A patch of land not much larger than Israel - this is what Kosovo's Serbs and ethnic Albanians have in common. They speak different languages, have different religious beliefs and give different accounts of their history. The ethnic Albanians speak a language belonging to the Indo-European language family - one as ancient as Latin. The language spoken by the Serbs is Slavonic. Since the early 1980's the ethnic Albanians have boycotted the educational system in Kosovo, in favour of their own schools funded by Albanians living abroad. As a result, a great number of the Albanians do not know the Serb language; at the same time, only few of the Serbs have learnt Albanian.
Most of the ethnic Albanians are Muslims, successors of Catholic and Orthodox Christians who had adopted Islam during the 500-year-long Ottoman rule. The Serbs are staunch Orthodox Christians and observe the Christian tradition.
Nowadays the ethnic Albanians account for 90 per cent of the two-million population of Kosovo. This number has sharply grown since the end of World War II, when the Serbs comprised half of the Kosovar population. This change is a result of the high birth rate characteristic of the Kosovar Albanians and the gradual outflow of Serbs from Kosovo, a mainly rural area, to more affluent Serb cities.
Kosovo is the heart of the Old Serbian kingdom, which had its heyday during the 16th century. In 1389 the Ottoman Empire defeated the Serbs at Kosovo Pole and in the following decades was able to take over Kosovo at last.
The Serbs regained the region in 1912, during World War I, when the five-century Ottoman domination was put to an end.
The Kosovar Albanians have been telling another story and believe that Kosovo belongs to them. They say they are descendants of the Illyrians - tribes that inhabited Kosovo and other Balkan areas before the rise of the Roman Empire.
After World War I, the European powers called a conference in London aimed to draw new borders and restore the stability of the region. The Western powers wanted Serbia to provide counterweight to the Russian and Turkish claims in the Southern Balkans, and therefore gave Kosovo to the Serbs thus leaving one third of the Albanian people beyond the borders of the new Albanian state.
/Based on materials in the Novinar Daily, 26 March
1999/.
DECLARATION on the Kosovo Crisis and the Involvement of the International Community adopted by the 38th National Assembly on 25 March 1999
The Balkan peace initiatives on Kosovo
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