Editing Persecution of Christians (section)

==== Ottoman Albania and Kosovo ====
{{main|Islamization of Albania}}

Before the late 16th century, Albania's population remained overwhelmingly [[Christianity in Albania|Christian]], despite the fact that it was under Ottoman rule, unlike the more diverse populations of other regions of the [[Ottoman Empire]], such as Bosnia, Bulgaria and [[Northern Greece]],<ref name="MinkovDemographics">{{cite book|author=Anton Minkov|title=Conversion to Islam in the Balkans: ''Kisve Bahası'' Petitions and Ottoman Social Life, 1670–1730|publisher= Brill |series=The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage, Volume: 30 | date= 2004 | isbn = 978-90-47-40277-0 |pages=41–42 | doi =10.1163/9789047402770_008 |s2cid=243354675 }}</ref> the mountainous Albania was a frequent site of revolts against Ottoman rule, often at an enormous human cost, such as the destruction of entire villages.<ref>Zhelyazkova, Antonina. ‘'Albanian Identities'’. pp. 15–16, 19.</ref> In response, the Ottomans abandoned their usual policy of tolerating Christians in favor of a policy which was aimed at reducing the size of Albania's Christian population through [[Islamization]], beginning in the restive Christian regions of Reka and Elbasan in 1570.<ref>Zhelyazkova, Antonina. ‘'Albanian Identities'’. Sofia, 2000: International Center for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations. pp. 15–16</ref>

The pressures which resulted from this campaign included particularly harsh economic conditions which were imposed on Albania's Christian population; while earlier taxes on the Christians were around 45 ''[[akçe]]s'' a year, by the middle of the 17th century the rate had been multiplied by 27 to 780 ''akçes'' a year. Albanian elders often opted to save their clans and villages from hunger and economic ruin by advocating village-wide and region-wide conversions to Islam, with many individuals frequently continuing to practice Christianity in private.<ref>{{cite web |last= Zhelyazkova |first = Antonina |url=http://pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00003852/01/Albanian_Identities.pdf | title= Albanian Identities| date= 2000 | publisher=International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relation| quote=If the tax levied on the Christians in the Albanian communities in the 16th century amounted to about 45 akçes, in the middle of the 17th century it ran up to 780 akçes a year. In order to save the clans from hunger and ruin, the Albanian elders advised the people in the villages to adopt Islam...Nevertheless, the willingness of the Gegs to support the campaigns of the Catholic West against the Empire, did not abate.... men in Albania, Christians, but also Muslims, were ready to take up arms, given the smallest help from the Catholic West.... the complex dual religious identity of the Albanians become clear. Emblematic is the case of the Crypto-Christians inhabiting the inaccessible geographical area...}}</ref>

A failed Catholic rebellion in 1596 and the Albanian population's support of Austro-Hungary during the [[Great Turkish War]],<ref name="PahumiKosovoIslamization">{{ cite thesis | degree = Bachelor of Arts | work = Department of History| url= https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/55462 | first=Nevila | last= Pahumi | publisher= University of Michigan | date= 2007 | title= The Consolidation of Albanian Nationalism | page= 18 | hdl = 2027.42/55462| quote=The pasha of Ipek forcibly moved the Catholic inhabitants of northern Albania into the plains of southern Serbia after a failed Serb revolt forced many Serbs to flee to the Habsburg Empire in 1689. The transferred villagers were forced to convert to Islam.}}</ref> and its support of the Venetians in the 1644 Venetian-Ottoman War<ref name="Ramet210">{{harvnb|Ramet|1998|p=210}}: "Then, in 1644, war broke out between Venice and the Ottoman empire. At the urging of the clergy, many Albanian Catholics sided with Venice. The Ottomans responded to this by severely repressing them, which in turn drove many Catholics to embrace Islam (although a few of them elected to join the Orthodox Church)... Within the span of twenty-two years (1649–71) the number of Catholics in the diocese of Alessio fell by more than 50 percent, while in the diocese of Pulati (1634–71) the number of Catholics declined from more than 20,000 to just 4,045. In general, Albanian insurrections which occurred during the Ottoman-Venetian wars of 1644–69 resulted in stiff Ottoman reprisals against Catholics in northern Albania and significant acceleration of Islamization... In general, a pattern emerged. When the Ottoman empire was attacked by Catholic powers, local Catholics were pressured to convert, and when Orthodox Russia attacked the Ottoman empire, local Orthodox Christians were also pressured to change their faith. In some cases however, their Islamization was only superficial and as a result, many villages and some districts were still "crypto-Catholic" in the nineteenth century, despite their adoption of the externals of Islamic culture."</ref> as well as the [[Orlov Revolt]]<ref name="Ramet203">{{harvnb|Ramet|1998|p=203}}: "The Ottoman conquest between the end of the fourteenth century and the mid-fifteenth century introduced a third religion – Islam – but at first the Turks did not use force during their expansion, and it was only in the 1600s that large-scale conversion to Islam began – at first, it chiefly occurred among Albanian Catholics."; p.204. "The Orthodox community enjoyed broad toleration at the hands of the Sublime Porte until the late eighteenth century."; p. 204. "In the late eighteenth century Russian agents began stirring the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman empire against the Sublime Porte. In the Russo-Turkish wars of 1768–74 and 1787–91, Orthodox Albanians rose up against the Turks. In the course of the second revolt, the "New Academy" in Voskopoje was destroyed (1789), and at the end of the second Russo-Turkish war, more than a thousand Orthodox fled to Russia on Russian warships. In the aftermath of these revolts, the Porte now applied pressure in order to Islamize the Albanian Orthodox population, adding economic incentives in order to stimulate this process. In 1798, Ali Pasha of Janina led Ottoman forces against Christian believers who were assembled in their churches in order to celebrate Easter in the villages of Shen Vasil and Nivica e Bubarit. The bloodbath which was unleashed against these believers frightened Albanian Christians who lived in other districts and inspired a new wave of mass conversions to Islam."</ref><ref name="Skendi1013">{{harvnb|Skendi|1967a|pp=10–13}}.</ref><ref name="Skendi1956321323">{{harvnb|Skendi|1956|pp=321–323}}.</ref><ref name="Vickers16">{{harvnb|Vickers|2011|p=16}}.</ref><ref name="Koti1617">{{harvnb|Koti|2010|pp=16–17}}.</ref> were all factors which led to punitive measures in which outright force was accompanied by economic incentives depending on the region, and ended up forcing the conversion of large Christian populations to Islam in Albania. In the aftermath of the Great Turkish War, massive punitive measures were imposed on Kosovo's Catholic Albanian population and as a result of them, most members of it fled to Hungary and settled around [[Buda]], where most of them died of disease and starvation.<ref name="PahumiKosovoIslamization" /><ref name="MalcolmRaspasani">{{cite book|last=Malcolm|first=Noel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GGQ_AQAAIAAJ&q=Toma+Raspasani|title=Kosovo: a short history|publisher=Macmillan|year=1998|isbn=978-0-333-66612-8|page=162}}</ref>

After the Orthodox Serbian population's subsequent flight from Kosovo, the pasha of Ipek (Peja/Pec) forced Albanian Catholic mountaineers to repopulate Kosovo by deporting them to Kosovo, and also forced them adopt Islam.<ref name="PahumiKosovoIslamization" /><ref name="Koti1617" /> In the 17th and 18th centuries, South Albania also saw numerous instances of violence which was directed against those who remained Christian by local newly converted Muslims, ultimately resulting in many more conversions out of fear as well as flight to faraway lands by the Christian population.<ref name="Kallivretakis233">{{harvnb|Kallivretakis|2003|p=233}}.</ref><ref name="Hammond30">{{harvnb|Hammond|1967|p=30}}.</ref><ref name="Ramet203" /><ref name="Hammond197662">{{harvnb|Hammond|1976|p=62}}.</ref><ref name="Koukoudis2003">{{harvnb|Koukoudis|2003|pp=321–322}}. "Particularly interesting is the case of Vithkuq, south of Moschopolis... It may well have had Vlach inhabitants before 1769, though the Arvanites were certainly far more numerous, if not the largest population group. This is further supported by the linguistic identity of the refugees who fled Vithkuq and accompanied the waves of departing Vlachs..." p. 339. "As the same time as, or possibly shortly before or after, these events in Moschopolis, unruly Arnauts also attacked the smaller Vlach and Arvanitic communities round about. The Vlach inhabitants of Llengë, Niçë, Grabovë, Shipckë, and the Vlach villages on Grammos, such as Nikolicë, Linotopi, and Grammousta, and the inhabitants of Vithkuq and even the last Albanian speaking Christian villages on Opar found themselves at the mercy of the predatory Arnauts, whom no-one could withstand. For them too, the only solution was to flee... During this period, Vlach and Arvanite families from the surrounding ruined market towns and villages settled alongside the few Moscopolitans who had returned. Refugee families came from Dushar and other villages in Opar, from Vithkuq, Grabovë, Nikolicë, Niçë, and Llengë and from Kolonjë..."</ref>