unity of the empire, sent his armies
to surround him in Yannina, where he was captured and decapitated in
1822.

Under the Turks, Albania remained in complete stagnation and, when the
Turks were expelled from the Balkans in 1912, they left it in about the
same condition as they had found it. The Albanian highlanders,
especially in the north, were never fully subjected, and their tribal
organizations were left intact. Turkish suzerainty affected them only to
the extent that it isolated them from the world. Thus, they preserved
their medieval laws, traditions, and customs. As a result, Western
civilization and development did not begin to penetrate Albania in any
meaningful way until it became independent in 1912.

NATIONAL AWAKENING AND INDEPENDENCE

The Albanian national awakening made rapid strides after the Treaty of
San Stefano in 1877, imposed on Turkey by the Russians, gave the Balkan
Slavic nations large parts of Albania. The Western powers, refusing to
accept Russia's diktat on Turkey, met in Berlin the following year to
consider revision of the Treaty of San Stefano. Albanian leaders in the
meantime convened at Prizren and founded the League for the Defense of
the Rights of the Albanian Nation. Although the league was unable to
bring sufficient pressure on the Congress of Berlin to save Albania from
serious dismemberment, it set in motion a political movement that had
tremendous influence on Albanian nationalist activity for decades to
come.

Most of the league leaders held high positions in, or were influential
members of, the ruling Turkish elite and were fully aware of the shaky
position of the Ottoman Empire; they therefore demanded from the Turks
administrative and cultural autonomy for all Albanian lands united in a
principality. The Turkish government refused and in 1881 forced the
dissolution of the league. Meanwhile, Russia, Italy, and Austria-Hungary
began to take an active interest in Albania. Russia aimed at blocking
expansion of Austrian influence in the Balkans and supported the
territorial demands of Serbia and Montenegro. Italy and
Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, concerned over Russia's influence
extending to the Adriatic, attempted to influence developments in
Albania.

The advent of the Young Turks regime (1908), in whose establishment
Albanian officials in the service of the empire played a major role,
encouraged the Albanians to found cultural and political clubs for the
propagat