Sali Butka

Sali Butka (1852 – 24 October 1938), was an Albanian nationalist figure, kachak, poet, and one of the delegates of the city of Korçë to the Albanian National Congress of Lushnjë.[2][3]

Sali Butka
Born
Sali Tahir Aliçka

1857 (1857)
Butkë, Kolonjë, Albania (then Ottoman Empire)
Died24 October 1938(1938-10-24) (aged 80–81)[1]
Ersekë, Albania
Known forGuerilla against invaders in World War I; delegate of the Congress of Lushnjë; 1916 raid of Moscopole
ChildrenSafet Butka

Butka was born in village Butkë of Kolonjë District to one of branches of large Frashëri family[4][5] and he was a Bektashi Muslim.[6] He belonged to a generation of village men that became literate and joined guerilla bands through the literary efforts of the Albanian intelligentsia.[6] Butka became the commander of various Albanian irregular bands and initiated armed guerrilla operations in 1906 in regions of modern southern Albani which were part of the Ottoman Empire that time by being against the rule of Sultan Abdylhamid. [7] Having learned to read Albanian on his own, Butka during his guerrilla campaigns composed revolutionary poems that combined naturalistic texts with nationalist themes in a form of folk poetry and viewed his contributions as feeding an Albanian national consciousness.[8][6] His poems would be turned into songs which appealed to villagers that were illiterate.[6]

His guerrilla activities continued the next years and especially in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and World War I (1914–1918). During the Balkan Campaign of World War I, several warrior groups of Albanian Tosks and Ghegs supported with their activity the armed operations of the Central Powers in the region.[9] Butka and his band were responsible for the razing of parts of Moscopole in 1916 and the destruction of all pro Greek and pro Aromanian groups there, once a prosperous metropolis between the 17th and 18th centuries up to 1786.

The razing of the town forced many of its inhabitants to flee to nearby the occupied territories by Greece in Balkan Wars and some went in Korce also.[3]

In 1920 he became one of the delegates of the city of Korçë to the Congress of Lushnjë.[3]

Controversial personality

Butka's personality has created an ideological dilemma between homogeneity and heterogeneity myths in the pluralistic society of post-Communist Albania: while on specific Albanian textbooks he is considered a national hero, according to circles of Aromanians he is considered a notorious criminal because he is held primarily responsible of the destruction of Moscopole in 1916.[3]

References
  1. Elsie, Robert (2013). A Biographical Dictionary of Albanian History. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781780764313.
  2. Grothusen Klaus Detlev. Südosteuropa-Handbuch: Albanien. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993. ISBN 978-3-525-36207-5, p. 666.
  3. Nikolaeva Todorova Marii︠a︡. Balkan identities: nation and memory. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2004. ISBN 978-1-85065-715-6, pp. 108-109.
  4. Frashëri, Kristo (2010). Frashëri, shkëlqimi dhe rrënimi i tij: vështrim i shkurtër. Geer. p. 14. ISBN 9789995688097.
  5. Sugarman, Jane C. (1999). "Imagining the Homeland: Poetry, Songs, and the Discourses of Albanian Nationalism". Ethnomusicology. 43 (3): 419–458. doi:10.2307/852556. ISSN 0014-1836. JSTOR 852556.
  6. Gawrych, George (2006). The Crescent and the Eagle: Ottoman rule, Islam and the Albanians, 1874–1913. London: IB Tauris. p. 148. ISBN 9781845112875.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  7. Skendi Stavro. The Albanian national awakening, 1878-1912. Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 210.
  8. Biddle Ian D., Knights Vanessa. Music, national identity and the politics of location: between the global and the local. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007. ISBN 978-0-7546-4055-4. p. 137.
  9. Great Britain. War Office. General Staff. Handbook of the Austro-Hungarian Army in war, June, 1918. Battery Press, 1994. ISBN 978-1-870423-79-3, p. 50.
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