Dusan T.Batakovic. The Kosovo Chronicles
сторінка №3
...ic estates evinceboth a rise in the population and appreciable economic progress. The estates
of the Banjska monastery numbered 83 villages, and those of the Holy
Archangels numbered 77.5
Especially noteworthy is the 1330 Decani Charter, with its detailed
list of households and of chartered villages. The Decant estate was an
extensive area which encompassed parts of what is today northwestern
Albania. Historical analysis and onomastic research reveal that only three
of the 89 settlements were mentioned as being Albanian. Out of the 2,166
farming homesteads and 2,666 houses in cattle-grazing land, 44 were
registrated as Albanian (1,8%). More recent research indicates that apart
from the Slav, i.e. Serbian population in Kosovo and Metohia, the remaining
population of non-Slav origin did not account for more than 2% of the total
population in the 14th century.6
The growing political power, territorial expansion and economic wealth
of the Serbian state had a major impact on ethnic processes. Northern
Albania up to the Mati River was a part of the Serbian Kingdom, but it was
not until the conquest of Tsar Dusan that the entire Albania (with the
exception of Durazzo) entered the Serbian Empire. Fourteenth century records
mention mobile Albanian mobile cattle sheds on mountain slopes in the
imminent vicinity of Metohia, and sources in the first half of the 15th
century note their presence (albeit in smaller number) in the flatland
farming settlements.
Stefan Dusan's Empire stretched from the Danube to the Peloponnese and
from Bulgaria to the Albanian littoral. After his death it began to
disintegrate into areas controlled by powerful regional lords. Kosovo and
parts of Metohia came under the rule of King Vukasin Mrnjavcevic, the
co-ruler of the last Nemanjic, Tsar Uros. The earliest clashes with the
Turks, who edged their way into Europe at the start of the 14th century,
were noted during the reign of Stefan Dusan. The 1371 battle of the Marica,
near Crnomen in which Turkish troops rode rougshod over the huge army of the
Mrnjavcevic brothers, the feudal lords of Macedonia, Kosovo and neighboring
regions, heralded the decisive Turkish invasion of Serbian lands. King
Vukasin's successor King Marko (the legendary hero of folk poems, Kralyevich
Marko) recognized the supreme authority of the sultan and as vasal took part
in his campaigns against neighboring Christian states. The Turkish onslaught
is remembered as the apocalypse of the Serbian people, and this tradition
was cherished during the long period of Ottoman rule. During the Battle of
the Marica, a monk wrote that "the worst of all times" had come, when "the
living envied the dead".7
Unaware of the danger that were looming over their lands, the regional
lords tried to take advantage of the new situation and enlarge their
holdings. On the eve of the battle of Kosovo, the northern parts of Kosovo
where in possession of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic, and parts of Metohia
belonged to his brother-in-law Vuk Brankovic. By quelling the resistance of
the local landed gentry, Prince Lazar eventually emerged as the most
powerful regional lord and came to dominate the lands of Moravian Serbia.
Tvrtko I Kotromanic, King of Bosnia, Prince Lazar's closest ally, aspired to
the political legacy of the saintly dynasty as descendant of the Nemanjices
and by being crowned with the "dual crown" of Bosnia and Serbia over St.
Sava grave in monastery Mileseva.8
The expected clash with the Turks took place in Kosovo polje, outside
of Pristina, on St. Vitus day, June 15 (28), 1389. The troops of Prince
Lazar, Vuk Brankovic and King Tvrtko I, confronted the army of Emir Murad I,
which included his Christian vassals. Both Prince Lazar and emir Murad were
killed in the head-on collision between the two armies (approximately 30,000
troops on both sides). Contemporaries were especially impressed by the
tidings that twelve Serbian knights (most probably led by legendary hero
Milos Obilic) broke through the tight Turkish ranks and killed the emir in
his tent.9
Military-wise no real victor emerged from the battle. Tvrtko's
emissaries told the courts of Europe that the Christian army had defeated
the infidels, although Prince Lazar's successors, exhausted by their heavy
losses, immediately sought peace and conceded to became vassals to the new
sultan. Vuk Brankovic, unjustly remembered in epic tradition as a traitor
who slipped away from the battle field, resisted them until 1392, when he
was forced to become their vassal. The Turks took Brankovic's lands and gave
them to a more loyal vassal, Prince Stefan Lazarevic, son of Prince Lazar
thereby creating a rift between their heirs. After the battle of Angora in
1402, Prince Stefan took advantage of the chaos in the Ottoman state. In
Constantinople he received the title of despot, and upon returning home,
having defeated Brankovic's relatives he took control over the lands of his
father. Despite frequent internal conflicts and his vassal obligations to
the Turks and Hungarians, despot Stefan revived and economically
consolidated the Serbian state, the center of which was gradually moving
northward. Under his rule Novo Brdo in Kosovo became the economic center of
Serbia where in he issued a Law of Mines in 1412.10
Stefan appointed as his successor his nephew despot Djuradj Brankovic,
whose rule was marked by fresh conflicts and finally the fall of Kosovo and
Metohia to the Turks. The campaign of the Christian army led by Hungarian
nobleman Janos Hunyadi ended in 1448 in heavy defeat in a clash with Murad
II's forces, again in Kosovo Polje. This was the last concertive attempt in
the Middle Ages to rout the Turks out of this part of Europe.11
After the Fall of Constantinople (1453), Mehmed II the Conqueror
advanced onto Despotate of Serbia. For some time voivode Nikola Skobaljic
offered valiant resistance in Kosovo, but after a series of consecutive
campaigns and lengthy sieges in 1455, the economic center of Serbia, Novo
Brdo fell. The Turks then proceeded to conquer other towns in Kosovo and
Metohia four years before the entire Serbian Despotate collapsed with the
fall of new capital Smederevo. Turkish onslaught, marked by frequent
military raids, the plunder and devastation of entire regions, the
destruction of monasteries and churches, gradually narrowed down Serbian
state territories, triggering off a large-scale migration northwards, to
regions beyond reach to the conquerors. The biggest migration took place
from 1480-1481, when a large part of the population of northern Serbia moved
to Hungary and Transylvania, to bordering region along the Sava and Danube
rivers, where the descendants of the fleeing despots of Smederevo resisted
the Turks for several decades to come.12
1 For a more complete picture of Kosovo and Metohia's medieval past
see: D. Kojic-Kovacevic, Kosovo od sredine XII do sredine XV veka, in:
Kosovo nekad i sad (Kosova dikur e sot), (Beograd 1973), pp. 109-128; S.
Cirkovic, Kosovo i Metohija u srednjem veku, in: Kosovo i Metohija u srpskoj
istoriji, pp. 21-45 (with earlier bibliography)
2 R. Samardzic, Kosovo i Metohija: uspon i propadanje srpskog naroda,
in: Kosovo i Metohija u srpskoj istoriji, pp. 6-10; D. Bogdanovic, Rukopisno
nasledje Kosova in: Zbornik okruglog stola o naucnom istrazivanju Kosova,
Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Naucni skupovi, vol. XLII, Belgrade
1988, pp. 73-80. For more details see: Istorija srpskog naroda, vol. I
(Belgrade 1981).
3 S. Cirkovic, Vladarski dvorci oko jezera na Kosovu, in: Zbornik
Matice srpske za likovne umetnosti, 20 (1984), pp. 72-77.
4 V. S. Jovanovic, Arheoloska istrazivanja srednjovekovnih spomenika i
nalazista na Kosovu, in: Zbomik okruglog stola o naucnom istrazivanju
Kosova, pp. 17-66.
5 D. Bogdanovic, Knjiga o Kosovu, pp. 34-39; Zaduzbine Kosova, pp.
313-358.
6 D. Bogdanovic, Knjiga o Kosovu, pp. 39-41; S. Cirkovic, Kosovo i
Metohija u srednjem veku, pp. 34-36. More details in: B. Ferjancic, Les
Albanais dans les sources byzantines, in: Iliri i Albanci, Serbian Academy
of Sciences and Arts, Naucni skupovi vol. XXXDC (Belgrade 1988), pp.
303-322; S. Cirkovic, Les Albanais la lumiere des sources historiques des
Slaves du Sud, ill: Iliri i Albanci, pp. 341-359.
7 D. Bogdanovic, Knjiga o Kosovu, pp. 75. More details in: R.
Mihaljcic, Kraj Srpskog Carstva, Boj na Kosovu II, (Belgrade 1989).
8 S. Cirkovic, Istorija srednjovekovne bosanske drzave, (Beograd 1964),
pp. 133-140.
9 S. Cirkovic, Kosovo i Metohija u srednjem veku, pp. 39-41.
10 M. Purkovic, Knez i despot Stefan Lazarevic, (Beograd 1978).
11 Ibid. More details: R. Mihaljcic, Lazar Hrebeljanovic. Istorija,
kult, predanje, Boj na Kosovu II, (Belgrade 1989).
12 Istorija srpskog naroda, vol. II (Beograd 1982), pp. 260-265; D.
Bogdanovic, op. cit. p. 72.
The Age of Tribulation
For the Serbs as Christians, their loss of state independence and fall
to the Ottoman Empire's kind of theocratic state, was a terrible misfortune.
With the advent of the Turks and establishment of their rule, the lands of
Serbs were forcibly excluded from the circle of progressive European states
wherein they occupied a prominent place precisely owing to the Byzantine
civilisation, which was enhanced by local qualities and strong influences of
the neighboring Mediterranean states. Being Christians, the Serbs became
second-class citizens in Islamic state. Apart from religious discrimination,
which was evident in all spheres of everyday life, this status of rayah also
implied social dependence, as most of the Serbs were landless peasants who
paid the prescribed feudal taxes. Of the many dues paid in money, labor and
kind, the hardest for the Serbs was having their children taken as tribute
under a law that had the healthy boys, taken from their parents, converted
to Islam and trained to serve in the janissary corps of the Turkish army.
An analyse of the earliest Turkish censuses, defters, shows that the
ethnic picture of Kosovo and Metohia did not alter much during the 14th and
15th centuries. The small-in-number Turkish population consisted largely of
people from the administration and military that were essential in
maintaining order, whereas Christians continued to predominate in the rural
areas. Kosovo and parts of Metohia were registrated in 1455 under the name
Vilayeti Vlk, after Vuk Brankovic who once ruled over them. Some 75,000
inhabitants lived in 590 registrated villages. An onomastic analysis of
approximately 8,500 personal names shows that Slav and Christian names were
heavily predominant.1
Along with the Decani Charter, the register of the Brankovic region
shows a clear division between old-Serbian and old-ethnic Albanian
onomastics, allowing one to say, with some certainty which registrated
settlement was Serbian, and which ethnically mixed. Ethnic designations
(ethnic Albanian, Bulgarian, Armenian, Greek) appeared repeatedly next to
the names of settlers in the region. More thorough onomastic research has
shown that from the mid-14th to the 15th centuries, individual Albanian
settlements appeared on the fringes of Metohia, in-between what had until
then been a density of Serbian villages. This was probably due to the
devastation wrought by Turks who destroyed the old landed estates, thus
allowing for the mobile among the population, including ethnic Albanian
cattlemen, to settle on the abandoned land and establish their settlements,
which were neither big nor heavily populated.2
A summary census of the houses and religious affiliations of
inhabitants in the Vucitrn district (sanjak), which encompassed the one-time
Brankovic lands, was drawn in 1487, showed that the ethnic situation had not
altered much. Christian households predominated (totalling 16,729, out of
which 412 were in Pristina and Vucitrn): there were 117 Muslim households
(94 in Pristina and 83 in rural areas). A comprehensive census of the
Scutari district offers the following picture: in Pec (Ipek) there were 33
Muslim and 121 Christian households, while in Suho Grlo, also in Metohia,
Christians alone lived in 131 households. The number of Christians (6,124)
versus Muslim (55) homes in the rural areas shows that 1% of the entire
population bowed to the faith of the conqueror. An analysis of the names
shows that those of Slav origin predominated among the Christians. In Pec,
68% of the population bore Slav names, in the Suho Grlo region 52%, in Donja
Klina region 50% and around monastery of Decani 64%.
Ethnic Albanian settlements where people had characteristic names did
not appear until one reached areas outside the borders of what is today
Metohia, i.e. west of Djakovica. According to Turkish sources, in the period
from 1520 to 1535 only 700 of the total number of 19,614 households in the
Vucitrn district were Muslim (about 3,5%), and 359 (2%)in Prizren district.
In regions extending beyond the geographic borders of Kosovo and
Metohia, in the Scutari and Dukagjin districts, Muslims accounted for 4,6%
of the population. According to an analysis of the names in the Dukagjin
district's census, ethnic Albanian settlements did not predominate until one
reached regions south of Djakovica, and the ethnic picture in the 16th
century in Prizren and the neighboring areas remained basically
unchanged.3
A look at the religious affiliation of the urban population shows a
rise in the Turkish and local Islamized population. In Prizren, Kosovo's
biggest city, Muslims accounted for 56% of the households, of which the
Islamized population accounted for 21%. The ratio was similar in Pristina,
where out of the 54% Muslim population 16% were converts. Pec also had a
Muslim majority (90%), as did Vucitrn (72%). The Christians compromised the
majority of the population in the mining centers of Novo Brdo (62%), Trepca
(77%), Donja Trepca and Belasica (85%). Among the Christians was a
smattering of Catholics. The Christian names were largely from the calendar,
and to a lesser extent Slav (Voja, Dabiziv, Cvetko, Mladen, Stojko), and
there were some that were typically ethnic Albanian (Prend, Don, Din,
Zoti).4
After the fall of Serbia in 1459, the Pec Patriarchate soon ceased to
work and the Serbian eparchies came under the jurisdiction of the Hellenic
Ochrid Archbishophoric. In the first decade following Turkish conquest, many
large endowments and wealthier churches were pillaged and destroyed, while
some turned into mosques. The Our Lady of Ljeviska Cathedral in Prizren was
probably converted into a mosque right immediately following the conquest of
the town; Banjska, one of the grandest monasteries dating from the age of
King Milutin, suffered the same fate. The Church of the Holy Archangels near
Prizren, Stefan Dusan's chief endowment was turned into ruins. Most of the
monasteries and churches were left unrenewed after being devastated, and
many village churches were abandoned. Many were not restored until after the
liberation of Kosovo and Metohia in 1912. Archeological findings have shown
that some 1,300 monasteries, churches and other monuments existed in the
Kosovo and Metohia area. The magnitude of the havoc wrought can be seen from
the earliest Turkish censuses: In the 15th and 16th centuries there were ten
to fourteen active places of Christian worship. At first the great
monasteries like Decani and Gracanica, were exempt from destruction, but
their wealthy estates were reduced to a handfull of surrounding villages.
The privileges granted the monastic brotherhoods by the sultans obliged them
to perform the service of falconry as well.5
The restoration of the Pec Patriarchate in 1557 (thanks to Mehmed-pasha
Sokolovic, a Serb by origin, at the time the third vizier at the Porte)
marked a major turn and helped revive the spiritual life of the Serbs,
especially in Kosovo and Metohia. Mehmed-pasha Sokolovic (Turkish:
Sokollu) enthroned his relative Makarije Sokolovic on the patriarchal
throne. Like the great reform movements in 16th century Europe, the
restoration of the Serbian Orthodox Church meant the rediscovery of lost
spiritual strongholds. Thanks to the Patriarchate, Kosovo and Metohia were
for the next two centuries again the spiritual and political center of the
Serbs. On an area vaster than the Nemanjic empire, high-ranking
ecclesiastical dignitaries revived old and created new eparchies endeavoring
to reinforce the Orthodox faith which had been undermined by influences
alien (particularly by Islamic Bekteshi order of dervishes) to its authentic
teachings.
Based on the tradition of the medieval Serbian state, the Pec
Patriarchate revived old and established new cults of the holy rulers,
archbishops, martyrs and warriors, lending life to the Nemanjic heritage.
The feeling of religious and ethnic solidarity was enhanced by joint
deliberation at church assemblies attended by the higher and lower clergy,
village chiefs and hajduk leaders, and by stepping up a morale on the
traditions of Saint Sava but suited to the new conditions and strong
patriarchal customs renewed after the Turkish conquest in the village
communities.
The spiritual rebirth was reflected in the restoration of deserted
churches and monasteries: some twenty new churches were built in Kosovo and
Metohia alone, inclusive of printing houses (the most important one was at
Gracanica): many old and abandoned churches were redecorated with
frescoes.6
Serbian patriarchs and bishops gradually took over the role of the
one-time rulers, endeavoring with assistance from the neighboring Christian
states of Habsburg Empire and the Venetian Republic, to incite the people to
rebel. Plans for overthrowing the Turks and re-establishing an independent
Serbian state sprang throughout the lands from the Adriatic to the Danube.
The patriarchs of Pec, often learned men and able politicians, were usually
the ones who initiated and coordinated efforts at launching popular
uprisings when the right moment came. Patriarch Jovan failed to instigate a
major rebellion against the Turks, seeking the alliance of the European
Christian powers assembled around Pope Clement VII. Patriarch Jovan was
assassinated in Constantinople in 1614. Patriarch Gavrilo Rajic lived the
same fate in 1659 after going to Russia to seek help in instigating a
revolt.
The least auspicious conditions for an uprising were actually in Kosovo
and Metohia itself. In the fertile plains, the non-Muslim masses labored
under the yoke of the local Turkish administrators, continually threatened
by marauding tribes from the Albanian highlands. The crisis that overcome
the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century further aggrovated the position
of the Serbs in Kosovo, Metohia and neighboring regions. Rebellions fomented
by cattle-raising tribes in Albania and Montenegro, and the punitive
expeditions sent to deal with them turned Kosovo and Metohia into a bloody
terrain where Albanian tribes, kept clashing with detachments of the local
authorities, plundered Christian villages along the way. Hardened by
constant clashes with the Turks, Montenegro gradually picked up the torch of
defending Serbian Orthodoxy; meanwhile, in northern Albania, particularly in
Malesia, a reverse process was under way. Under steady pressure from the
Turkish authorities, the Islamization of ethnic Albanian tribes became more
widespread and the process assumed broader proportions when antagonistic
strivings grew within the Ottoman Empire in the late 17th and early 18th
century.7
It is not until the end of the 17th century that the colonization of
Albanian tribes in Kosovo and Metohia can be established. Reports by
contemporary Catholic visitators show that the ethnic border between the
Serbs and Albanians still followed the old dividing lines of the Black and
White Drim rivers. All reports on Kosovo and Metohia regard them as being in
Serbia: for the Catholic visitators, Prizren was still its capital city. In
Albania, the first wave of Islamization swept the feudal strata and urban
population. Special tax and political alleviations encouraged the rural
population to convert to Islam in larger number. Instead of being part of
the oppressed non-Muslim masses, the converts became a privileged class of
Ottoman society, with free access to the highest positions in the state. In
Kosovo and Metohia, where they moved to avoid heavy taxes, Catholic tribes
of Malesia converted to Islam. Conversion to Islam in a strongly Orthodox
environment rendered them the desired privileges (the property of Orthodox
and of the Catholics) and saved them from melting with Serbian Orthodox
population. It was only with the process of Islamization that the ethnic
Albanian colonisation of lands inhabited by Serbs became
expansive.8
The ethnic picture of Kosovo did not radically change in the first
centuries of Ottoman rule. Islamization encompassed part of a Serbian
population, although the first generations at least, converted as a mere
formality, to avoid heavy financial burdens and constant political pressure.
Conversion constituted the basis of Ottoman policy in the Balkans but it was
les successfull in Kosovo and Metohia, regions with the strongest religious
traditions, than in other Christian areas. The Turks' strong reaction to
rebellions throughout the Serbian lands and to the revival of Orthodoxy,
embodied in the cult of Saint Sava, the founder of the independent Serbian
church, ended in setting fire to the Mileseva monastery the burial place of
the first Serbian saint. The Turks burned his wonder working relics in
Belgrade in 1594, during a great uprising of Serbs in southern Banat. This
triggered off fresh waves of Islamization accompanied by severe reprisals
and the thwarting of any sign of rebellion.
Apart from Islamization, Kosovo and Metohia became the target of
proselytizing Catholic missionaries at the end of 17th century, especially
after the creation of the Sacra Congregazione de Propaganda Fide (1622). The
ultimate aim of the Roman Catholic propaganda was to converts the Orthodox
to Graeco-Catholicism as the initial phase in completely converting them to
the Catholic faith. The appeals of patriarchs of Pec to the Roman popes to
help the liberatory aspirations of the Serbs were met with the condition
that they renounce the Orthodox faith. In spreading the Catholicism, the
missionaries of the Roman Curia had the support of local Turkish
authorities; a considerable number of the missionaries were of Albanian
origin. Consequently, the propagators of Catholic proselytism persisted in
inciting Catholic and Muslim Albanians against the Serbs, whose loyalty to
Orthodoxy and their medieval traditions was the main obstacle to the
spreading of the Catholic faith in the central and southern regions of the
Balkans.9
Catholic propaganda attempts at separating the high clergy of the
Serbian Orthodox Church from the people prompted the Pec Patriarchate to
revive old and create a new cults with even greater vigor. In 1642 Patriarch
Pajsije, who was born in Janjevo, Kosovo, wrote The Service and The Life of
the last Nemanjic, the Holy Tsar Uros, imbuing old literary forms with new
content reflecting the contemporary moment. By introducing popular legends
(which gradually took shape),into classical hagiography Patriarch Pajsije
strove to establish a new cult of saints which would have a beneficial
impact on his compatriots in preserving their faith.
Parallel with the Orthodox Church national policy in traditionally
patriarchal societies, popular tales gradually matured into oral epic
chronicles. Nurtured through epic poetry, which was sung to the
accompaniment of the gusle, epic tales glorified national heroes and ruler,
cultivating the spirit of non-subjugation and cherishing the hope in
liberation from the Turkish yoke. Folk poems about the battle of Kosovo and
its heroes, about the tragic fate of the last Nemanjices, the heroism of
Prince Lazar and his knight Milos Obilic, and, especially, about Kraljevic
Marko (King Marko Mrnjavcevic) as the faultless and dauntless legendary
knight who was always defeating Turks and saving Serbs, were an expression
not only of the tragic sense of life in which Turkish rule was a synonymous
to evil, but a particular moral code that in time crystalized into a common
attitude towards life, defined in the first centuries of Ottoman rule. The
Serbian nation's Kosovo covenant is embodied in the choice which, according
to legend, was made by Prince Lazar on the eve of the battle of Kosovo. The
choice of freedom in the kingdom of heaven instead of humiliation in the
kingdom of earth constituted the Serbian nation's spiritual stronghold.
Prince Lazar's refusal to resign to injustice and slavery, raised to the
level of biblical drama, determined his unquenchable thirst for freedom.
Together with the cult of Saint Sava, which grew into a common
civilisational framework in everyday life, the Kosovo idea which, in time,
gained universal meaning. With its wise policy the Patriarchate of Pec
carefully built epic legend into the hagiography of old and new Serbian
saints, glorifying their works in frescoes and icons.10
1 O. Zirojevic, Prvi vekovi tudjinske vlasti, in: Kosovo i Metohija u
srpskoj istoriji, pp. 47-113 (with earlier bibliography).
2 Ibid
3 M. Pesikan, Zetsko-raska imena na pocetku turskog doba, II, in:
Onomatoloski prilozi, vol. IV (1983), pp. 218-243; 0. Zirojevic;, op. cit.,
pp. 90-92.
4. O. Zirojevic, op. cit., pp. 92-94.
5 Ibid, pp. 94-96.
6 R. Samardzic, Mehmed-pasa Sokolovic, (Beograd 1975); Idem, Ideje za
srpsku istoriju, (Beograd 1989), pp. 125-128; Dj. Slijepcevic, Istorija
Srpske pravoslavne crkve, I, Dusseldorf 1878, pp. 328-321.
7 R. Trickovic, U susret najtezim iskusenjima, in: Kosovo i Metohija u
srpskoj istoriji, pp. 119-126.
8 J. Radonic, Rimska kurija i juznoslovenske zemlje od XVI do XIX veka,
(Beograd 1950)
9 J. Radonic, op. cit., pp., 8-11; Further documentation in: M. Jacov,
Spisi Tajnog vatikanskog arhiva XVI-XL veka, (Beograd 1983)
10 R. Samardzic, Usmena narodna hronika (Novi Sad 1978).
The Age of Migrations
The Serbs stepped again onto the historical scene in the years of the
European wars that swept the continent from the forests of Ireland to the
walls of Constantinople in the late 17th century. The Turks finally withdrew
from Hungary and Transylvania when their Ottoman hordes were routed outside
Vienna in 1683. The disintegration of Ottoman rule in the southwest limbered
up the Serbs, arousing in them hope that the moment was ripe for joint
effort to break Turkish dominion in the Balkans. The neighboring Christian
powers (Austria and Venice) were the only possible allies. The arrival of
the Austrian army in Serbia after the fall of Belgrade in 1688 prompted the
Serbs to join it. Thanks to the support of Serbian insurgents, the imperial
troops penetrated deep into Serbia and in 1689 conquered Nis: a special
Serbian militia was formed as a separate corps of the imperial
troops.1
After setting fire to Skoplje (Uskub), which was raging with plague,
the commander of Austrian troops Ennea Silviae Piccolomini withdrew to
Prizren where he was greeted by 20,000 Serbian insurgents, and with whom he
reached an accord on fighting the Turks with joint forces. Shortly
afterwards, Piccollomini died of the plague, and his successors failed to
prevent their troops from marauding the surrounding regions. Disappointed by
the conduct of the Christian troops from which they had expected decisive
support, the Serbian insurgents abandoned the agreed alliance. Patriarch
Arsenije III Crnojevic tried in vain to arrive at a new agreement with the
Austrian generals. The restorer of the Ottoman Empire, Grand Vizier
Mustafa-Pasha Koporilli, an Albanian by origin, took advantage of the lull
in military operations, mustered Crimean Tatars and Islamized Albanians and
mounted a major campaign. Despite assurances of help, Catholic Albanian
tribes deserted the Austrian army on the eve of the decisive clash at
Kacanik in Kosovo, on January 1690. The Serbian militia, resisting the
Sultan's superior hordes, retreated to the west and north of the
country.2
Turkish retaliation, in which the Serbian infidels were raided and
viciously massacred lasted a three full months. The towns of Prizren, Pec,
Pristina, Vucitrn and Mitrovica were hit the worst, and Serbs from Novo Brdo
retreated from the Tatar saber. Fleeing from the brutal reprisal, the people
of Kosovo and the neighboring areas moved northwards with Patriarch Arsenije
III. The decision to end the massacre and declare an amnesty came belately
as much of the population had already fled for safer areas, moving towards
the Sava River and Belgrade. Other parts of Serbia were also targets of
ghastly reprisals. In the Belgrade pashalik alone, the number of taxpayers
dropped eightfold. Grand old monasteries were looted from Pec Patriarchate
to Gracanica, and the Albanian tribe Gashi pillaged the Decani monastery,
killing the prior and seizing the monastery's best estates.
At the invitation of emperor Leopold I, Patriarch Arsenije III led part
of the high clergy and a sizeable part of the refugees (tens of thousands of
people) to the Habsburg Empire to the territory of southern Hungary, having
received assurances that the Serbs would there be granted special political
and religious status. Many Serbs from Kosovo and Metohia followed him. The
new churches built along the Danube they named after those left in old
homeland.
The Great 1690 Migration was a important turning point in the history
of the Serbs. In Kosovo and Metohia alone, towns and some villages were
abandoned to the last inhabitant. The population was also decimated by the
plague, whatever remained after the Turkish troops. The physical
extermination along with the mass exodus, the burning of grand monasteries
and their rich treasuries and libraries, the death and murder of a large
number of monks and clergy wreaked havoc in these regions. The position of
the Pec Patriarchate was badly shaken; its highest clergy went with the
people to Austria, and the confusion wrought by the Great Migration had a
major influence on its abolition (1766).3
The hardest consequence of the Great Migration was demographic upheaval
it caused, because once the Serbs withdraw from Kosovo and Metohia,
Islamized Albanian tribes from the northern highlands started settling the
area in greater number, mostly by force, in the decade following the 1690
Great Migration of Serbs, ethnic Albanian tribes (given their incredible
powers of reproduction) was posing a grave threat to the biological survival
of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia. Colonies set up by the ethnic Albanians
in Kosovo, Metohia and the neighboring areas provoked a fresh Serbian
migration toward the north, encouraged the process of conversion and upset
the centuries-old ethnic balance in those areas. Supported (depending on
circumstances) by the Turks and the Roman Curia, ethnic Albanians, abyding
by their tribal customs and hajduk insubordination to the law, in the coming
centuries turned the entire region of Kosovo and Metohia into a bloody
battleground, marked by tribal and feudal anarchy. The period following the
Great Migration of Serbia marked the commencement of three centuries of
ethnic Albanian genocide against Serbs in their native land.
The century after the Great Migration saw a fresh exodus of the Serbs
from Kosovo and Metohia, and a growing influence of ethnic Albanians on
political circumstances. Ethnic Albanians used the support they received
from the Turkish army in fighting Serbian insurgents to seize the ravaged
land and abandoned mining centers in Kosovo and Metohia and to enter in
large numbers the Ottoman administration and military. More and more
Catholic ethnic-Albanians converted to Islam, thereby acquiring the right to
retain the estates they had seized and to apply the might-is-right principle
in their dealings with the non-Muslim Serbs. The authorities encouraged and
assisted the settlement of the newly Islamized ethnic-Albanian tribes from
the mountains to the fertile lands devastated by war. The dissipation of the
Turkish administrative system encouraged the ethnic-Albanian colonisation of
Kosovo and Metohia, since with the arrival of more of their fellow tribesmen
and compatriots, the local pashas and beys (most of whom were ethnic
Albanian) acquired strong tribal armies which in times of trouble helped
them hold on to their position and illegally pass on their power to their
descendents. The missionaries of the Roman Curia did not heed to preserve
the small ethnic Albanian Catholic population, but endeavoured instead to
inflict as much harm as possible on the Pec Patriarchate and its
dignitaries, and, with the help of bribable pashas, to undermine the
cohesive power of Serbian Orthodoxy in these areas.4
The next war between Austria and Turkey (1716-1718) marked the
beginning of a fresh persecution in Kosovo and Metohia. Austrian troops,
backed by Serbian volunteers, reached the Western Morava River where they
established a new frontier. Ethnic Albanians collectively guaranteed to the
Porte the safety of the regions in the immediate vicinity of Austria, and
were in return exempted from the heaviest taxes. Towards the end of the war
(1717), a major Serbian uprising broke out in Vucitrn and its surroundings:
it was brutally crushed and the troops sent to allay the rayah and launch an
investigation, perpetrated fresh atrocities. Excessive dues, robbery and the
threat of extermination put before the Kosovo Serbs the choices of either
converting to Islam or finding a powerful master who would protect them if
they accepted the status of serfs. Many opted for a third solution: they
moved to surrounding regions where life was more tolerable.5
The following war between Austria and Turkey (1737-1739) ended with the
routing of the imperial troops from Serbian territory. The border was
reestablished at the Sava and Danube rivers, and Serbs set out on another
migration. Patriarch Arsenije IV Jovanovic, along with the religious and
national leaders of Pec, drew up a plan for cooperation with the Austrian
forces, and contacted their commanders. A large-scale uprisings broke out
again in Kosovo and Metohia, engaging some 10.000 Serbs. They were joined by
Montenegrin tribes, and Austrian envoys even stirred up the Kliments, a
Catholic tribe from northern Albania. A Serbian militia was formed again,
but the Austrian troops and insurgenta were forced to retreat in the face of
superior Turkish power: reprisals ensued, bringing death to the insurgents
and their families. Serbs withdrew from the mining settlements around
Janjevo, Pristina, Novo Brdo and Kopaonik. In order to keep the remaining
populace on the land, the Turks declared an amnesty. After the fall of
Belgrade, Arsenije IV moved to Austria. The number of refugees from Serbia,
including Kosovo and Metohia, along with some Kliments has yet to be
accurately determined, as people were moving on all sides and the process
lasted for several months. The considerably reduced number of taxpayers in
Kosovo and Metohia and in other parts of Serbia points to a strong migratory
wave.6
Unrest in the Ottoman empire helped spread anarchy in Kosovo and
Metohia and rest of Serbia. Raids, murder, rape against the unarmed
population was largely committed by ethnic Albanian outlaws, who were now
numerically superior in many regions. Outlaw bands held controll over roads
during Turkey's war with Russia (1768-1774), when lawlessness reigned
throughout Serbia. Ethnic Albanian outlaws looted and fleeced other regions
as well, which sent local Muslims complaining to the Porte seeking
protection.
During the last Austro-Turkish war (1788-1791); a sweeping popular
movement again took shape in northern Serbia. Because of the imperial forces
swift retreat, the movement did not encompass the southern parts of Serbia:
Kosovo, Metohia and present-day northern Macedonia. The peace treaty of
Sistovo (1791) envisaged a general amnesty for the Serbs, but the ethnic
Albanians, as outlaws or soldiers in the detachments of local pashas,
continued unhindered to assault the unprotected Serbian population. The wave
of religious intolerance towards Orthodox population, which acquired greater
proportion owing to the hostilities with Russia at the end of 18th century,
effected the forced conversion to Islam of a larger number of Serbian
families. The abolition of the Pec Patriarchate (1766), whose see and rich
estates were continually sought after by local ethnic Albanian pashas and
beys, prompted the final wave of extensive Islamization in Kosovo and
Metohia.7
Those who suffered the most during these centuries of utter lawlessness
were the Serbs, unreliable subjects who would rise every time the Turks
would wage war against one of the neighboring Great Powers, and whose
patriarchs led the people to enemy land. Although initially on a small
scale, the Islamization of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia began before the
penetration of ethnic Albanians. More widespread conversion to Islam took
place in the 17th and the first half of 18th centuries, when ethnic
Albanians began to wield more influence on political events in these
regions. Many Serbs accepted Islamization as a necessary evil, waiting for
the moment when they could revert to the faith of their ancestors, but most
of them never lived to see that day. The first few generations of Islamized
Serbs preserved their language and observed their old customs (especially
slava - the family patron saint day, and the Easter holiday). But several
generations later, owing to a strong ethnic Albanian environment, they
gradually began adopting the Albanian dress to safety, and outside their
narrow family circle they spoke the Albanian language. Thus came into being
a special kind of social mimicry which enabled converts to survive.
Albanization began only when Islamized Serbs, who were void of national
feeling, married girls from ethnic Albanian tribal community. For a long
time Orthodox Serbs called their Albanized compatriots Arnautasi, until the
memory of their Serbian origin waned completely, though old customs and
legends about their ancestors were passed on from one generation to the
next.8
For a long time the Arnautasi felt neither like Turks nor ethnic
Albanians, because their customs and traditions set them apart, and yet they
did not feel like Serbs either, who considered Orthodoxy to be their prime
national trait. Many Arnautasi retained their old surnames until the turn of
the last century. In Drenica the Arnautasi bore such surnames as Dokic,
Velic, Marusic, Zonic, Racic, Gecic, which unquestionably indicated their
Serbian origin. The situation was similar in Pec and its surroundings where
many Islamized and Albanized Serbs carries typically Serbian surnames:
Stepanovic, Bojkovic, Dekic, Lekic, Stojkovic, etc. The eastern parts of
Kosovo and Metohia, with their compact Serbian settlements, were the last to
undergo Islamization. The earliest Islamization in Upper Morava and Izmornik
is pinpointed as taking place in the first decades of the 18th century, and
the latest in 1870s. Toponyms in many ethnic Albanian villages in Kosovo
show that Serbs had lived there the preceding centuries, and in some places
Orthodox cemeteries were shielded against desecrators by ethnic Albanians
themselves, because they knew that the graves of their own ancestors lay
there.9
In the late 18th century, all the people of Gora, the mountain region
near Prizren were converted to Islam. However they succeeded in preserving
their language and avoiding Albanization. There were also some cases of
conversion of Serbs to Islam in the second half of 19th century, especially
during the Crimean War, again to save their lives, honor and property,
though far more pronounced at the time was the process of emigration, since
families, sometimes even entire villages, fled to Serbia or Montenegro.
Extensive anthropogeographic research indicates that about 30% of the
present-day ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo and Metohia is of Serbian
origin.10
1 N. Samardzic, Savremena strana stampa o Velikoj seobi Srba,
Istorijski Casopis, vol. XXXII (1985), pp. 79-103; R. Trickovic, Velika
seoba Srba 1690. godine, in: Kosovo i Metohija u srpskoj istoriji, pp.
127-141.
2 N. Samardzic, op. cit., pp. 136-139.
3 R. Trickovic, Ustanci, seobe i stradanja u XVIII veku, in: Kosovo i
Metohija u srpskoj istoriji, pp. 149-169
4 Ibid
5 Ibid
6 Ibid
7 Ibid
8 J. Cvijic, La peninsule balkanique. Geographic humaine, (Paris 1918),
pp. 343-355.
9 A. Urosevic, Kosovo, (Beograd 1965); D. Slijepcevic, Srpsko-arbanaski
odnosi kroz vekove, pp. 95-127.
10 J. Cvijic, Osnove za geografiju i geologiju Makedonije i Stare
Srbije, I-III, (Beograd 1906-1911).
The Age of Oppression
The series of long-scale Christian national movements in the Balkans,
triggered off by 1804 Serbian revolution, decided more than in the earlier
centuries, the fate of Serbs and made ethnic Albanians (about 70% of whom
were Muslims) the main guardians of Turkish order in the European provinces
of Ottoman Empire. At a time when the Eastern question was again being
raised, particularly in the final quarter of 19th and the first decade of
20th century, Islamic Albanians were the chief instrument of Turkey's policy
in crushing the liberation movements of other Balkan states. After the
congress of Berlin (1878) an Albanian national movement flared up, and both
the Sultan and Austria-Hungary, a power whose occupation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina heralded its further expansion deep into the Balkans,
endeavored, with varying degrees of success, to instrumentalize this
movement. While the Porte used the ethnic Albanians as Islam's shock cutting
edge against Christians in the frontier regions towards Serbia and
Montenegro, particularly in Kosovo, Metohia and the nearby areas,
Austria-Hungary's design was to use the Albanians national movement against
the liberatory aspirations of the two Serbian states that were impeding the
German Drang nach Osten. In a rift between two only seemingly contrary
strivings, Serbia and Montenegro, although independent since 1878, were
powerless (at least until the Balkan wars 1912-1913) without the support of
Russia or other Great Power to effect the position of their compatriots
within the borders of Ottoman Empire.1
During the Serbian revolution, which ended with the creation of the
autonomous Principality of Serbia within the Ottoman empire (1830), Kosovo
and Metohia acquired special political importance. The hereditary ethnic
Albanian pashas, who had until then been mostly renegades from the central
authorities in Constantinople, feared that the flames of rebellion might
spread to regions they controlled thus they became champions for the defense
the integrity of the Turkish Empire and leaders of many military campaigns
against the Serbian insurgents, at the core of the Serbian revolution was
the Kosovo covenant, embodied in the "revenge of Kosovo", a fresh, decisive
battle against the Turkish invaders in the field of Kosovo. In 1806 the
insurgents were preparing, like Prince Lazar in his day, to come out in
Kosovo and weigh their forces against the Turks, However, detachments of
Serbian insurgents reached only the fringes of northern Kosovo. Metohia, Old
Raska (Sandzak), Kosovo and northern Macedonia remained outside the borders
of the Serbian principality. In order to highlight their importance in the
national and political ideologies of the renewed Serbian state, they were
given a new collective name. It was not by chance that Vuk Stefanovic
Karadzic, the father of modern Serbian literacy, named the central lands of
the Nemanjic state - Old Serbia.2
Fearing the renewed Serbian state, Kosovo pashas engaged in ruthless
persecution in an effort to reduce number of Serbs living in their spacious
holdings. The French travel writer F.C.H.L Pouqueville was astounded by the
utter anarchy and ferocity of the local pashas towards the Christians.
Jashar-pasha Gjinolli of Prishtina was one of the worst, destroying several
churches in Kosovo, seizing monastic lands and killing monks. In just a few
years of sweeping terror, he evicted more than seventy Serbian villages
between Vucitrn and Gnjilane, dividing up the seized land among the local
Islamized population and mountain folk that had settled there from northern
Albania. The fertile plains of Kosovo became desolate meadows as the Malisor
highlanders, unused to farming knew not to cultivate.
The revolt of the ethnic Albanian pashas against the reforms introduced
by the sultans and fierce clashes with regular Turkish troops in the
thirties and forties of the 19th century, emphasized the anarchy in Kosovo
and Metohia, causing fresh suffering among the Serbs and the further
devastation of the ancient monasteries. Since neither Serbian nor
Montenegro, two semi-independent Serbian states, were able to give any
significant help to the gravely endangered people, Serbian leaders form the
Pristina and Vucitrn regions turned to the Russian tsar in seeking
protection from their oppressors. They set out that they were forced to
choose between converting to Islam or fleeing for Serbia as the violence,
especially killings, the persecution of monks, the raping of women and
minors, had exceeded all bounds. Pogroms marked the decades to come,
especially in period of the Crimean War (1853-1856) when anti-Slav
sentiments reached their peak in the ottoman empire: ethnic Albanians and
the Cherkeses, whom the Turks had resettled in Kosovo, joined the Ottoman
troops in persecuting Orthodox Serbs.
The brotherhood of Decani and the Pec Patriarchate turned to the
authorities of Serbia for protection. Pointing to the widespread violence
and increasing banditry, and to more frequent and persisted attempts by
Catholic missionaires to compel the impoverished and spiritually discouraged
monk communities to concede to union. Prior Serafim Ristic of Decani loged
complaints with both the sultan and Russian tsar and in his book Plac Stare
Srbije (Zemun 1864) he penned hundreds of examples of violence perpetrated
by the ethnic Albanians and Turks against the Serbs, naming the
perpetrators, victims and type of crime. In Metohia alone he recorded over
one hundred cases in which the Turkish authorities, police and judiciary
tolerated and abetted robbery, bribery, murder, arson, the desecration of
churches, the seizure of property and livestock, the rape of women and
children, and the harassment of monks and priests. Both ethnic Albanians and
Turks viewed assaults against Serbs as acts pleasing to Allah acts that
punishing infidels for not believing in true God: kidnapping and Islamizing
girls were a way for true Muslims to approach Allah. Ethnic Albanian outlaws
(kayaks) became heroes among their fellow-tribesmen for fulfilling their
religious obligations in the right way and spreading the militant glory of
their clan and tribe.
Eloquent testimonies to the scope of the violence against the Serbs in
Kosovo and Metohia, ranging from blackmail and robbery to rape and murder,
come from many foreign travel-writers, from A. F. Hilferding to G. M.
McKenzie - A. P. Irby. The Russian consul in Prizren observed that ethnic
Albanians were settling the Prizren district underhidered and were trying,
with the Turks, to eradicate Christians from Kosovo and Metohia. Throughout
the 19th century there was no public safety on the roads of Metohia and
Kosovo. One could travel the roads which were controlled by tribal bands,
only with strong armed escort. The Serbian peasant had no protection in the
field where he could be assaulted and robbed by an outlaw or bandit, and if
he tried to resist, he could be killed without the p...