In his book, Mourning Shores: The Untold Story of Albanians in Turkey and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1912–1923, Ryan Gingeras remains faithful to the distressing facts about the Albanians, highlighting the suffering and continuous hardships faced by this small Balkan population.
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Wayward and Unwanted Children: The Albanians and the Contradictions of Turkish State-Building
In early August 1923, the Turkish Ministry of the Interior received reports that 1,200 Albanians had gathered in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and were seeking entry into the Turkish Republic. They mainly came from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and were living in a state of "misery and suffering" while waiting to cross into Thrace. Eventually, they were turned back, though the Turkish Ministry requested that Bulgarian officials ensure their welfare.
The officer reporting on the case of Albanians crossing the border from Bulgaria made an interesting note regarding the Turkish state's refusal to permit these refugees entry. He stated bluntly that a large number of Albanians were emigrating from Albania and Yugoslavia, and at first, they were explicitly prohibited from settling in Istanbul, Bursa, and Izmir. Yet, over time, the state encountered difficulties in permanently resettling these Albanian refugees in designated areas or in preventing them from seeking residence in regions that had previously been restricted. For this reason, he said, the National Assembly decided to ban the entry of any Albanian holding an Albanian or Serbian passport into the Republic of Turkey. At the same time, space needed to be created for the "four hundred thousand Muslims and Turks" arriving from "Rumelia," an Ottoman term for the entire Southern Balkans.
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The situation worsened after the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, resulting in the arrival of half a million Muslims from Greece. Often overlooked in this period is the continuous migration of Muslims from other parts of the Southern Balkans, particularly from Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The main issue faced by the new Turkish administration was not just how to solve the immediate refugee crisis, but on what terms to receive the waves of present and future migrants. With the creation of the republican immigration and resettlement system, Albanians as a group would once again be singled out as undesirable.
Here's the English translation of the given text:
The position of Ankara regarding Albanian immigrants and refugees was first discussed at the end of December 1922, just over a month after the Ottoman Sultan's law was abolished. Throughout the following months and years, policymakers identified five potential segments of the Albanian population in Anatolia who needed to be addressed now and in the future:
1. Albanians settled in Anatolia before 1918 who were displaced due to conflicts between Greek forces and those of Mustafa Kemal.
2. Albanians settled in Anatolia before 1918 but illegally relocated to areas deemed unacceptable.
3. Albanians living in Anatolia who remained uncataloged or unsystematized during World War I and the Independence War.
4. Albanians seeking to emigrate to Turkey within the framework of population exchange with Greece.
5. Albanians continuing to migrate from Yugoslavia, Albania, and other areas to Anatolia.
Marmara South, once considered a reserved area due to its proximity to the Ottoman capital, had lost its status as a vital zone for state security. This change allowed Albanians to benefit from increased mobility in the region. This shift in relations between the state and Albanians indicated that the state now had a broader vision for integrating them into the republican society.
On December 21, 1922, the Ministry of Health in Ankara sent out a quite remarkable circular to all provinces that were now part of the Turkish Republic. It requested regional governors to determine the number and location of Albanian men and women in their provinces, as well as "the number of immigrants of that year," referring to Muslim refugees expected from Greece.
Greek authorities continued to deport thousands of Muslims from Çamëria, along with tens of thousands from Larisa, Langada, Drama, Vodina, Serez, Edesa, Florina, Kilkis, Kavalla, and Selaniku. Between 1923 and 1930, the arrival of these refugees in Turkey would dramatically alter the landscape of Anatolia. By 1927, Turkish officials had organized 32,315 people from Greece alone in the Bursa province.
In his final analysis regarding population exchange with Greece, Riza Nuri was not entirely satisfied with the results found. As a political activist who had formed credentials in Turkish regions before World War I, Riza Nuri was among Mustafa Kemal's strongest supporters (as well as his critics) and had served in nationalist governments during the Independence War. As Minister of Health for most of 1923, he had assisted Ankara's efforts to count and reorganize Albanians. In 1929, he published an autobiography expressing fierce opposition to Albanians, Circassians, and "other foreigners," whose rival notions against nationalism threatened the state. According to Nuri, the population exchange had had the opposite effect of what was initially intended, as thousands of Albanians sought refuge in Anatolia under the claim of being "Turks."
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Speaking about his participation in Lausanne Treaty negotiations, Riza Nuri expressed such views regarding the prospect of immigrants from Janina regions: "From regions like Janina, I don't want Albanians to come to us in exchange. These types have been among bandits and tyrants in our state, and have killed and pillaged our villages. Even in later periods... That's why we decided on the clause 'those to be exchanged are Turkish, Muslim, and Greek citizens'."
He was shocked and distressed to discover that among the refugees settled in Ankara and in "the best lands in Turkey" near Kartal, Pendik, and Erenköy in western Izmit, there were also Albanians. Besides the Albanians of Janina (who claimed to be Turks and Muslims), Nuri blamed Mustafa Abdulhalik (Renda), an ex-nationalist minister who was now governor of Izmit. Nuri accused this Janina native not only of being aware of the Albanians, whose movement was restricted, but also linked to efforts to return and attract Albanians to Turkey and the city of Izmit. According to his contacts in police stations and local offices in Bursa, Eskisehir, Konya, and elsewhere, he declared that Albanians from all corners of Anatolia had taken illegal routes, abandoning designated areas for resettlement and finding ways to reach Izmir.
A secret telegram from the Izmir Police Department confirmed that "all Albanians found in Turkey are gathering here. This will make Izmir Turkey." According to Riza Nuri, all this was the work of Abülhalikut, who was seeking to bring back all his fellow citizens.
From more than 115,000 Yugoslavian citizens who crossed the Turkish border between 1923 and 1939, both Turkish and Yugoslavian sources say that most were Albanians.
The reason for this new wave of immigrants from Yugoslavia during the period between wars was a direct result of Yugoslavian state policies aimed at harming and expelling Muslim populations. At the center of the Belgrade war against Muslim communities left in Yugoslavia was the southern Serbian region, an area encompassing segments of former Ottoman territories in Yeni Pazar (New Pazari or Sanjak), Kosovo, Skopje, and Manastir.
The pressure exerted on Muslims in southern Serbia was further strengthened by an active presence of Yugoslavian army units and paramilitary forces in the region. Armed clashes between local resistance groups and police units would develop throughout World War I and the early years of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This movement, primarily developed by Albanians from rural areas, became known collectively as "kaçak" (fugitive) or in Turkish as "escaped". Most of its leaders, such as Bajram Curri, Azem Bejta, and Hasan Prishtina, were former Ottoman officers and individuals who had previously opposed Ottoman rule.
Organized in small local bands, the kaçaks carried out attacks on Yugoslavian forces and police throughout the years leading up to 1920, hitting objectives in Gostivar, Gjilan, Tetovo, Korce, Kumanovo, Peja, Prilep, Pristina, New Pazari, and Skopje. According to statistics gathered by the National Defense Committee of Kosovo, an organization led by Albanian nationalists supporting the kaçak movement, by 1921, as a result of the violence exerted, 12,371 people were killed, while 22,110 others were imprisoned.
"The Albanian problem" in Kosovo and Macedonia had been at the heart of desires of Serbian nationalists since the late 19th century, representing in their eyes a cancer that needed to be excised before the Serbian homeland could become fully theirs. Vasa Cubrilovic, a Serbian scholar and one of the architects of Yugoslavian policy in southern Serbia, would express himself thus:
"The Albanians cannot be defeated solely through gradual colonization. They are the only people in the last millennium who not only managed to resist the explosion of our state, Rashka and Zeta, but also damaged us by pushing our ethnic borders towards the north and east... The only way and means to deal with them is the use of brutal force by an organized state... It is our fault that since 1912 we have not been successful in settling accounts with them - we have not implemented our authority with sufficient energy. We have not succeeded in assimilating them. If we do not settle accounts with them at the right time, within twenty or thirty years we will have to face a terrifying irredentism, the signs of which are already visible today. Without a doubt they will threaten all our southern territories."