5i6 



The Review of Reviews. 



oppression and anarchy which reign in this 

 region are unique. I feel sure that EngUsh 

 politicians and travellers who have explored Old 

 Servia will corroborate this. Authority is either 

 non-existent or ineffectual. Mohammedans, 

 and especially the Albanians, are all armed, 

 while Servians are forbidden to carry weapons. 

 In some parts the oppressors govern, supported 

 by bands of armed men, mostly of Albanian 

 origin, and the whole country seethes with 

 brigands, who live by theft and extortion. 

 Lesser brigands steal the land from Servian 

 owners, so that four-fifths of the Servians have 

 become mere tenants or chiffchic. Anyone 

 venturing to offer a protest is killed by the 

 Albanians, and the same fate often befalls all 

 his male relatives. These brigands form into 

 large bands and practice monetary extortions 

 on the wealthier inhabitants, and even on whole 

 villages. Two or three often take up their 

 abode on the outskirts of some village and start 

 robbing and murdering. In cases of an en- 

 counter with Servian peasants, which seldom 

 occurs, for the latter are unarmed, the other 

 members of the gang come to their assistance. 

 The Servians are thus driven from their villages, 

 which are subsequently populated with Al- 

 banians. In the lofty pastures of Old Servia 

 the Servian herdsman has almost disappeared, 

 for all his cattle have been carried off by the 

 marauders from Central and Northern Albania. 



THE FLIGHT INTO SERVIA. 



The fugitives escape to Servia, and here the 

 majority live as a burden on the State, awaiting 

 the moment when they may recover their pro- 

 perty. Since 1876, until the beginning of the 

 present war, there are about 150,000 of these 

 ejected landowners in Servia. But all the 

 Servians are not able to cross over to Servia, 

 and a great many become chiffchic, or tenants 

 of the Albanian brigands and " begs." Al- 

 though this mode of existence is extremely hard, 

 the chiffchic are not protected even as such. In 

 the land of anarchy there are brigands and 

 super-brigands who attack the Servian tenantry. 

 I knew a peasant from the village of Ugliara, 

 in Kossovo, who had his cattle stolen by Al- 

 banian brigands; then they stole his beehives, 

 and finally all his clothes, and as he had no 

 land he was left without any property — a regular 

 beggar ! Similar cases are quite common. In 

 a village near Fetch, in 1900, only one Servian 

 household remained. The head, as he told me 

 himself, exhausted by the oppressors, turned 

 Mohammedan in despair. But his wife would 

 not do this, nor would she allow the children to 

 change their faith. Priest and hodja used to 

 visit the house at long intervals. But when the 

 daughters became marriageable the tragedy 



began. The Albanians wanted to marry the 

 girls to their sons, and the father, as a Moham- 

 medan, had to consent to this, but the wife 

 opposed it. At this time he received an offer 

 to escape into Servia, and he did so, leaving all 

 his property, which the Albanians divided 

 among themselves. 



FORCED CONVERTS TO ISLAM. 



Otherwise the whole family would have been 

 Islamised. Servian women and girls are 

 constantly being carried off and Islamised. 

 It is true that of late a woman or girl is 

 required to state before a Turkish Court, and 

 in the presence of a Servian priest, that she 

 herself wishes to change her religion. Often 

 the priests succeed in making the women admit 

 in court that they have been forced to change 

 their faith, and they are then sent to their 

 homes. But the lives of fathers and husbands 

 are thus imperilled, and unless they escape at 

 once to Servia they are killed by the Albanians. 

 It is quite comprehensible, then, that the Servian 

 peasants should become Mohammedans, for as 

 soon as they do this all their miseries are at 

 an end. In these regions there are also secret 

 Servians who have outwardly adopted Albanian 

 dress and customs and who speak Albanian as 

 well as Servian. Near the town of Gniljana 

 there are Servian crypto-Catholics, who have 

 gone so far as to profess Islam, but at home 

 they practice their own Christian faith. It is 

 useless for Servians in the villages or towns to 

 save or acquire anything. A merchant or trades- 

 man who makes any money dare not invest it 

 for fear of attracting attention. All that re- 

 mains for him to do is to tie up his money and 

 hide it away as best he can. If he is found out, 

 the brigands come down upon him for large 

 sums, and unless he pays he is killed. When 

 criminals of. this kind are summoned before the 

 Courts, which is very seldom the case, they are 

 usually let off scot free. This wretched state of 

 affairs has not improved even with the estab- 

 lishment of the Constitution in 1908. 



MATTERS V^^ORSE UNDER YOUNG TURKS. 



. Moreover, the Ottomanising process of the 

 Young Turks has aggravated the position of all 

 Christians in Turkey. Although they possessed no 

 rights, on the strength of the privileges granted 

 by the first Sultan conquerors the Servians had 

 their own municipalities, churches, schools, and 

 monastic property. But the Young Turk rdgime 

 made an onslaught on all these privileges, not- 

 withstanding the protest of the Patriarchate in 

 Constantinople. They declared church and 

 monastic lands public property, and settled 

 thereon Mohammedan emigrants from Bosnia, 

 who speak Servian. They also allotted to these 



