History of Kosovo

From this period until today Kosovo has been inhabited, and traces of activities of societies from prehistoric, ancient and up to mediaeval time are visible throughout its territory, whereas, in some archaeological sites, multilayer settlements clearly reflect the continuity of life through centuries.

According to historian Noel Malcolm, the Vlach-Romanian and Aromanian languages originated in the region and surrounding areas from Romanised Illyrians and Thracians.

According to De Administrando Imperio of the 10th century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, the Serbian-populated lands lay to the north-west of Kosovo and the region was Bulgarian.

In 1072, the leaders of the Bulgarian Uprising of Georgi Voiteh traveled from their center in Skopje in the area of Prizren and held a meeting in which they invited Mihailo Vojislavljević of Duklja to send them assistance.

[27] Stefan Nemanja had seized the surrounding area along the White Drin in 1185–95 and the ecclesiastical split from the Patriarchate in 1219 was the final act of establishing Nemanjić rule in Prizren and Kosovo.

The ethnic composition of Kosovo's population during this period included Serbs, Albanians, and Vlachs along with a token number of Greeks, Croats, Armenians, Saxons, and Bulgarians, according to Serbian monastic charters or chrysobulls.

Different laws applied in the Serbian and Greek territories under Dušan's control, but the Albanians were largely left to manage their lands according to their traditional customs under the leadership of their chiefs.

[36] The Battle of Kosovo of 1389 had completely disorganised the Serb state, and left the field open to the most dynamic local lords, including among them the Albanian princes of the North and the Northeast.

In 1910, an Albanian insurrection, which was possibly aided surreptitiously by the Young Turks to put pressure on the Sublime Porte, broke out in Pristina and soon spread to the entire vilayet of Kosovo, lasting for three months.

[78][79][80][81][82][83] Furthermore, the signing of the Treaty of San Stefano marked the beginning of a difficult situation for the Albanian people in the Balkans, whose lands were to be ceded from Turkey to Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria.

[84][85][86] Fearing the partitioning of Albanian-inhabited lands among the newly founded Balkan kingdoms, the Albanians established their League of Prizren on June 10, 1878, three days prior to the Congress of Berlin that would revise the decisions of San Stefano.

[87] Though the League was founded with the support of the Sultan who hoped for the preservation of Ottoman territories, the Albanian leaders were quick and effective enough to turn it into a national organisation and eventually into a government.

In 1881 a provisional government was formed to administer Albania under the presidency of Ymer Prizreni, assisted by prominent ministers such as Abdyl Frashëri and Sulejman Vokshi.

Nevertheless, military intervention from the Balkan states, the Great Powers as well as Turkey divided the Albanian troops in three fronts, which brought about the end of the League.

[90] The demands of the Young Turks in early 20th century sparked support from the Albanians, who were hoping for a betterment of their national status, primarily recognition of their language for use in offices and education.

[91][92] In 1908, 20,000 armed Albanian peasants gathered in Ferizaj to prevent any foreign intervention, while their leaders, Bajram Curri and Isa Boletini, sent a telegram to the sultan demanding the promulgation of a constitution and the opening of the parliament.

In April 1910, armies led by Idriz Seferi and Isa Boletini rebelled against the Turkish troops, but were finally forced to withdraw after having caused many casualties amongst the enemy.

[97] According to historian Noel Malcolm, the region was conquered, but not legally annexed, by Serbia in 1912 and remained occupied territory until 1918 when it became part of a Yugoslav kingdom.

[106] The persecution of Serb and Montenegrin settlers by Albanian collaborationists resulted in thousands killed while between 70,000 and 100,000 were expelled or transferred to concentration camps in Pristina and Mitrovica.

[107][108] During the New Year's Eve between 1943 and 1944, Albanian and Yugoslav partisans gathered at the town of Bujan, near Kukës in northern Albania, where they held a conference in which they discussed the fate of Kosovo after the war.

The province's government has applied Albanian curriculum to Kosovo's schools: surplus and obsolete textbooks from Enver Hoxha's Albania were obtained and put into use.

When a Serbian farmer, Đorđe Martinović, turned up at a Kosovo hospital with a bottle in his rectum after claiming to have been assaulted in his field by masked men (he later admitted the bottle ended up in his rectum through a mishap during masturbation),[117][118][119] 216 prominent Serbian intellectuals signed a petition declaring that "the case of Đorđe Martinović has come to symbolise the predicament of all Serbs in Kosovo".

[122] In March 1989, preceding a final push for ratification, the Yugoslav police rounded up around 240 prominent Kosovo Albanians, apparently selected based on their anti-ratification sentiment, and detained them with complete disregard for due process.

[122] After the constitutional changes, the parliaments of all Yugoslavian republics and provinces, which until then had MPs only from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, were dissolved and multi-party elections were held for them.

A number of senior Yugoslav government officials and military officers, including President Milošević, were subsequently indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes.

Whilst Serbia's continued sovereignty over Kosovo was recognised by the international community, a clear majority of the province's population sought independence.

[144] Some Kosovo Serbs opposed to secession boycotted the move by refusing to follow orders from the central government in Pristina and attempted to seize infrastructure and border posts in Serb-populated regions.

Osmani had the backing of the left-wing Self-Determination Movement (Vetevendosje) of Prime Minister Albin Kurti, which won the February 2021 parliamentary election.

[153] In November, ethnic Serbs resigned en masse from Kosovo state institutions in protest and tensions continued through the end of the year.

The meaning of this state of affairs has been variously interpreted, ranging from notions of Thracianization' (in part) of an existing Illyrian population to the precise opposite.