The other day I was speaking to a 20 year old Kosovar-Albanian that works as my translator. She had a refreshingly optimistic view of the future of Kosovar-Serb and Kosovar-Albanian relations. While tensions still run high in parts of this country, she said that she can understand the history, but she doesn’t understand the lack of reconciliation between the two main groups that now comprise Kosovo. She talked about how she used to live with a Serb couple in Pristina and how they got along famously, showing no hints of the nation’s recent past. While I was warmed by her sense of optimism, I have not seen much evidence that lets me think that the relationship between Serbs and Albanians here is getting any better. At best, I see Kosovar Serbs and Albanians moving towards a segregated stalemate that leaves a lot to be desired.
The region of Kosovo has been a football throughout history. Any major empire in the Balkans has claimed the Kosovo territory. The Romans, Bulgarians, Ottomans, and Serbs have all at one point in time claimed Kosovo as their own. Inevitably, such a dramatic history of shifting powers through this predominantly Albanian territory has created multiple claims to the region.
The claim at the fore is, of course, Serbia’s. Until 1999, Kosovo was a part of the disintegrating Yugoslavia—which at that point was functionally Serbia and Montenegro. After the war, it became an autonomous region of Serbia administered by the United Nations. Then in 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence which was supervised by a concert of 25 nations. Supervision ended in September of 2012, but Kosovo is still not recognized by the United Nations as a country. Due to this recent history, Serbian politicians run on a platform denying the existence of an independent Kosovo. That being the case, recent movement shows that there is a disconnect between campaign rhetoric at home and the rhetoric you use abroad when the European Union threatens to revoke your visa-free travel.
It wasn’t always this way though. During the Yugoslavian period, Marshall Tito, the unquestioned leader of Yugoslavia, worked hard to cultivate a national identity and narrative that was Yugoslavian rather than Albanian, Serb, Croat, Bosniak, Montenegrin, Slovene, or Macedonian. That narrative was most strongly cultivated through compulsory military service. In hopes to bridge the large religious and ethnic divides in Tito's patchwork nation, military service proved to be a way to intermingle the larger Yugoslav community.
Depending on who you talk to, this experiment was more of a Croat-Serb union and not the harmonious narrative the government put forward. Bosniaks—Muslim Bosnians that speak Serbo-Croatian—have told me that they had to claim either Croat or Serbian heritage on job applications to get a decent wage, which is kind of antithetical to the whole “we-are-brothers” thing. However, I’ve met older Kosovar-Albanians that reminisce about the 1970s and early 80s; about how it was a time of order and peace, and that they actually miss Tito’s Yugoslavia.
No matter the particular feelings of the Bosniak and Kosovar-Albanian communities in Yugoslavia, come the 1990s there was no love lost with the Serbs. Wars broke out in both territories creating the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II. In Kosovo, this meant a guerilla war that ended in 1999 with the assistance of NATO. But even after that time, tensions remained dangerously high. Those tensions culminated in March 2004, when wide spread, ethnically fueled violence broke out leaving a score dead, hundreds wounded, and thousands of ethnic Serbs displaced. Some referred to this event as the Kristalnacht of Kosovo, a reference to Nazi Germany’s pogrom in 1938 against Jewish citizens, businesses, and synagogues. While the scale of Germany’s violence was certainly larger, the same kind of blind hatred fueled both travesties.
Since March 2004, ethnically fueled crime has become less common. Most often you see this tension in the form of graffiti. As you enter any town here, the sign is in Albanian and Serbian; most of the time, one of the names is crossed out. Entering an Albanian town you'll read Pristinë, Pristina; conversely coming to a Serbian town you'll see Shtërpcë, Štrpce. Even with petty, ethnic tagging, Kosovo does have bi-ethnic communities that continue on with little to no incident.
Then there is Mitroviča. Mitroviča sits in the North of the country and is the most politically sensitive part of Kosovo. South of the Serbian border (which is what you would say if you believe Kosovo is independent), the region is mainly ethnic Serb, and is the one place Serbia isn’t giving up on. Geographically, the region sits to the north of the Ibar River which creates a natural demarcation with Mictrovicë South, the North's Albanian doppleganger. Even in the ongoing discussion to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo, Mitroviča is treated as a separate issue. If you travel across the Ibar River and hop a bus to Belgrade, the Serbian capital, you will not be stopped by a border guard or have your passport checked. Why, after all, would you need your passport checked if your trip fictionally started and actually ended in Serbia?
So, what’s the deal today? Many of Kosovo’s towns and villages are segregated. Pristina, for example, according to the OSCE has only 40 ethnic Serbs out of 460,000 residents. I spoke to one German judge that works for the European Rule of Law Mission here in Kosovo, and he said that he expects Kosovo to reel from this ethnic tension for the foreseeable future. “Germany never got over it’s fascist past until the leaders of that period were dead or too weak to advocate their version of reality. Kosovo will be no different.” While I think the statement misses a major difference, Germany’s rabid anti-Semitism was much shorter lived than Serbia and Kosovo’s torrid relationship, I believe he is right in many ways. The main political leaders in Kosovo were members of the Kosovo Liberation Army who actively sought to kill Serbian troops. The current president of Serbia was Slobodan Milosevic’s press secretary. The lens these current leaders see reality through is very much fogged by war; it will take a generation too young to remember the atrocities to truly allow this recent history to heal.
That generation includes my translator. Her optimism, I feel, reflects the German judge’s theory on forgetting history (something the Balkans isn't good at) and moving forward. However, during our conversation our bus went through a large Serbian enclave near Pristina called Gračanica. This town is home to the Gračanica Monastery, which is a beautiful example of Serbian Orthodoxy from the 14th century. As we drove by, I asked her if she had been there before. Quizzically, she looked at me as if I had made the location up. Knowing it was real—I’ve been there three times—I pointed out the unique, domed roof which adorn many Orthodox churches in the region.
She shrugged her shoulders, and said, “I don’t know it.” And just like that, even with all of the optimism, I knew that Kosovo still has a long way to go. After all, how can you reconcile your differences when you can't even see the other side?
The claim at the fore is, of course, Serbia’s. Until 1999, Kosovo was a part of the disintegrating Yugoslavia—which at that point was functionally Serbia and Montenegro. After the war, it became an autonomous region of Serbia administered by the United Nations. Then in 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence which was supervised by a concert of 25 nations. Supervision ended in September of 2012, but Kosovo is still not recognized by the United Nations as a country. Due to this recent history, Serbian politicians run on a platform denying the existence of an independent Kosovo. That being the case, recent movement shows that there is a disconnect between campaign rhetoric at home and the rhetoric you use abroad when the European Union threatens to revoke your visa-free travel.
It wasn’t always this way though. During the Yugoslavian period, Marshall Tito, the unquestioned leader of Yugoslavia, worked hard to cultivate a national identity and narrative that was Yugoslavian rather than Albanian, Serb, Croat, Bosniak, Montenegrin, Slovene, or Macedonian. That narrative was most strongly cultivated through compulsory military service. In hopes to bridge the large religious and ethnic divides in Tito's patchwork nation, military service proved to be a way to intermingle the larger Yugoslav community.
Depending on who you talk to, this experiment was more of a Croat-Serb union and not the harmonious narrative the government put forward. Bosniaks—Muslim Bosnians that speak Serbo-Croatian—have told me that they had to claim either Croat or Serbian heritage on job applications to get a decent wage, which is kind of antithetical to the whole “we-are-brothers” thing. However, I’ve met older Kosovar-Albanians that reminisce about the 1970s and early 80s; about how it was a time of order and peace, and that they actually miss Tito’s Yugoslavia.
No matter the particular feelings of the Bosniak and Kosovar-Albanian communities in Yugoslavia, come the 1990s there was no love lost with the Serbs. Wars broke out in both territories creating the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II. In Kosovo, this meant a guerilla war that ended in 1999 with the assistance of NATO. But even after that time, tensions remained dangerously high. Those tensions culminated in March 2004, when wide spread, ethnically fueled violence broke out leaving a score dead, hundreds wounded, and thousands of ethnic Serbs displaced. Some referred to this event as the Kristalnacht of Kosovo, a reference to Nazi Germany’s pogrom in 1938 against Jewish citizens, businesses, and synagogues. While the scale of Germany’s violence was certainly larger, the same kind of blind hatred fueled both travesties.
Since March 2004, ethnically fueled crime has become less common. Most often you see this tension in the form of graffiti. As you enter any town here, the sign is in Albanian and Serbian; most of the time, one of the names is crossed out. Entering an Albanian town you'll read Pristinë, Pristina; conversely coming to a Serbian town you'll see Shtërpcë, Štrpce. Even with petty, ethnic tagging, Kosovo does have bi-ethnic communities that continue on with little to no incident.
Then there is Mitroviča. Mitroviča sits in the North of the country and is the most politically sensitive part of Kosovo. South of the Serbian border (which is what you would say if you believe Kosovo is independent), the region is mainly ethnic Serb, and is the one place Serbia isn’t giving up on. Geographically, the region sits to the north of the Ibar River which creates a natural demarcation with Mictrovicë South, the North's Albanian doppleganger. Even in the ongoing discussion to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo, Mitroviča is treated as a separate issue. If you travel across the Ibar River and hop a bus to Belgrade, the Serbian capital, you will not be stopped by a border guard or have your passport checked. Why, after all, would you need your passport checked if your trip fictionally started and actually ended in Serbia?
So, what’s the deal today? Many of Kosovo’s towns and villages are segregated. Pristina, for example, according to the OSCE has only 40 ethnic Serbs out of 460,000 residents. I spoke to one German judge that works for the European Rule of Law Mission here in Kosovo, and he said that he expects Kosovo to reel from this ethnic tension for the foreseeable future. “Germany never got over it’s fascist past until the leaders of that period were dead or too weak to advocate their version of reality. Kosovo will be no different.” While I think the statement misses a major difference, Germany’s rabid anti-Semitism was much shorter lived than Serbia and Kosovo’s torrid relationship, I believe he is right in many ways. The main political leaders in Kosovo were members of the Kosovo Liberation Army who actively sought to kill Serbian troops. The current president of Serbia was Slobodan Milosevic’s press secretary. The lens these current leaders see reality through is very much fogged by war; it will take a generation too young to remember the atrocities to truly allow this recent history to heal.
That generation includes my translator. Her optimism, I feel, reflects the German judge’s theory on forgetting history (something the Balkans isn't good at) and moving forward. However, during our conversation our bus went through a large Serbian enclave near Pristina called Gračanica. This town is home to the Gračanica Monastery, which is a beautiful example of Serbian Orthodoxy from the 14th century. As we drove by, I asked her if she had been there before. Quizzically, she looked at me as if I had made the location up. Knowing it was real—I’ve been there three times—I pointed out the unique, domed roof which adorn many Orthodox churches in the region.
She shrugged her shoulders, and said, “I don’t know it.” And just like that, even with all of the optimism, I knew that Kosovo still has a long way to go. After all, how can you reconcile your differences when you can't even see the other side?
