ALBANIAN PERCEPTION OF 1908 REVOLUTION AND ITS EFFECTS ON ALBANIAN NATIONALISM

Abstract

The Young Turk Revolution of July 1908 marked the return to constitutionalgovernment in the Ottoman Empire. The constitutional movement wanted tomodernize and democratize the empire with a vision of a democratic multi-nationalstate on the one hand and also to preserve what was left of the Empire on the other.Many diverse groups including some of the different ethnic and religiouscommunities gave their supports to this movement hoping that under aconstitutional regime they would gain a grater autonomy /priviliges for their peopleamong whom Albanians were the first group to join the constitutional movementand many of them participated in the Young Turk uprisingThe Young Turk Revolution in almost all respects failed to fulfill what it promised.The promised democracy and decentralization and also racial-harmony andequality and participation in the state by all ethnic groups were abandoned whenYoung Turk leaders realized that this compromised security. The authoritarian andcentralized nature of the government and its attempt to impose a single identity oneveryone led to liberal oppositon of many diverse groups among which theAlbanians saw their future as closely linked with a strengthened, more modernEmpire . Although very much divided in terms of goals, many intellectual Albaniansopposed to the armed struggle that would bring Fearing their end foreignintervention in an era of ethnic Nationalism and irredentist policies of the newlyestablished nation-states in the Balkans. They were involved in an unarmed struggleto achieve cultural autonomy which they perceived as the necessary first steptoward the creation of a national sentiment . This is why Albanian Intellectuals usedall their efforts for the establishment of a more liberal government based on thePrinciples of promised at the beginning of the revolution, which had a vitalexchange of importance for the protection of their national