Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars' Initiative

Kosovo Under Autonomy, 1974–1990

2 Melissa Bokovoy, team leader Momčilo Pavlović, team leader Milan Andrejevich Thomas Emmert Dušan Janjić Marina Blagojević Bernd Fischer Predrag Marković Ferit Duka Ranka Gašić Besnik Pula Valentina Duka Nebojša Vladisavljević Melissa Bokovoy and Nebojša Vladisavljević contributed substantial portions of the text presented here by Momčilo Pavlović. Dr. Vladisavljević’s entry (“Controversy Four”) is based in part on his “Grassroots Groups, Milošević or Dissident Intellectuals? A Controversy over the Origins and Dynamics of Mobilization of Kosovo Serbs in the 1980s” that appeared in Nationalities Papers 32/4 (December 2004), which was subsequently republished in Thomas Emmert and Charles Ingrao, eds., Conflict in Southeastern Europe at the End of the Twentieth Century: A Scholars’ Initiative (New York & London: Routledge, 2006). The National Endowment for Democracy funded coordinated research by six team members. The current draft also benefited considerably from comment and criticism from members of Research Teams 2 and 8, most notably participants in two satellite meetings on 15–16 October 2004, hosted by Ohio State University’s Center for Slavic and East European Studies in Columbus, Ohio (Melissa Bokovoy, Thomas Emmert, Bernd Fischer, Charles Ingrao, Momčilo Pavlović, Besnik Pula, Jason Vuić, and Frances Trix), and on 16–17 December 2004, at the Center for Interethnic Tolerance and Refugees, Skopje, Macedonia (Ferit and Valentina Duka, Ylber Hysa, Charles Ingrao, Dušan Janjić, Linda Karadaku-Ndou, Leon Malazogu, Gojko Mišković, and Momčilo Pavlović). The final draft was approved after project-wide review in February 2005. 49 Kosovo Under Autonomy, 1974–1990 ◆ Momčilo Pavlović ◆ Introduction Ethnic relations are the crucial issue in Kosovo, especially between the Albanians and the Serbs. These groups have not managed to find a suitable and long-lasting political solution to administering Kosovo together. From the time the territory of Kosovo became a part of Serbia and then of Yugoslavia in the early decades of the twentieth century, the Kosovo problem has been seen by some as a problem of continual “status reversal.” Whenever the Serbs administered Kosovo, as they did in the interwar period and from the end of World War II until lately, Kosovo Albanians1 were discriminated against in political, economic, social, and cultural spheres and then were forced or intimidated into leaving.2 On the other hand, when Albanians were in a position to dominate, usually with the help of foreign troops—Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Italian, German, Bulgarian, and NATO— the Serbs suffered discrimination and often had to flee from Kosovo (such was the case in both World Wars, as well as today). This idea of status reversal must, however, be examined carefully. Throughout the twentieth century, the period of Albanian ascendancy in Kosovo is very short. Veljko Vujačić observed in 1996: The turbulent twentieth century has witnessed many reversals of ethnic fortune in the Balkans, with power shifting from one to another group, not the least between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. On both sides, painful historical memories were reinforced by a constant process of power and status -reversal and conflict over a shared territory. This never-ending cycle of status-reversal can be briefly summarized as follows: Moslem (not Catholic or Orthodox) Albanians were the privileged group under the Ottoman empire (at least relative to Orthodox Serbs); Serbs “came out on top” after the Balkan wars (1912–1913) and the formation of Yugoslavia (1918); the status/power relationship changed in World War Two when a large part of Kosovo became a part of “greater Albania” under the sponsorship of Mussolini’s Italy; in 50   ◆   MOMČILO PAVLOVIĆ 1945, the Serbs “took over,” albeit under the auspices of communist Yugoslavia and in the name of “brotherhood and unity”; after Kosovo became a fully autonomous province (1974), high Albanian birth rates and the gradual “Albanianization” of the local Communist party once more raised the painful specter of status-reversal (for Serbs); with the advent of Milošević to power, Serbs emerged as the dominant status group for the third time in this century. In each of these cases, the process of status-reversal was accompanied by a revival of unpleasant memories as well as actual instances of persecution which further reinforced them.3 The real problem with such an interpretation is that the Kosovo Albanians never held sole state power, nor did Albanians ever have the monopoly on violence . It has been proven over the course of the last 150 years that...