Aftermath of the Battle of Kosovo

Aftermath of the Battle of Kosovo

So in 1389 at the Field of Blackbirds, the Turks viewed Kosovo

as simply the next domino in their conquest of the Balkans.

Afterwards, Prince Lazar”s widow, Milica, cut a deal with Sultan

Murad”s successor, his son Bayezid, as Milica tried to shore up

her power-base against other Serbian lords until her son Stefan

was old enough to take over. As I mentioned last week, Milica

would be a vassal of the Ottoman Turks. She put church scribes

to work to sanctify Lazar in order to bolster Stefan”s claim on

power. It was through the church (monks, really, who were the

real source of news and history in those days) that the legend of a

Christ-like Lazar begins, while the Serbs, after the battle, filled

their hearts with vengeful sadness and defeat as the cruel

Ottoman Turk rule began.

Legend has it that Lazar said on the eve of battle that it was

better to fight and die honourably than to live as a slave. Lazar

chose a heavenly kingdom over an earthly one. Comparisons to

the Last Supper were drawn, purposefully.

So the Turks ruled Kosovo for over 500 years and it wasn”t until

the Balkan Wars of 1912 that Serbs wrested control back. But

the Serbs have been a minority in Kosovo for the better part of

the 20th century and anytime they feel mistreated, the Serb

people rally behind the legend of Prince Lazar and the Battle of

Kosovo. In 1988, a year-long countdown to the 6th centenary of

Lazar”s death began and his coffin toured every town and village

in Serbia. The Serbs ignored the physical world. They knew

that one day soon, Prince Lazar would reclaim what was

rightfully his on earth. You see, the Serbs were coming into

increasing conflict with a burgeoning Albanian majority (the

Albanians are evidentally terrific breeders).

Back in the days of Marshall Tito, who had ruled Yugoslavia

since the end of World War II, the Serbs felt the power of their

numerically dominant people (dominant in all but the province of

Kosovo) was being undercut in order to placate other groups,

particularly the Croats and the Albanians. [Tito, himself, was

half-Croat, half-Slovene]. Tito ended up giving Kosovo to the

Albanians as their own autonomous province and by placing this

province within the Yugoslav Republic of Serbia, Tito thought

he had reconciled the aspirations of everything “imperialist”

from their collective past and that Serbs killed along with Lazar

were guilty of “reactionary nationalism.” Tito was able to hold

ethnic tensions in check but, soon after his death in 1980, the

scene began to change. Enter Slobodan Milosevic.

Milosevic was born in 1941, the son of a Serbian Orthodox

clergyman of Montenegrin origin. His parents separated when

he was young and both later committed suicide. Slobo joined the

Communist Party in 1959 and from 1978 to 1982 he was

President of a Belgrade bank where he travelled extensively to

America and acquired his fluent English. He then became party

chief for the entire republic from 1986 to 1989.

In April of 1987, Milosevic twice visited the Serbian community

in Kosovo who were complaining about their plight as a

minority and about being beaten up by the local Albanian police.

On his second visit, Slobo proclaimed “No one will be allowed

to beat you!” At this moment the Serbian revolt against the

Yugoslav Federation began.

Milosevic then manipulated to have Serb politicians voted out of

their positions if they were soft on the Albanian issue. By

November of 1988 he had become a hugely popular figure and

he addressed a rally of one million people in Belgrade. [The next

year he addressed an estimated additional one million people in

Kosovo at the Field of Blackbirds on the 600th anniversary.] One

by one, Serbs removed the photo of Tito and put up Milosevic.

As Robert Kaplan wrote, “(Slobo) was the only Eastern

European Communist leader in the late 1980s who managed to

save himself and his party from collapse by making a direct

appeal to racial hatred.”

“When Serbs talk about 1389, they are living in 1389,”said one

historian recently. Even back during World War I, reporter John

Reed (of “Reds” fame) wrote, “Every Serbian peasant soldier

knows what he is fighting for. When he was a baby, his mother

greeted him, ”Hail, little avenger of Kosovo!””

Forgive me if I also write this in a “Week in Review” but you

can see how when the peace-keeping force eventually goes in to

Kosovo, it will be one dangerous mission. The Albanians

(represented by the Kosovo Liberation Army) are no angels

either and NATO forces could easily be caught in the crossfire.

This is one conflict that could last another 600 years, only in the

year 2599 the hero to be celebrated may not be Lazar but Slobo,

instead.

Brian Trumbore

Next Hott Spotts…Thursday, May 27th.