Albanian Religious Tolerance: The History Beyond the Myths

In a stark representation of Albanian religious harmony, an Imam (left) and a Priest (right) from Shkodra are pictured closely together. The photo was published in 1873 as part of the collection titled ‘Les Costumes populaires de la Turquie en 1873’ [Folk Costumes inTurkey in 1873].

The Balkan states are well-known for the widespread interethnic and interreligious conflict which has characterized the region’s historical and sociopolitical development for centuries. Religious conflict is of course by no means an exclusively Balkan phenomenon; it has historically been a root cause behind many of humanity’s greatest tragedies, fuelling wars, persecution and division across the globe, and it continues to be a destabilizing factor in the present day. However, in contrast to their neighbors and the rest of the world, the Albanians have displayed a remarkable degree of religious unity. Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox and, more recently, atheist and agnostic Albanians have co-existed for centuries as a single ethnic group with a shared language, origin and culture.

This religious coexistence is among the nation’s defining characteristics and functions as a major point of pride. As I will argue here, it has also been integral to the nation’s survival, particularly in a region where neighboring states have historically sought to assimilate or forcefully eliminate the Albanian identity. Some attribute this coexistence to the fact that Albania became the world’s first constitutionally atheist state in 1967 under the rule of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, long enforced by particularly brutal anti-religious measures, but the roots run far deeper. Albanian communities that did not fall within the Hoxhaist state’s borders share this same religious tolerance and historical documents clearly attest to long-standing cooperation between the different religious groups.

The primary cause for this coexistence is the fact that the Albanian national identity is based on a shared language, culture and broad historical genetic continuity that ties its people together. This stands in stark contrast to many other Balkan ethnic groups whose identity is generally inseparable from a certain religion: for the most part, Greeks must be Greek Orthodox, Serbs must be Serb Orthodox, Croats must be Catholics, Bosniaks must be Muslim and so on. For Albanians, cultural ties and loyalty to kin have generally stood above any affiliations that may have proven divisive, especially in the period of national identity formation.

However, in recent times, we have seen a rise in divisive rhetoric within Albanian communities and on social media that is driven largely by imported ideologies and external influences which have little to do with Albanian history or identity. These narratives attempt to pit Albanians against one another based on religious grounds, eroding the cohesion that has made possible the dream of a modern state and similar accomplishments. As such, it has become ever more important to revisit the historical record and achieve a closer understanding of the foundations of this religious unity, and what distinguishes it from the fragmentation that has undermined cohesion elsewhere in the region.

The purpose of this article is to outline the cooperation and coexistence between the different religious groups in Albanian society through historical documentation and key events. While much can be written separately about religious harmony in Albania from the Declaration of Independence onwards, this article will focus on the time period leading up to 1912.

1. Coexistence in Historical Documentation

“The Albanians, though divided into three rites (religions), nonetheless form only one people.”

• Ami Boué, La Turquie d’Europe [European Turkey] (1840), Vol. II, p. 495

Historically, Albanians from differing religious backgrounds have coexisted as a single ethnolinguistic community well before the rise of modern nationalism. This is evidenced by the writings of travellers, diplomats and scholars who visited Albanian-inhabited regions across the centuries and recorded details on their customs and society.  These came primarily in the Ottoman period, which saw extensive conversion to Islam for varied — often economic — reasons.

Muslim and Christian Albanians often belonged to the same tribes (fis) and, occasionally, even the same extended families; they married one another relatively freely, shared customary law, collaborated in times of war and forged alliances independent of religious affiliation. In many regions, households of different faiths lived side-by-side under the same tribal structures that governed much of Albanian society.

A prominent example can be found among the northern Albanian tribes of the Kelmendi, Gruda, Hoti, Kastrati, Shkreli, and Rrjolli in the Great Highlands (Malësia e Madhe) which are predominately Catholic with a Muslim minority, whereas the Lohja and Reçi tribes of the same region are primarily Muslim with a Catholic minority. In the Pult region of the North, the Plani, Xhani, Kiri and Suma are all largely Catholic tribes with substantial Muslim minorities, as are the Nikaj and Mërturi of the Gjakova Highlands, the Qerreti and Thaçi of Puka, the Selita of the border region between Mirdita and Lura, and the Bushkashi of the Mati region. The Kabashi tribe of Puka are made up of a Muslim majority and a Catholic minority, as are the six bajraks (tribal groupings) of Mati, two of Has and four of Lura.

Such religious distinctions have not proven to be sources of conflict within these tribes, and it is not uncommon for their branches to include both Catholic and Muslim members within a single family.

Map depicting the traditional tribal regions of the Albanian North in the mid-20th century. Map made and published on Wikimedia by Ahmet Q.

Interreligious Marriages

Some regions are inhabited by tribes that belonged overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, to a single religion. For example, the tribes of Mirdita, as well as the Shala and Shoshi of the Dukagjin Highlands, were entirely Catholic and fiercely resisted any attempts at conversion or Muslim settlement. Other tribes, such as the Krasniqi of the Gjakova Highlands, were occasionally labelled by contemporary writers and travellers as “fanatical” Muslims. Nonetheless, such tribes — despite being regarded as more religiously rigid than others — had no qualms about collaborating or co-existing with Albanians of other faiths when circumstances required.

Tellingly, Mirditors, for example, would often carry off Muslim women from surrounding regions to marry them, a practice sometimes accompanied by a sum of money as reimbursement to the woman’s family. It is important to note that Albania — like the rest of the world — was centered around a deeply patriarchal society, and certain cultural practices should be understood within their social and temporal context. Taking or purchasing brides from other tribes was a longstanding archaic social custom, but these practices have gradually disappeared as Albanian society developed and modernized.

“The old man of Shoshi” illustration of a tribe elder by Edith Durham, found in her classic book High Albania. (1909)

Religious intermarriage was not as rare as one might assume. This was frequent as early as the 17th century, both between the two prominent Christian traditions, Catholics and Orthodox, and with Muslims. The child was typically raised in the faith of the father. The Muslim Gashi and Krasniqi tribes of the Gjakova Highlands would often marry Catholic women from the neighbouring Mërturi tribe, and in the Lura region, the intermarriage of Christians and Muslims was rather common. At the beginning of the 20th century, half of the Catholic men of Kastrati were married to women from predominantly Muslim tribes.

Importantly, discord and hostility surrounding religious intermarriage was generally the result of external pressures rather than Albanian societal norms. In the Ottoman period, the Catholic Church threatened those who married Muslims with excommunication, and in 1893, 50 families from Mërturi faced this fate because their daughters had married Muslims. Both Nikaj and Mërturi families would continue marrying their daughters to Muslim Albanians despite the threat of excommunication, and although a previous bajraktar (tribal chieftain) of the Nikaj declared a law that those who sold their daughters to a Muslim would see their houses burned down, the rule was never enforced. Likewise, the Orthodox Patriarchs in the South forbade and opposed marriages between their coreligionists and Muslim Albanians. Nonetheless, marriages of the sort were still quite common, particularly in the 17th century.

Additionally, the Ottomans attempted to impose Ottoman family law — which was based on the Islamic Sharia tradition — onto Albanian society. Regardless, many of the rules and regulations outlined by Sharia law were largely ignored by Muslim Albanians and tribes which predominantly belonged to the faith, who instead broadly adhered to Albanian customary law as dictated by the Kanun. For example, Sharia law prohibited Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men, whereas Albanian customary law placed no such restriction. Similarly, Christians who had relationships with Muslims were to be punished by execution if they did not convert to Islam, which was likewise routinely disregarded. Consequently, interreligious marriages remained relatively common up until the second half of the 19th century, enabling different religious groups to maintain cordial relations with one another and to better resist the assimilatory pressures of foreign religious institutions through these connections.

Nonetheless, the efforts by religious institutions eventually led to a decline in interreligious marriages by the beginning of the 20th century. They increased again, however, in subsequent decades and remain relatively prevalent to this day.

Coexistence in Everyday Life

Cooperation and coexistence in everyday life between different religious groups was not uncommon, as documented by numerous travellers who journeyed to Albania. Henry Fanshawe Tozer (1829-1916), a British writer who journeyed throughout the Balkans and beyond, recorded a beautiful observation of Albanian religious harmony - he wrote that the Albanians were “reputed to allow the sentiment of nationality to prevail over that of creed; so much so that at Easter the Mahometan (Muslim) shepherds undertake to guard the flocks of the Christians, while at the (Muslim Eid) Bairam the Christians do the same for the Mahometans.”

Edith Durham (1863-1944), a much-respected British Albanophile and author also recorded many instances of religious coexistence. She recounted the following tale of sworn brotherhood, told to her by a Catholic Albanian.

''I travelled through a dangerous part with a young Moslem. We became great friends. He asked me to be his brother. I asked leave of my father (the head of the household). He said it was a very good family to be allied with. We waited a short time. Then, as we still both wished it, we met, and each tied a string round his little finger tightly till it swelled, pricked the finger, and let the blood drop on to a lump of sugar. I ate his lump, he ate mine. We swore brotherhood. We were of the same blood. We gave each other beautiful socks in patterns, and I went to dinner at his house. He is dead now, but his brothers are my brothers, and our children are cousins. Of course they cannot marry, they are of the same blood. They cannot marry for more than a hundred years."

Durham noted many other instances of peaceful coexistence. Of the Gruda, who at the time of her travels were half Muslim, she wrote that there was “no difficulty” between them and the Christians. Regarding the Arrëni, a Muslim Albanian tribe from the Luma region, she wrote that they would still put crosses in their maize fields as a form of protection or sacred blessing. Durham also recounts her invitation to visit Vuthaj, a Muslim Albanian village of the Kelmendi tribe, by a prominent local who was staying at the home of a Catholic headman in Okol, a neighborhood of Theth. This man had warmly greeted the local priest (Durham’s travelling companion) and immediately offered to guarantee the Christian travellers’ safety whilst in Vuthaj. Durham’s party was warmly received by the locals and at one point the Muslim hosts shared some alcoholic raki with their Christian visitors, and, as a sign of respect, drank the first glass accompanied by the salute: “Kjoftë lavduar Krishti” (“praise be to Christ”). The preeminence of hospitality (mikpritje) in Albanian culture was such that it took precedence over religious laws.

A photograph of a young Sworn Virgin accompanied by men of the Kelmendi tribe, at Selca in Kelmendi tribal territory, taken by Edith Durham in 1908.

Moderation in Religious Interpretation

As indicated above, Albanians historically prioritized their culture over faith. Although a handful of Albanians today express extremist religious rhetoric on social media, historically these communities were not particularly devout, let alone fanatical, and were known for their flexible interpretations of both Islam and Christianity. Religion neither overrode custom nor supplanted tribal law as provided by the Kanun.

Additionally, due to the fact that Albanians were largely illiterate up until the 20th century, there was no widespread knowledge or societal focus on theology. As put best by Edith Durham, “the teachings of Islam and of Christianity, the Sheriat and Church law, all have to yield to the Canon (Kanun) of Lek.” For example, bloodfeuding (gjakmarrje) — sanctioned and demanded by the Kanun but heavily discouraged by Muslim and Christian institutions alike — remained rife and destructive in Albanian society, heavily affecting regions of both faiths. The constant interventions of imams (hoxhas) and priests were largely ineffective in curbing the practice, which was only reduced through concentrated Albanian governmental and sociocultural efforts, such as the intense crackdown by the Hoxhaist regime or the conciliatory meetings led by Anton Çeta in the 1990s in Kosova.

Another historical — and extinct — tradition in Albanian society was a form of polygamy, in which both Muslim and Christian Albanians would sometimes take on the widows of brothers or cousins as a second wife or concubine. Traditionally, it was considered dishonourable to force a woman out to live alone, particularly when she had children to raise. As such, the deceased husband’s family would keep the widow in the house by marrying her to the deceased’s brother or cousin. Another kind of polygamy permitted by Albanian customary law was the practice of taking on a second wife with equal rights if the first could not produce a male heir. These practices were vehemently opposed by Christian officials who presided over parishes and churches in rural regions and some individuals were even excommunicated for perpetuating them. Nonetheless, they persisted, though they have been rendered obsolete in modern Albanian society.

Travellers would regularly comment on the Albanians’ utter disregard for religious institutions and practices. The writings of Pietro Stefano Gaspari, a Catholic official who travelled across the Highlands (Malësia) in the years 1671 and 1672 to report on the situation of the region’s Albanian Catholics, provide evidence of this lax outlook. On the Catholic tribes of Pult, he wrote that they were “so ignorant that they know neither the Lord’s Prayer nor the Ave Maria” and that “few of them bother to keep the Vigils and forty days of fasting over Lent,” describing the Plani tribe in particular as having “gone so astray from the Lord”. He recorded that many tribesmen from Hoti and Kastrati were “buried without cross and candle.”

A photograph of two men from the Plani tribe in Pult taken by Edith Durham in 1908.

When travelling through the Lezha and Mirdita regions, Gaspari described the Albanian Catholic clergy and the local parishioners as religiously ignorant and indifferent to church teaching. He noted many priests as barely literate, unable to write, neglecting to teach the Christian Doctrine and always armed with rifles and knives. Likewise, the Catholic Highlanders themselves are portrayed as knowing little of even the most basic prayers, rarely observing fasts or vigils and treating sacraments and ritual as secondary to tribal custom. These conditions were not helped by the vast distances between settlements, difficult terrain and the scarce resources and manpower at the clergy’s disposal. Far from a devoutly regimented society, such testimonies reveal that formal religion played a minimal historical or moral role for these tribes.

When Marino Bizzi, the Catholic Archbishop of Tivar in modern-day Montenegro, travelled through the Fani tribal region of Mirdita in 1610, he recorded observations that help reveal the realities of early modern Albanian religious life. The local Catholic highlanders raided both Muslims and Christians indiscriminately, and one Fani chieftain confessed to Bizzi that he had personally murdered “many of his people of every class,” often out of greed. Bizzi also found that this chieftain and another had long been living with concubines, openly violating Catholic norms. The women of the Fani tribe wore only loose cloaks tied in front, often exposing large portions of their bodies as they worked or walked. To Bizzi, this apparent lack of modesty indicated a broader neglect of religious discipline and morality; however, for the locals, these customs were simply the natural way of life, believed to be inherited from their ancestors, which they cited to dismiss his concerns.

By the 1850s, the situation appeared to have shifted somewhat. The French consul to Shkodra, Hyacinthe Hecquard, who visited the Mirdita region during this period, observed that although the Mirditors “understand only the ceremonial practices of our faith and have no idea of its moral teachings,” they had become “excessively fanatic,” rigorously observing all fasts and abstinence while looking upon those who did not follow suit as “infidels.”

Periodic instances of fanaticism and extremism occurred in both Muslim and Christian Albanian communities. One of the most notable examples occurred during the turmoil of post-independence Albania, when a series of uprisings in central Albania — led by the Sunni Muslim extremist Haxhi Qamili — sought to overturn the fragile new state and return Albania to Ottoman Turkish rule. These revolts failed to gain lasting or widespread support. Albanians of all confessions — Bektashi, Sunni, Catholic and Orthodox — members of the elite and otherwise, rallied against Qamili’s rebellion, giving much-needed breathing room to the fledgling institutions of the national cause. The Muslim Albanians of Kosova under Isa Boletini and the Catholic Mirditors distinguished themselves in their efforts to suppress the uprising. As this example demonstrates, when confronted with attempts to divide them along religious lines, most Albanians prioritized their shared identity over sectarian loyalties.

When describing her travels through Albanian-inhabited territories at the beginning of the 20th century, Edith Durham noted that the Nikaj  “obey[ed] not the laws of the Church to which it boasts that it belongs” and very rarely attended church. Additionally, the tribes of Nikaj and Shala, who were almost entirely Catholic, would give their children Muslim names. Yet this did not constitute an effort to obscure their Christian faith, which was widely known.

An illustration of the bajraktar (chieftain) of the Nikaj tribe by Edith Durham, found in her 1909 classic High Albania.

In High Albania, the primary account of her travels and studies, Durham observed that Albanian tribesmen were “Albanian first” and that the general population “never absorbed the higher teaching of either Christianity or Islam.” She noted that both Christian and Muslim Albanians harbored deep animosity for  Slavs, with Christian Albanians not sympathising with them as fellow Christians and feeling themselves much closer to Muslim Albanians.

Interestingly, this sentiment extended to many Orthodox Christian Albanians – such as the Souliotes – many of whom took leading roles in the Greek War of Independence. As reflected in Mark Mazower’s The Greek Revolution, a letter from the community’s leaders requesting assistance from the Tsar of Russia at the outset of the war described them as not having “anything in common with the other Greeks.” Mazower goes on to explain that they felt closer to their Muslim Albanian compatriots than to Greek Christians, although this sentiment shifted with their state-driven mass assimilation once Greece established its independence. In 1820, a year before the war, the uniquely independent Muslim Albanian governor Ali Pasha of Janina even formed an alliance with the Souliotes by appealing to their shared ethnic Albanian origin; the Souliotes served with his forces on multiple occasions despite a history of intense conflicts and even expulsion by Ali and his men.

Muslim Albanians, as Durham explains, were often enticed to convert to Islam not out of deep religious conviction but rather as a pragmatic response to the political and economic realities of Ottoman rule. Although the Ottomans brought a new form of oppression, their arrival had turned the tide against ever-encroaching Slavic threats, which carried assimilatory and discriminatory policies against Christian Albanians. Converts to Islam were rewarded with land, administrative posts, paid military service and a markedly lighter tax burden. As Durham noted, the Ottoman Empire “never troubled to teach [the Albanians] Mohammedanism (Islam) properly,” leaving them free to maintain their ancestral customs and identity even post-conversion.

In the mountainous tribal regions of the early 20th century, Muslim Albanians did not veil their women nor seclude them any more than their Christian counterparts, and women interacted freely with men. Men rarely married more than one wife, except in the previously mentioned cases of widows, and they paid no more attention to the imams than they did to the priests. Aside from prayers in mosques, Durham noted that she did not observe Albanians performing prayer or ablution, and that those Muslims who were more devout in their beliefs typically belonged to one of the Sufi Dervish orders, such as the Bektashi.

However, even this sect was not strict or fanatical in their behavior. The spread of Bektashism among Albanians was eased by its inherently syncretic character, which blended pre-Islamic and Shiʿiite elements with aspects familiar to Christian tradition. This syncretism was noted by Italian scholar and botanist Antonio Baldacci, who wrote about his extensive travels through Albanian territories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries:

“In the doctrine of the Bektashi brotherhood one often comes upon undeniable Christian ideas and practices that make them look like heretics in the eyes of strict orthodox Muslims. They keep the dogma of the trinity (composed of Allah, Muhammed and Ali). In the weekly gatherings held in their tekkes, they eat ritual evening meals consisting of bread, cheese and wine, although the latter is forbidden in Islam. They also practise confession and some of them practise celibacy, although Muhammed strictly forbade this religious practice."

As Bektashism became further established in Albania, many of its original symbolic and ritual components were gradually reshaped through local customs and popular Albanian traditions. Albanians were particularly drawn to Bektashism because of its emphasis on religious tolerance, respect for diverse practices and eased requirements. Bektashi tyrbes (mausoleums) not only venerated Muslim figures and holy men but also Christian saints and pre-Christian figures. A prominent example is Mount Tomorr near Berat in southern Albania, which is now the site of a tyrbe. Mount Tomorr is a holy place for both Christians and Muslims, and was first and foremost associated with pagan Albanian mythological figures such as Baba Tomorr, whom scholars such as Maximilian Lambertz identify as being the surviving remnant of an Illyrian deity. Today, local Christians climb the mountain on August 15 to honor the Virgin Mary, while Bektashi Muslims ascend it a few days later to commemorate the first Shia imam Abbas Ali; both traditions rest on the same ancient foundation. As such, Mount Tomorr stands as one of the clearest living examples of Albanian religious syncretism and flexible coexistence.

A photograph of Bektashi Muslim dervishes and Orthodox Christian priests in Albania, taken sometime in the 1920s. Photo found in the Albanian state archives.

Up until the political uncertainty of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, disputes between Muslim and Christian Albanians were generally the result of intertribal conflict or blood feuds, as religion was not a legitimate excuse for discord in Albanian society. It is only with the growing hostility of the aforementioned time period that Albanians of different religious backgrounds occasionally clashed with each other along religious lines. Nonetheless, these conflicts were ultimately eclipsed by the overall unity and brotherhood displayed during the Albanian National Awakening — or simply, the Rilindja Kombëtare period…

2. The Albanian National Awakening

“And do not look to churches or mosques; the Albanian’s faith is Albanianism! (E mos shikoni kisha e xhamia: Feja e shqyptarit asht shqyptaria!)”

• Pashko Vasa, O Albania (O moj Shqypni)

These famous lines close the influential poem written by Pashko Vasa during the era of the League of Prizren, a political organization that united Albanians of all regions and religions in an effort to prevent the partition of their lands. Vasa, a prominent Catholic Albanian statesman of the Ottoman Empire and an influential figure of the National Renaissance (Rilindja) movement, used the poem to call for national awakening and solidarity above sectarian divisions, which risked producing a fragmented Albanian population.

Often quoted but frequently misinterpreted, these lines do not suggest that Albanians should abandon religion, nor that “Albanianism” constitutes a religion. Rather, in the context of the poem and its political environment, Vasa’s message is clear: Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox Albanians ought to prioritize their shared national identity over a primarily religious affiliation that would prevent its full establishment.

By the mid-nineteenth century, a profound shift was underway in Albanian society. As the respected scholar Nathalie Clayer demonstrates in her foundational work on the Rilindja period, The Origins of Albanian Nationalism (Aux origines du nationalisme albanais, 2007), Albanian society entered the modern era with an unusual complexity: it was simultaneously unified by shared language, customs, kinship structures and territorial continuity, yet by this point deeply fragmented by religion, regional loyalties and local power networks. These overlapping identities — tribal, provincial, religious, social — often exerted a stronger influence than any sense of belonging to a unified ethnic entity.

This complexity made the emergence of Albanian nationalism more difficult than that of its neighbors. As noted earlier, Balkan national movements possessed close ties between nationhood and religious institutions, allowing their respective churches to act as both historical foundations and engines of national consolidation. Albanians enjoyed no such luxury. No single church represented all Albanians or could serve as a unifying national platform. They belonged to different religious institutions, whose spiritual and administrative centers often fell outside of Albanian lands and were deeply influenced by foreign powers. Yet, it is this diversity that made the Albanian national awakening an extraordinary one. Albanian nationalism emerged in direct defiance of the dominant assumption in the Balkans that religion must define the nation.

The Tanzimat structural reform period (1839–1876) accelerated this transformation. Ottoman centralization threatened local autonomy and disrupted traditional power structures, causing Albanian beys, tribal leaders and notables — Muslim and Christian alike — to recognize that their interests aligned more closely with each other than with those of the Ottoman state. The Tanzimat reforms produced detrimental consequences for the Albanian population, ultimately intensifying the social, political, economic and cultural persecution experienced by Albanians under the Ottoman Empire. During this period, narrow revolts initially driven by local grievances gradually expanded into political movements that expressed a broader Albanian consciousness.

Clayer notes that many prominent Muslims who initially identified strongly with the Empire began to reinterpret their loyalty as Ottoman authority weakened. Their early goal was not separation from the empire, but autonomous administration for Albanian-inhabited territories, so that Albanians — not neighbouring states — would determine their fate. Meanwhile, Orthodox and Catholic Albanians faced the expanded presence of the Greek and Serbian national churches, which threatened to absorb Albanian communities into their national frameworks. These acted as pressures on all confessions toward unity, as each group realized that only a unified Albanian movement could prevent the partition of their common lands.

A photograph of the statesman and author Pashko Vasa, taken sometime in the 1870s. Photo found in the General Directorate of Archives in Albania.

The League of Prizren Takes Shape

By the 1870s, Albanian patriotism had begun to assume a distinctly modern character, with the codification of language as the central marker of identity. Albanians had long spoken their own language, but the idea that this should define the nation, and that it be codified, standardized, broadly taught and defended, was new. Many Muslim ulema (scholars), Catholic clergy, Orthodox teachers, beys, merchants, scribes and poets all contributed to this end. Never in Albanian history had such a diverse group collaborated on a shared cultural project.

The League of Prizren became the organizational expression of this effort toward unity. The League was formed in direct response to the territorial threats posed in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) and the decisions reached by the Congress of Berlin, which sought to distribute large portions of Albanian-inhabited territory to neighboring Balkan states. Convened on June 10, 1878 in the city of Prizren in present-day Kosova, the League brought together an assembly of notables as representatives from all four Albanian-inhabited vilayets (Ottoman administrative divisions).

Clayer emphasises that the League’s formation was not solely a reaction to the machinations of the great powers in Berlin. It was the culmination of decades of shifting identities, political pressures and intellectual evolution. For the first time, Albanians expressed collective political goals in a national framework that centered on the following points: the protection of Albanian-inhabited territories, promotion of Albanian-language education, defense against neighbors’ territorial ambitions, and eventually the establishment of a single autonomous Albanian vilayet.

While diplomacy with the Ottoman authorities continued, the League understood that petitions alone could not preserve Albanian lands and that armed defense was unavoidable. Thus, regional committees sprang up across the four vilayets to organize local militias, tribal forces and volunteer units drawn from both Muslim and Christian communities.

The first major test came with the Great Powers’ decision to assign the mountainous regions of Plav and Guci to Montenegro. Refusing to accept the loss of Albanian-inhabited territory, the League mobilized thousands of volunteers under Ali Pashë Gucia. In what became one of the most symbolic military episodes of the time, Albanian fighters repelled Montenegrin troops at the Battle of Nokshiq on December 4, 1879, inflicting heavy casualties and preventing the transfer of those lands. Local Muslim and Christian tribesmen fought alongside one another, as well as volunteers from surrounding regions in Malësia e Madhe, the Gjakova Highlands and Kosova.

As an organized Albanian force had successfully resisted the Montenegrin attempt at capturing Plav and Guci, the Italian ambassador to Istanbul suggested that the Ottomans compromise by handing over the lands of the Gruda and Hoti tribes to Montenegro instead. The Albanians naturally opposed this “compromise” and the two primarily Catholic tribes were reinforced by other Catholic and Muslim Albanian tribesmen to create an estimated force of some 10,000 fighters. Led by Çun Mula and Baca Kurti Gjokaj, they clashed with the Montenegrins at Rzhanica on April 22, 1880 and successfully repulsed yet another Montenegrin attack.

This temporarily prevented the annexation of Gruda and Hoti, but the Great Powers subsequently decided to cede Ulqin to Montenegro. Once again, Albanian forces mobilized to defend the town from Montenegrin advances. Although overwhelming pressure from the Ottomans and Great Powers ultimately forced its surrender, the mobilization itself revealed the depth of Albanian national sentiment, as thousands of volunteers declared their readiness to fight in defence of retaining Albanian territory and control.

The League’s military actions were not limited to the North. In the South, League-affiliated committees coordinated resistance to Greek territorial claims, particularly in the region of Çamëria, where Greek forces and paramilitaries aimed to extend their influence under the justification of “protecting Orthodox populations.” Orthodox Albanian communities, however, repeatedly affirmed their Albanian identity and participated in local defense efforts alongside Muslims, complicating Greek attempts to frame the conflict along religious lines.

By 1880 and 1881, the League’s objectives had expanded beyond merely preventing territorial losses, as it now pushed for the autonomous administration of Albanian-inhabited vilayets as part of a single province. This was a position that the Ottoman state could not accept, marking a turning point at which the League transformed from an imperial-loyalist defensive organisation into a movement whose goals increasingly conflicted with Ottoman centralization.

The delegation of representatives from the Sanjak of Shkodra to the League of Prizren. The group consisted of both Muslim and Christian Albanians. Image taken by the photographer Pjetër Marubi in 1878.

In early 1881, the Sublime Porte dispatched a large Ottoman force to crush the League. Anticipating the confrontation, the latter’s leaders organized a general mobilization of fighters from across Kosova and northern Albania. Once again, both Muslim and Christian Albanians stood side by side in defense of what they understood as a national cause. The most significant resistance occurred at the Battle of Slivova in Ferizaj, where the Albanian forces, a few thousand poorly-equipped highlanders and local militias, attempted to block the Ottoman advance. The Ottoman army, consisting of approximately 20 professional battalions and around 15,000 soldiers with superior arms and artillery, was held off by the Albanians for four days, having to withdraw several times.

Eventually, the Ottoman commander Dervish Pasha launched a large-scale assault, which the Albanian forces resisted for several hours until Ottoman artillery turned the tide. It was during this battle that the resistance fighter Mic Sokoli is said to have famously sacrificed himself by placing his chest at the mouth of a Turkish cannon that was firing on his comrades. Despite the resistance that has long been remembered, the Albanian forces were ultimately defeated.

From there, the Ottomans marched on Prizren, the political and administrative headquarters of the League. They seized the city by early April 1881, and the League’s structure was dismantled; its leaders arrested, exiled, or imprisoned and its armed units disbanded.

Yet the suppression of the League did not extinguish the movement it had fostered. On the contrary, its defeat consolidated the idea of a unified Albanian national consciousness that transcended religion, region and class. The fact that Albanians had taken up arms not only against foreign invaders but against the Ottoman state itself — an empire in which most Albanians were Muslim subjects — demonstrated how deeply the Albanian national sentiment had become entrenched. The shared sacrifices of Muslim and Christian Albanians during the League’s final battles became a foundational element of Albanian national memory.

Cultural Consolidation and the Albanian Alphabet

Clayer also details how the decades that followed the suppression of the League of Prizren saw Albanian identity rebuilt and strengthened through new cultural instruments: schools, publications, literary societies, printing networks and — most importantly — a unifying alphabet. These years marked the transition from political and military organization to a well-coordinated effort to build a national culture.

The rise of Albanian national consciousness was inseparable from the spread of Albanian-language printing. The production of books, primers, grammars and especially newspapers created a shared intellectual sphere across all four vilayets. These publications were not confined to any religious group — in fact, the earliest and most active contributors came from all three — Catholic clergy and laymen from the Shkodra region and the diaspora communities of Italy (the Arbëreshë), Muslim beys, ulema, and urban intellectuals in Shkodra, Elbasan, Manastir, Gjirokastër and Istanbul as well as Orthodox teachers and merchants in Korça, Voskopoja, Kolonja, and the wider Orthodox Albanian diaspora in Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt and Romania.

Clayer stresses that Albanian nationalism did not grow from a single centre, but emerged from overlapping networks of writers, teachers and activists working in local contexts, often without central coordination. All of them, however, converged on the same conclusion: Albanian identity must be grounded in a shared language, not a universal religion, and to this end began work on the alphabet.

The alphabet became the most symbolically charged issue of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Earlier attempts at Albanian writing used a mixture of Arabic script by some Muslim intellectuals, Greek script by Orthodox communities, Latin script by the Catholics, and various hybrid alphabets. These divisions resembled the very religious fragmentation Albanian nationalism sought to overcome. Thus, the alphabet question became emblematic of Albanians’ attempt to construct a national identity beyond confessional lines.

Newspapers printed in Albanian across the Empire debated the issue intensely. This process culminated in the Congress of Manastir in 1908, widely regarded as the most important cultural milestone before Independence. Delegates came from every major Albanian-inhabited region and from numerous diaspora communities. Importantly, all confessions were represented, as the congress was attended by Muslim ulema and intellectuals, Catholic clergy and lay figures — including the Franciscan friar Gjergj Fishta as chair of the commission which decided on the alphabet — Orthodox bishops, teachers and community leaders, even two Protestant representatives and Bektashi dervishes, who played a particularly strong mediating role in the discussions that followed. It is clear that the Congress was not merely a linguistic conference, but that it was a nation-building event that demonstrated the ability of the Albanians to cooperate across religious boundaries without foreign mediation, which was a rarity in Balkan national movements and remains so today across the globe.

An image showing most of the delegates to the Congress of Manastir, including some of the best-known figures of the Rilindja movement. Muslim, Orthodox, and Catholic representatives are lined up side by side. Taken by photographer Kel Marubi in 1908.

The adoption of a unified alphabet based on the Latin script — designed to be acceptable to Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox alike — gave Albanians a common cultural instrument, a break from a past in which religion had dictated separate educational and literary spheres. Following the Congress, Albanian schools, reading societies and patriotic clubs multiplied across the empire. The dissemination of a standardized alphabet accelerated the formation of Albanian textbooks, locally run schools, patriotic poetry and song, and ultimately political committees advocating autonomy and independence. For the first time, a self-sustaining Albanian civil sphere was created that was neither Christian nor Muslim, but first and foremost Albanian.

The Road to Independence

The Albanian cultural awakening coincided with a period of immense instability in the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908, which had initially ignited hope among Albanians, quickly gave way to disappointment as its leading Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) pursued an aggressive centralizing agenda that clashed with Albanian demands for local autonomy and language rights. This was particularly bitter as Albanian supporters were integral to the Revolution’s success, largely driven by CUP assurances on the implementation of their demands.

Although the Congress of Manastir had by this time standardized the alphabet, the CUP attempted to suppress Albanian-language schools by insisting on Ottoman Turkish as the sole medium of instruction. Albanian communities, however, refused to accept this; in both the North and South, Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox alike opened private Albanian schools, funded teachers, hid books from Ottoman officials and smuggled printed material from Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Egypt and the wider Albanian diaspora.

Alarmed by the growth of such institutions, the CUP launched a campaign at “re-Ottomanizing” the Albanians. The crackdown was harshest in the North and Kosova in particular, where the local Muslim tribes had long been militarily powerful and politically autonomous. Turkish troops were deployed, Albanian leaders arrested, schools closed and arms seized, prompting retaliatory uprisings.

The revolt of 1910, centered primarily in Kosova, marked the most significant large-scale coordinated Albanian uprising since the League of Prizren was suppressed. The leading figures of the revolt — distinguished men like Isa Boletini, Idriz Seferi, Hasan Prishtina and Bajram Curri — were Muslim, but they received political and material support from Catholic and Orthodox communities in Shkodra, Mirdita, Dibra, Korça and Kolonja. The uprising was brutally suppressed by the Ottomans, yet this also failed to extinguish Albanian resistance. 

In 1911, the Catholic highlanders of Malësia e Madhe rose in revolt, led by figures such as League veteran Ded Gjo’ Luli. Still, the uprising was not an exclusively Catholic undertaking; Muslim Albanians from Hoti, Gruda, Kastrati and Shkreli — many of whom had also participated in the League of Prizren — readily joined their brethren. The famous Greça Memorandum, also known as the Red Book of Greça, was co-drafted by future Prime Minister Ismail Qemali and Luigj Gurakuqi during the revolt. Issued that year, it articulated numerous national demands, including Albanian-language schooling, the use of the Albanian alphabet, local autonomy, and modern political and civil rights.

Image of Sali Hida Hoxha (seated left) — a Muslim Albanian imam and activist — and Luigj Gurakuqi (seated right), a Catholic Albanian activist, with some Albanian Highlanders in Podgorica during the uprising of 1911. Available in the Albanian Digital Archive.

In 1912, the final and most comprehensive Albanian revolt broke out across all four vilayets. Leaders such as Hasan Prishtina articulated a political program encapsulating the goals formed over the previous decades: schools, language, territorial unity, local control and recognition of Albanians as a distinct people. Predictably at this point, Catholic, Muslim, and Orthodox Albanians fought together, capturing key towns like Prishtina, Prizren, Ferizaj, Shkup and beyond. By the summer of 1912, the Ottoman state could no longer contain the Albanian movement.

During this time, the Albanian kaçaks and çetas (armed bands of ‘outlaws’ pursuing the national cause) were not distinguished along religious lines. For example, the çeta of legendary figure Çerçiz Topulli — a Bektashi Muslim — consisted of both Muslim and Orthodox Albanians, among them the notable Mihal Grameno. Spiro Bellkameni, an Orthodox Albanian activist from Bellkamen (now Drosopigi in modern Greece), was also part of Bajo Topulli’s band — led by Çerçiz’s older brother — during the assasination of the Greek Orthodox metropolitan of Korça. This came as retribution for the murder of Kristo Negovani, an Orthodox Albanian priest from Negovan (now Flampouro, Greece) who was killed by Greek militants on the orders of the Greek Orthodox church for teaching children and conducting church sermons in the Albanian language. After a period of exile, Bellkameni would go on to join the çeta of Sali Butka, a prominent Bektashi Muslim activist from Kolonja, before Butka organized him and a few other fighters into a çeta of their own. Bellkameni’s band consisted primarily of Muslims, but they were fully comfortable with electing the Orthodox Spiro as their leader.

A famous image of guerrilla band leader Çerçiz Topulli (left) and the noted intellectual and fighter Mihal Grameno (right). They hailed from Bektashi Muslim and Orthodox Christian families, respectively.

These continuous revolts compelled Istanbul to negotiate concessions, but neighboring nations appeared like vultures to a carcass when the Balkan Wars erupted in October 1912. In the face of this imminent threat, the political and cultural unity cultivated over decades reached its apex.

On November 28, 1912 in the city of Vlora, representatives from all Albanian regions declared independence. This proclamation did not represent the triumph of one religion over another; rather, it was the realization of a national idea that all constituent religious groups had contributed to. The signatories of independence included Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox Albanians from the ends of the North and South.

What followed Albania’s declaration of independence was one of the darkest chapters in its history. As Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria launched their campaigns to divide Albanian lands among themselves, the newborn state found itself extremely fragile and was quickly overwhelmed. Political instability deepened the crisis, as internal opportunists — most notoriously personified by Essad Pasha Toptani — found fertile soil to negotiate their narrow interests with foreign powers and rapacious neighbors. The vacuum left by the collapsing Ottoman administration compounded the chaos, leaving ordinary Albanians exposed to the full force and brutality of the Balkan armies.

Figures of Albanian lives lost at this time range from 120,000 to 270,000, slaughtered in their homes, fields, churches and mosques or dying from hunger, famine and disease. Entire villages from all three faith groups were erased from existence in indescribable scenes. Hundreds of thousands more were driven into the mountains starving and barefoot, carrying only the memory of homes that no longer existed.

The Balkan armies paid no heed to whether one followed the teachings of Christ or Muhammad — they butchered Albanians solely for being Albanians. This naturally fostered a sense of a shared fate in the face of existential odds. The Balkan Wars proved that Albanian religious unity was never an intellectual debate, but rather a matter of survival.

Albanian civilians are pictured taken prisoner to be executed in Prishtina during the widespread massacres performed by the Serbian army in 1912. Photo obtained from Wikimedia Commons.

3. Religious Unity in the Modern Day

"We can conclude by stating with certitude that Albania has nothing to fear from religious division. Its national unity is the source of our strength, not beliefs. It is strong enough not to fear the diversity of our faiths.”

• Mit’hat Frashëri, in a letter written to Justin Godart, published in Godart’s ‘L’Albanie en 1921’

The historical record makes it unmistakably clear that Albanians survived times of escalating dangers only because they resorted to unity over division. Whenever foreign empires, neighboring states or ideological extremists attempted to find or create fractures along religious lines, Albanians’ salvation came in finding their duty to one another. This lesson remains distinctly important today.

In the modern era, Albanians do not face invading armies but rather imported ideologies, extremist rhetoric and narratives of intolerance employed to sow the same divisions that past generations fought bitterly to overcome. Social networks have become battlegrounds where the anonymous keyboard warriors and foreign networks have proven to be far-reaching tools in the effort to resurrect religious hostilities. These fringe voices are demonstrably not rooted in Albanian history, culture or identity, yet this does not mean that they do not pose a direct threat to the longstanding tradition of tolerance and harmony.

What makes these attempts particularly tragic is that they prey on a generation increasingly unfamiliar with the sacrifices that built the Albanian identity and secured their livelihood. Many are not familiar with the reality of Muslim and Christian Albanians risking their lives side by side against an ever-shifting landscape of adversaries, opening illegal Albanian schools under the threat of Ottoman punishment, introducing the same alphabet in Manastir and finding themselves at the receiving end of ethnically motivated brutality by those some of our contemporaries view sympathetically.

Religious tolerance, in short, was not a matter of whim, but survival and pride. And in our day, it is not a distant memory, but a living legacy and shining model to the world that ought to be embraced and replenished at every chance.

Notes

Spellings of certain terms and names may vary across historical documents. Generally, outside of quotations, the most common variant in modern English-language work on the Albanian world, or in some instances that most broadly accepted by Albanians, is used.

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Bleron Zajmi was born and raised in Sydney, Australia, to Albanian parents from Rrafshi i Dukagjinit and Struga. Having obtained his Honours in Medical Science at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), he will begin his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at UNSW in 2026. His interests extend beyond the lab, centering on Albanian history and identity, as well as the dialogue between heritage and modernity.