Heavy stone

"As is known, our national history is partial and we still do not have a unified national history written. However, I try to suggest to young historians that every work written by them should be 'a heavy stone that should have special weight'", said the prominent historian, Ramiz Abdyli, who died last Tuesday. There are many historians of the new generations, but also Albanian students who have crossed the threshold of his house. In one of the last meetings we had with Professor Abdyli at his house in Prishtina, on the work table stood the voluminous manuscript This "heavy stone" has not yet seen the light of publication

At the beginning of the week we left behind in Pristina, the renowned historian Ramiz Abdyli (1944 – 2026) passed away at the age of eighty-one. One of the first stories that Professor Ramiz had heard from the elders of the village, but also of the family in his birthplace in Llojan, Kumanovo, although very faded, but which had been preserved for generations, was about the former Orthodox people of Llojan who, dressed in white turbans and plisas, would go to pray in a “Slavic church” on Sundays. Llojan – the birthplace of Professor Ramiz – is known, among other things, for its underground riches since the 19th century, but even earlier they were in the hands of the renowned Jewish Alatini family based in Thessaloniki, but also for the grapes that the village has produced since the Middle Ages and evidence of this can also be found in the church charters.

Diploma topic: “Independence of Albania”

Professor Ramiz Abdyli began his primary education in Llojan, then continued in Miratoc, Presevo, and graduated from the "Zef Lush Marku" Normal School in Skopje in 1963.

"Those were difficult years. In addition to poverty, they were years of prejudice and superstition that had severely stifled the then Albanian society of the eastern regions," he would later recount.

In parallel with his studies in history (1964-1968) which he completed at the University of Skopje, Prof. Ramizi had already published in the newspaper “Flaka e Vëllazërimit” several articles that mainly had the participation of Albanians in the Anti-Fascist War as their theme. In addition to the accuracy in the unfolding of various events, he was often disappointed when in the original texts sent to the editorial office instead of the expression “Greater Serbian regions” he would be replaced with “capitalist exploitative regions”.

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From the time of his studies in Skopje after the powerful earthquake, the young student Abdyli will never forget his mentor and renowned professor Hristo Poljanski, who, in addition to expanding his knowledge, had expressed serious interest in his student having “Albanian Independence” as his thesis topic. So something rare for the circumstances at that time when considering that the winds of Rankovician politics had not yet subsided.

Popularization of the anti-fascist war and the participation of Albanians

"The Albanians of the eastern regions were involved in the anti-fascist war much more than in other regions, because the circumstances in their lands were specific. The situation was not like in Kosovo and elsewhere, where Italy and Germany exercised power in completely different ways than those that Bulgaria applied in the eastern regions. The Bulgarian occupying power was even more cruel than the previous one, that is, of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia," he explained about the first years when research into the past of the Albanians of the eastern regions began.

Thus, one of Professor Abdyli's first books was about the Kumanovo hero Bajram Shaban. The history of Macedonia after World War II, which gained statehood without going through the usual stages as Kosovo did, starting first as a province and later as an Autonomous Province, lacked genuine personalities with which to justify this "jump straight to statehood", which is why the circles of the time were hesitant to include Albanians among the "Macedonian-Vlach" heroes.

"I approached the book about Bajram Shabani, but also the other research I did on World War II with caution, because anti-Albanian circles, since the first years after the war, were interested in excluding Albanians from their participation in the anti-fascist war, of course with the aim of justifying aggressive behavior and treating them as an unreliable element not only of the then Macedonia but also of Yugoslavia," he recalled the first steps in shedding light on the past of the Albanians of the eastern regions between 1941 and 1945.

 "The Albanian interlocutors or living witnesses, former sympathizers and participants in the war, whom I met, were extremely depressed, especially when they remembered the fate of Kosovo, while the non-Albanian witnesses only accepted me in conversation when they had nowhere to go," he recounted, recalling an episode when he knocked on the door of a participant in the war in Belgrade.

"He was Žika Nikolić, who later openly came out against the Albanians, against Kosovo, even though the Albanians had sheltered him and even saved him from the Bulgarian forces. We had agreed to meet me at his apartment in Belgrade. Žika, a former villager, had already advanced to the rank of general in the Yugoslav army and had put on his uniform to 'boast' to an Albanian," Professor Abdyli later recounted.

"Without a doubt, Zhika attacked me for writing the history of the Second World War in a distorted way, because that was how he had been informed by his 'comrades' who were below him, so despite the fact that I had come so far, he was not willing to answer my questions. For him, Fadil Hoxha was only an Albanian nationalist and not at all a communist", were the words with which Professor Abdyli was conveyed by the Chetnik general camouflaged in a Yugoslav military uniform.

Not many years passed after this event when, at a meeting of the Fighters' Organization in Presevo, in March 1988, one of the former Serbian "fighters" publicly attacked the work of historian Dr. Ramiz Abdyli on the topic "Presevo during the Second World War 1941-1945", as reported in the press of the time. This manuscript is today in the Presevo Library.

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Many titles and works – archives as a source and a disappointment

The list of books and works that Professor Abdyli wrote and published is very long, but we will highlight the studies: "Hasan Jakup Ferri - a life for the homeland", "Eastern Albanian lands in the general uprising (1912)", "Albanian National Movement 1908-1910" I and II (also published in Macedonian), "Skopje in the Albanian League of Prizren (1878-1881)", "Unity Club of Skopje (1908-1912)" and others.

During research for the study "Hasan Jakup Ferri - a life for the homeland" published in 2019, Professor Abdyli stayed for several days at the State Archives in the former capital of Montenegro in Cetinje.

"At first they welcomed me very well, but then the typical impatience of our neighbors towards us began. The head of the archive pronounced Hasan Ferri's name - Aso Ferović, I pronounced it as it is in the original Albanian. After ten days of research, I provided the necessary archival materials but also the press of the time. On the day I was wrapping up my work, the head of the archive informed me that he had deliberately not told me that he was also a historian by profession and was not someone sent to that position by political parties! 'It's good that we are colleagues', I replied, and now for this he even revealed the title of the book to them how it sounds in Albanian and in Montenegrin", Professor Abdyli recalled.

Thus, a life spent in archives also brought with it failures. One such incident occurred to Professor Abdyl in the Belgrade State Archives in the late 1990s.

"The State Archives of Serbia are located in Zheleznik. Before the nineties, I had stayed there, if not hundreds of times, but this was the first time I was going there after the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. I didn't need many materials, but the purpose of my visit was to verify some data for the two-volume book 'Albanian National Movement 1908-1910'. After I sat down at the desk and they brought me the materials, as soon as I started browsing through them, a lady approached me who introduced herself as the director of the Archives, apologizing to me for the alleged ignorance of the procedure by the employee who had brought me the materials and told me 'that now, after the dissolution of the state, the rules for the use of archival materials have changed, so I have to make a request again in accordance with the new rules'. This was also my last stay in Belgrade," he recalled.

National history and the "heavy stones"

There are many historians of the new generations, but also Albanian students who stepped on the threshold of Professor Ramiz Abdyl's house even after his retirement. With modesty and the demeanor of a true intellectual, he never stopped helping his young colleagues with advice and suggestions.

"As is known, our national history is partial and we still do not have a unified national history written. However, I try to suggest to young historians that every work written by them should be 'a heavy stone that should have special weight,'" he said.

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In one of the last meetings we had with Professor Abdyli at his home in Pristina, on the work table was the voluminous manuscript that was also the work written against the authors - academics from Skopje and their positions presented in the already quite controversial Encyclopedia regarding the presentation of the past of the Albanians of North Macedonia.

This "heavy stone" has not yet seen the light of day...