Department of History and Civilization THE IDEA OF NATION DURING THE ALBANIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT (1878-1912) Artan Puto Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Florence, February 2010 EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE Department of History and Civilization THE IDEA OF NATION DURING THE ALBANIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT (1878-1912) Artan Puto Examining Board: Prof. Arfon Rees (EUI) - supervisor Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (EUI) Prof. Nathalie Clayer (CNRS, Paris) Prof. Bernd J. Fischer (Indiana University) © 2010, Artan Puto No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author Acknowledgments The list of people whom I should thank for sustaining my work to the completion of my thesis is a long one. Many of them have helped me in many ways, direct and indirect, and perhaps they even do not know how precious it was their help. But, first of all I should thank my supervisor, Prof. Arfon Rees for his patience to reading the text many times and for all his support and encouragement during these long years. To him my very sincere thanks. I thank Prof. Nathalie Clayer for her help and discussions we had over Albanian history, which have helped me a lot. I thank also Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Prof. Bernd Fischer for their comments over my work. Special thanks go to the Center for Advanced Studies in Sofia, and to Institute for Social Sciences in Vienna, which hosted me for several months to work in the best possible conditions over specific chapters of my thesis. I would like to thank my dear friends Gerta Zaimi, Bulent Bilmez, Giuseppe Lauricella, all my family which was on my side during all this period of time, and my sister Luisa for everything. 2 Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………5 Chapter I: Historical background of the Albanian National Movement…..30 ► Tanzimat reforms (1839-1876) and the Young Ottomans……………….31 ► The major political events of late nineteenth and early twentieth century (1878-1912)……………………………………….38 ► The Hamidian regime and the main ideological streams: Westernization, Turkism and Young Turks…………………..…………44 ► The Albanian question in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ▪Albanian lands before and during the Tanzimat reforms….49 ▪ The League of Prizren (1878-1881)………………………….52 ► Cultural influences ▪ Foreign Albanian studies. Albanians of Italy and Greece…………57 ▪ The Albanian Diaspora of Romania, Cairo, Sofia and USA……….63 ▪ Romanticism…………………………………………………………..66 ▪ The Albanian alphabet……………………………………………….69 ▪ Different faiths and different formulations of the “nation”……….74 ► European Powers and the Albanian question. Austro-Hungary and Italy…78 ► Balkan countries……………………………………………………………….82 3 Chapter II: Pashko Vasa: Ottoman governor and Albanian romantic writer…87 ► Life of Pashko Vasa……………………………………………………………..88 ► The Ottoman Governor in an evolving context……………………………….91 ► The article “Albania and the Albanians” and the memorandum “The truth on Albania and the Albanians”……………………………………………………....103 ▪Ancient origins……………………………………………………………105 ▪ The past, the future and a national hero……………………………….110 ▪ A collective name and regional divisions……………………………….119 ▪ Religious divisions and the Greek-Albanian dichotomy………………123 ► Some considerations on his literary works……………………………….......131 ► Pashko Vasa in Albanian studies……………………………………………..133 Chapter III: Shemseddin Sami Frashëri, the Ottoman-Albanian intellectual….137 ► His “Albanian” contribution……………………………………………………139 ► His “Turkish” contribution…………………………………………………......140 ►Educational and cultural background of Sami’s Ottoman and Albanian works……………………………………………………………….......142 ► The allegiances of Shemseddin Sami Frashëri…………………………………149 ▪ The Ottoman and Turkish allegiance………………………………….....150 ▪ The Islamist discourse. Islam as civilization and identity………….........157 ► The political treatise “Albania what it was, what it is and what it will be”………………………………………………………………165 ▪ An old Albanian nation……………………………………………………167 ▪ Albanian Moslems as part of Europe…………………………………….169 ▪ The Albanian language……………………………………………………171 ▪ The Albanian purity and homogeneity…………………………………...174 ▪ Glorious past times………………………………………………………...177 ▪ Religion……………………………………………………………………..181 ▪ National virtues and landscape………………………………………..183 4 Chapter IV: Ismail bej Qemali (Vlora), the imperial employee and the national leader…………………………………………….188 ► Social and educational background ▪ The Vlora family in its local and imperial framework……………….192 ▪ The educational background…………………………………………..196 ► The nations of the Ottoman employee ▪ The Ottoman reformer in an Empire in crisis……………………….199 ▪ The Ottoman nation……………………………………………………203 ► From imperial official to nationalist leader ▪ The end of Ottoman patriotism……………………………………….213 ▪ The political ideas of Qemali in the Ottoman context………………226 ► Ismail Qemali in the new context of the Albanian question………………230 ▪ The Albanian nation of Qemali……………………………………….234 Chapter V: Faik Konitza, the cosmopolitan Albanian intellectual….242 ► The construction of the nation in the writings of Faik Konitza ▪The Albanian language………………………………………………244 ▪ The Albanian alphabet………………………………………………253 ▪The Albanian dialects………………………………………………...258 ► Religion…………………………………………………………………….264 ► Ancient origins……………………………………………………………..279 ► An “aristocrat” against violent methods…………………………………283 ► Albanian studies on Faik Konitza and his “Albania” review…………...291 ► Conclusion………………………………………………………………….299 ► Bibliography……………………………………………………………….313 ► Maps 5 INTRODUCTION This thesis aims to explore the way the Albanian nationalist intellectuals of the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century articulated the existence of an Albanian nation. The existence of such a nation assumed the recognition of certain values and, therefore, the entitlement to enjoy certain rights. The thesis concentrates on the work of four leading Albanian intellectuals and Ottoman imperial statesmen. It is thus a contribution to the study of the intellectual history and political thought as regards to the development of nationalism as an idea and ideology. The study of the nation in the Albanian context is intended to enhance an understanding of the dynamics of nationalism in the context of the decaying Ottoman Empire at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The study also has a wider theoretical dimension. It employs Western ideas on nationalism to study the particular dynamics of the Albanian national movement. But ideas developed in the west do not always correspond to the particular circumstances of the emergent Albanian national movement. As such the thesis offers a critical examination of some of the main Western theories on nationalism and through an examination of the Albanian case poses the need for a rethinking of some of the basic conceptions as regards to the development of the nationalist movements, in the context of a decaying multi- national empire, and in the context of backwardness where the national idea had to be constructed, and in which the role played by intellectuals was especially important. The articulation of the idea of the nation implies not only how these intellectuals look upon their nation, but also how they consider themselves in relation to it. In this sense we have also an identity problem involved or more accurately a problem of identities. The process of the articulation of the nation brings with itself a kind of temporary, intermediary phase, along which old, traditional identities intermingle with the newer ones, co-habit, clash, or became detached from each other. The examination of this process of differentiation and adaptation is another objective of the thesis. It is important as it provides an indicator of the degree of influence of the imperial Ottoman context, but also of the European one as well in shaping the conception and sense of Albanian nationalism. The problem of the national movements, on behalf of a would-be nation, could be the work also of people with multiple identities, whose main objective was not necessarily the demolition of the old imperial state. The plurality of identities among nationalist intellectuals 6 was the product of a specific political cultural environment, such as the Ottoman one at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries. Though apparently paradoxical, it is possible for people with overlapping identities to pursue the project of a culturally homogenous nation. In this study the nationalist activity of the Albanian intellectuals is seen as a movement seeking in first place to secure to the would-be nation a safe place in the framework of the old imperial state. In this respect, as the thesis will try to demonstrate, the perspectives of survival of the old imperial state became the landmark which determined the success, or the failure, of the younger national identity vis-à-vis the older imperial one. The thesis considers both options of the above dynamic, i.e. the prevailing, or failure, of the national identity over the imperial one, as part of an open-ended process that was not predestined to favor the national paradigm. Starting from the position of the present, we are tempted to view national history, in the expression of Nathalie Clayer, through “linear” and “finalist” optics,1 and as the natural ultimate destination of historical processes. Therefore, we often look at political entities,