A Letter to the President of the Ministry Council and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Belgrade, February 11, 1902

Dated February 11, 1902, the following letter was written by C.J. Avramović of the Royal Serbian Consulate in Pristina. In it Avramović describes recent events in Peć, which at the time was under the Ottoman Empire.

He reports on the murder of Hadži Mola Zeka, infamous for his treatment of the Serbian population who viewed him as their "nemesis." He then explains that the slaying of Mola Zeka had resulted in a bloody confrontation between the Albanians and the Turks in which the defenseless Serbian minority was caught in the crossfires of the warring groups.

The letter provides insight into the life of the Serbs not only under occupation but as confronted by challenges from two sides, Turkish and Albanian.

To capture the full flavor of the original letter many Turkish and Serbo-Turkish words have been included in the English translation. The footnotes contain definitions and explanations that give further insight into Serbian life and culture under Ottoman rule at the beginning of the twentieth century. To further convey the sentiments and emotional response of the writer, the sentence structure and rhythms unique to the original language have been retained as much as possible.

The editors are grateful to Dragana Perovic McFadden, M.A., for her translation of this document.

The Demise of Mola Zeka from Peć, Nemesis of the Serbs
Royal Serbian Consulate in Priština Confidential No. 22 February 11, 1902

To Sir,

Sir Dr. Mihailo Vujuć, President of the Ministry Council, Secretary of Foreign Affairs etc. etc., in Belgrade

Mr. Secretary - Mr. President,

As you could see from my enciphered telegrams dated the fourth and the tenth of this month concerning the murder of Hadži Mola Zeka in Peć, the situation in that region could not be more grave. The thing that local authorities, Jildiz,¹ as well as the Arbanasi² themselves, always feared the most—that a rifle should go off during a serious dispute among the strongest of the Arbanasi brotherhoods—has now occurred, suddenly and unexpectedly.

As I have pointed out in my enciphered telegram of yesterday, it was only then that I got a somewhat more detailed report from Peć about the murder and the events that followed. Peć is completely shut down, the Serbs are absolutely terrified, and are sitting in their locked and bolted homes waiting for the Arbanasi to break into their yards, at any moment, to loot and kill. Under such circumstances and under the greatest of risks, no one among the Serbs cared to send reports nor did anyone from there have the courage to travel the roads. For my part, I did not want to listen to, or rush to consider the local rumors, knowing that in the East, without public control, in similar circumstances things are greatly exaggerated and fabricated.

About the timeline of the murder I now know this much:

Very early on Sunday, on the third of this month, Adem Zajim went to the čaršija³ in Peć. As it was known his appearance evoked a certain uneasiness, perhaps fear, not only among Serbs but also among the more even-tempered Mohammedans.⁴ Adem was always one of those instigators about whom the Turks would say "they are looking for trouble," so they preferred to avoid him. Wild and arrogant, especially after he got the rank of Juzbaša,⁵ he started looting and publicly extorting from both the Serbs and the Turks. Adem was a poor man who only had one čifluk,⁶ which could not cover his vast expenses, since he liked to play the role of cavalier and spendthrift. Although he was a young man, he wanted to emulate the power and nobility of his uncle Bajarm Cura. He wanted to become known and celebrated in Turkey and in the Balkans as a hero, gaining honor, fame, and rewards. Adem was exceedingly vain and greedy.

That morning he found five Serbian muhtars⁷ (serfs from Malsko⁸ )—there were only five of them in Pe...