The 1878 San Stefano Treaty And The Albanians – Analysis

European politics after 1871

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870‒1871, in the following decades, European politics were marked by a period of intense armament, which would finally lead to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. In the meantime, several international crises broke out both in Europe and in its overseas colonies, which could have led Europe to the Great War even before the summer of 1914.

First of all, the danger of a new Franco-German war loomed over Europe because France was striving towards a revanchist policy towards a united Germany, and the question of the territories of Alsace and Lorraine was crucial in that context. Namely, with these two provinces that belonged to Germany in 1871, France lost its two most developed economic areas. The population of both these areas demanded to be returned to France, although their mother tongue was German, but they displayed a French national consciousness.

The second and even more dangerous crisis point in Europe was represented by the Balkans, i.e., its Ottoman provinces inhabited by Christian populations who, in many cases, lived mixed with local Muslims. While Christians strove for national liberation and separation from the Ottoman Empire, at the same time, local Muslims, regardless of ethnolinguistic affiliation, strove to preserve the Ottoman Empire as their national state. This was especially pronounced in the cases of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Muslim Albanians in Albania and the surrounding countries.

The decline of Ottoman power and authority and the striving of the Balkan Christian peoples towards liberation from the centuries-old Turkish-Muslim rule raised the question of the further fate of the Ottoman possessions in Europe, i.e., in the Balkans. All major European powers fought for influence in the Balkans (including the UK as well, which traditionally was preoccupied with its overseas colonial possessions), but with different goals, of which only Russia supported the idea of ​​forming national states of Christian peoples in the Balkans instead of the Ottoman Empire, which in that case would lose all its European possessions.

The first major crisis in the Balkans broke out in 1875‒1878 with the outbreak of a major Christian uprising in Herzegovina, which soon spread to Bosnia and Bulgaria. After the unsuccessful military intervention of Serbia in 1876‒1877 against the Ottoman Empire, which supported the Serbian insurgents in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1877, Russia entered the war on the side of the Balkan insurgents and Serbia, and in 1878 broke the Turkish resistance on the Danube and in northern Bulgaria, and thus opened the way to Istanbul. (1)

The “San Stefano Bulgaria”

After the Russian military victory over the Ottoman Empire in the 1877−1878 Russo-Ottoman War, the San Stefano Treaty was signed between these two states on March 3^rd, 1878. According to the treaty, a Greater “San Stefano” Bulgaria, under the direct protection of Russia, had to be established within the borders of the Ottoman Empire (in fact, as a state within a state). However, an idea of “San Stefano Bulgaria” directly affected three Balkan nations: the Serbs, Greeks, and Albanians, as some of their ethnic and historical territories had to become parts of a Greater Bulgaria under the Russian protection. 

The “San Stefano Bulgaria” was projected by the Russian authorities to cover territory from the Danube River to the Aegean Sea and from the present-day Albania to the Black Sea, including all of geographic-historical Macedonia, the present-day East Serbia, and the present-day Southeast Albania. As a result, the Albanian nation living in the present-day Southeast Albania and the West Macedonia would become part of a Greater Bulgaria that would be governed by the Russian authorities. (2)

It is characteristic of both the 1878 San Stefano Treaty and the 1878 Berlin Congress that they conceived parts of the Albanian-populated Balkan territories to be given to the other Balkan states according to the principle of ethnic and historical rights. However, it does not mean that the ethnic Albanians have been the majority in these territories, and that was the exact reason why either Russia or Europe delivered them to the Albanian neighbours. The remained Albanian ethnic space (Albania, in which ethnic Albanians composed the clear majority of the population) would be within the borders of the Ottoman Empire but without any “special status”, i.e., autonomous rights and ethno-political privileges. 

The Ottoman government itself was feeble to protect the Albanian-populated territories consisted of more than 80% of the Muslim population, which showed a high degree of political and ideological loyalty towards the Sultan and the Sublime Porte in Istanbul. Nevertheless, the decisions of the 1878 San Stefano Treaty resulted in the organization of the Albanian self-defence system by their (Muslim) political leadership, which considered an autonomous status of Albania, similar to the status of Serbia, Moldavia, and Wallachia, as the only guarantee for a justifiable administration over the Albanians in the future.  

The 1878 San Stefano Treaty and the remapping of the Ottoman Balkans 

The San Stefano Treaty accorded to the Slavic Bulgaria the portions of the following Albanian-settled lands: the district of Korçë and the Debar area. According to the same treaty, Montenegro was granted several municipalities in the present-day North Albania and the areas of Bar and Ulcinj (today in Montenegro). The border between Ottoman Albania and Montenegro was fixed on the Bojana River and the Scodra Lake (the borders have been left up to this day). Nevertheless, an official representative of the Principality of Montenegro, Radonjić, required in Adrianople (Edirne) that the city of Scodra be included in enlarged Montenegro. (3) 

However, what was exactly regarded at that time as Albania, and the Albanians as an ethnic identity, was not clear to anybody in Europe. The main reason was the fact that the official Ottoman censuses became quite an unreliable source to fix such problems because they were based rather on the religious identity than on strict ethno-national (i.e., ethno-linguistic) belonging. Practically, all Ottoman Islamic population, whether they were the Albanians, Bosnians, or Turks, were classified into one category – the Muslims (as the nation of Allah). National/ethnic differences were not marked in the Ottoman censuses at all, as only religious affiliation was taken into consideration (confessional “millet” system). 

Nevertheless, regardless of the lack of official statistics, it is possible to reconstruct the dispersion of the Albanian ethnicity at that time by using other historical sources. One of such sources is a report to the Austro-Hungarian authorities about the northern boundaries of the Albanian language written by the Austro-Hungarian consul F. Lippich in mid-1877 during the Great Eastern Crisis and the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877−1878. According to this report, the northern linguistic border of the Albanians runs from the city of Bar on the Montenegrin Adriatic littoral towards the Scodra Lake, then through two Montenegrin regions of Kolašin and Vasojevićs, after that towards the Ibar River and the city of Novi Pazar in Sanjak (Raška) up to the area of the South Morava River at the present-day Serbia. The Albanian linguistic borderland was fixed on the East and South-East to be around the Ochrid Lake, the cities of Bitola (Monastir) and Debar, and the upper Vardar River. However, in many of these areas, the Albanian language was spoken together with the Slavonic languages as they are today, the Serbian, Montenegrin, and Macedonian. Second, in the majority of these “borderlands of spoken Albanian language”, the linguistic Albanians did not compose the ethnic majority, as was the case, for instance, with the historical region of Kosovo and Metochia where at that time the ethnolinguistic Serbs still were in an arithmetic majority of the population. 

Nevertheless, surely, the 1878 San Stefano Treaty provoked Albanian nationalism and forged the Albanian national renaissance movement. A germ of the Albanian national movement was growing from the 1840s to the time of the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875−1878, when the first requirements for the establishment of the Albanian-language schools and the preservation of the national language were requested by the Albanian public workers in the Ottoman Empire (Naum Panajot Bredi, Engel Mashi, Josiph Kripsi, John Skiroj, Hieronim de Rada, Vincenzo Dorsa, etc). 

However, the Albanian national renaissance received a new impetus during the Balkan crisis of 1862 at the time of a new Montenegrin-Ottoman war, when several members of the so-called “Scodra group” (Zef Ljubani, Pashko Vasa, and others) propagated the uprising of the North Albanian tribes in the Mirditë region against the Montenegrin territorial pretensions on the Albanian-populated areas. They also opposed the Ottoman authorities as they relied on the support of the French Emperor Napoleon III (1852−1870). In the case of a successful result of the rebellion, the independent and united principality of Albania would be created in the Balkans. It would include all Albanian-populated territories in the Balkans, even those on which the linguistic Albanians were the ethnic minority. 

The main Albanian ideologist from that time was Zef Jubani, born in Scutari in 1818, who claimed that the Albanian population had already become a nation at that time. (5) His primary political goal was the creation of an autonomous, united province of Albania within the Ottoman Empire. Others, like Thimi Mitko and Spiro Dineja, favoured Albania’s separation from the Ottoman Empire and creation of a dual Albanian-Greek confederation state similar to Austria-Hungary (since 1867). During the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875−1878, the Albanian uprising in Mirditë in 1876−1877, led by the Albanian patriots from Scodra, had as its ultimate political goal the creation of an autonomous Albania in the Ottoman Empire. The leaders of the uprising visited the Montenegrin court in order to obtain financial support from the Montenegrin Prince Nikola I (1860−1910; King 1910−1918). Such support was promised to the leader of the Albanian delegation, Preng Dochi. What is important to stress is that the Montenegrin Prince stated on this occasion that Montenegro does not have any territorial aspirations towards the “Albanian” territories, whatever it meant at the moment. At the same time, the Russian diplomat in Scodra, Ivan Jastrebov, pointed out that Europe faced the “Albanian Question”. 

During the Great Eastern Crisis, the Albanian tribal chieftains from the South Albania and the North Epirus under the presidency of a prominent Muslim Albanian feudal lord Abdul-beg Frashëri convoked in 1877 a national meeting in the city of Jannina (Ioannina) when they required from the Sublime Porte in Istanbul to recognize a separate Albanian nationality, and therefore to give them a right to form an autonomous Albanian province (vilayet) within the Ottoman Empire. They required, in addition, that all officials in such Albanian vilayet should be of the Albanian ethnic origin (but only the Muslims), the Albanian-language schools to be open, and finally, the Albanian-language courts to be created. The memorandum with such demands was sent to the Sublime Porte, but this supreme Ottoman governmental institution refused to meet any of these Albanian national requirements. 

The Albanian reaction to the 1878 San Stefano Treaty  

Publication of the 1878 San Stefano Treaty’s articles caused great unrest and dissatisfaction among the Albanian people.(6) From that time onward, a previous Albanian movement just for improvement of the social conditions of the Albanians living in the Ottoman Empire became, however, now transfigured into the Albanian national movement (but in essence it was rooted into the Islamic tradition and political dogmatism) requiring either the creation of politically autonomous province of Albania within the Ottoman Empire or a making of an independent Albanian national state (based on the Islamic tradition). (7)

Especially the Northeast and East Albania experienced massive unrest and protests against the San Stefano Treaty that were addressed to the Great European Powers. (8) Thus, in April 1878, the Albanians from the city of Debar sent a telegram to the British and Austro-Hungarian ambassadors to the Ottoman Empire, Layard, Zichy, respectively, protesting against the annexation of the region of Debar by a newly projected San Stefano Bulgarian principality. It was emphasized in the telegram that the people from Debar are Albanians, but not Bulgarians. Furthermore, according to the protest memo, the district of Debar encompassed 220,000 Muslims and 10,000 Christians; all of them were allegedly only ethnic Albanians. (9) Finally, it was required that the Great European Powers would not allow (Christian Orthodox) Bulgaria to annex the Debar region; instead, it should be left in the Ottoman Empire (as a “national” state of all Muslim Albanians). (10)

Similarly to the Albanians from Debar, their compatriots from the city of Scodra and the Northwest Albania asked the Austro-Hungarian authority to foil the inclusion of the “Albanian” territories into Montenegro (whose independence was recognized by the Berlin Congress in 1878). (11) The Albanians from several districts in Kosovo-Metochia (Prizren, Đakovica, Peć) protested in a memorandum to Vienna against the partition of “their” lands between Serbia and Montenegro. (12) On May 8^th, 1878 when “…today, we learned from the newspapers that the Ottoman government, unable to resist the pressure of Russia, has been obliged to accept our annexation by the Montenegrins…” a protest of Albanian population of Scodra, Podgorica, Spuž, Žabljak, Tivat, Ulcinj, Gruda, Kelmend, Hot, and Kastrat was addressed to the ambassador of France in Istanbul against the annexation of the “Albanian“ lands by the Principality of Montenegro. (13)

The Albanian people from North Albania and Kosovo-Metochia, either the Muslims or the Roman Catholics, started to organize their own self-defence detachments (a territorial militia) and the local committees against the incorporation of these territories into either Serbia or Montenegro. Another task of those numerous committees was to help the Albanian “refugees” from the areas already taken by the Serbs and Montenegrins, according to the San Stefano Treaty. (14) Thus, for example, on June 26^th, 1878 from Priština was issued a protest of 6,200 Albanian emigrants, allegedly “expelled“ from the districts of Niš, Leskovac, Prokuplje, and Kuršumlija, addressed to the 1878 Berlin Congress against the mass murders and rapes committed by Serbia’s army and the Bulgarian military units. (15) However, the majority of those Albanian “refugees “ left these territories voluntarily for the reason that they, as Muslims, did not want to live in the Christian state, either Bulgaria or Serbia, after the San Stefano Treaty. The same happened after the 1878 Berlin Congress, with a huge number of Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslim population who emigrated to the Ottoman Empire even before the army of Austria-Hungary reached their homes without any intention to expel them. 

In essence, such official protests by the Albanians were much more a way of propaganda work but not the reality on the ground, at least not to such an extent as presented. The fact was, as mentioned, that the majority of the (Muslim) Albanian “refugees“ in fact voluntarily left those lands ascribed by the Russian-Ottoman Treaty of San Stefano to a Greater Bulgaria (or later to Serbia by the Berlin Congress) for the reason that the Muslims cannot, in principle, live under a non-Muslim government – i.e., the government of the “infidels“. Simply, the Muslims could not subsist in a country in which they were not in political power and control the social order and life.

The 1878 Berlin Congress

The Russian-Turkish peace in San Stefano, signed on March 3rd 1878, heralded the emergence of a large Bulgarian state under Russian patronage and influence, although formally within the framework of the Ottoman Empire. In other words, this peace treaty would ensure Russia’s supremacy both in the East Balkans and over the straits (Bosphorus and Dardanelles). Therefore, in order to prevent the crucial Russian influence in the East Balkans and the Straits, the great Western European powers (on the formal initiative of Bismarck’s Germany) organized the Berlin Congress, which lasted a month from June 15th   to July 15th, 1878, and at which they tried to smooth out their mutual disputes and thus jointly act against Russia. The main goal of the Berlin Congress was a total revision of the San Stefano Peace Treaty to the detriment of Russia and for the sake of preserving as much as possible the possessions of the Ottoman Empire in Europe.

The main result of the Berlin Congress was that Russia was forced to greatly reduce its demands in the Balkans. Thus, Austria-Hungary got the right to occupy Bosnia-Herzegovina, Great Britain got Cyprus, while Germany strengthened its influence in the Balkans and later in the entire Ottoman Empire by realizing its imperial policy of penetration to the East (Drang nach Osten). Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro gained formal independence and territorial expansion as did Greece, while two Bulgarias were formed on the territory of the Bulgarian people at the expense of the Russian project of a Greater Bulgaria from San Stefano. As for the Albanians, they got, in fact, nothing even though they demanded the protection of their national rights to certain territories. Even more, the leader and host of the Berlin Congress, Otto von Bismarck, said that Europe had not heard of the Albanian people. The Berlin Congress was the last major international meeting where only European statesmen gathered. (16) In any case, even after 1878, the Balkans remained the focus of crisis in Europe until the First World War.

Endnotes:

1.  Mitchel Beazley (ed.), Ilustrovana enciklopedija Istorija, Vol. 2, 1984, 190 (original title: The Joy of Knowledge Encyclopaedia, 1976).
2.  Parliamentary Papers, series “Accounts and Papers”, Vol. LXXXIII, Turkey, № 22, London, 1878, 10.  
3.  “Article № 1” of the San Stefano Peace Treaty in Parliamentary Papers, series “Accounts and Papers”, Vol. LXXXIII, Turkey, № 22, London, 1878, 9−10; Sumner B. H., Russia and the Balkans, 1870−1880, Oxford, 1937, 410−415.
4.  Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Politisches Archiv, XII/256, Türkei IV, Lippich F., “Denkschrift über Albanien”, Wien, June 20^th, 1877, 8−9.
5.  According to M. Jevtić, the Albanians have not been formed as a nation in a modern European sense of the meaning of the term at that time or they are not a nation even today as the main framework of the Albanian national identity was and is primarily Islam – a religion which does not recognize existence of any ethno-linguistic identity among the Muslims who are considered to be one (confessional) “nation” [Јевтић М., Албанско питање и религија, Београд: Центар за проучавање религије и верску толеранцију, 2011; Јевтић М., „Исламска суштина албанског сецесионизма и културно наслеђе Срба“, Национални интерест, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2013, 238]. On the Islamic tradition and political doctrine, see in [Itzkowitz N., Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition, Chicago−London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980].
6.  Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, “Ceccaldi to Waddington, April 27^th, 1878”, № 213, Turquie, Correspondance politique des consuls, Scutari, 1878−1879, Vol. XXI. 
7.  On the strong confessional-political division and even religious wars between the Albanians later on in 1915, see in [Pollo S., Puto A., Histoire d’Albania des origines á nos jours, Roanne, 1974, 183−186; Јевтић М., Проблеми политикологије религије, Београд: Центар за проучавање религије и верску толеранцију, 2012, 159−161]. 
8.  An academic concept of a Great Power is defined as a state “deemed to rank amongst the most powerful in a hierarchical state-system. The criteria that define a great power are subject to dispute, but four are often identified. (1) Great powers are in the first rank of military powers, having the capacity to maintain their own security and, potentially, to influence other powers. (2) They are economically powerful states… (3) They have global, and not merely regional, spheres of interest. (4) They adopt a ‘forward’ foreign policy and have actual, and not merely potential, impact on international affairs” [Heywood A., Global Politics, New York−London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, 7].
9.  The numbers of people of the Debar district was drastically exaggerated. The ethnic Albanians have not been the only districts’ inhabitants.
10.  Parliamentary Papers, series “Accounts and Papers”, “Layard to Salisbury, Therapia, May 4^th, 1878, Vol. LXXXIII, Turkey, № 41, London, 1878, 60−61; Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, “Ceccaldi to Waddington, Scutari, May 4^th, 1878”, № 214, Turquie, Correspondance politique des consuls, Scutari, 1878−1879, Vol. XXI.
11.  Novotny A., Österreich, die Türkei und das Balkan-problem im Jahre des Berliner Kongresses, Graz−Köln, 1957, 246.
12.  Ibid, 37, 247−253; Parliamentary Papers, series “Accounts and Papers”, 1878, Vol. LXXXI, Turkey, № 45, London, 1878, 35−36.
13.  Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, French Embassy at the Sublime Porte, Turkey, Vol. 417, 51−54, Supplement to the Report № 96 (original in French); Pollo S., Pulaha S., (eds.), Pages of the Albanian National Renaissance, 1878−1912, Tirana, 1978, 12−13.
14.  Parliamentary Papers, series “Accounts and Papers”, “Green to Salisbury, May 3^rd, 1878”, Vol. LXXXIII, Turkey, № 40, London, 1878, 60; Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, “Ceccaldi to Waddington, Scutari, May 4^th, 1878”, № 214, Turquie, Correspondance politique des consuls, Scutari, 1878−1879, Vol. XXI; Ibid, a copy of telegram signed by the Montenegrin Prince Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš, Cetinje, June 5^th, 1878, as annexe № 1 to Dèpêche, June 9^th, 1878, № 218.
15.  Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amtes, Bonn, Turkey 129, Vol. 2, The Acts of the Congress of Berlin, 2, 1878, document № 110 (telegram); Pollo S, Pulaha S., (eds.), The Albanian League of Prizren, 1878−1881. Documents, Vol. I, Tirana, 1878, 73−74. 
16.  Mitchel Beazley (ed.), Ilustrovana enciklopedija Istorija, Vol. 2, 1984, 190 (original title: The Joy of Knowledge Encyclopaedia, 1976).