r/europe • u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) • Aug 28 '17
What do you know about... Kosovo?
This is the thirty-second part of our ongoing series about the countries of Europe. You can find an overview here.
Today's country:
Kosovo
Kosovo is a partially recognized state in the balkan. It belonged to the Ottoman empire from the 15th until the beginning of the 20th century. After being part of Yugoslavia for most of the 20th century, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008. It has been recognized as a country by 111 nations, but Serbia refuses to recognize it as a souverign state. Notable european countries refusing to recognize Kosovo include Spain (because of separatist movements in Spain), Greece and Russia (there are several more, you can check the list linked).
So, what do you know about Kosovo?
Major thanks to /u/our_best_friend, who took care of these threads during my absence.
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u/Porodicnostablo I posted the Nazi spoon Aug 31 '17 edited Aug 31 '17
Yes, this is a legitimate question. The Serbs of Kosovo viewed the events of 1912 as liberation of course. Albanians had a more ambiguous attitude towards the Ottoman Empire, a times fighting it, and at times fighting against it, but they, of course, viewed the arrival of a Serb government not as liberation - rather, they organized several armed insurgencies during the following decade. In 1912 Serbs made up about one third of the population, with the exact percent varying from area to area and from city to city.
One should, of course, ask how legitimate was the Serbian taking of Kosovo, or at least parts of it. At the time, of course, almost no one wanted or dared to ask that question, as all Balkan nations were doing the same thing. (Small reminder, in 1912, after liberation or "liberation", Serbia incorporated three quarters of Kosovo, while the remaining was incorporated into Montenegro, the smaller of the two allied states).
Anyways, not in order to defend the actions of the Serbs, but just to shed some more light, I must say. The Albanians who arrived to Kosovo in the late 17th-early 19th century period, came from the famous, heroic highland tribes (fisi) of today's North Albania. So, the Kelmendi, Hoti, Dukagini, Dibri etc. They were (and many still are) Catholic Christians in Albania. Religion was, however, never too important for Albanians (I'm generalizing) and the most important things were the tribal pride, respect, heroism etc. So, when an Albanian group came from Malesia (North Albania) to Kosovo in, for example, 1740, they were Catholics. In 1-2 generations, as a rule of thumb, they would convert to Islam. Why? Because they viewed religion as a secondary thing, and becoming Muslim allowed them to be able to legally carry weapons (which was strictly forbidden for Christians in the Ottoman empire), have lower taxes than the Orthodox/Catholic etc. This lead them to a, lets say, far better position than their neighbor Serbs. In the following 200 years, and I don't want to start a comment war, but that's how it was, the Albanians would be able to kinda bully the Serbs, steal from them etc, because they faced little or no consequences from the Turks. Sometimes, they committed even worse crimes, but never mind. The Evidence for this are the thousands of letters of priests, bishops and others from Kosovo to the Sultan, to the government in Istanbul, asking for protection. These events were instrumental in lowering the number of Serbs in Kosovo in the 18th-early 20th century. Why did I write all of this - When Serbia planed to "liberate" Kosovo, it's historic and holy land, they knew they'll find a region with only a third of population being Serbian. But, because of all these hardships, they felt the fact there's an Albanian majority in Kosovo is a consequence of the criminal, unlawful and long occupation of Kosovo by the Ottomans, which allowed Albanians to do "whatever they want". The Serbs didn't view the Majority of the Albanians as a "legitimate" thing. So, these are not my views, but I just tried to explain the state of things back then.