September 3, 1878 – Gjakova as a Response to a Europe That Decided for Albanians Without the Albanians

On September 3, 1878, Gjakova became the scene of one of the best-known confrontations of the Albanian League of Prizren. Albanian forces, with Sylejman Vokshi among their principal leaders, surrounded Mehmet Ali Pasha Maxharri in the residence of Abdullah Pashë Dreni, who had come to Gjakova as part of a mission to implement the decisions concerning the cession of Plavë and Guci to Montenegro. After a siege and several days of fighting, on September 6 Mehmet Ali Pasha, Abdullah Pashë Dreni, and a large number of those accompanying them were killed.[1]

To understand what this confrontation represented, we must go back several months, to Berlin, where the European Great Powers were attempting to construct a new political order for the Balkans. The Congress of Berlin of 1878 was convened following the Russo-Ottoman War and sought to revise previous arrangements and establish a new balance among the powers and states of the region. In the diplomatic language of the time, there was talk of peace, stability, and the regulation of international relations. But for the Albanians, this “regulation” would mean something much more concrete: the territories in which they lived would become the object of decisions made at a table where the Albanians had no direct political representation.[2]

Here lies one of the great paradoxes of European diplomacy at the time. The Great Powers spoke of the new order of Europe and of the principle of nationality, while in the Albanian case they did not create an equal mechanism for hearing and representing Albanian demands. In the memorandum addressed to Lord Beaconsfield, the Albanian representatives emphasized precisely this problem: other peoples of the Ottoman Empire had governments or diplomats who could express their aspirations, whereas the Albanians had no state of their own and therefore risked remaining without a voice at the table where their fate was being decided.[2]

This was not an ordinary diplomatic complaint. It was a warning. The Albanians were telling Europe that they existed as a people and that they did not accept their territories being treated as open spaces to be exchanged among the interests of the Great Powers and neighboring states. The documents of the League clearly expressed the objective of defending territorial integrity and opposing the imposition of another government over territories that it regarded as part of the Albanian homeland.[3]

Yet European diplomacy did not fundamentally change its course. The Treaty of Berlin established new borders and recognized the territorial expansion of Montenegro, while Article 28 defined its new frontiers.[4] For the Albanians, the problem was not merely legal or administrative. Albanian populations lived in many of these regions, and the change of sovereignty was not an abstract line on a map: it concerned security, property, administration, social life, and the political future of the people.

This is why criticism of the diplomacy of the Great Powers should not be limited to the fact that the Albanians did not receive what they demanded. The deeper criticism is that the diplomatic system of the time treated peoples unequally. The Great Powers had the capacity to decide the fate of the Balkans, while smaller peoples often had to persuade others that they had the right to be heard. Within this system, principles frequently came second to strategic interests.

And here we must acknowledge a historical truth that is often lost in simplified narratives: the Albanians did not immediately turn to war. They began with politics. They began with organization, assemblies, memoranda, and diplomatic efforts. On June 10, 1878, the League of Prizren was founded, while on June 13 a memorandum was sent to Lord Beaconsfield requesting that the Albanian question be heard at the Congress of Berlin.[5]

In this sense, the League was also an attempt to create political subjectivity. It was not merely a temporary union for a battle. Its documents demonstrate political and military organization, with administrative structures, rules for organizing forces, and mechanisms for defending territories regarded as Albanian.[3] Sylejman Vokshi was among the important figures in this organization, and his name also appears in the founding documents of the League.[3]

But if diplomacy was the first path, it did not produce the result the Albanians sought. In 1879, Abdyl Frashëri and Mehmed Ali Vrioni continued diplomatic efforts in European centers, seeking support for the Albanian cause.[5] The effort to gain international support demonstrates that the League did not regard conflict as an end in itself. It sought a political solution, but a solution that would take the Albanian reality into account.

At this point, the responsibility of the Great Powers’ diplomacy becomes more evident. When a people seeks to be heard and the response is a decision that directly affects its territories without its participation, diplomacy risks becoming, rather than an instrument of peace, an instrument of imposition. A treaty may be an international act, but no treaty can erase the political reality of a population merely through a signature.

Gjakova was the moment when this reality collided with the diplomatic decision. At the end of August 1878, Mehmet Ali Pasha Maxharri arrived in the region on a mission to implement the decisions concerning Plavë and Guci and their transfer to Montenegro. The leaders of the League demanded that he abandon the mission. Following his refusal, he was surrounded in the residence of Abdullah Pashë Dreni on September 3. The fighting, after interruptions and attempts at negotiations, continued until September 6, when Mehmet Ali Pasha and Abdullah Pashë Dreni were killed.[1]

Thus, what had been decided in Berlin descended upon Gjakova. A diplomatic provision was transformed into a direct conflict over land and population. In this sense, Gjakova was not an isolated episode disconnected from the Congress of Berlin. It was one of its consequences on the ground.

This does not mean that every armed action automatically becomes legitimate simply because it is undertaken in the name of a people. History and law require a more careful analysis. But it is equally mistaken to treat Albanian resistance merely as an obstacle to the “implementation of the treaty,” without asking what that implementation represented for the people living in the territories concerned.

The modern concept of self-defense in international law cannot be mechanically projected onto 1878. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter belongs to the international legal order established after 1945. But this does not strip the League of Prizren of its defensive character in political and historical terms. The League had established structures for the defense of territories and had expressed in its documents the objective of protecting territorial integrity by the means it considered necessary.[3]

It is therefore more accurate to say that Gjakova represented a form of self-organization and resistance by a political community that perceived itself as threatened by territorial changes imposed from outside. This is something different from claiming that the League was implementing a norm of international law that, at that time, did not yet exist in the form we recognize today.

This is precisely where the tragedy of the diplomacy of 1878 lies. The Great Powers sought to create stability in the Balkans, but stability constructed without the real participation of the populations affected by it cannot easily be sustainable. Diplomacy can draw borders, but it cannot automatically produce political legitimacy. It can sign treaties, but it cannot order a people to forget who it is and what it seeks.

In Berlin, the Albanians confronted a diplomacy that was more interested in the balance among the powers than in establishing an equal standard for all the nationalities of the Balkans. In Gjakova, that balance confronted a reality that could no longer be hidden behind diplomatic formulations. The history of that period demonstrates how dangerous it is when “stability” is used to justify decisions that part of the population perceives as a threat to its political existence.

This is why the Congress of Berlin should also be viewed as a lesson about the limits of realpolitik. The Great Powers may have had legitimate strategic interests, but this did not automatically make all the consequences of their decisions legitimate. The interest of a power is not the same as the right of a people. The stability of a chancery is not always the stability of a family living in the territory over which the decision has been made.

And here the history of the League of Prizren acquires an importance that extends beyond 1878. It shows how a people that is not represented at the diplomatic table attempts to create political means of representing itself. When those means prove insufficient, it seeks to defend what it regards as a vital interest. This is a process that must be understood within the context of its time and not reduced to a simple narrative of “war” and “peace.”

Today, the international order is legally much more developed. The United Nations Charter identifies, among the purposes of the organization, the development of friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.[7] The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that all peoples have the right to self-determination and, on the basis of that right, freely determine their political status.[8]

These norms cannot be taken back in time and directly attributed to the actors of 1878. But they can be used as a point of reference for understanding how much the legal language of the world has changed and how much greater responsibility states and international organizations today bear when they speak of democracy, human rights, self-determination, and coexistence.

Therefore, the history of the League of Prizren should not be used to fuel new hostilities. It should be used to demand equal standards. If modern Europe wishes to be different from the Europe of 1878, then it cannot accept that a people be treated as a diplomatic problem whenever it demands political rights, while another is treated as a privileged subject simply because its interests align more closely with the calculations of the Great Powers.

Coexistence does not mean the denial of one side in the name of the quiet of the other. Coexistence means equality. Democracy is not a privilege that a majority can grant or take away from a minority according to the interests of the moment. Democracy is a system in which political and civil rights are protected through institutions and the rule of law.

And stability cannot be synonymous with freezing an injustice in place. Such stability may last for a time, but the history of the Balkans has repeatedly demonstrated that unresolved problems do not disappear simply because diplomacy chooses not to mention them.

This is what makes September 3, 1878 more than a commemorative date. It is a moment in which the connection between diplomacy and resistance can be seen clearly. The League of Prizren initially sought to speak. When words were not enough, it organized defense. When decisions made without the Albanians were attempted to be imposed upon Albanian territories, Gjakova became the place where this political conflict turned into armed confrontation.

For this reason, the historical responsibility of European diplomacy lies not only in the borders drawn on the map. It also lies in the question of why a people seeking to be heard was not treated as a political party with the right to present and defend its own interests.

Europe in 1878 could say that it had established an order.

But Gjakova demonstrated that an order without the consent and participation of those affected by it can produce resistance instead of peace.

This is also the lesson that should remain for today. Not that war is the first path, nor that conflict should be romanticized. On the contrary, the lesson is that diplomacy must be serious, just, and equal enough to make conflict unnecessary. It must listen before deciding, negotiate before imposing, and seek solutions that can exist not only in documents but also in the conscience of the people upon whom they are imposed.

On September 3, 1878, the Albanians of Gjakova were not confronting only an Ottoman pasha or a military detachment. In a broader sense, they were confronting the concrete consequence of a diplomatic system that had decided over them without having them at the table.

Therefore, the memory of that day should not be only a memory of weapons. It should also be a memory of the failure of diplomacy to find a political solution that would take the Albanian voice seriously.

History does not ask us to repeat that conflict.

It asks us not to repeat that mistake.

If today’s Europe truly wishes to be a Europe of democracy, rights, and the rule of law, then it cannot have different standards for freedom, self-determination, representation, and coexistence. A right does not become less of a right simply because it is demanded by a small people. An injustice does not become more acceptable simply because it has been formulated in the elegant language of a treaty.

This is why Gjakova remains a warning to every diplomacy that believes it can build peace by bypassing the will of peoples.

In 1878, Europe chose to decide for the Albanians.

The Albanians chose not to remain silent.

Today the world has institutions, norms, and political instruments that did not exist then. Precisely for this reason, it also has a greater responsibility: not to force a people to choose between political subjugation and conflict.

Diplomacy must finally have learned the lesson of Gjakova.

When the fate of a people is being decided, that people must be at the table.

Because borders can be drawn with a pencil on maps, but peace can be built only upon justice, equality, and respect for the people who live upon that land.

Footnotes
[1] On the events in Gjakova: the siege of Mehmet Ali Pasha Maxharri in the residence of Abdullah Pashë Dreni on September 3, 1878, and the conclusion of the fighting on September 6 with the killing of Mehmet Ali Pasha and Abdullah Pashë Dreni. See also Jusuf Bajraktari’s study on Gjakova during the period of the League of Prizren.
[2] Robert Elsie, Memorandum to Lord Beaconsfield, 1878. The memorandum emphasized that the Albanians had no state representation at the Congress of Berlin and requested that the Albanian question be heard at the diplomatic table.

[3] Robert Elsie, The Resolutions of the League of Prizren, 1878. The League’s documents include the defense of territorial integrity, political and military organization, and measures for the defense of territories regarded as Albanian.

[4] Treaty of Berlin, July 13, 1878, particularly Articles 28–29, concerning the borders and territorial expansion of Montenegro.

[5] Robert Elsie, The Resolutions of the League of Prizren. The source documents the establishment of the League on June 10, 1878, the memorandum addressed to Lord Beaconsfield on June 13, and the continuation of Abdyl Frashëri’s diplomatic activities in Europe during 1879.

[6] On the organization of the forces and the role of the League’s branch in Gjakova, see Jusuf Bajraktari, Gjakova me rrethinë në kohën e Lidhjes Shqiptare të Prizrenit. The study documents the mobilization of League forces and the confrontation of September 1878.

[7] Charter of the United Nations, Article 1(2), concerning the development of friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.

[8] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 1, concerning the right of all peoples to self-determination and to freely determine their political status.

Prishtina,03.09.2026