Kosovo Vilayet in the context of "Bosnia Vilayet"

The Kingdom of Serbia was a country located in the Balkans which was created when the ruler of the Principality of Serbia, Milan I, was proclaimed king in 1882. Since 1817, the Principality was ruled by the Obrenović dynasty (replaced by the Karađorđević dynasty for a short time). The Principality of Serbia, under the suzerainty of the Turkish Empire, de facto achieved full independence when the very last Ottoman troops left Belgrade in 1867. The Congress of Berlin in 1878 recognized the formal independence of the Principality of Serbia, and in its composition Nišava, Pirot, Toplica and Vranje districts entered the South part of Serbia.

In 1882, Serbia was elevated to the status of a kingdom, initially maintaining a foreign policy friendly to Austria-Hungary before turning to the Russian Empire and France following a coup d'état in 1903. Between 1912 and 1913, Serbia greatly enlarged its territory through engagement in the First and Second Balkan Wars – Sandžak-Raška, Kosovo Vilayet and Vardar Macedonia were annexed. At the end of World War I in 1918 it united with Vojvodina and the Kingdom of Montenegro, and in December 1918 it merged with the newly created State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as Kingdom of Yugoslavia) under the continued rule of the Karađorđević dynasty.

The League of Prizren (Albanian: Besëlidhja e Prizrenit), officially the League for the Defense of the Rights of the Albanian Nation (Albanian: Lidhja për mbrojtjen e të drejtave të kombit Shqiptar), was an Albanian political organization that was officially founded on June 10, 1878 in the old town of Prizren in the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. It was suppressed in April 1881.

The Treaties of San Stefano and Berlin assigned areas inhabited by Albanians to other states. The inability of the Porte to protect the interests of a region that was 70 percent Muslim and largely loyal forced Albanian leaders to organize their own defence and to consider the creation of an autonomous administration, as Serbia and the other Danubian Principalities had enjoyed before their independence.

The Albanian Vilayet (Ottoman Turkish: ولايت ارناود, Vilâyet-i Arnavid) was a projected vilayet of the Ottoman Empire in the western Balkan Peninsula, which was to include the four Ottoman vilayets with substantial ethnic Albanian populations: Kosovo Vilayet, Scutari Vilayet, Manastir Vilayet, and Janina Vilayet. In some proposals, it included the Salonica Vilayet as well. The creation of the Vilayet was confirmed in September 1912, but negotiations were interrupted a month later in October by the beginning of the First Balkan War. Plans for an Albanian Vilayet were lost with the Partition of Albania.

A separate Albanian vilayet was a part of the agenda of many Albanian organizations and societies since 1877, during the period known as the Albanian National Awakening. Establishment of such a vilayet was agreed between the Albanian rebels and the authorized representatives of the Ottoman government on 4 September 1912, following the Albanian Revolt of 1912. Soon after that agreement however, the First Balkan War broke out and most of the remaining European territory of the Ottoman Empire was occupied by the Balkan League member states. After the army of the Kingdom of Serbia captured Skopje, Ismail Qemali invited a group of Albanians from all four Ottoman vilayets that were agreed to be united into the Albanian Vilayet, to attend an All-Albanian Congress in Valona. There they declared independence on 28 November 1912, and set up the Provisional Government of Albania.

The Vilayet of Salonica (Ottoman Turkish: ولايت سلانيك, romanized: Vilâyet-i Selânik) was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire from 1867 to 1913. In the late 19th century it reportedly had an area of 12,950 square miles (33,500 km).

The vilayet was bounded by the Principality (later Kingdom) of Bulgaria on the north; Eastern Rumelia on the northeast (after the Treaty of Berlin); Edirne Vilayet on the east; the Aegean Sea on the south; Monastir Vilayet and the independent sanjak of Serfije on the west (after 1881); the Kosovo Vilayet on the northwest.

Grigoriy Stepanovich Shcherbina (Russian: Григорий Степанович Щербина, Ukrainian: Григорій Степанович Щербина, November 29, 1868 – April 10, 1903) was a Russian diplomat of Ukrainian origin, the Russian Consul seated in Mitrovica, Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Empire from late 1902 until his death in April 1903 from shot wounds. The Russian Empire decided to open a consulate in Mitrovica following the Kolašin affair (1901). At the beginning of 1903, Muslim Albanian chieftains met in Yakova after the Ottoman reform plans, and decided to murder leading Serbs in the Sanjak of İpek and compel other Serbs to flee to Serbia or be Turkicized. The plan was to rout Ottoman authorities in Peć, kill the notable Serbs, then move to Mitrovica and confront the Russian consulate. While supervising Ottoman defending troops, on 31 March, Scherbina was shot by an Ottoman Albanian corporal by the name of Halit Ibrahimi Popofci under orders of Isa Bolenti. Grigoriy Schterbina died ten days later.

Albanian sources state that the soldier was Halit Ibrahim Popofci, from Zhegër near Gjilan, and that he shot Scherbina due to his Anti-albanian policies.