The War of the Myths: Creating the Founding Myth of Kosovo Albanians (original) (raw)

A War of Myths: Creation of the Founding Myth of Kosovo Albanians

A distinctive Albanian character is present in the shaping of Kosovo's statehood. The official politics of history and identity diminish the importance of other ethnic communities and focuses on Albanian mythology, represented by mixture of contemporary and historical personalities, events, places and memories. Integrative and European-leaning from outside, Kosovo is more and more particular and Albanian from inside, leaving many doubts and uncertainties about the intercultural future of Europe's newest state.

The Western accounts on early Albanian- Serbian interactions and the Kosovo myth

For most of the last millennium, the Balkan region, has been associated with conflicts, wars and instability. Indeed, even today, the situation is very tense. Finding the causes of it, is imperative, but that still does not resolve the deep divisions that are ingrained. The aim of this study is to explore what the Western literature reveals about Balkan enmities, more specifically Albanian-Serbian hostilities throughout past centuries, by focusing at certain periods or events that had a great impact in historical context. The study focuses extensively on Kosovo myth, but also on other specific episodes of Albanian-Serbian interaction, namely Serbian Empire, 1389 Kosovo battle, the description event of Murat I death, and 1806 Serbian Revolution among others. One must bear in mind that Albanians and Serbs presented a united front in certain battles and fights (namely in 1389 and 1806), but later turned guns against each other, resulting in thousands unnecessary deaths. This occurred not because their respective citizens wanted so, but was largely incited through government myths and insincere propaganda. Taking exclusively the Western perspective in this context, whose exploration of events in the Balkans is pretty detailed, only enriches the quality of this study. This research concludes that the region should and must learn from past mistakes that living with myths, wars and propaganda leads to nowhere. 195 The Balkan more than ever needs proactive and creative leaders that shift the minds of Balkan people towards elimination, or at least diminishing, of both physical and mental boundaries against each other.

War and Myth: The Might of Myth in the Kosovo War (1999)

Greener Journal of Social Sciences

This paper concentrates on the connectedness between myth and war. It pictures myth as a causal explanation for war, and mirrors myth's might and roles in erupting and exacerbating the war in Kosovo in 1999. Myths are often related to situations where people seek to construct, legitimize and contest their social identities and ownerships. Most societies are held together by myth-system. Within such systems, foundation myths purport to explain the origins and destiny of a nation. Although they may be false in significant ways, foundation myths are usually accepted uncritically by people. They tell dramatic stories about a nation's sacred history and this serves as the exemplary model for all significant political activities. Though the Kosovo War is traced to problematic factors that are many and mixed, but from all available indications, part of the factors for the war can be understood from the perspective of contending and competing mythological recounting by the Kosovo-Serbs and Kosovo-Albanians of their past. Both sides' arguments for right over Kosovo are based on a complex interpretation of mythological details. The big question that begs to be addressed is how to reconcile the two diametrically opposing mythical interpretations of historical and legal developments in Kosovo. The finding of this paper is that the failure to achieve a harmonization of the two mythological accounts exacerbated the hotly contested indignity question, leading Kosovo and its occupants to a catastrophic war that claimed several thousands of lives.

Kosovo 1989: The (Ab)use of the Kosovo Myth in Media and Popular Culture

Comparative Southeast European Studies, 2021

The author explores the creation of public opinion in Serbia in the late 1980s and the (ab)use of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo on 28 June 1989. As a result of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević's carefully planned propaganda, a negative image of Albanians as well as a positive perception of Serbian nationalism were enforced. The media and popular culture played a particularly important role in reviving the Kosovo Myth, together with the leading Serbian (academic) institutions and influential intellectuals. Thirty-some years after 1989, the Kosovo Myth is presented in the media in a largely unchanged manner, while for Serbia the Kosovo problem remains unsolved.

THE PROBLEM OF RESURRECTION OF KOSOVO MYTHOLOGY IN SERBIAN POPULAR CULTURE

The downfall of socialist Yugoslavia marked a new era on the political, social and cultural scene of the new-born ex-Yugoslav states. The increase of tensions between the ethnic groups culminated in a civil war in the 1990s. The military conflict was followed by politically charged polarization of cultural differences between the ethnicities in conflict. While the Croats stressed the connection of their cultural roots to the West and the Muslim political elites displayed a form of nostalgia for the long gone Ottoman Empire, the Serbian revival of what was popularly named the 'ethno' culture was most involved the resurrection and refashioning of the Kosovo mythology. This paper explores some aspects of the popular revival of Kosovo mythology and its role in contemporary Serbian popular culture.

Kosovo – History and Actuality

Agora International Journal of Juridical Sciences

The Kosovo region was always the “cause of fight” between Serbians and Albanians,Kosovo becoming a long source of hate between the two populations. The Serbiansconsidered Kosovo the “Saint Land”, some kind of Jerusalem. They provided historicalarguments as well: they were saying that the territory of Kosovo province was situated in thecentre of their medieval empire; on this territory were the main religious “flags”, whichhelped the Serbians to achieve their own cultural identity, in this region being situated theirmain monasteries built during the medieval period.The Serbian writer Dobrico Ćosić stated in 1999 that Kosovo province “is not only apiece of land, it represents the Serbian identity itself. With the loss of Kosovo... the Serbianpeople was mutilated”.In this study, a range of observations are provided on etymology, a brief history, aswell as the causes which determined the beginning of conflict.

Lumnije Kadriu Identity construction among Albanians of Kosovo in ANNUARI 2

ANNUARIO The Albanian Yearbook of Historical and Anthropological Studies Published by Center for Historical and Anthropological ResearchTiranë, 2/2012, 2012

Identity constructions among Kosovo Albanians Identity issues continue to be a topic of debate in academia. Identity is increasingly seen as a process; in present day discourse is not about a single identity, but about many identities, because for both individuals and communities, there is a plurality of identities and contexts of identification. The Kosovo Albanian community has lived for more than a century amid intense political, social and cultural dynamics. All of these circumstances affect the issue of identity and identification. In both cultural and political aspects, there are tendencies for a unified Albanian identification, as well as for a special identification as Kosovar. The main argument of this paper is that although these tendencies may seem contradictory to each other and as exclusive, they nevertheless remain complementary and contribute to cultural diversity and identity integration, both in Kosovo and abroad. This article focuses on some of the tendencies of identity building in various political and cultural aspects among Kosovo Albanians. When do Kosovo Albanians represent themselves as politically and culturally different from the Albanians of Albania? Why in some cases this is welcome, while in other cases it seems intolerable? These questions are key to understanding the dynamics of national identity in a local context, such as Kosovo, and this approach itself is a novelty for Kosovar ethnology.