Tom Emmert

Live!

Centuries ago, Kosovo was the center of the Serbian empire and site of its most sacred churches and monasteries. Tom Emmert, a professor of history at Gustavos Adolphus College in Minnesota, joined us April 2, 1999 to discuss the historical significance of the southern Serbian province and the Balkans region.

Read the transcript below.

Emmert has a doctorate degree in Balkan history from Stanford University, and has written two books on the subject: "Serbian Golgotha: Kosovo, 1389" (Columbia: 1990) and "Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval Battle" (Minnesota, 1991).

Washingtonpost.com: Good morning everyone, and welcome Tom. Can you explain what the word 'Balkans' and 'Balkanization' means, and the role its geography and location has played in the compartmentalization of this region?

Tom Emmert: Balkan is a turkish word for mountain and it technically refers to a mountain range which divides Bulgaria east and west. Its modern derivation has emerged in recent years. Balkanization means to divide into smaller states that are hostile to each other. The geography is important it tends to be a ammoniatingmountainous region and the people tend to be isolated from each other which certainly encourages this compartmentalization.

Savannah,GA: What is a short history of the opposing local factions in this conflict?

Tom Emmert: The Serbs took this area under their control in the 13th century. It became the cent of their medieval state. They gradually lost control of the territory as Ottoman Turks took control of the territory in the 15th century. When Serbia controlled this region in the medieval world Albanians were a distinct minority. When Serbia regained this territory in the first Balkan War of 1912, Albanians were in a distinct majority. During the course of the 20thc., there have been tensions at various times between Serbs who are determined to hold on to this territory and albanians determined for ever more autonomy and eventual independence.

İstanbul, Turkey: How can we see Ottoman's politic on todays effect in Balkans?

Tom Emmert: The Ottomans developed a millet system which allowed concessional groups (Jews Orthodox, for example) a degree of autonomy within the Ottoman state. This tended to keep peoples separate, helped peoples to nurture their ethnic and eventual national consciousness. While it provided one aspect of the strength of the empire for some time, ironically helped to cause its demise as well when 19thc. nationalism became a powerful force.

Genova, ITALY: The historical maps of the balkan region are very difficult to read because of the permanent movement of all these ethnic groups. There is nearly no piece of land, that has belong definitely to only one nation during these last few centuries.
Do You think it is possible, in spite of that, to say, that KOSOVO was "always" serbian and would You confirm that, historically speaking, KOSOVO can be seen as the heart of Serbia?

Tom Emmert: Clearly, given the fact that this territory was under Ottoman control for over 400 years, it is impossible to suggest that it was permanently in Serbian hands. The very fact that Serbia's long goal has been to regain Kosovo from its Ottoman overlords suggests that even Serbs recognize that it was not permanent Serbian territory. It has only been Serbian since 19123. We must remember this important fact. That does not mean necessarily that it has been Albanian territory since it was under Ottoman control and it was always several territories under various Ottoman administration. There's no doubt that Serbs have an extraordinary emotional attachment to this territory. During the course of the 13th and early 14th century it became the center of their state with many of its most important monasteries and churches. Therefore, they consider it the heart of their territory, even though it has not been an administrative or cultural center in the 20th century.

Johnson city, tn: Is it true that the majority of Kosovo Albanians are Muslims and that Serbia is populated mainly by Orthodox Christians?

Tom Emmert: Yes. Over the course of the Ottoman period, the majority of Albanians converted to Islam. Most Albanians in the Balkans, if they profess any religion are Muslims. All Serbs are Orthodox.

annapolis, md: has there ever been a "golden era" in the balkans, during which the major ethnic groups were relevantly tolerant -not slaughtering- of each other?

Tom Emmert: Yes, I think that throughout the medieval period, there is not any strong indication of ethnic conflict and during much of the Ottoman period, until the 19th c., we don't see a lot of indication that ethnic conflict is the norm. Certainly the Muslim population had an advantage over the Christian population because of Muslim law But, yes, there were periods where there were relatively good relations among people. The 20th c. is another story.

Colorado Springs, CO: How did the Serbs become a minority in Kosovo?

Tom Emmert: Over the course of the Ottoman period, many Serbs left the territory for new opportunities and at times for some refuge in the mountains of Bosnia and eventually to serve as border guards in the military front of the Austrian empire in Croatia. At the end of the 17th c. after an unsuccessful attempt by Austria to take over the region, fear of Turkish reprisals caused a significant number of Kosovo Serbs to move to Hungary. In the 18th and 19th c. as more and more Albanians descended the mountains into Kosovo, the population balance began to shift dramatically so that on the eve of WWI, the best estimates suggests that the Serbs represented only 28% of the population. During the course of the 20th c. the Kosovo Albanian natality rate has been the highest in Europe which has further influenced the uneven demographic balance. Finally, many Serbs have left the region in he 1980s and 90s.

Cincinnati, Ohio: How does today's situation in the Balkans compare to the situation that existed there in August, 1914?

Tom Emmert: When the Serbs took over Kosovo in 1912, there were clear reprisals against the Albanian population there which left lasting memories. The outbreak of WWI encouraged some Kosovo Albanians to see this as an opportunity for revenge and ousting of the new Serbian regime. As a result, the first part of the war was quite brutal in Kosovo.

Munich, Germany: How relevant are the orthodox monasteries in Kosovo to common Serbs today?

Tom Emmert: I don't know how "relevant" they are. They are important to them emotionally because they are the epitome of their medieval cultural heritage and a visual sign of their medieval presence their. Clearly Kosovo without its religious and cultural monuments would not hold as much meaning for many serbs, even though many have not been to these monuments. Serbian controlled media has been trying to make much propaganda out of the fact that supposedly NATO bombers have damaged the jewel of that heritage, Gracanica near Pristina. They remind their viewers that even the Nazis and Italians did not damage these monuments.

Chicago, Illinois: Is it possible that some Serbians see the Kosovars as living reminders of the centuries they lived under Ottoman rule?

Tom Emmert: This is a very interesting question. Whenever we find these moments of extreme crisis in the history of the Serbs, they are quick to see their Muslim neighbors as "the Turk" so that we know that from the Bosnian conflict, Muslim and Serb neighbors that had once enjoyed each other's company, now found themselves as enemies with their Muslim slav neighbors referring to them as Turks. This is perhaps happening in Kosovo as well, to a certain extent it may be a means of depersonalizing the one time neighbor that is now an enemy and it offers a simplistic interpretation of their whole history. Their greatest 19thc. ethic poem written by the leader of Montenegro glorifies a massacre of the turks in their region (many of whom were not Turks but Muslims) and admonishes all Serbs to cleanse the region of this alien force. School children still study this poem in public schools.

Washington, D.C.: Could you please tell us what you know about Roma -Gypsies- in the region?
European press outlets are reporting that Roma are among the refugees fleeing Kosovo.
But the U.S. media do not seem aware of their existence.

Tom Emmert: I don't have a lot of information about what is currently happening to the Roma. And I remind everyone that they are only referred to as the "Roma" to get away from the pejorative term "gypsy."

Clearly one must assume that they are among the refugees. I have seen no interviews or media reports about them specifically.

The 1991 census suggests that there were perhaps 43,000 of them. Some of these figures are perhaps underestimating the true numbers because some of them have referred to themselves as Albanians and even Egyptians. There has been some suggestion that Serbs are leaving Christian Albanians in Kosovo and some Roma are Christians, but I don't have any further information about the fate of the Roma.

Washingtonpost.com: We're roughly half-way through this live discussion with history professor Tom Emmert. Submit questions using the hyperlink below.

Tirana, Albania: Do you know that slave people are new commers in the Balkans ancient story and Albanians -old Illyrians- are contemporary to greeks or later?

Tom Emmert: While historians continue to debate the origins of the Albanian people, most conclude that they do have a relation to the indigenous Illyrian people of the peninsula. Slavs did not arrive until the 6th and 7th centuries. Therefore the Albanians have had a longer presence in this region than have the Slavs of course. Nevertheless as far as the territory of Kosovo is concerned as I mentioned in an earlier question, at the height of the medieval state, the Albanians were clearly a distinct minority in the territory. These historical debates about who came first are inevitable, but ultimately not very helpful in resolving these difficult 20th c. problems.

Manchester , England: There is a view that this war is capable of spreading throughout the Balkans.Do the history and politics of the region suggest that this could happen, and if so how?
Thank you.

Tom Emmert: The first and second Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913 were regional conflicts designed to deal with the quickly crumbling Ottoman Empire. They don't serve necessarily as an example of what might take place at the end of the 20th c. In the first Balkan war the people found a certain unanimity in fighting the Ottomans, eventually they ended up fighting one another and that of course is a great risk today. Especially if Greece and Turkey found the situation threatening enough for them to support opposite factions in a widening war. This is a worst case scenario, but it has to be one that is given some concern. It was certainly a rationale for beginning the NATO campaign in the first place, that is confining this to Kosovo.

St.Petersburg, Russia: What was the ethnic situation in Kosovo on the eve of WWII? Thanx

Tom Emmert: In the interwar period, the new Yugoslav government which was of course led by a Serbian king instituted a policy of colonization of Kosovo w/Serbian settlers in an attempt to change the demographics. While it was never a tremendously successful policy, estimates are that about 70,000 Serbs settled in Kosovo with generous gifts of land and up to 150,000 Albanians fled the region. This possibly adjusted the democraphic statistics, giving the Serbs an additional 10% of the population, so that by the eve of WWII Serbs made up to 38% of population. the colonization was also a prime reason for the quick revenge that Kosovo Albanians took upon Serbs when the war began there in 1941. Hundreds of Serb colonist villages were burned and destroyed and tens of thousands of Serbs (although the number is not exact) fled the province.

Arlington, VA: I understand this conflict is in a very poor part of Europe. What are the economics of this region? Natural resources? Industries? Education level of the people. Major educational institutions? Differences in the above between these two opposing factions in education and opportunities?

Tom Emmert: Kosovo is, outside of Albania itself, probably the poorest region in Europe. Before the collapse of Yugoslavia, the annual family income in Slovenia (the most prosperous province in Yugoslavia) was 5000 in Kosovo it was 1-200 dollars. The Yugoslav government spent a lot money in trying to make the region prosperous. I think its fair to say a lot of that was wasted and used inefficiently. Since the late 1960s Kosovo received a large amount of autonomy. With over half the population under 30, education became an industry. More and more Kosovo Albanians became better eeducated than any time in history, but employment opportunities remained minimal. These newly educated young people became articulate critics of their situation and this gave rise to the resistance movement. Some of Kosovo is quite fertile so agricultural is good, but could be used more efficiently. Kosovo also has some of the best lead and zinc resources. It certainly could be suggested that Milosevic is trying to cleanse the area around those resources so that with any partitioning of the region, Serbs would control them.

Toledo, OH: What is the reason that nobody is mentioning part of the Kosovo history between Tito's death and 89 when Mislosevic stopped the autonomy? It is well known that during that period, although having autonomy as no other minority in Europe, Kosovar Albanians started with the unrest and political movement for independence. From that perspective Milosevic's actions in 89 seem quite different.
Alex Tosic

Tom Emmert: Tito died in 1980 and in 1981 a period of unrest began in Kosovo that actually began in a demonstration against the food at the University in Pristina. It was symptomatic in that it spread quite quickly with Kosovo to receive republic status. Serbs would not allow this and they argued that there could not be two republics. They said there was also a republic of Albania and feared Albanians would take this as the right to secede (the very right that Slovenia and Croatia claimed 10 years later). Serbia cracked down on the dissidents and during much of the 80s, this growing animosity toward the Serbs only increased and it is during this time that rumors flooded Serbia that the local Albanians were harassing the Serb population.

There were reports of rapes of Serbian women and destruction of Serb monasteries and Albanians reject this argument, they argue that the rape rate was actully less than the rest of Yugoslavia. They argue that Serbs left for better economic opportunities in the rest of Yugoslavia. Whatever the truth, the rumor syndrome began to encourage Serbs to truly believe that this was the beginning of a really difficult era for Kosovo Serbs. In 1987, the leader of the communist party in Serbia sent his deputy Slobodan Milosevic to deal with a demonstration of angry Kosovo Serbs. Not knowing what he was going to say, he electrified Serbs with an extemporaneous speech that said, "They will never beat you. This is your land." He went back to Belgrade, engineered a coup against Stamolic and became the head of the Serbian communist party.

Bowie, MD: Does history provide any solutions to ethnic-religious-cultural conflicts such as we are witnessing in the Balkans?

Tom Emmert: Yes I think it does. I think there have been very positive moments, even as recently as the lifetime as the last two generations, during which people in the Balkans have survived tremendous animosity, tragedy and conflict, and have been able to come to the point (as they did in Bosnia) where they enjoyed each other's holidays and spent afternoons on the veranda together. This is the Yugoslavia I knew as a young man. I do not want to subscribe to the idea that these are ancient conflicts to which there is no solution and therefore something we should not be involved in. They solved the problems in 1945-80, albeit under a communist, one-party rule. I think that situation, in the absence of overt hostility, is preferable to anything we've seen in the last few years.

Washingtonpost.com: That's all the time we have. Thanks to everyone who participated and thanks to Tom Emmert.

Back to the top