A Divided Town
Mother Teresa was born into a divided town. She was born on August 27, 1910, in Skopje, Yugoslavia. The Bojaxhiu Family was ethnic Albanian and Roman Catholic Christians, making up a small group in Skopje population because the majority was Eastern Orthodox Christians of Serbian descent. The town was part of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire ever since the Albanian Empire had failed into them. In the online book Mother Teresa: Caring for the World’s Poor, by Louise Chipley Slavicek, there is a defined descriptive chapter of the historic period in which Mother Teresa was alive. It states that “[t]he year of Agnes Bojaxhiu’s birth was a tumultuous one for Albanian people on the Balkan Peninsula” (Slavicek, 7). The people wanted to reconstruct their independent country due to the slow and constant weakening of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, in 1910, in the town of Pristina, the Albanian nationalist did their major uprising against their longtime rulers. The uprising spread around the area very quickly, yet it never reached the town of Skopje due to the small Albanian population in the town. All this revolting caused the Ottoman Empire to bring in force to stop them. The sending of human force into the areas caused excessive brutality to the Albanian people. Yet all the brutality, the burning down of entire villages, and the public whipping of rebels, only strengthen the resolve of Albanian freedom fighters (Slavicek). Although the Ottoman Empire continued to weaken during the years leading up to World War I, Serbia, hungry for land, invaded the Empire and took the Balkan Peninsula as they pushed the Ottomans Southward. The Serbian troops invaded the Albanian towns and villages killing many men, woman, and children. The town of the Bojaxhiu had also been a site of such atrocities, which were said to have been caused by ethnic and religious prejudice (Slavicek). When World War I erupted in Europe, Gonxha Bojaxhiu was only four years old. During this time, the area around the towns of Kosova and Skopje was occupied by Bulgarian and Australian troops “bringing a halt to Serbian atrocities against the province’s Albanian population” (Slavicek). Following the victory of the Allies in World War I, a new map of the Southern Europe was redrawn. The Bojaxhiu’s hometown once again became part of a different country. Their town had been annexed to Yugoslavia, the new kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Sloves, again the Albanians made up a small population. The Bojaxhiu, as many other Albanian, felt that their region should have been allowed to leave and be part of what they called the Great Albanian (Slavicek).