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Kosovo Albanians

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Albanians in Kosovo in 1991

The Albanians are the largest ethnic group in Kosovo. According to the 1991, there were 1,596,072 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo or 81,6% of population. By the estimation in year 2000, there were between 1,584,000 and 1,733,600 Albanians in Kosovo or 88% of population.

Geography

According to the 1991 census, Albanians were a majority in 23 of the 29 present municipalities of Kosovo (in the remaining 6 municipalities, the majority was Serb or Slavic Muslim - Gorani).

History

Ethnic groups in Kosovo
Year Albanians Serbs(1.) Others
1948 68 % 24 % 8 %
1971 74 % 18 % 8 %
1981 77 % 13 % 9 %
1991 82 % 7 % 5 %
2000(2.) 88 % 7 % 5 %
2005(2.) 92 % 4 % 4 %
(1.) including Montenegrins
(2.) estimated data Ref: Statistical Office of Kosovo,
World Bank (2000), OSCE (2005)

It is most likely that the region of Kosovo has been inhabited by Illyrian tribes since the Bronze Age. In ancient times the area was known as Dardania and was settled by a tribe with the same name. The south of Kosovo was ruled by Macedonia afterAlexander the Great's reign in the 4th century BC. The local Dardani were of Illyrian stock.

Illyrians organised resistance against the Greeks and Romans for centuries but after the long wars of Illyrian tribes against intruders, the region was later occupied by the Roman Empire under Emperor Augustus. When the Roman Empire split in A.D. 395, the area of Kosovo became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire. Dardania gave numerous leaders to both Rome and Constantinopolis. Justinian the Great was among them.

The Slavic invaders of the Balkan peninsula reached the far end of the Pelopponesus as early as in the 7th century, but thanks to its remote position as a plateau surrounded by high mountains, Kosovo didn't come to have a Slavic majority until the 9th century. The original Illyrian, more or less romanized population who had sought refuge in the highlands gave birth to the Albanian and the Romanian languages there, in a region centered around Kosovo in the 10th century. The thesis according to which the Albanians might be the descendants of a Thracian tribe, put forward by the Austrian albanologist Gustav Weigand in the 19th century, has now been refuted. The contemporary Albanians and Vlachs in the Western Balkans - the invading Slavs called Vlah whomever spoke a Latin or Latin-influenced language - are the descendants of their first inhabitants.

Starting in the late 12th century, the Serb kingdom of Rascia began taking parts of Kosovo away from the Byzantine empire - which had itself wrested them from the Bulgarian kingdom of Macedonia in the 11th century, and the Eastern Christian Slavs in Kosovo who acknowledged the authority of the newly established Serb Patriarch came to think of themselves as "Serbs". Local sources reveal a long hitory of coexistence between the Slavic invaders and the native Albanian population. The Serbian "empire" at the center of which Kosovo found itself in the 14th century was multi-national, and political allegiance there did not depend upon ethnicity.

The Ottoman conquered Kosovo in the 15th century and it brought Islamisation, particularly in the towns, and later the Viyalet of Kosovo -with borders different from the present ones, which were established in 1945 - was also created as one of the Ottoman territorial entities.

Kosovo was taken once by the Austrian forces of Eneo Piccolomini during the Great War of 1683 - 1699 with help of 5,000 Albanians and their leader, Catholic Archibishop Pjetër Bogdani. The archbishop, like Piccolomini, died from the plague at the end of 1698, and as the Ottomans re-conquered the region they had his grave reopened and his body quartered and given to the dogs because of his role in the rebellion.

As the Serbs opposed Ottoman domination and ultimately gained their autonomy in the Region of Belgrade, many of them moved away from Kosovo as the Albanians remained in their homeland, as they had no other place to move to. This changed the demographic make-up of the region, increasing the proportion of native Albanians. By the mid-19th century, the Albanians had become an absolute majority again in the whole of what is now Kosovo.

As the Serbs expelled some 100,000 Albanians from the regions of Niš, Pirot, Leskovac and Vranje in southern Serbia, which the Congress of Berlin of 1878 had given to the Belgrade Principality, a large number of them settled in Kosovo, where are now known as muhaxher (meaning the exiled, from the Arabic muhajir) and whose descendants often bear the surname Muhaxheri.

As a reaction against the Congress of Berlin, which had given Albanian territories to Serbia and Montenegro, Albanians, mostly from Kosovo, formed the League of Prizren in Prizren in [[June] 1878. Hundreds of Albanian leaders gathered in Prizren and fought back the Serbian and Montenegrine pretensions. 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 Prishtina and lasted until the Ottoman Sultan'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 autonomous region. However at that time Serbs have consisted about 40% 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.

In 1912 during the Balkan Wars, most of Eastern Kosovo was taken by the Kingdom of Serbia, while the Kingdom of Montenegro took Western Kosovo, which a majority of its inhabitants call "The Plateau of Duke John" (Rrafsh i Dukagjinit) and the Serbs call Metohija (Метохија), a Greek word meant for the landed dependencies of a monastery. The Serbian army and irregular Četnici massacred 20,000 Albanians, as they planned a demographic re-colonization of Kosovo - this was described by Leon Trotsky, who was a reporter at the time. Numerous colonist Serb families moved into Kosovo, while the native Albanian population was subject to low-key ethnic cleansing. As a result, the proportion of Albanians in Kosovo declined from 60 percent at the time of the invasion to slightly more than 50 percent by 1941.

The 1918-1929 period under the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was a time of perecution for 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.

In 1929 the Kingdom was transformed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. 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 Axis invasion of April 1941.

After the Axis invasion, the greater part of Kosovo became a part of Italian-controlled Fascist Albania, and a smaller, Eastern part by the Nazi-Fascist Tsardom of Bulgaria and Nazi German-occupied Kingdom of 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 colonists installed by Belgrade between the wars.

Prior to the surrender of Fascist Italy in 1943, the German forces took over direct control of the region. After numerous uprisings of Serbian Chetniks and Yugoslav Partisans, the latter being lead by Fadil Hoxha, 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.

The Province of Kosovo was formed in 1945 as an autonomous region to protect its regional Albanian majority within the People's Republic of Serbia as a member of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia under the leadership of the former Partisan leader, Josip Broz Tito, but with no factual autonomy. After the Yugoslavia's name changed to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia's to the Socialist Republic of Serbia in 1953, the Autonomous Region of Kosovo 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. Serbian (called Serbo-Croatian at the time) and Albanian were defined official on the Provincial level marking the two largest linguistic Kosovan groups: Serbs and Albanians.

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 arbitrary regime dealt with the situation swiftly, but only giving it a temporary solution.

In 1981 the Kosovar Albanian students organized protests seeking that Kosovo becomes a Republic within Yugoslavia. Those protests were harshly contained by the centralist Yugoslav and Serbian governments. In 1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) was working on a document, which later would be known as the SANU Memorandum. 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 greatly exaggerated facts for propaganda. During this time, Slobodan Milošević's rise to power started in the League of the Socialists of Serbia. Milošević used the discontent reflected in the SANU memorandum for his political goals.

Soon afterwards, as approved by the Assembly in 1990, the autonomy of Kosovo was revoked back to the old status. Milošević, however, did not removed Kosovo's seat from the Federal Presidency, installing in it his own supporters to seize more power in the Federal government. After Slovenia's secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, Milošević used the seat to attain 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. Albanian schools and the medical care system were shut down.

On July 2, 1990 an unconstitutional Kosovo parliament declared Kosovo an independent country, although this was not recognized by the Government. In September of that year, the parliament, meeting in secrecy in the town of Kaçanik, adopted the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. Two years later, in 1992, the Parliament organized a referendum which was observed by international organisations but was not recognized internationally. With an 80% turnout, 98% voted for Kosovo to be independent. In the early nineties, Albanians organized a parallel state system which managed the non-violent resistance movement and organized a parallel system of education and healthcare, among other things. With the events in Bosnia and Croatia coming to an end, the Serb government started relocating Serbian refugees from Croatia and Bosnia to Kosovo. In a number of cases, Albanian families were expelled from their apartments to make space for the refugees.

After the Dayton Agreement in 1995, Albanians organized into the Kosovo Liberation Army. Yugoslav forces allegedly 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 campaign in 1999. During the conflict, some 12,000 Kosovars were killed, of whom 9,000-10,000 were Albanians and up to 700,000 Albanians expelled. Some 3,000 Albanians are still missing. According to OSCE numbers and Kosovar Albanian sources on population size and distribution, an estimated 45.7% of the Albanian population had fled Kosovo during the bombings (i.e. from 23 March to 9 June 1999).

Culture

Culture-wise Albanians in Kosovo are very closely related to Albanians in Albania. Traditions and customs differ even from a town to town in Kosovo itself. The spoken dialect is Gheg, typical of northern Albanians. The education, books, media, newspapers, and official language of the institutions in the standard dialect of Albanian, which is closer to Tosk dialect.

Education is provided for all levels, primary, secondary, and university degrees. University of Prishtina is the public university of Kosovo, with several faculties and majors. The National Library (Albanian Bibloteka Kombëtare) is the main and the largest library in Kosovo, located in the centre of Prishtina. There are many other private universities, among them American University in Kosova (AUK), etc, and many secondary schools and colleges such as Mehmet Akif College.

The most widespread religion among Albanians in Kosovo is Moslem [citation needed], though it is not practiced. By some this is explained by the fact that Islam was imposed on Albanians by force during the 5 century Ottoman Empire's rule over Kosovo. The other religion Albanians in Kosovo practice is Roman Catholic. There used to be a small Albanian Orthodox community, but it is unknown of the number of its members now.

Kosovafilmi is the film industry, which releases movies in Albanian, created by Kosovo Albanian movie-makers.

The National Theatre of Kosovo (in Albanian Teatri Kombëtar i Kosovës) is the main theatre where plays are shown regularly by Albanian and international artists.

Music

Music has always been part of the Albanian culture. Although in Kosovo music is diverse (as it got mixed with the cultures of different regimes dominating in Kosovo), the Albanian authentic music (see World Music) does still exist. It is characterized by use of çiftelia (an authentic albanian instrument), mandolina, mandola and percussion.

In Kosovo, except the modern music, the folk music is very popular. There are many folk singers and ensembles.

The classical music is very knowable in Kosovo. There are many classical instrumentists, ensembles etc.

The modern music in Kosovo has it's origin from the western countries. The main modern genres include: Pop, Hip Hop, Rap, Rock and Jazz. The most notable rock bands are: Gjurmët, Troja, Votra, Humus, Asgjë sikur Dielli, Kthjellu, Cute Babulja, Babilon etc. Ilir Bajri is a notable jazz and electronic musician.

In Kosovo unfortunately the non-quality music is dominating. There is a music genre called Tallava, wich is a combination of folk music, oriental music and commercial pop. It is known that the Tallava genre does seriously harm the Kosova's culture. Tallava is often maide by non-professional musicians, low-educated people, who think "only how to earn more money", not "how to make a quality music". But luckily, many rock, jazz, electronic musicians are heavily improving the Kosovo's music.

There are some notable music festivals in Kosovo:

  • Rock për Rock - contains rock and metal music
  • Polifest - contains all kinds of genres (usually hip hop, commercal pop, unusually rock and never metal)
  • Showfest - contains all kinds of genres (usually hip hop, commercal pop, unusually rock and never metal)
  • Videofest - contains all kinds of genres
  • Kush Këndon Lutet Dy Herë - contains all kinds of genres wich have christian lyrics

Kosovo Radiotelevisions like RTK, 21 and KTV have their musical charts.

See also: Kosovo's and Albania's musicians

Prominent individuals

From 1950s - now:

  • Rifat Kukaj (25 October 1938 – September 11, 2005) on of the most successful writers in Albanian literature for children. He was born in Tërstenik, Drenica region of Kosovo.
  • Anton Çetta born in Gjakova, patriot, folklorist, academician, university professor. He was the founder of the Reconciliation Comittee for erasing blood feuds in Kosovo (in Albanian: Komiteti per pajtimin e gjaqeve ne Kosovë). He is famous for having settled almost all of blood feuds among Albanians in Kosovo, in the 1990s.
  • Albin Kurti

See also

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