Little notice has been paid to the growing ethnic and religious tensions within the Serbian province of Kosovo-tensions that now pose a serious threat to the security of the Balkans. Miranda Vickers explores the roots of this conflict, and tracks the recent trajectory of Serbian and Albanian relations in Kosovo. The first third of the book outlines the history of Kosovo during the medieval and Ottoman periods, when relations between the two communities were generally good. The second part of the book examines Kosovo since 1945, when the area fell under Serbian administration in the socialist Yugoslav system. Vickers concludes by surveying the steady deterioration in Serb-Albanian relations since the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1981. With careful detail, she reveals how a largely peaceful, politically driven campaign for the independence of Kosovo has recently turned to violence with terrorist attacks on Serb political and military institutions, on Albanians thought to be collaborating with the Serbs, and on Serbs themselves. In the process, the author provides a balanced account of the Serb and Albanian positions, while placing much of the blame for the current situation on the repressive policies of Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The ethnic conflicts in the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo are often bewildering to readers without a grounding in the tangled history of the Balkans. Miranda Vickers, the leading English-language student of Albanian history, does much to clarify the situation with this thorough account of the tiny region, a fertile, mountain-ringed plateau whose Serbian name means something like "place of the blackbirds." That bucolic place name, however, does not speak to the violence that has been visited on the land for centuries.
Kosovo, as Vickers writes, has long been a place where different cultures--Slavic, Albanian, Jewish, Turkish, and Central Asian--have met and, at times, either peacefully coexisted or battled bitterly. The lines of division, Vickers proves again and again, have never been clearly drawn. The debate in the 1990s, as it was in the Middle Ages, is over which group has the clearest ancestral claim to Kosovo: the Muslim Albanians, who make up about 90 percent of Kosovo's population and trace their roots to the ancient Illyrians, hold that it is theirs, while Orthodox Serbs, defeated by the Turks at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, similarly claim that their long presence in the region gives them dominion over it--a claim that, Vickers writes, "derives purely from history and emotion." History and emotion are powerful motivators, of course, as demonstrated by the Serbian nationalists who now seek to thwart ethnic Albanian attempts to unite Kosovo with Albania itself. (The issue is complicated, Vickers contends, by the presence of many Serb fighters in the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army who are not native to the region, but mercenary veterans of the now-dormant civil war in neighboring Bosnia.) After centuries of inhabiting parallel worlds, in Vickers's useful metaphor, these two groups are now drawing on the memories of centuries of conflict to shape the present. The result is a continuing legacy of bloodshed and hatred that has captured the attention of the world. --Gregory McNamee
Review
Ms. Vickers has a healthy skepticism towards both Serbian and Albanian claims. . . . She also provides an important description of the debates that have rent the ethnic Albanian leadership. Should the Kosovo Albanians . . . 'shoot their way out of Serbia'? As the recent violence showed, the 'shooters' are gaining ground and Vickers provides one of the first accounts of who they are. -- The Economist
Vickers offers insight into decades of Communist agonizing over the status of Kosovo ... and why they felt, with justification, that they should revise the province's autonomy in 1989-90. -- The Nation, George Kenney
Vickers offers insight into decades of Communist agonizing over the status of Kosovo ... and why they felt, with justification, that they should revise the province's autonomy in 1989-90. -- The Nation, George Kenney
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Peripheral Yugoslav issue?,
By A Customer
This review is from: Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo (Paperback)
I recommend the third part of this book the most. While the first two parts examine the Turk occupation, and later the progressive Albanianisation of Kosovo under socialist Yugoslavia, the third provides a detailed description of how the Albanians shifted from a peaceful resistance movement to a more violent approach. This is particularly relevant when current news feature the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) while such body started operating only after the Dayton accords, when the international powers implicity agreed on the creation of a state (the Republika Srpska in Bosnia) by means of force. Therefore the Albanians gained the impression that their peaceful movement had achieved virtually nothing and no serious international attention.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chuckle!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo (Paperback)
Let me begin by saying that I don't believe this book deserves the five star rating I have given it. Ms. Vickers is not a top tier writer and she definately has sympathies towards the Kosovars. What she is successful at though is painting a picture of moderm Kosovo. She slashes and burns her way through history but as she describes the modern happenings her book blooms. You won't find many books detailing the rise of Albanian resistance in the early 80's or the shadow government of the early 90's. For that she deserves credit. She explains why this passive resistance was needed and why, eventually, it failed and was replaced by a more militant creed. For those of you out there who come across this page do not pay attention to the 1 star ratings. It does not deserve them. It doesn't deserve my 5 star rating either, but raising it's average a bit might draw some new readers. I would give it between 3-4 stars depending on why you are reading it. If you are interested in a much better novel of Kosovo read Noel Malcolm's "Kosovo: A Short History."
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A most lucid synopsis on the history of Kosovo...,
This review is from: Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo (Paperback)
Miranda Vickers does an excellent job of distilling the available primary and secondary historical and geographical material on the former Yugoslavia into a lucid and compelling book. Unlike some writers, she footnotes her sources so the reader can form his or her own opinions based on further reading. Ms. Vickers does not provide in-depth detail because the objective of this book is to provide a synopsis. Her work supports the contention that rivalries of the various ethnic groups have waxed and waned but long been a source of bloodshed. The worst scenarios in this book involved the spilling of blood as the Serbs attempted to overthrow assorted conquerers including the Ottoman Turks, Austrians, Hungarians, Nazis and others. Vickers says the Albanian question is extremely thorny and very old. On the one hand, the Albaninans in Kosovo seemed not to have much interest in being part of Albania proper (probably owing to the radically different and worse standards of living in Albania). On the other hand the Albanians seem not to want to be part of Serbia either, though many of them moved to Serbia. In 1918, during the Great War, when the Albanians had sided with the enemy "Hun" and the Serbs were allies, the U.S. recognized the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo (a battle fought and lost to the Ottoman Turk invaders hundreds of years before). This recognition followed the deaths of 100,000 Serbs as they retreated before the Austro-Hungarian army through Kosovo. "The majority lay unburied, covered by either snow or mud, until only their bones were found the following spring." By the late 1990's many U.S. leaders--for whatever reason--failed to fully appreciate the ancient hatreds. One has to wonder how history might have been different if the diplomatic approach used in the Middle East with the Palestinians and Jews had been attempted in the Balkans.
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