In the latter half of the seventh century, several Slavic tribes began migrating from north-eastern Europe to the area between the Adriatic coast and the Danube River. These tribes spoke the same language, and included the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Bosnians. By the latter half of the ninth century the Serbs became part of the Byzantine Empire and adopted Orthodox Christianity. The Slovenes and Croats adopted Roman Catholicism; and the Bosnians joined a heretical form of Christianity known as the Bogomilism. (The over-simplified explanation of the primary doctrine of the Bogomils is that God had two sons, Satan and Jesus.) Because of their heresy, the Bosnians/Bogomils were persecuted by both Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians (Serbs and Croats).
An independent Serbian state existed as early as 850, but it was subordinate to Byzantine Empire. A stable and continuous Serbian state was established in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century along with the Serbian monarchy and the Serbian Orthodox Church. As part of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, the Serbians faced a long series of wars between Byzantium and the Russians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Turks, and especially the Roman Catholic Church, that sought to bring Byzantium under Roman Catholic dominion as part of the Crusades (Fourth). In 1274 the Byzantine Emperor Michael conceded papal primacy to Gregory X. Soon after, in approximately 1300, Turkish conquest of the Balkan peninsula began in earnest.
On June 15, 1389, a battle was fought between the Serbs and invading Muslim Turks at Kosovo Field. Although the Turks won, the battle was and is looked upon by the Serbs as “the” milestone event of Serbian national identity (not that dissimilar to the Battle of Bunker Hill, or Lexington/Concord).
Due to the Turkish victory at Kosovo, large portions of real estate came under Turkish control, and significant numbers of people from a variety of local ethnic groups including Greeks, Italians, Jews, and the Slavic tribes “converted” to Islam; many clearly out of political and social expediency. Although the vast majority of Serbians did not convert, Serbia became a vassal state of the Turkish Empire nonetheless, forced to pay heavy taxes and provide troops to fight along side the Muslims. A large majority of ethnic Albanians, a non-Slavonic tribe indigenous to the Dalmatian coast, who had been Roman Catholic converted to Islam and became allied to the Ottoman Empire; while the Bosnians converted en masse, delighted to be free from orthodox Christian persecution and now part of the “winning team.” Croatiaand Slovenia however, were not overrun by the Turks, remained Roman Catholic and increasingly came under the authority of the Austrians.
The Muslim threat to Eastern Europe was far from over and would continue for hundreds of years, eventually reaching the gates of Vienna in 1529, and again in 1683. Things began to change with the Turkish defeats at Vienna (1683) and Budapest (1686), which saw the beginning of the decline of Turkey and the ascendancy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Yet it would take until 1826 before Serbia would wrestle full autonomy out of the Turks. By this time, Serbia had lived under almost 500 years of Islamic oppression. From the Muslim point of view, this era was one of “harmonious and peaceful co-existence,” demonstrating the moral and cultural superiority of shari’a and dhimmi. But for the Serbs it was a period of slaughter, slavery and subjugation.
In the early to mid 1800’s Russia entered the fray and a period of “Pan-Slavism” began; an ideology that linked all Slavic peoples under the “protection” of Russia. This would last until World War I.
The Balkan Wars of 1912–13 drove the last remnants of the Ottoman Empire from Europe for good. As part of the Treaty that ended the war, Albania was made an independent state.
As most people are aware, World War I was set in motion in the Balkans, when Serbian national Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.
In 1915, ethnic Albanians allied to the Turks, killed 200,000 Serbs parallel to the Armenian genocide.
During World War I, the Slovenes, Bosnians and Croats allied themselves with Germany/Austria, while Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece allied themselves with Russia, which would in turn ally itself with England, France and eventually the United States.
With the end of World War I, the defeat of the German-Austrian alliance, and the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro became independent republics. Since all were Slavic peoples, and spoke Serbo-Croatian, they decided to join together to form one united country. This is despite the fact that Slovenia and Croatia were Roman Catholic, Serbia and Montenegro were Orthodox Christian, and Bosnia was Muslim.
Then of course came World War II. The Nazi war machine quickly overran Yugoslavia and dissolved it back into its component states. This situation was agreeable to the Catholic Croats and Slovenes and Muslim Bosnians. The Serbs however, fought back. As a result, they received the focused attention of the Nazis with active assistance from the Croats. Terrible atrocities were committed against the Serbs with over 500,000 dying in Nazi-Croatian concentration camps. The Nazis also formed specialized units of Muslim fighters made up of Bosnians, Albanians and Arab Muslims from Palestine (like the 13th (Hanjar) Waffen SS Division). In addition, the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs by the Nazis was accompanied by deliberately moving thousands of Muslim Albanians into Kosovo province.
Following World War II, Yugoslavia was re-united under the leadership of Communist Josip Broz Tito. Tito, an ethnic Croat, believed he could use Communism to end the ethnic and religious antagonism between the various Slavic factions. As part of his plan, Tito took land from Serbia and gave it to the other Yugoslavian states, including land that had belonged to Serbia for over 1300 years (given to Bosnia and Croatia). Tito also gave land confiscated from the Serbian Orthodox Church to Albanian Muslims, and encouraged the Islamization of Serbian lands.The iron fist of Communism did little to genuinely solve the latent ethnic hostilities of Yugoslavia.
When Tito died 1980 Yugoslavia again fractured into its constituent parts. Bosnia and Croatia had little intention of giving any land back to Serbia however. Croatia began ethnic cleansing of Serbs from “their” land, and Bosnia declared all Serbs in “their” land Bosnian citizens with added intent of making Bosnia an Islamic fundamentalist state. A half a million ethnic Serbs fled Croatia and Bosnia; war ensued with the Serbs fighting for what they perceived as land that rightfully belonged to them; which brings us back to Kosovo.
Kosovo, and its capital Pristina, are the heart and soul of Serbia. They are what New England, with Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., are to the United States; or what Jerusalem and Judea are to Israel. Pristina has been the home of the Serbian Orthodox Church for close to 1000 years, with over 1000 churches, monasteries and holy places. To take Kosovo from the Serbs and give it to ethnic Albanian Muslims to make into an Islamic state is an injustice of biblical proportions. And yet that is precisely what the rest of the world insisted on, with NATO and the United States bombing Serbia into submission in two and half months in the spring of 1999.
The world justified its actions by accusing Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic of genocide. Post-war census figures however, reveal that the numbers killed were of no greater percentage than most wars; ugly yes, but no more so than what has been done to them. Conversely, since 1999, the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Serbs from their ancestral home is almost complete with only 120,000 Serbs remaining; Kosovo is now conveniently over 90% Albanian Muslims.
On Sunday February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, and was recognized by the European Union and the United States. This sets an enormously dangerous precedent; carving out of one nation a new nation where one did not exist before and had no rightful claim; and in addition handing it over to a people completely antithetical to the rightful inhabitants.
Since Sunday, Serbian protestors have marched in Pristina, angrily denouncing the United States and withdrawing their ambassador to the US.Ethnic Albanians claim they are descended from the ancient Illyrians, and therefore the original inhabitants of Kosovo. As is often the case in claims of this nature, this argument only has real meaning if modern Albanians can: a) Establish and prove the date when they believe they were the legitimate occupiers of the area, and when they were illegitimately replaced. b) Prove that their descendents actually occupied that specific geographic area, not an adjacent one. c) Prove that it was the Serbs exclusively that displaced them, and not a series of conflicts, expulsions, occupations, etc, by the Serbs and others that deprived them of their land. d) Prove ethnic descent. d) Maintain a majority of ethnic purity and prove it. e) Demonstrate either: a significant degree of autonomous existence in the specified area, or consistent effort to re-establish your claim. f) Demonstrate due diligence for all of the above factors from the time of your expulsion until now. Most, if not all of these facts are conveniently impossible to prove. Besides, there already is an independent Albania.
Today, the supposedly disbanded KLA (Kosovar Liberation Army), and Albanian organization, is engaged in terrorism, arms running, drug smuggling and human trafficking. Major figures in the KLA have documented links to Al-Qaeda, and Iran. The Kosovo economy is a joke with the majority of its citizens unemployed and therefore no way to feed their people without aid from (you guessed it) the United States and European Union. Furthermore, Albanian Muslims have engaged in systematic destruction of Serbian Christians sites, many centuries old, designed not only to eradicate all Serbian Christians, but any memory of their presence in Kosovo.
Several countries including Spain, Greece, Romania Russia and China have refused to recognize Kosovo on the grounds that this will embolden separatist movements in their countries. The final and most regrettable part of this whole charade (hinted at earlier) is the precedent it sets. If the world entertained this bogus claim, who’s safe, and who’s next?
Answer: Jerusalem.
