Kosovo/Kosovars: Development of a Nation
How Kosovo became Kosovo, and how the Kosovars became Kosovar.

How Kosovars as a people, and the country of Kosovo as a nation-state, evolved and materialized into current form, in terms of ancestral bloodlines, language, borders, culture, and even how they received their name.

Ancestral Background
Development of Language
Formation of Borders
Etymology (How Name Received)
Culture
Kosovo in 2008:

Kosovar Ancestral Background:
 

1. 3000 BC – People along the Baltic coast centered around modern Lithuania begin speaking the Proto-Balto-Slavic language, a branch off from Proto-Indo-European. This serves as the genesis of the Slavic and Baltic languages/peoples.
2. 1000 BC – A group splinters from the Proto-Balto-Slavic people, migrating southeast into modern Ukraine. This branch off group were the predecessors to Slavs, who would ultimately extend outward in all directions.
3. In the 6^th century, as Germanics migrated westward, a group of Slavs expanded southward to fill the void, inhabiting the northern border of the Byzantine Empire (continuation of the Roman Empire in the Greek world).
4. 558 – Avars, a central Asian Turkic people, driven west into Europe (through modern Ukraine) by Persians and more powerful Turkic empires, came into contact with the Byzantines. They were paid off by the Byzantines to settle the area north of the Danube River, and to subdue barbarian Germanics remaining in the territory. The Avars succeeded in driving the Germans out of area, including the Lombards, who were driven into Italy, where they become the ruling class. At this time, large groups of Slavic peoples were settled north of the Danube as well. The Avar raids forced them south into the Balkan peninsula, where they settled lands abandoned by Germanic peoples, including modern Romania and Hungary. Slavic peoples would inhabit the entire Balkan region north of the Greek-inhabited lands at the very southern portion of the peninsula by 700. The Illyrians would be driven into a remote mountainous region in modern Albania, becoming forefathers to modern Albanians, which would also include a Slavic component from intermixing.
5. South Slavs settle in an area roughly equal to former Yugoslavia. Albanians (mixture of South Slavs and Illyrians centered around mountainous region of modern Albania) begin to settle in modern Kosovo, representing a minority amongst the majority Serbs in the region.
6. Serbs lose the Battle of Kosovo to Muslim, Turkic Ottoman Empire in 1389, breaking down the gate for the Ottomans to conquer virtually all of Serbia by 1459.
7. During the Ottoman reign, Albanians would gradually displace Serbian populations in the region of modern Kosovo, especially by the 18^th and 19^th centuries, as Albanians were largely converted to Islam, while the Serbs were not. With Kosovo lying at the edge of the Ottoman territory during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, Serbs took the opportunity to flee to Austrian controlled lands, while the Albanians, who were virtually all Muslim, moved in to settle the abandoned lands, preferring the suzerainty of the Muslim Ottoman Empire over Christian Austrian rule. In essence, Kosovar people Albanians that found themselves residing within Serbian borders due to unique circumstances. Kosovars would fall under Serbian rule after the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, remaining under Serbian rule until declaring independence in 2008.

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Development of Kosovar Language (Albania):
 

1. South Slavs intermixed with Illyrians in the mountainous region of modern Albania, forming a new Albanian ethnogroup, beginning in the 6^th century, during the time of the Slavic migrations southward into the Balkan peninsula. The Illyrian language became dominant among this group.
2. The Albanians would soon become part of the Roman Catholic sphere of influence, largely converting to Catholicism, causing their language to be influenced by Latin.
3. Throughout the remainder of the Middle Ages, the language would be influenced by Bulgarian, due to a lengthy stint under Bulgarian rule in region during the formative years of the language (850 to 1018).
4. By the 13^th century, the language and the people in this region would be referred to as Albanian.
5. Beginning in the 14^th century, Albania would be under Ottoman rule until early in the 20^th century, gaining many Turkic loan words.
6. Albanians would fill the void left by Serbs migrating out of modern SE Serbia to escape Ottoman rule, transforming Kosovo into an Albanian territory, making Albanian the dominant language in Kosovo as well (as Albanians are the dominant nationality in this region), as it remains to this day.

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Formation of Kosovo Borders:
 

1. The territory comprising modern Kosovo was part of the Roman Empire before the Slavs arrived in the 6th century. It returned to "Roman" rule (under the Byzantine Empire - the Greek continuation of the Roman Empire), shortly after Slavic migrations into the Balkan peninsula beginning in 6^th century.
2. By the 7^th century, Serbs (who were the dominant nationality in modern Kosovo) would begin to come under Bulgarian control, and then under Byzantine control in 10^th century. Byzantines were the continuation of the Roman Empire among the Greeks and those under their rule. By the 7^th century, the Serbs had already developed into a distinct nationality, as they were just far enough beyond the main body of surrounding kingdoms to materialize as a cohesive yet differentiated group. Despite the fact that the area was primarily Serb-inhabited at this point, due to proximity to Albanian region, it would host some Albanians, but with an overwhelming Serb majority.
3. In the late 12^th century, the Serbs were still officially under control of Byzantine, but essentially operating independently. They went on to conquer Albania, Kosovo, northern Macedonia, and eastern modern Serbia. Their independence was formally recognized in 1217.
4. Serbs lose Battle of Kosovo to Ottomans in 1389, leading to battle for control of area until Ottomans gain decisive control in 1455.
5. By 1459, virtually all of Serbia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire.
6. During the Ottoman reign, Albanians would gradually displace Serbian populations in the region of modern Kosovo, as they expanded from their home territory in Albania to the west, especially by the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Albanians displaced Serbs as the dominant nationality in the region due to the fact that that Albanians had largely converted to Islam, while Serbs remained Christian. Lying at the edge of the Ottoman territory during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, Serbs took the opportunity to flee to Austrian controlled lands, while the Albanians, who were virtually all Muslim, preferring Muslim Ottoman rule over Austrian Christian rule, moved in to settle the abandoned lands.
7. Upon independence in 1878, Albanians in the southwest corner of Serbia (modern Kosovo) entered into a league with Albania, as Albanians in region wanted to avoid absorption into Balkan Christian nations.
8. Kosovo was captured by Serbia during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, where Balkan Christian nations fought the Muslim Ottoman Empire for control of the Balkan peninsula.
9. After WWI, Kosovo remained coupled to Serbia, becoming part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (1918). The name was changed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.
10. 1992 – Albanians in Kosovo riot in protest of persecutions carried out by Serbs, as part of a Serbian attempt to quash Albanian identity.
11. 1996-99 – Kosovo War: Pitted the Kosovo Liberation Army (Albanians) vs. the Yugoslavia Army (primarily Serbs). Kosovo fails to win its independence.
12. 1999 – A peace agreement is forged where the UN took charge of governance in Kosovo, with Kosovo still remaining officially part of Serbia.
13. 2008 – amidst negotiations to settle the Kosovo question to the satisfaction of both Kosovo and Serbia, the Kosovo parliament declared independence. Their independence was recognized by most western nations, led by the U.S., while Serbia and Russia vehemently opposed the secession. Serbia was in no position to militarily restore rule to the break-away province, due to the suffocating limitations placed upon it in light of its indiscretions during the Yugoslavia Wars, while Russia was also impotent to forcibly reverse the Kosovar move.

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Etymology (How Name Received):

Kosovo was derived from the Slavic word for “blackbird”.

Kosovar Culture:

Largely indistinguishable from the larger Albanian culture, as Kosovars are merely Albanians that settled in the southwest corner of Serbia during the reign of the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Albanians largely converted to Islam during the Ottoman reign, transforming their culture from that of Christianized-Slavic to one dominated by Islamic principles. However, Albanians and Kosovars exhibit a low tendency for religious extremism.

Kosovo in 2008:

Economy: Kosovo’s citizens are the poorest in Europe. Perhaps the most under-developed economy in Europe. Unemployment is currently at about 40-50%. Business harmed by unresolved international status and unreliable power. Kosovo had been Yugoslavia’s poorest province, and was unprepared to enter competitive world market.
Government: Democratic Republic
Religion: Albanian population about 97% Muslim (Sunni), about 3% Roman Catholic. Serbian population primarily Serbian Orthodox. Therefore, Kosovo's population is largely Muslim.
Demographics: Albanian 88%, Serb 7% (long part of Serbia).
Foreign Policy: Primarily focused on gaining widespread international recognition as a sovereign nation. At least 43 nations already recognize independence. Full, or near complete recognition will open up foreign investment.
Population: 2,126,708 (2008)

 

Formation of Nations (All European Nations)

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