|
Historical
Institute of the Serbian Academy of
Sciences and Art
Belgrade, 2000
Response
to the Book of Noel Malcolm
Kosovo - A Short History
Prof. Ljubodrag Dimic, Ph. D
Faculty of Philosophy
Belgrade University
Facts
And Interpretations of Education and Everyday Terror (Noel Malcolm,
Kosovo: A Short History)
The scholars and
professionals intent on getting at the heart of the relationship between
the Yugoslav state and its Albanian population have for decades lacked
both analytical research reports concentrating on various aspects of
the issue, and large scale synthetical attempts aiming at a general
perception of the phenomenon as a whole. In the last few years the picture
seems to be somewhat improving. Outstanding world historiographies now
"produce" historiographical literature dealing with the "Albanian
question". However, this literature, resting as it does on analogies,
stereotypes, general appraisals, "definite truths", simply
runs counter to crucial scholarly methodological conventions, obscuring
all kinds of truth. It complies with political commendations echoing
an irrational "infatuation" with the topic and, substituting
critical analysis of a historical phenomenon for subjectivism, annuls
the demarcation line between facts and their interpretation. On the
basis of such, "suspicious" knowledge, accusations are launched
with an "intolerable facility", political actions supported,
generalizations made, problems "understood", events "described",
generations of students "taught", decisions made. Hence it
is no wonder that tragedies are generated by a "literal implementation
of what one has learnt". The dominant political, ideological and
propagandistic discourse only occasionally approximates the scholarly
knowledge. It is on those grounds that that type of literature to which
the book of our colleague Noel Malcolm belongs, calls for a protest
on the part of the professional historian.
There are many things in Noel Malcolm's book deserving severe professional
criticism. In the short section "Kacaks and Colonists" alone,
numerous "stretched" theses and "adjusted" conclusion
of the author (that the kacak movement was as a preeminently political
phenomenon (?); that the earliest resistance of the Albanian population
was a "spontaneous response" to the revanchism of the Serb
army in 1918 for the retreat in 1915 (?); that military clashes in Kosovo
and Metohija in 1918 were on a large scale; that the Albanians and Montenegrins
in the district of Pec were involved in a joint resistance where 200
people were killed (?); that cruel reprisals were carried out by the
Serb army in January and February 1919 in which 6,040 people were killed
and 3,873 villages burnt down (?); that the kacaks represented as a
movement whose members were unarmed (?); that the terror on the part
of the authorities were the cause and source of the kacak movement (?);
that the cause for the revolt and rebellion was the "fact"
that Kosovo had never been legitimately integrated into Serbia (?);
that the Albanians, not being the citizens of Serbia, had a legitimate
right to disobedience to an authority which was "illegal"
(?); that the Albanians had had a "developed" school system
which the Serbian army uprooted (?); etc). In this review we intend
to critically analyze only two points central to the book Kosovo. A
Short History. After all, in similar forms - as assertions, axiom which
are self-evident, propositions which are accepted for granted - those
two points occur elsewhere in literature (both Albanian and Serb). It
is not our intention to underestimate Malcolm's "effort",
or to analyze the one-sidedness and propagandistic character of the
historical sources he uses, his "research methodology", or
the motives behind the writing of such a book. It seems to us more important
to draw the attention of the reader to the complexity of the processes
and the historicity of the events of which our colleague Malcolm voices
his "assertions".
Noel Malcolm is right diagnosing national discrimination of the Albanians
in culture and education. Yet, that story is simplified at best, deriving
as it does from an one-sided and incomplete analysis of the "measurements
and actions" which the state apparatus of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
was trying to implement in the education in Kosovo and Metohija. In
doing so, the author ignores the totality of the relationships of the
conservative national set up of the Albanian society, closed for all
external influence, distrustful in relation to anything modern on the
one hand, and on the other hand to the educational policy of the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia. Malcolm did not find it necessary to carry out a thorough
analysis of the patriarchal, clan and family relationships characteristic
of the Albanian population, of their life in the fis and the "household"
communities, of their spontaneous selfsufficiency and dependence on
collective experiences, common law regulations, forms of their internal
relatedness and solidarity characteristic of that patriarchal set-up.
Only such an analysis he could been enabled Malcolm to reach more reliable
conclusions concerning the readiness of the Albanian society in Kosovo
and Metohija to accept the state and its educational policy. Genealogical
yarns about their common descent, tradition, collective memories, legends,
ancient customs, clan consciousness, but also the existence of common
estates (pastures, forests, waters), as the material background of a
life uniting all blood clansmen into an economic community, the vestiges
of feudal and steam families (zadrugas) and the ciftci production relationships,
in addition to an extensive economy, the principle of a primitive exchange
of goods, and so on - these are only some of the additional elements
standing in the way of communication and making it impossible for the
integration of the Albanian society into the social, economic, educational
and cultural currents of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The existing historical
elaborations of those issues have also ignored the archaic views of
the Albanians, their ethical and moral norms of behaviour, general illiteracy
and the overall, the decisive impact of these on life style, thinking
and responses of the collective community. The institution of the ruling
and authoritarian stratum (agas, beys, elders), the exclusivist policies
of Islam, the Seriat. The Turkophile and Turkophone feelings among the
urban Albanians, faded cultural habits, the absence of tradition, the
influence of Italy, and so on, all these only reinforced the conservatism
of the Albanian national set-up and produced its antagonism to the state
as well as its distrust in every influence, including the educationalcultural
influence.
Was the Yugoslav state the only responsible factor? - As for this, perhaps
a testimony more telling than any other is an attempt of the Islamic
Religious Community to make education "the foundation and only
way to promote the religious and cultural principles of the sublime
Islam" among the Albanian population. A series of proclamations
to the Muslims in the South, some of them translated "into Albanian"
- into the Albanian dialect spoken there that is - "intended to
enable our imams in the South to make our Muslims aware of the outstanding
importance of literacy". It was emphasized that "the initiative
must be taken by ourselves", in other words, that the imams themselves
must do their best to eradicate the causes responsible for such difficult
circumstances, and that the "religious officials know best that
the Muslims themselves are the most responsible ones in this respect:
their failing to be aware and ignorance of the importance of education
as well as their serious prejudices pertaining to schooling." Only
second in importance were, according to the Ulema-Mexhlis in Skoplje,
a low economic level, poor functioning of educational authorities, insufficient
attention by religious officials and bodies.
What was the educational policy of the Kingdom (of the Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes) in Kosovo and Metohija like? For the state and national
minorities, the question of schooling and education was one of the decisive
questions - because it concerned the vital interests of both the state
and national minorities themselves. The particular political aspirations
of the state community, organized in a unitarian way and composed of
a variety of cultural and historical legacies, with its uneven set-up
of cultural and educational institutions (in the first decade of the
existence of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, in the wake
of former times, education was regulated by as many as 37 different
laws and acts), called for a school which would be able to carry out
its educational and cultural integration function adjusting itself to
new circumstances and at the same time safeguarding the interests of
the state.
The school was designed to educate young people in the spirit of national
unity, loyalty to the King, the Karadjordjevic dynasty and the fatherland.
That testifies that, in the educational policy, the statenational moment
prevailed over the "cultural-pedagogical" one. Through that
educational policy, the state and national interests were to be safeguarded
and two essential tasks to be accomplished: 1) the state language was
to be spread and its position reinforced, elementary literacy encouraged,
knowledge of the past improved, this being not merely a national but
even more a state and social-economic issue; 2) the faith in beneficial
effects and necessity of schooling, studying and acquiring of skills.
This conception of educational policy of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) did not differ from those of other European
countries of the time, not even from the educational policy in the Kingdom
of Albania. The educational policy vis-a-vis national minorities was
determined by the realistic politics of the state, so that the endeavor
to safeguard the State and national safety through schools and education
at the same time prevented the cherishing of national individuality
and national culture from being abused for political purposes. On the
other hand, national minorities, including the Albanian minority, found
that school and educational laws and their implementation were the "indispensable
basis and essential prerequisite for their own cultural and economic
survival and development".
It is also the duty of the professional historian to subtly analyze
and give an appraisal of the issue of the education of the Albanian
population. That issue cannot be either grasped or accounted for by
falling upon propositions and conclusions deriving from formaljudicial
norms valid in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The discussion
of that issue needs to include the reasons that determined the national
and state policies in education, an insight into the educational policies
of the Islamic Religious Community, a closer study of Yugoslav-Albanian
relations, a thorough insight into British and Italian Balkans policies,
an empirical comparison between the proclaimed and the real. In terms
of formal legality (internationally recognized agreements; St. Germaine
Treaty with Austria of September 10th, 1919; Minority Protection Agreement
of December 5th, 1919; state-legal obligations: the Constitution of
1921). The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was legally responsible
to provide its religious, ethnic and language minorities with "appropriate
privileges" in elementary education and, on "certain conditions",
the teaching in their mother tongue. That legal obligation, though,
lacking precision and clarity, gave the state authorities and legislator
the right to decide on the modalities through which the minorities would
be provided with elementary school teaching in their mother tongue.
Legally, that matter was never definitely settled in the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia. The "rationale of the state and national" policy
was accounted for by the educational authorities of the time by "vital
concerns of the state and the nation", by "vital concerns
on which the peace and development of the state and the nation depend",
by the "deficiency of the Arbanas (Arbanenses) teaching personnel",
by the "absence of willingness and desire among the Albanian population
for education", by the need to make, in the areas where "our
population" was for centuries subject to permanent oppression and
denationalization implemented by means of schooling in the language
of that state", to make education "sufficiently national"
in the areas threatened at one and the same time economically, ethnically
and culturally, and so on. Such a position was reinforced by the rejected
request on the part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
(Yugoslavia) to the Peace Conference that all the territories of the
Kingdom of Serbia should be exempt from the Agreement on the protection
of minorities and that its provisions should apply only for the territories
joined to Serbia (to the state of the the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
after January 1st, 1913). Considering the Agreement of the protection
of minorities as violation of her sovereignty, as an imposed obligation,
and as a burden which the great powers (England, France, Italy, Japan)
had not accepted as their own, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes endeavored, and in the case of the Albanian population succeeded,
in ignoring and overlooking the stipulations of that Agreement.
An insight into the archival evidence related to the cultural and educational
situation in Kosovo and Metohija in the early decades of the twentieth
century clearly shows that the claim that during the AustroHungarian
occupation the Albanian culture flourished and that the coming of the
Serbian army brought that "progress" to an end is definitely
untenable. Before 1912 in the area of Kosovo and Metohija there existed
state Turkish-language schools (Sibian-Mektebs, Iptidan-Mektebs, Ruzdis,
Idadias, Medreses) and national-confessional schools. Among the national-confessional
schools a special status was enjoyed by Catholic-Arnaut schools, in
which teaching was offered in the Arnaut language and Latin writing.
The status of the schools
in the Turkish school system was guaranteed by the circular De propaganda
fide (1880) by which the Vatican authorized Austro-Hungary to protect
the Catholics in Northern Albania and Kosovo and Metohija and intercede
with the Porte on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church in matters of
freedom of religion, the right of the Catholic clergy to religious service,
the right to repair the existing and erect new churches, as well as
the right to open confessional schools. Austro-Hungary maintained the
Catholic-Arnaut schools in Kosovo, Metohija and Macedonia through its
consul in Skoplje and the Catholic bishop in Prizren, using such educational
concessions to spread its political propaganda among the Albanians.
The Catholic-Arnaut schools were opened in Prizren (two for boys and
two for girls), Ziuma (provisional), Urosevac (for boys), Stubli (for
boys), Dakovica (coeduational), Pec (co-educational), Zlokucani (for
boys), Budisavac (for boys), Skoplje (four grade).
After the Balkan wars, in the years 1913-1915, the Catholic-Arnaut schools
resumed their activities undisturbed, serving the political purposes
of the Habsburg monarchy. It is striking that these schools did not
try to increase the numbers of pupils attending them (Stubline 18, Urosevac
12, Skoplje 36, Prizren 164). The Turkish state schools were officially
closed and state Serb-language schools were established instead. The
new administration did not manage to carry out its intention in full,
so that a number of mektebs, tekkes and other schools attached to mosques
and other buildings used for religious purposes continued their work.
In state schools all courses, except religious ones, were taught in
Serb. For Muslim children a preparatory pre-school grade was introduced
in which only the language was taught. Religious instruction for Muslim
children was in Turkish and Arab languages. Some statistics say that
2,245 Muslims attended the state schools in the new areas. The Austro-Hungarian
rule in Kosovo and Metohija was too short-lived (1914-1918), and under
almost unbearable, war circumstances, no "blooming" of the
cultural-educational life of the Albanians was possible. The rights
in education granted the Albanian population were solely of propagandistic
character. The Catholic-Arnaut schools continued to function as before.
For the first time, Arnaut-Muslim schools were established. Available
sources do not corroborate the claim of Albanian historians that approximately
300 schools of this type were established. A study carried out by the
educational authorities of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
in 1918-1919 mentions only a few Albanian-language schools using the
Arab writing. None of these schools survived the war. The same reports
mention a larger number of Turkish religious schools in which religious
instruction was in Arab (as "the holy language") and Turkish.
Responding to frequent demands of the imams in the South that Muslim
children should have at their disposal Turkish-language schools, the
Ministry of Education issued a special circular (September 3rd, 1919)
placing a ban on the "opening up of Turkish schools", which
did not mean closing up of the already existing ones. This circular,
signed by the education minister Svetozar Pribicevic on August 23rd,
1920, ordered that "all non-national schools… stop functioning
as of 1 September 1920". The aforementioned reports of the Ministry
of Education do not mention Albanian-language schools.
The state schools should also be mentioned. For the sake of "enlightening
the people", the educational authorities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
tried to contribute to the educational and political integration of
that ethnically heterogeneous area, by opening up, as soon as the Kingdom
could afford it, elementary schools and various types of elementary,
secondary and higher schools. In the regions inhabited by the Albanian
population, but also by the Serb population, the state established circa
1,4000 schools, 486 school buildings were erected, over 100 libraries
were put up, circa 2,000 teachers were employed. In 1924-1925 the schools
were attended by 14,415 Muslim and Albanian pupils. According to the
statistics covering 1927-1928, there were 72,243 male and 232 female
students of Albanian origin. In the schools in the Vardar Banovina (a
regional unit), in the academic year 1929/1930, in the classes composed
only of Albanian children there were 4,092 boys and 148 girls. The available
statistics show that these students received religious instruction in
Turkish and Arab, but also in Albanian.
In contrasts to state elementary schools, which attracted only a minor
percentage of the Albanian children of the school age, the Muslim religious-educational
institutions were attended by almost all Muslim children above the age
of five. The curricula of Sibian-Mektebs consisted of the basics of
Islam, religious ritual, the students were trained in the reading of
the Koran. In fact, in the Islamic world, Sibian-Mektebs are not considered
to be real schools but are rather viewed as a set of courses using as
textbooks the Koran (in the "holy", Arab language), the Koran
primer (in Arab), and The Conditions of Islam (in mother tongue), whereas,
owing to the age of the trainees, all necessary explanations and comments
are given in the mother tongue of the pupils. Such schools in Kosovo
and Metohija, as school supervisors have recorded, employed about 50
muftis and about 600 imams, "among whom none knows the Serb language,
but all were raised in a spirit hostile to us". This was why the
authorities were distrustful in relation to this type of schools. During
the dictatorship period (1931-1934), 451 new Sibian-Mektebs were opened,
and the same tempo continued during the next few years. Another type
of Muslim schools were medreses, in which teaching was partly in Albanian.
In these schools many books in Albanian published by the Albanian Muslim
Community were used. In 1927, the number of privately supported medreses
was increased to 73. The educational authorities reported that privately
supported medreses, "without which in South Serbia there is almost
no town… do not serve our state in the least" and that their
students had almost no knowledge of the state language. It should be
added that before the new Law and Statute of the Islamic religious community
were passed (1936), the educational authorities had an impact on the
teaching regime in the Muslim religious schools. By these documents,
only the Ulema Mejlis in Skopje became responsible for this type of
schools, for their curricula and syllabi and for religious instructors.
One should add that the educational administration annually provided
circa twenty scholarships for the Albanians, subjects of the Kingdom
of Albania. The Vakif Centre in Skoplje also granted a substantial number
of scholarships (between thirty and a hundred) for studies at the University
of Belgrade. All this shows that the cultural-educational emancipation
of the Albanian population was also under way thanks to legal activities,
in spite of the exclusivist policy of the educational authorities. The
state was not ready to meet the needs of this population of its citizens
to a larger extent, but, on the other hand, the Albanian society itself,
in the grip of its clan and religious conservationism, did not try to
communicate with state authorities. Under such circumstances, education
was clearly given a "national and political role" to an extent
exceeding the role adequate to it. To examine this phenomenon thoroughly,
to analyze it and state the findings of that analysis impartially, using
the universal language of science, that is one of the tasks of the profession
simply disregarded by Noel Malcolm.
***
Everyday life of the Yugoslav state in the areas inhabited by the Albanian
and Serb population abounds in terror. Noel Malcolm is right stating
that, but he is goes astray concentrating only one of its faces. What
do the surviving historical sources show? The crime typology in the
territory of the Third Army Zone includes as striking items: murders,
suicides, attempted murders, armed robberies, robberies, treason, espionage,
kidnapping, raping, banditry, arson, assaults, cattle rustling, property
appropriation, burglaries, frauds, disputes over land ownership and
property, insults, and many other things. Everyday functioning of the
civil and military authorities is strikingly marked by the mentioned
criminal acts. The crucial characteristics of political, economic, cultural,
religious and ethnic relations in that area are its day to day, precarious
nature.
The crime reports covering the regions, districts and municipalities
of the Third Army Zone, preserved only for the early four months of
1920, stress a high rate of murders. The names and crime locations indicate
that the majority of both the victims and felons were the Albanians
(Muslims). They represent as much as 78.3% of the persons murdered.
The number of murdered Serbs was also high, the available evidence showing
that it was 20.81%. Other victims represent only 1.16% (only in two
cases the victims were identified as Romanies or Turks). The total number
of the murdered persons included women (2.89%). The victims included
notorious outlaws and kacaks (13.29%), but also representatives of military
and civil authorities (9.83%). These included a large percentage of
the Albanians - municipal officials, village mayors, village commissioners,
gendarmes or their superiors (47.6% of all representatives of the authorities).
The available sources also show that the murderers were for the most
part Albanians. Their share in the total of the murders was outstanding
- amounting to 79.19%. Out of a total of the murders committed by the
Albanians, the majority were committed within their own ethnic population.
To be more precise, that share was 80.29% out of a total of the murders
committed by the Albanians. The impenetrableness and autarchy of the
Albanian society, a self-oriented and self-sufficient community, made
it almost impossible for the authorities to fathom the motives for the
murders. Nevertheless, in a number of cases, investigation found out
that the motive was blood feud (17.52). In a clan society, blood feud
is considered as a virtue serving to protect the individual and the
family, but for a legal state that the Kingdom of Yugoslavia tended
to become, it was essential to sanction the guilty and cut the crime
circle. The statistics say that blood feud was the motive for approximately
one out of three murders among the Albanians (3l.39%). The reasons were
debts, individual hostility, disputes, old hatreds, misunderstandings
and many other things.
Women were often the occasion for murder. Abductions of women, raping,
abuse of female members of the household, adultery, promiscuity, suspected
infidelity, immorality etc, were the offenses that the patriarchal Albanian
society sanctions severely. So it is no wonder that, in the available
sources, those offenses occasioned 4.38% of murders. Also frequent were
murders with theft as a motive, as well as murders committed for money,
arms, property, estates and anything else potentially leading astray
to robbery. The assaults on the representatives of the authorities and
their murders were for the most part motivated. More often than not,
they were acts of revenge accompanying disarmament campaigns and field
searches. The violation of law naturally led to the animosity toward
the authorities. A number of Albanians employed by the state was murdered
(3.65% of a total number). The evidence shows that the authorities managed
to arrest and sanction only ten murderers (7.30%). The others became
outlaws, joined bandit and kacak gangs, escaped to other parts of Kosovo
and Metohija or left the country and found a safe refuge in the neighbouring
Albania. So murders and punishment evasion were one of the essential
generators of outlawry.
A mixture of morals, beliefs and law is discernible in every action
of the clansman. BesÁ (word of honour) and disloyalty, guaranteed
safe travel and surprise attacks, conspiring with the fugitives (kacaks)
and refusal of "bread breaking" (a symbol for refuge offering),
the solidarity characteristic of the clan and fis as well as revenge
resting on the principle "blood for blood, two heavy wounds for
one death, a wound for a wound, murder for honour and face" - these
were different faces of the clan morals and law. That way of regulating
mutual relationships was by its nature in an irreconcilable conflict
with the positive state law. Only seldom, depending on the interests
of the moment and the status of the individual and his family, the state
was allowed to take legal measures prescribed against the criminal.
So it is no wonder that, in spite of the attempts of the authorities,
in certain districts (Vucitrn, Drenica) investigation was efficient
at least to some extent.
The evidence shows that the Serbs were the victims of Albanian murderers
in 19.71% cases. State employees made up a significant percentage of
the victims. Shooting at the Serbs representing the state authorities
was tantamount to shooting at the state, public order, laws, institutions
symbolized by those individuals. In addition, the murders of the Serbs
by the Albanians has been accounted for by such motives as greed, cattle
rustling, of arms and money robberies, land appropriation, intimidation,
religious and ethnic intolerance, stirring up migration, interfering
with the colonization and agrarian reform processes. The generator of
the terror over he Serb population was a combination of the ethics of
the clan society, identifying virtue with every action directed against
members of another clan (ranking from murder, kidnapping, promiscuity
and robbery to theft and deception), and the hostility in relation to
the state tolerating only the customs which are not in conflict with
the law, and religious exclusivity, as well as the enticing idea of
Great Albania.
Only 5, or 2.89% out of a total of 173 murders committed in the Prizren,
Metohija, Kosovo, Ohrid and Zvecan districts during the early four months
of 1920, were committed by members of the Serb ethnic population. The
available evidence shows that three victims of these were the Albanians,
and two were the Serbs. The investigations found that the motives for
the crimes committed by the Serbs against the Albanians were as follows:
self-defense, greed and the victim's status as a representative of the
authorities. The motives found in cases of the murders of the Serbs
by the Serbs were feud and revenge.
According to the reports which have been preserved, the authorities
also had an important share in murders. The Serbs were predominant in
the authorities enforcing law, but it was not unusual that on the local
level if was enforced by the Albanians too. The available evidence shows
that 17.34% of a total of murders were committed by of civilian or military
authorities. In 96.66% cases the victims were the Albanians. The investigation
reports say that the main motives for these murders were law enforcement
and implementation of legal obligations. The military and civilian authorities
killed 12 notorious outlaws and kacaks (43.33% of all committed murders).
No investigation was conducted of these cases. Three Albanians (10%)
were killed during defense activities on the part of attacked military
and police patrols. Twelve Albanians (40%) were killed on account of
their resistance in the course of disarmament campaigns, household searches,
for disregard of orders, and in skirmishes with the authorities. The
killings occurred when chasing outlaws, during household searches, assaults
on patrols, in attempted escapes, in self-defense, etc. One assumes
that during law enforcement there were cases of stretching of their
authority, arrogance, haughtiness, but in such cases no investigations
were conducted.
In 8.67% cases (10 killed Albanians and 5 Serbs) the perpretrators of
the crime were not identified - it remained unknown whether they were
the Albanians, the Serbs or the law enforcement agents. One assumes
that the motives of those crimes were for the most part greed, hot temper
of the victims and their mistreating of others, outlawry, immorality.
The bodies of the dead were found on the road, in the forest, in the
field, in the house, and the investigations did not identify the murderers.
The impenetrableness of the Albanian society did not make it possible
to trace the murderers, whereas when the Serbs were the victims there
were no leads which could at least determine the general course of investigation.
Plunders, robberies and thefts were a particular aspect of the terror
which burdened the life in the areas of Kosovo, Metohija and western
Macedonia. The available evidence for the first four months of 1920
record 206 offenses of the kind. Most frequently - in 69.42% of the
cases - the victims were the Albanians (in 143 plunders and robberies).
The targets of a high percentage - 25.73% of the cases - were the Serbs
and their property (53 robberies and thefts). Frequently, outlaws and
robbers also attacked police stations, hotels, courts of law premises,
state stables, religious objects, foreign missions, etc. In some cases,
out of revenge entire villages (such as Krnjine and Tucepi) were ravaged
and burnt down.
As a rule, the investigations did not make a record of the social structure
of the persons which had been attacked, robbed or suffered financial
losses. In the agrarian society, most frequent victim was the villager,
though in the towns thefts were increasing in number too. The target
was particularly the population of artisans and businessmen, in other
words those members of the population whose activities were inseparable
from travel and which, carrying along their goods and money, was exposed
the dangeur of being attacked by outlaws. A direct and indirect analysis
of the occupations attacked and goods robbed shows that the target of
the outlaws were artisans and businessmen (butchers, bakers, shoemakers,
barbers, cafe owners, etc.). Whether the Albanians or the Serbs, they
make up almost one third of a total of the victims of raids and robberies
(28.64%), which exceeds by far the percentage of their participation
in total numbers of the population.
It should be noted that theft in the clan society is considered as an
offense which is payed for with one's life, or as a virtue economically
profitable for the individual, family or the clan. If the goods had
been skillfully stolen from a member of another brotherhood or clan,
the person who committed theft was protected by his fellow clansmen.
There was no objective and impartial criterion for judging that kind
of offense. An offense which was not accounted for was not considered
as immoral. On the contrary, an offense accounted for stained the "face"
and honour of the clan and was subject to sanctions. The clan society
rejected with indignation the measures of the state authorities and
its attempts to have the objective criteria of the law define what was
lawful. The testimonies given during investigations or in state courts
of law never yielded expected results because the witnesses, observing
the customs, more often than not observed the interests of the party
in whose behalf they had been summoned and disregarded the purpose of
testimony - to reach the truth.
Anything could be the target of bandits and robbers - from barber tools
and leggings to stable manure. Cattle were their favourite prey. Especially
oxen were in great demand at illegal markets, so robbers most frequently
targeted them. A branchy illegal cattle market and established channels
of its appropriation, their transportation across the border and selling
them abroad, made the investigation results in the majority of such
cases quite meager. Horses and stallions, cows and calves, buffalo,
sheep and lambs, goats and kids, were also in demand. Hundreds and thousands
of heads of neat cattle and sheep and goats would simply disappear without
a trace. Businessmen were deprived of all sorts of goods. Food was also
in particular demand - flour, what, Indian corn. The prey included gold,
jewelry, money, construction materials, oxen hide, bed sheets and quilts,
dishes, carpets, laundry, clothing, footwear, pieces of furniture, arms
and anything else of value. The evidence shows that the prices for the
grabbed and stolen goods were different. The value of the goods and
money appropriated in the notorious great robbery of the well-known
Rajevic trading house in Pec was estimated at 250,000 dinars. As a rule,
a team of stolen oxen cost between 3,000 and 5,000 dinars, a cow - approximately
1,000 dinars, a sheep - approximately 120 dinars, 100 kilograms of wheat
or a bag of flour - approximately 120 dinars. In contrast to the robberies
in which businessmen or cattlemen were deprived of their food, money
or cattle in some cases worth even several hundred of dinars, there
were thefts in which the goods stolen was hardly worth several tens
of dinars.
The ways in which the bandits and robbers got their prey were various.
Ambushes and assaults on businessmen and travellers, cattle seizing,
burglaries, tearing down houshold walls and fences, breaking into courtyards
and stables, arsons, petty thefts and pick-pocketing were part of everyday
life. The most frequent assaults on the part of organized groups of
Albanian outlaws and robbers took place on the roads. They rustled the
cattle from pastures, committed burglaries, robbed tradesmen and broke
into their shops. Battallions of "organized Arnauts" were
expert in smuggling, blackmailing and selling the rustled cattle. The
starving soldiers grabbed food, broke into households and seized bedclothes,
laundry, jewelry. The law enforcement did their best to decipher various
handwritings of the culprits, yet these most frequently remained far
from the hand of the Law.
Knowledge is never final, but anyway its substance distinguishes it
essentially from "assertions" of the "final truths",
well "designed" and "wrapped" models, easy solutions,
facile answers.
Footnote:
1. The extant reports
cover the area of the Prizren (5), Metohija (4), Kosovo (4), Ohrid (4)
and Zvecan (4) districts for January, February, March and April 1920.
The most frequent first names and surname in the reports are recognizably
Albanian, but, due to the Serbian transcription, sometimes it is impossible
to tell whether they are Albanian or Muslim. - AJ, MUP, 14-181-677;
AJ, MUP, 14-183-677; AJ, MUP, 14-183-679, AJ, MUP, 14-184-680.
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