"Dusan T.Batakovic. The Kosovo Chronicles " - читать интересную книгу автора

INTRODUCTION
by Milan St. Protic
The modern history of Serbia is indeed pregnant with controversial
questions. Probably the most complex one is the history of - Kosovo and
Metohia. It was only in the last few years that several historiographical
works on Kosovo and Metohia had been written and published. The pioneer in
this field which deals with a particularly important segment of Serbia's
past and present is undoubtedly the author of this book.
This is trully the first serious attempt to cover two centuries of
history of Kosovo and Metohia and to present its complex historical
development in its full. In a series of articles dealing with various
problems of Kosovo and Metohia throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the
author definitely succeeded to make a complete picture of Kosovo and
Metohia's troubled history. It seems appropriate, therefore, to name his
book - The Kosovo Chronicles.
The diversity of various topics which form the collection most clearly
shows that the author is the master of the subject he chose to write about.
Mr. Batakovic presented himself as a mature historian of the Balkan history
as a whole as much as the sharp analyst of one specific aspect of it.
One cannot but to welcome this book. For two major reasons at least.
First, for its wide-angle approach to the problem. And second, for its
attempt to avoid typical black and white stereotypes.
Kosovo and Metohia undoubtedly belong to the corpus of the Serbian
history. No question about that. It was the cradle and the center of the
medieval Serbian state, it was the region won by the Serbian army from the
Turks in the First Balkan War (1912), it was incorporated in the Serbian
state territory and thus had entered into Yugoslavia in 1918. It was only
after the victory of the Communist Revolution in Yugoslavia that the
question of Kosovo emerged as a separate problem outside and even against
Serbia. That was the moment in which the political position of Kosovo and
Metohia moved away from Serbia and became a problem of Albanian national
rights in the eyes of very many foreign and Yugoslav observers. That crucial
borderline was rightfully pointed out by the author of this volume.
From the standpoint of form, this book represents a collection of
articles. It is comprised of two major parts. The first entitled, named
History and Ideology, treats the problem of Kosovo and Metohia, within
the
framework of the Yugoslav unified state, during the World War Two and the
Communist rule since 1945. The second Theocracy, Nationalism, Imperialism
deals with the different aspects of the 19th century history of Kosovo and
Metohia until the Yugoslav unification of Yugoslavia.
The second part of Mr. Batakovic's book covers the period in which this
particular area belonged to the state territory of the Ottoman Empire, in
which the ethnic Serbs were subjects of constant pressures and abuses by the
Ottoman administrators and, much more, by ethnic Albanians who, under the
Turkish protection, conducted a real terror over the Serbs. The difference
between the Christian Serbs fighting for their national emancipation against
the oriental Islamic and oppressive regime of the Ottomans. As the Ottoman
system crumbled within itself, its peripheral provinces became areas of
abuse rule of the local population. The local Albanians, also Muslims for