Serbian claims on Kosovo debunked

[revolution]

The 'Great Migration' of Serbs in 1690 is a hoax: https://oxford.universitypressschola...osovo%20itself.

Serbs most likely did not expand into Kosovo before 12th century:

See van Wijk, 'Taalkunde gegevens'; quotation from p. 71. The modern dialect of Serbo-Croat which borders Macedonian and Bulgarian territory, the 'Timok-Prizren' dialect, does have some transitional features; but research has shown that it picked them up only after the medieval expansion of the Serbian state into Kosovo and the Morava valley, which brought its speakers into closer contact with Bulgarian (ibid., pp. 62, 71).

Origins: Serbs, Albanians and Vlachsl

The Serbian homeland was 'Rascia' and the name 'Rascian' was a name for a 'Serb' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C5%A1ka_(region)


Battle of Kosovo 1448 was sabotaged by the Serbian despotate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kosovo_(1448) . It allied with the Ottomans against Albanians and Hungarians.


The case for Kosova: The Case for Kosova

Most Western diplomats seem to believe that Kosovo is an essential part of historic Serbian state territory, so that to remove it would be as bizarre as separating Yorkshire from England. This argument too is false.

Kosovo was not, as Serbs claim, the "birthplace" or "cradle" of the Serb nation, and it came under Serb rule for only the last part of the medieval period. Since then it has been excluded from any Serb or Yugoslav state for more than 400 out of the last 500 years. It was conquered (but not legally annexed) by Serbia in 1912, against the wishes of the local Albanian majority population, and it became part of a Yugoslav kingdom (not a Serbian one) after 1918. In other words, out of the entire span of modern history, Kosovo has been ruled from Belgrade for less than a single lifetime.

https://nationalinterest.org/article...-will-work-714

Serbian aim to kill all Kosovans is nothing new

[revolution]

Kosovo was the birthplace and center of the Albanian national movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_revolt_of_1912


Kosovan war is not the result of ancient hatreds:

The war in Kosovo is not the inevitable outcome of ancient hatreds between the peoples who inhabit it, but the consequence of the calculated manipulation of nationalist feeling by political elites, spearheaded by Slobodan Milo sevic.

Serbs and Albanians have lived and intermittently quarrelled in Kosovo, occasionally uniting to fight the common Turkish enemy, for over six centuries. After the imposition of Turkish rule in the mid-15th century, the demographic balance shifted in favour of the Albanians.

They lived under Turkish domination until just before the first World War, when the Serbian army drove out the Turks and began the modern phase of brutal discrimination against the majority Albanians. During the 1920s and 1930s, Serbia attempted unsuccessfully to redress the population imbalance by settlements.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/k...ation-1.169959



The demographics shifted naturally in favour of Albanians.

[revolution]

Expulsion of Albanians out of Nish and Leskovac by Serbian forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expuls...ians_1877-1878

In 1878, following a series of Christian uprisings against the Ottoman Empire, the Russo-Turkish War, and the Berlin Congress, Serbia gained complete independence, as well as new territories in the Toplica and Kosanica regions adjacent to Kosovo. These two regions had a sizable Albanian population which the Serbian government decided to deport. The Serbian Army Commander insisted that Serbia 'should not have its Caucasus' and the Prime Minister argued that the Albanian minority might represent a security concern. In 1909, Serbian intellectual Jovan Hadži-Vasiljević explained that the major motivation for the 1878 deportation was also to 'create a pure Serbian nation state' by 'cleansing' the land of the non-Christians, as 'the great Serbian poet Njegoš argued'. Hadži-Vasiljević was here interpreting Njegoš rather loosely, as Njegoš work focused on the Slavonic Muslims and not on Albanian Muslims.

The Kosovo conflict was further instigated as the result of the expulsion of Albanians:

The Albanians expelled from these regions moved over the new border to Kosovo, where the Ottoman authorities forced the Serb population out of the border region and settled the refugees there. Janjićije Popović, a Kosovo Serb community leader in the period prior to the Balkan Wars, noted that after the 1876–8 wars, the hatred of the Turks and Albanians towards the Serbs 'tripled'. A number of Albanian refugees from Toplica region, radicalized by their experience, engaged in retaliatory violence against the Serbian minority in Kosovo.

[Dušan]

These Serbian monasteries are older several centuries than any presence of Albanians in Kosovo&Metohija.








They witnessed absence of Albanians in the past, they will witness absence of Albanians out from Kosovo-Metohija in the future.

[revolution]

Albanians mentioned with Vlachs in Kosovo before Ottoman period:

The monastery at Dečani stands on a terrace commanding passes into High Albania. When Stefan Uros III founded it in 1330, he gave it many villages in the plain and catuns of Vlachs and Albanians between the Lim and the Beli Drim. Vlachs and Albanians had to carry salt for the monastery and provide it with serf labour.

From the details of the monastic estates given in the chrysobulls, further information can be gleaned about these Vlachs and Albanians. The earliest reference is in one of Nemanja’s charters giving property to Hilandar, the Serbian monastery on Mount Athos: 170 Vlachs are mentioned, probably located in villages round Prizren. When Dečanski founded his monastery of Dečani in 1330, he referred to ‘villages and katuns of Vlachs and Albanians’ in the area of the white Drin: a katun (alb.:katund) was a shepherding settlement."

Are Serbs the original inhabitants of Kosovo ?

it is worth looking once more at the pattern of settlement in the Kosovo area during the early Slav centuries. Kosovo did not fall within the Serb territory of Rascia, which was further to the north-west: the Serbian expansion into Kosovo began in earnest only in the late twelfth century

Kosovo and Albania was invaded by Bulgarians:

Only in the ninth century do we see the expansion of a strong Slav (or quasi-Slav) power into this region. Under a series of ambitious rulers, the Bulgarians - a Slav population which absorbed, linguistically and culturally, its ruling elite of Turkic Bulgars - pushed westwards across modern Macedonia and eastern Serbia, until by the 850s they had taken over Kosovo and were pressing on the borders of Rascia. Soon afterwards they took the western Macedonian town of Ohrid; having recently converted to Christianity, the Bulgar rulers helped to set up a bishopric in Ohrid, which thus became an important centre of Slav culture for the whole region. And at the same time the Bulgarians were pushing on into southern and central Albania, which became thoroughly settled by Bulgarian Slavs during the course of the following century.

Albanians were never settled there by the Ottomans. It was shown that Kosovo had an Albanian population before the late 17th century before these
tribal migrations even occurred. And most of the people that migrated did so for better land or to escape blood feuds. It was also shown Serbs migrated into Kosovo from other areas
such as Northern Albania, Montenegro, Serbia etc. There was Serbian minority in Northern Albania. They settled Kosovo during the Ottoman period.



Serbian expansion into Kosovo and Albania was an invasion. Serbs are not original inhabitants like they claim nor were they welcomed by many of the natives. Some Vlachs were only assimilated during the Ottoman period, especially in Herzegovina but Vlachs have migrated and been assimilated into all kinds of people. Some Vlachs assimilated both into Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo.



Serbian claim on Kosovo is a hoax.

[revolution]

It is claimed by Serbs there was a 'Great Migration of Serbs' in 1689 which left a 'vacuum' and that Albanians settled. This was shown by some historians to be false. There was never a great migration nor was there a mass migration of Albanians into the region.

Kosovo in 1660's had a large Albanian population according to Turkish travellers and it was shown this Albanian population revolted against the Ottomans in 1689 during the Ottoman-Habsburg wars

An interesting fact emerges from these historical events – that in 1689 Dardania had a plentiful and warrior Albanian population, because it is highly unlikely in my view that the Albanians mentioned here came over from Albania itself to join Imperial forces. The question as to whether these Albanians were Christians or Muslims is not answered in the above-mentioned work. An edition of source material about the Dardanian campaign of Imperial troops would provide a substantial contribution to our knowledge of this region and its inhabitants and would also be of great interest for our military history because names like Starhemberg and Veterani appear in it. No one would be better suited for this than the biographer of the former.

Travels in Dardanian Albania - Johann Georg von Hahn.

[revolution]

Serbs claim Ancient Balkan people welcomed them with open arms yet all the historical records show Serbian expansion and Bulgarian expansion was an invasion.

By the mid-seventh century, Serbs (or Serb-led Slavs) were penetrating from the coastal lands of Montenegro into northern Albania. Major ports and towns such as Durres and Shkodra held out against them, but much of the countryside was Slavicized, and some Slav settlers moved up the valleys into the Malesi. By the ninth century, Slav-speaking people were an important element of the population in much of northern Albania, excluding the towns and the higher mountainous areas (especially the mountains in the eastern part of the Malesi, towards Kosovo). [8] Slav-speaking people lived in the lowlands of this area, gradually becoming a major component of the urban population too, until the end of the Middle Ages.

Only in the ninth century do we see the expansion of a strong Slav (or quasi-Slav) power into this region. Under a series of ambitious rulers, the Bulgarians - a Slav population which absorbed, linguistically and culturally, its ruling elite of Turkic Bulgars - pushed westwards across modern Macedonia and eastern Serbia, until by the 850s they had taken over Kosovo and were pressing on the borders of Rascia. Soon afterwards they took the western Macedonian town of Ohrid; having recently converted to Christianity, the Bulgar rulers helped to set up a bishopric in Ohrid, which thus became an important centre of Slav culture for the whole region. And at the same time the Bulgarians were pushing on into southern and central Albania, which became thoroughly settled by Bulgarian Slavs during the course of the following century

Serbian expansion into Kosovo and Serbia did not begin until 12th century or so. Yet Serbs claim they have been living in these lands since 600 AD and ''assimilated'' all the natives.


They use the demographics of Kosovo, which most likely never happened naturally, to claim it is now their land.

Origins: Serbs, Albanians and Vlachsl

[revolution]

''the towns of Shkodra, Drisht, Lezha, Shkup (Skopje) and perhaps Shtip (Stip, south-east of Skopje) - follow the pattern of continuous Albanian development from the Latin. [48] (One common objection to this argument, claiming that 'sc-' in Latin should have turned into 'h-', not 'shk-' in Albanian, rests on a chronological error, and can be disregarded.) [49] There are also some fairly convincing derivations of Slav names for rivers in northern Albania - particularly the Bojana (Alb.: Buena) and the Drim (Alb.: Drin) - which suggest that the Slavs must have acquired their names from the Albanian forms.''

''The main area of the Balkan interior where a Latin-speaking population may have continued, in both towns and country, after the Slav invasion, has already been mentioned: it included the upper Morava valley, northern Macedonia, and the whole of Kosovo. It is, therefore, in the uplands of the Kosovo area (particularly, but not only, on the western side, including parts of Montenegro) that this Albanian-Vlach symbiosis probably developed
What it suggests is that the Kosovo region, together with at least part of northern Albania, was the crucial focus of two distinct but interlinked ethnic histories: the survival of the Albanians, and the emergence of the Romanians and Vlachs''

''Had they come from the towns, their Latin would surely have been closer to standard Latin in its structure, too.) There is in fact enough Latin agricultural vocabulary in Romanian -words for sowing, ploughing, harrowing, and so on - to show that they were farming in Roman times. [69] The shift towards pastoralism was probably quite gradual. One particular factor that may have helped to promote it was the practice of horse-breeding, which was, or at least became, a Vlach speciality: the medieval records are full of Vlach muleteers and Vlachs leading caravans of pack-horses. [70] Such an occupation requires contact with towns (where the trade is), and may be combined with some farming in the towns' vicinity; but it also involves a form of stock-breeding, which could have given the early Vlachs an entree into the higher-altitude world of Albanian flocks and herds.''

''This claim is put forward as a prime argument against the 'Illyrian' origins of the Albanians by Schramm: Eroberer, pp. 33-4; Anfange, p. 23. It had already been answered by Cabej, who pointed out that the shift to 'h' belonged to a much earlier (pre-Roman) period of Albanian: 'Problem of Autochthony', p. 44. Schramm's case can be disproved by a series of Albanian borrowings from Latin, such as shkorse (rug) from scortea, shkendije (spark) from scantilla, shkemb (rock-formation) from scamnum, and shkop (staff) from scopae: see Capidan, 'Raporturile'. pp. 546-8; Philippide, Originea Rominilor, vol. 2, pp. 653-4; Cabej, 'Zur Charakteristik', p. 177; and the entries in Meyer, Etymologisches Worterbuch.''


''Stipcevic, Iliri, p. 30 and n.; Mirdita, Studime dardane, pp. 7-46; Papazoglu, Central Balkan Tribes, pp. 210-69. As Papazoglu notes, most ancient sources classify Dardanians as Illyrians. Her reasons for rejecting this identification in a later essay, 'Les Royaumes', are obscure. There were Thracian names in the eastern strip of Dardania, but Illyrian names dominated the rest; Katicic has shown that these belong with two other Illyrian 'onomastic provinces' (see his summary in Ancient Languages, pp. 179-81, and the evidence in Papazoglu, 'Dardanska onomastika').''


Origins: Serbs, Albanians and Vlachs: http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/nm/kosovo.html