Yugoslav colonization of Kosovo
Attempts to bring Kosovo under control of Serbia and Montenegro / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The colonization of Kosovo was a programme begun by the kingdoms of Montenegro and Serbia in the early twentieth century and later implemented by their successor state Yugoslavia at certain periods of time from the interwar era (1918–1941) until 1999. Over the course of the twentieth century, Kosovo experienced four major colonisation campaigns that aimed at altering the ethnic population balance in the region, to decrease the Albanian population and replace them with Montenegrins and Serbs.[1] Albanians formed the ethnic majority in the region when it became part of Yugoslavia in early twentieth century.[2]
Yugoslav colonization of Kosovo | |
---|---|
Location | Kosovo (spillover: Vardar Banovina, and Montenegro) |
Date | 1918–1940 |
Target | Albanians |
Attack type | Colonization, mass murder, arson, discrimination, ethnic cleansing |
Deaths | c. 80,000
|
Perpetrators | Kingdom of Serbia (1918), Kingdom of Montenegro (1918), Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1940) |
Motive | Anti-Albanian sentiment, Greater Serbia, Ultranationalism |
Fears over Albanian separatism and the need to secure Kosovo, a strategic territory for the country drove the state to pursue colonisation as a solution.[3][4][2] The Serbian political elite held that Kosovo was a former late medieval Serb territory that following the Ottoman conquest was settled by Albanians.[5] As such, the colonisation process along with the displacement of Albanians and purchasing of their property was understood as "a logical sequel to the liberation war", in which the four Balkan states defeated the Ottoman Empire.[6]
The first brief attempts at colonisation were made by Montenegro and Serbia during the Balkan Wars and First World War.[7][8] Following the end of the wars and the creation of Yugoslavia, the interwar period experienced the most colonisation activity. Between 60,000 and 65,000 colonists, of whom over 90% were Serbs, settled on the territory of the former Kosovo Vilayet captured from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.[9][10] In addition to them, numbers of state bureaucrats and their families also settled in Kosovo.[11] Along with Serb colonisation, a policy of forced migration of ethnic Albanians was implemented, enlisting the participation of Turkey to resettle them in its territory.[12][13][14]
During the Interwar period, tens of thousands of Albanians were killed in Kosovo, the Vardar province (modern-day North Macedonia), and Montenegro. Albanian armed resistance to Kosovo's incorporation into Yugoslavia following WWI emerged in the Kachak Movement, triggering a conflict that lasted until 1921 when the movement was suppressed. As a result, more than 12,000 Albanians were killed in Kosovo from 1918 to 1921.[15][16] In 1919, U.S. Army colonel Sherman Miles reported that between 18,000 and 25,000 Albanians had been killed in Montenegro, according to the British Mission in Shkodër and as many as 30,000 according to Albanian estimates.[17][relevant?] In July 1919, the French consulate in Skopje (North Macedonia) reported nine massacres of 30,000-40,000 victims.[18][relevant?] According to Haki Demolli, 80,000 Albanians were killed in Yugoslavia by 1940.[19]
During the Second World War, Kosovo was attached to Italian controlled Albania and the colonist population fled to neighbouring Axis occupied Serbia and Montenegro.[20][21] At the end of the war, government of Yugoslavia prohibited return of colonist and stopped the colonization programme.[22][circular reference] Forced migration of Albanians to Turkey resumed and Serb settlers were installed in Kosovo until the ouster of Ranković in 1966.[23][24] In the 1990s, the government of President Slobodan Milošević attempted the colonisation of Kosovo using various financial and employment incentives to encourage Serb settlement and later through forceful resettlement of Serb refugees from the Yugoslav Wars.[25][26][27]
The colonisation of Kosovo is generally considered an unsuccessful project because it satisfied neither the state nor the settlers, nor the home population.[10][page needed] The politics related to the colonisation process and its effects upon various population groups of Kosovo remains a topic of interest and discussion in scholarship.[28]