He oversaw a popular struggle for independence, advocating a peaceful resistance to Yugoslav rule and lobbying for U.S. and European support, especially during the Kosovo War.

[citation needed] He strongly emphasized the heritage of ancient Dardania, an independent kingdom and later-turned Roman province that included modern-day Kosovo, to strengthen the country's identity and to promote his policy of closer relations with the West.

Thereby, he worked as editor of prestigious literary and scholarly publications and research fellow at the Institute of Albanian Studies; in 1988, he was elected president of the Kosovo Writers Union.

[citation needed] He moved on to the newly established University of Prishtina, where he was a student in the Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Albanian Studies and participated in the 1968 Kosovo Protests.

[5][6][7][8][9][10] As president, Rugova continued to support his non-violent path to independence even as proponents of an armed resistance formed the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to counter increasing Serbian oppression on the ethnic Albanians.

Having resided in the capital Prishtina during his entire presidency, Rugova was taken prisoner by the state authorities after NATO began its U.S.-led aerial campaign against Yugoslav forces in Kosovo.

Rugova remained nominal president of the republic with Bujar Bukoshi as his Prime Minister; meanwhile, Hashim Thaçi, a former KLA commander, had been leading a provisional government since April that year.

In 2000, Rugova and Thaçi agreed to relinquish their positions and to work on creating provisional institutions of self-government until Kosovo's final status was decided.

In 1992, Rugova won the first presidential election in the Republic of Kosova, an unrecognised state declared in secret by members of Kosovo's former assembly within Yugoslavia.

Serbia, led by Slobodan Milošević, retained effective power in Kosovo throughout most of the 1990s, but did not secure the full cooperation of the Albanian population.

The Republic of Kosova collected donations from Kosovars at home and abroad and set up parallel institutions, including independent, albeit often clandestine, educational and healthcare systems for the ethnic Albanians.

[citation needed] In December 1989, Rugova and a number of other dissents set up the Democratic League of Kosovo as a vehicle for opposing Milošević's policies.

The shadow government's activities were mostly funded by the overseas Kosovo Albanian diaspora, based primarily in Germany and the United States.

[citation needed] For his part, Rugova stuck to a hard line throughout the 1990s, rejecting any form of negotiation with Serbia's authorities other than on achieving outright independence of Kosovo.

[citation needed] Rugova's strategy of passive resistance attracted widespread support from the Kosovo Albanian population, who had seen the carnage wrought in Croatia and Bosnia and was wary of facing a similar situation.

The agreement failed to make any mention of Kosovo and the international community made no serious efforts to resolve the province's ongoing problems.

Radicals among the Kosovo Albanian population began to argue that the only way to break the impasse was to launch an armed uprising, in the belief that this would force the outside world to intervene.

By 1998, the KLA had grown into a full-scale guerrilla army, 100,000 Kosovo Albanians were refugees and the province was in a state of virtual civil war.

At the end of March 1999, after negotiations at Rambouillet had broken down, NATO launched Operation Allied Force to impose a resolution of the Kosovo War.

At the start of April 1999, Rugova was forcefully taken to Belgrade, where he was shown on Serbian state television meeting Milošević and calling for an end to the war.

On Monday, 4 March 2002, Rugova was appointed president by the Kosovo Assembly, though this only took place at the fourth attempt after lengthy political negotiations.

He was readily identifiable by the silk neckscarf that he wore as a display of oppression in Kosovo and was known for his habit of giving visitors samples from his rock collection.

He was buried without religious rites on 26 January at a funeral attended by regional leaders and a crowd estimated to number one and a half million people.

These rumors have never been confirmed by his family nor other source, and one of his closest associates, Sabri Hamiti, in an essay published on the first anniversary of his death, refuted them.