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Rich Clabaugh |
Why Kosovo is central to Serb national epic
Serbs and Kosovars meet Friday for talks on the province's status as a Dec. 10 deadline looms.
from the October 12, 2007 edition
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This week, Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Çeku said the province may declare independence shortly after Dec. 10 if no deal is struck. As the deadline approaches, one new idea being promoted quietly here might be called "active ignoring."
"The political elite don't want Albanians in Serbian society, but they want the territory," says a Belgrade intellectual who requested anonymity. "UN legitimacy becomes a crucial point. If the UN doesn't back the independence of Kosovo, then you can say it didn't happen. They need to maintain the illusion that we control Kosovo, and avoid the humiliation of losing it. What they care about is how Serbian kids today will control the map of Serbia in 20 to 30 years."
A heartland akin to Jerusalem
For Serbs, Kosovo represents a heartland similar to that of Jerusalem for the Jews. If you ask Americans about the Alamo, or Britons about King Arthur, you might detect a slight pulse. But ask many Serbs about Kosovo, and the pulse positively races.
The Field of Blackbirds near Kosovo Polje was the seat of a heroic losing battle between Orthodox Serbia, led by Prince Lazar, and Muslim Turks. Every Serb child learns the poem "The Dream of Tzar Lazar," which takes place the night before the battle.
In the poem, Lazar is given a bitter cup to choose – a heavenly cup or an earthly one. He chooses the heavenly cup even though it means Lazar's army will lose. The Serbs (Lazar included) are wiped out in a battle that gives Kosovo to the Turks for 500 years. In Serb mythology, their reward is in heaven for making the right choice.
Gavrilo Princip used the Kosovo myth in his decision to shoot Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, which led to World War I; Mr. Milosevich used Kosovo psychology in 1988 to begin his rise to power from a gray Yugoslav bureaucrat to Serbian president. He died in 2006 while on trial for war crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo.
"Asking Serbs whether they choose Kosovo or Europe is a stupid question," says Marko Blagojevic, head of the polling company CeSID in Belgrade. "It is like asking whether I want to lose my right or my left leg."
The problem at present is that Kosovo is 90 percent Albanian, and the Albanians do not want to participate in a Serbia they are not wanted in.
"Why did the international community come down on the side of independence and not sovereignty?," asks Mr. Rohan. "Because you can't ignore what happened between '89 and '99, the killings, the Serbian police squads and thugs. You can't really say all of a sudden they are nice guys in Belgrade and so lets go back to before 1989. You can't go back to something viscerally rejected by 90 percent of the people there."
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