With the rise of the Eastern Crisis , Muslim Albanians became torn between loyalties to the Ottoman state and the emerging Albanian nationalist movement . Islam , the Sultan and the Ottoman Empire were traditionally seen as synonymous in belonging to the wider Muslim community . The Albanian nationalist movement advocated self-determination and strived to achieve socio-political recognition of Albanians as a separate people and language within the state . Albanian nationalism was a movement that began among Albanian intellectuals without popular demand from the wider Albanian population . Geopolitical events pushed Albanian nationalists , many Muslim , to distance themselves from the Ottomans , Islam and the then emerging pan-Islamic Ottomanism of Sultan Abdulhamid II . During the Russo-Turkish war , the incoming Serb army expelled most of the Muslim Albanian population from the Toplica and Niš regions into Kosovo triggering the emergence of the League of Prizren ( 1878 – 1881 ) as a response to the Eastern crisis . The League of Prizren was created by a group of Albanian intellectuals to resist partition among neighbouring Balkan states and to assert an Albanian national consciousness by uniting Albanians into a unitary linguistic and cultural nation . The Ottoman state briefly supported the league 's claims viewing Albanian nationalism as possibly preventing further territorial losses to newly independent Balkan states . The geopolitical crisis generated the beginnings of the '' Rilindja '' ( Albanian National Awakening ) period . From 1878 onward Albanian nationalists and intellectuals , some who emerged as the first modern Albanian scholars , were preoccupied with overcoming linguistic and cultural differences between Albanian subgroups ( Gegs and Tosks ) and religious divisions ( Muslim and Christians ) . At that time , these scholars lacked access to many primary sources to construct the idea that Albanians were descendants of Illyrians , while Greater Albania was not considered a priority . Compared with their Balkan counterparts , these Albanian politicians and historians were very moderate and mainly had the goal to attain socio-political recognition and autonomy for Albanians under Ottoman rule . Albanians involved in these activities were preoccupied with gathering and identifying evidence , at times inventing facts to justify claims to " prove " the cultural distinctiveness and historical legitimacy of the Albanians in being considered as a nation
expelled most of the Muslim Albanian population
Expulsion of the Albanians 1877–1878
Albanian nationalism