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Robert Elsie
Kosovo. In the heart of the powder keg
East European Monographs, CDLV
ISBN 0-88033-375-8
East European Monographs, Boulder
Distributed by Columbia
University Press, New York 1997
vi + 593 pp.
INTRODUCTION
The breakup of Yugoslavia and the
ensuing Balkan conflict have their roots in the heart of the
Balkans, in Kosovo. Yet the question of Kosovo, where East meets
West, where Europe meets the Third World, where the east-west
axis of Islam meets the north-south axis of Eastern Orthodoxy,
and where Slav meets non-Slav, remains largely ignored or at
least misunderstood by the international community. The present
book endeavours to rectify this situation, however modestly,
by providing the Western reader with a multifarious introduction
to Kosovo, its people and its fate. It is only when the Kosovo
issue has been solved, not without painful compromise from all
sides, that the Balkan conflagration can be contained and brought
to an end.
Originally conceived of as a political
and historical essay, this work soon took on the form of a reader,
a collection of texts by various authors from various periods,
in order to approach Kosovo and its attendant problems from a
variety of perspectives - historical, political, literary and
documentary.
The reader begins in section 1 with Political
and literary perspectives on the region. Kosovo, the Gordian
knot of the Balkans is a lucid and penetrating study by Christine
von Kohl and Wolfgang Libal of the International Helsinki Federation.
It provides an excellent historical and cultural introduction
to Kosovo, including an in-depth review of the major political
developments of the last two decades which have led to the present
stalemate.
Also of exceptional interest for an understanding
of Kosovo is The wedding procession turned to ice by Albanian
writer Ismail Kadare, a short novel which evokes the explosive
events of the Albanian uprising in Kosovo in March and April
1981, as experienced by a surgeon at a Prishtina clinic. Though
a work of fiction, it conveys the political realities of Kosovo
in the eighties as grippingly as any work of non-fiction could.
Section 2, Approaches to the present
dilemma, comprises a number of political writings and analyses
of the current situation: The right to self-determination
by Kosovo scholar Rexhep Ismajli; The Albanian question and
its solution, an extract from the latest monograph on the
issue by the eminent Rexhep Qosja; The question of Kosovo,
an essay again by Ismail Kadare; and a recent report on the appalling
human rights situation in Kosovo by Amnesty International.
Section 3, Historical documents and
observations, provides background material from 1908 to 1944
which offers much insight into the historical development of
the Kosovo conflict and will, I trust, facilitate an understanding
of the gravity of the present situation. It begins with a rare
and delightful description of a forbidden journey through the
mountains of Albania into Kosovo, In the debatable lands,
by Edith Durham (1863-1944), that remarkable English traveller
and perspicacious expert on the Albanians, Serbs and Montenegrins.
Miss Durham, as she is still known in the Balkans, travelled
widely in the most dangerous and isolated reaches of the peninsula
in the early years of the twentieth century, in particular in
the northern Albanian mountains. Her love of the wild Albanian
tribes and her efforts on their behalf bestowed upon her the
title of kraljica e maltsorëvet, queen of the mountain
people. Albania's Golgotha by Leo Freundlich is a compilation
of news reports which seeped out of Kosovo around the time of
the first Balkan War. The Memorandum addressed to the League
of Nations in 1930 by three Catholic priests shows that the situation
in Kosovo had not much improved a generation later. The ideology
of ethnic cleansing is documented in the following texts, including
works by noted Serbian intellectuals such as academician Vasa
Cubrilovic and Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric.
Section 4, Conversations with contemporaries,
endeavours to address the issues on a more personal level. It
involves a series of interviews and conversations with leading
figures of Albanian public life who give their views on the origins
of the crisis, their personal experience in the eye of the storm,
and what possibilities they feel can be found to contain it.
Appendixed to this reader is an extensive
bibliography on Kosovo which, by bringing together publications
representing all political views and persuasions, endeavours
to be comprehensive. It should be pointed out that the bibliography
includes a good number of monographs of subtle racism and others
of open hatred and propaganda which have, alas, laid the intellectual
and spiritual foundations for the crimes of our age. While the
present author wishes to distance himself categorically from
such works, he believes it is up to each individual to read and
judge for him or herself.
A remark must be made at this juncture
on the use of Balkan place names. The texts presented in this
reader were taken or translated from a variety of sources and
periods, and offered a variety of designations for the same place
names. Some authors use the Serbian-language terms for towns
in Kosovo, names which are still often found in English-language
atlases and guidebooks. Other authors use the Albanian-language
terms which will be less familiar to the Western reader. For
the sake of standardization and of neutrality, I have endeavoured
here, where no clear-cut English term was available, to give
both the Albanian and the Serbo-Croatian forms, i.e. Gjakova
/ Djakovica. I am well aware that this is cumbersome and
that there are inconsistencies, but I hope that readers will
be patient. It is a rather thorny issue. No particular political
interpretation should be made of the use of individual place
names in this work.
For the term Kosovo, Albanian
authors now prefer to use the Albanian form Kosova in
their works, even in English and other foreign languages, e.g.
Republic of Kosova. English usage of eastern European
toponyms is in flux at the moment. Now that Byelorussia has become
Belarus, and Moldavia has become Moldova, there is no particular
reason why the traditional term Kosovo should not be replaced
by Kosova. I have nonetheless preferred to stick to the commoner
form Kosovo for the moment, simply because it still constitutes
standard usage in the English-language media.
Albanian-language place names themselves
can be written with or without the postpositive definite article,
for example in the feminine form: Prishtina vs. Prishtinë,
Tirana vs. Tiranë, Kosova vs. Kosovë; and in the masculine
form: Prizreni vs. Prizren, Shkodra vs. Shkodër, Shkupi
vs. Shkup (Skopje). There has been an increasing tendency in
foreign-language works on Albania in recent years to use the
feminine place names with the definite article, i.e. Tirana,
and the masculine place names without the definite article, i.e.
Prizren, a policy which I have adopted for this work.
In conclusion, I would like to stress
that this book is not conceived of or intended as an indictment
of the Serbian people as a whole. At the most, it is an attempt
to elucidate some of the factors which have allowed many of them
to be manipulated so tragically in recent years.
If freedom and democracy, human rights
and equal opportunity can be introduced and maintained, I have
faith that peaceful co-existence will once again prevail between
the Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo. At the moment, one can only
hope.
Robert
Elsie
Eifel mountains, Germany, autumn 1995
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- Political and literary perspectives
Kosovo, the Gordian knot of the Balkans
by Christine von Kohl & Wolfgang
Libal, 1992
The wedding procession turned to ice
by Ismail Kadare, 1981-1983
- Approaches to the present dilemma
The right to self-determination
by Rexhep Ismajli, 1993
The Albanian question and its solution
by Rexhep Qosja, 1994
The question of Kosovo
by Ismail Kadare, 1994
Police violence in Kosovo province - the victims
by Amnesty International, 1994
- Historical documents and observations
In the debatable lands
by Edith Durham, 1908
Albania's Golgotha. Indictment of the exterminators of the Albanian
people
by Leo Freundlich, 1913
The situation of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia. Memorandum
presented to the League of Nations
by Gjon Bisaku, Shtjefën Kurti &
Luigj Gashi, 1930
The expulsion of the Albanians. Memorandum
by Vaso Cubrilovic, 1937
Convention regulating the emigration of the Turkish population
from the region of southern Serbia in Yugoslavia, 1938
Draft on Albania
by Ivo Andric, 1939
The minority problem in the new Yugoslavia.
Memorandum by Vaso Cubrilovic, 1944
- Conversations with contemporaries
Bujar Bukoshi
Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo
Adem Demaçi
Chairman of the Kosovo Council for the
Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms
Rexhep Qosja
Academician, scholar and political commentator
Agim Vinca
Writer and political commentator
- Bibliography
Works in Western languages
Works in Balkan languages
- List of contributors
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