Balkan Academic News Book Review 4/2000
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Nuray Bozbora, Osmanli Yönetiminde Arnavutluk: Arnavut Ulusçulugu'nun
Gelis[h]imi. Istanbul: Boyut Kitaplari, 1997. pp. 303 with bibliography; 6 maps
and 2 photos, ISBN: 975-521-053-7
language: Turkish

'Abd al-Ra'uf Sinnu, Title: al-Naz'aat al-Kiyaaniyyah al-Islaamiyyah fi
al-Dawlah al-Uthmaaniyyah, 1877-1881: Bilaad al-Shaam, al-Hijaaz, Kurdistaan,
Albaaniyaa. Beirut: Bisaan, 1998, pp. 247 with index and bibliography; 14
primary documents from London's PRO, 4 maps. ISBN: none.
language: Arabic

Reviewed by Isa Blumi (NYU)
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These two books cover the seminal period of an emerging Albanian political
entity within the confines of the Ottoman Empire. The attempt to locate the
origins of national movements in past work has an apparent impact on how both
authors narrate the trajectory of history, but they go about exploring the issue
in refreshingly novel ways. Dr. Bozbora has used her dissertation from Marmara
University in Istanbul (1994) to provide one of the only scholarly book-length
studies of Albanian history in the Turkish language. While I am personally
engaged in this period with my own dissertation and thus have a number of
problems with Bozbora's methodology and theoretical foundations, she must at
least be congratulated for her attempt to integrate a wide range of secondary
materials in the major West European languages and Turkish (Ottoman). That
said, having proved her proficiency in these languages, my first and most
assertive criticism of this book (Albania Under Ottoman Administration: The
Growth of Albanian Nationalism) is the underutilized resources made available to
her at the Prime Minister's Archives in Istanbul and her subsequent reliance on
secondary work for the foundation of her thesis.

Bozbora notes the use of some 40 Ottoman documents (with 29 documents from
London's PRO) spanning a period between 1878 to 1905. The amount of material in
Istanbul is almost mind-boggling, the whole of Albania history in the late
Ottoman period floods the archive's catalogues begging for a comprehensive and
much belated revision of this important historical period. The sorry fact that
the most important works of this period are heavily reliant on sources from
Vienna, Tirana, Prishtina, London (anywhere but the heart of the Empire,
Istanbul) cries out for a book of Bozbora's ambition. Bozbora does not perform
the task, unfortunately, to its full potential. It is for this reason that my
disappointment is so profound.

Bozbora attempts to identify the origins of Albanian Nationalism through the
sophisticated theory of John Breuilly (Nationalism and the State, 1982) which
posits examples of late nineteenth-century nationalism were responses to state
modernization. Bozbora suggests that an amalgamation of institutional and
cultural artifacts were central to establishing an Ottoman presence in its most
prized of Balkan possessions and these artifacts created the context for
nationalism in the nineteenth century. The book meanders through several
chapters obviously attempting to establish this foundation, culminating in a
rather lengthy and at times nuanced study of the period of reform (Tanzimat)
which immediately proceeded the convening of the League of Prizren in 1878. It
is within these pages that Breuilly's structuralist approach to locate
nationalism reveals its impact. It is therefore unfortunate that we have to
rely on a dubious selection of sources, all tainted by their outdated narrative
styles or ideological luggage, to understand the period. Of course these works
constitute the heart of the literature available to us, but I would expect
Bozbora to apply some of her sophistication (demonstrated by finding inspiration
in Breuilly's work) to be a little more critical of the material she cites.
When Kristo Frasheri, Halil Inalcik, Stanford Shaw and Stefanaq Pollo constitute
our historiographical foundation, we are doomed to questionable results. These
works were problematic when they were written for their univocal claims (the
lack of scholarship in this area rendered each of these works essential to
historians). Today, after much thought has been put into the power of language
and the politics of history, let alone the dubious links to the "Decline" thesis
of the Ottoman Empire these authors claimed, Bozbora should be more critical.

The most productive aspects of this book lies in identifying important events
and processes which impacted how the inhabitants of the Albanian districts
related to Istanbul. The suggestion that reform measures emanating from
Istanbul in the nineteenth century antagonized local communities is not a novel
contribution. It is the far more nuanced interaction between inter-state
rivalries (Austrian, Russia, Serbian, Montenegrin, British and Ottoman) and the
expressed reactions and consequent demands of future Albanian nationalists which
proves helpful. It is within the mechanics of this imperial quagmire which left
the integrated populations of Nish, Kosova, Malisore, Janina, Manastir, and
Shkoder at the mercy of covetous neighbors and the failures of Istanbul. The
League's of Prizren and Peja (Ipek), local revolts in Gjakova (Yakova) and the
activities of Albania's diaspora are listed judiciously as important markers.

Again, Bozbora's challenge to identify the reforms instituted (half-heartedly)
in Albanian territories as the fundaments of Albanian nationalism is
unfortunately lost in the rather arbitrary use of primary documents. I would
like to see more effort put into reflecting the clear developments in Istanbul
by the use of documentation (of which there are hundreds of examples) in order
to identify the real actors in this process. Albanian reactions to the events
of the times were not products of a few great men (since the book does not
contain an index, they are themselves, hard to find in the text) but communal
acts. There is no mention of wide-spread communal organization in this book
because they generally are lost in the finer print of the archival material. I
am afraid the obvious dependency on the secondary literature (Skendi, Pollo,
Frasheri etc.) to identify where to start in the arduous work of archival
research leads Bozbora, ultimately, down the same conclusive logic they took.
My solution would be for research beyond the "moments" of history-the Prizen and
Peja Congresses. Research which delves into the complex social history of the
Albanians of the late Ottoman Empire, where we would find new heroes and
heroines, starts not with the Albanian members of the Young Ottoman movement (a
worthwhile subject) or Ismail Kemal, but those same people who made up the heart
of Kosova's Liberation Army.

In 'Abd al-Ra'uf Sinnu's work (The Fragmentation of the Islamic Structure in the
Ottoman State, 1877-1881: Syria, Hijaz (Sa'udi 'Arabia--Mecca and Medina),
Kurdistan, Albania) we find a far more specific analysis of events surrounding
the conclusion of war between Imperial Russia and the Ottoman State in 1877-78.
The central concern of the book is to locate the impact a growing element of
internal resistance to Ottoman centralization (related to the reforms noted in
Bozbora's work) in light of the conclusive diplomatic defeat at San Stefano and
later Berlin. Identifying four regions in the empire which proved highly
volatile is an innovative and unexpected (but welcome) move by the author,
exhibiting his interests beyond what Arabic-language texts offer. The
specificity of the study, as opposed to the long durée approach of Bozbora makes
this book, as a whole, far more intellectually tenable.

For the purposes of this forum, I will focus on chapter five in which the author
explores the "Russian-Ottoman War (1877-1878) and its impact in the renaissance
of the Albanian Region." Not unlike his treatment of the other areas under
study, the author identifies an incipient external presence in the events which
lead to the League of Prizren. Largely due to the material that he uses (more
or less the same as Bozbora's in terms of European-language materials with one
welcome exception from the Arabic language, Muhammad Mufaku's much neglected
work) the reader is left to conclude that dictates from London, Belgrade, St.
Petersburg or Istanbul had far more weight than local actions. I am reluctant
to be overly critical of this observation because in the context of the larger
story the author is trying tell, it has a profoundly different reading of the
period, both in more accessible European languages and Arabic. Read
autonomously from the book, however, the chapter is more or less a failure in
critical reading, in particular because it is full of rather unhelpful
reiterations of the same works I noted in the first review.

This is quite suggestive, really. Bozbora's book does not work as well as this
one because of the focus of his respective study. As in the administration of
the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina (Chap 3.) the Sultan's decisive policy shift
after the significant territorial loses in the Caucuses and Balkans towards a
quasi-Islamic nationalism had a significant impact on politics in Albanian
territories. How the Great and Lesser Powers responded in what remained Ottoman
Albania to the, according to Sinnu, justifiable policies, has a profound effect
on what transpires during the following forty years. It is to be remembered
that large numbers of refugees from areas newly awarded Serbia, Montenegro,
Greece and Austria-Hungary not only put logistical strain on locals in the
Kosova and Shkoder administrative districts, but enormous sociological and
political pressure as well. This point is only hinted at, largely because of
the inadequacy of his sources, and Sinnu does not capture the mood of the time
(Bozbora does not with any great skill in this either). Sinnu correctly notes
the regime of Sultan Abdülhamid II demonstrated a heightened awareness of the
impending claims made upon the Empire for further territorial expansion. The
Christian powers, as the author elects to identify them, pushes for extensive
extra-territorial rights for what are now large minority populations, that of
Catholic and Orthodox Albanian, Slavic and Greek speaking populations. The
concentration of large numbers of "ethnically cleansed" people mixed with these
protected minorities have very interesting consequences for the Ottoman state
and Sinnu's analysis would have benefited from understanding this element
better.

The chapter itself is structured, not surprisingly, to summarize the outstanding
events in Albanian history, from Roman times to 1877. While that kind of
narrative proves virtually useless in explaining the relatively complex
situation on the ground in 1877-78, the ultimate goal of the piece still retains
some value. Much as Bozbora attempts to locate sources of the Albanian
expression of nationalism, her failure to address this geo-strategic game with
any authority makes Sinnu's work that much more admirable. Out of the same
source material, we get a completely different perspective of the Albanian
experience at the height of its manifested nationalist claims. Sinnu's work is
much more conscious of geography, careful to identify the territorial fissures
which had such an important role in foreign power intervention-their highly
subjective census reports and maps of ethnic (sectarian) distribution. In the
larger Ottoman context, such tensions manifested in Albania take on a far more
ominous tone. Albanian issues, taken from the Ottoman perspective (a view not
yet explored in any other language) highlights the vulnerability of the Ottoman
position. In light of this observation,one can study Istanbul's complicated
response to these challenges. Sinnu, in an equally innovative way, finds
formative links between Abdülhamid's heightened Islamic rhetoric and a growing
Albanian, collective identity. (pp. 143-155) The demands periodically
articulated by various communities in Kosova and Albania find resonance in a new
imperial space. That space finds the minority populations largely hostile to
continued Ottoman rule, including many Albanian-speaking Catholic and Orthodox
Christians were often in direct conflict with their Albanian Muslim neighbors.

Such a matrix is of dubious value if we insist on reading this chapter as an
authoritative statement about Albanian nationalism. I give the author more
credit however, for inducting a rarely cited case, Albania, in the historical
narrative of the Arabic-speaking world. Untold numbers of Albanian-Arabs who
still live in neighborhoods in Tunis, Cairo, Damascus and Amman are largely
unaware that their forefather's, in the service of the Empire, emanated from
this complex social milieu in the Balkans. It is thus quite satisfying that
Sinnu (apparently of Kurdish origin) is making a conscious effort to tie-in the
origins of "Arab" nationalism, Kurdish efforts for a state and the beginnings of
European imperialism in the region. This book fails to give the larger
audience, beyond the Arabic-speaking world, any new insight into Albanian
nation-building, but does the important job of situating what transpired in the
Balkans during the Berlin Congress with events far on the other side of the
Empire.

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