The Expulsion of the Albanians

The Expulsion of the Albanians[a] (Serbian: Исељавање Арнаута/Iseljavanje Arnauta) was a lecture presented by the Yugoslav historian Vaso Čubrilović (1897–1990) on 7 March 1937.

[1] The text elaborates on the ethnic composition dynamics of Kosovo and other Albanian-populated areas within Yugoslavia from medieval times to the present.

In early 1936, Turkey was interested in signing an agreement for the resettlement of a considerable amount of Muslims from Yugoslavia if the population would agree.

[2] In a memorandum submitted by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Čubrilović proposed in 1937 the mass eviction of Albanians to Albania and Turkey.

Other suggestions propounded were the use of "persecution for trivial offences", "economic exclusion" and "burning down Albanian villages and city quarters".

[6][1] Čubrilović proposed that the Albanians be forced to emigrate free willingly through harassment and settling of Serbs, calling the state for help to make the "Arnaut suffer as much as he can".

Čubrilović believed that the Albanians were nationalistic, tribalistic, fanatical, superstitious and that previous expulsion plans, like those enacted within the wider Niš region during 1878 in areas such as the Toplica and the Morava Valleys given to Serbia in the Treaty of San Stefano in 1877–1878, would be the only effective way.