Despite its rich historical background, there have been only few case studies of the pre-1914 history of humanitarian action written by historians based on unpublished archival sources. The existing case studies, on the one hand, are transatlantic centric, i.e. scholars have neglected researching of the humanitarian past of Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the published studies mostly elaborate the history of humanitarian actions in an NGO-centered way, and pay little attention to cases where states played a dominant role in the organization and realization of humanitarian actions.
By revealing the history of a specific case study, the humanitarian action launched in the Albanian city of Shkodra (1913), present study draws attention to the fact that Austria–Hungary was an active participant in Europe’s humanitarian past before 1914. I also prove that even before 1914, the former Austro–Hungarian Monarchy launched humanitarian actions to help Muslim people.
The study is available here: https://tiranaobservatory.com/2020/03/21/the-1913-austrian-hungarian-humanitarian-action-in-shkoder/
