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TheAlbanians of Kosovo (Albanian:Shqiptarët e Kosovës,pronounced[ʃcipˈtaɾətɛkɔˈsɔvəs]), also commonly calledKosovo Albanians,Kosovan Albanians orKosovars (Albanian:Kosovarët), constitute the largestethnic group inKosovo.
Kosovo Albanians belong to theethnic Albanian sub-group ofGhegs,[10] who inhabit the north ofAlbania, north of theShkumbin river, Kosovo, southernSerbia, and western parts ofNorth Macedonia. They speakGheg Albanian, more specifically the Northwestern and Northeastern Gheg variants.
According to the 1991Yugoslav census,boycotted byAlbanians, there were 1,596,072 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo or 81.6% of population. By the estimation in the year 2000, there were between 1,584,000 and 1,733,600 Albanians in Kosovo or 88% of population; as of 2011,[11] their population share is 92.93%.
Toponymical evidence suggests that Albanian was spoken in western and eastern Kosovo and theNiš region before theMigration Period.[12] In this era, Albanian in Kosovo was in linguistic contact with Eastern Romance which was presumably spoken in contemporary eastern Serbia and Macedonia.[13]
Between 1246 and 1255,Stefan Uroš I had reported Albanian toponyms in the Drenica valley. Achrysobull of the Serbian TsarStefan Dušan that was given to the Monastery of Saint Mihail and Gavril in Prizren between the years of 1348–1353 states the presence ofAlbanians in thePlains of Dukagjin, the vicinity ofPrizren and in the villages of Drenica.[14]
In the 14th century in twochrysobulls or decrees by Serbian rulers, villages of Albanians alongsideVlachs are cited in the first as being between theWhite Drin andLim rivers (1330), and in the second (1348) a total of nine Albanian villages are cited within the vicinity of Prizren.[15][16] Toponyms such asArbanaška andĐjake shows an Albanian presence in theToplica and Southern Morava regions (located north-east of contemporary Kosovo) since the Late Middle Ages.[17][18]
The Albanian villagesUjmir andGjonaj are mentioned in Serbian scriptures from the 1300s.[19] In Gjonaj stands possibly one of the oldest Catholic churches in Kosovo.[20] Gjonaj is also believed to be the birthplace ofPjetër Bogdani. Other Albanian villages mentioned from the 14th and 15th centuries are Planeje,Zym, Gorozhub, Milaj, Kojushe, Batushe, Mazrek,Voksh etc.[21] Ottoman registers from 1452–53 reveal the Has region in Kosovo was inhabited by a Christian Albanian population.[22] Villages that have been identified and still existed today such as Mazrek, Kojushe, Gorozhub, Zym, Zhur, Milaj, Planeje etc. were recorded in the defter. In the 1485 defter, which covered theGjakova region of Western Kosovo, half of the villages had Albanian names or a mixture of Slavic-Albanian names.[23]
During Stefan Dusan's reign, Albanian Catholics in Kosovo were forcibly converted into Orthodoxy, many others were expelled, and Catholic churches were converted into Orthodox ones.[24][25][26][27]
The Ottomans defters of 15th and 16th century also recorded new arrivals into Kosovo and abandoned places. Nothing indicates the area was massively depopulated during this period nor massively settled by another population from outside[23][28]
Ottoman records indicate that during the 15th and 16th century, the Has region, which was part of the Nahiya of Hasi, was inhabited almost entirely by Albanians.[21] Ottoman records from the 15th century show western Kosovo had a large native Albanian population.[21] And further research indicates the towns in Eastern Kosovo had a large Muslim Albanian population prior to the Austrian-Ottoman wars of 1690 and research shows the towns lost their population considerably due to the wars.[29] During the 18th century and onwards there were also movements of people within these Albanian inhabited territories (Nish, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania)[30]
Kosovo was part of theOttoman Empire from 1455 to 1912, at first as part of theeyalet ofRumelia, and from 1864 as a separateprovince (vilayet). During this time,Islam was introduced to the population. Today, Sunni Islam is the predominant religion of Kosovo Albanians.
The Ottoman termArnavudluk (آرناوودلق) meaning Albania was used in Ottoman state records for areas such as southern Serbia and Kosovo.[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 asArnavudluk and described the town ofVushtrri's inhabitants as having knowledge of Albanian or Turkish with few speakers of Slavic languages.[31]
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A large number of Albanians alongside smaller numbers of urban Turks (with some being of Albanian origin) were expelled and/or fled from what is now contemporary southern Serbia (Toplica and Morava regions) during theSerbian–Ottoman War (1876–78).[34] Many settled in Kosovo, where they and their descendants are known asmuhaxhir, alsomuhaxher ("exiles", from Arabic 'muhajir'),[34] and some bear the surnameMuhaxhiri/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.[36] Instead collective identities were based upon either socio-professional, socio-economic, regional, or religious identities and sometimes relations between Muslim and Christian Albanians were tense.[36]
As a reaction against the Congress of Berlin, which had given some Albanian-populated territories to Serbia and Montenegro, Albanians, mostly from Kosovo, formed theLeague of Prizren inPrizren in June 1878. Hundreds of Albanian leaders gathered in Prizren and opposed the Serbian and Montenegrin jurisdiction. Serbia complained to the Western Powers that the promised territories were not being held because the Ottomans were hesitating to do that. Western Powers put pressure to the Ottomans and in 1881, the Ottoman Army started the fighting against Albanians. The Prizren League created a Provisional Government with a President, Prime Minister (Ymer Prizreni) and Ministries of War (Sylejman Vokshi) and Foreign Ministry (Abdyl Frashëri). After three years of war, the Albanians were defeated. Many of the leaders were executed and imprisoned. In 1910, an Albanian uprising spread fromPristina and lasted until the OttomanSultan's visit to Kosovo in June 1911. The aim of the League of Prizren was to unite the four Albanian-inhabited Vilayets by merging the majority of Albanian inhabitants within the Ottoman Empire into oneAlbanian vilayet. However at that time Serbs consisted about 25%[37] of the wholeVilayet of Kosovo's overall population and were opposing the Albanian aims along with Turks and other Slavs in Kosovo, which prevented the Albanian movements from establishing their rule over Kosovo.
In 1912 during theBalkan Wars, most of eastern Kosovo was taken by theKingdom of Serbia, while theKingdom of Montenegro took western Kosovo, which a majority of its inhabitants call "the plateau of Dukagjin" (Rrafshi i Dukagjinit) and the Serbs callMetohija (Метохија), a Greek word meant for the landed dependencies of a monastery. Aside from many war crimes and atrocities committed by theSerbian Army on the Albanian population, colonist Serb families moved into Kosovo, while the Albanian population was decreased. As a result, the proportion of Albanians in Kosovo declined from 75 percent[37][38] at the time of the invasion to slightly more than 65%[38] percent by 1941.
The 1918–1929 period under theKingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was a time of persecution of the Kosovar Albanians. Kosovo was split into four counties—three being a part of official Serbia: Zvečan, Kosovo and southern Metohija; and one in Montenegro: northern Metohija. However, the new administration system since 26 April 1922 split Kosovo among three Regions in the Kingdom: Kosovo,Rascia andZeta. In 1929 the Kingdom was transformed into theKingdom of Yugoslavia. The territories of Kosovo were split among theBanate of Zeta, theBanate of Morava and theBanate of Vardar. The Kingdom lasted until theWorld War IIAxis invasion of April 1941.
After the Axis invasion, the greater part of Kosovo became a part of Italian-controlledFascist Albania, and a smaller, Eastern part by the Axis alliedTsardom of Bulgaria andNazi German-occupied Serbia. Since the Albanian Fascist political leadership had decided in theConference 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".[40]Prior to the surrender ofFascist Italy in 1943, the German forces took over direct control of the region. After numerous Serbian and YugoslavPartisans uprisings, Kosovo was liberated after 1944 with the help of the Albanian partisans of theComintern, and became a province of Serbia within theDemocratic Federal Yugoslavia.
The Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija was formed in 1946 to placate its regional Albanian population within thePeople's Republic of Serbia as a member of theFederal People's Republic of Yugoslavia under the leadership of the former Partisan leader,Josip Broz Tito, but with no factual autonomy. This was the first time Kosovo came to exist with its present boundaries. After Yugoslavia's name changed to theSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia's to the Socialist Republic of Serbia in 1963, the Autonomous Region of Kosovo was raised to the level of Autonomous Province (whichVojvodina had had since 1946) and gained inner autonomy in the 1960s.
In the1974 constitution, the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo's government received higher powers, including the highest governmental titles—President and Premier and a seat in the Federal Presidency, which made it ade facto Socialist Republic within the Federation, but remaining as a Socialist Autonomous Region within the Socialist Republic of Serbia.Serbo-Croat andAlbanian were defined official on the provincial level marking the two largest linguistic Kosovan groups: Serbs and Albanians. The wordMetohija was also removed from the title in 1974 leaving the simple short form,Kosovo.
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. Tito's government dealt with the situation swiftly, but only giving it a temporary solution.
In 1981 the Kosovar Albanian students organisedprotests seeking that Kosovo become a republic within Yugoslavia. Those protests were harshly contained by the centralist Yugoslav government. In 1986, theSerbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) was working on a document, which later would be known as theSANU Memorandum. An unfinished edition was filtered to the press. 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. During this time,Slobodan Milošević rose to power in the League of the Socialists of Serbia.
Soon afterwards, as approved by the Assembly in 1990, the autonomy of Kosovo was revoked, and the pre-1974 status reinstated. Milošević, however, did not remove Kosovo's seat from the Federal Presidency, but he installed his own supporters in that seat, so he could gain power in the Federal government. AfterSlovenia's secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, Milošević used the seat to obtain dominance over the Federal government, outvoting his opponents. Many Albanians organized a peaceful active resistance movement, following the job losses suffered by some of them, while other, more radical and nationalistic oriented Albanians, started violent purges of the non-Albanian residents of Kosovo.
On 2 July 1990, an unconstitutional[41] ethnic Albanian parliament declared Kosovo an independent country, although this was not recognized by the Government since the ethnic Albanians refused to register themselves as legal citizens of Yugoslavia. In September of that year, the ethnic Albanian parliament, meeting in secrecy in the town ofKačanik, adopted theConstitution of the Republic of Kosova. A year later, the Parliament organized the1991 Kosovan independence referendum, which was observed by international organisations, but the only country to recognize it was Albania.[42] With an 87% turnout, 99.88% voted for Kosovo to be independent.[43] The non-Albanian population, at the time comprising 10% of Kosovo's population, refused to vote since they considered the referendum to be illegal.[44]
In 1992–1993, ethnic Albanians created theKosovo Liberation Army (KLA).[45] In 1995, theDayton Agreement was signed inDayton, Ohio. Finalized on 21 November 1995 and signed on 10 December 1995, the agreement ended the three-year-longBosnian War.[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.[48]
From 1996 onwards, the KLA took responsibility for the attacks it committed.[49] The KLA grew to a few hundred Albanians who attacked police stations and wounded many police officers from 1996–1997.[50] Following the1997 Albanian civil unrest, the KLA was enabled to acquire large amounts of weapons looted from Albanian armories.[51] The KLA also received large funds from Albanian diaspora organizations.
The KLA-led campaign continued into January 1999 and was brought to the attention of the world media by theRačak massacre, the mass killing of about 45 Albanians (including 9 KLA insurgents)[52] by Serbian security forces.[53] An international conference was held inRambouillet,France later that spring and resulted in a proposed peace agreement, called theRambouillet Agreement, which was accepted by the ethnic Albanian side but rejected by the Yugoslav government.[54] The failure of the talks at Rambouillet resulted in aNATO air campaign against theFederal Republic of Yugoslavia lasting from 24 March to 10 June[55] when the Yugoslav authorities signed amilitary technical agreement.
International negotiations began in 2006 to determine the final status of Kosovo, as envisaged underUN Security Council Resolution 1244, which ended theKosovo conflict of 1999. While Serbia's continued sovereignty over Kosovo was recognised by much of the international community at the time, a clear majority of Kosovo's population preferred independence. The UN-backed talks, led by UN Special EnvoyMartti Ahtisaari, began in February 2006. While progress was made on technical matters, both parties remained diametrically opposed on the question of status itself.[56] In February 2007, Ahtisaari delivered a draft status settlement proposal to leaders in Belgrade and Pristina, the basis for a draft UN Security Council Resolution that proposes 'supervised independence' for the province.
As of early July 2007 the draft resolution, which is backed by the United States, United Kingdom and other European members of theUnited Nations Security Council, had been rewritten four times to try to accommodate Russian concerns that such a resolution would undermine the principle of state sovereignty.[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.[58] As of November 2023, more than 100 UN member states have recognised Kosovo as an independent country.
On 26 November 2019,an earthquake struck Albania. The Kosovo Albanian population reacted with sentiments of solidarity through fundraising initiatives and money, food, clothing and shelter donations.[59] Volunteers and humanitarian aid in trucks, buses and hundreds of cars from Kosovo traveled to Albania to assist in the situation and people were involved in tasks such as the operation of mobile kitchens and gathering financial aid.[59][60][61] Many Albanians in Kosovo have opened their homes to people displaced by the earthquake.[62][60][61]
| Year | Albanians | Serbs | Others | Source and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1921 | 61% | 33% | 6% | |
| 1931 | 58% | 29% | 13% | |
| 1948 | 65% | 26% | 9% | ICTY[63] |
| 1953 | 65% | 24% | 10% | |
| 1961 | 67% | 23% | 9% | |
| 1971 | 73% | 19% | 7% | |
| 1981 | 76% | 16% | 8% | |
| 1991 | 80% | 13% | 7% | 1991 Census[64] |
| 2000 | 87% | 9% | 4% | World Bank, OSCE[65] |
| 2007 | 92% | 5% | 3% | OSCE[65] |
| 2011 | 92.9% | 1.5% | 5.4% | 2011 Census[66] |
There is a large Kosovo Albanian diaspora in central Europe.
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Culturally, Albanians in Kosovo are very closely related to Albanians in Albania. Traditions and customs differ even from town to town in Kosovo itself. The spoken dialect isGheg, typical of northern Albanians. The language of state institutions, education, books, media and newspapers is the standard dialect of Albanian, which is closer to theTosk dialect.
The vast majority of Kosovo Albanians areSunni Muslims. There are alsoCatholic Albanian communities estimated between 60,000 to 65,000 in Kosovo,[67][68] concentrated inGjakova,Prizren,Klina and a few villages nearPeja andViti. Converting toChristianity is growing among Kosovo Albanian Muslims in Kosovo.[69][70]
Kosovafilm was the film industry, which releases movies in Albanian, created by Kosovar Albanian movie-makers. The National Theatre of Kosovo is the main theatre where plays are shown regularly by Albanian and international artists.
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Music has always been part of Albanian culture. Although in Kosovo music is diverse (as it was mixed with the cultures of different regimes dominating Kosovo), authentic Albanian music does still exist. It is characterized by use ofçiftelia (an authentic Albanian instrument),mandolina,mandola andpercussion.Folk music is very popular in Kosovo. There are many folk singers and ensembles. Modern music in Kosovo has its origin from western countries. The main modern genres includepop,hip hop/rap,rock, andjazz. Kosovo Radio televisions such asRTK,RTV21 and KTV have their musical charts.
Education is provided for all levels, primary, secondary, and university degrees.University of Pristina is the public university of Kosovo, with several faculties and majors. The National Library (BK) is the main and the largest library in Kosovo, located in the centre of Pristina. There are many other private universities, among themAmerican University in Kosovo (AUK), and many secondary schools and colleges such asMehmet Akif College.
Most of the ethnic Albanians that live outside the country are Ghegs, although there is a small Tosk population clustered around the shores of lakes Presp and Ohrid in the south of Macedonia.
pp. 556–557: Using secondary sources, we establish that there have been Albanians living in the area of Nish for at least 500 years, that the Ottoman Empire controlled the area from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries which led to many Albanians converting to Islam, that the Muslim Albanians of Nish were forced to leave in 1878, and that at that time most of these Nishan Albanians migrated south into Kosovo, although some went to Skopje in Macedonia. ; pp. 557–558: In 1690 much of the population of the city and surrounding area was killed or fled, and there was an emigration of Albanians from the Malësia e Madhe (North Central Albania/Eastern Montenegro) and Dukagjin Plateau (Western Kosovo) into Nish.
In this case, however, Ottoman records contain useful information about the ethnicities of the leading actors in the story. In comparison with 'Serbs', who were not a meaningful category to the Ottoman state, its records refer to 'Albanians' more frequently than to many other cultural or linguistic groups. The term 'Arnavud' was used to denote persons who spoke one of the dialects of Albanian, came from the mountainous country in the western Balkans (referred to as 'Arnavudluk', and including not only the area now forming the state of Albania but also neighbouring parts of Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro), organized society on the strength of blood ties (family, clan, tribe), engaged predominantly in a mix of settled agriculture and livestock herding, and were notable fighters – a group, in short, difficult to control. Other peoples, such as Georgians, Ahkhaz, Circassians, Tatars, Kurds, and Bedouin Arabs who were frequently identified by their ethnicity, shared similar cultural traits.
There are now only 60,000 Albanian Catholics in Kosovo out of a population of two million.
Conversions to Christianity have become common, and there are an estimated 65,000 Catholics.
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