The Albanians' Prizren League has two main…
April 1881 CE
The Albanians' Prizren League has two main goals, one political and the other cultural.
First, it strives (unsuccessfully) to unify all Albanian territories—at this time divided among the four vilayets, or provinces, of Kosovo, Shkodër, Monastir, and Janina (Ioánnina)—into one autonomous state within the framework of the Ottoman Empire.
Second, it spearheads a movement to develop Albanian language, literature, education, and culture.
The Turks move to suppress the league in 1881, in part because they are alarmed by its strong nationalistic orientation.
By this time, however, the league has become a powerful symbol of Albania's national awakening, and its ideas and objectives fuel the drive that culminates later in national independence.
The Ottoman sultan, faced with growing international pressure "to pacify" the refractory Albanians, dispatches a large army under Dervish Turgut Pasha to suppress the Prizren League and deliver Ulcinj to Montenegro.
Albanians loyal to the empire supports the Sublime Porte's military intervention.
In April 1881, Dervish Pasha's ten thousand men capture Prizren and ...