didn’t do them, add another 50 thousand or 100 thousand dead Serbian soldiers because it doesn’t make a name. They are Serbs after all and our name, fame and glory increase that we have 200 thousand Serbian graves in Albania. Let the Serbs come and plow our land with hammers to find the remains of their 200 thousand soldiers killed and drowned by winter and hunger in Albania.
        This deliberate inflating of numbers by both Serbs and Albanians makes you want to vomit without putting your fingers in your mouth, makes you want to vomit and pull out your intestines and lungs.
        And when they say that the Albanians have been good to them. No, they are forgetting to say that the Albanians have also cut off a ram from each one and given each one a head of barley.
        To cement and harden the Albanian-Serbian hatred, the Serbs and the Albanians have been careful for a long time.
        The greatest Albanian-Serbian battle on the face of the earth was fought in Lumë at the time of the declaration of Albania’s independence. Forgive me for this empty boast, but a learned colonist said, when I mention the name Lumë, my mouth goes dry. Even though they have buried it with great hatred and zeal even in the text of our History translated from Russian, this battle, this glory and resistance of Lumë was not buried. Lumë raised the dam of Albanian resistance some time in November-December 1912 and the flag was raised in Vlora, without allowing the Serbs to arrive in Vlora before the Albanian flag was raised.
        Our Albanian song says that we killed 12 thousand Serbian soldiers in Lumë and caused them colossal damage, we defeated and put out of action a Serbian military division. Meanwhile, Luma has raised all the people to war with its law from 7 to 70. How many fighters from Lumë, Dibrë and Hasjë should have gathered to face a more motorized army and kill that army’s 12 thousand troops? When we killed 12 thousand, there must have been 100 thousand more who fled to tell what they found in Lumë, right? But in fact, the entire Serbian army headed for Albania was not 12 thousand troops. This figure of 12 has been rejected by scholars and the most concrete about that battle is Sali Onuzi, who exalts that battle as the most glorious in Albanian lands, but strips it of harmful hyperbole.
        While our hatred brought the number of killed Serbian soldiers to 12 thousand, the Serbs brought the number of their killed to 18 thousand Serbian soldiers killed in the hellfire in Lumë. They, the Serbs, have greater hatred. We sing with çifteli 12 thousand, the Serbs with gusël lament 18 thousand.
        So this figure of 200 thousand Serbian soldiers killed and dead in Albania, despite the generosity of the Albanians and the good treatment they have given the Serbs, as is being said, this figure seems to smell bad. Come on, sit on it, read it well, take it in, learn it by heart, sing it to your people, add zeros as you please, great work, our bravery knows no measure, our fame and glory have no sky, the deception we do to ourselves, history and generations has no limit.
        It can be used in more noble ways, there can be a measure in love and hate, because it is enough to say I love and there is no need to say I love a lot, it is enough to say I hate and there is no need to say I hate a lot.
        Those who have not been brave at the right time cannot compensate for the lack of bravery of themselves or their ancestors or their homeland, they cannot cover anything, they cannot gain anything because before we gain wealth, we must give an account at the door of the grave. We are forgetting this day and night.
        I may be drowning in the sea, I may be a fool, but come on, convince yourself that this is not the biggest lie I have heard in 100 years. Period.