The Problem of the Status of the Albanian Minority in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the League of Nations (1920-1929)
Abstract
The purpose of the research paper is to analyze the repressive and colonial policies of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes toward Albanians in Kosovo and other annexed Albanian territories after World War I, as articulated by contemporary Albanian intellectuals before the League of Nations.
The scientific novelty. The paper therefore offers, for the first time, a detailed analysis of the position of Albanians as presented before the League of Nations and through its institutional mechanisms.
Conclusions. The reoccupation of Kosovo and other Albanian territories after World War I was accompanied by widespread violence and repression, placing the region under a military and police regime that severely restricted the fundamental rights of the Albanian population. The policies of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were aimed at the assimilation and suppression of Albanian identity through the prohibition of education in the Albanian language, the denial of civil and political rights, and the expropriation of land through agrarian reform and state-directed colonization.
Despite the measures implemented by the royal authorities, Albanians resisted in various forms, including armed uprisings and other efforts to preserve their national identity. These discriminatory policies had profound and long-lasting consequences for the social and economic life of the Albanian population and significantly influenced subsequent historical developments in the region. As a result, the period of rule of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes over Albanian-inhabited territories constitutes a deeply traumatic historical experience that continued to shape Albanian-Serbian relations for decades.
The repressive and colonial policy pursued by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes toward Albanians in Kosovo and other Albanian territories represented a coordinated attempt to alter the ethnic composition of the region and to suppress any Albanian aspirations for autonomy or unification with other Albanian-inhabited lands.
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