Kosovo has undoubtedly been one of the world's hottest issues in recent decades, and it is also one of the few regions in Europe in recent years that has truly triggered a hot war. And the core of the Kosovo problem can be said to be deeply rooted in the history of the local area, so for the Serbs and Albanians, what is the historical importance of Kosovo? Who has dominated Kosovo's history? How did the question of Kosovo come about in modern times?
Early history of Kosovo: Illyrian and Slavic
According to some ancient texts of the time, around the 4th-5th centuries BC, the area where Kosovo was located was called Dardania. The name Dardanha is derived from a Cuban cadre named Dardani. This tribe is considered by some historians of the time to belong to a branch of the Illyrians. Modern research suggests that the Illyrians later mixed with a large number of other ethnic groups and evolved into many other different ethnic groups that exist in the area, including the Yugoslav ethnic group to which the Serbs belonged and the Albanians can be said to have some Illyrian ancestry. In modern times, however, basically only Albanians identify themselves as descendants of The Illyrians.
Dardaniya (green) and Illyrian (yellow) kingdoms
Around the 4th century BC, the Dardani established their own kingdom of Dardania in the area around Kosovo. At the beginning of its establishment, the kingdom was once strong, defeating ancient Greek tribes such as Macedonia and once controlling the Macedonian region. Therefore, in some records of ancient Greece and Rome, the Dardanians were also known as one of the 3 strongest Illyrian groups at that time. In the territory of the Kingdom of Dardania at that time, a tribe named Albanoi appeared, and it is now believed that the name of this tribe may be the source of the Albanian ethnic group.
Painting depicting the Great Plague of Justinian
But in the 2nd century BC, the entire Illyrian colony was conquered by the Roman Empire in 168 BC. Before and after the fall of the Roman Empire, the area was chaotic and eventually annexed by the Eastern Roman Empire.
Slavic migration routes
But beginning in 541 AD, a great plague broke out in the Eastern Roman Empire, known in history as the Justinian Plague. The plague caused a huge number of deaths in the Balkans, created many no-man's lands in Kosovo, and caused the Eastern Roman Empire to give up its rule over the area to a certain extent. It was also during this period that a large number of Slavic groups began to move into the Balkans, where the population was rapidly declining. Between 547 and 548 AD, the Slavs settled in Kosovo. Most of the remaining early inhabitants, such as the Illyrians, either moved or merged into the Slavs. And these immigrants are the ancestors of Yugoslav ethnic groups such as Serbs and Croats.
Why is Kosovo important to Serbia?
After that, Kosovo entered a period dominated by the Slavic community. In 1166 AD, a prince named Stefan Niemanya became the Grand Duke of the Grand Duchy of Serbia, and Serbia entered the Nemanya dynasty.
An important figure in Serbian history, Nimanya
Subsequently, Nimanya and his descendants gradually unified the surrounding areas of Serbia and expelled Bulgaria, which had previously controlled Kosovo, and Kosovo was officially incorporated into the Serbian territory. In the following nearly 200 years, the Nemanya dynasty, that is, the Grand Duchy of Serbia and later the Serbian Kingdom and the rulers of the Serbian Empire have lived in Kosovo for a long time, that is to say, at that time Kosovo once became the core area of Serb rule, and the Kosovo city of Prizren also became the capital of Serbia, it can be said that Kosovo has witnessed the basic formation of the Serbian ethnic group and changed from weak to strong.
The Serbian Empire at its height
Therefore, during this period, many Serbian Orthodox Churches also established a large number of religious facilities in the local area, so that there are many famous Orthodox churches in Kosovo that are of great cultural significance to Serbs. At the same time, Kosovo also occupied an important economic position, and the later capital of Kosovo, Pristina, became an important commercial center for trade in Serbian and Adriatic ports.
Of course, there were also some Albanians in Kosovo at that time who evolved from the Illyrians and were not assimilated by the Slavs, but the overall number was small, and because the Serbs had an absolute advantage in the local area, some Albanians also had a tendency to be assimilated by the Serbs, and some began to use Serbian names.
Serbia during the period of division
But after the death of Tsar Stefan Uroš IV of Serbia in 1355, the Serbian Empire fell apart due to internal strife. At this time, some Albanian princes in Kosovo gradually began to establish their own relatively autonomous regimes, and in the process they were supported by Western Europe controlled by the Catholic Church, because the Albanians in Kosovo at that time were basically Catholic. Therefore, it can be said that western European political forces have a long history of interfering in the political situation in Kosovo and suppressing Orthodox Serbs.
But it was not the Western Europeans who really changed the course of Kosovo's history, but the Ottoman Empire, which began to rise and expand at this time. After the collapse of the Serbian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, which saw a power vacuum in Kosovo, also quickly launched a series of invasions against Kosovo.
Painting depicting the Battle of Kosovo
However, because the Ottomans were a Muslim regime and were not a system of kosovo, the Ottoman invasion was also unanimously resisted by all the tribes of Kosovo at that time, and the princes of Serbia, which had been divided, temporarily united to resist the Ottomans. In 1389, Razzar Craberjanovic was elected head of the Serbian principalities, and he formed a coalition of Serbian, Albanian, Bulgarian and Magyar (Hungary), as well as German Saxon mercenaries, and fought a decisive battle against the Ottoman army that invaded Kosovo on June 28 of that year.
The battle took place in the central Part of Kosovo, a large karst landform that means blackbird in Old Serbian, so it can also be called the Land of Blackbird. Some modern studies have shown that the total strength of the two sides in this battle was close to 100,000 people, and although the Serbian coalition suffered a defeat in the end, its leader Lazar and many other Serbian and Albanian princes were killed on the battlefield, but the Serbian coalition army also inflicted heavy losses on the Ottoman army and also killed the Ottoman commander, that is, the Ottoman Sultan Murad I.
Obilić, who assassinated the Ottoman Sultan
Since then, although serbia has gradually come under the control of the Ottoman Empire, the Battle of Kosovo itself has evolved into a myth representing the core beliefs of the nation among Serbs. In this myth, Razal and the general Obilić, who stabbed the Ottoman Sultan Murad I to death, entered the kingdom of heaven after their deaths, making Serbia a chosen people. A large number of Christian religious symbols were added to this myth, such as the Last Supper, Judas's betrayal, and some religious figures, making the kosovo myth one of the most central beliefs that maintained Serbian national identity during the ottoman rule for hundreds of years.
Therefore, after this, Kosovo is not just a geographical term for the Serbian nation, but has a sacred meaning of the core of the national faith, so in modern times, many times in the West, some people often describe Kosovo as the "Jerusalem" of the Serbs, in order to illustrate its important position in the eyes of the Serbs.
The vicissitudes of Kosovo
After the Battle of Kosovo, the Serbs lost control of Kosovo, and albanian lords who lived mainly in the northern and northeastern regions of Kosovo at that time gradually rose. In the late 14th and early 15th centuries AD, an Albanian lord named Jon Casteliot established a principality in the heart of Kosovo.
Painting depicting Skamped leading an army in battle against the Ottomans
Both he and his son had fiercely rebelled against Ottoman control of Kosovo, especially his son Skanderbe, who had suppressed the Ottoman sphere of influence in the southern Balkans, so much so that in 1463 he became the chief general of the Crusaders re-formed by the Holy See.
However, because Skanderbe was sent to the Ottoman Empire as a proton as a child, he grew up with an Islamic education and once believed in Islam. Although he later converted to Catholicism in the course of his later alliance with the Catholic countries of Western Europe against the Ottomans, his experience can be said to have set the stage for the gradual conversion of Albanians to Islam.
Ottoman expansion process
After Skanderbe's death, the Ottoman Empire gradually took control of Kosovo. Some historical sources show that until the end of the 16th century, the Serbs were the largest ethnic group in Kosovo and had a high degree of autonomy under Ottoman rule. At the time, most Albanians were still Catholic, so like the Serbs, they were hostile to Ottoman rule.
Between 1683 and 1699 AD, Austria fought a major war with the Ottomans. During this war, a large number of Albanians and Serbs joined the Austrian army to fight the Ottomans. But the end result of the war was that the Ottomans overwhelmed Austria and consolidated their rule over the Kosovo region. Since then, the demographic situation in Kosovo has begun to change significantly.
Painting depicting the great migration of the Serbs
In order to escape the bloody revenge of the Ottomans after the war, the Serbs began to flee in large numbers from the Ottoman-controlled areas (fleeing to the Austrian-controlled areas), including Kosovo. This event came to be known as the Great Migration of Serbs. Albanians, on the other hand, fled much less. But because Muslims were able to enjoy higher economic and social status under Ottoman rule, the Albanians who remained in the Ottoman Empire converted to Islam almost entirely in the next 100 years. Thus in Kosovo there has been a situation in which there are fewer and fewer Serbs, more albanians, and the demographic situation in Kosovo has begun to change fundamentally.
In the early 19th century, serbia broke out in the War of Independence, after which Serbia gained autonomy within the Ottoman Empire. In 1867, the Ottoman army was completely withdrawn from the Serbian Principality and Serbia achieved independence. But Kosovo was still under Ottoman control. In the course of Serbian independence, a number of Albanians who originally lived in other parts of Serbia moved to Kosovo, further increasing the proportion of Kosovo Albanians.
Serbia during independence (Crimson) and pre-World War I (Big Red).
After entering the 20th century, Ottoman rule also lost support among Albanians. In 1912, the Albanians launched an uprising against Ottoman rule, which led to the intervention of Balkan states such as Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria, leading to the outbreak of the First Balkan War. In the end, the Balkan states were victorious and seized a large amount of territory from the Ottomans, including Kosovo. Based on the special significance of Kosovo to Serbia as described above, Kosovo was naturally assigned to Serbia after the war, and later joined Yugoslavia with Serbia. Since then, Kosovo has once again become part of Serbia.
In the more than 20 years that followed, the Kosovo Serb population grew again, while Albanians were suppressed. By 1938, the Serbs had grown from 24 percent in 1918 to 38 percent. During this period, some 300,000 Albanians fled Kosovo. But this trend was reversed again after the outbreak of World War II.
Yugoslavia partitioned by the Axis powers (Kosovo is the green area below)
During World War II, all of Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis powers, who annexed most of Kosovo into Italy-controlled Albania and the remaining smaller parts to Nazi Germany and Bulgaria. During this period, the Albanian puppet government systematically expelled Serbs from Kosovo, and its Prime Minister, Kruja, had said that the Serb community in Kosovo would be eliminated as soon as possible, and even native Serbs who had been settled there for hundreds of years would be defined as "colonists" and thrown into concentration camps or even killed. So during this period, the number of Serbs in Kosovo has again decreased significantly. This trend was not contained until the end of World War II, when Yugoslavia was rebuilt.
Kosovo's location in Serbia
Of course, after World War II, Kosovo has undergone several changes, but basically it has formed a contradictory extension before, and there are many relevant introductions on the Internet, so I will not repeat it here. On the whole, Kosovo is indeed a special area that is extremely important to the Serb nation, but has been created by centuries of external interference, which has led to a large concentration of Albanians, and this complexity may continue for a long time in the future. (Image from the Internet)