Macedonian and Albanian cooperation

[Liberator of Makedonija]

Just prior to the First Balkan War, members of the VMRO Central Committee travelled to Cetinje, Montenegro to meet with Albanian revolutionaries and discuss collaboration. During the wars the Central Committee adopted a resolution to establish contact with "the Albanian and Turkish revolutionary committees for joint action against the Serbs and Greeks". It was these contacts that drew Albanian support to the Ohrid-Debar Uprising.

[Liberator of Makedonija]

Tirana, 20 December 1921: The 'Tirana Protocol'

A meeting held in Tirana was attended by Aleksandar Protogerov of VMRO(A), Dr. Filip Atanasov of the Macedonian Federal Revolutionary Organisation and two representatives of the Albanian Revolutionary Committee: Rexhep Mitrovica and Professor Bedri Pejani. Some of the agreements that were reached:

. To work for the liberation of Macedonia and its establishment as an independent state, organised adminstratively in the same vein as Switzerland (as a federal republic)
. Macedonia's northern border would be extended just north of Kačanik in Kosovo
. Macedonia's western border would remain the same [excluding Mala Prespa, Golo Brdo & Gora] and the right to self-determination would be granted to the city of Debar
. Joint assistance in crossing the border into Aegean Macedonia
. The creation of a base in Albania to coordinate with already established bases in Bulgaria to launch joint incursions into Vardar Macedonia

The protocol was signed with the goal of "commencing joint revolutionary activity in western Macedonia" and "establishing Macedonia as an autonomous and independent state"

[All taken from Zoran Todorovski's biography on Todor Aleksandrov]

[Liberator of Makedonija]

In a letter addressed to the Bitola Revolutionary Region by Todor Aleksandrov from 15th May 1922, he asks Macedonian komiti to collaborate with Albanian komiti and to establish relations with the "Albanian committee"

[Liberator of Makedonija]

The Central National Committee for the Autonomy of Macedonia and Albania was said to have been formed in London and involved Dimitrija Čupovski.

According to the website "Virtual Macedonia", this committee developed from the "Macedonian Brotherhood" in Athens in 1893

[Carlin]

Not much cooperation here

URL:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/128459606?searchTerm=Macedonians&searchLimits=l-illustrated%3Dtrue

The British colonial Press of 1903 - Reporter regarded massacre of Jews (pogrom) in Tsarist Russia on par with Albanian atrocities against Macedonians.

The World's News (Sydney, Australia) Saturday 4 July 1903, page 21.

"Kishineff looks like a city that had been invaded by a furious enemy. The houses half destroyed, people with bandaged heads, with broken arms & legs-does all this not remind one of a Macedonian settlement or a Slavonic town, invaded by Albanians or Bashi-Bazouks?"