Kurti is a man who continues the politics of the League of Prizren: Are the Albanians in Kosovo ready to come into new conflicts because of this?

Only one flag - Albanian, was a completely logical decoration on the stage from which the leader of the Self-Determination Movement and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti recently, at the meeting of the General Council of his movement, sent messages, "Our goal is determined by the unfinished project of the League of Prizren", "We do not forget the importance of history and unification".

Nothing unexpected from a politician, who, before coming to power, said that the unification of Kosovo and Albania was one of his main goals and who, as Prime Minister, declared that he would vote for unification with Albania in a referendum in the future.

According to polls, the majority of Kosovo citizens are in a similar mood. Namely, according to a survey by "UBO Consulting" from Pristina, the results of which were published in December last year, 60.3 percent of Kosovo citizens would vote for the unification of Kosovo and Albania if a referendum were to be held.

However, are the Albanians in Kosovo ready to come into new conflicts because of this idea?

Srdjan Graovac from the Center for Social Stability tells Kosovo Online that Albin Kurti is ready to sacrifice himself, the Albanians, and the Serbs for the ideas of the League of Prizren, and believes that the majority of Albanians in Kosovo are ready to fight for what Kurti wants.

"Albanians had a late national awakening and they are now in the phase where other Balkan nations were in the 19th and early 20th centuries. That's why I think that the majority of the Albanians in Kosovo are ready to fight for what Kurti wants. After all, they know very well who Albin Kurti is and what his politics are, and they support him, which means they have nothing against such ideas. Albanian society in Kosovo is radicalized and there should be no dilemma at all," Graovac says.

Our interlocutor points out that Kurti's statements about the League of Prizren are actually a message to the international community, the Serbs and the Albanians, that he is fundamentally not interested in an independent Kosovo.

"This is the statement of someone who is at the head of the institutions in Pristina and who has the greatest support in the Albanian electorate in Kosovo and Metohija. When he refers to the League of Prizren and says that they should be its successors, he is sending a message to the international community, the Serbs, and the Albanians that he is fundamentally not interested in an independent Kosovo. He is only interested in the creation of a "Greater Albania" which we have been saying from the beginning when we talk about Kurti, he is a Greater Albanian nationalist. He is ready to sacrifice himself, the Albanians, and the Serbs for the ideas of the League of Prizren. No sacrifice would limit him in achieving this goal, and I do not mean political sacrifice, but also human sacrifice, because he showed that he is not too interested in the lives of the Serbs or the Albanians. He does not hide that he advocates for a "Greater Albania" and that also sends a message to the international community," Graovac assesses.

Regarding how seriously the international community, especially the West, takes what Kurti says, Graovac says that they are taking him "more and more seriously".

"And it is clear to them that he is not very inclined to listen to them at all costs and to fulfill their every order without question, so they can conclude from this that he is also not ready to back down on this issue either, because he is a man who is ready to sacrifice himself for the idea. In this way, he wants to actualize the idea of a "Greater Albania" in the public eye as something that should not be rejected a priori and should be thought about. He is sending a message, ‘Think about that too, and that can be an option’," Graovac believes.

On the occasion of the 145th anniversary of the founding of the League of Prizren, Kurti said that the current leaders of the Albanians should follow the philosophy of the League of Prizren.

"Our goal is determined by the unfinished project of the League of Prizren, and our compass is a political thought that goes from Sami Frasheri to Fan Noli, the Qiriazi sisters, and all the way to Ukshin Hoti," Kurti said at the session of the General Council of the Self-Determination Movement.

Speaking about the League of Prizren, the president of the Serbian Progressive Club and historian Cedomir Antic tells Kosovo Online that the Albanian League of Prizren was the response of the conservative beys to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

"At that time, they wanted to preserve the vilayets where the Arbanas people lived and to remain under the Ottoman Empire, and they wanted that in 1912, so when Albin Kurti refers to Frasheri, he refers to a minority. At that time, Albanians didn't even have a common language. They now need the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary to achieve what he wants," Antic says and adds that the League was not creating a "Greater Albania" and that they did not even have a moment of a "Greater Albania".

He reminds that together with the Ottoman Empire they were defeated and that they did not succeed in what they wanted.

"Only later, at the end of the 19th century, Austria-Hungary managed to create a modern Albanian nation as such. What Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, and Dositej Obradovic did to the Serbs, it was done to them in Vienna at the end of the 19th century. That's what they still are – marionettes. Free-thinking Albanians and modern Albanians, unfortunately, have never had the opportunity and the majority to say what they think," Antic said.

He adds that the big problem is that, as he says, the Albanians boycotted education, which was at a level not seen in Europe.

"Instead of fighting with us for a democratic Serbia, they chose to replace an already provincial and closed, conservative education with an illegal one, and so we have people who know nothing and who are intoxicated with chauvinism like Kurti. Now we come to it - how such a person may be the chosen one by the great powers, above all the US and parts of the EU," Antic says.

Regarding potential conflicts for the sake of realizing the ideas of the League of Prizren, Antic says that he does not believe in conflicts, especially when you take into account the fact that Serbia has no interest in conflicts at the moment, but he also notes that conflicts would not have happened even in the 1990s if the United States of America had not wanted it.