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To cite this Article Triadafilopoulos, Triadafilos(2000) 'Power politics and nationalist discourse in the struggle for
'Northern Epirus': 1919-1921', Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2: 2, 149 162
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/713683343
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/713683343
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Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, Volume 2, Number 2, 2000
TRIADAFILOS TRIADAFILOPOULOS
On the surface it seemed reasonable: let the People decide. It was in fact
ridiculous because the people cannot decide until someone decides who the
people are.
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Ivor Jennings
Introduction
By most counts, the validity of nationalist propaganda and its use in scholarly
debates is limited. Overtly nationalist literature serves a political purpose and
need not conform to general standards of scholarly writing. However, to be
effective, it must advance a particular cause while remaining within the realm
of seemingly legitimate discourse. In other words, its success depends on how
well the nations advocates understand and anticipate their audiences precon-
ceptions, values, and worldview. In short, nationalist literature must possess
the potential to persuade. Consequently, even the most partisan and seemingly
preposterous nationalist writings may illuminate particular questions or de-
bates by providing the discerning reader with unique insights into the ideals of
nationalists and their target audience.
This paper examines the writings of Greek and Albanian nationalists
regarding the question of Northern Epirus1 between 1919 and 1921. Part of the
material under consideration was originally published in pamphlet form and
was presented to representatives of the Great Powers at the Paris Peace
Conference in February 1918. The remainder consists of ofcial statements
made by both the Greek and Albanian governments. At the Conference, both
sides sought to expand their states territory through revisions to the Greco-
Albanian border. Differing interpretations of the ethnic identity and national
consciousness of the territorys population were used to support their claims.
*I am grateful for helpful comments from and conversations with Elzbieta Matynia, Adamantia
Pollis, Barbara Syrrakos, Jane Cowan, Isa Blumi, and Shaun Young. I would also like to thank Dr.
Vassilis Fouskas and the journals two anonymous reviewers for their criticisms and suggestions.
Special thanks to Tina Tzatzanis for research assistance. An earlier version of this paper was read at
the Modern Greek Studies Associations 1997 Symposium in Kent, Ohio.
1
Northern Epirus extends northward from the northern boundary of Greece to just south of
Valona on the Adriatic to the lakes of Ochrid and Prespa in the east. It constitutes approximately
one-fourth of the total area of Albania and includes the towns of Gjirokaster (Argyrocastro), Korce
(Koritza), and Himare (Chimara), as well as the port of Sarande (Santi Quaranta). See Laurie Kain Hart
and Kristina Budina, Northern Epiros: the Greek minority in southern Albania, Cultural Survival
Quarterly, 3, Summer 1995, p. 55.
ISSN 1461-319 0 print/ISSN 1469-963 X online/00/02014914 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1461319002000041 8
150 Triadalos Triadalopoulos
However, the contested region possessed a mixed population that did not
easily t either Greek or Albanian ethno-national categories. As such, the Great
Powers were amenable to arguments ostensibly presented to make sense of this
complicated case.2 The general climate of international relations also worked
to the nationalists advantage. The victorious Allies were committed to carving
up the remnants of the fallen German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman
Empires. Woodrow Wilsons championing of the right to self-determination
and equitable treatment for small states held out the promise that territorial
claims constructed around the question of nationality would be considered
favourably by the Great Powers.3 Indeed, for the rst time in the history of
European diplomacy, the primacy of the nation was recognized as the key
ordering principle of states and interstate relations.4 Not surprisingly, then,
Greek and Albanian nationalists seized the opportunity to present their posi-
tions to the worlds self-appointed arbiters.
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frontier to defend, the population of the whole district of Epirus seem to have
thought of themselves as Moslems and Christians [rather] than as Greeks and
Albanians. Then, as now, there would have been extreme difculty in sorting
out pure Greek from pure Albanian, especially north of the present [1944]
frontier, and probably many of them were of mixed blood. (In fact, the ancestral
stock even of those sections of the population which appear today as denitely
Greek or denitely Albanian is perhaps identical.)9
GreekAlbanian border, left all of Northern Epirus within Albania and called
for the Greeks to evacuate their military forces from the region.12 In return for
its co-operation, Greece was awarded several Aegean islands, which it had also
claimed at the Conference of Ambassadors.13
The Greek Epirotes, however, did not let the matter rest. In February 1914
the Autonomous Northern Epirus Movement led by George Christaki
Zographos, a former Foreign Minister of Greece, mounted an armed resistance
to Albanian rule.14 On 2 March 1914, the rebels declared the independence of
Northern Epirus. Fighting between irregular military bands was brought to a
formal end in May 1914 with the signing of the Convention of Corfu. The
Convention granted autonomy to the Greek Epirotes and allowed for an
ethnically mixed police force and access to education and religious services in
the Greek language.15 However, the Convention was never tested. In August
1914 the First World War broke out and in October, at the request of the Allies,
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Greek troops occupied Northern Epirus.16 Greece quickly seized the moment
and invited representatives from Northern Epirus to sit in the Greek parlia-
ment in Athens. Shortly thereafter, the Greek Monarchy issued a decree
announcing the formal union of Northern Epirus with the Kingdom of
Greece.17 The Allies rejected these policies and ordered Northern Epirote
deputies to relinquish their seats in the Greek legislature.
The secret Treaty of London, signed on 26 April 1915, further complicated
the question of Albanias post-war future. In exchange for entering the war on
the side of the Allies, Article 6 of the Treaty granted Italy full sovereignty over
the Albanian port of Vlore (Valona), the island of Saseno and surrounding
territory sufcient to assure defence of these points.18 By Article 7, Albania was
to be reduced to an autonomous (not independent) entity encompassing only
the central portion of its 1913 territory.19 Italy was to permit Greece to acquire
Northern Epirus while also allowing for the partition of Albanias eastern
territories by Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. Italy eventually rejected the
cession of Northern Epirus and in 1917 declared that all of Albania should be
united, declared independent, and placed under Italian protection.20 In the
meantime, France had occupied and set up an Albanian Republic in the town
of Korce (Koritza). As the war drew to a close, Albania was occupied by
12
L. S. Stavrianos, The Balkans Since 1453, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1958, p. 541.
13
G. B. Leon, Greece and the Albanian question at the outbreak of the First World War, Balkan
Studies, 1, 1970, p. 63.
14
See B. P. Papadakis, Histoire Diplomatique de la Question Nord-Epirote (19121957), J. Alevropoulos,
Athens, 1958, pp. 2429; B. Kondis, Greece and Albania: 19081914, Institute for Balkan Studies,
Thessaloniki, 1976, pp. 124125; A. Tounta-Phergade, Themata Hellenikes Diplomatikes Historias:
19121934 (Themes in Greek Diplomatic History: 19121934), Parateretes, Athens, 1987, p. 57.
15
Stickney, op. cit., p. 49; Kondis, op. cit., p. 131. Also see C. Skenderis, O Voreioepirotikos Agon: 1914
(The North Epirus Struggle: 1914), Athens, 1929, pp. 127129; and K. Manolopoulou-Varvitsiote ,
Synchrona Provlemata Meionotiton sta Valkania (Contemporary Minority Problems in the Balkans), Eirini,
Athens, 1989, pp. 9293.
16
Stickney, op. cit., p. 57.
17
Ibid., p. 62.
18
H. W. V. Temperley (ed.), A History of the Peace Conference of Paris Vol. IV, Oxford University Press,
London, 1920, p. 340.
19
Ibid., p. 341.
20
D. Dakin, The Unication of Greece: 17701923, St. Martins Press, New York, 1972, p. 222.
ThemesPower politics and nationalist discourse 153
French, Italian, Serbian, and Greek troops.21 The future of the country was
beholden to the conicting interests of the occupying forces.
The guidelines of Wilsons New World Order were presented in both the
Fourteen Points and the Four Points. Point Five of the Fourteen Points
called for the
[a]bsolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict
observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty
the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable
claims of the government whose title is to be determined (emphasis added).24
21
For a concise recounting of the diplomatic wrangling between Italy, France, and Greece see G.
B. Leontaritis, Greece and the First World War: From Neutrality to Intervention, 19121918, East European
Monographs, Boulder, CO, 1990, pp. 321365.
22
Message From President Wilson to Russia, 9 June 1917, in J. B. Scott (ed.), Ofcial Statements
of War Aims and Peace Proposals, December 1916 to November 1918, Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, Washington, DC, 1921, pp. 104105.
23
J. Mayall, Nationalism and International Society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990,
p. 44. It is worth noting the hubris that drove Wilson and other architects of the New World order.
As Michael Burns has pointed out, Wilson arrived in Paris accompanied by geographers, statisticians,
historians, and political scientists, who pledged to work like engineers on a new construction
project . As we shall see below, this blind trust in the scientic and rational means of settling
territorial disputes was quickly seized upon by nationalist advocates, who in turn used the language
of their Western counterparts. M. Burns, Disturbed spirits: minority rights and New World Orders,
1919 and the 1990s, in S. F. Wells Jr and P. B. Smith (eds), New European Orders, 1919 and 1991, The
Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, DC, 1996, pp. 4446.
24
R. S. Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement Vol. III Original Documents of the Peace Conference,
Peter Smith, Gloucester, MA, 1960, p. 43.
154 Triadalos Triadalopoulos
a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior inuence or mastery (emphasis
added). 25
Point Three of the Four Points and Point One of the Fourteen Points
renounced the secretive, unprincipled character of the old diplomacy. In its
place, Wilson requested that all states consent to be governed by the
same principles of honour and of respect for the common law of civilized
society that govern the individual citizens of all modern States.26
Wilsons vision was shared by many, particularly in Britain and the United
States. The failure of the old diplomacy was often cited by journalists and
academics as the root cause of the Great War.27 Support for the rights of small
states was combined with a general ideological consensus regarding the
natural division of humanity into constituent nations.28 Hence, the people
entitled to self-determination were invariably national communities dened
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It is admitted today as an historical fact that the Albanian people is the most
ancient, the most compact, the most homogeneous, and the most important
factor of all the Balkan nations. His origin and his strong national consciousness,
that of being Albanian by race, language, customs and feeling, distinguish him
entirely from the neighboring races, and give him that proper individuality,
which enabled him to resist for centuries all endeavours of being denationalize d
and assimilated.36
Likewise, Mehmed Bey Konitza argued that Albanias division into three major
religious groupingsMuslim, Greek Orthodox Christian, and Roman Catholic
Christiandid not in any way divide the Albanian people. Rather, according
to Konitza, Albania [was] perhaps the only country in Europe where re-
ligion produced no dissension among the inhabitants, who remained united
at every period of their national history.37
The Albanian writers traced their nations lineage back to ancient times,
arguing that they were the descendants of the Illyrians. They contended that
invasion and conquest by the Byzantine, Roman, and Ottoman Empires had
not unduly affected the purity of their people. For despite these setbacks, the
Albanians retained their language and their national manners and usages, and
remained a distinct people with a distinct national consciousness.38 Even more
importantly, they argued that the Byzantines, whose Greek culture and civiliza-
tion dominated Epirus for fourteen centuries, did not inuence the Albanians
in any fundamental way.39 According to these writers, the Albanian people
were genuinely distinct, unlike neighbouring Slavs and Greeks whose lineage
was marred by intermarriage. This purity made the Albanians a superior
34
Stickney, op. cit., p. 91.
35
Ibid.
36
S. K. Dako, Albanias Rights, Hopes and Aspirations, Atheneum, Boston, 1918, p. 3.
37
M. B. Konitza, The Albanian question, International Conciliation, 138, May 1919, p. 747.
38
C. A. Dako, The Strength of the National Consciousness of the Albanian People, Atheneum, Boston,
1918, pp. 2324. In Konitzas words: Such is Albanias history. The waves of successive Empires have
passed over her, and her people have remained staunch. The rule of Rome and of Byzantium have
passed. The Balkan medieval Empires were a mere ripple on the waters of time. The oodtide of the
Turkish Empire has ebbed, and Albania remains as a granite crag above the troubled waters. Konitza,
op. cit., p. 770.
39
C. A. Dako, op. cit., p. 25.
156 Triadalos Triadalopoulos
people: their strongly marked racial and linguistic unity [gives] them a
strength, which not all the other races of the Balkan Peninsula possess.40
The emphasis on purity of descent and racial continuity was used to
legitimize Albanias territorial claims at the Paris Peace Conference. The
London Conference of Ambassadors, they argued, had erred in not delimiting
Albanias borders according to its ethnographical limits. According to
Konitza, just boundaries would place parts of Serbia, Montenegro, and all of
Epirus within Albania.41 Failure to accede to Albanian demands would in-
evitably lead to further instability and bloodshed.42 Peace in the Balkans could
only be achieved through strict observation of Wilsonian principles, which
would naturally vindicate the Albanians.43 Hence:
Whether the Albanian question be regarded from the point of view of justice or
from the political point of view for the sake of the peace of the Balkans, and
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therefore of Europe, there can be but one solutionthe restoration of the Albanian
state within its ethnographical limits.44
ans were a unied people deserving of the right to live together within a single
nation-state. 48 They supplemented this position by arguing that a strong
Albanian state with defensible borders and open trade routes was essential in
terms of securing peace in the Balkans. The size of the Greek minority in
Northern Epirus was downplayed and Greek complaints over the treatment
of the Epirotes rejected. The Albanians argued that the Greeks were using the
minority issue as a pretext for territorial aggrandizement, which, in turn,
threatened the stability of the region. Finally, in an attempt to appeal to
American public opinion, the Albanian delegation requested that the Confer-
ence give a temporary mandate to the government of the United States to
occupy and administer the disputed territory. After a year of such an arrange-
ment, a plebiscite could be held to determine the will of the population.49
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progressive people like the Epirotes should have ever been asked, not to say
forced, to live and be governed by people who are wanting in the most
elementary requisites of self-governing peoples.56
Greek culture and civilization justied the towns absorption into Greece.63
Given the Albanians inferior status, it would be foolish for the Great Powers
to place the civilized Greek Epirotes under their rule. In Cassavetes words:
If the Christians are put under one and the same government with a vast
majority of these ignorant and fanatic Moslems, will it not be natural for them to
deal with the Christians in the standard Moslem methodas inferiors, as
slaves, as rayas (emphasis added)?64
Thus, according to Cassavetes, the only solution compatible with the legitimate
principle of nationality required that the genuine will of the civilized Greek
Epirotes be recognized and that Northern Epirus be absorbed into the
Kingdom of Greece. To ignore the Epirotes will would mean abandoning
President Wilsons commitment to the self-determination of peoples and the
grounding of diplomacy in justice.
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63
In Cassavetes words: If we are to consider not only the number of heads but what is inside them,
the case for union with Greece becomes clear. Here [in Korce], as elsewhere in Northern Epirus, the
Progressive and civilizing elements are those that desire a Greek future, and there can be little doubt
that the town will be better off as part of an ordered and established state than as part of one that
is likely for many years to be unsettled and turbulent. Cassavetes, Northern Epirus and the principle
of nationality, p. 910.
64
Cassavetes, The Question of Northern Epirus, p. 46.
65
Cited in Stickney, op. cit., p. 77.
66
Ibid., p. 88.
67
Ibid.
160 Triadalos Triadalopoulos
68
Britain and France were initially supportive of Greece because they did not favour the extension
of Italian power in the Balkans. According to Harold Nicolson, the British attitude was clouded by
a doubt [as to] whether it was wise, if Italy were to obtain a foothold in Albania, to give her the strategic
advantages of Koritza and the Santi Quaranta road which was in fact the only line of communication
between Janina and Salonika. H. Nicolson, Peacemaking 1919, Grosset & Dunlap, London, 1965, p. 174.
69
L. Sigalos, The Greek Claims on Northern Epirus, Argonaut, Chicago, 1963, p. 50.
70
Ibid., p. 51.
71
For a detailed analysis of Albanias application to the League of Nations, see Stickney, op. cit.,
Chapter 7.
72
Joseph Swire, Albania: The Rise of a Kingdom, Williams & Norgate, London, 1929, pp. 366367.
73
Ibid., p. 369.
74
Sigalos, op. cit., p. 57. Also see Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, p. 318.
75
See Declaration by the Governments of the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan in Regard
to Albania, signed at Paris, 9 November 1921, in League of Nations, Treaty Series, Vol. XII, No. 383,
1922. The Italians control over Albanias fortunes was formalized with the signing of the Pact of
Friendship and Security on 27 November 1926. In the words of historian T. Zavalani: It was clear that
the pact made Italy the supreme foreign force in Albania, and there could be little doubt that Italy
wanted to take over the country. T. Zavalani, Albanian nationalism, in P. F. Sugar and I. O. Lederer
(eds), Nationalism in Eastern Europe, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1969, p. 85.
76
It is worth emphasizing that the liberal-internationalis t spirit that had characterized Western
public opinion during and immediately after the war waned considerably during the course of the
negotiations, particularly in the United States, where President Wilsons bid for Americas entry into
the League of Nations was defeated by isolationists in Congress. As Gordon Craig and Alexander
George have noted, Wilson went from being a man hailed as a world saviour in 1918, to a broken
individual forced to sit passively as his design for a democratic world system [was] rejected by an
American electorate whose ardor for a role in the world community cooled when its perspective costs
were realized. Wilsons loss of prestige at home badly weakened his stature among European
ThemesPower politics and nationalist discourse 161
Conclusion
Nationalist claims are shaped by prevailing rules of discourse. Historically,
these rules have been established by centres of power. In the immediate
post-First World War era, nationalist claims were greatly inuenced by the
Great Powers endorsement of the right of national self-determination. This
doctrine facilitated the dismemberment of multiethnic empires and sanctied
the nation-state concept. The division of Europe along national lines was
advanced as a way of both promoting peace and extending the interests of the
European powers. This dubious marriage of justice and Realpolitik greatly
inuenced nationalist writers in small, peripheral states. The texts analysed
here suggest that Greek and Albanian nationalists were well aware of precisely
what those wielding power expected to hear. Their conception of the nation
and claims to territory were calculated to strike a responsive chord among the
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diplomats in Paris.
This relationship between nationalist writers in the semi-periphery and
their audience in the core has not received adequate recognition among
scholars. Arguments such as those made by Cassavetes, Konitza, the Dakos
and the ofcial Greek and Albanian representatives at the Paris Peace Confer-
ence are typically denigrated as products of the Balkan imagination. This
position fails to appreciate the shared nature of nationalist discourse. The texts
surveyed here were not conceived of in a vacuum. Rather, they drew on
popular theories and beliefs held by Western intellectuals, political elites, and
diplomats. Indeed, the debate was not over the legitimacy of pure states and
just territorial frontiers; it was over which groups could legitimately claim
these privileges. Moreover, the struggle between Greek and Albanian national-
ist was not exclusively over territory. It was also over the right to lay aside the
mantle of cultural inferiority and claim membership within the civilized
community of European states.
More recently, the new states emerging out of the wreckage of Yugoslavia
and the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe have been eager to
take up residence West of the civilizational divide.77 Contemporary nationalists
in these countries have appropriated the language of civilizational values to
promote their nations compatibility with the West.78 Initially, this would
appear to be a positive development. However, as Adam Burgess has pointed
out:
Given the difculties of conforming to idealized standards of attention, the most
readily available means of getting attention and suggesting acceptance is deni-
grating ones neighbors as unredeemably backward and Easternin order to
shine in comparison. [It] is precisely through the language of a unique capacity to
diplomats, who preferred the old diplomacy to the new. See G. A. Craig and A. L. George, Force and
Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time, Oxford University Press, New York, 1983, pp. 61, 70; and
T. A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace, Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1963. For accounts of
European diplomats reactions to Wilsons defeat at home, see G. A. Craig and F. Gilbert (eds), The
Diplomats: 19191939, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1953.
77
As Slavoj Zizek has noted, East European nationalists are principally interested in the struggle
for ones place: who will be admittedintegrated into the developed capitalist orderand who will
be excluded. S. Zizek, Ethnic Danse Macabre, The Guardian, 28 August 1992.
78
A. Burgess, National minority rights and the civilizing of Eastern Europe, Contention, 2,
Winter 1996, p. 27.
162 Triadalos Triadalopoulos
anger and protests of certain Croatians have been qualied as terrorism and
even fascism.80
Burgesss linking of contemporary integral nationalism to the discourse of
Western values strikes a blow to cruder interpretations, which tend to draw
a heavy line between nationalists and their audience; between the members of
tribes and their civilized counterparts in the West.81 Greater recognition of this
fallacy should allow us to relax the rigid distinctions between types of national-
ism and encourage more studies on the substance of nationalist claims.82 For the
imaginative exercise that underlies the creation and reinvention of national
identities is inuenced by both ideas and political forces that transcend state
borders.83