Crucified Kosovo

7/31/2019 Crucified Kosovo

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Crucified Kosovo & Metohija

The region of Kosovo & Metohija was a political center of mediaeval Serbia and makes thevery essence of Serbian spiritual and cultural identity and statehood since the Middle Ages

up today. The biggest and the most important number of Serbian Orthodox mediaeval

monasteries and churches (for instance, Graanica, Peka Patrijarija, Bogorodica Ljevika

and Visoki Deani) are built exactly in Kosovo & Metohija and the headquarters of the

Serbian Orthodox Church -

Patriarchate established in 1346 was

located (till 1766) in the city of Pe

in the western portion of the region

called Metohija. The capital ofSerbian Empire proclaimed in 1346

was also in Metohija in the city of

Prizren which is known in Serbian

history as the Imperial city or

Serbian Constantinople. The term

Metohija means the land in

possession of the Serbian Orthodox

Church and according to the

archival documents c. 70% of the

territory of Kosovo & Metohija wasin the legal possession of the

Serbian Orthodox Church till 1946

when the new Serbophobic

Communist authorities, lead by

non-Serb party cadre,

nationalized the land of the

church under the policy of agrarian

reform and delivered it to the

Albanian peasants.

However, contrary to the Serbian

case, for Albanians Kosovo & Metohija is not central national land: moreover it is just

peripheral for the very reason they started to settle Kosovo & Metohija from the northern

Albania only after the First Great Serbian Migration from Kosovo & Metohija in 1690

during the Austrian-Ottoman War (Vienna War) 1683-1699. That the Albanians, contrary to

the Serbs, are not aboriginal people in Kosovo & Metohija is clearly showing the first

preserved Ottoman census (defter) related to Kosovo & Metohija done in 1485, i.e. only 30

years after this province became occupied by the Turks and included into administrative

system of the Ottoman Empire (in 1455). By analysing the personal names and place namesfrom this document already ex-Yugoslav linguists claimed that it is obvious that only 2% of


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them are of Albanian origin. However, after the First (when c. 100.00 Serbs emigrated from

Kosovo & Metohija to the Southern Hungary) and the Second (during the new Austrian-

Ottoman War in 1737-1739) Great Serbian Migrations from Kosovo & Metohija, the ethnic

composition of the region gradually was changed for the reason that the Ottoman

authorities invited neighbouring loyal Muslim Albanians (in Turkish language Arnauts)

from the Northern Albania (the speakers of the Geg dialect of the Albanian language) to

settle this region. Consequently, according to the Austrian historiography and statistoics,

only at the end of the 19th c. a tiny Albanian majority became reality at Kosovo & Metohija:

in 1899 it was 47,9% of Albanians compared to 43,7% of the Serbs, while in 1871 Serbian

majority was clear with 63,6% of the Serbs vs 32,2% of the Albanians. According to official

Serbian statistics made immediately after the Balkan Wars 1912-1913 when Kosovo &

Metohija became re-included into the state territory of Serbia, it was 50% of all non-

Albanians and 50% Albanians living in this region.

There are three reasons forsuch population change:

1) constant Albanian

immigration to Kosovo &

Metohija from Northern

Albania after 1699,

2) permanent Albanian

terror against and ethnic

cleansing of the local

Orthodox Serbs (for

instance, 150.000 Serbs are

expelled from Kosovo &

Metohija in the years 1878-

1912), and

3) a higher Albanian

natural birth-rate in

comparison to the Serbian

one.

Differently to the Serbian

case, Kosovo & Metohija

(except during the WWII) was never part of Albanian state that was, by the way, established

for the first time in history only in 1912. Thus, undoubtedly, Serbs have pure historical and

legal rights on Kosovo & Metohija in comparison to the Albanians (like Lithuanians on

Vilnius and Trakai areas in comparison to the Poles).

Kosovo and Metohija is very fertile and clement plane (differently from mountainous

Albania that was the main reason for ethnic Albanian migrations from Albania to Kosovo

& Metohija) with mild climate, reach in water resources, with high mountain chains


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bordering with Albania. It has been God-blessed environment for a fruitful development of

the highest achievements in all cultural fields in medieval Serbia. The cultural and

demographic strength of the Serbs is best illustrated by the presence of c. 1.500 monuments

of Serbian culture. Numerous outstanding noble Serbian families used to live in this

province (known as Old Serbia), as families Brankovi, Hrebeljanovi, Musi, Vojinovi,

some of which were the

inceptors of Serbian dynasties.

In addition, a great number of

Serbian noble castles existed all

over Kosovo with rich

aristocratic life going on inside

their walls. They were also

meeting places of Serbian

nobility and centers where

important political and otherdecisions have been taken and

places attended by foreign

envoys and outstanding guests

from the noble foreign ruling

families. In Svrin castle, for

example, the famous Serbian

Emperor Duan (1331-1355)

was firstly crowned king in

1331, and Pauni, famous for itsbeauty, were favoured place of

Serbian king Milutin (1282-

1321) a founder of monastery

of Graanica. In Pauni in 1342

Serbian Emperor Duan had

received Jovan VI Kantakuzin,

one of the pretenders to the

Byzantine throne at that time.

Nerodimlja, with the strong

fortress over the castle, wasfavourite residence of Serbian

king Stefan Deanski (1321-

1331) who built up the famous monastery of Visoki Deani in Metohija a meeting place of

western (Roman Catholic) and eastern (Byzantine Orthodox) architecture styles.

However, for the mediaeval Albanian history Kosovo & Metohija is of no importance: no

one Albanian feudal lord or dynasty originated in Kosovo & Metohija, no Albanian religious

shrines (churches) in Kosovo & Metohija, and mostly important, no Albanian place-names

in the province. Even today, 90% of place-names in Kosovo & Metohija are of Serbian-Slavic

origin even in Albanian language the name for the province (Kosova) has Serbian-Slavic

root/origin: Kos (=blackbird).


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Serbian elite and minor nobility has built in the Middle Ages in this region hundreds of

smaller chapels and several dozens of monumental Christian monasteries and churches.

Some of them have been preserved to date, such as Patriarchy of Pe (since 1346 site of the

Serbian Patriarch), Deani, Graanica, Bogorodica Ljevika, Banjska, Sveti Arhaneli near

Prizren and others. Serbian churches and monasteries had been for centuries owners of

great complexes of fertile land. As it is said, Metohija, the name originated from the Greek

word metoh, means church land (administratively, Kosovo province is divided by Serbian

authorities into Kosovo covering the eastern part and Metohija covering the western part).

Highly developed economic life was an integral part of a high level of civilization attained in

the medieval Serbia. The city of Prizren, for example, was a famous economic and

commercial center, with developed silk production, fine crafts, and numerous settlements

where the merchants from Kotor (today in Montenegro) and Dubrovnik (historically

independent

republic) had their

houses, and in the14th c. Prizren was

the site of the

consul from

Dubrovnik for the

whole Serbian

state. And many

other commercial

centers such as

Pritina, Pe, Hoa,Vuitrn, are

testifying the

strength of highly

developed

economic life in

this region. The

region of Kosovo &

Metohija was also

famous in Europe after its very rich silver-mining centers as Trepa, Novo Brdo and

Janjevo, out of which in the 15th c. Novo Brdo had become one of the most importantmining centers of the Balkans and Europe. Mainly silver, but in certain extent and gold,

were exported to the big European centers in great quantities especially during the first half

of the 15th c. However, the Ottoman authorities totally neglected mine exploitation in

Kosovo & Metohija (likewise elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire) and at such a way this very

rich province did not contribute to the economic prosperity of the Ottoman citizens.


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Turkish-Ottoman invasion from the mid-14th c. (1354) means a fatal turning point in the

Balkan and Serbian history during the second half of the 14th c. The military advance of the

Turks towards the Central Europe via the Balkans was a rather slow process. Serbian ruler

prince (known in Serbian epic songs as the emperor) Lazar Hrebeljanovi (1370-1389)

and Serbian nobility in the famous Kosovo Battle on June 28th, 1389 did everything to

stop the Turkish invasion towards the South Eastern Europe. It was not only a clash of two

armies led by their rulers Serbian prince Lazar and Turkish sultan Murat I (1362-1389),

who both are killed during the battle, but also a clash of two civilizations, one Christian-

European and one Islamic-Asiatic. During the Ottoman yoke in Serbian national conscience

the Kosovo Battle has acquired a mythical dimension of a crucial historical event (even

today chronology of Serbian national history is divided into two periods: before and after

the Kosovo Battle), greatly affecting the national identity of the Serbs. The Serbian epic

poetry is very rich and the cycle of poems devoted to Kosovo & Metohija are a pearl of that

treasure and moral and psychological support to Serbian people during the centuries of

slavery under the Turks till the19th c. Kosovo & Metohija have

been longest under the Turkish

lordship in comparison to all other

ethnic and historic Serbian lands

as this region became finally

liberated from the Turks only in

1912. On the opposite side, in

Albanian national epic poetry

there are no examples of devotionto the Kosovo & Metohija land and

history. However, even the

father of Albanian national pride

the feudal lord Georgie Kastriot

Skanderbeg (1405-1468, ruler of

Central Albania from 1443 to

1468) was in fact of Serbian origin. Contrary to Albanian case, in Serbian national poetry we

find such a great number of representatives of Serbian nobility, of Serbian castles and

outstanding Serbian monasteries from Kosovo & Metohija.

The Turkish-Ottoman invasion of the South Eastern Europe including and the Serbian

lands, have not only brought about the fall of Christian civilization, but is also responsible

for the destruction of all social structures, the elimination of the Serbian elite and the

destruction of the most outstanding cultural achievements. One part of Serbian nobility was

killed, one part expelled to Asia, one part took Islam (mainly voluntarily), and one part

managed to emigrate north, west and to across the Adriatic Sea to Italy. Average people (the

peasants) deprived from its national leaders had no option but to stick to the traditional

national values. It is thanks to the Serbian Orthodox Church which managed to revive its

work in 1557 (renewal of the Patriarchy of Pe by thesultans decree), that Serbian people

kept alive the awareness of the mediaeval national state and high achievements of its

civilization. Many mediaeval castles and towns were destroyed, many churches were raised


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to the ground, and even some of them turn into the mosques. For example, at the beginning

of the 17th c., the church of the Holy Angels (Sveti Arhandjeli), where Serbian emperor

Stefan Duan was buried, that was in fact the monumental mausoleum of Emperor Duan,

was totally destroyed, and the stone of which the church was built was used for building the

Sinan-paa mosque, still existing in the city of Prizren today. Bogorodica Ljevika, the

monumental church of King Milutin, in 1756 was turned into the mosque and only after the

WWI it was again restored into the Christian church. Contrary, there is no one example of

conversion of the Muslim mosque into the Christian church in the 20 th c. when the

Christians (Serbs) ruled the province.

Turkish invasion and the consequences of their conflict with Christian Europe, particularly

since the siege of Vienna in 1683, had considerably changed the ethnic and demographic

picture of that part of Serbia. The Orthodox Serbs were the absolute majority population

until the end of the 17th c., and before the First Great Migration of the Serbs in 1690, due to

the defeat of the Christian Europe (the Habsburg army) in the conflict with the Turks andthe participation of the Serbs in that

conflict on the side of the Christian

Europe. After 1690 the Turks have

been settled in Kosovo & Metohijas

towns and cities, but the turning

point in history of Kosovo &

Metohija was the fact that the

Albanians have been coming from

the mountains of Northern Albania

to both (firstly) Metohija and (later)Kosovo. The colonisation of Kosovo

& Metohija by Albanias Albanians

has been continued after 1941 up

today. Surely, until the 18th c. there

are no Albanians in Kosovo &

Metohija in bigger agglomerations. In addition to the newly settled Albanians who were

mostly Muslims, i.e. originally the Christians converted to Islam already in Albania or soon

after settling in Kosovo & Metohija, it was also and the process of Islamization of the Serbs

that brought about great changes in the cultural environment of the province. Many ofIslamized Serbs (the Arbanasi) gradually fused with predominantly Albanian Muslims

and adopted their culture and language. Thus, a great number of today Kosovo Albanians

are in fact of Serbian ethnic origin. The process of Islamization and a change of ethnic

structure of Kosovo & Metohija further continued at the beginning of the second half of the

19th c. when the Turks settled the Cherkeses in this province which at that time enjoyed a

status of a separate Ottoman administrative unit (Kosovo vilayet) but with a bigger

territory in comparison to Kosovo & Metohija are today (including and Northern Macedonia

and parts of present-day South West Serbia). Consequently, due to of all these artificial

demographic changes, but also and due to high birth-rate of Kosovo Albanians, the

Orthodox Serbs decreased for almost 50% of the total population living in Kosovo &

Metohija c. 1900.


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In the second half of the 19th c. and at the beginning of the 20th c. the Serbian middle class

in Prizren, Pe, Pritina and other cities was the main driving force of the urban and

economic development of the province. The newspaper Prizren was published in both in

Serbian and Turkish language. In 1871 the Orthodox Theological School was founded in

Prizren by Sima Igumanov. During the eighties and the nineties of the 19th c. a great number

of new schools, cultural institutions and banks were founded and many of them have been

sponsored by the independent Kingdom of Serbia whose consulate was established in

Pritina.

It was during the WWII, that the most drastic changes in the demographic picture of

Kosovo & Metohija took place. In this region, which became part of Mussolinis and Hitlers

protected Greater Albania from 1941 to 1944 (composed by Albania, Kosovo & Metohija,

Western Macedonia and Eastern Montenegro), the Albanian nationalists got free hands to

terrorize and exterminate the Serbs. Under such pressure no lesser than 100.000 Serbs left

this region. In their empty houses about thesame number of Albanians from Albania are

settled (the Kosovars). Such policy definitely

changed the balance in the Albanian favour.

Thus, the first official census in post-WWII

Yugoslavia (in 1948) showed 199,961 Serbs

(including and Montenegrins) in Kosovo &

Metohija and 498,242 Albanians. Moreover,

the federal National Assembly in Belgrade

issued a special law in 1946 according to which

all expelled Serbs/Montenegrins from theregion during the years of 1941-1944 are

prohibited to return back to their homes under

the official pretext that such move would

provoke tensions between Serbs/Montenegrins

and Albanians in Kosovo & Metohija.

After 1945, as a result of unbelievable demographic explosion (up today the biggest in

Europe) Albanian population in Kosovo doubled till 1971. The official Yugoslav census for

that year shows 916,168 Albanians living in Kosovo & Metohija, while Serb and

Montenegrin (the Montenegrins as a separate nation from the Serbs are declared in 1945)

population reached only to number 259,819. This demographic trend clearly demonstrates

that the theory of Serb repression over Albanians after the WWII is absolutely not correct.

The truth is that the Serbophobic Yugoslav Communist authorities (lead by Austro-

Hungarian Croat Josip Broz Tito who was fighting in 1914 in Austro-Hungarian uniform at

the territory of Serbia) gave favour to the Albanians at the expense of Serbs/Montenegrins

allowing uncontrolled settlement of Albanian immigrants from North Albania and

tolerating different methods of ethnic discrimination over the Serbs/Montenegrins which

made more and more Serbs and Montenegrins leave the province to seek more secured life

in Central Serbia or Montenegro. The new wave of Serbian and Montenegrin exodus fromKosovo & Metohija started after mass Albanian demonstrations in 1968 in the region with a


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requirement to transform Kosovo & Metohija into the new (7th) Yugoslav republic in order

to easily secede the region from Serbia with a final aim to include it into a Greater Albania.

By the 1990s more than 800 settlements in which Serbs lived with Albanians became

ethnically pure Albanian villages. From 1974 (when a new Yugoslav (con)federal

constitution was adopted) Kosovo & Metohija's Albanians got extremely huge political-

national autonomy only formally within Republic of Serbia. However, it became practically

an independent seventh republic within Yugoslav (con)federation having its own president,

government, parliament, Academy of Science, flag, police, territorial defence and school

systems and even a constitution which was in many articles in direct opposition to the

constitution of the Republic of Serbia.

In an attempt to prevent the secession of Kosovo & Metohija after pro-Greater Albanian

demonstrations in this province in the spring 1981 (when Albanians openly required

unification with Albania), Serbian government in the 1990 abolished only Albanian political

autonomy (i.e independence) at Kosovo & Metohija. When the rebels of Albanian classicalterrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (established in 1995 and sponsored by the USA) began

attacks on both Serbian police forces and Serbian civilians in February 1998 the Serbian

government brought the army and stronger

police troops to put the rebellion down. In

the course of the Kosovo War in 1998 and

1999 which ended by the NATO intervention

against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

(Serbia and Montenegro) more than

500.000 Kosovo & Metohija's Albanians, in

order to escape from the NATO bombingand to perform a political refugee show-

programme for the West) fled the province

to Macedonia and Albania. After the war,

despite the international presence, Kosovo

Liberation Army organized persecutions of Serbian, Montenegrin and all other non-

Albanian population with a result that more than 200.000 Serbs and Montenegrins left

Kosovo and Metohija. Only 90.000 Serbs remained living in total isolation, dispersed in

several KFOR protected Serb enclaves. After the self-proclamation of Kosovo state

independence on February 17th

2008 Balkan ethnic Albanians are living in two nationalstates with a great possibility to create in the recent future a united Greater Albania

following the borders from 1941-1944.

By means of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (June 1999),

the mandate of the warrant for the effective protection of universal values of the

inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the

human family (which is foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the World) on

the territory of the southern Serbias Autonomous Region of Kosovo & Metohija (in

English known only as Kosovo) after the war against Kosovo Albanian secessionist

terrorists (the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, established, financed and


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supported by the USA administration) from February 1998 to June 1999 was

given to the United Nations.

Responsibility for protection of human lives, freedom and security in Kosovo &

Metohija was thus transferred to the international public authorities (in fact only

to the NATO): the administration of UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo),

and the international military forces - (KFOR, Kosovo Forces). Unfortunately, very

soon this responsibility was totally challenged as more than 220.000 ethnic Serbs

and members of other non-Albanian communities were expelled from the region by

local ethnic Albanians. Mostly suffered the Serbs: it left today only 10% of them in

Kosovo & Metohija in comparison to the pre-war situation. Only up to March 2004

c. 120 Christian religious

objects and cultural

monuments were

devastated or destroyed.

The most terrible in the

series of Kosovo Albanian

eruptions of violence

against the Serbs living in

this region was organized

and carried out between

March 17th-19th, 2004,

having all the features ofNazi organized Pogroms.

During the tragic events of

the March Pogrom, in a

destructive assault of tens

of thousands by Kosovo

Albanians led by armed

groups of redressed

Kosovo Liberation Army

(Kosovo Protection

Corpus), a systematic

ethnic cleansing of the

remaining Serbs was

carried out, together with destruction of houses, other property, cultural

monuments and Serbian Orthodox Christian religious sites. However, the

international civil and military forces in the region have been only stunned and

surprised.

The March Pogrom, which resulted in the loss of several dozens of lives, several

hundreds of wounded (including the members of KFOR as well), more than 4.000exiled ethnic Serbs, more than 800 Serbian houses set on fire and 35 destroyed or


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severely damaged Serbian Orthodox Christian churches and cultural monuments,

revealed the real situation in this European region 60 years after the Holocaust

during the Second World War. Unfortunately, the attempts of the Serbs to call

attention to the situation proved to

have been justified in the mostshocking way.

It is thus necessary to reiterate that

ethnic cleansing of the Serbs (and

other non-Albanian population) in the

region by the local Albanians after the

mid-June 1999 means putting into

practice the annihilation of a Serbian

territory of exquisite historic,

spiritual, political and cultural top-level significance in terms of the

Serbian nation, state and the Church,

and its every-day visible

transformation into another Albanian

state in the Balkans with a real wish

and possibility to unify it with a

neighboring motherland Albania. The

main geo-political goal of the First

Albanian Prizren League from June1878 is being brought to its

attainment, including its implications

for the Preshevo valley in South-East

Serbia, Western Macedonia up to

Vardar River, Greek portion of Epirus

province and Eastern Montenegro.

The Albanian national movement, established in accordance with the program of

the First Prizren League in 1878, is keeping on with its terrorist activities up

today. It was before after June 1999 particularly active in the period of Italian and

German Greater Albania from April 1941 to May 1945, when it undertook the

organization of the Albanian Quisling network of agents. During this period of time

c. 100.000 Serbs from Kosovo & Metohija have been expelled from their homes to

addition to extra 200.000 expelled during Croat-run Titoslavia from 1945 to 1980.

The process of articulation of the Albanian secessionist movement in the geo-

political sense continued throughout the post-Second World War period marked

by the rule of Yugoslav-Albanian anti-Serb communist partocracy. The process

became particularly intense and successful in the period between 1968 and 1989.

The entrance of the NATO troops in the region in June 1999 marks the beginning


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of the last stage of the Albanian-planned and carried out Final Solution of the

Serbian question on the territory of Kosovo & Metohija a Cradle of Serbian

nation.

In the light of the main Albanian goal to establish ethnically pure Greater

Albania it is understandable why it is so important to destroy any Serbian

trace in the territory defined by the aspirations. Albanian terrorism has been

developing for more than two centuries. It has the profile of ethnically, i.e. Nazi-

racist style motivated terrorism (like Croat one), marked by excessive animosity

against the Serbs. Its principal features are the following:

1. Repressive measures directed against the Serbian population2. Carrying practical actions to force the Serbs to leave their homes3. Devastation of the Serbian

Orthodox Christianreligious objects and other

cultural monuments

belonging to the Serbian

people and testifying to its

ten centuries long

presence in Kosovo &

Metohija

4. Destruction of thecomplete infrastructureused by the members of

the Serbian community

5. Destruction of Serbiancemeteries

Long standing Muslim

Albanian Nazi-style terror

against the Serbian community

in Kosovo & Metohija is a specific phenomenon with grave consequences not only

for the local Serbs. It became, however, clear that sooner or later it will bringabout severe problems for the whole Europe.

The origins of the endowments of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the heritage

of the Serbian state and nation in Kosovo & Metohija, as well in other Serbian

ethnographic territories, can be traced in historical sources and other relevant

documents since the Early Middle Ages. Unfortunately, throughout the course of

their long history, Serbian religious (and at the same time national) objects have

often been exposed to physical attacks of numerous foreign invaders including and

Albanians who came to the Balkans from the Caucasus Albania via Sicily and

South Italy only in the year of 1043. In the centuries of the Islamic Ottoman rule


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(14551912) over Kosovo & Metohija, both Serbian nation and its cultural

heritage, tangible and intangible, suffered very much by both Turks and especially

(Muslim) Albanians who came to this region from present-day Albania after the

Great Vienna War that is finished in 1699. However, not those sufferings can be

compared to the hardship borne by them since mid-June 1999, when the region ofKosovo & Metohija became turned into the first NATOs established concentration

camp and U.S. 19th c.-style colony in Europe run by both the local Albanians and

their numerous fellows emigrated to Kosovo & Metohija from Albania.

It is in Kosovo & Metohija that the richest group of monuments of religious

endowments bequeathed by the Christian East to the European Christian

civilization can be found. According to the official inventory of protected cultural

properties of the Republic of Serbia, as of 1986 and 1994, more than 300 cultural

properties, belonging to the 1st and the 3rd categories, have been granted

protected status in Kosovo & Metohija. Thereis also a considerable number of properties

having status of recognized heritage, i.e.

preventively protected properties.

A considerable number of cultural properties

in the highest categories mediaeval

monumental heritage in particular

distinctly shows that the Serbian mediaeval

state (early 9th

c.1459), marked by theNemanjisdynasty (11671371), which gave

ten rulers in the course of two centuries,

once (before the Ottoman rule) belonged to

the developed countries of Europe. This is

the heritage that continued the tradition of

the Byzantine architecture: numerous

religious objects and cities (for instance Novo Brdo/Novaberda) were built on

Byzantine foundations, while in some of them elements of Western European

mediaeval architectural styles before all Romanesque were incorporated in a

unique, original manner. The fact that Serbian king Stephen (Stefan) Uro III

Deanski (13211331) dedicated to Christ Pantokrator his great burial church in

the monastery of Deani (in Metohija near Pe), entrusting its construction to the

Franciscan Vito, a member of the order of Friars Minor from Kotor, is an obvious

and respectable example of an unbiast approach. The architecture of Kosovo &

Metohija acquired some specific features owing to the fact that some other Serbian

royal mausolea were built in this region like burial churches of king Uro III

Milutin (12821321) in Banjska and emperor Stefan Duan Mighty (13311355)

in the monastery of Holy Archangels (in Metohija near Prizren) and that the

Patriarchate of Pe, an important religious centre, with church of Holy Apostles,


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was the burial place of the highest prelates of the Serbian Orthodox Church since

the 13th c. (more than 200 years before Columbus discovered America).

It has to be clearly noted that there is no a single Albanian built mediaeval shrine

or profane object on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija for the very historical

reason the Albanians did not live in this region before 1699. Even the term

Kosova used in Albanian language is in fact of Slavic-Serbian original Kosovo

what means nothing in Albanian language but it means a kind of eagle in Serbian

(Kos).

Both Kosovo and Metohija have been the homeland of numerous Serbian

aristocratic families like the Musis, Lazarevis or Brankovis. Their estates are

situated in this region. The greatest portions of Kosovo & Metohijas land, rich in

ores, belonged to Serbian rulers and to Serbian Orthodox Church. The rulers have

been periodically granted to the monasteries vast estates, including villages andshepherds settlements (the so-called katuni), so that the major part of the

present territory of

Kosovo & Metohija was

occupied with church

estates metochies. It

was for that reason that

the western part of this

region got the name of

Greek originMetohija.

In the centuries of the

Ottoman lordship,

Serbian people gathered

around their churches

and monasteries. After

the sudden change of

fortune in the war operations of the Habsburg general Piccolomini, whose military

campaign against the Ottoman Empire (Great Vienna War, 16831699) was

readily supported by the Serbian population of Kosovo & Metohija, c. 100.000 oflocal Serbs were forced to migrate to northern areas, across the rivers of Sava and

Danube in the year of 1690 (The First Great Serbian Migration) in order to escape

retaliation. In the opening decades of the 18th c., the great Ottoman Empire,

together with a policy of mass settlement in the region of loyal Muslim ethnic

Albanians from the neighboring mountainous and poor Albania, began to show

clear signs of political and military weakening. After the First Serbian Uprising

against the Turks (18041813), the Ottoman authorities were compelled to accept

requests of European great powers, and Russia in particular, regarding protection

of the Christian population in the Balkans. When two Serbian states, Serbia andMontenegro, finally managed to liberate Kosovo & Metohija and the whole region of


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Old Serbia (Kosovo, Metohija, Raka and Vardar Macedonia) in 1912/1913, not a

single of the most important monuments of Islamic architecture was destroyed or

desecrated Bayraki mosque in Pe (Metohija), Sinan-pashas mosque in Prizren

(Metohija), built in the 17th c. of stones and fragments of sculptural decoration

brought from the ruins of the monastery of Holy Archangels near Prizren (anendowment of Serbian emperor Duan), the Imperial (Fetih) mosque in Pritina

(Kosovo) or Hadum-mosque in akovica (Metohija).

However, the major part of Serbian Christian religious objects, which despite all

managed to survive centuries of hardship and Muslim Albanian attacks, could not

withstand the latest devastations lasting since mid-June 1999 when NATO troops

occupied the region. Destruction and devastation of Serbian Christian cultural

heritage in Kosovo & Metohija, which in NATOs countries acquires special

treatment, is unprecedented in the whole history of Europe.

The most genocidal action committed by local Albanians under the auspicious by

the NATOs troops in Kosovo & Metohija from the mid-June 1999 was the March

Pogrom from March 17th to March 19th of 2004. These three days and nights of

Albanian vandalism and

ethnic cleansing of non-

Albanians from the region,

primarily the autochthonous

Serbs, in the Nazi

Kristallnacht-style resultedin devastation of 19 cultural

monuments, 6 of which fall

into 1st category churches

from the 14th, 15th and 16th

centuries, and 16 religious

objects without heritage value,

which makes a total of 35 recorded cultural properties and churches of Serb

nation.

Only during the period between 1999 and 2004 (the first 5 years of NATOsoccupation of Kosovo & Metohija), in this region 15 cultural monuments from the

1st category and 23 from the 3rd category have been destroyed, which makes a

total of 38 recorded cultural properties out of much more destroyed Serbian

cultural properties of minor importance. The group of cultural properties at risk ,

i.e. preserved monuments, includes 88 properties: 31 from the 1st and 57 from the

3rd category.

After the March pogrom in 2004, as the most remarkable vandalistic assault of

the Muslim Kosovo Albanian terrorists, the number of devastated most important

cultural properties has reached 21 for the 1st and 36 for the 3rd category, which


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makes a total of 47 monuments and objects (end of March 2004). If we take into

account all the other destroyed cultural properties, as well as ordinary religious

objects, the total surpasses 140 cultural monuments, churches and other

religious objects up to mid-2004.

It is clear that Europe is facing the organized and deliberate destruction of

monuments and religious objects alongside with devastation of private property of

Serbian nation in the cradle of Serbian civilization and history by militant-fanatic

Albanians who took example of Catholic Croat-run genocide against the Serbs

committed three times in the 20th century (1914-1918; 1941-1945 and 1991-1995)

in Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, Srem, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aim in both

cases was and is to erase any trace of Serbian Orthodox civilization and the

Serbian cultural heritage westward from the Drina River and in Kosovo &

Metohija. The genocide is

accompanied with promotionof totally false historical data,

undue claims to cultural and

historic heritage belonging to

other people and the

changing and renaming of

geographical names and

toponyms. We have not to

forgot that many Kosovo-

Metohija Albanians tookparticipation in ethnic

cleansing of the Serbs from

the Krayina region (Republic

of Serbian Krayina) in Titoist-Tumans Greater Croatia in 1991-1995 as

volunteers or mercenaries in Croatian army or ultra-right party-military

detachments. Some of these Albanians even received the rank of the generals in

the Croatian Army like terrorist and war-criminal Agim Cheku who later became

one of the leading commanders of the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army and later

the chief-commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps (transformed KLA). Theother KLA top war criminals after the mid-June 1999 took an active part in

political life in the region and one of them, Ramush Haradinaj (a leader of the

Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and deputy-chief-commander of the Kosovo

Protection Corps), even became Prime Minister of Kosova in 2004.

Unfortunately, but not and surprisingly, such a situation in Kosovo & Metohija,

likewise in Croatia, met no adequate response from the international professional

circles coming from the democratic West with the exclusion of Serbian

professionals and institutions from the heritage protection system.


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During the time from the mid-June 1999 up today as the major problems in the

context of protection and preservation of the Serbian Christian Orthodox cultural

heritage in Kosovo & Metohija are:

Access to cultural properties and work on their protection is impossible for

the exiled Serbian experts,

For the most monuments and objects no protection has been provided,

Recommended regimes of protection are not being improved nor

implemented,

Measures of protection are not being put into effect, or, to be more precise,

they are being implemented in a discriminative manner,

Not a single process of rehabilitation of devastated or destroyed Serbian

Christian Orthodox monuments has been initiated,

Supervision by responsible higher rank institutions of the Republic of Serbia

has been precluded,

Vandalization of

cultural properties is

still occurring, but the

offenders have not been

condemned never mind

apprehended,

Disrespect for the

international legal acts,

and

Application of a policy

of double standards

by UNMIK and NATO.

Historically, Serbian Christian Orthodox artistic, cultural and religious heritage of

Kosovo & Metohija (both movable and immovable properties) has been exposed to

the most severe damages and devastation by local Muslim Albanians during the

last 250 years, but particularly after the arrival of the civic UN Mission in Kosovo

(UNMIK) and NATO military occupation of the region under the label of theKosovo Protection Forces (KFOR) in the mid-June 1999. The territory of Kosovo

& Metohija is Serbian centre of cultural, religious and artistic heritage of the

highest value in European context that is, first of all, a testimony of historical

presence of the Serbs, Serbian culture and Serbian civilization. This heritage

belongs to the mankind and is thus worth of protection in accordance with the

principle of the European common heritage. Salvaging and preserving the

Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija is a great challenge and duty to

be undertaken by modern and democratic Europe if it is.


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Yours Sincerely,

Vladislav B. Sotirovic

[email protected]

http://ovsiste.webs.com

May 25th, 2012, Vilnius

Crucified Kosovo

Documents

Transcript of Crucified Kosovo