- Review of Daut Dauti's latest book, published by the well-known publishing house, Bloomsbury Academic -
By: Andrew Thomas Park, researcher and professor at the University of Hong Kong / Magazine Journal of British Studies (2024), 1-2, published by CambridgeUniversity Press.
Translated by: Agron Shala / Telegrafi.com
The Book of Daut Daut, Britain and the Albanian issue during the fall of the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1914 [Britain, the Albanian Question and the Fall of the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1914], traces the relationship and mutual perceptions between the British political elite and the nascent Albanian nationalist movement over the four decades leading up to the creation of the Albanian state. If for most of this period these relations were largely silent, for a brief – but decisive moment, during the Conference of Ambassadors in London in 1912-13 – Britain played a decisive role. Dauti's book provides a useful background to these developments, delving earlier than other English-language studies into the creation of the Albanian state and using Albanian-language sources and ex-Ottoman archives.
In the book, Dauti mainly follows a chronological structure. Despite the period mentioned in the title, the first chapter begins at the end of the eighteenth century with the first descriptions of Albania published in Britain - mainly by descriptive writers, the most famous of whom was the poet Lord Byron [Byron]. Another interesting writer who traveled to the region was Benjamin Disraeli, who visited Albania in 1830, shortly after the Ottomans regained control of the country, massacring hundreds of Albanian chieftains who had supported the Greeks in their earlier uprising.
Byron's and Disraeli's positive portrayal of the Albanians was based on their secular outlook, a perspective opposed by the Christian-centric liberalism of William Gladstone. British attitudes towards Albania, the book argues, were largely shaped by the conservative and liberal positions represented by Disraeli and Gladstone. However, this did not bring tangible changes in the political results for the Albanians.
Chapter 2 illustrates this by noting that, despite Disraeli's cordial attitude during the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and afterwards – his Foreign Secretary, Lord Salisbury, met with a delegation of the Albanian League, the first body ( short-lived) organized Albanian political unity - in the end he "did not respond to their request" (37). Conservatives saw the Albanians as a bulwark supporting the Ottoman Empire, while, for the same reason, liberals saw them as Muslims unworthy of the support they provided to the Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire. Chapter 3 examines these competing perceptions as they operated within the Balkan Committee—a foreign policy pressure group founded in 1903 that supported the autonomy of Ottoman Macedonia, but which primarily viewed the region "through the prism of religion" and therefore tended to overlooked the role of the Albanians (56).
Albania was, of course, always an integral part of the Macedonian question and the wider fate of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Chapters 4-6 describe this and thus highlight Britain's role in the Albanian national movement. The British and Foreign Bible Society played an important role from the middle of the nineteenth century in the translation and distribution of the New Testament in the Albanian language, which, as Dauti writes, was "popular simply because it was a book in Albanian" (88 ). Britain also played a role in the political plans of the Albanian insurgent politicians. While still loyal to the Ottomans and not yet the founder of modern Albania, Ismail Bey Qemali sent a memorandum to the sultan in 1892, asking for a Balkan federation and an entente with Britain to repel Russia.
In the end, after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, which Dauti reformulates well in relation to the important role played by Albania, the Ottoman government would orient itself towards Germany. He notes how language politics quickly eroded the Albanians' earlier support with the Young Turks, which eventually led to open hostilities and wider consequences. However, the language issue is also felt in another way. While Daut's writing is mostly clear, there are a few idiosyncrasies whose resolution might have helped the reader.
While the Albanian uprising of 1911 failed, it succeeded in inducing Britain to support Albanian autonomy, which Dauti describes as "a decisive step in the British government's abandonment of Porte-friendly policy" (106). The Albanian insurgents had more success in 1912, but the possibility of Albanian autonomy worried the neighboring Balkan states and this contributed to the outbreak of the Balkan Wars. The birth of Albania during the Conference of Ambassadors in 1912-13 was aided by Sir Edward Grey, who now saw it best to serve the British interest by advocating for a new state.
Dout's discussion of this diplomacy is somewhat condensed and is better explained in the book The East of Albania [The Birth of Albania, 2012] by Nicola Guy and in Ernst Helmreich's classic study of 1938. Likewise, the argument as a whole could have benefited from a deeper engagement with the wider international context, which is sometimes lost due to the focus of close to Britain. However, Dout's book is not a narrow diplomatic history, but an attempt to illustrate the connection between internal British perceptions and political outcomes.
Chapters 7 and 8, the last two of the book, reflect this, as they examine the careers of two prominent British supporters of the Albanian cause who helped shape public opinion during this period. Edith Durham and Aubrey Herbert were both disgruntled members of the Balkans Committee who were angered by the committee's ignoring of the Albanian question. Herbert created the Albanian Committee to oppose this position, but the ultimate impact of his public efforts is difficult to judge. The committee criticized the outcome of the London Conference, but Herbert himself praised Grey.
Durham seems to have had more success influencing British diplomats – from the ground in the Balkans. However, after leaving Albania in 1914, she returned only once, seven years later—and remained disillusioned, writing, as Dauti quotes her, “[I] don't feel that my Albania existed anymore” (134). . Could the Albania imagined by any of the Britons treated in this book ever really exist?
Whatever the answer to this question, in exploring internal British perceptions, Dauti provides a valuable background to the process of Albanian state creation, which eventually came to fruition. In this way, Dauti also manages to restore the importance of Albania in the history of the decline and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. /Telegraph/
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