One of the many Albanian myths is
that Serbian and Yugoslav communist governments both deliberately denied
Albanians educational opportunities and economic prosperity. In fact, Albanians
had equal opportunity in Serbian (1918-1939) and communist Yugoslav (1945-1987)
educational institutions. The only thing not permitted to Albanians in Serbian
institutions was education in Albanian language on the grounds that this would
require Albanian teachers who were educated in anti-Serb Austrian sponsored
schools (see: Perpjekja 3) and could not be trusted to integrate Kosovo
Albanians into the Serbian mainstream.
Perpjekja Part 6 deals with, not only Albanian education during the
interwar and communist periods - it also examines the Kosovo economy during the
Communist period.
Section 1 discusses Kosovar
Albanian education in Serb schools during the Interwar period (1918-1939).
Section 2 deals with Kosovar Albanian education in Yugoslav Communist schools
during the Communist period (1945-1989).
The evidence cited here is from
Bulgarian scholars Denisa Kostikova,
Galia Valtchinova and American scholar Julie
Mertus, Alex M.J Standish, all experts in Albanian studies. These scholars rely
on statements made by Kosovo Albanian terrorists, scholars and politicians such
as Hasan Prishtina, Sajmir Vokrri,
Pajazit Nushi, Shqipe Gashi, Zeqir Demi and Riza Sapunxhiu, ex-president of the SFRJ rotating presidency and
ex-president of SFRJ's economy.
SECTION 1: KOSOVO ALBANIANS IN THE SERBIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM: 1918-1939
First, we need to be clear that
not allowing the use of Albanian-language instruction does not constitute
'oppression' in the same way that Hispanic students in the USA do not receive
Spanish-language instruction.
The closure of Albanian-language schools that
Austria-Hungary had opened and assisted during its occupation of Kosovo in WWI
marked the return of Kosovo to Serbian control after 1918.
Denisa Kostikova
Shkolla Shqipe and Nationhood
Page: 157
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
Page: 53
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_157.jpg
How did the Serbs administer
Kosovo and what kind of opportunities for advancement did they provide the
Albanian population? To understand this, we need to understand that the Ottoman
Empire had just ceased to exist. Albanian Muslims had dominated the Ottoman
hierarchy and power structure. Under Ottoman rule, as Muslims, Albanians
achieved a territorial expansion: moving north from Albania into Kosovo and
Western Macedoni. Under the Ottoman
millet system, Albanian (and Bosnian) Muslims were the upper-class landlords
who had taxed Serb peasants and all Balkan Christians for 400 years. Even those
Muslims who were not feudal lords had 1st-class status as Muslims compared to
Serb and Albanian Christians. The Muslim Albanians had also participated in the
massacre of the Serbian army as it withdrew to Crete in 1916.
In other words: the Serbian
government had good reason for revenge attacks and maintaining Albanians in a
state of oppression, when we consider the oppressive role that the Muslim Kosovo
Albanians had played up to the late 19th century. The Serbian government,
however, not only did not oppress the Albanians, we will see from evidence
cited below that the Serbian government and later the Yugoslav government
allowed the Albanians unprecedented freedoms in education and political
freedoms that Albanians could not even enjoy during the Ottoman Era: when
Albanian education of any kind was outlawed in order to keep Albanians
primitive, ignorant and Turko-Oriental (see: Perpjekja 1).
Serbian schools were set up in Kosovo and their doors
opened to Albanians...
Education in Serbian-language schools was envisaged
as a vehicle for the integration of Albanians into Serbia as loyal subjects
(...) Albanian students entered a preparatory year to master Serbian, while
religious instruction was provided separately for Serbian and Albanian
students, taught by Orthodox priests and Muslim mullahs.
Denisa Kostikova
Shkolla Shqipe and Nationhood
Page: 159
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_159.jpg
The context within which this was
happening after WWI cannot be over-emphasized. Serbia had lost 1/3 of its male
population. The government was bankrupt after waging a defensive war against
two Germanic Empires (1914-1918), one Muslim empire (1912) and the Bulgarian
aggression to conquer southern Serb lands (1913). The bankrupt Serbian
government paid for schools to be opened for Albanians and also insisted on
allowing Albanian Muslims religious freedom, despite the fact that Albanian
Muslims were instrumental in oppressing Serb and Albanian Christians for almost
half a millennium. The spirit and attitude of the Serbian government can be summed
up like this, according to Albanian scholar Vokrri from his work: Shkollat dhe arsimi ne Kosove:
Albanian and Serbian students were to learn together
in mixed classes so that children:
"...would see they are no strangers to each
other, so that religious tolerance is
furthered and enforced and a gap which is
separating their parents still today, is gradually reduced through
children".
Religious instruction continued separate for Serbs
and Albanians. (Serb) Teachers were instructed not to force Albanian and
Turkish students to take off their traditional headgear...so as not vex their
ethnic and religious feelings.
Denisa Kostikova
Shkolla Shqipe and Nationhood
Page: 159
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_139.jpg
In other words: the Serbian
government pursued a deliberate and rigorous policy of reconciliation and peace
with the Albanian population after 1918: the exact opposite of the kind of
relationship pursued by Albanian Muslims toward the Serbs during the Ottoman
Era. Despite the fact that Austria-Hungary had further corrupted the Albanians
in Serbophobic schools, the Serbs were the first to offer Albanians an olive
branch of peace.
We will see later that Albanians
were not interested in anything the Serbs had to offer towards peace and
reconciliation. Instead, Albanian Muslims were interested only in causing
instability, an integral part of their group-strategy and claiming oppression
where there was none in order to acquire more privileges. The aim of these
demands was not to improve and better integrate the Albanians into the Serb
mainstream - but to use their rights as a platform to push for a Greater
Albania on Serb land.
Only 30% of schoolchildren of all nationalities went to school in 1930-40. In the Yugoslavia of that period, just Bosnia & Hercegovina had a worse record with 21% (...) 11 000 Albanians comprised 30% of all primary school children...
While repressing Albanians secular schools, the
Serbian government condoned the work of
PRIVATE Muslim schools
Denisa Kostikova
Shkolla Shqipe and Nationhood
Page: 159
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_159.jpg
We have to keep the statistics in
perspective. A large rural population kept 70% of Serbs out of school. For
Albanians, who were even less urban and more rural than the Serbs: school was
even less of a priority. It should also be remembered at this juncture that
Bosnia & Hercegovina, was +50% Serbian Orthodox before WWII. The fact that
Bosnia (which was more rural than Serbia but no less than Kosovo) actually had
a worse record than Kosovo (which was 70% Muslim Albanian before WWII) further
shows that there was no deliberate exclusion of Albanian students but that
school attendance was directly related the extent of urbanization.
Although this article addresses
education, word needs to be said about Albanian political freedoms under the
Serbian monarchy:
Albanian members of the Xhemijet, the party representing Muslims in Kosovo, Sandzak and
Macedonia demanded Albanian-language schooling in the parliament.
Denisa Kostikova
Shkolla Shqipe and Nationhood
Page: 161, 162
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_161.jpg
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_162.jpg
What is actually unprecedented and
noteworthy here is that the Serbian administration allowed, tolerated and
encouraged Albanian political expression and political freedom by allowing the
organization and participation of an Albanian-Muslim political party within the
parliament. This is yet another key fact that disputes Albanian claims of
"oppression" by the Serbs.
Albanian integration into Serbian
society on free and equal terms was hampered, not so much by the Albanian
people of Kosovo but by the Muslim Albanian nationalist elites (see: Perpjekja
1 & 3). These Muslim elites wanted anything but reconciliation and peace
with the Serbs. Kostikova quotes the interwar Albanian terrorist Hasan
Prishtina:
Albanian nationalists from Kosovo staunchly opposed
the education of Albanians in Serbian schools, for as Hasan Prishtina aid:
"they teach something else from what
we want our lads to learn"...
The educational policy of forcing Albanians into
Serbian secular schools or Albanian
religious schools in interwar Kosovo failed (...) Albanians secretly circulated
Albanian books in Serbian schools.
Denisa Kostikova
Shkolla Shqipe and Nationhood
Page: 162
Quoted from:
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_162.jpg
In the interwar period of Serbian
administration of Kosovo, Serbs taught: integration & multiculturalism, religious
tolerance, religious freedom, Serb-Albanian equality and free education to all
students regardless of ethnicity. The question is: what was it that terrorist
Hasan Prishtina had in mind? What was it that he wanted Albanian lads to learn?
Why were Albanian students accusing the system?
To answer that question, we must
look to how Kosovo Albanians administered their own schools, which finally
arose after 1992:
The teaching of Serb-Croat in Albanian schools was
removed from the new Kosovo curricula. At the same time, the geography of
Yugoslavia was replaced with the geography of Kosovo in primary schools and by
the geography of Albanian lands in secondary schools
Denisa Kostikova
Shkolla
Shqipe and Nationhood
Page: 167
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_167.jpg
In mixed secular Serbian-Albanian
schools the lessons learned were: integration & multiculturalism, religious
tolerance, religious freedom, Serb-Albanian equality and free education to all
students regardless of ethnicity.
In Albanian-controlled schools the
lessons were: segregation and cultural exclusivity, religious intolerance and
irrelevance, exclusion and intolerance of any mention of Serbs or Serbia in the
curricula.
...it also furthered
a symbolic national unification of Albanians, which a former Kosovo Albanian
official (Pajazit Nushi) identified as
an important element of an Albanian school.
The unification of curricula was "the fulfillment of an old dream of the Albanian people of Kosovo for a
cultural integration with Albania" (Shqipe Gashi: Shkollat e mesme te Prishtines). The publishing of
joint school textbooks to b used in
Kosovo and Albania followed it.
Shkolla Shqipe and Nationhood
Page: 168
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_168.jpg
Nushi and Gashi give us insight
into Albanian opposition to mixed Serbian-Albanian schools: the indoctrination
of Kosovo Albanians with Greater Albanian ideology. Equality of Serbs and
Albanians was not the goal of Albanian nationalists and it never could be
because the Albanian nationalist elites are always composed of ancestral
Muslims. There is no amount of fairness that the Serbs could attempt that would
satisfy Albanian nationalists.
The Albanian population of Kosovo
descends from Albanian Ghegh Muslim colonists who entered Kosovo from northern
Albania during the Ottoman era and expelled the Serb majority that had been
living there since before the Middle Ages (LINK).
The ancestors of the Albanian population of Kosovo were instrumental in the
ethnic cleansing of Serbs and oppression of all Christians (including Albanian
Christians; see: Perpjekja 3), contributing largely to the Ottoman state with
innumerable soldiers, officials and over 40 viziers of Albanian origin. There
is no basis upon which to believe that Serbs ever victimized Albanians during
the Ottoman or Medieval period. But that does not stop Albanian nationalists
from making bogus claims.
Finally, one thing that should absolutely
vindicate the Serbian monarchy, even on the issue of the extent to which they
encouraged Albanian cultural expression is an article by Albanian scholar Zecir
Demi, quoted and analyzed by Kostikova found in the footnote below:
...the response of the Albanian education officials indicate that the Serbian curricula
planned the inclusion of educational content that would allow the expression of
Albanian national identity but reduced its volume...
Denisa Kostikova
Shkolla
Shqipe and Nationhood
Page: 164
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_164.jpg
SECTION 2: KOSOVO ALBANIANS IN THE YUGOSLAV COMMUNIST SCHOOL SYSTEM
1945-1989
The position taken here is that
Communist Yugoslavia was a Croat-Slovene group strategy that enlisted the help
of Albanian and Bosnian Muslims as well as disloyal and opportunistic Serbs,
from its founding in 1945 until the Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution of 1989 that
saw Milosevic purge the League of Communists of Serbia of such members (see:
Project Anzulovic 1 and 2). In this section, we will address the ludicrous
claims by Albanian nationalists that Communist Yugoslavia ever oppressed
Albanians, either during Tito's lifetime or any time afterwards.
Alleging 'oppression' of Albanian
culture has been the greatest tool of the ancestral Muslim Albanian nationalist
elites for rousing the most backward segments of the Albanian population. What
is a fascinating example of Albanian mass hysteria and blind stupidity is that
such arguments can be easily refuted and dispelled by the experience of any
Albanian student living in Kosovo before 1989:
(Pristina) University specialized in liberal arts, in particular in Albanian literature and culture
(...) Also, lacking a sufficient supply and breadth of Albanian-language
textbooks in these subjects, the high schools and universities imported texts
from Albania. Given Albania's different ideological bent, these texts necessarily
included ideological and philosophical undercurrents contrary to those produced
in Yugoslavia.
Julie Mertus
Kosovo:
How Myths and Truths Started a War
Page: 28
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_mertus_28.jpg
Let us put this in perspective.
Within Communist Yugoslavia:
1. Albanians had an
Albanian-language university specializing in Albanian literature and culture.
2. Albanians were permitted to import textbooks published by Enver Hoxha's Albania, which openly sought the destruction of Yugoslavia.
Enver Hoxha was both the principal subject of
socialist Albanian myth-making, as well as being himself the principal
myth-maker and author...of the essential texts of Albanian Marxism-Leninism
M.J Alex Standish
Enver Hoxha's Role in the
Development of Socialist Albanian Myths
Page: 116
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_116.jpg
This is more than Albanians ever
could have dreamed of having under the Serbian monarchy's school system. Not
only that but Hispanics in the United States of America to this very day do not
enjoy such privilege and nobody is about to label them as 'oppressed' by the
white majority, which itself is in decline. That would be absurd.
In section 1, we learn that
Albanian claims of 'oppression' are a smoke screen for pursuing Serbophobia and
carving a Greater Albania out of land that Albanians only recently colonized at
the expense of the majority Serb population, while Serbs made honest attempts
in the inter-war period to achieve equality and integration of the Albanians
into mainstream society.
In section 2, we learn that
Kosovo's economy was mismanaged by unqualified Albanian authorities (installed
by Tito after '68) and that these authorities pursued a policy of ethnic
cleansing against the Serb population that had survived Albanian oppression in
Ottoman Times and WWII.
In section 3, we learn that
Albanians had every opportunity for cultural advancement even to the point of
being allowed to import textbooks from a country that was unofficially at war
with Yugoslavia and the Serb people and that the Serbian monarchy considered
adding Albanian cultural content; something on which it reneged when it saw
that Albanians were not interested in peaceful co-existence.
Albanian claims of
"oppression" in the Yugoslav communist system and under the Serbian
monarchy are baseless and are nothing more than a smokescreen for the Muslim
Albanian nationalist elites to promote Serbophobia, instability and separatism
in order to maintain their grip on power
.
POSTSCRIPT:
LITERACY & INTELLECTUALITY IN THE BALKANS
HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SERB DOMAINS
Here is Bulgarian scholar G.
Valtchinova quoting an early 20th century French geographer:
The French geographer Jacques Ancel observed in the
1920s that, for the inhabitant of the central Balkans: the merchant was a
Greek, the Sheppard was a Vlach, the ploughman was a Bulgarian and the
INTELLECTUAL was a Serb... The association of the intellectual with Serb and
with the monk includes a relationship between Slav (Serb) literacy and clergy.
Galia Valtchinova
Page: 113
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd
J. Fischer
http://geocities.datacellar.net/aia_skenderbeg/faqe_113.jpg
The Serbian traditions of extreme
intelligence, literacy and intellectuality are still alive in modern living
Serbs:
