An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir June 2018 www.dfmagazine.ie 40 | By COMDT MIChAEl CUllEN, ChIEF INTERNAl INFORMATION, PA OFFICE, KFOR hQ the balkans: When two worlds collide, it can lead to a rich mixture of art and culture. Equally, there is great potential for fragmentation and conflict. As the Ottoman Empire expanded west in the 14th century, it was the Balkans where the Chris- tian and Muslim worlds collided and then lived side by side for centuries; not always in conflict but often co-existing peace- fully with a necessary fluidity. The one constant in Balkan history has been change; the transience of peoples and transitions of power. Major regional powers, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, Italy, France, Germany, Russia and Britain, have shaped the Balkans that exists today, and Kosovo, located in the middle of the region, has played a part not necessarily in proportion to its small size. During the fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia interna- tional attention was focused on the conflict between Croatia and Serbia, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, through- out this period another conflict was taking place in the then little known autonomous province of Kosovo. Kosovo was established by the Ottomans in 1878 as a first line of defence on the western border of their fading empire. Later it was reshaped to deny Montenegro and Serbia a common land border, and extended beyond its current geographical boundaries. After the Balkans War in 1913, Kosovo was split between Montenegro and Serbia before becoming part of Yugoslavia after the First World War. In 1946 Kosovo became an autono- mous province within Serbia, one of the six socialist republics in Tito's Yugoslavia. Kosovo was always important to the Serbian community, as many of its primary religious sites, such as Decani and Gra- canica, are within Kosovo's borders. It also includes the site of a pivotal battle in Serbian history, Kosovo Polje, where the Serbs were defeated by the invading Ottomans in 1389. This battle took on even greater significance for the Serbian community with the rise of Serbian nationalism in the nineteenth century. The monument to the battle, at Gazemestan on the outskirts of modern-day Pristina (Kosovo's capital), remains a hugely important historical site. Kosovo shares a border with Albania and has long had a large majority population of ethnic Albanians. While Tito was alive ethnic nationalism within any part of Yugoslavia was suppressed in favour of the concept of Brotherhood between the communi- ties. However, after Tito died in 1980 the Brotherhood national- ism began to rise, particularly in Serbia. In 1989, on the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo Polje, the president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, made an historic speech in Gazemestan claiming that Kosovo belonged to the Serbs. According to the renowned BBC series, The Death of Yugo- slavia, this incident in Kosovo signalled the beginning of the breakup of Yugoslavia, in which the collection of republics and ethnic groups sundered into bloody conflict. In 1990 Kosovo's au- tonomy was revoked and its provincial assembly dissolved by the Serb government. This resulted in the closure of all Kosovo Albanian estab- lishments, such as schools and unions.

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