Anti-Albanian sentiment orAlbanophobia is discrimination and prejudice towardsAlbanians as an ethnic group, described primarily in countries with a large Albanian population as immigrants, seen throughout Europe.
A similar term used with the same denotation isanti-albanianism[1] used in many sources similarly withalbanophobia, although its similarities and/or differences are not defined. The opposite for Albanophobia isAlbanophilia.
In 1889,Spiridon Gopčević published an ethnographic study titledOld Serbia and Macedonia that was a Serbian nationalist book on Kosovo and Macedonia and contained a pro-Serbian ethnographic map of Macedonia.[2][3] Gopčević's biographer argues that he did not actually go to Kosovo and the study is not based on authentic experiences.[3] Within scholarship, Gopčević's study has been noted for its plagiarisms, manipulations and misrepresentations, especially overstressing the Serbian character of Macedonia.[3][4] Gopčević's views on Serbian and Albanian populations in Kosovo and also the issue of theArnautaš theory or Albanians of alleged Serbian (descent) have only been partially examined by some authors.[3] Noted for being an ardent Serbian nationalist, his bookOld Serbia and Macedonia is seen as a work that opened the path for unprecedented Serbian territorial claims in the region.[4]
The Expulsion of the Albanians was a lecture presented by the Yugoslav historianVaso Čubrilović (1897–1990) on 7 March 1937.[5]
A series ofmassacres of Albanians in theBalkan Wars were committed by theMontenegrin Army,Serbian Army andparamilitaries, according to international reports.[6][7] During theFirst Balkan War of 1912–13, theSerbia andMontenegro fought against theOttoman Empire (many Albanians were among the Ottoman forces) and expelled the Ottoman forces in present-dayAlbania andKosovo. The anti-Ottoman forces committed numerouswar crimes against the Albanian population, which were reported by the European, American and Serbian opposition press.[8] Most of the crimes happened between October 1912 and summer of 1913. The goal of the forced expulsions and massacres of ethnic Albanians was statistic manipulation before the London Ambassadors Conference which was to decide on the new Balkan borders.[8][9][10] According to contemporary accounts, between 20,000 and 25,000 Albanians were killed during the first two to four months of the Balkan Wars.[8][10][11][12] Many of the victims were children, women and old people and were part of a warfare of extermination.[13] Aside from massacres, civilians had their lips and noses severed.[14] After theSecond World War, thousands ofCham Albanians inThesprotia,Greece were victims of forced migration and ethnic cleansing by theNational Republican Greek League (EDES) from 1944 to 1945.[15][16]
The term "Albanophobia" was coined byAnna Triandafyllidou in a report analysis calledRacism and Cultural Diversity in the Mass Media published in 2002.[17] Although, the first recorded usage of the term comes from 1982 inThe South Slav journal, Volume 8 by Albanian authorArshi Pipa.[18] The report by Triandafyllidou represented Albanian migrants in Greece.[19]
The origins of anti-Albanianpropaganda in Serbia started in the 19th century with claims made by Serbian state on territories that were about to be controlled by Albanians after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.[20] By the late nineteenth century, Albanians were being characterized by Serbian government officials as a "wild tribe" with "cruel instincts".[21] AlthoughJovan Cvijić acknowledged that Albanians were an autochthonous population of the Balkans, predating the arrival of the Slavs, he nevertheless described them as "the most barbarous tribes of Europe."[21] Meanwhile, politicianVladan Đorđević described Albanians as "modernTroglodytes" and "prehumans who slept in the trees", claiming they still had "tails" in the nineteenth century.[22]
HistorianOlivera Milosavljević has written about the historical construction of Albanians as enemies of Serbs in Serbia through Serbian politicians and writers. Beginning in the 19th century, negative stereotypes regarding Albanians were formed by some Serbian authors. Albanians were described as enemies who by the 16th century had been instigated to terrorize Serbs by the Ottomans.[23] According to Milosavljević, part of the modern intellectuals in Serbia wrote about Albanians mainly within the framework of these stereotypes, regarding their "innate" hatred and desire for the destruction of Serbs, which was a product of their dominant characteristic of "primitivism" and "robbery". Beginning in the mid-1980s, words such as "genocide", "oppression", "robbery", and "rape" were used when referring to Albanians in speeches, so that any mention of Albanians as a national minority contained negative connotations.[24] Milosavljević has also noted how earlier authors depicted Albanians as incapable of having an autonomous state due to their "incivility", promoted and manipulated the stereotype of ‘Arbanised’ Serbs, leading to the contemporary claim thatSkanderbeg was a Serb.[23]
Throughout the 1930s, a strong anti-Albanian sentiment existed in the country and solutions for the "Kosovo question" were put forward, and it involved large-scale deportation.[25] These includedYugoslav-Turkish negotiations (1938) that outlined the removal of 40,000 Albanian families from the state to Turkey and another was a memorandum (1937) entitledThe Expulsion of the Albanians written by a Serbian scholarVaso Čubrilović (1897–1990).[25] The document proposed methods for expelling Albanians[25] that included creating a "psychosis" by bribing clergymen to encourage the Albanians to leave the country, enforcing the law to the letter, secretly razing Albanian inhabited villages, ruthless application of all police regulations, ruthless collection of taxes and the payment of all private and public debts, the requisitioning of all public and municipal pasture land, the cancellation of concessions, the withdrawal of permits to exercise an occupation, dismissal from government, the demolition of Albanian cemeteries and many other methods.[26]
Aleksandar Ranković, the Yugoslav security chief, had a strong dislike of Albanians.[27] Following the Second World War and until 1966, Ranković upheld Serbian control of Kosovo through repressive anti-Albanian policies.[28][27]
During the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, activities undertaken by Serbian officials in Kosovo have been described as Albanophobic.[29]
TheSerbian media during Milošević's era was known to espouseSerb nationalism while promotingxenophobia toward the other ethnicities inYugoslavia. Ethnic Albanians were commonly characterized in the media as anti-Yugoslav counter-revolutionaries, rapists, and a threat to the Serb nation.[30] During theKosovo War, Serbian forces continually discriminatedKosovo Albanians:
ThroughoutKosovo, the forces of theFRY andSerbia have harassed, humiliated, and degraded Kosovo Albanian civilians through physical and verbal abuse. Policemen, soldiers, and military officers have persistently subjected Kosovo Albanians to insults, racial slurs, degrading acts, beatings, and other forms of physical mistreatment based on their racial, religious, and political identification.[31]
— War Crimes Indictment against Milosevic and others
In regards to the Albanian war victimsObrad Stevanović wrote "No body – no crime” in the diary he kept in 1998 and 1999, when he met, as a high-ranking official Serbian MUP, with Slobodan Milosevic. He admitted at Hague tribunal that these constituted notes from a meeting with the president.[32]
A 2011 survey in Serbia showed that 40% of the Serbian population would not like Albanians to live in Serbia, while 70% would not enter into a marriage with an Albanian individual.[33]
In 2012,Vuk Jeremić, the-then Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs, while commenting onTwitter about the Kosovo dispute, compared Albanians to the "evilOrcs" from the movieThe Hobbit.[34] In 2016, Minister of Foreign AffairsAleksandar Vulin stated that Albania has no history and wants to steal the Serbian one.[35]
Before the start and during the2016 UEFA European qualifier between Serbia and Albania in Belgrade that was abandoned, Serbian fans chanted 'Ubij, ubij Šiptara' (Kill, kill the Albanian). During the game, a drone carrying a banner depicting an image ofGreater Albania was flown into the pitch, leading to on-field violence. After the game in Serbia, mostly in its northern provinceVojvodina, after the match, at least a dozen bakeries and snack bars owned by ethnicAlbanians were set on fire inNovi Sad,Sombor andStara Pazova, and a bomb was used in one case.[36]
During 2017, amidst a background of political tension between Serbia andKosovo, Serbian media engaged in warmongering and anti-Albanian sentiment by using ethnic slurs such as "Šiptar" in their coverage.[37]
In 2018, the Belgrade Supreme Court acknowledged that the word "Šiptar" is racist and discriminatory towards Albanians. According to the court, "Šiptar" is a term that defines Albanians asracially inferior to Serbs.[38][39] However, some Serbian politicians still claim that the word is just anAlbanian word for Albanians.[40]
In 2021, the tabloidVečernje novosti published an article claiming that in the second half of the 19th century, Albanians did not have any written documents.[41] In 2024, the Serbian tabloidInformer reportedly published an article claiming thatGjergj Arianiti was of Serbian origin, referring to him as "Đorđe Arijanit Komninović Golemi." The article alleged that Albanians had "stolen Serbian history" and called for its defense, describing this narrative as part of a "neglected and forgotten" Serbian past appropriated by Albanians.[42]
In Greece, the sentiment has existed since the Greek national movement for independence againstOttoman Empire and continued throughout post-1990s, when many immigrants escaped from Albania toGreece.[17][43][44] When the priests fromOrthodox Albanian community, namely,Kristo Negovani introduced Albanian liturgy for Orthodox worship in his nativeNegovan for the first time in 1905, he was murdered by Greekandartes on behalf of BishopKaravangelis ofKastoria.[45][46][47]Stath Melani was another Albanian priest killed by a group of Greek bands nearPërmet for insisting on the use of the Albanian language in the local Orthodox liturgy.[48] In 1929, theLeague of Nations asked Greece to open Albanian-language schools, sinceCham Albanians had been officially recognized as an Albanian minority. The official position however of the then Greek prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, was that since the region had never had Albanian schools, even under the Ottoman Empire, this issue could not be compared with the rights demanded by the Greek minority in Albania.[49] The stereotype by some in Greece of Albanians as criminal and poor has been subject of a 2001 study by theInternational Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHFHR) and by theEuropean Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC).[50][51] As of 2003, it was considered that prejudices and mistreatment of Albanians are still present in Greece,[50] but as of 2007 it was observed that such sentiments are gradually receding.[52] According to a 2002 statement of the IHFUR, the Albanians are more likely to be killed by law enforcement officials thanRomani people.[50] In addition, the EUMC singles out ethnic Albanians as principal targets of racism. Furthermore, the EUMC found that undocumented Albanian migrants "experience serious discrimination in employment, particularly with respect to the payment of wages and social security contributions".[50][51] Albanians are often pejoratively named and or called by Greeks as "Turks", represented in the expression"Turkalvanoi".[53][54] Albanians in Greece are also classified in terms as "savage", while the Greeks view themselves as "civilized".[55]
Prejudicial representations of Albanians and Albanian criminality by the Greek media is largely responsible for the social construction of negative stereotypes, in contrast to the commonly held belief that Greek society is neitherxenophobic nor racist.[56] Anti-Albanian sentiment in Greece is more of a Greek media product, rather than a reflection of social and political attitudes.[57] Although the Greek media have largely abandoned their negative stereotyping of Albanian immigrants (since c. 2000), public perception had already been negatively influenced.[58]
In March 2010, during an official military parade inAthens,Greek soldiers chanted "They areSkopians, they are Albanians, they are Turks we will make new clothes out of their skins". The Civil Protection Ministry of Greece reacted to this by suspending the coast guard officer who was in charge of the parade unit, and pledged to take tough action against the unit's members.[59]
Albanophobia in Greece is primarily due to post-communist migration as well as the fact that until the mid 2000s, Albanians formed the primary immigrant population.[60][61]
Albanophobia inItaly is primarily related to the Albanian immigrants mainly young adults who are stereotypically seen as criminals, drug dealers and rapists.[62][63] Italian media provide a lot of space and attention to crimes committed by ethnic Albanians, even those just presumed.[64]
After theAlbanian crisis and subsequent Albanianmass migration to Italy, it was observed that Italian public opinion was "solidly and remarkably" anti-Albanian.[65] In the 21st century, anti-Albanian sentiment remains widespread and prevalent in Italian society.[66]Anti-Albanian sentiment is almost nonexistent in Italian media and among the general population, as the two countries enjoy excellent relations and Albanians are considered among the most well-integrated communities. In Italy, there are nearly 45,000 businesses owned or run by people of Albanian origin.[67][68][69]
Not infrequently, theAlbanian diaspora inSwitzerland is affected byxenophobia andracism. Integration difficulties and some criminal offences of some Albanians caused manySwiss to be prejudiced against Albanians, which has led to fear, hatred and insecurity.[70]
Political parties that publicly oppose excessive immigration and the conservatism of traditional Swiss culture - in particular theSwiss People's Party (SVP) - strengthen this negative attitude among many party supporters.[71] These parties have already launched a number of popular initiatives, which were referred to by theAlbanians as discriminatory.[72][73] In 1998, the ZurichSVP created an election poster with the words "Kosovo Albanians" and "No" in large letters when it came to financing an integration project forAlbanians.[74] In 2009, the Swiss People's Initiative "Against the Construction of Minarets" was adopted by theSwiss people. Many MuslimAlbanians were outraged by this result and expressed their rejection. In 2010, the so-called "expulsion initiative" followed, which was also adopted by the voters. According to the law, foreigners who have committed serious crimes should be expelled from the country. The initiative on foreigners crime should thus reduce the crime rate and make the naturalization of foreigners more difficult. The "Sheep's Poster" designed by theSVP attracted international attention and was again described by many immigrant organisations inSwitzerland as discriminatory.[75]
Economic integration continues to present difficulties forAlbanians inSwitzerland. In October 2018,Kosovo's unemployment rate was 7.0% and inMacedonia population 5.3%, well above the figure for the rest of the permanent resident population. A study by the Federal Office for Migration justifies this with in part low vocational qualifications among the older generation and the reservations that Albanian youth are exposed to when entering the world of work. In the 1990s, many well-qualified Albanians, because of unrecognized diplomas, with jobs such as in construction or in the catering trade, in which the unemployment is generally higher. This also has implications for the social assistance rate, which is higher for ethnicAlbanians, with significant differences depending on the country of origin. The most affected are people fromAlbania. In contrast, the number of students of Albanian descent is increasing today. In 2008, only 67 people were enrolled at Swiss universities, there are already 460 in 2017. Albanologists and migration researchers today assume that the integration and assimilation ofAlbanians are slowly increasing.
In its annual report, Amnesty International stated in 2010 that the "anti-minaret initiative" stigmatized Albanian Muslims inSwitzerland and increased racism in Switzerland in general.
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of Albanians arriving in theUK, many of them via small boat crossings fromFrance. In 2022, Albanians made up around 35-45% of all migrants arriving by boat.[76] A large number of these migrants tend to originate from Albania’s impoverished north, with Kukës, Dibër, and Shkodër counties in particular being areas of origin for these migrants.[77] The trend raised concerns among some politicians and the public, with Albanian migrants being scrutinized.[78] Since September 2022, British media has focused on Albanian migrants, portraying them negatively using xenophobic terms.[79] Right-wing politicians have capitalized on public fears regarding immigration, often using inflammatory language that paints migrants as criminals or "invaders." Home SecretarySuella Braverman has been a prominent figure in this discourse.[80][81]
Albanians are significantly overrepresented in theUK prison population. In 2020, Albanians made up over 1,500 inmates, representing roughly 10% of the foreign prison population, rising from 2% in 2013.[82] By June 2022, the number of Albanian inmates had fallen to 1,336, but their proportion rose to 14%, maintaining the highest percentage of the foreign prison population in the UK. On a proportional basis, Albanians are 10 times more likely than the general public to be incarcerated.[83] Albanians make up 1.6% of all prisoners despite representing fewer than 0.05% of the UK population. Convictions range from serious offenses such asmurder,manslaughter,rape, and firearms offenses to drug-related crimes like producing cannabis in gang-run farms.[84] This overrepresentation has contributed to negative perceptions and stereotypes about Albanians and their involvement in criminal activities.
By 1942, the city ofBar became a home to many Serbians. Many of these joined the Partisan forces and participated in their activities at Bar.[85] TheBar massacre (Albanian:Masakra e Tivarit) was the killings of an unknown number of mostlyethnic Albanians fromKosovo[a]Yugoslav Partisans in late March or early April 1945 inBar, a municipality in Montenegro, at the end ofWorld War II.
The victims wereAlbanian recruits from Kosovo, who had been pressed by the Yugoslav Partisans into service. These men were then assembled in Prizren and marched on foot in three columns to Bar where they were supposed to receive short training and then sent off to the front.[85] The march took the rugged mountain ranges of Kosovo and Montenegro to reach its destination. Upon arrival locals reported that these men, who had marched a considerable distance, were "exhausted" and "distressed". The column of men which stretched a few kilometres was then gathered on the Barsko Polje. At one point, in Polje, one of the Albanians from the column attacked and killed one of the Yugoslav officers, Božo Dabanović.[85] Very soon after that somebody from the column threw a smuggled bomb at the commander of the brigade.[85] This created a panic among the Partisans. The guards watching over the recruits then fired into the crowd killing many and prompting the survivors to flee into the surrounding mountains.[85] In another case, several hundred Albanians were herded into a tunnel, near Bar, which was subsequently sealed off so that all of those trapped within the tunnel wereasphyxiated.[86]
Yugoslav sources put the number of victims at 400[85] while Albanian sources put the figure at 2,000 killed in Bar alone.[87] According to Croatian historianLjubica Štefan, the Partisans killed 1,600 Albanians in Bar on 1 April after an incident at a fountain.[88] There are also accounts claiming that the victims included young boys.[89] Other sources cited that the killing started en route for no apparent reason and this was supported by the testimony ofZoi Themeli in his 1949 trial.[90] Themeli was a collaborator who worked as an important official of theSigurimi, the Communist Albanian secret police.[91] After the massacre, the site was immediately covered in concrete by the Yugoslav communist regime and built an airport on top of the mass grave.[89]
Ethnic tensions have simmered inNorth Macedonia since the end of anarmed conflict in 2001, where the ethnic AlbanianNational Liberation Army fought against the security forces of North Macedonia.
TheMacedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts was accused of Albanophobia in 2009 after it publishedits first encyclopedia in which was claimed that the Albanianendonym,Shqiptar, means "highlander" and is primarily used by other Balkan peoples to describe Albanians if used in South Slavic languages the endonym is considered derogatory by the Albanian community. The encyclopedia also claimed that the Albanians settled in the region in the 16th century.[92][93][94] Distribution of the encyclopedia was ceased after a series of public protests.
In a terrorist act known as theSmilkovci lake killings, on 12 April 2012, five youngethnic Macedonian teenagers were shot dead by persons ofethnic Albanian origin. They were later found guilty and sentenced to life.[95] This provoked anti-Albanian sentiment. On 16 April 2012, a protest against these attacks and demanding justice was held in Skopje. Some of the participants in the protests were chanting anti-Albanian slogans.[96]
On 1 March 2013 inSkopje, a mob of ethnic Macedonians protested against the decision to appointTalat Xhaferi, an ethnic Albanian politician, asMinister of Defence.[97] The protest turned violent when the mob started hurling stones and also attacking Albanian bystanders and police officers alike. The police reported 3 injured civilians, five injured police officers and much damage to private property. Although the city hospital reported treating five heavily injured Albanian men, two of which are onIntensive-care unit. During this protest part of the mob burned the Albanian flag. A mob ofMacedonian nationalists alsostormed theMacedonian Parliament on 27 April 2017 in reaction to the election of Talat Xhaferi as Speaker of the Assembly, numerous were injured during the riot.
On the 108th anniversary of theCongress of Manastir the museum of the Albanian alphabet inBitola was vandalized, and the windows and doors were broken. A poster with the words "Death to Albanians" and with the drawing of a lion cutting the heads of the Albanian double-headed eagle was placed on the front doors of the museum.[98] One week after this incident, on the day of theAlbanian Declaration of Independence graffiti with the same messages, as those of the previous week, were placed on the directorate ofPelister National Park.[99]
Amongst the unemployed, Albanians are overrepresented. In public institutions as well as many private sectors they are underrepresented. They also face hidden discrimination by public officials.[100] According to theUnited States' Country Report on Human Rights 2012 for Macedonia "certain ministries declined to share information about ethnic makeup of employees".
The same report also added:
"...ethnic Albanians and other national minorities, with the exception ofethnic Serbs and Vlachs, were underrepresented in the civil service and other state institutions, including the military, the police force, and the intelligence services, as well as the courts, the national bank, customs, and public enterprises, in spite of efforts to recruit qualified candidates from these communities. Ethnic Albanians constituted 18 percent of army personnel, while minority communities as a whole accounted for 25 percent of the population according to statistics provided by the government."[101]
The colonisation program, despite the emigration of tens of thousands, failed to significantly change the ethnic imbalance in Kosovo. The idea, however, persisted. Vaso Čubrilović, a respected historian, wrote in a 7 March 1937, government memorandum entitled "The Expulsion of the Albanians", "It is impossible to repel the Albanians just by gradual colonization...The only possibility and method is the brutal power of a well-organized state... We have already stressed that for us the only efficient way is the mass deportation of the Albanians out of their triangle".[dubious –discuss]
anti-Albanian Rankovic.
He was the successor of Padre Stath Melani, who was massacred and treacherously killed by Greek bands (in Melan at 1912) because he had responded to the bishop "Your Grace! Albanians communicate with God better and sooner in Albanian than in the Greek language
Hiermit nicht zu verwechseln sind die zusammengesetzen Volksnamen, die sich auf Herkunft oder Religion beziehen, wie z.B. Τουρκαλβανός (Turkalbaner), Τουρκοκρήτες (Turkkreter), Τουρκοκύπριοι (Turkzyprioten). [Hereby does not to be confused the composite national name, they were referred to by origin or religion, such as Τουρκαλβανός (Turco-Albanian) Τουρκοκρήτες (Turco-Cretans), Τουρκοκύπριοι (Turko-Cypriots).]"
