League of Prizren

One of their first steps was to draw up a memorandum to the Earl of Beaconsfield, the British representative at the Berlin Congress.

In it they formulated: “Just as we are not or do not want to be Turks, we will oppose with all our strength anyone who wants to make us Slavs, Austrians or Greeks. We want to be Albanians ".

While the territories occupied by the Kingdom of Serbia were surrendered, the troops of the League defended the areas that had been assigned to the Principality of Montenegro and the cities of Janina and Preveza in the Epirus region claimed by the Kingdom of Greece. The most important members of the league included Abdyl Frashëri, Sulejman Vokshi, Pashko Vasa, Idriz Seferi, Isa Boletini, Ymer Prizreni and many more. Frashëri was named president of the league, chairman of the foreign commission and foreign representative of Albanian interests. Vokshi took over the finance commission and Vasa was Frashëri's deputy abroad.
Since the league could not prevent the cession of Albanian populated areas, it began to concentrate on the enforcement of domestic political demands. These had been presented by the north-east Banan league leaders in Prizren and mainly campaigned for an autonomous province of the Albanian parts of the country with Albanian officials. For this purpose, the four Vilsyets Yanya (today's city of Ioannina), Kosova, Manastır and İşkodra (today's city of Shkodra) should be united in one province, and the Albanian language should be introduced as the administrative language. The choice of the Welsh of this province should be made by the Sultan, the provincial income should for the most part remain in the province. In October 1880 these points were also adopted by representatives from all over Albania in the city of Dibra. After these reform proposals had failed due to the resistance of centralist circles, the League Committee took over the governance and administration of Vilayet Kosovo by the spring of 1881. The Turkish government responded by sending troops that arrested the league members and interned them in distant provinces. League president Abdyl Frashëri was even sentenced to death, but his sentence was later mitigated. The rule of the league was thus finally destroyed and the result was increased cultural emancipation, which was, however, also repeatedly accompanied by local unrest. League of Prizren is worth a visit on your Kosovo vacations