Attacks on Serbs during the Serbian–Ottoman War (1876–1878)


The events of persecution against the Serbian population occurred in Ottoman Kosovo in 1878, as a consequence of the Serbian–Ottoman War. Incoming Albanian refugees to Kosovo who were expelled by the Serb army from the Sanjak of Niș were involved in revenge attacks and hostile to the local Serb population. Ottoman Albanian troops also participated in attacks, at the behest of Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

Background

During the Serbian–Ottoman War of 1876–78, between 30,000 and 70,000 Muslims, mostly Albanians, were expelled by the Serb army from the Sanjak of Niș and fled to the Kosovo Vilayet. Within the context of the Serbian–Ottoman War, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II unleashed his auxiliary troops consisting of Kosovar Albanians on the remaining Serbs before and after the Ottoman army's retreat in 1878. Tensions in the form of revenge attacks arose by incoming Albanian refugees on local Kosovo Serbs that contributed to the beginnings of the ongoing Serbian-Albanian conflict in coming decades.

1878

January 18–19

With the Serbian capture of Niš, the Kumanovo villagers awaited the Serbian Army which went for Vranje and Kosovo. The Serbian artillery fire was heard throughout the winter of 1877/78. Ottoman Albanian troops from Debar and Tetovo fled the front and crossed the Pčinja, looting and raping along the way.
On January 18, 1878, 17 armed Albanians descended from the mountains into Oslare, shouting while entering the village. They first arrived at the house of Arsa Stojković, which they looted and emptied before his eyes, enraging Stojković who proceeded to punch one of them. He was shot in the stomach and fell down, though still alive, he took a stake and delivered a mighty blow to the shooter's head, dying with him. The villagers then quickly entered an armed fight with the Albanians, killing them.
On January 19, 1878, 40 Albanian deserters retreating from the Ottoman army broke into the house of elder Taško, a serf, in the Bujanovac region, tied up the males and raped his two daughters and two daughters-in-law, then proceeded to loot the house and left the village. Taško armed himself and persuaded the village to retaliate, tracing them in the snow and multiplying in numbers. The Albanian deserters were dispersed, drunk, and were intercepted first at Lukarce, where 6 of them were beaten to death. They killed all of them.
With the taste of blood, revenge and victory, the retaliation grew into an uprising, with the avengers becoming rebels, riding armed on horse as soldiers, through the villages of Kumanovo and Kriva Palanka and called to revolt. The movement was strengthened by Mladen Piljinski and his group's killing of Ottoman Albanian haramibaşı Bajram Straž and his seven friends, whose severed heads were brought as trophies and used as flags in the villages. On January 20, 1878, the leaders of the Kumanovo Uprising were chosen.

January 26

At the same time, there was a massacre of Serbs in Pristina by armed Albanians who took advantage of the anarchy and confusion that followed. On January 26, refugees from Albanian-inhabited villages came to Pristina with news that Serbian outposts were already at Gračanica. Albanians started attacking Serb houses, and robbed, kidnapped, beat and killed people.
Armed Albanians gathered in the Serb-inhabited mahala of Panađurište, where most of the atrocities took place. Five men knocked on the door of gunmaker Jovan Janićijević. Jovan was a friend of the Serbian teacher Kovačević in Pristina. As no one opened, in order to cross the wall, three stood on each other. Jovan shot the one peeking into the yard, and the house was riddled with shots, and Jovan's wife was killed. Jovan took his children and broke the wall to his neighbour's house, a friend who was a Turk, and pushed them through the wall. His relative Stojan shot back, halting their attack. Jovan and Stojan defended themselves, while half a day passed with attacks and victims. The attackers left the premises through the Četiri Lule Street, then returned with hay and straws and set the house on fire, which was filled by smoke. Stojan surrendered on the promise of besa, however, he was decapitated, and his head was thrown on the street. Jovan, the only one left, entered the basement when the house broke down. With a shoulder wound, he rushed out the field and managed to shoot three of the attackers, before being killed. They marched the Pristina bazaar with his head on a pole.
For the 20 dead Albanians, they demanded redemption in blood; just one of the houses, of Hadži-Kosta, gave 17 victims. In the night, when fatigue and hunger stopped the massacre, the askeri counted the dead.

Legacy

Ottoman defeat to Serbia alongside new geopolitical circumstances post 1878 opposed by Albanian nationalists resulted in anti-Christian attitudes among them that eventually supported what today is known as "ethnic cleansing" that made part of the Kosovo Serb population to leave.
Prior to the Balkan wars, Kosovo Serb community leader Janjićije Popović stated that the wars of 1876–1878 "tripled" the hatred of Turks and Albanians, especially that of the refugee population from the Sanjak of Niș toward Serbs by committing acts of violence against them.