The
Albanians
The Albanians (; sq, Shqiptarët ) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Se ...
of Kosovo ( sq, Shqiptarët e Kosovës, ), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovar/Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars/Kosovans, constitute the largest
ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
in
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
.
Kosovo Albanians belong to the ethnic Albanian sub-group of
Ghegs
The Ghegs (also spelled as Gegs; sq, Gegët) are one of two major dialectal subgroups of Albanians (the other being the Tosks) They are also differentiated by minor cultural, dialectal, social and religious characteristics. The Ghegs live in A ...
,
who inhabit the north of
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
, north of the
Shkumbin
The Shkumbin (; ; la, Genusus, also la, Genessus, label=none or la, Scampis, label=none), also commonly Shkembi, is a river in Southern Europe. It is long and its drainage basin is . Its average discharge is .
Etymology
It derives from La ...
river, Kosovo, southern
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
, and western parts of
North Macedonia
North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...
. They speak
Gheg Albanian
Gheg (also spelled Geg; Gheg Albanian: ''gegnishtja'', Standard sq, gegërishtja) is one of the two major variety (linguistics), varieties of Albanian language, Albanian, the other being Tosk Albanian, Tosk. The geographic dividing line betwee ...
, more specifically the Northwestern and Northeastern Gheg variants.
According to the 1991
Yugoslav census,
boycotted
A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...
by
Albanians
The Albanians (; sq, Shqiptarët ) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Se ...
, there were 1,596,072 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo or 81.6% of population. By the estimation in the year 2000, there were between 1,584,000 and 1,733,600 Albanians in Kosovo or 88% of population; as of 2011,
their population share is 92.93%.
History
Pre-7th century
Toponymical evidence suggests that Albanian was spoken in western and eastern Kosovo and the
Niš
Niš (; sr-Cyrl, Ниш, ; names in other languages) is the third largest city in Serbia and the administrative center of the Nišava District. It is located in southern part of Serbia. , the city proper has a population of 183,164, while ...
region before the
Migration Period
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
.
In this era, Albanian in Kosovo was in linguistic contact with Eastern Romance which was presumably spoken in contemporary eastern Serbia and Macedonia.
Middle Ages
Between 1246 and 1255,
Stefan Uroš I
Stefan Uroš I ( sr-cyr, Стефан Урош I; 1223 – May 1, 1277), known as Uroš the Great (Урош Велики) was the King of Serbia from 1243 to 1276, succeeding his brother Stefan Vladislav. He was one of the most important ruler ...
had reported Albanian toponyms in the Drenica valley. A chrisobull of the Serbian Tsar
Stefan Dušan
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan ( sr-Cyrl, Стефан Урош IV Душан, ), known as Dušan the Mighty ( sr, / ; circa 1308 – 20 December 1355), was the King of Serbia from 8 September 1331 and Tsar (or Emperor) and autocrat of the Serbs, Gre ...
that was given to the Monastery of Saint Mihail and Gavril in Prizren between the years of 1348-1353 states the presence of
Albanians
The Albanians (; sq, Shqiptarët ) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Se ...
in the
Plains of Dukagjin, the vicinity of
Prizren and in the villages of Drenica.
In the 14th century in two
chrysobulls
A golden bull or chrysobull was a decree issued by Byzantine Emperors and later by monarchs in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, most notably by the Holy Roman Emperors. The term was originally coined for the golden seal (a '' bul ...
or decrees by Serbian rulers, villages of Albanians alongside
Vlachs
"Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Easter ...
are cited in the first as being between the
White Drin
The White Drin or White Drim ( sq, Drini i Bardhë,/ ''Beli Drim'') is a river in Kosovo and northern Albania, a ca. -long headstream of the Drin.
Course
Kosovo
The Kosovo section of the White Drin flows entirely in the semi-karst part of ...
and
Lim rivers (1330), and in the second (1348) a total of nine Albanian villages are cited within the vicinity of Prizren.
[ "From the details of the monastic estates given in the chrysobulls, further information can be gleaned about these Vlachs and Albanians. The earliest reference is in one of Nemanja's charters giving property to Hilandar, the Serbian monastery on Mount Athos: 170 Vlachs are mentioned, probably located in villages round Prizren. When Dečanski founded his monastery of Decani in 1330, he referred to ‘villages and katuns of Vlachs and Albanians’ in the area of the white Drin: a katun (alb.:katund) was a shepherding settlement. And Dusan’s chrysobull of 1348 for the Monastery of the Holy Archangels in Prizren mentions a total of nine Albanian katuns."][ "The monastery at Dečani stands on a terrace commanding passes into High Albania. When Stefan Uros III founded it in 1330, he gave it many villages in the plain and catuns of Vlachs and Albanians between the Lim and the Beli Drim. Vlachs and Albanians had to carry salt for the monastery and provide it with serf labour."] Toponyms such as ''Arbanaška'' and ''Đjake'' shows an Albanian presence in the
Toplica and Southern Morava regions (located north-east of contemporary Kosovo) since the Late Middle Ages.
[ Significant clusters of Albanian populations also lived in Kosovo especially in the west and centre before and after the Habsburg invasion of 1689–1690, while in Eastern Kosovo they were a small minority.] Due to the Ottoman-Habsburg wars and their aftermath, Albanians from contemporary northern Albania and Western Kosovo settled in wider Kosovo and the Toplica and Morava regions in the second half of the 18th century, at times instigated by Ottoman authorities. Causes for the Albanian emigration would be the benefits Muslim Albanians received in Kosovo, in contrast to Christian Serbs who left Kosovo to settle further north in Hungary. Some historians have challenged this and argue there was never a mass exodus of Serbs during these periods nor a vacuum that were filled by Albanians from northern Albania.Migrations into the region were slow processes rather than populations filling up vacuums And the people that revolted against Ottoman rule in Kosovo in 1690 during the Ottoman-Habsburg wars were described by Austrians as Albanians
The Albanians (; sq, Shqiptarët ) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Se ...
rather than Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
. This was also noted by the Austrian scholar Johann Georg von Hahn
Johann Georg von Hahn (11 July 1811 – 23 September 1869) was an Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian diplomat, philologist and specialist in Albanian history, language and culture.
Hahn was born in Frankfurt am Main. In 1847, he was named Aust ...
. One early account states that in Prishtina 5,000 Arnauts
Arnaut ( ota, ارناود) is a Turkish ethnonym used to denote Albanians. ''Arvanid'' (), ''Arnavud'' (), plural: ''Arnavudlar'' (): modern Turkish: ''Arnavut'', plural: ''Arnavutlar''; are ethnonyms used mainly by Ottoman and contempor ...
, having thrown off the Turks. Among the papers of Ludwig von Baden in Karlsruhe, there is a copy of an intercepted letter, in French, written by a secretary of the English Embassy in Istanbul on 19 January 1690: it reports that the 'Germans' in Kosovo have made contact with 20,000 Albanians
The Albanians (; sq, Shqiptarët ) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Se ...
who have turned their weapons against the Turks.Count Veterani, the commander of the Austrian campaign in 1690, wrote in his memoirs of 20,000 Arnauts
Arnaut ( ota, ارناود) is a Turkish ethnonym used to denote Albanians. ''Arvanid'' (), ''Arnavud'' (), plural: ''Arnavudlar'' (): modern Turkish: ''Arnavut'', plural: ''Arnavutlar''; are ethnonyms used mainly by Ottoman and contempor ...
reduced to loyal obedience to the Emperor by Piccolomini. And one of Piccolominis own officers, Colonel von Strasser, reported to Ludwig von Baden that Piccolomini had gone to Prizren in order to treat with 'The Albanians, Arnauts, and others (mit den Albanesernen, Arnauten und anderen')
According to Noel Malcolm, a large part of the Albanian demographic growth in Kosovo was from an indigenous population within the Kosovo region itself rather than a mass immigration from northern Albania.[Kosovo: A Short History] Most of the new arrivals into Kosovo that were recorded by Ottoman officials in the early period had Slavic names rather than Albanian, many of these coming from Bosnia Kingsley (2022) argues that because an overwhelming majority of modern-day Kosovo municipalities are Slavic in their toponymy with the partial exception of Prizren and Gjakova
Gjakova, ) and Đakovica ( sr-Cyrl, Ђаковица, ) is the seventh largest city of Kosovo and seat of Gjakova Municipality and Gjakova District. The city has 40,827 inhabitants, while the municipality has 94,556 inhabitants.
Geographicall ...
, this suggests that the majority of contemporary Albanians in Kosovo entered the region of Kosovo following the Slavic migrations
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
to the Balkans. By the 1600s, large parts of Western Kosovo were majority Albanian speaking and migrations from northern Albania into Kosovo at this period were relatively very small compared to the already existing Albanian population in Kosovo. The population of northern and central Albania in the early Ottoman period was also smaller than that of the population of Kosovo and it's rate of growth higher.
In the Middle Ages, more Albanians in Kosovo were concentrated in the western parts of the region than in its eastern part. In the late 17th century,[ most intensively between mid-18th century and the 1840s they seem to have moved eastwards. The migrating parts of tribes maintained a tribal outlook and household structure. A 1930s Serbian study by Atanasije Urošević estimated that 90% of Kosovo Albanians in particular areas of eastern Kosovo descended from these migrating tribes; most belonged to the ]Krasniqi
Krasniqi is a historical Albanian tribe and region in the Accursed Mountains in northeastern Albania, bordering Kosovo. The region lies within the Tropojë District and is part of a wider area between Albania and Kosovo that is historically k ...
, the rest to the Berisha, Gashi, Shala
Shala (Šala) was a Mesopotamian goddess of weather and grain and the wife of the weather god Adad. It is assumed that she originated in northern Mesopotamia and that her name might have Hurrian origin. She was worshiped especially in Karkar a ...
, Sopi, Kryeziu, Thaçi and Bytyqi
Bytyçi () or Bytyqi, Bityçi and Bitiçi refers to an Albanian tribe or ''fis'' centred in the southeastern Highlands of Gjakova. The surname derived from the tribe is found throughout Albania and Kosovo.
Geography
The Bytyçi tribe are situated ...
tribes.[ Historian ]Noel Malcolm
Sir Noel Robert Malcolm, (born 26 December 1956) is an English political journalist, historian and academic. A King's Scholar at Eton College, Malcolm read history at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and received his doctorate in history from Trinity Col ...
has criticized the Urošević study for its broad generalization to the whole of Kosovo, as it focused on Eastern Kosovo, while omitting Western Kosovo to reach those conclusions.[Malcolm, Noel (1998). ''Kosovo: A short history''. Macmillan. p. 179. "In the 1930s a Serb researcher took down details of the oral family traditions of all the households in several areas of Eastern Kosovo. He recorded that only a small proportion of Serb families had been living in the same place for 200 years or more. In one large section of Eastern Kosovo, running north and south of Prishtina, he was able to categorize the Serb households as follows: leaving aside the 1,437 colonist families who had come after 1912, there were 706 households of ‘old inhabitants’ and 1,819 households of ‘immigrants’. The family traditions of the latter recorded that 780 of them had come from Macedonia, northern Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia-Hercegovina and central or northern Serbia, while the rest had moved from other parts of Kosovo. In the Gornja Morava district (the south-east corner of Kosovo) the Serb population consisted of 1,143 households of old inhabitants and 1,205 of ‘immigrants’, fewer than 200 of whom had migrated from other parts of Kosovo. Of the Albanian families he investigated in these areas, only a small number were ‘old inhabitants’. The proportions would have been different if he had done his research in Western Kosovo; but in any case the whole debate which pits fixed Serbs against mobile Albanians, as his researches demonstrate, rather bogus. Most of the families in any part of Kosovo are known to have come from somewhere else."; p. 397. footnote: "Urošević, ''Etnički procesi na Kosovu tokom turske vladavine'', pp. 18–20, 22–3."] Malcolm also noted that commonalities of Kosovo Albanian family names with Albanian clan names is not always indicative of having Albanian Malësi clan origins, as some people were agglomerated into clans while many other Kosovo Albanians lack such names.[Malcolm, Noel (1998). ''Kosovo: A short history''. Macmillan. p.155. "Thus increasingly, Albanians from the Malësi would bear the name of their clan as a kind of surname: Berisha, Këlmendi, Shala and so on. There are many people with these names in modern Kosovo, and it is clear that, from the early seventeenth century onwards, at least some of their ancestors must have come into Kosovo as immigrants from the Malësi. (‘At least some’ is a necessary qualification, because we cannot assume that the prices of agglomeration – of people joining a clan and taking its name – never took place on Kosovo soil.) However, there are also many Kosovo Albanians who do not bear clan names. Serbian writers sometimes argue that all these Albanians must therefore be Albanianized Serbs, as if all genuine Albanians would originally have belonged to clans. But since we know that there were non-clan Albanians in Kosovo as early as the fifteenth century, that there were only formed in areas which (unlike Kosovo) lacked governmental security, and indeed that many of the clans in the Malësi were still only in the process of formation at that time, this particular version of the argument about ‘Albanianized Serbs’ can simply be dismissed."] The study also revealed that the same population figures between older and newer settlement patterns were the same for the Serb population in eastern Kosovo as most had settled in the area in the last 200 years.[
Kosovo was part of the ]Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
from 1455 to 1912, at first as part of the '' eyalet'' of Rumelia
Rumelia ( ota, روم ايلى, Rum İli; tr, Rumeli; el, Ρωμυλία), etymologically "Land of the Names of the Greeks#Romans (Ῥωμαῖοι), Romans", at the time meaning Eastern Orthodox Christians and more specifically Christians f ...
, and from 1864 as a separate province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
(''vilayet
A vilayet ( ota, , "province"), also known by various other names, was a first-order administrative division of the later Ottoman Empire. It was introduced in the Vilayet Law of 21 January 1867, part of the Tanzimat reform movement initiated ...
''). During this time, Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
was introduced to the population. Today, Sunni Islam is the predominant religion of Kosovo Albanians.
The Ottoman term ''Arnavudluk'' (آرناوودلق) meaning Albania was used in Ottoman state records for areas such as southern Serbia and Kosovo. Evliya Çelebi
Derviş Mehmed Zillî (25 March 1611 – 1682), known as Evliya Çelebi ( ota, اوليا چلبى), was an Ottoman explorer who travelled through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years, recording ...
(1611–1682) in his travels within the region during 1660 referred to the western and central part of what is today Kosovo as ''Arnavudluk'' and described the town of Vučitrn
Vushtrri ( sq-definite, Vushtrria) or Vučitrn ( sr-Cyrl, Вучитрн), is a city and municipality located in the Mitrovica District in northern Kosovo. According to the 2011 census, the town of Vushtrri has 26,964 inhabitants, while the m ...
's inhabitants as having knowledge of Albanian or Turkish with few speakers of Slavic languages.[Anscombe, Frederic F, (2006). "The Ottoman Empire in Recent International Politics – II: The Case of Kosovo". ''The International History Review''. 28.(4): 767–774, 785–788. "While the ethnic roots of some settlements can be determined from the Ottoman records, Serbian and Albanian historians have at times read too much into them in their running dispute over the ethnic history of early Ottoman Kosovo. Their attempts to use early Ottoman provincial surveys (''tahrir defterleri'') to gauge the ethnic make—up of the population in the fifteenth century have proved little. Leaving aside questions arising from the dialects and pronunciation of the census scribes, interpreters, and even priests who baptized those recorded, no natural law binds ethnicity to name. Imitation, in which the customs, tastes, and even names of those in the public eye are copied by the less exalted, is a time—tested tradition and one followed in the Ottoman Empire. Some Christian sipahis in early Ottoman Albania took such Turkic names as Timurtaş, for example, in a kind of cultural conformity completed later by conversion to Islam. Such cultural mimicry makes onomastics an inappropriate tool for anyone wishing to use Ottoman records to prove claims so modern as to have been irrelevant to the pre-modern state.
The seventeenth-century Ottoman notable arid author Evliya Çelebi, who wrote a massive account of his travels around the empire and abroad, included in it details of local society that normally would not appear in official correspondence; for this reason, his account of a visit to several towns in Kosovo in 1660 is extremely valuable. Evliya confirms that western and at least parts of central Kosovo were ‘Arnavud’. He notes that the town of Vučitrn had few speakers of ‘Boşnakca’; its inhabitants spoke Albanian or Turkish. He terms the highlands around Tetovo (in Macedonia), Peć, and Prizren the ‘mountains of Arnavudluk’. Elsewhere, he states that ‘the mountains of Peć’ lay in Arnavudluk, from which issued one of the rivers converging at Mitrovica, just north-west of which he sites Kosovo’s border with Bosna. This river, the Ibar, flows from a source in the mountains of Montenegro north-north-west of Peć, in the region of Rozaje to which the Këlmendi would later be moved. He names the other river running by Mitrovica as the Kılab and says that it, too, had its source in Aravudluk; by this, he apparently meant the Lab, which today is the name of the river descending from mountains north—east of Mitrovica to join the Sitnica north of Priština. As Evliya travelled south, he appears to have named the entire stretch of river he was following the Kılab, not noting the change of name when he took the right fork at the confluence of the Lab and Sitnica. Thus, Evliya states that the tomb of Murad I, killed in the battle of Kosovo Polje, stood beside the Kılab, although it stands near the Sitnica outside Priština. Despite the confusion of names, Evliya included in Arnavudluk not only the western fringe of Kosovo, but also the central mountains from which the Sitnica (‘Kılab’) and its first tributaries descend.
Given that a large Albanian population lived in Kosovo, especially in the west and centre, both before and after the Habsburg invasion of 1689–90, it remains possible, in theory, that at that time in the Ottoman Empire, one people emigrated en masse and another immigrated to take its place.]
Modern period
19th century
A large number of Albanians alongside smaller numbers of urban Turks (with some being of Albanian origin) were expelled and/or fled from what is now contemporary southern Serbia (Toplica and Morava regions) during the Serbian–Ottoman War (1876–78).[ Many settled in Kosovo, where they and their descendants are known as '' muhaxhir'', also ''muhaxher'' ("exiles", from Arabic 'muhajir'),] and some bear the surname ''Muhaxhiri/Muhaxheri'' or most others the village name of origin. During the late Ottoman period, ethno-national Albanian identity as expressed in contemporary times did not exist amongst the wider Kosovo Albanian-speaking population.[Frantz, Eva Anne (2011).]
Catholic Albanian warriors for the Sultan in late Ottoman Kosovo: The Fandi as a socio-professional group and their identity patterns
". In Grandits, Hannes, Nathalie Clayer, & Robert Pichler (eds). ''Conflicting Loyalties in the Balkans: The Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire and Nation-building''. IB Tauris. p. 183. "It also demonstrates that while an ethno-national Albanian identity covering the whole Albanian-speaking population hardly existed in late-Ottoman Kosovo, collective identities were primarily formed from layers of religious, socio-professional/socio-economic and regional elements, as well as extended kinship and patriarchal structures.”; p. 195. “The case of the Fandi illustrates the heterogeneous and multilayered nature of the Albanian-speaking population groups in late-Ottoman Kosovo. These divisions also become evident when looking at the previously-mentioned high level of violence within the Albanian-speaking groups. Whereas we tend to think of violence in Kosovo today largely in terms of ethnic conflict or even “ancient ethnic hatreds”, the various forms of violence the consuls described in their reports in late-Ottoman Kosovo appear to have occurred primarily along religious and socio-economic fault lines, reflecting pre-national identity patterns. In addition to the usual violence prompted by shortages of pastureland or robbery for private gain, the sources often report on religiously motivated violence between Muslims and Christians, with a high level of violence not only between Albanian Muslims and Serbian Christians, but also between Albanian Muslims and Albanian Catholics.” Instead collective identities were based upon either socio-professional, socio-economic, regional, or religious identities and sometimes relations between Muslim and Christian Albanians were tense.[
]
As a reaction against the Congress of Berlin, which had given some Albanian-populated territories to Serbia and Montenegro, Albanians, mostly from Kosovo, formed the League of Prizren
The League of Prizren ( sq, Besëlidhja e Prizrenit), officially the League for the Defense of the Rights of the Albanian Nation ( sq, Lidhja për mbrojtjen e të drejtave te kombit Shqiptar), was an Albanian political organization which was offi ...
in Prizren in June 1878. Hundreds of Albanian leaders gathered in Prizren and opposed the Serbian and Montenegrin jurisdiction. Serbia complained to the Western Powers that the promised territories were not being held because the Ottomans were hesitating to do that. Western Powers put pressure to the Ottomans and in 1881, the Ottoman Army started the fighting against Albanians. The Prizren League created a Provisional Government with a President, Prime Minister (Ymer Prizreni) and Ministries of War (Sylejman Vokshi) and Foreign Ministry (Abdyl Frashëri). After three years of war, the Albanians were defeated. Many of the leaders were executed and imprisoned. In 1910, an Albanian uprising spread from Pristina
Pristina, ; sr, / (, ) is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. The city's municipal boundaries in Pristina District form the largest urban center in Kosovo. After Tirana, Pristina has the second largest population of ethnic Albanians and ...
and lasted until the Ottoman Sultan
Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it ...
's visit to Kosovo in June 1911. The aim of the League of Prizren was to unite the four Albanian-inhabited Vilayets by merging the majority of Albanian inhabitants within the Ottoman Empire into one Albanian vilayet. However at that time Serbs consisted about 25% of the whole Vilayet of Kosovo's overall population and were opposing the Albanian aims along with Turks and other Slavs in Kosovo, which prevented the Albanian movements from establishing their rule over Kosovo.
20th century
In 1912 during the Balkan Wars, most of eastern Kosovo was taken by the Kingdom of Serbia, while the Kingdom of Montenegro
The Kingdom of Montenegro ( sr, Краљевина Црна Горa, Kraljevina Crna Gora) was a monarchy in southeastern Europe, present-day Montenegro, during the tumultuous period of time on the Balkan Peninsula leading up to and during World ...
took western Kosovo, which a majority of its inhabitants call "the plateau of Dukagjin" (''Rrafshi i Dukagjinit'') and the Serbs call '' Metohija'' (Метохија), a Greek word meant for the landed dependencies of a monastery. Aside from many war crimes and atrocities committed by the Serbian Army on the Albanian population, colonist Serb families moved into Kosovo, while the Albanian population was decreased. As a result, the proportion of Albanians in Kosovo declined from 75 percent at the time of the invasion to slightly more than 65% percent by 1941.
The 1918–1929 period under the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 ...
was a time of persecution of the Kosovar Albanians. Kosovo was split into four counties—three being a part of official Serbia: Zvečan, Kosovo and southern Metohija; and one in Montenegro: northern Metohija. However, the new administration system since 26 April 1922 split Kosovo among three Regions in the Kingdom: Kosovo, Rascia and Zeta
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...
.
In 1929 the Kingdom was transformed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 unt ...
. The territories of Kosovo were split among the Banate of Zeta, the Banate of Morava and the Banate of Vardar. The Kingdom lasted until the World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
invasion of April 1941.
After the Axis invasion, the greater part of Kosovo became a part of Italian-controlled Fascist Albania
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
, and a smaller, Eastern part by the Axis allied Tsardom of Bulgaria
The Tsardom of Bulgaria was the name of the Bulgarian state from Simeon's assumption of the title of Tsar in 913 until the Fatherland Front's foundation of the People's Republic of Bulgaria in 1946.
It occurred in three distinct periods: b ...
and Nazi German-occupied Serbia. Since the Albanian Fascist political leadership had decided in the Conference of Bujan that Kosovo would remain a part of Albania they started expelling the Serbian and Montenegrin settlers "who had arrived in the 1920s and 1930s".
Prior to the surrender of Fascist Italy in 1943, the German forces took over direct control of the region. After numerous Serbian and Yugoslav Partisans uprisings, Kosovo was liberated after 1944 with the help of the Albanian partisans of the Comintern, and became a province of Serbia within the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, also known as Democratic Federative Yugoslavia (DF Yugoslavia or DFY), was a provisional state established during World War II on 29 November 1943 through the Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the Nation ...
.
The Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija was formed in 1946 to placate its regional Albanian population within the People's Republic of Serbia
, life_span = 1944–1992
, status = Constituent state of Yugoslavia
, p1 = Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia
, flag_p1 = Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg
, p2 ...
as a member of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...
under the leadership of the former Partisan leader, Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his deat ...
, but with no factual autonomy. This was the first time Kosovo came to exist with its present boundaries. After Yugoslavia's name changed to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yug ...
and Serbia's to the Socialist Republic of Serbia in 1963, the Autonomous Region of Kosovo was raised to the level of Autonomous Province (which Vojvodina
Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...
had had since 1946) and gained inner autonomy in the 1960s.
In the 1974 constitution, the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo's government received higher powers, including the highest governmental titles—President and Premier and a seat in the Federal Presidency, which made it a ''de facto'' Socialist Republic within the Federation, but remaining as a Socialist Autonomous Region within the Socialist Republic of Serbia. Serbo-Croat and Albanian were defined official on the provincial level marking the two largest linguistic Kosovan groups: Serbs and Albanians. The word ''Metohija'' was also removed from the title in 1974 leaving the simple short form, ''Kosovo''.
In the 1970s, an Albanian nationalist movement pursued full recognition of the Province of Kosovo as another Republic within the Federation, while the most extreme elements aimed for full-scale independence. Tito's government dealt with the situation swiftly, but only giving it a temporary solution.
In 1981 the Kosovar Albanian students organised protests seeking that Kosovo become a republic within Yugoslavia. Those protests were harshly contained by the centralist Yugoslav government. In 1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Serbica, sr-Cyr, Српска академија наука и уметности, САНУ, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, SANU) is a national academy and the ...
(SANU) was working on a document, which later would be known as the SANU Memorandum
The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, known simply as the SANU Memorandum ( sr-cyr, Меморандум САНУ), was a draft document produced by a 16-member committee of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) from ...
. An unfinished edition was filtered to the press. In the essay, SANU portrayed the Serbian people as a victim and called for the revival of Serb nationalism, using both true and exaggerated facts for propaganda. During this time, Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević (, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic of ...
rose to power in the League of the Socialists of Serbia.
Soon afterwards, as approved by the Assembly in 1990, the autonomy of Kosovo was revoked, and the pre-1974 status reinstated. Milošević, however, did not remove Kosovo's seat from the Federal Presidency, but he installed his own supporters in that seat, so he could gain power in the Federal government. After Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
's secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, Milošević used the seat to obtain dominance over the Federal government, outvoting his opponents.
Many Albanians organized a peaceful active resistance movement, following the job losses suffered by some of them, while other, more radical and nationalistic oriented Albanians, started violent purges of the non-Albanian residents of Kosovo.
On 2 July 1990, an unconstitutional ethnic Albanian parliament declared Kosovo an independent country, although this was not recognized by the Government since the ethnic Albanians refused to register themselves as legal citizens of Yugoslavia. In September of that year, the ethnic Albanian parliament, meeting in secrecy in the town of Kačanik, adopted the ''Constitution of the Republic of Kosova''. A year later, the Parliament organized the 1991 Kosovan independence referendum, which was observed by international organisations, but was not recognized internationally because of a lot of irregularities. With an 87% turnout, 99.88% voted for Kosovo to be independent. The non-Albanian population, at the time comprising 10% of Kosovo's population, refused to vote since they considered the referendum to be illegal.[Kosovo (Yugoslavia), 30 September 1991: Independence](_blank)
Direct Democracy In the early nineties, ethnic Albanians organised a parallel state
The "parallel state" is a term coined by American historian Robert Paxton to describe a collection of organizations or institutions that are state-like in their organization, management and structure, but are not officially part of the legitimate ...
system and a parallel system of education and healthcare, among other things, Albanians organized and trained, with the help of some European countries, the army of the self-declared Kosovo republic called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). With the events in Bosnia and Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
coming to an end, the Yugoslav government started relocating Serbian refugees from Croatia and Bosnia to Kosovo. The OVK managed to re-relocate Serbian refugees back to Serbia..
After the Dayton Agreement
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement or the Dayton Accords ( Croatian: ''Daytonski sporazum'', Serbian and Bosnian: ''Dejtonski mirovni sporazum'' / Дејтонски мир ...
in 1995, a guerilla force calling itself the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) started to operate in Kosovo, although there are speculations that they may have started as early as 1992. Serbian paramilitary forces committed war crimes in Kosovo, although the Serbian government claims that the Army was only going after suspected Albanian terrorists. This triggered a 78-day NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
bombing campaign
A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanic ...
in 1999. The Albanian Kosovar KLA played a major role not only in reconnaissance missions for the NATO, but in sabotaging the Serbian Army as well.
21st century
International negotiations began in 2006 to determine the final status of Kosovo, as envisaged under UN Security Council Resolution 1244
United Nations Security Council resolution 1244, adopted on 10 June 1999, after recalling resolutions 1160 (1998), 1199 (1998), 1203 (1998) and 1239 (1999), authorised an international civil and military presence in the Federal Republic of Yug ...
, which ended the Kosovo conflict
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the war ...
of 1999. While Serbia's continued sovereignty over Kosovo is recognised by much of the international community, a clear majority of Kosovo's population prefers independence. The UN-backed talks, led by UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari
Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari (; born 23 June 1937) is a Finnish politician, the tenth president of Finland (1994–2000), a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and a United Nations diplomat and mediator noted for his international peace work.
Ahtisa ...
, began in February 2006. While progress was made on technical matters, both parties remained diametrically opposed on the question of status itself. In February 2007, Ahtisaari delivered a draft status settlement proposal to leaders in Belgrade and Pristina, the basis for a draft UN Security Council Resolution that proposes 'supervised independence' for the province. As of early July 2007 the draft resolution, which is backed by the United States, United Kingdom and other European members of the United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...
, had been rewritten four times to try to accommodate Russian concerns that such a resolution would undermine the principle of state sovereignty. Russia, which holds a veto in the Security Council as one of five permanent members, has stated that it will not support any resolution that is not acceptable to both Belgrade and Pristina.
On 26 November 2019, an earthquake struck Albania. The Kosovo Albanian population reacted with sentiments of solidarity through fundraising initiatives and money, food, clothing and shelter donations. Volunteers and humanitarian aid in trucks, buses and hundreds of cars from Kosovo traveled to Albania to assist in the situation and people were involved in tasks such as the operation of mobile kitchens and gathering financial aid. Many Albanians in Kosovo have opened their homes to people displaced by the earthquake.
Demographics
Balkans-ethnic (1877).jpg, 1877 ethnic composition map of the Balkans by the French A. Synvet
Ernst-Ravenstein-Balkans-Ethnic-Map-1880.jpg, 1880 ethnographic map of the Balkans
Balkans-ethnique.JPG, 1898 ethnic composition of the Balkans according to a French source
Distribution of Races on the Balkans in 1922 Hammond.png, 1922 ethnographic map of Europe
Distribution of races in the Balkans c.1910.jpg, 1923 ethnographic map of the Balkans and Turkey.
Diaspora
There is a large Kosovo Albanian diaspora in central Europe.
Culture
Culturally, Albanians in Kosovo are very closely related to Albanians in Albania. Traditions and customs differ even from town to town in Kosovo itself. The spoken dialect is Gheg
Gheg (also spelled Geg; Gheg Albanian: ''gegnishtja'', Standard sq, gegërishtja) is one of the two major varieties of Albanian, the other being Tosk. The geographic dividing line between the two varieties is the Shkumbin River, which winds ...
, typical of northern Albanians. The language of state institutions, education, books, media and newspapers is the standard dialect of Albanian, which is closer to the Tosk
Tosk ( sq-definite, toskërishtja) is the southern group of dialects of the Albanian language, spoken by the ethnographic group known as Tosks. The line of demarcation between Tosk and Gheg (the northern variety) is the Shkumbin River. Tosk is t ...
dialect.
Religion
The vast majority of Kosovo Albanians are Sunni Muslims. There are also Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
Albanian communities estimated beween 60,000 to 65,000 in Kosovo, concentrated in Gjakova
Gjakova, ) and Đakovica ( sr-Cyrl, Ђаковица, ) is the seventh largest city of Kosovo and seat of Gjakova Municipality and Gjakova District. The city has 40,827 inhabitants, while the municipality has 94,556 inhabitants.
Geographicall ...
, Prizren, Klina
Klina ( sq-definite, Klinë; Serbian Cyrillic: ) is a town and municipality located in the District of Peja of north-western Kosovo. According to the 2011 census, the town of Klina has 5,542 inhabitants, while the municipality has 38,496 inhabitan ...
and a few villages near Peja and Viti. Converting to Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
is growing among Kosovo Albanian Muslims in Kosovo.
Art
Kosovafilmi is the film industry, which releases movies in Albanian, created by Kosovar Albanian movie-makers. The National Theatre of Kosovo is the main theatre where plays are shown regularly by Albanian and international artists.
Music
Music has always been part of Albanian culture. Although in Kosovo music is diverse (as it was mixed with the cultures of different regimes dominating Kosovo), authentic Albanian music does still exist. It is characterized by use of '' çiftelia'' (an authentic Albanian instrument), ''mandolina'', ''mandola'' and ''percussion''.
Folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
is very popular in Kosovo. There are many folk singers and ensembles.
Modern music in Kosovo has its origin from western countries. The main modern genres include pop, hip hop/rap, rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
, and jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
.
Kosovo Radiotelevisions like RTK, RTV21
RTV21 (an acronym for Radiotelevizioni 21; English: Radiotelevision 21) is a broadcaster and media company based in Pristina, Kosovo, which includes a radio (est. May 11, 1998), a television station (est. September 22, 2000), and six sister station ...
and KTV have their musical charts.
Education
Education is provided for all levels, primary, secondary, and university degrees. University of Pristina
The University of Pristina ( sq, Universiteti i Prishtinës) is a public university located in Pristina, Kosovo. It is the institution that emerged after the disestablishment of the University of Pristina (1969–99) as a result of the ...
is the public university of Kosovo, with several faculties and majors. The National Library (BK) is the main and the largest library in Kosovo, located in the centre of Pristina. There are many other private universities, among them American University in Kosovo (AUK), and many secondary schools and colleges such as Mehmet Akif College.
Notable people
See also
* Albanians
The Albanians (; sq, Shqiptarët ) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Se ...
* Albanian nationalism in Kosovo
Kosovo is the birthplace of the Albanian nationalist movement which emerged as a response to the Eastern Crisis of 1878. In the immediate aftermath of the Russo-Ottoman war, the Congress of Berlin proposed partitioning Ottoman Albanian inhabited ...
* Albania-Kosovo relations
Notes
References
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Albanians in Kosovo
Ethnic groups in Kosovo