Political Developments Spark Kosovo Identity Debate

Following decades of enforced separation, Albanians are discussing how different they've become.

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On a hot summer’s day, a group of friends is sitting in a seaside cafe in southern Albania. Erleta, the daughter of a dissident in Kosovo, and Tomi, a native of Tirana, have much in common.

However, as is usual in the Balkans, they are divided when discussing the past. Tomi believes the former communist regime in Albania was far more oppressive than Josip Tito’s regime in Yugoslavia. Erleta disagrees.

Poverty and hunger were routine in communist Albania, Tomi adds, while people in Kosovo could own property, practice their religion and emigrate to the West, if they wished.

However, Erleta insists that oppression cannot be measured in terms of material goods alone. “Try enjoying a table full of food while somebody is striking you in the face,” she replies, searching for a metaphor to convey the oppression that Albanians felt they experienced in Kosovo. “And don’t refer to us as Kosovars,” she adds. “We too are Albanians”.

The two friends’ heated dispute is a reminder of the fact that, while all Albanians supported Kosovo’s revolt against Serbian rule, Kosovo’s independence since 2008 has thrown up questions concerning the new state’s identity, and about whether it differs from Albania’s.

Some see the attempt to promote a specific Kosovar identity as imposed and invented and reject it as artificial. Others feel more positive. Either way, the question is a hot topic in Pristina, Tirana and Skopje, among intellectuals, politicians and ordinary people alike.
 

Divided by borders

The origins of the questions concerning Kosovo’s identity date back to the Balkan War of 1912, when Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria overran the last remaining swathe of Ottoman-ruled territory in the Balkans.

The result of the London Peace Conference of 1913 was the partition of Macedonia between the victors and the creation of an independent Albania.

However, almost half of the region’s ethnic Albanian population was left out of the new country after Serbia annexed Kosovo and what is now the Republic of Macedonia.

Though still united by a common language and heritage, a state border now divided Albanians in Albania and Albanians in Kosovo.

Read the article in Albanian

This article was produced as part of the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, an initiative of the Robert Bosch Stiftung and ERSTE Foundation, in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN.