Salih Butka (1852 – 24 October 1938), was an

Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

nationalist figure, kachak, poet, and one of the delegates of the city of Korçë to the

Albanian National Congress The All-Albanian Congress ( sq, Kongresi Gjithë Shqipëtar) or Albanian National Congress or Albanian Independence Congress was a held in Vlorë (then Ottoman Empire, today Republic of Albania) on November 28, 1912. Congress participants const ...

of Lushnjë.Nikolaeva Todorova Marii︠a︡
''Balkan identities: nation and memory.''
C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2004. , pp. 108-109. Butka was born in village

Butkë Butkë is a community in the Korçë County, Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became part of the municipality Kolonjë. Notable people *Sali Butka, 19th and early 20th century freedom fighter * Gani Butka, 19th and early 20th centu ...

of Kolonjë District to one of branches of large Frashëri family and he was a Bektashi Muslim. He belonged to a generation of village men that became literate and joined guerilla bands through the literary efforts of the Albanian intelligentsia. Butka became the commander of various Albanian irregular bands and initiated armed guerrilla operations in 1906 in regions of modern southern Albani which were part of the Ottoman Empire that time by being against the rule of Sultan Abdylhamid. Having learned to read Albanian on his own, Butka during his guerrilla campaigns composed revolutionary poems that combined naturalistic texts with nationalist themes in a form of folk poetry and viewed his contributions as feeding an Albanian national consciousness. His poems would be turned into songs which appealed to villagers that were illiterate. His guerrilla activities continued the next years and especially in the

Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defe ...

(1912–1913) and World War I (1914–1918). During the Balkan Campaign of World War I, several warrior groups of Albanian Tosks and Ghegs supported with their activity the armed operations of the Central Powers in the region.Great Britain. War Office. General Staff
''Handbook of the Austro-Hungarian Army in war, June, 1918''.
Battery Press, 1994. , p. 50. Butka's band invaded in 1916 the town of Moscopole, once a prosperous metropolis in 18th century, and lead to its destruction. The razing of the town forced many of its inhabitants to flee to nearby the occupied territories by Greece in Balkan Wars and some went in Korce also. In 1920 he became one of the delegates of the city of Korçë to the Congress of Lushnjë.

Controversial personality

Butka's personality has created an ideological dilemma between homogeneity and heterogeneity myths in the pluralistic society of post-Communist Albania: while on specific Albanian textbooks he is considered a national hero, among circles of Aromanians he is considered a notorious criminal because he is held primarily responsible of the destruction of the Aromanian-inhabited settlement of Moscopole in 1916.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butka, Salih 1852 births 1938 deaths People from Kolonjë World War I crimes by the Central Powers Persecution of Eastern Orthodox Christians Albanian nationalists Sali Albanian people of World War I 20th-century Albanian people