Kosovo je Serbia |
"Kosovo je Serbia!"
shouted the crowds demonstrating in Belgrade during the 1990s. "Kosovo is Serbia!"
In some sense this slogan is true: Kosovo's town of Pec is the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church; Kosovo's monasteries hold the relics of 14th-century Serbian saints; Kosovo's "Field of Blackbirds" marks the place where Serbs lost their influence in the region. Kosovo is considered by Serbs to be the heart of their country, central to their history and sense of nationality.
Nevertheless, a Serbian Kosovo remains as elusive as a mirage, because in fact it has been part of Serbia for only brief periods in Balkan history.
During the mid-14th century, under King Stefan Dusan, Christian Serbia reached the peak of its power, stretching from Belgrade in the north to Thessaly in the south, and from the Adriatic in the west to Sofia in the east. Then, after the defeat of Constantinople in 1453, Serbia fell to the Ottomans, who kept them in subjection for 500 years.
The turning point was the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389. Following the defeat of Serb forces under Prince Lazar, Christian Slavic territory came under the control of the Muslim Turks. According to some historians, Serbia has never recovered from that loss.
Indeed, in a visit to the Balkans in 1904, the British travel writer Edith Durham found Serbs still praying for the restoration of Kosovo, or Old Serbia:
... the church was filled with kneeling warriors who prayed with painful intensity for the redemption of Stara Srbija. For the saving of Old Serbia and the union of the Serb peoples is the star by which the Serb steers, the goal of his desires, the ideal for which he lives and is ready to die.[1]
This website explores the religious significance of Kosovo to the Orthodox Serbs and the religious motivations behind Serb violence in the region during the 1990s. Although the Kosovo conflict was aroused by a complex mix of political, economic, and religious causes, to some extent Serbian aggression was an attempt to recover a part of Christian Europe that had been lost for centuries.
PHOTO CREDIT: iStockPhoto
[1] Edith Durham, Through the Land of the Serb (London, 1904), ch. 17.