THE LEAGUE OF PRIZREN: RESISTANCE AND DIPLOMACY DEFENSE OF TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY 1878 – 1881

Besim  QERIQI

doi:10.24919/2519-058X.39.364970

Authors

Besim QERIQI PhD (History), University of Zagreb, Croatia https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1554-5284

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24919/2519-058X.39.364970

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to analyze the political strategy of the League of Prizren in response to the geopolitical shifts mandated by the Treaty of San Stefano and the Congress of Berlin. The study focuses on the League's transformation from a reactive defense movement into a proto-state organization that sought the administrative unification of the vilayets of Scutari, Kosovo, Monastir, and Janina into a single autonomous entity. The methodology of this research is based on a comparative historical method, triangulating two primary source groups: the Ottoman administrative records (decrees and minutes of the Sublime Porte) and the British Diplomatic Archives (Foreign Office consular reports and telegrams). This confrontation of sources allows for an analysis of the correlation between the diplomatic petitions sent to the Great Powers and the active military resistance maintained on the ground. The scientific novelty of this paper is to study transcends traditional historiographical narratives by analyzing memoranda as sophisticated instruments of modern diplomacy. The novelty lies in the argument that the League's success derived from the strategic synchronization of tactical military defense (notably in Plava and Guci) with high-level diplomatic lobbying. Although international power dynamics prevented the actual unification of the four vilayets, this interaction established the “political DNA” of Albanian statehood, providing the institutional and conceptual framework that preceded the events of 1912. Conclusion. The findings demonstrate that the 1878 – 1881 period marked the emergence of the Albanian factor as a pivotal geopolitical actor. While the Great Powers initially denied the Albanian national subjectivity and dictated a fragmented territorial settlement, the League’s systematic diplomacy and armed resistance prevented total ethnic dissolution. The unification of the intellectual elite across confessional divides institutionalized a unified national front that internationalized the Albanian Question. Ultimately, while the independence achieved in 1912 resulted in a territorially truncated state representing only a fraction of the four-vilayet project the political foundations laid in 1878 remained the axiomatic basis for national survival. This process found historical continuity in the efforts for self-determination that culminated in Kosovo's statehood in 2008, proving that political unity and administrative claims were essential prerequisites for international recognition in the face of systemic territorial partition.

Key words: Renaissance, Albanian League of Prizren, East Crisis, Treaty of San Stefano, Congress of Berlin, Albanian Resistance.

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