Rethinking serbian-albanian relations : Figuring the enemy 9781138574830, 9781351273169

Citation preview

RETHINKING SERBIAN-ALBANIAN RELATIONS FIGURINGOUTTHEENEMY Edited by Aleksandar Pavlovic, Gazela Pudar Drasko and Rigels Halili

Rethinking Serbian-Albanian Relations: Figuring out the Enemy

Identifying and explaining common views, ideas and traditions, this volume challenges the concept of Serbian-Albanian hostility by reinvestigating recent and historical events in the region. The contributors put forward critically oriented initiatives and alternatives to shed light on a range of relations and perspectives. The central aim of the book is to “figure out” the problematic relations between Serbs and Albanians - that is, to comprehend its origins and the actors involved and to find ways to resolve and deal with this enmity. Treating the hostility as a construct of a long-running discourse about the Serbian or Albanian “Other”, scholars and intellectuals from Serbia, Kosovo and Albania examine the origins, channels, agents and mediums of this discourse from the 18th century to the present. Tracing the roots of the two ethnic groups’ political divisions, contemporary practices and actions allows the contributors to reconsider mutually held negative perceptions and identify elements of a common, shared history. Examples of past and current cooperation are used to offer a critical analysis of all three societies. This interdisciplinary publication brings together historiographical, literary, sociological, political, anthropological and philosophical analyses and enquiries and will be of interest to researchers in the fields of sociology, politics, cultural studies, history or anthropology; and to academics working in Slavonic and East European studies. Aleksandar Pavlovic is a Researcher at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory of the University of Belgrade. Gazela Pudar Drasko works as a Research Associate at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. Rigels Halili is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw.

Southeast European Studies

Series Editor: Florian Bieber

The Balkans are a region of Europe widely associated over the past decades with violence and war. Beyond this violence, the region has experienced rapid change in recent times though, including democratization, economic and social transfor­ mation. New scholarship is emerging which seeks to move away from the focus on violence alone to an understanding of the region in a broader context drawing on new empirical research. The Southeast European Studies Series seeks to provide a forum for this new scholarship. Publishing cutting-edge, original research and contributing to a more profound understanding of Southeastern Europe while focusing on contemporary perspectives the series aims to explain the past and seeks to examine how it shapes the present. Focusing on original empirical research and innovative theoretical perspectives on the region the series includes original monographs and edited col­ lections. It is interdisciplinary in scope, publishing high-level research in political science, history, anthropology, sociology, law and economics and accessible to readers interested in Southeast Europe and beyond. Social Movements in the Balkans Rebellion and Protest from Maribor to Taksim Edited by Florian Bieber and Dario Brentina Romania and the Quest for European Identity Philo-Germanism without Germans Cristian Cercel The Western Balkans in the World Linkages and Relations with External Actors Edited by Florian Bieber and Nikolaos Tzifakis Rethinking Serbian-Albanian Relations Figuring Out the Enemy Edited by Aleksandar Pavlovic, Gazela Pudar Drasko and Rigels Halili For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/South east-European-Studies/book-series/ASHSER1390

Rethinking Serbian-Albanian Relations Figuring Out the Enemy

Edited by Aleksandar Pavlovic, Gazela Pudar Drasko and Rigels Halili

IJ Routledge § % Taylor & Francis Group

A - -1 'I 4 0 I 0^ ^' r ^o Oo0 Universitatsbibliothek Bern

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Scliweizerische Osteuropabibliothek

Sot 4 , 2

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Aleksandar Pavlovic, Gazela Pudar DraSko and Rigels Halili; individual chapters, the contributors The right o f Aleksandar Pavlovic, Gazela Pudar DraSko and Rigels Halili to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-57483-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-27316-9 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex Co Vantage, LLC

MIX V ™

Paper from responeible sources

i-iS

FSC* C 013056

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

Contents

List o f illustrations List o f contributors Foreword

viii ix xii

SECTION I

Whose land is it? The establishment of Serbian-Albanian hostility 1 Forging the enemy: the transformation of common Serbian-Albanian traits into enmity and political hostility

1

3

ALEKSANDAR PAVLOVlC

2 Producing Old Serbia: in the footsteps of travel writers, on the path of folklore

22

SRBAN ATANASOVSKI

3 “Reconquista of Old Serbia”: on the continuity of territorial and demographic policy in Kosovo

39

VLADAN JOVANOVIC

SECTION II

The Yugoslav experiment: Serbian-Albanian relations in comparative perspective 4

The burden of systemic legitimization in socialist Yugoslavia: discursive reduction of Kosovo protests MARJAN IVKOVIC, TAMARA PETROVIC TRIFUNOVlC AND SRBANPRODANOVIC

59

61

vi

Contents

5 Seeing each other: nesting Orientalisms and internal Balkanism among the Albanians and South Slavs in the former Yugoslavia ATDHE HETEMI

6 Conflicted narratives: the 1998-1999 Kosovo war in history textbooks in Kosovo and Serbia SHKELZEN GASHI

SECTION III

Intellectuals and war: the mediators of (non-)national justice 7 Figure of the Other as an open project: literary works of Albanian authors from Albania and Kosovo translated in Serbia SASACIRlC

8 We, Sons o f the Nation : intellectuals as generators of Albanian and Serbian national ideas and programs RIGELS HALILI

9 The symbolism of impotence: intellectuals and Serbian-Albanian relations in the post-Yugoslav period GAZELA PUDAR DRASiCO

SECTION IV

Can there be cooperation after all: cultural and political cross-border practices 10 Serbian-Albanian mixed marriages: when patriarchy breaks nationalist barriers ARMANDA HYSA

11 Cultural heritage in Kosovo: strengthening exclusion through inclusive legislation JELENA LONCAR

Contents 12 “Face to Face”: Serbian-Albanian cultural cooperation in the media

vii 197

ANA BIRESEV

13 The community of the dispossessed: Women’s Peace Coalition

215

ADRIANA ZAHARIJEVIC

Index

230

Illustrations

Figures 4.1

5.1 5.2 11.1

Formal model consisting of an axis o f political power and an axis o f discursive articulation ofprotest demands (axis o f ideology) Trend of respondents’ opinion regarding interethnic relations continue to be tense withoutimprovement Interethnic social acceptance trends Steps in analyzing the legislative process

73 90 91 182

Tables 2.1 9.1

Chronology of the most significant travelogues from Old Serbia and Macedonia Review of analyzed texts

25 146

Contributors

Editors Aleksandar Pavlovic is a Researcher at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory of the University of Belgrade. He obtained his PhD in Southeast Euro­ pean Studies from the University of Nottingham and received his BA and MA in comparative literature and literary theory from the University of Belgrade. He published Epika i politika and co-edited Politics o f Enmity: Can Nation Ever Be Emancipatory (2018) and a volume on Serbian-Albanian relations in Serbian and Albanian. Gazela Pudar Drasko is a Researcher at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. Her fields of interest are political sociology, particularly social and intellectual engagement, youth engagement and ideolo­ gies, especially nationalism. She recently authored a book, O cemu govorimo kada govorimo o intelektualcu: ideje i iluzije (Beograd: Institut za filozofiju i drustvenu teoriju, 2017) and coauthored Mapiranje politickih orijentacija gradana Srbije (Beograd: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2017). Rigels Halili is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw. He has studied philology, cultural anthropology and international relations at the University of Warsaw, where he also earned his PhD. His research interests include orality and literacy, especially in the Bal­ kans, history of modem nationalism, interaction between memory and culture and normative customary practices in the Balkans and Central Europe. His latest research project was focused on social and cultural memory of commu­ nism in Central and Southeast Europe. He published a monograph based on his PhD dissertation in 2012 and has co-edited four books in Polish, Serbian and Albanian.

Contributors Srdan Atanasovski is a Research Associate at the Institute of Musicology SASA in Belgrade, Lecturer at SIT Study Abroad Balkans program in Belgrade and Member and Coordinator of the Center for Yugoslav Studies in Belgrade. In his

x

Contributors research lie focuses on nationalism, culture and music in the Yugoslav space. His first book, Mapiranje Stare Srbije (in Serbian, trans. Mapping Old Serbia: In the Footsteps of Travel Writers, Tracing the Folk Song), was published in 2017 by Biblioteka XX vek.

Ana BireSev is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, teaching courses entitled Social History Europe and the Balkans in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Culture of Late Capi­ talism and Practicum - Sociology. She is the author o f a book on sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, several edited volumes and numerous articles in scientific journals. SaSa Ciric is a Founder and Editor of the literary supplement Beton and Editor on Radio 2 of the Serbian Broadcasting Cooperation (RTS). He has published three books of literary and political essays and two books of plays and radio plays. He has also contributed articles and reviews for the liberal press in the region and edited the pioneering anthologies From Pristina With Love and From Belgrade With Love in Serbian and Albanian. Shk£lzcn Gashi, born in Prishtina (Kosovo), works as an independent researcher. He studied political science at the University of Prishtina and for his MA at the Universities of Bologna and Sarajevo. He is the author of many publications (books and articles). He has studied the presentation of the history of Kosovo in histoiy textbooks both in Kosovo and countries around Kosovo. Currently, he is writing a biography on Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the Kosovo Alba­ nians from 1989-2006. Atdhc Hetcmi is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre on Social Movement Studies at the Scuola Nonnale Superiore in Florence. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Ghent, Belgium. Mr. Hetemi has decade-long combined experience in academic institutions and international organizations. He has authored papers and delivered lectures on the topics of political and institutional stability from the public perspective, good governance and devel­ opment and the contemporary history and politics of the Western Balkans. Armanda Hysa is an anthropologist and Director o f the National Center for Traditional Activities, Albanian Ministry o f Culture. She defended her PhD in 2012 at the University of Tirana. From October 2012 to October 2014, she has been a Research and Teaching Fellow, Alexander Nash Fellow in Albanian Studies at UCL. Her research interests include urban Ottoman heritage, spe­ cifically Balkan charshiya (old bazaars), identity and ethnic relations in Mac­ edonia and interethnic relations between Serbs and Albanians, with particular focus on the recent phenomenon of mixed marriages between Serbian men with women of Northern Albania. M arjan IvkoviC completed his undergraduate and MPhil studies in sociol­ ogy at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. In February 2014, he defended his PhD thesis at the Department of Sociology, University of

Contributors

xi

Cambridge, UK. Currently a Research Associate at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade, he has taken part in international academic conferences and projects. Marjan’s primary area of research is contemporary social theory, particularly the social-theoretic aspects of critical theory. Vladan Jovanovic is a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Recent History of Serbia (Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije) in Belgrade. His main research inter­ ests focus on the integration of the formerly Ottoman territories of Macedonia and Kosovo into the Yugoslav state. Jovanovic, who holds a PhD in history from Belgrade University, is the author of Jugoslovenska drzava i Juzna Srbija 1918-1929. Makedonija, Sandzak, Kosovo i Metohija u Kraljevini SHS (Beo­ grad: INIS, 2002) and Vardarska banovina 1929-1941 (Beograd: INIS, 2011). Jelena Loncar is an Assistant Professor at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Political Science. She holds a PhD in politics from the University of York, UK. Her research interests include political representation, ethnic politics, quotas and civil society. In recent years, her research has focused on the performance of minority representation and the performativity of the representative claims about and for minority groups. Tamara Petrovic Trifunovic is a PhD candidate in sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. She works as a Research Assistant at the Institute for Sociological Research in Belgrade. She participated in several international projects dealing with the study of political communication and media discourse. Her main fields of interest include discourse studies, political sociology, critical sociology of culture, sociology of evaluation and symbolic geography. She is a member of the European Sociological Association. Srdan Prodanovic obtained his PhD at the University of Belgrade (Faculty of Philosophy), where he previously finished his BA and MA studies. He cur­ rently works at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. His research is mainly focused on investigating common sense and its theoretical relevance to social theory. His other research interests include pragmatism, interpretative sociology, sociology of everyday life, contempo­ rary social theory and philosophy of social sciences. Adriana Zaharijevic is a Researcher at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade and an Assistant Professor of gender theory at the University of Novi Sad. Her books include Postqjanje zenom (Becoming Woman, 2010) and Koje pojedinac? (Who Is an Individual?, 2014). She is cur­ rently working on a manuscript on Judith Butler’s political thought.

Foreword

The title of this book carries an ambiguity that encapsulates its central questions. In one sense, to “figure out” means to comprehend and grasp the origins, reasons and actors of the current enmity between Serbs and Albanians. Nonetheless, to figure out, with an emphasis on “out”, also suggests a desire to abandon, push outside or deal with this enmity, to the extent that it does not sound pretentious or utopian. Still, in yet another, perhaps crucial, sense, insisting on the figurative nature of Serbian-Albanian enemity means that we essentially see this hostility as a construct - “Bad Serb” or “Bloodthirsty Albanian”, “Chetnicks” or “Shiptars” are not natural, empirical entities but constructs - embodiment and personifica­ tion of a long-term discourse about either the Serbian or Albanian Other. It is the origins, agents, channels and mediums of this discourse from the 18th century to the present that comprises the content of this book.

The “Figuring Out the Enemy” project and Serbian-Albanian (scholarly) cooperation The contributions to this volume were written in the course of the project “Figur­ ing Out the Enemy: Re-imagining Serbian-Albanian Relations”. More than a pro­ ject, it has been an adventure that attracted unusual media attention for something that was essentially a scholarly enterprise and thus deserves here a few words. In addition to its analytical aspect, this project has advanced mutual cooperation and establishment of lasting scholarly and cultural cooperation and joint research on common subjects. The project involved some 30, mostly (at the time) younger, intellectuals and academics, but also journalists, translators and writers. It was especially important that most scholars belong to official institutions: the lead institution on the project was the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory (IFDT) of the University of Belgrade in partnership with the civil society organ­ ization KPZ Beton, and researchers involved on the project were affiliated, in addition to the IFDT, with the Institutes for Balkanology and Musicology, both parts of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Institute for Literature and Art from Belgrade, the Faculty of Political Sciences and Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade, Prishtina’s Faculty of Philology, the Center for Albanian Studies from Tirana, University “Aleksander Moisiu” from Durres, etc.

Foreword xiii Such a team, therefore, undoubtedly shows that younger generations of Serbian and Albanian scholars share common interests for cooperation and joint research. To the best of our knowledge, this was the first large-scale project since the dissolution of Yugoslavia that involved so many Serbs and Albanians from the humanities and social sciences, media and arts and the first systematic effort to establish anew or revive academic connections torn apart during the 1990s. The themes and topics of the research project were the history of Serbian-Albanian relations followed by a critique of the entrenched myths about the “natural” or “eternal” hostility between the Serbs and Albanians; the analysis of Serbian politi­ cal and media discourse on Albanians and Kosovo1 during the 20th century; the analysis of contemporary nationalism and parochialism on the political scene of all three societies; comparative analysis of contemporary literary, artistic and media practices; and so on. In addition to one edited volume published in Ser­ bian in late 2015 and one in Albanian in mid-2016, in the past several years, we have published a number of shorter, non-academic texts in Serbian in Beton, the supplement of the Serbian newspaper Danas and in Albanian in Koha ditore, Kosovo’s main newspaper. Furthermore, we have presented our research results in a number of countries through conferences, lectures and publications and have made a number of media appearances in the region. What was the general context in which our project emerged? As scholars who study the Balkans have pointed out, the Balkan people live close to each other, not with each other, and different ethnic groups continue to nurture prejudices against their neighbors.2 Serbian-Albanian relations, in particular, are still overshadowed by tensions and hostility, and mainstream scholarship is no exception. Centuries of common history remain obscure or blurred. Ger Duijzings, in his book Reli­ gion and Politics o f Identity in Kosovo, claims that “what predominates now in the minds of most Serbs and Albanians, as well as most outside observers, is the image of a deeply rooted and unbridgeable rift between Serbs and Albanians, more ‘ancient’ and clear-cut than the division in Bosnia”.3 Moreover, in Serbia, recent historians have provided an image of inherently conflictual relations, in particular focusing on Islam as the majority religion among Albanians.4 Similarly, most Albanian intellectuals draw a picture of Albanians as Serbian victims and Kosovo as Albanian ethnic territory occupied by Serbs.5 Some official channels of cooperation between Serbia, Albania and Kosovo were established after 2000, yet initiatives remain largely dependent on individuals and CSOs.6 Meanwhile, several valuable publications have appeared, also dealing with aspects o f SerbianAlbanian relations. Most notably among these was the publication, first in Serbian and subsequently in Albanian, of Petrit lmami’s Serbs and Albanians through the Centuries (Srbi i Albanci kroz vekove, SerbSt dhe shqiptaret nder shekuj). Originally appearing in 2000, the book has been expanded into three volumes for the second edition, aiming at comprehensively covering all aspects of SerbianAlbanian relations. Its encyclopedic character makes it the first and unavoidable source of information on the subject. Still, although its importance in the region is beyond doubt, its unavailability in English, as well as its journalistic character and occasional lack of scholarly rigor, leave it less appealing internationally. Kosovo

xiv Foreword and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared Consequences (University of Pitts­ burgh Press, 2016), edited by Mehmeti and Radeljil, is a most welcome recent contribution to the topic: it brings a wealtli of new material authored mostly by Serbian and Albanian scholars themselves, but remains for the most part focused solely on Kosovo (Mehmeti and Radeljic, 2016).

The structure of the volume This research project pushed for change in the current scholarship by initiating an official and long-term scheme of cooperation between scholars in Serbia, Albania and Kosovo. Our emphasis was on Serbian-Albanian relations in general, from the roots of their political divisions in the 19th century, to those contemporary practices and actions that go beyond the narrowly understood Kosovo paradigm as the horizon and limit o f all such relations. In a word, the aim of the project “Figuring Out the Enemy: Re-imagining Serbian-Albanian Relations” has been to revisit and reevaluate mutual negative perceptions between the two nations and identify elements of their common, shared past; furthermore, its goal was to emphasize examples of earlier and current cooperation and offer a critical analysis of Serbian, Kosovar and Albanian society. Therefore, the edited volume Rethinking Serbian-Albanian Relations: Figuring Out the Enemy challenges Serbian-Albanian hostility by reinvestigating events and discourses from the past as well as more recent times. It seeks to identify and elaborate common views, ideas and traditions that undermine the present enmity and promote cooperation. These chapters thus offer an alternative to the dominant discourse of hostility and centennial ethnic hatred between the two nations. In addition, they aim to bridge the existent gap in comparative research on Serbian-Albanian issues that has resulted in a serious lack of joint research projects, cooperation and other cultural activities. As mentioned, this volume contains a selection of articles written during the international “Figuring Out the Enemy: Re-imagining Serbian-Albanian Relations” project (2014-2016). This book has been published in Serbian as Figura neprijatelja: preosmisljavanje srpsko-albanskih odnosa (IFDT/Beton: Beograd, 2015) and in Albanian as Fig­ ura e armikut: riperjytyrimi i marredhenieve shqiptaro-serb (Qendra Multimedia: Prishtina, 2016). O f the original 24 articles previously published in Serbian or Albanian, 13 have been selected and revised for this edition in English. The mis­ sion of this project, involving dozens of scholars and intellectuals from Serbia, Kosovo and Albania, was to put forward critically oriented initiatives and alter­ natives to current hostilities, provide an environment for discussion and mutual understanding and engage others in a similar task. The project created a base for lasting cooperation and a strong network of scholars and intellectuals but also cultural institutions from Serbia, Kosovo and Albania. The first section, entitled “Whose land is it? The establishment of SerbianAlbanian hostility”, contains three chapters dedicated to the very roots o f the conflict. In his contribution, Aleksandar Pavlovic claims that Serbian and Mon­ tenegrin writers and historians from mid-18th to the mid-19th century actually

Foreword xv portrayed the Albanians in positive terms and that traditional culture, embodied in oral songs and folk customs and stories, in particular, show appreciation towards them as great heroes and honorable, brave warriors. It is only in the last quarter of the 19th century, Pavlovid argues, that the Albanian became a figure of hostility, identified as a torturer of the Serbs and thereby equal, if not even worse, than the Turks. Srdan Atanasovski provides a survey of Serbian travelogues about Kosovo published in the press or as books from 1850s to 1910, that is, prior to the Balkan Wars. He shows how Kosovo, terra incognita in Serbia of the time, became con­ structed as an object of interest. Vladan Jovanovic’s chapter about the continuity of policy towards Kosovo from the First through the Second Yugoslavia provides a convenient conclusion to this section. The second section, “The Yugoslav experiment: Serbian-Albanian relations in comparative perspective”, opens with a chapter jointly written by Marjan Ivkovic, Tamara Petrovic Trifunovid and Srdan Prodanovic. The authors turn their atten­ tion to three crucial Kosovo protests in 1961, 1981 and 1988. As they argue, the Yugoslav political elite continually presented the social dimension of these pro­ tests in an identitarian mode, thereby - paradoxically - providing the structural impetus for the articulation of Albanian nationalism. Atdhe Hetemi uses the par­ adigms of Balkanism and Orientalism to describe the ways that the Albanians were perceived by others in the times of the Social Yugoslavia, but also to depict their self-perceptions during this period. In the following chapter, Shkelzen Gashi provides a comparative analysis of the representation of the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflicts in contemporary Serbian and Kosovo textbooks and clearly shows the diametrically opposite views of these events promoted through each side’s domi­ nant discourse. As he persuasively argues, textbooks of both sides offer contested and mutually exclusive narratives that depict only us as victims and focus only on the crimes of the other side. The third section, “Intellectuals and war: the mediators of (non-)national jus­ tice”, debates the role of intellectuals in spurring ethnic hatred in the more recent Serbian-Albanian conflicts. Literary critic SaSa Ciriri takes into consideration the entire corpus of contemporary Kosovar and Albanian poetry, fiction and drama translated into Serbian. He examines this literary corpus for the repre­ sentation of Serbs and the Other in general, identifying differences between the Kosovar and Albanian literary scene in this respect. In particular, 6irid affirms those narratives that go beyond ethnic hatred and promotion of hostility to defy the simplified discourse of victimization, such as the poems and writings of Arben Idrizj. Rigels Halili compares the (in)famous 1986 Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts to the far less known 1998 Platform for the Solution of the Albanian Question of the Albanian Academy o f Sciences and shows that both documents have a similar structure - a unified, one-dimensional view emanating from the victimization of their side alone. Gazela Pudar Drasko offers a comprehensive critical overview of various positions and proposals for Kosovo made by Serbian intellectuals from Dobrica Cosic to Matija Beckovic and further on, including their reactions to the 2008 Kosovo Declaration of Independence.

xv i Foreword The chapters in the closing section of the book, “Can there be cooperation after all: cultural and political cross-border practices”, question contemporary social issues and manifestations in Serbia and Kosovo and search for recent and current affirmative practices that promote myriad modes of cooperation, whether traditional, alternative or even utopian. Armanda Hysa, an anthropologist from Tirana, examines an interesting contemporary phenomenon of Albanian women, predominantly from mountainous regions of Northern Albania, marrying Serbs from Sandzak and other areas. Hysa asks a provocative question - is it always justified to equate the patriarchal and nationalist matrix? In other words, can patri­ archal demands outweigh nalional(ist) ones? Jelena LonCar examines the status of the Serbian cultural heritage in the current Kosovo legislation and its implications on a wider political framework in Kosovo. Ana BireSev uses Bourdieu’s socio­ logical framework to investigate and map the art scene and the different forms of contemporary artist cooperation between Serbia and Kosovo. Finally, Adri­ ana ZaharijevitS’s closing chapter serves as a conclusion. It brings her feminist perspective on the subject of dispossession. Building on the writings of Athena Athanasiou and Judith Butler, Zaharijevid inquires after the utopian character of communities not founded on narratives of ethnicity, territory, blood ties or shared memories. Taking the case of recent and ongoing feminist activism from Serbia and Kosovo, she affirms concrete examples o f efforts to create communities that could go beyond the present confines of ethnic ties in the Balkans. As an interdisciplinary publication that brings together historiographical, lit­ erary, sociological, political, anthropological and philosophical analyses and enquiries, we hope that Rethinking Serbian-Albanian Relations will have a broad appeal and will be of interest to academics working in the various fields o f Slavic and East European studies, whether in sociology, politics, cultural studies, history or anthropology. In addition to being a pioneering book on the subject of SerbianAlbanian relations compiled and jointly written by local authors, it also contains a wealth of material from these two cultures that will be available in English for the first time. As such, it will be a useful supplementary text in academic courses on former Yugoslavia, Balkan and East European history, culture, literature and nationalism. In addition, being diverse in tone and style, the book easily commu­ nicates with a broader, less academic audience interested in Serbian-Albanian and Balkan issues in general. Given that its prior, more voluminous and less readerfriendly editions in Serbian and Albanian received sizable interest among local diplomats and civil society experts, it is expected that the revised and abridged English edition will also be welcomed by a wide circle of readers and the public at large.

Conclusion: beyond enmity No doubt, the political constellation is still unfavorable: Serbian-Albanian coop­ eration remains limited and faces many obstacles. “The drone incident” from late 2014 is just one example, but more importantly, there is the ongoing cri­ sis of implementation of the Brussels agreement between Serbia and Kosovo.

Foreword xvii Nevertheless, political ties between Serbia and Albania have been firmly estab­ lished and the international community seems firm in promoting this cooperation. Thus, if a few years ago Serbian-Albanian cooperation looked nonexistent, today it feels like - to borrow from the jargon of dialectical materialism - history is on our side. It would have been impossible to implement this project and eventually prepare this volume without the generous help from a number of colleagues, friends and likeminded people. Colleagues from the Centre for Southeast European Studies in Graz provided constant assistance and encouragement throughout this endeavor. We owe a debt of gratitude to Florian Bieber, Marko Kmezid, Armina Galijas and Hrvoje Paid, whose comments and suggestions contributed in many ways to the final form of these chapters and the book in general. Of course, the remaining faults are solely our own. The civil society organization Beton and its president, MiloS Zivanovid, were valuable partners and early initiators of this initiative, to which IFDT Director Petar Bojanic offered academic support, even though it raised some eyebrows (to say the least) from conservative mainstream academ­ ics. Further, generous support from the Regional Research Promotion Programme (RRPP) of the Swiss Cooperation Office provided us with the necessary funding for this project; the invaluable help we received from our RRPP friends Jamina Opardija and Mihajlo Dukid went far beyond any professional commitments. We are also most grateful to Edward Djordjevic for improving the quality of our chapters in English in numerous instances, often on short (or no) notice and at unfriendly hours and to Milos Cipranid for helping us prepare this manuscript for publication in accordance with Routledge’s rigorous standards. Last, but not least, we are deeply grateful to all those who partook in the research, writing and/or translation of these and other articles written during the project, notably to Inis Shkreli, Milos Miljkovid, Agron Bajrami, Naile Mala Imami, Anton Berishaj, Basri fiapriqi, Esilda Luku, Marija Mandid, Ana Sivacki, Valdete Osmani, Ana Petrov, Predrag Krstic, Aleksandra flic Rajkovic, Filip Vukadinovid, Jeton Neziraj and other folks from Qendra Multimedia and many others who helped us in various ways and showed their commitment to Serbian-Albanian friendship and cooperation. Finally, a few words from an editorial perspective are in place here. Since we all deeply believe that theory is fundamentally political and that it is deeply embed­ ded in how we think and construct the world, our goal as editors was to present the public with a book that affirms a critical politics of friendship. In addition, our aim has been to reestablish a dialogue between theorists from Serbia, Kosovo and Albania, a form of communication that has been suspended or prevented for too long, and to widen the scope of the questions that connect and bind us together. We therefore believe that Rethinking Serbian-Albanian Relations: Figuring Out the Enemy provides a vital contribution to our mutual cooperation and research on common Serbian-Albanian topics and issues. Also, this book offers an overview of the scientific and theoretical thought in this field, but also of a currently avail­ able critical reflection and its limitations in Serbia, Kosovo and Albania. Finally, a note to those that could - probably rightfully - remark that this book would have

xviii Foreword been richer or more internationally relevant had we included some articles by for­ eign authors: We deliberately relied on our own “ forces”, having in mind the utter absence of similar efforts in the past, as well as the growing body of publications initiated or edited by authors outside trying to establish a dialogue between us. As we emphasized in different ways in several chapters in this book, we believe it is a time to get personally engaged, to affirm those voices within Serbian and Alba­ nian culture which have acted and/or act in the name of mutual respect, similari­ ties and shared elements between the two nations, seeking to construct a tradition that would, in contrast to the current discourse of hostility, promote some other, different relations.

Notes 1 In line with UNSC 1244 Resolution and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence. 2 Robert Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (New York: Vintage, 2004); Michael Roskin, The Rebirth o f East Europe (Longman: Prentice Hall, 2002). 3 Gerlachlus Duijzings, Religion and Politics o f Identity in Kosovo (C. Hurst & Co. Pub­ lishers, 2000), 8. 4 DuSan Batakovid, The Kosovo Chronicle (Belgrade: Plato, 1992); Dimitrije Bogdanovic, Knjiga o Kosovu (Belgrade: SANU, 1986); Dorde Borozan, Velika Albanija: porijekloideje-praksa (Belgrade: Vojnoizdavacki institut Vojske, 1995). 5 Rexhep Qosja. La question albanaise (Paris: Fayard. 1995). 6 See Ana BireSev, “ ‘Licem u lice’: srpsko-albanska kultuma saradnja u medijskom diskursu”, in: A. Pavlovid, A. Zaharijevid, G. Pudar DraSko and R. Halili (eds.), Figura neprijatelja: preosmisljavanje srpsko-albanskih odnosa (IFDT/Beton: Belgrade, 2015), 429-446; Orli Fridman, “Structured Encounters in Post-conflict/Post-Yugoslav Days: Visiting Belgrade and Prishtina”, in: O. Sirnid and Z. Voldid (eds.), Transitional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans (New York: Springer, 2013), 143-162.

References Batakovid, Du§an (1992). The Kosovo Chronicles. Belgrade: Plato. Biresev, Ana (2015). “ ‘Licem u lice’: srpsko-albanska kultuma saradnja u medijskom diskursu” In: Figura neprijatelja:preosmisljavanje srpsko-albanskih odnosa., pp. 429-446. Bogdanovid, Dimitrije (1986). Knjiga o Kosovu. Belgrade: SANU. Borozan, Dorde (1995). Velika Albanija: porijeklo-ideje-praksa. Belgrade: Vojnoizdavacki institut Vojske. Duijzings, Gerlachlus (2000). Religion and Politics of Identity in Kosovo. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. Figura e armikut: riperfytyrimi i marredhenieve shqiplaro-serbe (2016). Edited by Rigels Halili, Aleksandar Pavlloviq, Armanda Hysa, Adriana Zaharijeviq. Qendra Multimedia: Prishti’ne. Figura neprijatelja: preosmisljavanje srpsko-albanskih odnosa (2015). Edited by Alek­ sandar Pavlovid, Adriana Zaharijevid, Gazela Pudar Drasko and Rigels Halili. IFDT/ Beton: Belgrade. Fridman, Orli (2013). “Structured Encounters in Post-conflict/Post-Yugoslav Days: Visit­ ing Belgrade and Prishtina” In: Transitional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans. Edited by Olivera Simic and Zala Volcic. New York: Springer, pp. 143-162.

Foreword xix Imami, Petrit (2000). Srbi i Albanci kroz vekove. Beograd: Samizat. (Second edition: Srbi iAlbanci kroz vekove. Ill vols. Belgrade: Samizdat, 2017). Kaplan, Robert (2004). Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History. New York: Vintage. Mehmeti, Leandrit and Branislav Radeljic (2016). Kosovo and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared Consequences. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Qosja Rcxhep (1995). La question albanaise. Paris: Payard. Roskin, Michael (2002). The Rebirth of East Europe. Longman: Prentice Hall.

Section I

Whose land is it? The establishment of Serbian-Albanian hostility

1

Forging the enemy The transformation of common Serbian-Albanian traits into enmity and political hostility Aleksandar Pavlovic

This chapter focuses on the representation of the Albanians in the early SerboMontenegrin historiography, ethnography and oral tradition from the mid­ eighteenth century throughout the long nineteenth century. To be sure, by Albanians, I do not have in mind any fixed entity or identity. Apparently, such claim rests on the assumptions of the constructivist school that all modern nations are “imagined communities”, as Benedict Anderson and other constructivists have persuasively argued.1The Albanians are certainly not exceptions in this respect. Hence, a num­ ber of comprehensive studies investigated the process of constitutions and unifica­ tion of the Albanian nation, indicating its internal contradictions and contested and shifting attitudes stretching from the nineteenth century to this day.2 Nonetheless, this does not invalidate the investigation of the patterns and ways in which the Albanians have been seen and imagined by others, or Serbs in this particular case. As I will indicate, the Serbian image of Albanians shifted rather dramatically from the mid-eighteenth to the end of the long nineteenth century, chiefly due to the religious diversity of the Albanians and the shifting political circumstances and emerging Serbian concerns over Kosovo. Thus, in the mideighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, in Serbian culture prevailed an image of Albanians as Christians and highlanders, similar to and aligned with Monte­ negrins in opposing the Turks. With the shifting interest to Kosovo from the sec­ ond half of the nineteenth century onwards, Serbian authors increasingly started identifying Albanians as Muslims and associating them with Turks and hence as Serbian enemies. In order to identify common perceptions about the Albanians throughout this period, I take into consideration three types of documents. First, I will briefly consider the two programmatic texts of Serbian Romantic nationalism from the first half of the nineteenth century - Vuk Karadzic’s 1849 Srbi svi i svuda (Serbs All and Everywhere, Karadzid 1849) and Ilija Garasanin’s 1844 Nacertanije. The Albanians have a rather marginal role in those works and remain largely unknown to its authors, whereas the territories they inhabited did not figure so prominently within the Serbian national agenda o f the time. The second group comprises three oldest Montenegrin histories3 and Dositej Obradovic’s memoirs o f his stay amon8 the Toskas of the Southern Albania,4 all of which constitute rare instances en Albanians were even mentioned. The analysis of these texts shows that the

.1

4 Aleksandar Pavlovic educated Serbs and Montenegrins of the time were mostly interested in the Alba­ nians from Northern Albania and the Zeta Valley, which they depict as brave war­ riors and heroes closely resembling the Montenegrins, with whom they often fight together against the Turks. Hence, the information about the Albanians from the inid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century are found mostly in three Monte­ negrin histories written during this time, which will be the subject of discursive analysis that takes into consideration the context in which these works originated and the biographies of their authors. The third group of texts herein regarded comprises several transcriptions of popular oral songs from Serbian and Albanian oral epic tradition. In particular, I will examine the common traits in Serbian and Albanian oral and epic tradition by referring to several oral songs about Prince Marko (“Marko Kraljevid and Musa the Outlaw”,5 and “Cetobasa Mujo i Marko Kraljevib”).6 Since Marko Kraljevic is the most popular hero not only of Ser­ bian, but of the entire Balkan oral tradition, numerous songs about him recorded in various Balkan languages spanning throughout several centuries enable us to observe from the folkloristic angle how this character and his exploits involve identity perceptions of one’s own and neighbouring communities in the Balkans. It is argued that the appreciation for particular Albanian heroes found in Serbian/ Montenegrin folk oral songs and narratives, and vice versa, stems from a similar social background and shared patriarchal values among the two ethnic groups. Consequently, contemporary authors such as Marko Miljanov7 often insist on the shared values of heroism, hospitality and manliness among Serbs, Montenegrins and Albanians, while scholars like Valtazar Bogisic8 emphasize the similarities in their social institutions and way of life. In the second part of the chapter, I focus on the discontinuity in SerbianAlbanian perceptions, which occurs with weakening of heroic discourse and strengthening of national discourse - influenced by the Eastern Crisis - in the post-1878 period. During this time, a number of factors, such as the international recognition of Serbia and Montenegro as independent countries, formation of the Albanian national movement, weakening of the Ottoman rule and territorial dis­ putes over the present-day Kosovo and Northern Albania, gradually led to the increasingly negative and coherent image of the Albanians within Serbian culture. Thus, contemporary Serbian intellectuals abandoned the previously prevailing image of the Albanians as highlanders, Catholics and Serbian allies against the Turks, forwarding instead as the dominant figure of the Albanians as Muslims, Turkish allies and the torturers of the few remaining Kosovo Serbs. This percep­ tion coincides with the birth of the geo-political concepts of “Old Serbia” and the growing Serbian interest in the Kosovo and Northern Albanian territory. These negative perceptions gradually evolved into systematic discourse which blended historical claims over the Kosovo territory based on its medieval history, humanitarian claims about the systematic expulsion of the Kosovo Serbs by the Albanians and demographic claims about Albanians being newcomers to Kosovo and Metohija/Dukadjin which for centuries had a stable Serbian majority, all of which thereby justifying Serbian pretentions over the Kosovo territory.9 Follow­ ing Maria Todorova’s concept of Balkanism, I propose to use the term “Albanism”

Forging the enemy

5

for this discourse that emerges in Serbia on the eve of the Balkans wars and, as exemplified by other contributions to this volume, remains productive ever since. In the concluding part of the chapter, I emphasize several examples of turn-of-the twentieth century intellectuals who publicly opposed these negative views of the Albanians and advocated a change in political attitudes towards them.

An Albanian as a hero, relative and friend in SerboMontenegrin heroic discourse In distinction to the currently widespread view about the centennial hostility between the Serbs and Albanians, available sources from the past indicate that for centuries they did not perceive their relations as problematic, and it would be hard to find anything resembling coherent anti-Serbian or anti-Albanian discourse among them before the second half of the nineteenth century. This claim deserves some further elaboration. The books such as Maria Todorova’s Imagining the Balkans (1997) and BoZidar Jezemik’s Wild Europe (2004) offer instances of Balkanism from the mid-sixteenth century. Balkanism is a term somewhat similar to Said’s orientalism. Maria Todorova defined it as a discourse that creates a stereotype of the Balkans, with politics significantly and organically intertwined with this discourse. The term Balkans is often stereotypically used as “a synonym for a reversion to the tribal, the backward, the primitive, the barbarian”.10 Moreover, one could perhaps trace these negative perceptions of the Balkan peoples further in the past, finding instances of Byzantine writers showing contempt for the “barbaric” ways of the nouveau riches Serbian or Bulgarian rulers, which then ties this all the way to Ancient Greek writ­ ers and their descriptions of the Thracians and other non-Hellenic peoples as bar­ baric. In short, while this external Balkanism has roots that go far back in history, internal Serbian-Albanian Balkanism is its rather recent derivation. Prior to the niid-nineteenth century, literate Serbs showed no particular inter­ est in Albanians, and the information about them was scarce. It is indicative, for instance, that the Albanians play no significant role in the two (in)famous found­ ing documents of Serbian nationalism, Vuk Karadzic’s Srbi svi i svuda (Serbs All and Everywhere, published in 1849) and llija GaraSanin’s Nacertanije (The Draft, from 1844). In the opening paragraph of Srbi svi i svuda, KaradZid starts from the assumption that all people speaking the stokavijan dialect should be considered as Serbs, be they Orthodox, Muslim or Roman-Catholic. He then lists all the areas that the Serbs inhabit but mentions with regret that there is no information regard­ ing the Serbs in Albania and Macedonia: It is still unknown how many Serbs there are in Albania and Macedonia. Dur­ ing my stay at Cetinje (in Montenegro) I spoke with two men from Dibra, who told me that in those places there is many a “Serbian” village, wherein Serbian is spoken the way they speak it, that is, across between Serbian and Bulgarian, but nonetheless closer to Serbian rather than to Bulgarian. Upravojos [se] ne zna dokle Srba ima u Arnautskoj i u Macedoniji. Ja sum se na Cetinju (u Crnoj Gori) razgovarao s dvojicom ljudi iz Dibre, kojisu mi

6 Aleksandar Pavlovic kazivali da onamo ima mnogo “srpskijeh ” sela, po kojima se govori srpski onako kao i oni sto su govorili, tj. izmectu srpskoga i bugarskoga, ali opet blize k srpskome nego k pravome bugarskome.1' Correspondingly, Ilija Garasanin wrote his Nacertanije as a secret document outlining the strategy for the future Serbian territorial policy and expansion. Garasanin dreamed about restoring the medieval Serbian Kingdom and glory, which for the most part occupied the territories lying south from the then Serbia, but in actual fact, he provided concrete information and plans regarding Bos­ nia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Southern Hungary, while these medieval lands apparently remained practically unknown to him.'2 The Albanians are thus mentioned only once in the context of his plans of tightening Serbia closer with the Montenegrins and Northern Albanians as they are the ones holding the keys to the Adriatic Sea,13 which is a rather modest claim compared to the later Ser­ bian policy where Kosovo and Albanians started getting prominent if not the pivotal role. What is more, among these few scarce references to the Albanians, both authors show appreciation for them in terms of their heroism. Garasanin thus emphasizes the fighting spirit of the inhabitants of Montenegro and Northern Albania (“ratni dug njihovi zitelja”) as a suitable feature that Serbia should exploit in order to exercise its influence over them. Karadzic, on his part, praises the Albanians who, unlike the Serbs, feel solidarity for their compatriots of another religious alle­ giance and act united towards the others.14 The lack of information about the Albanians during this period should not come as a surprise - in Serbia, the knowledge of the people living under the Ottoman rale was generally poor at the time. It is telling that the early nineteenth century writers have surprisingly little to say even about the Montenegrins, whom they perceived as the best of all Serbs as they constantly opposed the Ottoman rule and enjoyed defacto, if not dejure independence in their mountainous lands. Thus, for instance, the father of modern Serbian culture Vuk KaradziC in his seminal 1818 PjeHHUK (Dictionary of Serbian Vernacular) describes Cetinje - the Montenegrin capital - as a river and a district. Lukijan Musicki, the leading Serbian poet of the time, similarly explained that he had not included contemporary Montenegrin ruler Bishop Petar I in his 1818 ode to the great contemporary Serbs because he knew nothing of him at the time.15 Given that in 1818 Petar I was already in the 35th year of his rule in Montenegro, this additionally exemplifies limited knowledge of Montenegro and the highlands of the time and confirms Karadzic’s aforementioned words about the utter lack of knowledge of the regions inhabited by the Albanians. One of the first Serbian writers to provide his impressions about the Albani­ ans was Dositej ObradoviC. Bom in the Habsburg monarchy in 1739, Obradovic already as a boy went to the monastery of Hopovo in Fruska Gora and initially intended to become a monk. However, he was soon affected by the ideas of the Enlightenment, left the monastery and for the next several decades travelled across

Forging the enemy

1

the entire Balkans and Western Europe. In his 1783 book jKueom u npuK/byuemija (Life and Adventures), Dositej describes his 1769 stay near Gjirokaster in South­ ern Albania among “that brave nation and these beautiful lands”: I was so glad to hear from the Albanians the following: “Whoever becomes the ruler of Serbia, we will acknowledge as our ruler as well, since the Ser­ bian kings were also our kings”. Not far from Hormovo one finds beauti­ ful meadows that the Albanians call “lepaiita” (Eng. “beautiful cornfields”). I asked them what it means? “We don’t know”, they said, “it’s the name of the field”. And when I explained to them that it is a Serbian word, they replied: “Hey, you monk, don’t be surprised, we and the Serbs were one family and one people in the old days”. Kako je meni milo bilo od isti[h] Albaneza cuti da govore: “Ko Serbijom oblada, toga cemo i mi za nasega vladetelja priznati, zasto serpski kralji i nasi su bili". Nedaleko odHormova na[hJode se neka prekrasnapolja koja Albanezi ne zovu drugojace nego “lepazita Pitam i[h] ja sta to znaci? “ne znamo”, | kazu mi, "to je im epolja’’. A kad im ja to izjasnih, kazujuci im da je serpska rec, “more kaluderu”, odgovore mi, “ne cudi se ti tome; mi smo sa Serbljijedan rod ipleme u staro vreme bili!”16 Some recent scholars argued that Obradovid was a Serbian nationalist and would thus likely question the veracity of his memories in this case.17 Be that as it may, in this context this account is important as Obradovic, in consistency with the eighteenth century Enlightenment spirit, explicitly describes the Albanians as worthy of education and literate culture and as a brave nation inhabiting beautiful lands has and having the common origin with the Serbs. This early account on Southern Albania is a rarity. Much more information on Albanians are found in the writings of Montenegrins or about Montenegro, as for over a century Serbian and Montenegrin writers were familiar mostly with those Albanians living in the present-day Northern Albania and the Zeta valley. The earliest Montenegrin histories are two relatively short accounts written for - or commissioned by - the Russian court around the mid-eighteenth century.I I would like to mention here the brave people living around us; they nowa­ days belong to the Turkish areas, but they were previously under the rule of Zeta and Montenegrin princes: in particular, Mrkojevid has and Bijelo Polje, as well as other peoples living around that are warriors by nature, located by the river Drin (Drim), which separates the principality of Zeta and Albania. These peoples are also not quite under the Turkish rule, as others are. Necu propustiti da ovdje spomenem jos hrabri narod koji zivi oko nas, a koji danas pripada lurskoj oblasli, a ranije je bio pod vlascu hercega zetskih 1crnogorskih: upravo Mrkojevic has i Bijelo Polje, isto tako i druge narode koji naokolo zive i koji su po prirodi ratnicki, a nalaze se do rijeke Drine

8 Aleksandar Pavlovic , a ta rijeka Drin dijeli hercegstvo zetsko i Albaniju. Ni ovi narodi nijesu bas potpuno pod turskom vlascu, kao sto su drugi narodi.18 Vasilije Petrovic Njegos, Istorija Crne Gore (1754)

12. Montenegrins consider as theirs [“k sebi ubrajaju”] various provinces and surrounding Slavic-Serbian peoples: Kuci, Bratonozici, Upper and Lower Vasojevici, Piperi, Rovcani, Moracani, Bjelopavlici, who are Serbian Ortho­ dox but actually Turkish subjects. In the same manner, they also consider as theirs the Catholics: Hoti, Klimenti, Grude, Tuze, Shkrivale, Huze, Malteze, Kastrate and others, who outnumber the Montenegrins. 12. Crnogorci - razne provincije i pogranicne slavenosrpske narode k sebi ubrajaju: Kuce, Bratonozice, Donje i Gornje Vasojevice, Pipere, Rovcane, Moracane, Bjelopavlice, pravoslavce srpskoga naroda a u stvari turske podanike. Na isti nacin oni k sebi ubrajaju i katolike: Hote, Klimente, Grude, Tuze, Skrivale, Huze, Malteze, Kastrate i ostale, koji po svom broju nadmasuju Crnogorce.'9 The two accounts have certain similarities. The former was written for the Russian court by Bishop Vasilije Petrovid Njegos, member of the Petrovic clan from Cetinje that acted as religious but also political leaders of Montenegro for several centuries. As it appears, Bishop Vasilije as the Montenegrin leader had vested interests. He thus does not mention explicitly that the peoples south of the Montenegrins are Albanians and Catholics, as they do not fit into the Russian narrative of helping their Slav-Orthodox brothers under the Turkish yoke. Corre­ spondingly, he emphasizes the fact that these areas were ruled by the princes from Montenegro before the Turks. This is all apparently intended to affirm the role of Montenegro and Bishop Vasilije in the region. However, while we can attribute certain elements in his description to his agenda, I find it obvious that there was no particular political reason for him to describe his Albanian neighbours in the aforementioned passage as “warriors by nature . . . brave peoples . . . that the Turks could not conquer so far” and that this should be interpreted as a token of genuine appreciation for the Albanians and their heroism. The latter quotation dates back from 1757. Its author is Jovan Stefanov Balevic, the first Montenegrin with a PhD, and it contains only 18 short sentences. Despite its shortness, this account is quite significant inasmuch as it represents a view of an author who is neither the Bishop nor a member of the ruling family, but is in all likelihood of a modest origin. His account is thus more likely to provide the views typical of the local population than the previous one written by the Montenegrin de iure religious and de facto a political ruler. In distinction to Bishop Vasilije, Balevic explicitly mentions by name the “nations” living in the area, and these are all historically verified Serbo-Montenegrin and Albanian tribes, in certain respects akin to, say, Scottish clans. Throughout the Ottoman period, the “highlanders” of the central Balkans had a fragmented social organization and lived separated into various clans and tribes. After their conquest of the Balkans during the fifteenth

Forging the enemy

9

century, the Ottomans accepted and codified this social formation of blood-related clans of shepherds, united in tribes on a collectively owned and shared territory.20 Second, and more importantly, Balevic reports that the Montenegrins consider the Albanian Catholics as their own kind.21 This local tradition is fully verified by a number of later sources. In the mid-nineteenth century, Austrian consul in Skadar Johaness Hann recorded among the Albanians the tradition that six brothers were the founders of the tribes: Piperi, KuCi (alb. Kufi), Hoti, Bonked (alb. Bonkeqi), Vasojevidi and Krasnici (alb. Krasniqi) (three of those are Serbo-Montenegrin and three Albanian). A decade or two later, Serbian writer Spiridon Gopcevic recounts about the same tradition in Montenegro. Towards the end of the nineteenth cen­ tury and later, both among the Montenegrins and Albanians there was a popular lore about five brothers - Vaso, Kraso, Ozro, Pipo and Oto, the founders of the Vasojevidi, Krasnidi, Ozrinici, Piperi and Oti tribes (three Montenegrin and two Albanian ones). While the number and names of the brothers and tribes sometimes varies, it is beyond dispute that a number of the Montenegrin and Albanian tribes nourished a tradition about their common ancestors and their relations by blood.22 Finally, the last history of Montenegro (Hcmopuja U,pmrope) from this period, written in 1835 by Romantic writer Sima Milutinovid Sarajlija who resided in Montenegro for a number of years, provides an account about mixed marriages between the Montenegrins and Albanians.23 Describing the former distinguished priests in Montenegro, Milutinovid particularly mentions a bishop who deserves special praise among the Serbs because he returned to Orthodox faith the tribes of Kudi, Bratonozici and Drekalovici, who were attracted to Catholicism by the Albanian priests, with whom they border and intermarry, but now in a more clever manner: by the advice and oath imposed by this bishop, they now take women from these (Albanians), but do not give their women to them. osobitu sluzbu ucinio i time ne malo Srbstvo probudio i potkrijepio, jer je povratio u islocno bogoslovlje (Pravoslavlje - prevj Kuce, Bratonozice i Drekalovice iz rimske vjere u koju su bili premamljeni od strane arbanaskih popova, s kojima se granice i orodavaju se, ali sada pametnije: po pouci i zakletvi toga istoga vladike uzimaju danas od ovih (Albanaca - prev) zene, a njima svoje ne daju.24 As a Serbian Romantic nationalist, Milutinovid is apparently unhappy with this practice of Montenegrin women marrying Albanian Catholics. However, this account shows that Montenegrins and Albanians did have a tradition of mixed marriages and even that the Orthodox officials needed to intervene in an attempt 0 discourage this custom. This is by no means surprising - since these tribes considered themselves close to each other, and respected the other tribes for their eroism and code of honour, they gladly took vows with female representatives of me distinguished clans and families.25 ol clergy made efforts to eradicate another tribal custom that seemed em as incompatible with Christianity, called blood brotherhood. Slavs use the

to.. em^ers

10 Aleksandar Pavlovic termpobratim, and Northern Albanians apparently use the same word in a slightly different form o fprobatim, in distinction to their Southern compatriots who use the term veilam.26 In a nutshell, when two men wish to formalize their friendship, they perform a ritual and become blood brothers. This relation is then perceived as close kinship, and their families and clans do not intermarry. While the Serbian Orthodox church more or less tolerated this traditional custom and occasionally even allowed for the ritual to be perfonned in a church. Catholic priests in Alba­ nia made efforts to discourage it, but without success.27 in distinction to Catholic priests who describe this tradition in negative terms, local sources offer many instances of distinguished Serbs and Albanians who were blood brothers or god­ fathers. This custom is praised as particularly significant as it enabled these great heroes to cooperate and to intervene in order to prevent mutual conflicts and blood feuds, which could have lasted for a century and have had devastating effects on the population.28 Early ethnographers and travellers emphasize other common customs among the Scrbo-Montenegrins and Albanians, such as great hospitality and code of ethic called cojstvo, rz or besa, all of which served to regulate the relations among the members of different, even hostile communities such as Montenegrin and Northern Albanian tribes, where inter- and intra-tribal conflicts and blood feuds were a regular occurrence. These similarities are particularly striking if one compares the two most comprehensive accounts on traditional legal customs of the Montenegrins and Albanians by Valtazar BogiSid and the Albanian Kanuni i Leke Dukagj'mit.29 There are many stories about hosts who took a fugitive and defended him fiercely from the prosecutors even at the cost of their own life. These people became celebrated in the local tradition, as the law of hospitality requires that anyone coming to your house must be well received and protected, even if this is the greatest enemy who would otherwise be killed in a battle or under a blood feud.30 Finally, even though the Serbs nowadays tend to claim that Slava—the celebration of a family patron saint - is an exclusively Serbian custom, records show that Northern Albanians also celebrated slava and called it slava just like the Slavs do. Scholars even established that most Montenegrin clans and tribes that trace their origin to Northern Albania celebrate St. Nicholas’ Day, just like all the Malisori (Northern Albanian and Zeta valley tribes), includ­ ing those Albanians who converted to Islam. Moreover, even systematic efforts to eradicate the celebration of St. Nicholas’ Day among the islamicized Albani­ ans had only limited success.31 To sum up, early written records before the mid-nineteenth century offer a num­ ber of examples of mutual respect and cooperation between the Serbo-Montenegrin and Albanian highlanders and perceive them as similar in many respects. Of course, it would be an exaggeration to claim that these sources testify that no hos­ tilities or conflicts between the Serbs and Albanians ever existed, especially if we bear in mind that mutual clashes among clans and tribes in the tribal regions of the central Balkans were a common occurrence. Nevertheless, I believe that the afore­ mentioned texts do exemplify that the Serbs and Albanians during this period did not perceive their relations as being predominantly hostile or antagonistic.

Forging the enemy

11

Albanian hero with “Three Mighty Hearts”: Serbian-Albanian relations in oral epic tradition This discussion of early Serbian-Albanian relations would be incomplete if we fail to take into consideration their oral tradition. Prior to - and even way into the twentieth century, the vast majority of the population remained illiterate, and oral tradition is therefore the best source to search for the common perceptions. Thus, common, illiterate people nourished their oral songs and passed them on from one singer and generation to another as their collective work. I will focus here on one of the most famous Serbian oral epic song about the popular Serbian (and Balkan) hero Marko Kraljevib, or Marko the Prince. I consider it as illustra­ tive for the following reason: contemporary folklorists agree that oral societies practise a variety of narratives, but that there are always some which exceed in length and complexity and enjoy particular social status.32 Among the highland­ ers, such privileged status predictably belonged to heroic songs and heroic tales sung and told by men. These songs and tales describe famous battles and deeds of distinguished heroes from earlier centuries or from a more recent and present times.33 For this reason, heroic epic occupied a privileged position in the pro­ grammes of the nineteenth century Romantic nationalists, while more recently it became criticized as a source of stereotypes and prejudices. While the Balkan epic is certainly not without these antagonizing and potentially warmongering/ nationalistic traits, we should bear in mind that epic also offers outstanding poetic examples of heroism, honour and humanism. A well-known Serbian epic song “Marko Kraljevic and Musa Kesedzija” was recorded in the early nineteenth century from a singer from Herzegovina. The song tells about an Albanian Muslim named Musa. After six years of waiting for compensation for his loyal service to the Sultan, he became an outlaw and eventu­ ally challenged to a duel the Sultan himself. Having no one able to replace him, the Sultan offers to Serbian Prince Marko to release him from prison, if he agrees to fight against Musa. Marko accepts the offer, recovers for several months and eventually kills Musa in a duel. However, we would miss the point if we consider this plot simply as a typical duel between our representative hero and an enemy and fail to recognize the ambi­ guities that make this song so appreciated and relevant for the traditional under­ standing of Serbian-Albanian relations; namely, even though Marko is a Serb, actually the most famous Serbian hero, the singer expresses sympathy for Musa the Albanian, which stems from the similarity in social backgrounds between the patriarchal milieus of the singer and his audience and the one represented by Musa. Thus, when Marko meets Musa on the road and demands that he step aside, Musa replies: a ia 1‘ se ukloniti necu, oko t' ijest rodila kraljica na cardaku na meku duseku,

I will not do obeisance before thee. Albeit a queen bore thee, In a cardak amongst soft cushions, And wrapped thee in pure silk,

12 Aleksandar Pavlovic a zlacanom zicom povijala, othranila medom i secerom\ a m em je ljuta Arnautka kod ovaca na ploci studenoj, u emu me struku zavijala, a kupinom lozom povijala, othranila skrobom ovsenijem', i jos me je cesto zaklinjala da se nikom ne uklanjam s puta.

And bound thee about with thread of gold, And nourished thee on honey and on sugar; But as for me - a wild Amaut woman bore me Amongst the sheep on the cold ground, In a rough black mantle she wrapped me, And bound me about with thorns, And nourished me on porridge; Oft did she make me swear Never to give way to no man.34

Thus, on the one hand, Marko is ours as a hero and a Serbian medieval prince. On the other hand, Musa is also ours in the social sense, as the highlanders were poor but dedicated to values of heroism, personified in this song, not by Marko, who is bred “amongst the soft cushions”, but by Musa, the son of the “ wild Amaut women”, brought up “amongst the sheep on the cold ground”. Thus, the singer praises both heroes. Equally ambiguous is the renowned ending of the song - during the duel, both heroes show great strength, and neither can defeat the other. Finally, after break­ ing all their weapons and wrestling for hours, Musa turns Marko over and sits on his chests. At that moment, Marko calls his blood-sister vila (a fairy) to help him, and when she speaks up, Musa turns his attention to her for a moment. Marko uses the opportunity to take out a secret knife and rip Musa “From the navel even to the white throat” (“od uckura do bijela grla”). Immediately, however, he realizes that Musa has three mighty hearts in his chest, of which only two were used and the third was resting. With tears in his eyes, Marko admits with remorse: Jaoh mene do boga miloga, de pogubih odsebe boljega!

“God of Mercy”, quoth he, “woe is me! For 1 have slain a better than m yself’.35

In short, this song shows great appreciation of the singer and the tradition in general for both Serbian and Albanian heroes. The Albanian hero is actually socially close, brought up on the mountain and used to poverty, but dedicated to the values of honour and heroism. What is more, this Serbian song actually appre­ ciates the Albanian Musa as a hero even greater than the national hero Marko Kraljevic himself. If an Albanian counterpart to this song is sought for, one could point to the song “Cetobasa Mujo i Marko Kraljevic”, which I will mention only briefly.36 Marko is heavily wounded by Mujo and Halil, and it takes him seven years to recover. Eventually, he gets better, challenges Mujo to a duel but when they face each other, fairies get involved to make peace between them as they are both equally strong. They become blood brothers and celebrate it first at Mujo’s and then in Marko’s house. The concluding lines celebrate their friendship: Nikad se vise nisu rastajali, Uvek im je Bog pomogao, Nas mac je zlo savladivao.

Never again did they part God always came to their aid Our sword fought the evildoers.37

Forging the enemy

13

These parallels between Serbian and Albanian oral tradition are by no means isolated cases, and a number of scholars emphasized the similarities and mergers between the South Slavic and Albanian oral traditions.38 What is more, some of the distinguished Balkan oral singers such as Salih Ugljanin were bilingual and had a vast repertoire of epic songs which they performed in both languages,39 as were - and apparently some of them still are'113 many of their fellow singers in the region of Sandzak.

The rise of hostilities The aforementioned reconciliatory verses would provide a convenient closure to this chapter bad it not been for the wars and atrocities later committed by the Serbs and Albanians all the way to the present. So, when did the Serbs and Albanians actually became enemies? As exemplified, prior to the 1870s, Serbian perceptions of Albanians mostly belonged to what could be conveniently labelled as the heroic discourse - Albanians were seen as fierce, brave highlanders very close or related to Montenegrins and their usual allies against the Turks. A comprehensive study into the origins of the discourse of hostility towards the Albanians is beyond the scope of this chapter. Nevertheless, some o f the reasons leading to the discontinuity in the presentation of the Albanians in Serbian culture during the last quarter of the nineteenth century can be identified here. The Great Eastern Crisis of 1875-1878 saw momentous changes such as the international recognition of Serbian independence, the formation of the Albanian national movement, the weakening of the Ottoman rule in the Balkans and the rise of Serbian claims over the present-day Kosovo and Northern Albania. These processes had great impact on contemporary Serbs and their perceptions of the Albanians. The Berlin Congress of 1878 was a traumatic event for contemporary Serbs, shocked by the Austrian takeover of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which the Serbs perceived as their land. Serbia was now enclosed from three sides by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Serbian scholars started lamenting over the fact that Serbia is confined (“skoro opkoljena zemlja a mi smo postali uhapsen narod”, in the words of Jovan Cvijid) and that in order to survive it needs to breathe, to expand its lungs.41 In these circumstances, the figure of a brave highlander from Northern Albania, our relative and ally against the Turks, faded. The figure of Muslim Albanians from Kosovo, Turkish allies and torturers of Kosovo Serbs who are, in the words of one scholar, “greater evildoer to the Serbs even than the Turks themselves” (“ve6a zla Srbima cinili i od samih Turaka”), was established in its place and became codified in the scientific discourse, press and education.42 Only several decades after Karadzic’s statement that “[i]t is still not known how many Serbs there are in Albania and Macedonia”, Serbian newspapers became saturated with numerous travelogues about Kosovo which as a rule focused on medieval monu­ ments in Kosovo and Albanian brutality over the remaining local Serbs.43 During mis period, the geo-political notion of Old Serbia was coined as the name for the present-day Kosovo and Northern Macedonia. Old Serbia captured the territory

14 Aleksandar Pavlovic that the Serbs claimed as theirs based on the historical rights, despite the majority of Albanian population inhabiting it.4'1On the eve and during the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, this anti-Albanian discourse evplved into a proper media propa­ ganda culminating with several blatantly racist “scientific” monographs about the Albanians.45 Thereby the terms used in Serbian culture to describe the Albanians were not any longer “fierce” and “brave”, but “rabies”, “savage”, “blood-thirsty” and the like.46

Re-affirming the discourse of friendship As the intention of this chapter is to re-affi rm the voices of friendship and recon­ ciliation, I will conclude my analysis by emphasizing the efforts of two impor­ tant Serbian public figures who, each in their own way, defied this anti-Albanian hysteria that affected Serbian society and media at the turn o f the twentieth century. The first one is Marko Miljanov, a picturesque character born around 1830 in the Montenegrin tribe of KuCi. Miljanov was the greatest hero of his time, praised by both his tribe and other Serbo-Montenegrins and Albanians. In his old days, Miljanov decided to learn to write in order to record the history, songs and customs of his tribe and his neighbours for posterity. In two of his books published around 1900, Miljanov praises the Albanians as great heroes and honest people.47 Thus, in his most famous work, the collection o f heroic tales called Primjeri cojstva i junastva (Examples o f Manliness and Heroism),**one third o f some 70 examples of heroism, courage and chivalrous deeds were performed by Albanians. Miljanov also wrote another book - Zivot i obicaji Arbanasa (Life and Customs ofthe Albanians) - with the explicit intention to counter the popular belief that the Albanians were uncivilized: Albanian ways are unknown to our people who live further from them: thus some of them claim that they are more cruel and savage than all the others, but I don’t think that w ay,. .. and so I decided to mention some of their pre­ sent customs, which I’m fond o f.. . . An Albanian, despite all forces that were attacking him, neither changed nor became loose, but kept his old language and gun that he was bom with. This makes one think that there is something better and more steadfast in these people than others.. .. We have seen how much troubles these people can endure and remain hon­ est, and how far their mental force can reach. They respect their blood broth­ ers, godfathers, hospitality and other things. Obidaji arbanaski nasijema ljudima, nijesu poznali, koji su malo dalje od n jis to g a se cinijednijema da su oni surovi i divji, vise od drugije ’naroda, a mene se ne cini da je tako,. . . a ja da i ’pomenem Stogoj malo od sadasnjega obicaja, koji se mene dopada.. . . Arbanas, prisvem u napadusila, ostade pri svome nepromjenljiv, ni raspasan, no mu, jeno, stari jezik i puska s kojijema se rodio. Ovo daje mislima da jest neSto u ta ’ narod bolje i postojanije od

drugoga. . . .

Forging the enemy

15

Videli smo koliko ta ’narod sve trpi, apostenje zeli, koliko njegova umna sila doseze. Postuje pobratimstvo, prijateljstvo, gostoprimstvo i drugo sitno i krupnije. (Miljanov 1907: 1, 20) While Marko Miljanov was an oldschool hero, half a century younger, Dimitrije Tucovic was a modem man, educated in the West and one of the first and most important proponents of socialist ideas in Serbia. Tucovic was appalled by the anti-Albanian frenzy in the Serbian media and among the scholars and also by the atrocities committed against the Albanian population during the Balkan Wars. He thus published a book in early 1914 called Serbia and Albania (Srbija i Albanija: jedan prilog kritici zavojevacke politike srpske burzoazije, see Tucovic ] 946) in which he criticizes Serbian politics as imperial politics. Tucovic believed (hat such actions inevitably lead to defeat, emphasized that it brought many vic­ tims and prophesied that even more are to come in the future. Unfortunately, his words sound as timely today as a century ago: It has become very risky nowadays to preach the necessity of joint work with the Albanians. In the fatal game to justify a wrong policy, the bourgeois press created an entire mountain of tendentious and false opinions, and Serbian imperial politics with its barbarian methods must have filled the Albanians with a profound hatred towards us. Danas je postalo vrlo rizicno propovedati potrebu zajednickoga rada sa Arbanasima. U pogubnoj utakmici da opravda jednu naopaku politiku burzoaska stampa je stvorila o Arbanasima citavu kulu neistinitih i tendencioznih misljenja, a osvajacka politika Srbije sa svojim vararskim metodama morala je Arbanase ispuniti dubokom mrznjom prema nama.49

Conclusion: the birth of “Albanism” In a way, these two voices epitomize the core of my argumentation: one, advocat­ ing for the return of the old ways and values, opted for the best within the tradi­ tional Balkan society. The other promoted Balkan collaboration and association in the name of social democracy, following the most advanced and emancipatory European political ideals of his time. Furthermore, they indicate two principal possible approaches that could lead to a shift in the perception of the Albanians in Serbian culture, which has for quite a while now been marked with hostility and radicalism. Following Maria Todorova’s concept of Balkanism as a discourse that cre­ ates a stereotype of the Balkans, with politics significantly and organically inter­ twined with this discourse, and its particular articulation in the Albanian context Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers,50 it seems instructive to introduce the term Albanism" for this discourse emerged in Serbia on the eve o f the Balkan wars and has remained productive ever since, as aptly demonstrated by other contribu­ tions to this volume.51 As a form of Balkanism, Albanism would be an amalgam

16 Aleksandar Pavlovic of the following: a. historical claims over the Kosovo territory based on its pos­ session by Serbian medieval rulers and a number of sacral objects erected by them; b. humanitarian claims about the orchestrated ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from Kosovo by Albanians, first raised in the decades preceding the Balkan Wars and exploited in particular during the 1980s onwards; and c. demographic claims based on the assumptions that the Albanians had settled in Kosovo only after the Great Migrations o f the Serbs in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, which until the late nineteenth century Serbs still comprised the majority o f popu­ lation in Kosovo and where the expulsion of the Serbs during the Second World War is mostly responsible for the demographic shift that established Albanians as the absolute majority in Kosovo. The affirmation of the voices from within Serbian and Albanian culture that emphasize their closeness and friendship, such as those of Marko Miljanov and Dimitrije Tucovic, might help to constitute a dif­ ferent tradition.

Notes 1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). 2 Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Bemd Fischer (eds.), Albanian Identities: Myth and History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); Stephanie SchwandnerSievers, “Albanians, Albanianism and the Strategic Subversion of Stereotypes”, in: Andrew Hammond (ed.), The Balkans and the West: Constructing the European Other, 1945-2003 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 110-126; Cecilie Endresen, Is the Albanian’s Religion Really "Albanianism ’’? Religion and Nation According to Muslim and Chris­ tian Leaders in Albania (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2012). 3 See: Marijan Miljic, Povjesnica crnogorska (Podgorica: Unireks, 1998). 4 Dositej Obradovic, Izabrani spisi (Novi Sad: Matica Srpska, 1989). 5 See: David H. Low, The Ballads of Marko Kraljevic (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­ sity Press, 1922), 124-131. 6 See: Dragutin Micovic, Albanske junacke pesme (Pristina: Jedinstvo, 1981), 68-73, www.rastko.rs/rastko-al/umetnost/rmedenica-kresnicke_l.php (accessed October 30, 2017). 7 Marko Miljanov, Primjeri c o jstv a i ju n a s tv a (Beograd: Cupiceva zaduzbina, 1901); Marko Miljanov, Zivot i o b ic a ji A rb a n a sa (Beograd: Nova Slamparija Davidovic, 1907). 8 Valtazar Bogisic, Pravni obicaji u Crnoj Gori, Hercegovini iAlbaniji (Podgorica: CID, 2004). 9 Olivera Milosavljevic, Utradiciji nacionalizma ili stereotipisrpskih intelektualacaXX veka o "nama" i "drugima" (Beograd: Helsinski odbor za ljudska prava, 2002). 10 Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 3. 11 Vuk Stefanovid Karadzic, “Srbi svi i svuda”, in: Kovcezic za istoriju, jezik i obidaje Srba sva tri zakona (Bee: Stamparija jermenskoga manastira, 1849), 1. 12 It is important to stress in this context that Garasanin wrote The Draft on the basis of the document made by Franz Zach, who was sent to Belgrade by Adam Czartoryski, the leader of Polish Government-in-Exile at the time. Zach advocated the unification of South Slav lands against Austria-Hungary, which was the true intention o f T he D raft, and therefore, Bosnia, Montenegro, Dalmatia and Hungary were at the focus of this work. Meanwhile, Kosovo, Lower Morava Valley and Macedonia as the territories under the Ottoman rule attracted far less attention. See: llija GaraSanin, Nacertanije

Forging the enemy

17

Ilije Garasanina: program spoljasnje i unutrasnje politike Srbije na koncu 1844. godine (Beograd: Socijalna misao, 1991). On the origins of The Draft, see: Dusan Batakovid, “llija GaraSanin’s Nacertanije: A Reassessment”, Balcanica 25(1) (1994): 157-183. 13 RadoJ LjuSid, Knjiga o Nacertaniju (Beograd: BIGZ, 1993). 14 Karadzic’s claim, of course, does not illustrate the actual situation on the terrain where Albanian tribal particularism and blood feud, as with Montenegrins, actually presented an obstacle for the establishment of a stable and centralized socio-political order; it rather shows the symbolic role that the Albanians have as a role model for the political and national identification of the Serbs as promoted by Karadzic himself in this work. 15 Ljubomir Zukovic, Vukovi pevaci iz Crne Gore (Beograd: Rad, 1988), 11-12. 16 Obradovic, Izabrani spisi, 182. 17 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 73. 18 Miljic, Povjesnica crnogorska, 25. 19 Jovan Stefanov Balevic, Kratak istorijsko-geografski opis Crne Gore, 1757, www. rastko.rs/rastko-cg/povijest/jsbalevic-opis.html. 20 Branislav Durdev, Postanak i razvoj brdskih, crnogorskih i hercegovackih plemena (CANU: Titograd, 1984). 21 As Balevic signed the report as “Albano-Cmogorac iz Bratonozica” (Albano-Montenegrin from the Bratonozici tribe), one could perhaps think of himself claiming a dual ethnic­ ity, one that would be both Montenegrin and Albanian. While such explanation can­ not be excluded altogether, the reference to Albania in this context seems to me to be actually a geographic rather than an ethnic marker - Albania is the name that the Latin writers used for the entire region, and thus, Balevid most likely used a relatively new and local geographic marker of Montenegro alongside with the older and more familiar notion of Albania. 22 For a more detailed account on these traditions about the common origin of SerboMontenegrin and Albanian tribes, see: Mirko Barjaktarovic, “Predanja o zajednicnom poreklu nekih crnogorskih i nekih arbanaskih plemena”, in: J. Bojovic (ed.), Stanovnistvo slovenskog porijekla u Albaniji — Zbornik radova sa medunarodnog naucnog skupa odrzanog na Cetinju 21, 22. i 23. juna 1990. godine (Titograd: Istorijski institute SR Crne Gore, 1991), 395—108. 23 Simeon Milutinovic, Istorija Crne Gore (Svetigora, Cetinje, 1997). 24 Ibid., 34. 25 The practice of mixed Serb-Albanian marriages continues in the highlands to the present day. See: Armanda Hysa, Match-making Behind Enemy Lines, LSEE Blog, 15 May 2014, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsee/2014/05/15/match-making-across-enemylines/ (accessed 30 October 2015); Armanda Hysa, “Albansko-srpski brakovi izmedu medijskog predstavljanja i stvarnosti”, Baton 158, 22 April 2015, www.elektrobeton. net/mikser/albansko-srpski-brakovi-izmedu-medijskog-predstavljanja-i-stvarnosti/ (accessed 30 October 2015). 26 On these and many other linguistic exchanges between Serbian and Albanian lan­ guages see: Vanja Stanisid Srpsko-albanskijezicki odnosi (Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, 1995). 27 Vuk Stetanovid Karadzid, Srpski Rjecnik istumacen njemackijem i latinskijem rijecima (Bed: Stamparija jermenskoga manastira, 1852), 5 12. 28 Miljanov, Zivot i obicaji Arbanasa, 2 et passim. 29 BogiSid, Pravni obidaji u Crnoj Gori, Hercegovini i Albaniji; MiloS Lukovid, "IstraZivanja Valiazara BogiSida plemenskog druStva u Crnoj Gori, Hercegovini i Albaniji”, Balcanica 24 (2003): 237-265; Stjefen K. Dedovi, Kanon Leke Dukudinija n Slvarnost, 1986); Surja Pupovci, Gradanskopravni odnosi u Zakoniku Leke Dukadinija (PriStina: Zajednica naudnih ustanova Kosova i Mctohije, 1968).

18 Aleksandar Pavlovic 30 See: Miljanov, Primjeri cojstva ijunastva; Miljanov, Zivol i obicaji Arbanasa. 31 Jovan Vukomanovid, “Slidno i specifidno u siavskim obidajima Arbanasa i Cmogoraea”, in: RadXIVkongresa Savezafolklorista Jugoslavije u Prizrenu 1967 (Beograd: Save?, folklorista Jugoslavije. 1974), www.rastko.rs/raslko-al/folklor/jvukomanovicslave_l.php, (accessed 30 October 2015). 32 Richard Martin, “Epic as Genre”, in: J. M. Foley (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Epic (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 2005), 9; John M. Foley, “Epic as Genre”, in: R. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Homer (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni­ versity Press, 2004), 185. 33 Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, Srpske narodne pjesme, knjiga cetvrta, Sabrana dela Vuka Stefanovica Karadzica (Beograd: Prosveta, 1986), 559. 34 Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, Srpske narodne pjesme, knjiga druga, u kojoj sn pjesme junacke ndjstarije (Bed: Stamparijajermenskoga manastira, 1845), 407; Low, The Bal­ lads ofMarko Kraljevic, 129. 35 Karadzic, Srpske narodne pjesme, knjiga druga, u kojoj supjesme junacke najstarije, 410; Low, The Ballads ofMarko Kraljevic, 131. 36 See: Micovic, A lb a n sk e ju n a c k e p esm e, 68-73. 37 Ibid, 73. 38 Stavro Skendi, Albanian and South Slavic Oral Epic Poetry (Philadelphia: Ameri­ can Folklore Society, 1954); Rigels llalili, Narod i njegove pesme: albanska i srpska narodna epika izmedu usmenosti i pismenosti (Beograd: XX vek, 2017). Micovic, Albanske junacke pesme\ Radosav Medcnica, “ArbanaSkc krcSnidke pesme i naSa narodna epika”. Rad XIV kongresa Saveza folklorista Jugoslavije it Prizrenu 1967 (Beograd: Save? udruzenja folklorista Jugoslavije, 1974); Ana Sivadki, “Specific Ini­ tial (Introductory) Formulas in Albanian (Decasyllabic) Songs of the Frontier War­ riors”, Balcanica 44 (2013): 113-138. 39 Albert B. Lord. The Singer of Tales, 2nd edition, ed. S. Mitchell and G. Nagy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), xv; John Kolsti, The Bilingual Singer: a Study in the Albanian and Serbo-Croatian Oral Epic Traditions (New York: Garland Publishers, 1990). 40 Rigels Halili. “Albanians and Serbs: a Common Epic”, interviewed by Marjola Rukaj, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, 31 May 2013, www.balcanicaucaso.org/ eng/Regions-and-countries/Albania/Albanians-and-Scrbs-a-common-epic-135279 (accessed 30 October 2015). 41 Jovan Cvijic, “Govori i clanci”, in: Sabrana dela, knjiga III (Beograd: SANU, 2000); Zef Mirdita, “Albanci u svjetlosti vanjske politike Srbije”, in: Jugoistocna Europa 1918-1995, Medunarodni znanstveni skup (Zagreb: Hrvatska matica iseljenika i Hrvatski informativni centar, 1996). 42 Mihailo Jovic, Srpska istorija za IV. razr. osn. Skole (Beograd: Stamparija zadruge stamparskih radnika, 1886). 91. 43 Srdan Atanasovski, Mapiranje Stare Srbije: Stopama putopisaca, tragom narodne pesme, Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek/Muzikoloski institut SANU, 2017. 44 Bogdan Trifunovic, The Collective Memory in the Serbian National Discourse on Old Serbia, 2015 (unpublished). 45 Svetislav Simic. Stara Srbija i Arbanasi (Beograd: Stamparija “Dositije Obradovid”, 1904): Jovan Hadzi-Vasiljevic, Stara Srbija i Macedonia (Sa gledista geografskog, istorijskog ipolitickog) (Beograd: Stamparija D. Dimitrijcvid, 1906); Vladan Dordevid, Arnauti i velike site (Beograd: Stamparija “Dositije Obradovic”, 1913); Stojan Prolid (Balknnicus), Albanski problem i Srbija i Austro-Ugarska (Beograd: Stamparija “Dositije Obradovid”, 1913). For an overview, see: Milosavljevic, U tradiciji nacionalizma Hi stereotipi srpskih intelektualaca XX veka o "nama” i “drugima 46 See: Milan Miljkovid, “Kronika palanadkog sveta: negativne predstave o Albancima u ilustrovatnoj ratnoj hronici (1912-1913)”, Baton 136, 18 June 2013, www.elektrobeton. nel/mikser/kronika-palanackog-sveta/, and Vladan Jovanovid’s chapter in this volume. 47 Miljanov, Primjeri cojstva ijunastva; Miljanov. Zivol i obicaji Arbanasa.

Forging the enemy

19

48 Miljanov, Primjeri cojstva ijunastva. 49 Dimitrije Tucovic, Srbija i A lb a n ija : jedan prilog kritici zavojevacke politike srpske burzoazije (Beograd: Kultura, 1946), 116. 50 Schwandner-Sievers, “Albanians, Albanianism and the Strategic Subversion of Stereotypes”. 51 In that respect, this rudimentary analysis of “Albanism” should primarily be taken as a prolegomena for the further studies of the discourse of “Albanism" and its counter­ part “Serbism”, which would follow Maria Todorova’s discussion of interna) Balkanism and Milica Bakic-Hayden’s conception of “nesting orientalisms” in the Balkans (Todorova, Imagining the Balkans', Milica Bakic-Hayden, “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia”, Slavic Review, 54(4): 917-931). About the previous usage of the notion of Albanism in a similar context, see: Schwandner-Sievers, “Alba­ nians, Albanianism and the Strategic Subversion of Stereotypes”.

References Anderson Benedict (1999). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. Anzulovic, Branimir (1999). Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide. New York: New York University Press. Atanasovski, Srdan (2017). Mapiranje Stare Srbije: Stopama putopisaca, tragom narodne pesme. Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek/Muzikoloski institut SANU. Bakic-Hayden, Milica (1995). “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia”, Slavic Review 54(4): 917-931. Balevic, Jovan Stefanov (1757). Kratak istorijsko-geografski opis Crne Gore, www.rastko. rs/rastko-cg/povijest/jsbalevic-opis.html. Barjaktarovid, Mirko (1991). Stanovnistvo slovenskogporijekla uAlbaniji - Zbornikradova sa medanarodnog nauenog skupa odrzanog na Cetinju 21, 22. i 23.juna 1990. godine. Edited by Jovan Bojovid. Titograd: Istorijski institute SR Crne Gore, pp. 395-408. Batakovic, Dusan (1994). “Ilija Garasanin’s Nadertanije: A Reassessment”, Balcanica 25(1): 157-183. Bogisic, Valtazar (2004). Pravni obicaji u Crnoj Gori, Hercegovini iAlbaniji. Podgorica: CID. Cvijic, Jovan (2000). Govori i clanci, Sabrana dela, kn jig a III. Beograd: SANU. Dedovi, Stjefen K. (1986). Kanon Leke Dukadinija. Zagreb: Stvarnost. Dordevic, Vladan (1913). A rn a u ti i velike siie. Beograd: Stamparija “Dositije Obradovic”. Burdev, Branisalv (1984). P o sta n a k i r a z v o j brdskih, ernogorskih i h ercegovackilt plemena. CANU: Titograd. Endresen, Cecilie (2012). Is the Albanian’s R e lig io n Really “Albanianism”? R e lig io n and Nation A cco rd in g to Muslim and Christian L ea d ers in Albania. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Foley. John M. (2004). “Epic as Genre” In: The C a m b rid g e C o m p a n io n to H om er. Edited by Robert Fowler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171-187. GaraSanin. Ilija (1991). N a d erta n ije llije G a ra ia n in a : p ro g r a m sp o lja sn je i u nntrasnje politike S rb ije n a ko n cu 1844. g o d in e. Beograd: Socijalna misao. Iladzi-Vasiljcvic. Jovan (1906). S ta r a S rb ija i M a c e d o n ia , (S a g le d isla g eo g ra fsko g . istorijskog ip o litid k o g ). Beograd: Stamparija D. Dimitrijevid. Halili, Rigels (2017). N a ro d i n jeg o ve p e sm e : a lb a n sk a i sr p sk a n a ro d n a e p ik a izm e du vsm en o sti ip ism e n o sti. Beograd: XX vck. ®Nli, Rigels (2013). “Albanians and Serbs: a Common Epic”. Interviewed by Marjola aiu • ®S!!eiya,0r‘0 P a lc a n i e C a u c a so , 31 May, www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Areas/ bania/Albanians-and-Scrbs-a-common-epic-135279 (accessed 30 October 2015).

20 Aleksandar Pavlovic Hysa, Armanda (2014). Match-making Behind Enemy Lines, LSEE Blog, 15 May, http:// blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsee/20I4/05/15/match-making-across-enemy-lines/ (accessed 30 Octo­ ber 2015). Hysa, Armanda (2015). “Albansko-srpski brakovi izmedu medijskog predstavljanja i stvarnosti”, Be.ton 158, 22 April, www.elektrobeton.net/mikser/albansko-srpski-brak ovi-izmedu-medijskog-predstavljanja-i-stvarnosti/ (accessed 30 October 2015). Jezernik, Bozidar (2004). Wild Europe: The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travelers. London: Saqi. Jovic, Mihailo (1886). Srpska istorija za IV. razr. osn. skole. Beograd: Stamparija zadruge stamparskih radnika. Karadzic, Vuk S. (1845). Srpske narodne pjesme, knjiga druga, u kojoj su pjesme junacke najstarije. Bee: Stamparija jermenskoga manastira. Karadzic, Vuk S. (1849). “Srbi svi i svuda” In: Kovcezic za istoriju.jezik i obicaje Srba sva tri zakona. Bee: Stampari ja jermenskoga manastira, pp. 1-27. Karadzid, Vuk S. (1852). Srpski Rjecnik istumacen njemackijem i latinskijem rijecima. Bee: Stamparija jermenskoga manastira. Karadzic, Vuk S. (1986). Srpske narodne pjesme, knjiga cetvrta. Sabrana dela Vuka Stefanovica Karadzica. Brograd: Prosveta. Kolsti, John (1990). The Bilingual Singer: A Study in the Albanian and Serbo-Croatian Oral Epic Traditions. New York: Garland Publishers. Ljusic, Rados (1993). Knjiga o Nacertaniju. Beograd: BIGZ. Lord, Albert B. (2000). The Singer of Tales. 2nd edition. Edited by Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Low, David H. (1922). The Ballads ofMarko Kraljevic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lukovic, Milos (2003). “Istrazivanja Valtazara Bogisica plemenskog drustva u Crnoj Gori, Hercegovini i Albaniji”, Balcanica 24: 237—265. Martin, Richard (2005). “Epic as Genre” In: A Companion to Ancient Epic. Edited by John Miles Foley. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp.9-19. Medenica, Radosav (1974). “Arbanaske kresnicke pesme i nasa narodna epika” In: Rad XIVkongresa Savezafolklorista Jugoslavije u Prizrenu 1967. Beograd: Savez udruzenja folklorista Jugoslavije. Micovic, Dragutin (1981). Albanskejunacke pesme. Pristina: Jedinstvo. Rad XIV kongresa Saveza folklorista Jugoslavije (Beograd: Naucno delo), www.rastko.rs/rastko-al/umetnost/rmedenica-kresnickeJLphp (accessed 30 October 2015). Miljanov, Marko (1901). Primjeri cojstva ijunastva. Beograd: Cupiceva zaduzbina. Miljanov, Marko (1907). Zivoti obicajiArbanasa. Beograd: Nova Stamparija “Davidovid”. Miljic, Marijan (1998). Povjesnica ernogorska. Podgorica: Unireks. Miljkovic, Milan (2013). Kronika palanackog sveta: negativne predstave o Albancima u ilustrovatnoj ratnoj hronici (1912-1913), Beton 136, 18 June, www.elektrobeton.net/ mikser/kronika-palanackog-sveta/ Milosavljevic, Olivera (2002). U tradieiji nacionalizma Hi stereotipi srpskih intelektualaca XX'veka o "nama” i "drugima Beograd: Helsinski odbor za ljudska prava. Milutinovic, Simeon (1997). Istorija Cme Gore. Svetigora: Cetinje. Mirdita, Zef (1996). “Albanci u svjetlosti vanjske politike Srbije” In: Jugoistocna Europa 1918-1995, Medunarodni znanstveni skup. Zagreb: Hrvatska matica iseljenika i Hrvatski informativni centar. Obradovic, Dositej (1989). Izabrani spisi. Novi Sad: Matica Srpska. Oraovac, Tomo (1913). Arbanaskopitanje i srpskoparvo. Beograd: Sv. Radenkovic i Brat.

Forging the enemy

21

Petrovic, Vasilije (1754). “Istorija o Crnoj Gori” In: Povjesnica crnogorska. Edited by Maso Miljic. Podgorica: Unireks, 1997, pp. 7-36. Protii. Stojan (Balkanicus) (1913). Albanskiproblem i Srbija i Austro-Ugarska. Beograd: Stamparija “Dositije Obradovic”. Pupovci, Surja (1968). Gradanskopravni odnosi u Zakoniku Leke Dukadinija. Pristina: Zajednica naufinih ustanova Kosova i Metohije. Schwandner-Sievers, Stephanie (2004). “Albanians. Albanianism and the Strategic Sub­ version of Stereotypes” In: The Balkans and the West: Constructing the European Other, 1945-2003. Edited by Andrew Hammond. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 110-126. Schwandner-Sievcrs, Stephanie and Bemd Fischer (eds.) (2002). Albanian Identities: Myth and History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Simi6, Svetislav (1904). Stara Srbija iArbanasi. Beograd: Stamparija “Dositije Obradovic”. SivaCki, Ana (2013). “Specific Initial (Introductory) Formulas in Albanian (Decasyllabic) Songs of the Frontier Warriors”, Balcattica 44: 113-138. Skendi, Stavro (1954). Albanian and South Slavic Oral Epic Poetry. Philadelphia: Ameri­ can Folklore Society. Sianisic, Vanja (1995). Srpsko-albanski jezicki odnosi. Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti. Todorova, Maria (1997). Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Trifunovic, Bogdan (2015). The Collective Memory in the Serbian National Discourse on Old Serbia (unpublished). Tucovic, Dimitrije (1946). Srbija i Albanija: jedan prilog kritici zavojevacke politike srpske burzoazije. Beograd: Kultura. Vukotnanovid, J. (1974). “SliCno i specifiCno u slavskim obidajima Arbanasa i Cmogoraca” In: Rad XIV kongresa Saveza J'olklorista Jugoslavije u Prizivnu 1967. Beograd: Savez lolklorista Jugoslavije, www.rastko.rs/rastko-al/folklor/jvukomanovic-slave_I. php (accessed 30 October 2015). Zukovic, Ljubomir (1988). Vukovipevaci iz Crne Gore. Beograd: Rad.

2

Producing Old Serbia In the footsteps of travel writers, on the path of folklore Srdan Atanasovski

*

In the period from the middle of the 19th century until the outbreak of the Balkan wars, Serbian intellectuals, chiefly from the Principality (and later the Kingdom) of Serbia, but also from urban centers of the Habsburg Empire, developed a spe­ cific discourse of travel writing about Old Serbia.1The principal aim of these trav­ elogues was, using history, philology, ethnography and geography, to strengthen Serbian nationalist arguments that these geographic areas belonged to the Serbian nation. Their goal was also to enrich scientific texts through personal testimony of researchers, colorful anecdotes and scenes from everyday life. Such travel writing is thus filled with plethora demographic data, historic information, even ethno­ graphic maps found in annexes, aiming to go beyond objective scientific data in fulfilling the requirements of a literary genre, stirring strong affective reactions in the reading public. Further, from the point of view of artistic contribution, the travelogue served as testimony of the traveler’s firsthand experience, a material trace of the writer’s physical presence in the space described. It was thus believed that the travel writer’s story can only be shared with the public if the voyage described was the result of direct experience. This chapter provides a brief historic overview of the development of the dis­ course of travelogue about Old Serbia and a consideration o f literary techniques necessary for the travelogues to function as mechanisms of appropriation of ter­ ritory. Further, it offers a careful look at the political role of such writing on language and folklore of these regions, as well as the scientific texts derived from these travelogues. We can say that the mechanism of discursive appropriation of territory was different for Macedonia and Old Serbia. In the case of Mac­ edonia, the travel writers used descriptions of language, folklore, customs, etc. to claim that the current (Slavic, Christian) population was subject to Bulgar­ ian propaganda that denied them their “natural rights,” that is, inclusion in the Serbian nation. In contrast, in Old Serbia, which included Kosovo in its narrow sense, northern Albania and possibly northwestern Macedonia,2 regions where the large majority was Albanian, the mechanism of appropriation was supported by historical narrative, geographic and economic arguments, often even with

Producing Old Serbia

23

the fabrication of data, thus opening space for racial and cultural discrimination against non-Slavic peoples. ***

Although by Vuk Karadzic’s time the Kosovo myth had already assumed central place in Serbian culture, art, science and even everyday life (in both the Princi­ pality of Serbia itself and in Serbian areas of the Habsburg Empire), prior to the Congress of Berlin, there had been relatively few firsthand descriptions of Old Serbia and Macedonia.3 This can be seen in Karadzic’s 1836 text Serbs, All and E v e r y w h e r e , in which he expresses the wish to visit “these southeastern lands of our people” . . . but has “still been unable”4. It was thought that, in the first decades of the 19th centuiy, these portions of the Ottoman Empire were dangerous for exploratory travel and could only be “traversed safely with a strong Turkish escort.”5 At the same time, travel literature was ever more popular throughout Europe, including various ethnographic studies based on researchers’ personal experience. Indeed, travelogues about the Principality of Ser­ bia, but also Montenegro, Herzegovina and Bosnia, filled with the travelers’ notes regarding traditional customs, appeared ever more frequently in the press or as books. Improved financial status, concentration of wealth, expansion of the road net­ work, all enabled research and travel as a mode of education and leisure and became ever more widespread among the rising bourgeois class in the Principality of Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.6 This only made the lack of writing about this ever more intriguing region, proclaimed as Old Serbia, all the more conspicuous. The first recorded travelogue about Old Serbia penned by a Serbian author was published in 1852. Entitled Decani’s Pathfinder [Decanskiprvenac], it was written by the monk Gedeon Josif Jurisic, bom in Irig in 1809, who resided a few years at the monastery Visoki Decani, from where he toured the surrounding areas (for chronology of major travelogues from Old Serbia see Table 2.1). The major­ ity of JuriSic’s text is about the monastery itself, its architecture, the frescoes, as well as the manuscripts and other items from its treasury. In the final portion of the text, Jurisic describes the regions of Kosovo, Metohija, Montenegro and Macedo­ nia which he has visited, often considering them through the prism of medieval history, speaking about the current political situation, emphasizing the precarity of the Serbian population and the uncertain future of the monastery itself. Calling all these regions Serbian, Jurisic points out that his manuscript came about in response to the desire of educated Serbs in Austria for research and description of these “Serbian regions” and “Serbian antiquities.”7 The founda­ tions of the travelogue genre about Old Serbia, however, were laid by Milos S. Milojevi6, historian, politician and author, who, upon his voyage there, published a three-volume manuscript (1871-1877) and a scientific study on demography, i ethnography and geography of the region (1881). As early as 1866, Milojevic published a polemic directed against “Bulgarian propaganda” in Old Serbia liiK Macedonia and began writing a major oeuvre, Songs and Customs o f the | tote Serbian People [Pesme i obicaji ukupnog naroda srpskog] (1869-1875).

24 Srdan Atanasovski Milojevid was also politically active through institutions such as the Society of St. Sava and undertook the trip through Old Serbia on the written recommenda­ tion of the Education Minister of Serbia, Dimitrije Matid and the metropolitan archbishop of Belgrade, Mihailo. Certain aspects of travel writing found in Milojevid’s travelogues, and to an extent in JuriSid’s, will consistently appear in the publications o f later authors: preference for spatial description over temporal; erasure o f time as a significant narrative aspect - that is, the introduction of a kind o f timelessness of the travel writing genre-the motif of precarity; and finally, the intertwinement o f scientific, demographic and historical data with travel prose. Milojevid achieves this inter­ twinement of the scientific approach and a literary text in the very manuscript such as presenting detailed demographic information within the description of his journey - but also in his overall effort, by shortly thereafter publishing his scien­ tific study as a companion to his travel writing. Following Milojevid, this strategy will be employed by several travel writers. Thus, Branislav NuSid published his own scientific study, Kosovo. A Description o f Country and People [Kosovo. Opts zentlje i naroda], only a year after his literary monograph of his Kosovo travels. A series of important travelogues about Old Serbia was published in the years immediately after the Serbian-Bulgarian war, which further brought the threat of “Bulgarian propaganda” to the fore. Respectable scientists and politicians o f the time, Vladimir Karic and Stojan Novakovic published “voyage notes” in 1889 and 1892 respectively. Stojan Novakovid was known to the Serbian public as a leading historian and linguist, while Vladimir Karid was mostly an ethnographer and geographer. And although the “notes” these two intellectuals published were a relatively small and less significant portion of their overall oeuvre, it is interest­ ing that they confirm the imperative for researchers to also express themselves as travelers-reporters. The study of Spiridon Gopdevic in a certain way also testifies to this imperative. Initially published in German, Gopdevic’s travelogue came out in Serbian in 1890, translated by Milan Kasumovid. Intended as two volumes, the first part of Gopdevid’s text takes the form of a personal detailed description o f the journey itself. The second part, entitled “Serbian-Bulgarian Disagreement regard­ ing Macedonia and Old Serbia,” is a political scientific debate directed against Bul­ garian “natural” and “historic” rights to these regions, in which the author invokes knowledge of history, linguistics, ethnography and etymology and refers the reader to the first, journey portion fora slew of situations that confirm his positions.* A special place among travel writers who published their works in the first decade of the 20th century is occupied by Branislav NuSic and Ivan Ivan id. In addition to being an author and poet o f distinction, NuSid was active in politics. He published two travelogues - From the Banks o f Lake Ohrid [,S ohala Ohridskogjezera] ( 1894) and From Kosovo to the Blue Sea [S Kosova na sinje more] ( 1902b) - notable in the genre for their excellent literary qualities. NuSid’s clever narration enables him to, perhaps more adeptly than other writer, underscore the dimension of space over time and animate the text with dialogue and lyrical reflection. In addition to these two works, in 1902-1903, Nu§id published his sci­ entific study, Kosovo. A Description o f Country and People, which deals mostly

Table 2.1 Chronology of the most significant travelogues from Old Serbia and Macedonia G enre

Year

Title

1852

Gedeon Josif Jurisic: D e c a n i’s

1871-1877

Milos S. Milojevic: Tra velo g u e

1875-1882

1889

1890

1892 1894

P a th fin d er

thro u g h a P o rtio n o f R e a l (O ld) S erb ia [P utopis d ela p r o v e (Stare) Srbije] Panta Sreckovic: J o u r n e y Im a g es (K o s o v o ; Tomb o f the M rn ja vcev ic F a m ily; P o d rim a n d M eto h ija ) [P utnicke slike (K o so v o ; F a m ilija rn a g ro b n ic a M rn ja vcev ic a ; P o d rim i M e to h ija )] Vladimir Karic: C onsta n tin o p le, M o u n t A th o s, T hessaloniki. T ravel S ketch es w ith N o te s a b o u t T ra d itio n a l C ustom s o f th e East [Carigrad, S veta G ora, Solun. Putnicke crtice s b eleska m a o n a ro d n o j p ro p a g a n d i n a Istoku] Spiridon Gopcevic: O ld S e rb ia a n d Macedonia. M y Travel R e p o rt [S ia m S rb ija i M a ked o n ija . M o j p u tn i izvestaj] Stojan Novakovic: F ro m the M o ra v a to Vardar: 1886. T ravel N o te s [S M o ra ve n a Vardar: 1886. P u tn e beleske) Spira Kalik: F rom B elg ra d e to T h essa lo n iki a n d S ko p je w ith the

literary travelogue (including description of monastery) literary travelogue (illustrated) literary travelogue

literary travelogue

ethnographic travelogue

literary travelogue literary travelogue/report (illustrated)

Belgrade Singing Society: Traveler i Notes [lz Beograda u S o lu n i Skoplje s B eo g ra d skim p e v a c k im drustvom :

1894 1895. 1892-1902 1903

1906-1908

1910

putnicke beleske] Branislav NuSic: From the B a n k s o f L ake O h rid [5' obala O h rid sk o g je ze ra ] Milojko V. Veselinovic: A View o f K o so vo [P o g led kroz K o so v o ] Branislav Nusid: F rom K o so v o to O pen Sea [S K o so v a n a sin je m ore) Ivan Ivanic: In K osovo: fr o m Sar, through K osovo, to Zvecan. The Travel N o tes o f Iv a n Iv a n ic [N a K o so vu : S a Sara, p o K osovu, n a Zvecan. Iz p u tn ih belezaka Iva n a Ivanica] Ivan Ivanic: M a ced o n ia a n d M a ced o n ia n s. Travel N o tes [M acedonija i M aced o n ci. P u to p isn e beleske] Todor P. Stankovid: T ravel N o tes fr o m O ld S erb ia 1 8 7 1 -1 8 9 8 [Putne beleske p o S ta ro j S rbiji: 1 8 7 1 -1 8 9 8 ]

literary travelogue literary travelogue literary travelogue literary travelogue

travelogue and demographic, ethnographic and geographic study report travelogue

26 Srdan Atanasovs ki with questions o f ethnography. Similarly to Nusic, Ivan Ivanic, a diplomat posted in Pristina, Thessaloniki, Bitola and Istanbul, publishing several travelogues from Macedonia and Old Serbia (1901-1903), as well as a travel-scientific study Mac­ edonia and Macedonians [Macedonia i Macedonci] (1906-1908). ***

The main task in this analysis of the characteristics of travelogues from Old Ser­ bia and Macedonia is to identify certain mechanisms used by the writers to appro­ priate these territories. Namely, the authors are attempting to offer their readers a convincing case that these territories are all key portions of an imaginary Serbian national territory. The techniques used to that end are: erasure o f time, that is, a narrative that prioritizes the spatial dimension and historical time; erasure or disavowal of political borders; introduction of the motif o f precarity; finally, intro­ duction of the documentary method and the intertwinement of travel prose and scientific research, which I will discuss in the final portion of the text. The primacy of the dimension of space over the dimension of time is one of the main characteristics of all the narratives concerning Old Serbia. The temporal aspect of the narration is already conditioned by the narrator and as such does not represent a significant achievement. Time is substituted by space, which not only guides the curiosity of the narrator but represents the main formative criterion and the way the travelogue strings together the anecdotes, dialogues and travel obser­ vations, as well as historical, demographic and other information. In such a way, actual, travel time is blended with historic time, as well as with mythological time, that is, with timelessness. On his way, the travel writer describes the landscapes and locations where he finds himself not only through current observations, but through historical stories and popular beliefs tied to that specific place. A typi­ cal sentence, from Panta Sredkovic, describing his journey through Podrimlje, is: “From Mitrovica to Zvecani, I travel through the village of Pantina, where Stefan Nemanja ‘fought a devil of a fight’ for Prizren.”9 Such references, especially in the travelogues of Milos Milojevic, can grow into elaborate digressions in which the author interprets the historical writing carved into ruins and monuments encoun­ tered on the way.10 It is particularly interesting to see the way in which the erasure of the dimension of time is implemented on the level of everyday experience. Thus, in a descrip­ tion of a Turkish inn he encounters in Biljad, Stojan Novakovid compares the current guest house with descriptions of travel customs found in DuSan’s Code, noting that “in certain remote areas of Turkey . . . the Middle Ages live on in full bloom.” 11 Even in Todor Stankovid’s terse prose, the history of the medieval Serbian State is unavoidable, and the author triumphantly concludes that “as far as the villages, hills, rivers and valleys carry Serbian names, as long as Arnaut villages have old churches, monasteries and tombstones,. . . there are no Arbanasi people or Albania.”12 Beginning with Jovan Cvijid, the Serbian nationalist discourse includes the idea of an organic, that is, causal connection between natural, geographic characteristics

Producing Old Serbia

27

of “the motherland” and the character and particularity of a nation. In accordance with this understanding of the connection between nature and nation, travel writ­ ers from Old Serbia frequently interpret the natural beauty they encounter through the narrative prism of Serbian history, bringing together geographic characteris­ tics with historical narratives. A fantastical poetic image is achieved by Milojko Veselinovib, in his 1895 travelogue, A View o f Kosovo: In less than an hour the train sped down to Eles-han, and in another hour to Kacanik. Terrifying! It is hard to tell what is more awesome, the Kacanik gorge with her nature or Starina Novak, wearing his headpiece, filled with sorrow and despair, his face glowering! . . . The Kacanik gorge enchants the traveler with its nature. It is not very craggy, rather more forested - a great place for a brigand. Instantly I had before me the old warrior, Starina Novak, it is as if I could see him, flying from hill to hill with his gang,jumping from cover to cover, heroically defending his gorge, pulling the helmet down over his ears! If he was a hero of terrifying gaze, he had reason to be so. Pass there, ye Serb, and if ye not see Starina Novak with his gloomy face and helmet, call me a liar!13 In describing Lake Ohrid at the opening of his travelogue, Branislav NuSic develops a more subtle allegory, in which the tempestuous lake becomes a meta­ phor for the Serbian nation: How glorious and terrifying this tame lake must look in a tempest! A chained giant, senselessly crashing against the cold cell walls, shattering his shackles, breaking away, making his wardens tremble with his roar. The sky above it writhes, pushing the clouds low, while the lake moves from the deep, reaching high with its enormous waves, the two exchanging heroic howls, entwined in a manly embrace. Does the sky draw its slave to itself in a soothing kiss, or does the slave contort and struggle to smash his fetters and break from the sky’s grasp, to be free at last?14 The Old Serbia travel writers strive in particular to point to the meaninglessness of the state border that divides the Kingdom of Serbia and the Ottoman Empire, and they do so, first, by pointing to the “invisibility” of the border itself and, second, by showing the affinity of language, customs and circumstances in Old Serbia and the Kingdom of Serbia - despite all the obvious differences. And while the latter required scientific reflection, above all in linguistics and ethnology, the former was conducted through poetic imagery and description, primarily relying on the inspiration and literary gift of the author. In that sense, Novakovic’s humor­ ous and lively description of the border crossing with Turkey is notable: Where is the border?” I asked my escort. They pointed to a thin, shallow trench. ‘That is the border, sir!”

28 Sr dan A tanas ovski And I beheld closely this line that separates country from country, influ­ ence from influence, and a people from itself. Need I say that I wished that my weak eyes could not even behold this narrow line?15 The third motif, that of precarity, pervades travel writing about Old Serbia in a remarkable way, either in the sense of safety of the travel writer himself or a more general precarity, regarding the survival of the entire nation. Indeed, these two levels are constantly entwined and bound up in one unified affect: the travel writer could begin writing about an immediate threat to himself, only to then show how the entire population o f the region described is under threat, including the Serbian cultural heritage. Precarity and the feeling of insecurity do not only represent a literary or genre motif, but a technique in which the very act of “reading” the travelogue becomes a highly affective practice. In particular, it is significant how the line between personal security and security of the nation as a whole is elided, thus transferring the feeling of precarity of the nation, via the threat to the writer’s safety, to a feeling of insecurity and vulnerability of the body of the reader the final consumer. Frequently the entire travelogue is pervaded by a consistent danger to the traveler, bound up with a danger of biological or cultural perish­ ing of the nation. Thus, Gopdevid tells us that he has brought with him poison “a tiny vial of cyanide” - in case he “falls into the hands of Macedonian brigands” who often “use creative torture methods to extort ransom money.”16 Milojevic’s travelogue is most frequently punctuated with scenes describing the danger to his personal security, including a scene in which Albanian highwaymen fire at his party in front of the entrance to a Turkish inn.17This personal level of danger is raised onto the level of the whole nation: in Old Serbia, due to the conflict with the Albanian population, Serbs are under existential threat.” Descriptions of physical precarity and violence against Serbs appear already in Jurisic19 and can be followed in nearly all the travelogues from Kosovo. We have descriptions of Serbs, who due to violence and constant pressure from the Ottoman govern­ ment, renounce their faith and nation, meaning that a significant portion o f the Albanian (Amaut) population is “turkified,” that is, taken by the travel writers to be descendants of Serbs from the middle ages, and in Macedonia, Serbian culture is being erased before aggressive “Bulgarian propaganda” (Gopdevid 1890: 7). In his demographic descriptions of given regions in Kosovo (such as the areas surrounding Ped, Pristina and Mitrovica), MiloS Milojevid does not even seem to recognize other members of the Islamic faith except for “islamized, turkified Serbs” (Milojevid 1871: 2 14ff). The nation is not only endangered on the level of demographic state, that is, in terms of numbers, but also in terms of noble Serbian racial qualities. Milojevid thus adopts the discourse of “impurity” from the trav­ elogues of the Orient and the Balkans, applying it to the “racial other” in relation to the Serbian nation, holding nothing back in an attempt to produce disgust and horror in his future readers: On the upper floor, they surround the fire, like ravens or vultures around a carcass. One could see the pure islamized Serb, now called Amaut, the mixed

Producing Old Serbia

29

type of Serbian and Ottoman, Albanian and Ottoman, Albanian and Serbian Ottoman and Gypsy, etc. In other words, in but a few men there were rep­ resentatives of many peoples, who have, like hungry wolves, torn apart our true and pure Serbian land. The dirty, the pale, the black, the red, innumer­ able, impure, trash, disgust, the mixture of all malodors into one, the wild gaze, as well as confounded and desperate - all left a terrible impression on us, who reacted with disgust and revulsion, nausea really, if we may speak plainly, more than fear, terror, certainly no good or beautiful. Imagine if you will this mob, perfectly blackened and greasy, who change their clothes no more than once a year, who never comb nor wash, huddled in a sentry post, uncleaned since it was built. Only then will you be able to come close to the abhorrence and disgust felt, especially of one who for the first time in life sees such sights.20 ***

On their voyages through Ottoman lands, Serbian travel authors frequently have to admit that they encountered residents of regions of whose nationality they are not completely certain. GopCevic speaks explicitly about the ambivalence he encoun­ ters among his interlocutors in Old Serbia and Macedonia, who say that they have become used to speaking of themselves as Bulgarian even though they are really Serbian.21 Thus, to GopCevic’s question, “then, you are Serbian?” his interlocutor says: “You know, we are Serbs, as it were, but we’ve grown accustomed to say­ ing that we are Bulgarian . . . this is our custom.”22 Jovan Cvijic concluded that in Macedonian Slavs there is no . . endogenous national consciousness,” and that they “identify equally easily as Serbian or Bulgarian.”23 Personal declara­ tion of national belonging clearly was an insufficient criterion for the purposes of determining the reach of the Serbian nation. The nation was seen more as an objective and natural given, and less a matter of personal choice of the individ­ ual, and it was important for the researchers to establish objective and scientific criteria in order to answer these questions. Jovan CvijiC advocated solving the “Macedonian political problem . . . through scientific findings,” adding that “there is no doubt that in a fluid mass of people that has neither a definite Serbian, nor Bulgarian national feeling, one can find in both language and historical tradition both Serbian and Bulgarian traits, symbols, traces.”24 In the project of scientific determination of national belonging of an undecided population, two fields were of particular value: linguistics and ethnography. The 19th century saw a widespread and frequent use of the Herderian criterion of national language to distinguish nations in Europe.25 And in the case of the Serbian nation, the criterion of belonging, established as early as the works of Vuk Karad2i£, was language. Although this criterion was called into question in AustriaHungary, where Catholic and Muslim speakers of the shtokavian dialect did not wish to identify as Serbian,26 the criterion was considered entirely valid on the territory of Old Serbia and Macedonia. In these regions, it was necessary to show Out that Muslims of the area (Turks, turkified people, but also Albanians - “the

30 Srdan Atanasovski Amauts”) are actually converted Serbs and to draw the border with the competing Bulgarian national project, where there was no religious differentiation. Multiple authors, such as Stojan Novakovic and Spiridon Gopcevic, attempted to deline­ ate clear scientific-linguistic criteria according to which the language spoken by Macedonian Slavs ought to be considered a dialect of Serbian and not Bulgarian. For Stojan Novakovic, one of the basic criteria for differentiation was phonetics, and so this author claims that the presence of the letters, that is, phonemes “d” and “c” is a reliable sign that the “Macedonian language” is a dialect of Serbian.27 Gopcevic’s markers of differentiation, on the other hand, encompass phonetic determinants, as well as those of lexicology, grammar, accent, use of pronouns and suffixes and prefixes. Particular emphasis was placed on the idea that the language of Macedonian Slavs was closer to medieval “Serbian,” that is, the lan­ guage researchers encountered on medieval Serbian monuments, rather than con­ temporary standard Serbian.28 However, this way of using linguistics, as Jovan Cvijic himself noticed, had its drawbacks. First, researchers themselves are often unreliable and recognize only things with which they are familiar, and second, speakers easily shift and adapt their language in accordance with immediate needs and the situation.29 ft seemed that ethnography promised a more reliable method, since it was based on studying customs and oral traditions that - it was believed - reached all the way back to mythological, pre-historic time. Indeed, the rise of modern nationalism was based and is inextricably tied to the discipline of ethnography or ethnology. National­ ism was based on ideas of “authenticity,” meaning that the study of folklore, for the purposes of uncovering and conservation of forgotten, ancient or endangered layers of culture, presented from the very beginning a powerful tool in the hands of nationalist ideology. Interest in study of “traditional culture” was developed hand in hand with ideas of nationalism: it was the study of folklore that, through discourses of “authenticity,” provided the source of scientific argument about natural and historical rights of the nation.30 The understanding of ethnology as inextricable from the idea of the collective and the people, or the nation, was explicitly present in the works of Serbian scientists at the turn of the 20th century: in On Ethnology (1906), Tihomir Bordevi6 expresses the view that “ethnology presents not so much the ideas of the individual, but of peoples, groups” and that “the ethnologist is not interested what the individual thinks is good, true or beautiful, or what the individual believes and desires, but rather, he is interested in what corresponds to the general thought of a people.”31 The creation of a causal connection between customs and the nation was also significant: in this way, the question of the nation ceased to be a question of willingly belonging and became an issue on the level of daily practice that could be reliably studied and described by ethnology. The ethnologists and travel writers who researched Old Serbia and Macedonia strove to show that the Slavic population of these regions of the Ottoman Empire had the same customs and corresponding folklore as Serbs in “northern regions,” that is, in the Kingdom of Serbia and Austria-Hungary. The most significant indi­ cator of Serbian tradition was the marking of the family saint day. Various authors,

Producing Old Serbia

31

such as Tihomir Dordevic, Spiridon Gopcevic and Milojko Vesclinovic, al) agree on this point, describing saint day celebration rituals, comparing them to similar celebrations in Serbia proper.32 Some authors, such as Milos Milosevic and Milo­ jko Veselinovid, saw the customs of Old Serbia as part of broader considerations of Serbian tradition. Thus, Milojevic, in the first book of his study Songs and Customs o f the Whole Serbian People [Pesme i obicaji ukupnog naroda srbskog] transmits songs written down in Old Serbia, complete with commentaiy about their use in rituals characteristic of Serbian customs.33 A prominent place in this discourse is occupied by a voluminous study by the Russian consul in Prizren, Ivan Stepanovich Yastrebov, regarding customs and songs of Serbs in and around Prizren, Pec, Debar and the river Ibar.34Presenting his entire text as “travel notes,” Yastrebov actually offers a specific hybrid of travel prose, ethnographic study and collection of “transcribed” traditional songs. The study of folklore in the narrow sense of the word - oral tradition, tradi­ tional songs, material heritage - required the development of appropriate strate­ gies for an “objective” and scientific way of marking the folklore as Serbian. The collected traditional songs were first analyzed linguistically, to make sure that they were indeed of Serbian and not of the rival, Bulgarian, language. The themes, that is, the analysis of motifs in the poems was equally important, if not even more significant for the determination of national belonging. It was assumed that each nation possessed its own poetic sensibility, according to which the crea­ tions of each tradition could be clearly differentiated from that of other nations, thus posing the question of what represents this singular sensibility and how it can be recognized.35Any mention of a person from Serbian medieval history was proffered as proof of the song’s belonging to the Serbian nation. As the most significant protagonist in this sense, commentators presented Prince Marko.36Fre­ quently, Yastrebov includes versions of songs already part of Karadzid’s canonical collections and uses comparative analysis of motifs to show that Kosovo is Old Serbia in the poetic sense too, as the territory which gave birth to the poetic core of Serbian traditional poetry, whence it migrated north and northwest.37 Ethnographic researchers emphasized that their discourse on language, folk­ lore and customs is inseparable from the territory this material is supposed to represent, making their ethnographic projects examples par excellence of nation mapping. Whether part of travel writing or ethnographic studies, traditional art land customs are always presented geographically, leaving the temporal dimension ‘°f the customs' emergence to exceptional circumstance. These ethnographers and travel writers tended to see the population of a region as very stable, leading them to conclusions about its national belonging, thus at once mapping the “mother­ land ’ of a nation. As Holm Sundhaussen points out, from its inception, ethnology I jn Serbia had a “key role in the mental formation of the nation and legitima­ tion of its territorial aspirations.”38 The extent to which the spatial thinking of ie nation is inscribed into the very methodology of ethnology can be gleaned om Tihomir Bordevic’s study about the delineation of the discipline, in which ■We author expresses the opinion that, given that folklore is inseparable from the aiion, the ethnographer, who has the task of exploring a people, ought to limit

32 SrdanAtanasovski himself to the “region of that people,” collect data and interpret “what is charac­ teristic for that people, its appearance and forms,” “working on [the folklore] of a limited territory of a single people or a given region.”39 Elsewhere, Dordevid is even more explicit: Our folklore has for us also political significance, since it is a powerful tool for the determination of national borders. It is through folklore that the peo­ ple draws its own national limits. How could a single object, named with the same word from the Adriatic to the Balkan mountains, from the Aegean to Budapest, signify anything other than that it is indeed the product of the spirit and heritage of a single people.*0 Such use of ethnography was widespread in Europe at the turn of the 20th cen­ tury, its political role more prominent in border regions where national belonging of a population was not entirely determined. A paradigmatic example is the 1917 study by Leon Doniinian about the role of language and custom in establishing borders in Europe. The study even had direct political influence on the proceed­ ings of the Versailles peace negotiations.'11 It was precisely in the context of eth­ nology as the discipline of nation mapping that one ought to consider the sharp turn of the ethnologist towards the rural, and towards the high value placed on village culture and folklore, which will become a prominent characteristic of the entire nationalist discourse. Urban populations were not only unstable and prone to migrations, but on the territories of Old Serbia and Macedonia, they were in direct conflict with the aspirations of the Serbian intellectual elite, considering that these urban areas were dominated by Ottoman culture. In contrast, it was thought that the rural population was sedentary and that it could thus serve as the “authentic” source of ethnographic material, that is, a repository of timeless oral tradition and the measuring tool for the mapping project.43 Certainly an excellent tool for ethnology as a science of mapping were the “ethnographic maps,” usually included in ethnological studies, but also in travel prose. Ethnographic maps of Old Serbia and Macedonia were in one sense an exceptionally seductive medium of presentation of scientific results and, in another, were frequently entirely and conspicuously arbitrary. Even more than the travelogues, these maps, produced in the international arena, were in open conflict with one another, depending on the (ethno)cartographer’s national allegiance and perspective on the potential solutions to the Eastern, that is, Macedonian ques­ tion. These maps did not only differ in placement of borders, but which ethnic categories ought to be “delineated.” On the ethnographic map of MiloS Milojevid, one can find Serb-Macedonians, Serb-Bulgarians, “Serb-RaSani,”43 de facto giv­ ing Serbian national space the lion’s share of the Balkan peninsula. On GopCevid’s map, we find “Greeks of Serbian origin,” “Albanians of Serbian origin,” “Serbs of Muslim faith.” Interestingly, at the beginning of the 20th century, Cvijid criticized heavily this practice of ethnographic mapping, saying that “in all ethnographic Bulgarian maps, all Macedonian Slavs are marked as Bulgarians, in Serbian maps as Serbs, and in Greek maps, the same color is used not only for Greeks, but the

Producing Old Serbia

33

majority or even all Macedonian Slavs.”44 However, Cvijid himself produced a series of ethnographic maps between 1906 and 1918, sometimes including and at other times excluding “Macedonian Slavs” from the map of the Balkans, in which he kept changing the place of the border between Serbs and Bulgarians and alter­ ing the colors on the map in order to present the region of Macedonia as closer to Serbia. The fact that ethnology could not free itself of the need to be expressed in maps (which by their very nature remove the possibility of showing the hetero­ geneity of cultures of a given geographic region) once again speaks to its basic national and territorial principle of research and the essential national-political connotations from which it was never divorced. The description of language and folklore was an inseparable part of travel writ­ ing from Old Serbia and Macedonia and at the same time one of the more impor­ tant mechanisms used by travel writers to represent these regions as part of the Serbian homeland. Precisely by describing, collecting, studying the language and folklore, the travel writers could adopt a seemingly objective perspective in order to prove that these regions belong to Serbia, as well as better convey their experi­ ences to the reading public within the Kingdom of Serbia and in Austria-Hungary. After all, their overall conclusions spoke in favor of seeing the language and cus­ toms of Serbs in the Kingdom and in the Dual Monarchy, on the one hand, and the population of Old Serbia, on the other, as being essentially the same, without key differences and barriers that would lead to incomprehension between members of these two populations. In accordance with these criteria, this was one people, not only connected by an ethnic origin and racial characteristics, but a unified culture, folklore, language. It is also important to note that the mechanisms of scientific appropriation of territories were different for the territory designated as Macedonia, where the opposing nation was Bulgaria, from the space called Old Serbia (in the narrower sense of the word), that is, Kosovo and northern Albania, with a majority Alba­ nian population. While in the first case, travel writers and scientists spared no effort in considering current demographic data, as well as linguistic and custom practice, attempting to show that the Macedonian population is closer to the Ser­ bian than to the Bulgarian nation, in the second case, travel writers often ignored reality, using digressions into fields of history, geography or even dubious inter­ pretation of the demographic state. Journeying through Old Serbia, travel writers created a narrative illusion that they are moving through a kind of historical time, with their reflections more often directed at medieval history and the geography of the landscape, rather than the current life of the communities. Finally, when they had to treat the demographic data, travel writers frequently claimed that the population that did not identify as belonging to the Serbian nation, its language and its Orthodox religion, was either recently converted or else had adopted a ifferent language or had emigrated there latterly. This allowed not only for the rritories of Old Serbia to be unequivocally marked as Serbian but anticipated c abolishment of political rights and right to self-determination to the entirety ie non-Serbian population, often seen as “unclean,” dangerous, racially and culturally “Other.”

34 Srdan Atanasovski A potential conclusion drawn from this analysis could be that the creation of the myth of Old Serbia required data that was often fabricated or tendentiously interpreted, as well as a discursive context in which these same data could be presented as evidence derived from firsthand experience of the narrator and as incontrovertible truth. Ultimately, the way in which the data about Old Serbia was presented was meant to arouse in the reader affective reactions and engender the identification of the individual with the nation as an imagined community. As such, the discourse of travelogues from Old Serbia became a mechanism of appropriation of territory for the purposes of Serbian nationalism, at the expense of the rights of the actual residents of this region, above all, the Albanian popula­ tion. This project has had long-term political consequences, given that the views of Serbian intellectuals from the turn of the 20th century are still prevalent in Serbian nationalist discourse and still used to justify nationalist claims. Not only have the texts discussed here gone through new editions and reprints without any adequate critical assessment of context in which they appeared, but there is unfil­ tered use of pseudoscientific data in contemporary scientific publications (such as reproduction of anachronistic “ethnic maps”).45 A critical confrontation and contextualization of these texts reveals, therefore, the extent to which “truths” on which a given nationalist discourse is based have themselves been fabricated in a previous phase of the development of that ideological matrix.

Notes 1 The term “Old Serbia,” which hereafter will be used without quotations marks for ease of reading, is not used to denote a real geographic area but is rather a refer­ ence to a constructed field of meanings produced in Serbian nationalist discourses during the 19th century that stood for a substantial portion of the imaginary Serbian national territory. Cf. Bogdan Trifunovic, Collective Memory and the Sites o f Memory in the Serbian Discourse on Old Serbia. Doctoral thesis, Faculty of “Artes Liberates,” University of Warsaw, 2004), https://depotuw.ceon.pl/handlc/item/l02l (accessed 15 June 2016). Travel writing about Old Serbia written in Serbian has thus far not been treated as a distinct topic. DuSan Batakovic edited an anthology about Kosovo from 1852 until 1912, but the primary focus was not travel writing, even though the major­ ity of entries in the anthology were of this type. DuSan T. Batakovid, Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji. 1852-1912 (Beograd: Srpska knjizevna zadruga, 1988). Other studies have taken up specific aspects of Branislav NuSic's travel writing about Kos­ ovo and Metohija. Slobodanka Pctkovic (ed.), Knjiga oputopisu (Beograd: Institut za knji2cvnost i umetnost, 2001). 2 In drawing lines between these regions, Jovan Cvijic used geographic characteristics, thus putting Skopje in Old Serbia, while Macedonia was reduced to the area around Ohrid and Bitola, a division with which Tihomir Dordevic agreed. Jovan Cvijic, “Geografski poloZaj i opSte geografske osobine Makedonije i Stare Srbijc,” Srpski knjizevni glasnik 11 (1904) and Tihomir. R. Dordevic, Makedonija (Pandevo: Izdavadka knjizara Napredak, 1920), 4. 3 Much like the term Old Serbia, in the writing of these travelers the term Macedonia (which came in two variants: Macedonia and Makedonija - with the latter orthog­ raphy surviving into the present), rather than any actual territory, refers to a web of meanings in Serbian nationalist discourse. 4 Vuk S. Karadzid, Etnografski spisi, ed. M. S. Filipovic (Beograd: Prosveta, 1972), 31;

Producing Old Serbia

35

5 Batakovic, Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji. 1852-1912, ix. 6 Dubravka Stojanovid, "Turizam i konstrukcija socijalnog i nacionalnog identiteta u Srbiji krajem 19. i podetkom 20. veka,” Godisnjak za drustvenu isloriju 13 (2007): 41-59. 7 Hedeon Iosif Yuryshyc, Dechansky prvenats. Opysaniye manastyra Decltana. Dyploma kralya Dechanskoh, Opysaniye Ypekske Patriarshiye, mnohy slaty zdaniya, mnohy mesta stare Srbiye y Kosovskoh polya (Novy Sad: Nar. knyhopcchatnya Dan. Medakovyca, 1852), iii. 8 Contemporary authors have disputed the authenticity of GopCevic’s “travelogue,” concluding that the author never visited the described areas of the Ottoman Empire. Michael Heim, Spiridiort Gopcevic. Leben tind Werk (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1966), 90-114. Cf. Christian Promitzer, “Austria and the Balkans: Exploring the Role of Travelogues in the Construction of an Area,” in: C. Promitzer, S. Gruber i H. Heppner (eds.). Southeast European Studies in a Globalizing World (Mtlnster: LIT Verlag, 2015), 204-205. 9 Panta Sreckovic, “Putnicke slike. Treca slika. Podritn i Metohija,” Letopis Matice srpske 130(1982): 12-35. 10 See, for example, MiloS S. Milojcvic, Putopis dela Prove - Stare —Srbije (Beograd: Glavna srp. knjifcara Jovana D. Lazarevica 1871), 121-123. 11 Stojan Novakovid, S Morave na Vardar. Po zidinama Carigrada. Brusa. Putne beleske (Beograd: Kraljcvska srpska drzavna Stamparija, 1894), 17-20. 12 Todor P. Stankovie, Putne beleske po Staroj Srbiji 1871-1898 (Beograd: Stamparija D. Munca i M. Karica, 1910), 132. 13 Milojko Veselinovic, Pogled kroz Kosovo (Beograd: Stamparija Kraljevine Srbije, 1895), 4. 14 Branislav D. NuSid, Kraj obala Ohridskoga jezera. Beleske iz 1892 godine (Beograd: Drzavna Stamparija Kraljevine Srbije, 1894), 65. 15 Novakovid, S Morave na Vardar. Po zidinama Carigrada. Brusa. Putne beleske, 6-7. 16 Spiridon GopCevid, Stara Srbija i Makedonija, trans. Milan Kasumovid (Beograd: Pama Stamparija Dim. Dimitrijcvida, 1980), 22. 17 Milojevid, Putopis dela Prove — Stare-Srbije, 127-128. 18 The intertwinement of the motif of precarity on various levels is also present in the text of Todor Stankovid (Slankovid, Putne beleske po Staroj Srbiji 1871-1898). This author, much like Milojevid, includes mi episode in which he is shot at (30-31) and punctuates the text with moments about the destruction of Serbian churches and monu­ ments (22, 24), with moments of demographic dissipation of the nation due to vio­ lent ejections, resettlement, conversion or rejection of the Serbian language (20), and finally, with constant complaints of daily violence against Serbs (24), achieving a syn­ ergy effect in a rambling narrative. 19 Cf. Yuryshyc, Dechansky prvenats, 122-123. 20 Milojcvic, Putopis dela Prove - Stare - Srbije, 103-104. 21 Gopdevid, Stara Srbija i Makedonija, 26-27. 22 Ibid., 33. Similarly, Spira Kalik, traveling through Macedonia encounters a boy whom he asks whether he is Serbian, to which the boy answers that he is Bulgarian. Asked how he can be Bulgarian when speaking Serbian, the boy said “That’s what 1was told by my teacher, that I am Bulgarian, but my daddy says I am Serbian, like him.” Spira Kalik, Iz Beograda u Solun i Skoplje s Beogradskim pevackint drustvom Putnicke beleske (Beograd: Stamparija P. K. Tanaskovida, 1894), 21. 23 Jovan Cvijid, Promatranja o elnogrq/iji makedonskih Slovena (Beograd: G, Kon, 24 Ibid., 17. 5 Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised edition (London i New York: Verso, 1991), 67-82; Patrik J. Gari, M" onaeijama: srednjovekovno poreklo Evrope (Novi Sad: Cenzura, 2007), 46-51.

36 Srdan Atanasovski 26 Karadzic himself said in 1861 stated that if “the Croatian patriots cannot agree on this [linguistic] rationally engendered division, then nothing remains for us than to be dif­ ferentiated by confession or faith.” Holm Sundhaussen, Hcmopuja CpSuje od 19. do 21. aeea (Beograd: Clio, 2009), 103-104. 27 Stojan Novakovic,D i C u makedonskim narodnim dijalektima (Beograd: Kralj. srpska dr&vna Stamparija, 1889). 28 Gopbevib, Stara Srbija i Makedonija. 250-257. 29 Cvijid thus concludes: “It is still not clear whether what is spoken in Macedonia is a distinct south-Slavic language with multiple dialects, although this is well unbeliev­ able, or whether they are, and to what extent they are, as a whole closer to Bulgarian or Serbian.” Cvijic, Promalranja o etnografiji makedonskih Slovena, 18. 30 Cf. Regina Bendix, In Seaivh ofAuthenticity. The Formation of Folklore Studies (Mad­ ison and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997). Tihomir R. Dordevib, O etnologiji (Beograd: Stamparija Svcto/ara Nikolica, 1906), 5. Dordevic, Makedonija, 155; Gopdcvib, Stara Srbija i Makedonija, 259-263. MiloS S. Milojevic, Pesme i obicaji ukupnog naroda srbskog, Knj. /, Obredne pesme (Beograd: Drzavna Stamparija, 1869). Ivan S. Yastryebov, Obichai i pbsni tooryetskih syerbov: v Prizrbnb, IpyekTt, Moravd i Dibrd. lz pootyevili zapisok (S.-Pyelyerboorg: Tipografiya V. S. Balashyeva, 1886). Yastebov’s study was not translated into Serbian; it was written in Russian, whose orthography was at the time closer to Slavonic-Serbian, but it was advertised in the Serbian press, such as the journal Srpstvo, with the title translated. It is thus safe to conclude that it was available and accessible to the reading public in Belgrade. 35 Joep Leerssen, “Oral Epic: The Nation Finds a Voice,” in: Timothy Baycroft and David Hopki (eds.), Folklore and Nationalism in Europe during the Long Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2012). 36 Gopdcvib, Stara Srbija i Makedonija, 264; Branislav B. Jovanovic, “I. S. Jastrebov: skupljaC naSih najstarijih narodnih pesama na Kosmetu,” Knjizevni pregled 3 (2010): 34-36. 37 Ibid., 38. 38 3yaaxaycen, Hcmopuja Cpouje od 19. do 21. aem, 209. 39 Dordevib, O etnologiji, 12. 40 I'ihomir Dordevic, Nas narodniziv o t, ed. Ivan Colovib (Beograd: Prosveta, 1984J), 19. 41 Leon Dominian, The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe (New York: American Geographical Society, 1917). Cf. Leerssen, “Oral Epic: The Nation Finds a Voice,” 18-19. 42 On the problem of the rural in Dordevid, cf. Ivan Colovib, Politika simbola: ogledi o politickoj anlropologiji (Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek, 20002), 143 -155. 43 Literally Serbs of RaSka, a denomination which makes little sense, as Raska is itself usually considered the cradle of the Serbian medieval state. 44 Cvijid, Promalranja o etnografiji makedonskih Slovena, 53. 45 Cf. Mirdcta Vemic, Etnicka karta dela Stare Srbije. Premaputopisu Milosa Milojevica 1871-1877. god (Beograd: SANU, Geografski institut Jovan Cvijic, 2005).

References Anderson, Benedict (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread o f Nationalism. Revised edition. London and New York: Verso. Batakovid, DuSan T. (1988). Savremenici o Kosovu i Metohiji. 1852-1912. Beograd: Srp­ ska knjizevna zadruga. Bendix, Regina (1997). In Search of Authenticity: The Formation of Folklore Studies. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press.

Producing Old Serbia

37

Cvijic, Jovan (1904). “Geografski polozaj i opste geografske osobine Makedonije i Stare Srbije”, Srpski knjizevni glasnik 11: 115-153. Cvijic, Jovan (1906). Promalranja o etnografiji makedonskih Slovena. Beograd: G. Kon. Colovic, Ivan (20002). Politika simbola: ogledi o polilickoj antropologiji. Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek. Dominian, Leon (1917). The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe. New York: American Geographical Society. Dordevic, Tihomir (1984). Nas narodni zivot, IV. Edited by Ivan Colovic. Beograd: Prosveta. Dordevic, Tihomir R . (1906). O etnologiji. Beograd: Stamparija SvetozaraNikoIica. Dordevic, Tihomir R . (1920). Makedonija. Pancevo: IzdavackaknjizaraNapredak. Gari, Patrik J. (2007). Mit o nacijama: srednjovekovno poreklo Evrope. Trans, by D. Parenta. Novi Sad: Cenzura. Gopcevic, Spiridon (1890). Stara Srbija i Makedonija. Trans, by Milan Kasumovic. Beo­ g ra d : P a m a S ta m p a rija D im . D im itrije v id a .

Spiridion Gopcevic. Leben und Werk. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. - skupljac nasih najstarijih narodnih p e s a m a n a K o s m e tu ” , Knjizevni pregled 3 : 2 3 - 3 9 . K alik . S p ir a ( 1 894). Iz Beograda u Solun i Skoplje s Beogradskim pevackim drustvom: putnicke beleske. B e o g ra d : S ta m p a rija P. K . T a n a s k o v id a . K arad k id , V u k S. (1 9 7 2 ). Elnografski spisi. E d ite d by M ile n k o S. Filipovic. Beograd. Prosveta. Leerssen, Joep (2012). “Oral Epic: The Nation Finds a Voice” In: Folklore and National­ ism in Europe during the Long Nineteenth Century. Edited by T. B a y c r o f t and D . H o p k i. Leiden: Brill, pp. 11—26. Milojevid, Milos S. (1869). Pesme i obicaji ukupnog naroda srbskog. Knj. 1. Obredne pesme. Beograd: Drzavna Stamparija. Milojevid, MiloS S. (1871). Putopis dela Prove - Stare - Srbije. Beograd: Glavna srp. H eim , M ic h a e l ( 1 9 6 6 ) .

J o v a n o v ic . B ra n is la v B. (2 0 1 0 ). “ 1. S. J a s tr e b o v

k n jiz a ra J o v a n a D . L a z a re v id a .

Milojevid, MiloS S. (1881). Narodopisni i zemljopisni pregled srednjeg dela prove (Stare) Srbije: sa etnografskom niapom srpskih zemalja u knezevinama: Srbiji, Crnoj Gori, Kraljevini Rumuniji, Austro-Ugarskoj i Turskoj carevini. Beograd: Zadruga stamparskih radnika. Novakovic, Stojan (1889). D i C u makedonskim narodnim dijalektima. Beograd: Kralj. srpska drzavna stamparija. Novakovid, Stojan (1894). S Morave na Vardar. Po zidinama Carigrada. Brusa: putne beleske. Beograd: Kraljevska srpska drzavna Stamparija. Nusic, Branislav D. (1894). Kraj obala Ohridskoga jezera: beleske iz 1892 godine. Beo­ grad: Drzavna stamparija Kraljevine Srbije. NuSid, Branislav D. (1902a). Kosovo. Opis zemlje i naroda, sv. 1. Novi Sad: Matica srpska. NuSid, Branislav D. (1902b). S Kosova na Sinje More. Beleske s puta kroz Arbanase 1894. godine. Beograd: Dvorska knjiiara Mite Stajida. Nuisic. Branislav. D. (1903). Kosovo. Opis zemlje i naroda, sv. 2. Novi Sad: Matica srpska. Pckovic, Slobodanka (ed.) (2001). Knjiga o putopisu. Beograd: Institut za knjizevnost i umetnost. j^romitzer, Christian (2015). “Austria and the Balkans: Exploring the Role of Travelogues m Construction of an Area” In: Southeast European Studies in a Globalizing World. Edited by C. Promitzer, S. Gruber and H. Heppner. Munster: LIT Verlag, pp. 189-206. kovid, Panta (1882). “Putnidke slike. Treca slika. Podrim i Metohija”, Letopis Matice 130: 12-35.

38 Sr dan Atanasovski Stankovic, Todor P. (1910). Putne beleskepoStarojSrbiji 1871-1898. Beograd: Stamparija B. Munca i M. Karica. Stojanovic, Dubravka (2007). “Turizam i konstrukcija socijalnog i nacionalnog identiteta u Srbiji krajem 19. i pofietkom 20. veka”, Godisnjakza drustvenu istorijn 13: 41-59. Sundhaussen, Holm (2009). Hcmopuja Cp6uje od 19. do 21. eeica. Trans, by T Bekic. Beograd: Clio. Trifunovic, Bogdan (2014). Collective Memory and the Sites of Memory in the Serbian Discourse on Old Serbia. Doctoral thesis, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw, https://depotuw.ceon.pl/handle/itcm/1021 (accessed 15 June 2016). Vemic, Mirceta (2005). Etnicka karta dela Stare Srbije: prema putopisu Milosa Milojevica 1871-1877. god. Beograd: SANU, Geografski institut Jovan Cvijic. Veselinovic, Milojko (1895). Pogled kroz Kosovo. Beograd: Stamparija Kraljevine Srbije. Yastrcbov, Ivan S. (1886). Obichai iptisni looryetskih syerbov: v Prizrbrib, Ipyekd, Moravd i Dibrt. Izpootyevih zapisok. S.-Pyetyerboorg: Tipografiya V. S. Balashyeva. Yuryshyc, Hedeon I. (1852). Dechansky prvenats. Opysaniye manastyra D echana, Dyploma kralya Dechanskoh, Opysaniye Ypekske Patriarshiye, mnohy s la ty zdaniya, mnohy mesta stare Srbiye y Kosovskoh polya. Novy Sad: Nar. knyhopechatnya Dan. Medakovyca.

3

“Reconquista of Old Serbia” On the continuity of territorial and demographic policy in Kosovo Vladan Jovanovic

The idea of soil as the definitive indicator of a community is a part of the “organic political order” and concept of the so-called national state that Serbia cultivated ever since acquiring the first signs of its own statehood.1 As the source of the “founding myth” of the Serbian state, Kosovo is the central toponym both in myths of indigenousness and “the spiritual space of the nation”,2 in which traces of national history and culture decisively determine the ownership of territory, regardless of its actual political status or demographic makeup. Owing to its unu­ sually strong symbolic potential, Kosovo was rightly marked as a “metaphysi­ cal space”, in which the self-victimization has become the “mooring point” of identity.3 In order to present the way in which the state policy of Serbia and Yugoslavia corresponded with the “metaphysical” nature of Kosovo spatiality, this chapter focuses on a set of “physical”, that is, administrative-territorial and demographic measures applied in Kosovo from 1912 until the mid-1950s. This chapter goes through several chronological units in following three parallel processes of “deOttomanization” that include attempts of territorial recomposition and demo­ graphic leveling of the space (by means of colonization and emigration) under several different states, political and ideological systems. Considering that my previous historical research4 of Serbian and Yugoslav demographic policies in Kosovo has shown a certain overlapping and continuity, this time I would also like to look at the pre-history of the problem, in order to provide a broader chrono­ logical framework of my previous findings. ***

The terminological designation of the “new regions” annexed to Serbia and Mon­ tenegro in 1912 was nothing but the rearranging of geographic borders of a space known in the literature of the time as Old Serbia. This term entered wider use m the 1830s, in order to obtain a specific name for a “classical” Serbian region that remained outside the borders of the autonomous Serbian Principality. After Serbian-Ottoman wars of 1876-78, various authors used to equate the term d Serbia with the Kosovo vilayet. On the eve of the Balkan wars, the Serian historian and politician, Ljubomir Jovanovic wrote about a kind of Serbian

40

Vladan Jovanovic

claustrophobia, whose elites directed their gaze towards the space o f Old Ser­ bia, while Branislav NuSid in his harmless etymological analysis of Kosovo bor­ ders concluded that this question can be left “for correction” to any layperson’s opinion.5 The term Old Serbia carried within itself a powerful symbolic message about the “ancient” and historic right to this territory, the ethnic structure of which began to change in Albanian favor from the end of the seventeenth century. In addition to theories of the geographer Jovan Cvijic about the “descent” of Alba­ nians to Kosovo as part of “metanastasis” from west to east and socio-economic theories about the “great Albanian campaign to the east”, the theses that acquired the most traction described the aspirations of the Turkish policy to sever the Ser­ bian Principality’s ties to Old Serbia by populating Albanian Muslims onto this territory.6 Evidence for this was that Muslim Albanians were not populated in compact masses, but rather in a dispersed way, meaning that members of a single family were displaced to different regions. Thus, the Ottoman government strate­ gically changed the ethnic makeup of the space, weakening Serbia’s prospects in future liberation wars. According to this theory, Albanians represented a “living wall” from Kosovo to PCinja that divided the north from the south and prevented the spread of mutual influence.7After the Serbian-Ottoman wars of 1876-78, this “wall” began to dissipate under the attacks of the Serbian army: Albanians were leaving the areas of South Morava valley and the river Toplica, while their estates were taken over by Serbs. The policy of “cleansing newly liberated regions”, however, did encounter some opposition, even in Serbian military circles. For example, the commander of the Sumadija corps, Jovan Belimarkovic, with the support of the other commanders, refused to expel Albanians from the Vranje County, because he had previously “been promised that the Serbian government would not harass them”.8 Judging by the further development o f his career,9 it seems that this move went through without any adverse consequences. The nature of the relation between Austria-Hungary and Serbia after 1881 con­ tributed significantly to Serbia’s focus southward,10acquiring an economic logic. In addition to diplomatic efforts of Serbian consuls. Old Serbia and Macedonia began to see an influx of teachers, booksellers, artisans and merchants, while in 1892, the Porte promised Serbs that they could have their schools “just like all the peoples in the Empire”." Concomitantly with Serbia’s activities, there was a mat­ uration of “late national Albanian Romanticism in Kosovo”, which manifested itself through ever-greater aggression towards Christians.17 Beginning in 1903, Serbian political circles changed their policy regarding Old Serbia and Macedo­ nia from educational propaganda to supplying local Serbs with weapons, and as early as 1904, Macedonia was overwhelmed by smaller Chetnik units and armed volunteers coming from Serbia, who were supposed to “save their compatriots from extermination”.13 In 1908, when the Young Turk regime,14as part of its reforms, announced more favorable conditions for the Christian population within the borders of the crum­ bling Empire, the Albanians raised several armed rebellions, leading to emigration of intimidated Serbs. The Serbian government attempted, to little effect, to win

“Reconquista o f Old Serbia” 41 over the Albanian rebels by aiding them financially.15 Nevertheless, Nikola Pasic addressed the Great Powers through a memorandum about “the right of Serbia to protect the local Serbian people”, in which he delineated territories to which Ser­ bia laid claim. These borders actually represented Serbia’s military aspirations: Kosovo, Metohija, the sanjaks of Novi Pazar, Skopje and Debar, the northeastern part of the Bitola vilayet and the northwestern part of the Shkodra vilayet.16 Serbia took advantage of the liberation narrative as a kind of international legitimation for an increasingly likely territorial expansion onto the territories of its medieval statehood.

Liberation idea on the brink of betrayal The well-known geomorphologist Vojislav Radovanovic described the Serbian army’s entry into Kosovo in 1912 as “the reconquista of lands lost long ago”.17 Indeed, most of the intellectual elite of Serbia was engaged in proving Serbia’s historic right.18At the same time, Jovan Cvijic wrote a brochure intended for the international public, in which, in lieu of insufficiently convincing historical-ethnic rights, he offered economic reasons for why Serbia ought to have a coastline.19 Despite the non-Slavic population of these regions, Cvijic insisted on the “antiethnographic necessity” of Serbia passing through northern Albania to reach and hold a portion of the Adriatic coastline.20 The Serbian right to Macedonia and Old Serbia is frequently interpreted by simply adopting similar reasons to those in broader, international political use at the time,21 according to which Serbia had to acquire Macedonia in order to have a coastline “even if there was not a single Serb on the way”.22 The historian Milic Milicevic presented the six-month adventure of the Ser­ bian army in northern Albania in 1912/13 as “the war for the sea”, waged on the grounds that there would be “no other way, except territorially occupying the coast, that Serbia would be allowed to develop economically”.23 He added that the Balkan wars brought Serbia tangible territorial gains, but not too much mate­ rial gain.24 And yet, in current Serbian history textbooks, this “publicly stated military goal” of Serbia emerging onto the Adriatic through northern Albania is not mentioned even in chapters on the First Balkan War,25 despite the “Albanian operation” lasting nearly half a year. Indeed, in February 1913, the Montenegrin government asked Serbia “to take Shkodra by any means”,26which the latter read­ ily did, sending 30,000 troops via Salonica.27Threatened by the Great Powers, the Serbian-Montenegrin siege of Shkodra was suspended, and Serbia turned to the Vardar valley, demanding “a more equitable distribution of war spoils”.28 The legitimacy of Serbian southern territorial aspirations was additionally bur­ dened by the question of war crimes committed by the Serbian army in the Balkan wars, the subject of a Carnegie committee investigation.29 The report of this body outraged Serbian officials (and historians) beyond all measure, especially given its restraint towards the Serbian side when compared to other participants of the Balkan wars. However, this does not mean that there were no crimes to which the Serbian socialist press did not point. Intrigued by the attacks on the then leading

42

Vladan Jovanovic

Serbian socialist ideologist Dimitrije Tucovid, who allegedly described the Ser­ bian operation in northern Albania and in Kosovo tendentiously, Vladimir Dedijer claims that, in studying documents related to Serbia’s foreign relations at the time, he became convinced of Tucovid’s data, going as far as comparing the comport­ ment of the Serbian army with the “beastly violence” of the European colonial forces, committed in South America, Asia and Africa.50 Even though Nikola PaSid tried to present the entire story of Serbian military crimes to the international community as the invention of foreign propaganda,31 both British and German press continued to publish articles about the massive casualties o f Albanians in Kosovo and Albania, as well as about the censorship with which the Serbian gov­ ernment tried to hide the truth from its citizens. The strongest accusations were made in the London Times in its 18 January 1913 issue, claiming that members of the Serbian military killed 25,000 Albanians in northeast Albania.32 The role of Russia in the propaganda about Serbian crimes and carving up of Albanian territory was also important. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sazonov, consistently warned PaSid (via the Serbian emissary to St. Petersburg) that the Serbian government would have to repudiate each individual case, such as Dakovica, where the Serbian military allegedly shot 300 Albanians. Furthermore, Sazonov reminded the Serbs that the Austrians were already willing to allow Ser­ bia to keep Dakovica until the alleged bloodshed has occurred. He told the Serbian emissary that “Russia has already wrested Prizren, Ped and Debarfrotn Albania” and that, while the case of Dakovica would be handled by a special committee, Russia would insist that the committee should be guided “not by ethnographic data, since in that case the affair would be resolved unfavorably for us, but rather using geographic considerations”. Sazonov also told the Serbian emissary to St. Petersburg that, with a little patience, “Dakovica would be ripped away from Albania as well”.33 At the same time, the Austro-Hungarian government decided to defend the Albanian border at all cost: Duke Berthold told the Serbian emissary to Vienna that Albania was “already sufficiently mutilated”3,1by cutting away Ped, Dakovica, Ohrid and Debar. In any case, from their outset, the events on which the Serbian military built its image o f a liberator caused trepidation amongst the non-Serb population ahead of the upcoming integration. Despite this, the contemporary Serbian view is still largely that the Balkan wars were exclusively a struggle for freedom which is best illustrated by a rather popular quip about “the final liberation of the cradle of Serbdom and occupied brothers”.35 ***

From December 1912 until as late as the fall of 1915, the Kingdom o f Serbia strove to establish its own administration in the “newly liberated regions”, by applying temporary measures and decrees, but World War I led to new territorial reconstitutions in Kosovo. In the system of Austro-Hungarian military governors, Metohija belonged to the occupied zone “Montenegro”, while a small portion of Kosovo, containing Kosovska Mitrovica and Vuditm, belonged to the zone "Ser­ bia”. Consequently, Pristina, Prizren, Gnjilane, UroSevac and Orahovac, along

“Reconquista o f Old Serbia "

43

with all of Macedonia, fell within the Bulgarian military section. At the same time, the Austrian military government showed no intention of leaving the admin­ istrative organization of Kosovo and Metohija to the local Albanian population.16 After the breakthrough on the Macedonian Front in 1918, the Serbian administra­ tion in Kosovo was reestablished. According to the opinion o f Vasa Cubrilovic, the annexation of Old Serbia and Macedonia to the new Serbian Kingdom was a triumph of Garasanin’s conception, in opposition to “antiquated”, diplomatic methods of Prince Milos Obrenovid and Jovan Ristic.17 The space of “newly lib­ erated regions” was redrawn in the military sense as well, since the territory was divided into five areas. Furthermore, due to the anarchy on the border front, the Serbian Army Minster declared these regions a war zone with all the characteris­ tics of military rule.38 Parallel to the new administrative-territorial reconstitution of the space, there were serious demographic shifts. Only from August 1913 to March 1914, nearly a quarter million Muslims left the Balkans for Turkey, mostly from Greece (deter­ mined to “take care of its Muslim element”).3’ The Viennese press wrote that, by the end of March 1914, some 60,000 Muslims left the “newly liberated regions” of Serbia.40 According to the report of the Austro-Hungarian vice-consul in Bar, just between April and July of 1914,16,570 people moved towards Turkey via the port of Bar, and some 40,000 in total left the region annexed to Serbia.41 Thus, the process of demographic de-Ottomanization resulted in new political circum­ stances following the signing of the Bucharest Treaty (1913).42

The historic province of South Serbia Just like all the other Balkan countries after World War I, Serbia was in a rush to integrate its territorial gains. Kosovo, Macedonia and SandZak were thus included into the new Yugoslav state and given the formal status of “historic province” and the telling name: South Serbia. Considering this administrative title was not sanc­ tioned by any legal or constitutional act, many Yugoslav politicians had a difficult time elucidating the factual and legal status of the new region. At a meeting of the Legislative Committee of the National Parliament of the Kingdom of Serbs, Cro­ ats and Slovenes in July 1923, the head of the committee along with and one of the ministers could not answer the question whether Ped belonged to South Serbiaor Montenegro.45 The aforementioned geographer, Vojislav Radovanovid claimed that the term South Serbia first appeared in 1912 when Old Serbia and Macedonia, as “joined historic regions”, were unified under a single term that gained currency through “the liberation of this old Serbian land to the south from five centuries of slavery”.4'' However, the absence of this geopolitical term in primary documents older than 1918 indicates that it appeared just before the creation o f the Kingdom of SCS and was the result of a clear political intention to emphasize the unity of erstwhile Turkish regions and their belonging to Serbia. The Yugoslav administration divided the South Serbia province into twelve administrative units,45 comprising territories acquired by the Kingdom o f Serbia (after the Balkan Wars), the Kingdom of SCS (after the treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine) and four counties acquired by the Kingdom of Montenegro at the expense of

44

Vladan Jovanovic

Turkey.46Serbian laws and regulations were introduced before the end of June 1919 when the Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbia was formally extended to the entire region and applied until the adoption of the 1921 Constitution. By integrat­ ing nearly the entire province into the Vardar Banovina in October o f 1929, this controversial name was partially removed from public use.47 Nevertheless, the local population remained at the mercy of “administrative violence”, since it had to travel all the way to Skopje, the banovina capital, for most of its legal needs. *** Part of the effort to integrate and de-Oltomanize the Province o f South Serbia, as it was defined, were the agrarian reform and the colonization of Serbs and Mon­ tenegrins. Distribution of land to the burgeoning numbers of interested (above all “deserving national workers” who distinguished themselves by fostering armed resistance against the Turkish government in Old Serbia and Macedonia before 1912) was initially performed without a very detailed plan. The nature of coloni­ zation policy could be well illustrated by words of the Head of the Ministry for Agrarian Reform, from late 1919 (during the colonization of the Drenica area by volunteers and Montenegrins): “This is the way to prevent further intrusions of Albanians”.48 However, the administration was dissatisfied with the adaptation of "temperamental and truculent Dinaric mountain people” who caused conflicts with the older residents.49The mostly Serbian colonization o f regions that were under the Ottoman rule before the Balkan wars was meant to achieve two goals: improve the quality of life of people from poor, rural parts of the country and, at the same time, to alter the ethnic composition of the region being abandoned by Turks and Albanians. Indeed, the emigration of Muslims from Yugoslav territory into Turkey was officially sanctioned in September of 1928 by Article 55 of the Law of Citizen­ ship. The article confirmed that “non-Slavic” citizens of the Kingdom o f SCS could renounce their citizenship within five years. In that case, they would be removed from military and county registers, while they would be provided with benefits for emigration and sale of property by the Ministerial board. Neverthe­ less, since there was still no bilateral procedure, many Emigres were returned from the Turkish border, which caused a double problem: the Kingdom o f SCS was obligated to pay for the return of “failed” immigrants and delay the partitioning of their estate to impatient settlers. The consul of the Kingdom of SCS to Constan­ tinople admitted in a “tacit agreement” that the Yugoslav administration issued Muslims with passports without the right of return. Moreover, the mentioned law was applied so liberally that by 1933 all that was necessary to renounce one’s citizenship was to give a statement, even less for the illiterate - it was sufficient for any clerk from the Ministry to sign the expatriation request in their stead.50

The division of Kosovo into three banovinas and the institutionalization of mass migrations A new territorial division of the Yugoslav state was executed in 1929. Kosovo and Metohija found themselves belonging to three different administrative units

“Reconqu ista o f Old Serbia ” 45 (the Vardar, Zeta and Morava banovinas), with the Vardar Banovina holding six counties from the previous province of South Serbia. A drastic reduction of the percentage of Muslims on the territory of the Vardar Banovina speaks to the inten­ tion of the government to at least administratively eliminate their majority within a single territorial unit, although the “problem” was thus only obscured since the remaining “disloyal” (Albanian) population found itself within the Zeta and Morava banovinas. The methodology of the new delineation of the banovina bor­ ders indicated the need to, wherever possible, ensure Serbian numerical superior­ ity or at least strengthen Serbian influence.51 The strategy of territorial administration from the previous decade definitely suffered changes. Abandoning the idea of keeping “former Turkish regions” in a single administrative unit at all costs probably had its basis in the infamous prac­ tice of the Yugoslav state from the previous decade. In addition to the partitioning of responsibility for the situation in Albanian regions into three banovinas, there was also the belief that such bureaucratic diffusion would result in the dilution of the idea of a vital Albania and obstruct the consolidation of anti-state elements dispersed around the critical border belt and around the Sandzak area. At first glance, it seems that the break-up of the ethnic compactness of the Albanian popu­ lation was the primary focus of the border creators of the Vardar Banovina.52 Still, the dissatisfaction of the Albanian population with the first Yugoslavia was too large: opening schools in Turkish among the Albanian population, the impossibil­ ity of employing Albanians in public service, the prohibition of forming political parties and the political instrumentalization of their religious leaderships, were all part of the wrongheaded methodology of “pacifying” Kosovo, which was ulti­ mately impossible for a bureaucratic-territorial exhibitionism to execute. The final interwar attempt of administrative sealing of Kosovo as a positively Serbian territory came shortly after the creation of the Banovina of Croatia. Attempting to forestall further disintegration of the country, to calm the public and “preserve the transversal Danube-Morava-Vardar”, in November 1939, Serbian intellectuals and politicians began to work on the “Serbian Lands” project. The outline provided for the inclusion into Serbian lands, with their center in Skopje, the areas of Vrbas, Drina, Morava, Zeta and Vardar Banovinas. The Italian attack on Greece and immanent war threat prevented the presentation of the question to the Council of Ministers.53 The project was prepared by the then Prime Minister Dragisa Cvctkovic with his legal advisers and the Minister of Justice Mihailo Konstantinovic, while the regulation was written by the university professor Dr. B ordeTasicM *** When it comes to the demographic policy of the early 1930s, it seemed that the process of colonization of the south had ground to a halt. The chief agrarian com­ missioner in Skopje held some 40,000 unexecuted deeds for land distribution, over ten years old. Instead of a division of land according to the order of submis­ sion of request, the administration decided to “follow the market”: the higher quality plots were issued to whoever paid more for them, while the money from

46

Vladan Jovanovic

the agrarian fund was returned to the old owners and villages.” Despite this, the American magazine Boston Science Monitor published an article on 2 Septem­ ber 1930 about the colonization of Metohija as the most significant endeavor of the Yugoslav government, due to which this region became a “prospective settler center”, ready to accept upwards of half a million people. However, as early as 1936, a new wave of land appropriation from Albanians took place in the border zones, leaving them with less than a half a hectare per member of household.56 A total of 219,999 hectares of land was enclosed in Kosovo and Metohija, of which only half was reissued to 10,877 colonists and some 8,000 volunteers. In addition, by 1941, the agrarian courts and the High Agrarian Court in Skopje passed down their rulings on the compensation of the former owners of the land and handing it over to land “users” who thus formally became owners.57 Conversely, the emigration of Muslims to Turkey acquired an ever more insti­ tutional form. In September 1935, the so-called intenninisterial conference con­ sidered measures to speed up “non-Slavic” migration to Turkey and Albania, suggesting aggressive propaganda about the easy life in Asia Minor, as well as simplified passport procedures, more frequent call-ups for Muslims to military exercises, prohibition on planting tobacco, nationalization of toponyms and last names etc.58The idea of expulsion of disloyal Albanians culminated in the signing of the Convention of Eviction of 200,000 Muslims to Turkey, which Yugoslavia and Turkey signed in July 1938,59 even though some 19,000 persons had already left the “southern parts” for Turkey in the period of I927-39.60 On the Turkish side, this unusual project was seen as an “evacuation of lost territories”, and simi­ lar arrangements were signed with Romania and Bulgaria. The real Turkish inter­ est for these migrants was the need to settle uninhabited regions in the far east of the country, as well as their potential usefulness in the struggle against Kurds. Although Albanians were not formally the main focus of the Convention, Yugo­ slav authorities endeavored to provide a broad interpretation of the phrase “people of Turkish culture” to encompass as many of its citizens of Albanian nationality.61

War years of (dis)continuity The breakout of World War II was one of the reasons the Convention was never implemented. Yet, once again, Kosovo, just like during World War I, found itself under triple occupation and was accordingly partitioned. Overlaps with the pre­ vious war enable the establishment of yet another continuity, here concerning the international context. In accordance with the German-ltalian agreement, in July 1941, most of Kosovo’s territory was turned over to Albania (occupied by Italy). The northern part of Kosovo remained part of occupied Serbia, while the eastern parts fell under Bulgarian control. The “Great Albania” protectorate included this portion of Yugoslav territory, rearranged administratively into four prefectures (Prizren, Pristine, Debar and Pe6), and an October 1941 statute turned 820,000 people into residents of Albania.62 On occupied Serbian territory, May of 1941 saw the beginning of functioning of the Civil Commissioner for Kosovo, Sandzak, Debar and Struga, who dealt

“Reconquista o f Old Serbia ” 47 with the reorganization of the administration in “liberated areas”. Towards the end of the summer, the Region of Kosovo comprised the counties Kosovska Mitrovica (the regional center), Novi Pazar, VuCitrn and Podujevo. The Albanian “ethnic group” had its commissioner, in the rank of Assistant Ban, who was involved in all questions that concerned Kosovo. The county heads were Albanians, while the naming of members of the Albanian staff was done in Belgrade in accordance with the leader of the Albanian ethnic group. Assistant county chiefs, assistant police chiefs and assistant county clerks were named from the ethnic group that made up at least a quarter of the population in the given county. The regional court was formed in Mitrovica, which also held the seat of the state prosecutor. This court, on whose bench sat one Albanian judge, was under the jurisdiction of the Appellate Court in Ni§.63 However, even Nedid’s servile collaborationist administration could not pre­ vent new (and expected) demographic complications in Kosovo. The expulsion of Serbian settlers from Kosovo and Metohija was initially orchestrated by the Germans. After 1943 and the founding of the Second League of Prizren,64 the colonists were put under pressure by the organization’s military wing, the Kosovo regiment.65 Immediately after the April War (of 1941), settlers began to flee Meto­ hija for Montenegro and their residences were being taken over by Albanians.66 Serbian refugees from Kosovo were able to acquire immigration passports quite quickly, but train service was delayed for months. Immigrants boarded in railway stations in Pei, UroSevac, Lipljan, Obilii and Kosovo Polje, whence they were transported to Ravni Gaj near Knii, held in quarantine and then distributed across Serbia. Transport lasted until the end of April 1944 when the German special legal counsel for the southeast sent a telegram to the German consul in Tirana, inform­ ing him that another 30,000 Serbs in Pristina submitted emigration demands. He ordered the German consul to demand from the Albanian government the suspen­ sion of emigration of Serbs “because it caused anarchy that could have a negative impact on Germany”. From this point on, the emigration stopped.67 The hostile stance of Muslims of various ethnic background towards the Par­ tisan movement during World War II. In particular the activities o f the Balli and the Albanian volunteer squads that protected the German army during their retreat (expecting in return the promised “natural Albania”), caused mistrust of the new Yugoslav regime towards the entire Albanian population. Thanks to a reserved position and only a modest participation in the antifascist movement, the Kosovo Albanians were once again seen as a “disloyal minority”.68 An exception to this were the regions in which the Albanian population, due to their benevolent behav­ ior towards the Partisans, fell victim to the German occupiers, for example in Dakovica.

Kosovo’s status and demographic situation under “The People’s Government” Even though the rebellion of the Albanians from the Drenica region of Janu­ ary 194569 had not only an anti-Serbian, but also an anti-Yugoslav character,70 it

48

Vladan Jovcmovic

was to be expected that the status of Kosovo in the new country would be formu­ lated in accordance will) the pre-war positions of Yugoslav communists. Yet, at the 23 February 1945 meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council, the Montenegrin dele­ gate suggested that “both portions of Dukadin” should be annexed to Montenegro, along with Sandzak. in order to territorially strengthen the Montenegrin federal unit. There were suggestions for “Kosmet” to be divided between Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia. Edvard Kardelj, on the other hand, had a more original idea - that Kosovo and Metohija forthwith be annexed to Albania.71 Political speculation regarding the status of Kosovo ended in late August 1945 when the National Parliament of Serbia passed a law about the establishment of the Autonomous Kosovo-Metohija region, “based on the wish of the population of the Kosovo-Metohija region, expressed in the resolution o f its regional assembly on 8 10 June 1945”. The region became an integral pail of Serbia, comprising 15 counties with Prizren as its capital.72 The law equated in rights the Albanian, Serbian and Montenegrin population as well as the use of Albanian and Serbian languages in schools and public administration. Very reliable evidence of the very beginning of the new government in Kosovo was the report written by the four-member committee o f the Yugoslav Ministe­ rial Council who spent two weeks there in May 1945.73 They noticed that the administrative apparatus was mostly composed of the pre-war Yugoslav clerks, while the Albanians were fairly represented only in village boards. Interethnic hatred was still evident, although it was somewhat replaced by the class antago­ nism expressed during requisitions, such as the seizure of agricultural products from peasants for the military supplies. Members of this committee found that the chauvinist disposition was more acutely visible among Serbs and Montenegrins than among Albanians, who felt a certain guilt for their collaboration with the occupier during the war and were thus more reserved in communicating with the new government. The Serbian refugee board from Pec was particularly belligerent towards Albanians. In Februaiy 1945, Kosovo once again faced the introduction of martial law, due to the “amassing of reaction in Kosmet, creation of rogue gangs and their increas­ ingly frequent attacks on villages and cities”, as the aforementioned report cites. Only three months later, the situation calmed down, so the committee that issued the report advised the suspension of military rule, but also a series of political steps, such as regulating the status of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia, proper selec­ tion of representatives, etc. Upon suspending military rule, there were suggestions that the Albanian minority in Kosovo “should be placed in a special quarantine”, which, without disturbing their basic human rights, would “obstruct their expres­ sion as a single national collective”. According to this idea, the Albanian minority would gain a certain level of autonomy only when “it proves that it is capable of civilized cohabitation with their Serbian and Montenegrin fellow citizens”.74 ***

On 6 March 1945, the first government of socialist Yugoslavia decided to ban the return of Serbian and Montenegrin settlers to Kosovo and Macedonia. Despite the

"Reconquista o f Old Serbia ” 49 ban, some 4,000 Montenegrins returned to Metohija, inducing panic among Alba­ nians. The following month, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Com­ munist Party of Yugoslavia, Tito stated that “anyone who had lived” in Kosovo and Metohija ought to be able to return, but for some reason the prohibition of return remained in place.75 The new government had a difficult time navigating the anarchic situation, since the multiple buying and selling of properties was usually based on forged contracts. Many Serbs and Montenegrins sought the return of estates they had sold by 1941, claiming that they had been pressured to do so. Out of fear that their land would yet again be taken away, some Albanians left for Albania, while others made individual deals with Serbian settlers. Many in Kosovo believed that, in addition to pre-war Serbian colonists, Albanian land would be taken over by swarms of new settlers.76 In early August 1945, the government passed a law to revise the allotment of land to settlers and agrarian entities in Macedonia and the Kosovo-Metohija region, aiming at “correction of injuries made to ownership rights and interests of land-working indigenous persons” in Kosovo, Metohija and Macedonia, com­ mitted during the Yugoslav Kingdom.77 Contrary to expectations, this process of radical discontinuity with the national project of the Yugoslav monarchy was entrusted to the very creators of the interwar colonization - Vasa Cubrilovic and Sreten Vukosavljevic. The two men headed the departments of agriculture and colonization in Tito’s government, working to ensure an as large as possible return of exiled settlers and disqualification of Albanian “political offenders”.78 Along with problems concerning local committees made up o f Albanian poli­ ticians who used to break protocol in passing decisions against the pre-war set­ tlers,79 after this revision, nearly a fifth of the land taken away from Albanians in the Yugoslav Kingdom was returned to previous owners.80As early as mid-1946, the new law allowed for pre-war Albanian emigrants who wished to return to Kosovo to do so and to acquire Yugoslav citizenship. This fact was used by many historians as a proof of Tito’s protection of “demographic development of Albani­ ans” and the “Albanization of Kosovo”.81 However, the migratory processes that followed somewhat disrupted the logi­ cal construction of the thesis of planned “de-Serbification” of Kosovo. True, the start of these processes coincides with the Cominform Resolution82and the sus­ pension of diplomatic relations between Yugoslavia and Albania. But even as early as 1951, there were new waves of Albanian migrants to Turkey, as well as Muslims of various ethnic origin declaring themselves as Turks in order to be considered for legal emigration. For this reason, the number of people in Kosovo and western Macedonia identifying as Turkish grew 26-fold in the period between the two population censuses (1948-1953). Such identification was supposed to save Yugoslavia and Turkey from unpleasant international reactions due to the expatriation o f Albanians.85 In early October 1951, the Turkish government asked Yugoslavia to finally ratify and put into place financial stipulations of the pre­ war convention. In response, Tito invited the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fuat KOprQlO. In January 1953, there was a verbal agreement regarding emigra­ tion. The whole event is better known as the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” that was

50

Vladan Jovanovic

supposed to revive the Yugoslav-Turkish convention o f 1938.MAs in the interwar period, instead of Turks, the only people who left Yugoslavia were ethnic Alba­ nians. Indeed, the First Secretary of the Turkish Embassy in Belgrade stated in September 1954 that his country was “willing to tacitly accept a certain number of Shiptar”, while the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia warned about a campaign for emigration taking place in Kosovo over the course of the summer, in which people were promised houses, cattle, fertile land and mechanized tools.85 Even after World War II, the initiative for emigration came more from the Turk­ ish side, while Macedonia was again a transit point for the 6migr6s. There was also a similarity in the simplified procedure for relinquishing Yugoslav citizen­ ship, making it easy to acquire papers of “Turkish origin”; it was, however, nearly impossible to return to Yugoslavia. In both the pre-war and post-war period, the emigration mechanism was entrusted to the Yugoslav Ministries for agriculture and agrarian reform, led by nearly the same people in both periods. Another remarkable similarity was that activities of disarming Kosovo Albanians that pre­ ceded large migration waves of the early 1920s and the mid-1950s. In spite of political abuse of emigration statistics and exaggerations in numbers and esti­ mates, the fact is that Muslim migration in the first decade after World War II was far greater than before the war.86 ***

Transformation of Kosovo and Metohija into an autonomous province (1963), with the growing powers based on constitutional amendments (1968, 1971, 1974), did not significantly stabilize the political situation, nor did it contribute to social cohesion. As in the previous decades, the administrative-territorial reorganization and demographic leveling (alternate emigration of one side and the settling o f the other) could not compensate for a lack of structural reform o f society, persistently left out under several different government systems. Given that Kosovo has through centuries of layering of symbolic meaning acquired certain metaphysical properties, in part it is clear why these “mechani­ cal” solutions - such as settlement, emigration and administrative recomposition of territory - have always hit the wrong target, as indicated by nearly all param­ eters o f (neglected) social development of Kosovo in the first half of the twentieth century (literacy, culture, industry, civil and political freedoms). Comparative examples here presented chronologically point to a nearly identi­ cal pattern of governing repeated independently o f ideological profile of the state to which Kosovo belonged. Even in the first years after World War II. the expected discontinuity with the Serbian and Yugoslav practice did not occur. This can be seen above all in the institutional and personal continuity of the pre-war coloniza­ tion mechanism with the latent nationalism of Serbian and Albanian communist leaderships. Without losing sight of the influence o f international actors, above all, this situation is the result of immature political elites that gave birth to “unfin­ ished societies” in the Balkans.

"Reconquista o f Old Serbia ” 51

Notes 1 Milan Podunavac, “Izgradnja modeme drzave i nacije. Balkanska perspektiva”, Godisnjak Fakiilteta politic-kill nauka I (2007). 93. 2 Ivan Colovid, Balkan —terorkulture (Beograd: Bibliotcka XX vek. 2008). 55,121-122. 3 For more, see Helena Xdravkovic, Politika irtve na Kosovu: idemnet irtve kao primarni diskurzivni cilj Srba i Albanaca u upornom sukobti na Kosovu (Beograd: Srpski genealoski centar - F.tnoloska biblioteka, 2005). 4 See References. 5 Vladan Jovanovid, J u g o slo v e n sk a drzava i J u z n a Srbija 1 9 1 8 -1 9 2 9 : Makeclonija, Sandzak, Kosovo i Metohija u Kraljevini S H S (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbijc, 2002), 7-8. 6 Rista T. Nikolid, Sirenje Arnauta u srpske zemlje (Beograd: Mlada Srbija. 1938), 122. 7 Jovan Trifunoski, “Doprinos Sretena Vukosavljevica proudavanju migraeija u Makedoniji”. in: Seoski daniSretena Vukosavljevica 9 (Prijepolje: OpStinska zajednica obrazovanja, 1981), 54. 8 Jovan Hadii-Vasiljevid, A rb a n a sk a liga: a rn a u tska k o n g ra i srp sk i n a ro d u T urskom C arstvu 1 8 7 8 -1 8 8 2 (Beograd: Ratnik, 1909), 11-14. 9 As a person of great royal trust, he was later appointed a member of the Council of Regents in early 1889. 10 When Serbian Prince Milan Obrenovid concluded the Trade Agreement along with the Secret Convention with Austro-Hungary in 1881, Serbia committed itself not to hinder Austro-Hungarian interests in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In turn, the Austro-Hungarian Kmpirc pledged to look favorably on Serbia’s spread to the south. 11 Jovan M. Jovanovid, Juzna Srbija od kraja XVIII-veka do Oslobodenja (Beograd: Geca Kon, 1941), 132-133. 12 l.jubodrag Ditnic and Horde Borozan (eds.), Ju g o slo v e n sk a d rza va i Albanci, Vol. I (Beograd: Sluzbeni list Srbije, 1998), 19. 13 Jovanovid, Jugoslovenska drzava i Juzna S rb ija 1 9 1 8 -1 9 2 9 : Makedonija, Sandzak, Kosovo i Metohija u Kraljevini SHS, 19-20. 14 The Young Turk movement, emerging from secret student societies, advocated politi­ cal and military reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, seeking to replace the absolute monarchy with a constitutional one. Their 1908 revolution forced the Sultan Abdul Hamid to reinstate the suspended constitution and introduce a multiparty system. 15 Alcksandar 2ivotic, Jugoslavija, Albanija i velike site (1945-1961) (Beograd: Arhipclag, 2011). 51. 16 Mihailo Voj vodic, "Srbija i makedonsko pitanje”, Istorijskiglasnik 1-2(1992): 40—12. 17 Vojislav S. Radovanovid, Veliki kralj i Juzna Srbija (Beograd: s. n., 1934), 3-4. 18 With the initial military successes of the Serbian army in the First Balkan War, a few authors have published in Srpski knjizevni glasnik “scientific proof’ of Old Serbia and Macedonia being the cradle of the Serbian people. 19 Jovan Cvijid, Balkanski rat iSrbija (Beograd: Davidovid, 1912). 20 Zef Mirdita, “Albanci u svjellosti vanjske politike Srbije”, in: Alcksandar Ravlic (ed.). Jugoistocna Europa 1918-1995, Medunarodni znanstveni skup (Zagreb: Hrvatska matica iseljenika i Hrvatski informativni centar, 1996), s. p. 21 East India. Manchuria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alsace-Lorraine. 22 Aleksandar Apostolov, “Obidi za kolonizacija na Makedonija vo uslovite na nacionalnite propagandi na sosednite dr?avi”, Codisen zbornik na FHozofskifakultet 15: 189. 23 Milid Milidevid, Rat za mote: dejstva srpskih trupa u severnoj Albaniji i na Priniorju od 23. oktobra 1912. do 30. aprila 1913. godine (Beograd: Odbrana, 2011), 7. 24 Milid Milidevid, Balkanski ratovi (Beograd: Zavod za udibenike, 2014), 122. 25 Dubravka Stojanovid, Ulje na vodi: ogledi iz istorije sadasnjosti Srbije (Beograd: Pesdanik, 2010), 109.

52

Vladan Jovanovid

26 Novica Rakodevid, “Cma Gora u Balkanskom ratu. Nacionalni, politidki i ekonoinski uzroci”, in: Vladimir Stojandevic (ed.), Prvi balkanski rat: okrugli sto povodom 75. godisnjice 1912-1987 (Beograd: SANU, 1991), 22. 27 Petar Opadid, “Srbija i Bugarska u Prvom balkanskom rain”, Bastinik: godisnjak Istorijskog arhiva it Negotinu 10:40-43. 28 Mihailo Vojvodid, “Nacionalne teZnje i zahtevi Srbije u Balkanskim ratovima”, Istorijski glasnik 1-2 (1995): 74-75. 29 In 1913, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace formed a committee to identify causes of the Balkan wars and document war crimes committed on this occa­ sion. The Balkan states did everything to obstruct its operations and called into ques­ tion its findings in order to avoid the judgment of the international public. Still, in mid-June 1914, the Committee was able to complete and publish its report that blamed all the sides in the conflict for territorial megalomania and violation of international conventions (Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct o f the Balkan Wars). 30 Vladimir Dedijer, “Balkan u politici 20. veka. Neki metodoloSki problemi”, in: Andrej Mitrovid(ed.),SrbiiAIbanciuXXveku: cikluspredavanja (Beograd: SANU, 1991), 19. 31 DuSan Lukad (ed.), Dokumenti o spoljnoj politici Kraljevine Srbije 1903-1914, 6/1 (Beograd: SANU, 1981), 147. 32 Aleksandar Rastovid, “Srbija u ogledalu brilanske Stampe tokom Balkanskih ratova”, Istorijski casopis 50 (2003): 141-150. 33 Ibid., 405. 34 Kliment Dzambazovski (ed.). Dokumenti o spoljnoj politici Kraljevine Srbije 19031914, 6/3 (Beograd: SANU, 1983), 406-407. 35 Slobodan Brankovic, “Samooslobodenje jugoistoka Evrope. Balkanski ratovi 1912-1913. Novi poglcdi: dogadaji i procesi”, Reci: casopis za jezik, knjizevnost i kulturoloske studije 5 (2012): 195-200. 36 Dorde Borozan. Velika Albanija: porijeklo - ideje praksa (Beograd: Vojnoistorijski institut, 1995), 67-73. 37 Dimitrije Bogdanovid, Knjiga o Kosovu (Beograd: Knji?_evne novine, 1990). 38 Mile Bjclajac and Predrag Trifunovic, Izmedu vojske i politike. Biografija generala Dusana Trifunovica 1880-1942 (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije. 1997), 50-54. 39 Vladimir Dedijer and 2ivota Anic (eds.), Dokumenti o spoljnoj politici Kraljevine Srbije 1903-1914, 7/1 (Beograd: SANU, 1980), 616-617. 40 Bogumil Hrabak, Arbanaski upadi i pobune na Kosovu i u Makedoniji od kraja 1912. do kraja 1915. godine (Vranje: Narodni muzej u Vranju, 1988), 97. 41 Justin McCarthy, “StanovniStvo osmanlijskc Evrope prije i poslije pada Carstva-’, in: Fikret Kardid (ed.), Muslimani Balkana: "Istocnopitanje" u XX vijeku (Tuzla: Behrambegova medresa, 2001), 56. 42 The Bucharest Treaty marks the end of the Second Balkan War in which Serbia dou­ bled its territory, gaining all of Vardar Macedonia, Kosovo, Metohija and a portion of the sanjak of Novi Pazar. 43 Jovanovid, Jugoslovenska drzava i Juina Srbija 1918-1929. Makedonija, Sandzak, Kosovo i Metohija u Kraljevini SHS, 9. 44 Vojislav S. Radovanovid, Ogeografskim osnovama Juzne Srbije (Skoplje: Stamparija “Ju2na Srbija”, 1937), 1-2. 45 Bitola, Bregalnica, Zvedan, Kosovo, Kumanovo, Ohrid, Prizren, Prijepolje, RaSka. Skopje, Tetovo and TikveS. 46 Berane, Bijelo Polje, Metohija and Pljevlja. 47 Jovanovid, Jugoslovenska drzava i Juina Srbija 1918-1929. Makedonija, Sandzak, Kosovo I Metohija u Kraljevini SHS, 9-10. 48 Dimid and Borozan (eds.), Jugoslovenska drzava i Albanci, 333.

“Reconquista o f Old Serbia ” 53 49 Dordo Krstic, Kolonizacija uJuznoj Srbiji (Sarajevo: Bosanska poSta, 1928), 84. 50 Vladan Jovanovid, “Iseljavanje muslimana iz Vardarske banovine: iztnedu stihije i drZavne akcijc”, in: Mile Bjelajac (ed.), Pisati istoriju Jugoslavije: videnje srpskog fakiora (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbijc, 2007), 89. 51 Branko Petranovid, Jugoslovensko iskustvo srpske nacionalne integracije (Beograd: Sluzbeni list SRJ, 1993), 12,39. 52 Vladan Jovanovid, Vardarska b a n o vin a 1 9 2 9 -1 9 4 1 (Beograd: Institut za noviju istor­ iju Srbije, 2011), 34. 53 Ljubodrag Dimic, “Srbija u Jugoslaviji”. in: Istorija srpske drzavnosti, 3 (Novi Sad: SANU - Bescda, 2001), 174-177, 205-209. 54 Vidosav Petrovid, Dragisa Cvetkovid - njim samim (Hand, govori, inlervjui, polemike, memoari) (NiS: Vidosav Petrovid, 2006), 388-389. 55 Vladan Jovanovid, “Land Reform and Serbian Colonization. Belgrade’s Problems in Interwar Kosovo and Macedonia”, East Central Europe 42 (2015): 6. 56 Zoran Janjetovid, Deca careva, pastorcad kraljeva, Nacionalne manjine u Jugoslaviji 1918-1941 (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2005), 331. 57 Catalogue of Archive of Yugoslavia (AY): Committee for Agrarian Reform and Colo­ nization (97), folder 2, arch. Unit 20, “A Brief History of Populating Southern Regions, in Particular Kosovo and Metohija”, 24 April, 1945. In Kosovo and Metohija alone, 13,938 users were given 57,665 hectares. 58 Vladan Jovanovid, “Intemiinisterijalna konferencija Kraljcvine Jugoslavije o iseljenju 'neslovcnskogclementa’ u Tursku (1935)”, Prilozi 35 (2006): 105-124. 59 Avdija Avdid, “Jugoslovensko-turski pregovori o iseljavanju muslimanskog stanovniStva u periodu izmcdu dva svetska rata”, Novopazarski zbornik 15 (1991): 112-114. 60 Sulejman Smlalid, “Iseljavanje jugoslavenskih muslimana u Tursku i njihovo prilagodavanje novoj sredini”, in: Ivan Cizmid (ed.), Iseljenistvo naroda i narodnosti Jugoslavije