KOSOVO, THE LAND DIVIDED BY HATE 

                           

 

 

The Gaze of Ulysses a movie directed by Theo Anghelopulos, resumes with amazing meticulousness the dramatic situation of East Europe , tightened in the vice of the absolutist regimes, the dictatorships and the ethnic hates. Lately bloody and fratricide fights  took place in the Balkans peninsula.  These civil wars, fostered by the nationalistic claims and the fanaticism of some politicians, as  the Croatian Franjo Tudjman, the Bosnian Alija Izetbegovic, and the Serb Slobodan Milosevic, hit entire populations, reaching many cities of the former Yugoslavia, from Vukovar to Pristina , from Sarajevo to Podgorica.  

In 1980 after the death of Josip Broz, best known as the " marshal Tito ", the fragile equilibrium between the various groups that constitute the complex Yugoslav ethnic mosaic (four languages, three religions, two alphabets), collapses definitively under the blows of the nationalistic propaganda and the independence movements .  First in Slovenia, then in Croatia and Bosnia, the war emphasized, if someone still wasn’t aware , that Tito’s Yugoslavia was just a fond memory.  On the Balkan powder keg the flower of hate had bloomed and the drama of the war fomented violence against everyone’s neighbours.  In the Balkans, Cain and Abel speak different languages and the terrible law of the " brother kills brother ", finds a cinematographic realization in the satirical movie  “Underground” directed by E. Kusturica.

 

                                    

                                                            Dance of Kosova Albanians  

                                                   

                                                                 North Albanian dance

 

In 1980, Kosovo, that under Tito benefit by a pseudo-self-government status, is fully aware that the situation is  getting worse.  The population, in majority Albanians, that in this period is facing a deep economic crisis, rises up against the decision of the federal government to cut the Yugoslavian economical aids to Kosovo, usually destined to the less developed regions of  Yugoslavia.  This protests is ignored, but, in March 1980, the revolt of the Albanian students fiercely burst out .  The first separatist voices begin to circulate and spark off . In Kosovo starts the " Albanian spring " but the uprising is put down with great bloodshed by the Serbian central power.  For approximately 10 years, rage and revenge  smoulder under the violence ashes. The powder keg seems to explode  at any moment and in 1989 a social and racial conflict begins .  Slobodan Milosevic, elected president of  Yugoslavia (which by now includes only Serbia and Montenegro) supporting the Serbian nationalism, wipes out every autonomy of the Albanians.  The 28 June 1989, Milosevic triumphally enters  in the outpost of Kosovo-Polje (The Blackbirds Field ),a  highly symbolic place for the Serbian pride and famous because in 1389 there took place a battle between Serbs and Turks, during which the king Lazar Hrebeljanovic  died fighting " for the motherland and the holy Orthodoxy " (even if the historians say that the Albanian nobleman George II Balsha, prince of Zeta, secretly helped the Serbian king).  In this historically important  place, Milosevic proclaims between the thunderous applause of the Serbs that " From now on, nobody will dare to raise his hands on a Serb! ".  Behind such affirmation is hidden the announcement of a  politic based on oppression and racial discrimination, that reaches the public institutions and even the schools.  Initially it is the non violent party of the " Democratic League of Kosovo " to collect the hopes of the Albanians. Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of this political force, fix his primary objective: the creation of an Albanian parafederal organization equipped with its own sanitary services, schools and universities.  The brutality and the overbearingness of the Serbian government favour the rebirth of the Albanian nationalism, which  finds a political and a military expression in the foundation of the UĒK ( Ushtria Ēlirimtarė e Kosovės, namely the " Kosovo Liberation Army " ).  The guerrillas collect the inheritance of the " KACACK ", the Albanian resistance that fought against the Serbs during the first World war.

 

                                          

The peace of Dayton in 1995, disappoints  the expectations of the Albanians. Actually the war is just  begun, unfortunately involving the populations: the Albanian citizens, hit by the atrocious and chilling hatred that lead to Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing;  but also the Serb people, subject to Nato’s airplanes  terrible bombardment . As it has been recently reported, even the armed revolt of the Albanian minority present in Macedonia is  burst out ( with the same name of UĒK, which this time means  " Ushtria Ēlirimtarė Kombėtarė ", that is " National Liberation Army  "), that strongly claims equal rights for the Albanian citizens who live in that region. After the peace accord and the demilitarisation (although not complete) of the rebellious army , a contingent of international forces has been sent also in  Macedonian, as it had previously happened in Kosovo.    

Kosova - Rugova

For the Balkan countries, today it is time to reconstruct and to find out again the lost equilibriums.  The new generations surely represent the hope for a better future, far away from the extremisms and the racial discriminations.  I would wish all the best to the people of these tormented lands. Getting along together is based on mutual understanding and I hope that the common will to recommence can prevail over revenge and hatred.

 

 

In memory of Din Mehmeti, albanian poet of Kosovo, brutally assassinated by the Serbian paramilitary troops the 29th March 1999. Before meeting its firing squad, feeling the death approaching, Mehmeti wrote these few lines: 

" the flowers of blood will come – be tight, my hut “

 

in memory of  all the war victims.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY :

MIRANDA VICKERS, BETWEEN SERB AND ALBANIAN: A HISTORY OF KOSOVO, Columbia University Press, 1998.

MIRANDA VICKERS, JAMES PETTIFER, ALBANIA: FROM ANARCHY TO A  BALCAN IDENTITY, New York University Press, 1997.

James Pettifer ,  Blue Guide Albania and Kosovo, First Edition (Blue Guides) .

M. DOGO, KOSOVO. ALBANESI E SERBI : LE RADICI DEL CONFLITTO, Lungro di Cosenza, 1992.

ANTONELLO BIAGINI, MOMENTI DI STORIA BALCANICA ( 1878 - 1914 ), Roma, 1981.

FICTION and POETRY :

SEFEDIN FETHIU, IL TEMPO DEL RISVEGLIO, Ed.Stilo.

ISMAIL KADARÉ, TRE CANTI FUNEBRI  PER IL KOSOVO, Longanesi Ed.