Toponymical evidence suggests that Albanian was spoken in western and eastern Kosovo and the Niš region before the Migration Period.

[15][16] Toponyms such as Arbanaška and Đjake shows an Albanian presence in the Toplica and Southern Morava regions (located north-east of contemporary Kosovo) since the Late Middle Ages.

Other Albanian villages mentioned from the 14th and 15th centuries are Planeje, Zym, Gorozhub, Milaj, Kojushe, Batushe, Mazrek, Voksh etc.

[22] Villages that have been identified and still existed today such as Mazrek, Kojushe, Gorozhub, Zym, Zhur, Milaj, Planeje etc.

[21] Ottoman records from the 15th century show western Kosovo had a large native Albanian population.

[31][32][33] Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682) in his travels within the region during 1660 referred to the western and central part of what is today Kosovo as Arnavudluk and described the town of Vushtrri's inhabitants as having knowledge of Albanian or Turkish with few speakers of Slavic languages.

[34] Many settled in Kosovo, where they and their descendants are known as muhaxhir, also muhaxher ("exiles", from Arabic 'muhajir'),[34] and some bear the surname Muhaxhiri/Muhaxheri or most others the village name of origin.

[35] During the late Ottoman period, ethno-national Albanian identity as expressed in contemporary times did not exist amongst the wider Kosovo Albanian-speaking population.

In 1910, an Albanian uprising spread from Pristina and lasted until the Ottoman Sultan's visit to Kosovo in June 1911.

In 1912 during the Balkan Wars, most of eastern Kosovo was taken by the Kingdom of Serbia, while the Kingdom of Montenegro took western Kosovo, which a majority of its inhabitants call "the plateau of Dukagjin" (Rrafshi i Dukagjinit) and the Serbs call Metohija (Метохија), a Greek word meant for the landed dependencies of a monastery.

Since the Albanian Fascist political leadership had decided in the Conference of Bujan that Kosovo would remain a part of Albania they started expelling the Serbian and Montenegrin settlers "who had arrived in the 1920s and 1930s".

The Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija was formed in 1946 to placate its regional Albanian population within the People's Republic of Serbia as a member of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia under the leadership of the former Partisan leader, Josip Broz Tito, but with no factual autonomy.

In the 1970s, an Albanian nationalist movement pursued full recognition of the Province of Kosovo as another Republic within the Federation, while the most extreme elements aimed for full-scale independence.

In the essay, SANU portrayed the Serbian people as a victim and called for the revival of Serb nationalism, using both true and exaggerated facts for propaganda.

After Slovenia's secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, Milošević used the seat to obtain dominance over the Federal government, outvoting his opponents.

In September of that year, the ethnic Albanian parliament, meeting in secrecy in the town of Kačanik, adopted the Constitution of the Republic of Kosova.

A year later, the Parliament organized the 1991 Kosovan independence referendum, which was observed by international organisations, but the only country to recognize it was Albania.

[46][47] After the Bosnian War, the KLA began staging ambushes of Serb patrols as well as killing policemen, as they sought to capitalize on popular resentment among Kosovan Albanians against the Serbian regime.

The KLA-led campaign continued into January 1999 and was brought to the attention of the world media by the Račak massacre, the mass killing of about 45 Albanians (including 9 KLA insurgents)[52] by Serbian security forces.

[54] The failure of the talks at Rambouillet resulted in a NATO air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia lasting from 24 March to 10 June[55] when the Yugoslav authorities signed a military technical agreement.

While progress was made on technical matters, both parties remained diametrically opposed on the question of status itself.

[57] Russia, which holds a veto in the Security Council as one of five permanent members, has stated that it will not support any resolution that is not acceptable to both Belgrade and Pristina.

The Kosovo Albanian population reacted with sentiments of solidarity through fundraising initiatives and money, food, clothing and shelter donations.

There are also Catholic Albanian communities estimated between 60,000 to 65,000 in Kosovo,[67][68] concentrated in Gjakova, Prizren, Klina and a few villages near Peja and Viti.