Question of the “Monastery of Saint-Naoum”, Referring to the Advisory Opinion of the Permanent Court of International Justice

Abstract

One of the most important issues for the Albanian country in the period 1922-1925 has been that of the north and north-east frontier with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the Monastery of Saint Naoum. Referring to the historical facts, the area of St. Naoum was occupied by Serbian troops in 1913. During World War I, they were forced to flee from there (1917). During the period when Commission (of delimitation) had visited the monastery they found there, only two priests, one of whom spoke English, the other Serbo-Croatian. From a geographic standpoint monastery had no particular value, while in terms of religious side he had a lot of great importance for all surrounding regions making up for them a religious pilgrimage site. The problem that had arisen during the fieldwork of Delimitation Commission stood on the fact that the Protocol of London of 1913 expressly stated that "up to the Monastery of Saint Naoum", thus leaving unclear that the word "until" will include or leave abroad it. This problem was brought to the attention of the Conference by a note of September 27th, 1922, from the British Embassy, through which it asked the Delimitation Commission to furnish all the information which might assist the Conference in reaching a decision. The issue spanned a period of several years and took importance because Albanian politics tried to save the limits set in 1913 by the Conference of Ambassadors in London, as well as not to create to the neighboring countries the opportunity to extend their hand to distract from "existing Albania" even a single inch of land. However, the happenings will take different shades because they were held in difficult years of turbulence in Albania and will begin to receive solution only when King Zog returns to power with help of Serbia in December 1924.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3s1p354