1980/No. 5 by Dennison I. Rusinow THE OTHER ALBANIA: Europe [DIR-I-'80] KOSOVO 1979 Part I: Problems and Prospects The Socialist Autonomous Province national question. The province now when David Binder of The New of Kosovo--population 1.5 million, has a pofitical status, a leadership, a York Times and this reporter were of whom about 80 percent are more adequate infrastructure, and first in Skivjani. Just to the left of Muslim Albanians--is the poorest of plans that all augur well, but what the entrance loomed the familiar Yugoslavia's 8 federal units. It is also happens will also depend on bulk of the house in which 26 a bundle of economic and social economic conditions in the rest of Hadris, including 11 children, had problems whose continued Yugoslavia and beyond, where lived--a high, fortress-like nonsolution could threaten present short-term forecasts are in "Metohija tower" of smooth-cut international as well as Yugoslav general extraordinarily gloomy. stone and narrow windows, built stability and peace. Its problems, in This two-part exploration of these more for defense than for comfort origin the legacy of Kosovo's issues and questions--in Part I and characteristic of western particular history within the through summaries of some Kosovo, where such dwellings are Ottoman Empire and then pre- and problems and prospects and in Part lived-in monuments to the early postwar Yugoslavia, have been II with vignettes of village, factory, province's violent history. Straight uniquely aggravated by rates of and city streets--is based on visits ahead in the walled, defensible economic growth and social change to Kosovo in October and farmyard the haystack and mud that are considerable but inadequate November 1979 and conversations were still in place, and an old man to satisfy aroused expectations, less with numerous local officials, was shucking and chopping corn for than the rest of the country's, ill- including a three and one-haft hour winter fodder for the cattle. Outside digested, and along with political survey of the state of the nation and the compound the little mill that had power unevenly and changeably the world by Provincial Communist been a principal source of the distributed among nationalities Party President Mahmut Bakalli. Hadris' relative prosperity still divided by religion and ancient The timing of these visits was straddled a branch of the rivulet, antagonisms as well as language fortuitously well chosen: Yugoslav now swollen with autumn rains, that and culture. The potential threat to President Josip Broz Tito began an is the village's main street, Yugoslav and thereby to international abruptly scheduled and intensive wandering among other Metohija stability is more acute and directly four-day tour of the Province on towers and more modest dwellings international because Kosovo "s October 15, reportedly doling out of sunbaked brick on its way from Albanian majority, a large butpoor, criticism but also approving the Hadri homestead to the widely despised, and until recently ambitious local plans at closed-door asphalted Prizren-Pe(: highroad, oppressed non-Slavic minority in sessions; Albanian foreign policy, where the mosque stands. Except Yugoslavia, fives next door to an nervously watched from Kosovo, for a few new houses glimpsed independent Albanian nation-state seemed to be in motion toward through poplars dressed in bright a classic setting forfrredentism. some degree of opening to the autumn yellow or over high walls "the (almost) unchanging village," of are poor, but world; and a combination of these The people Kosovo as Skivjani was described in a 1965 is rich in partly or events with a deadline for a new Kosovo largely A UFS Report about Yugoslavia's unexploited natural resources, Five-Year Social Plan made the Albanian minority, still seemed to of minerals and labor. autumn of 1979 a season for particularly deserve that title in 1979. The reasons for the failure to exploit evaluation and decision-making by these resources and raise standards Kosovo pofiticians and planners. 1. see-D.I. Rusinow, '"The Other Albanians" [DIR-2-'65], AUFS Reports, more quickly are partly historical Southeast Europe Series, Vol. XII, No. 2, and cultural, partly contemporary At first glance, through the gate in 1965, for the village, the Hadris, and a and pofitical, and largely disputed the high wall that surrounds the general view of conditions in Kosovo between Kosovo and the rest of the Hadri family compound, nothing (then officially Kosovo and Metohija, or country, which also aggravates the seemed to have changed since 1965, Kosmet) at that time. 2/DIR-1-'80 MONTENEGRO Pritina A KOSOVO A Uro,evac A A Suva Reka ALBANIA That this is not quite so became second "limousine," a small Prizren or Pritina!" the old man apparent one step inside the Hadri Yugoslav-built Fiat, and three said proudly. More housing and gate. Near the old man, where a trucks. Beyond the Mercedes, more horsepower, he also steaming dungheap had perfumed clustered around the end of the explained, reflected another form of the farmyard air 14 years ago, a compound opposite the Metohija growth in his extended family since black Mercedes came into view-- tower, three large new two-story my previous visit: from 26 members not new and one of the smaller houses of commercial red brick to 60, including 32 children and a models, but undeniably a Mercedes were under construction, one of dozen or so teen-agers and and only part of a family horsepower them nearly finished and the others unmarried young adults. pool (in 1965 consisting of two live well on the way. "There will be horses) which now also includes a nothing better or more modern in DIR-1-'80/3 Kosovo is still the poorest and most led to the creation of an were humbled in 1966, is that the traditional corner of Yugoslavia. independent Albania but left local Albanian majority is now in Indeed, and despite assistance from one-third of the Albanians outside charge of the province. These the rest of the country that has its borders, in neighboring parts of developments have revolutionized lately and belatedly been almost as the Slavic Kingdoms of Serbia and the ethnic pecking order there. They generous as 30 years of unfulfilled Montenegro and thereby in also have the potential to promises, Kosovo is year by year Yugoslavia after 1918. Now, revolutionize international relations relatively poorer in terms of according to estimates of Albania's in a region in which there are now, Yugoslav per capita averages: population made by officials in in effect, two neighboring and growth rates in almost all sectors Kosovo, these Yugoslav citizens of competing Albanian states--one of (except population growth!) are Albanian nationality, whose them autonomous within almost always lower than those of birthrate of 32/1,000 is the highest in nonaligned "Titoist" Yugoslavia and already far richer regions. But the Europe, have increased from the other a sovereign and external symbols of increased one-third to nearly one-half of the "Stalinist" Albania whose absolute and even per capita wealth Albanian nation. This makes them xenophobic rulers in Tirana claim and "modernizing" social change in proportionately the world's largest that theirs is the motherland of all the Hadri farmyard are not an irredente. Most of them, moreover, Albanians... and also the world's isolated phenomenon and still live adjacent to the borders of first totally atheistic and only truly constitute an appropriate the Albanian state, in southern Marxist-Leninist state. introduction to other and related Montenegro, in western Macedonia, The Albanians' numerical transformations, outside and inside and especially in Kosovo, home to preponderance in Kosovo is the homes and minds of the Hadris 916,168 of the 1,309,523 Albanians unchallenged and growing. In the and many other Kosovars, altering counted by the 1971 Yugoslav 1971 census they constituted 73.6 cultural values, ethnic pecking census. Until very recently they percent of the province's 1,243,963 orders, and politics as well as living were also a persecuted minority, inhabitants; with their birthrate and standards and styles. discriminated against in education intervening migrations, they must and employment, harassed by police of now be about 80 percent of its The quality and quantity these largely recruited from among their changes, and of what has not present estimated population of principal ethnic rivals, and generally 1,540,000. The most important changed or is changing too slowly regarded as just above gypsies at for peace of mind and polity, are of minorities are Serbs and the bottom end of Yugoslavia's Montenegrins-- 18.3 and 2.5 percent more than local and sociological ethnic pecking order. interest. During an official visit to in 1971 and somewhat less today-- the province in October 1979, Tito Except for the unusual and and their kinsmen of Muslim faith himself repeated that an unhappy aggravating circumstance that the who are now counted as a separate and unstable Kosovo, which could "unredeemed" Albanians are nearly nationality in Yugoslav censuses, result from a perpetuation of the as numerous as the "redeemed" and who were 2.1 percent of growing gap between Kosovar and ones, this so far sounds--and Kosovo's 1971 population. Some of Yugoslav standards, would historically has been--a classic case these are descendants of the South inevitably destabilize the rest of of the consequences of Slavs who stayed behind during the Yuoslavia and thereby, given incongruence between ethnic and exodus, from what had been the Yugoslavia's pivotal geographic and state boundaries in the heartland of medieval Serbia, that political position, the wider world. contemporary, nationalistic world. took place in the 1690s and 1730s What Tito did not describe in detail, Two developments of the 1970s, and that left the land empty and presumably out of respect for the however, are giving the tale a new open to Albanian migration and sensitivity of Yugoslav-Albanian and somewhat different twist.