“Mr Secretary General, we are not the first envoys of the Albanian population living in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia to have addressed the League of Nations concerning the lamentable state of this minority, created by Serb rule;

and we will certainly not be the last to protest before this high institution of international law unless the political course taken by the rulers in Belgrade towards their Albanian subjects alters its bases and procedures.”

Thus wrote three Albanian priests from Kosovo in 1930.

Dom Shtjefën Kurti from Prizren (in the photo), Dom Gjon Bisaku of Prizren, and Dom Luigj Gashi from the district of Gjakova, sent a memorandum to Geneva on 5th May 1930, addressing their grave concerns to
Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary General of the League of Nations.

The memorandum which described in detail horrendous crimes against humanity, burning of entire villages, expulsion of Albanian population, plundering and confiscation of their belongings; also mentions the murder of their esteemed fellow priest and ethnographer Shtjefën Gjeçovi.

Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi, after finishing his studies in philosophy and theology devoted much of his life to studying ethnography, bringing to light the Albanian customary law ‘Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini’.
He served in Zym near Prizren where was gunned down on 14th October 1929.

All three signatories of the memorandum were threatened by the commanders of Serbian gendarmes in Prizren and Peja/ Peć that they would be next.
They were even asked to submit the summaries of their sermons.

They were forced to abandon their diocese and flee to Albania.

The signatories also raise awareness of the violation of treaty on rights of minorities by the Yugoslav state, stipulated in the Treaty of Saint Germain-en- Laye, which they’ve signed on 10th September 1919.

“History is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake.”

The fates of these noble priests under communist dictatorship in Albania, is another tragic chapter in itself.

I’m eternally grateful to our beloved Robert Elsie for translating the memorandum from French, and including it in ‘Gathering Clouds’.