Ethnic Albania is a given geographical area of the territory which is home to the Albanians. Despite the attitudes of neighboring countries this geographical area was and still is the birthplace of Albanians.The term 'Great Albania'is a concept especially coined by modern serbian propaganda,in order to establish the albanian populated lands,as a destabilizing factor in region. In Serbian political discussion, the entire Albanian national movement - from its beginnings with the League of Prizren in 1878 - is seen as a movement for the formation of 'Great Albania'.Prior to the Balkan wars of the beginning of the 20th century, Albanians were subjects of the Ottoman Empire,devided in four albanian Vilayets(Kosova,Shkodra,Manastir and Janina)..Ethnic Albania besides today's Albania and Kosovo also included parts of Serbia (Toplica, Sandschak, Niš and Preševo valley), Montenegro (Plav, Rožaje, Podgorica and Ulcinj), Macedonia (Kumanovo, Skopje, Tetovo, Gostivar, Kičevo, Struga, Ohrid and Bitola) and Greece (Tschameria-Epirus). All these areas were divided and administered during the Ottoman rule to four Vilayets (Kosova,Shkodra,Manastir and Janina). The Albanian independence movement emerged in 1878 with the League of Prizren whose goal was cultural and political autonomy for ethnic Albanians inside the framework of the Ottoman Empire. However, the Ottomans were not prepared to grant The League's demands. Ottoman opposition to the League's cultural goals eventually helped transform it into an Albanian national movement.The 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War dealt a decisive blow to Ottoman power in the Balkan Peninsula, leaving the empire with only a precarious hold on Macedonia and the Albanian-populated lands. The Albanians' fear that the lands they inhabited would be partitioned among Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece fueled the rise of resistance. The first postwar treaty, the abortive Treaty of San Stefano signed on 3 March 1878, assigned Albanian-populated lands to Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria. Austria-Hungary and the United Kingdom blocked the arrangement because it awarded Russia a predominant position in the Balkans and thereby upset the European balance of power. A peace conference to settle the dispute was held later in the year in Berlin.The Congress of Berlin ignored the league's memorandum, and Germany's Otto von Bismarck even proclaimed that an Albanian nation did not exist - later he declared he had made a mistake proclaiming Albania was 'just a geographic notion'. The congress ceded to Montenegro the cities of Bar and Podgorica and areas around the mountain villages of Gusi and Plav, which Albanian leaders considered Albanian territory. Serbia also won Albanian-inhabited lands. The Albanians,vehemently opposed the territorial losses. Albanians also feared the possible loss of Epirus to Greece. The League of Prizren organized armed resistance efforts in Gucia, Plava, Shkodër, Prizren, Prevesa, and Janina. A border tribesman at the time described the frontier as "floating on blood". In July 1878, the 60 member board of the League of Prizren, led by Abdyl Bey Frashëri, sent a letter to the Great Powers at the Congress of Berlin, asking for the settling of the Albanian issues resulting from the Turkish War. The memorandum was ignored by the congress, which recognised the competing claims of Serbia and Bulgaria to territories surrendered by the Ottoman Empire, and over those of Albanians. The League of Prizren feared that Albanians would not win their claims to Epirus to Greece, and organized an armed resistance in Guci (Gusinje), Shkodër, Prizren, and Janina. The San Stefano treaty was later superseded by the Treaty of Berlin at the insistence of Austria-Hungary and Britain. This latter Treaty, however, recognized the rival claims of other nations in the region over those of the Greater Albania nationalists.Failing to win their claims on a diplomatic level, Albanians embarked on the route of military conflict with their Balkan neighbours. Possessing a huge advantage with donated Turkish arms, Albanian military efforts were successful in wresting control of northern Epirus, however some lands were still ceded to Greece by 1881. The Prizren League had 16,000 armed members under its control, who launched a revolution against the Ottoman Empire after the debacle at the Congress of Berlin and the official dissolvement of the League ordered by the Ottomans who feared the League would seek total independence from the empire. The Albanian fighters were able to kill Mehmed Ali Pasha, the Turkish emissary, in Gjakova in August 1878. The League took over control from the Turks in the Kosovo towns of Vushtri, Peja, Mitrovica, Prizren, and Gjakova. Guided by the autonomous movement, the League rejected Turkish authority and sought complete secession from Turkey. The Ottoman Empire sought to suppress the League and they dispatched an army led by Turkish commander Dervish Pasha, that by April 1881 had captured Prizren and crushed the resistance at Ulqin. The leaders of the league and their families were either killed or arrested and deported. In August 1878, the Congress of Berlin ordered a commission to trace a border between the Ottoman Empire and Montenegro. The congress also directed Greece and the Ottoman Empire to negotiate a solution to their border dispute. The Albanians' successful resistance to the treaty forced the Great Powers to return Guci and Plav to the Ottoman Empire and grant Montenegro the mostly Albanian-populated coastal town of Ulqin. But the Albanians there refused to surrender. Finally, the Great Powers blockaded Ulqin by sea and pressured the Ottoman authorities to bring the Albanians under control. The Great Powers decided in 1881 to cede Greece Thessaly and the district of Arta.
Maps showing Historical Ethnic Albania
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
