Vehicle registration plates of Kosovo
Vehicle registration plates of Kosovo are issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kosovo. As of June 1, 2012, all citizens of Kosovo are obliged to fit their cars with RKS plates. Non-compliance results in confiscation of the non-Kosovan plates and legal charges. On 6 December 2010, a new design was introduced containing the letters RKS on a blue field, a two digit number corresponding to the districts of Kosovo, the coat of arms of Kosovo, a three-digit number and two serial letters; the three-digit number starts at 101 and the serial letters start at AA. The remaining plates bearing the old design issued under UNMIK will be replaced with the new once their registration is pending renewal; as of 26 December 2011, RKS plates will be substituted with temporary Serbian plates when crossing the contested border into Serbia. Horizontal plates of vehicles should be white retro – reflecting coloured and letters black coloured, while the frame should be black coloured with 4 mm width.
In all horizontal plates, in the first horizontal part of the plate, blue coloured, is placed the code of the Republic of Kosovo, RKS, with gold colour. In the second part of the plate are marked figures of the respective region. Further, there should be the state emblem, three digit numbers, the horizontal line. In the end of the plate are marked two letters of the standard Latin alphabet from A to the letter Q. Three digit numbers for ordinary and quadrate plates of registration of the vehicles will be initiated from number 101. Export vehicle plates have white font. Police vehicles have red font. Kosovo Security Force has dark green background and yellow font, letters "KSF", a three-digit number and a two-digit number. EULEX diplomatic plates had white background. Black plates had the prefix "EU" and suffix "PV", while the white plates had the prefix "EU" and suffix "LEX". OSCE plates are black and white, with the prefix "OSCE". NATO Force plates have blue background, white font and prefix "KFOR".
UNMIK plates have "UNMIK" in top on the plate, followed by numbers. These plates were issued under the administration of UNMIK from 1999 to 2010. Effective 1 November 2011, they will resume to be issued for citizens needing to cross into Serbia, as the latter only accepts these plates and not the new RKS plates, they consist of a three-digit number and a two-letter abbreviation KS, which stands for'Kosovo', ended in another three-digit number. Notes: References: License Plates of Kosovo International Missions Plates in Kosovo Registracija vozila
Kosovo Vilayet
The Vilayet of Kosovo was a first-level administrative division of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkan Peninsula which included the current territory of Kosovo and the western part of the Republic of North Macedonia. The areas today comprising Sandžak region of Serbia and Montenegro, although de jure under Ottoman control, were in fact under Austro- Hungarian occupation from 1878 until 1909, as provided under Article 25 of the Treaty of Berlin. Uskub functioned as the capital of the province and the mid way point between Istanbul and its European provinces. Uskub's population of 32,000 made it the largest city in the province, followed by Prizren numbering at 30,000; the Vilayet stood as a microcosm of Ottoman society. The province was renowned for its craftsmen and important cities such as İpek, where distinct Ottoman architecture and public baths were erected, some of which can still be seen today; the birthplace of the Albanian national identity was first articulated in Prizren, by the League of Prizren members in 1878.
As a result, firstly of the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878 of the modified Treaty of Berlin the same year which split the Ottoman Empire, Kosovo became the first line of defense for the Ottoman Empire, with large garrisons of Ottoman troops being stationed in the province. Before the First Balkan War in 1912, the province's shape and location denied Serbia and Montenegro a common land border. After the war, the major part of the vilayet was divided between Serbia; these borders were all ratified at the Treaty of London in 1913. The Ottoman Empire recognised the new borders following a peace deal with the Kingdom of Serbia on 14 March 1914. Sanjaks of the Vilayet: Sanjak of Üsküp Sanjak of Priştine Sanjak of İpek Sanjak of Prizren Sanjak of Novi Pazar, Sanjak of Pljevlja, created in 1880 Sanjak of Sjenica, created in 1902 Üsküp was the administrative capital of the vilayet and other important towns included Priştine, İpek, Mitroviçe and Prizren. Kosovo vilayet encompassed the Sandžak region cutting into present-day Central Serbia and Montenegro along with the Kukës municipality and surrounding region in present-day northern Albania.
Between 1881 and 1912, it was internally expanded to include other regions of present-day Republic of North acedonia, including larger urban settlements such as Štip and Kratovo. The Vilayet of Kosovo was created in 1877, consisted of a much larger area than modern Kosovo, as it included the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, the Sanjak of Niş, the region around Plav and Gusinje as well as the Dibra region; these regions had belonged to the former Eyalet of Niş, the Eyalet of Üsküb and, after 1865, the Danube Vilayet. In 1868 the Vilayet of Prizren was created with the sanjaks of Prizren, Dibra and Nis, but it ceased to exist in 1877. During and after the Serbian–Ottoman War of 1876–78, between 30,000 and 70,000 Muslims Albanians, were expelled by the Serb army from the Sanjak of Niș and fled to the Kosovo Vilayet. In 1878, the League of Prizren was created by Albanians from four vilayets including the Vilayet of Kosovo; the League's purpose was to resist Ottoman rule and incursions by the newly emerging Balkan nations.
The Kumanovo Uprising took place in early 1878 organized by an assembly of chiefs of the districts of Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka and Kratovo in the Vilayet of Kosovo seeking to liberate the region from the hands of the Ottoman Empire and unify it with the Principality of Serbia, at war with the Ottomans at that time. With the Serbian Army's liberation of Niš and Vranje, the rebellion had been activated during the latter event with guerrilla fighting; the rebels received secret aid from the Serbian government, though the uprising only lasted four months, until its suppression by the Ottomans. The province's boundaries shifted as the Ottoman Empire lost territory to neighboring states in the Treaty of Berlin following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and parts were internally transferred to Monastir Vilayet and from Salonica Vilayet. In 1879, western parts of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, fell under Austro-Hungarian occupation in accord with the Berlin treaty which allowed the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Two major administrative changes happened in 1880 and 1902. In order to counter Austro-Hungarian military presence in western parts of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, a new province was created in 1880: the Sanjak of Pljevlja with kazas: Pljevlja and Priboj. In 1902, kazas of Mitrovica and Novi Pazar were transferred to Sanjak of Pristina, kazas of Berane and Rožaje to
Stefan Milutin
Stefan Uroš II Milutin, known as Stefan Milutin, was the King of Serbia between 1282–1321, a member of the Nemanjić dynasty. He was one of the most powerful rulers of Serbia in the Middle Ages. Milutin is credited with resisting the efforts of Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos to impose Roman Catholicism on the Balkans after the Union of Lyons in 1274; as most of the Nemanjić monarchs, he was proclaimed a saint by the Serbian Orthodox Church with a feast day on October 30. He was his wife, Helen of Anjou. Unexpectedly he became king of Serbia after the abdication of his brother Stefan Dragutin, he was around 29. Upon his accession to the throne he attacked Byzantine lands in Macedonia. In 1282, he conquered the northern parts of Macedonia including the city of Skoplje, which became his capital. Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos began preparations for war but he died before their completion; the next year Milutin advanced with his brother deep into Byzantine territory all the way to Kavala.
In 1284, Milutin gained control of northern Albania and the city of Dyrrachion. For the next 15 years there were no changes in the war. Peace was concluded in 1299 when Milutin kept the conquered lands as the dowry of Simonis, daughter of Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos who became his 4th wife. In Nerodimlje župa Milutin had three courts, in Svrčin and Pauni. At the end of the 13th century Bulgarian feudal lords Darman and Kudelin were jointly ruling the region of Braničevo as independent or semi-independent lords, they attacked Stefan Dragutin's Syrmian Kingdom, in Mačva, an area under the sovereignty of Elizabeth of Hungary. The Hungarian queen had sent troops to claim Braničevo in 1282–1284, but her forces had been repelled and her vassal lands plundered in retaliation. Another campaign, this time organized by both Dragutin and Elizabeth, failed to conquer Darman and Kudelin's domains in 1285 and suffered another counter-raid by the brothers, it was not until 1291 when a joint force of Dragutin and the Serbian King Stefan Milutin managed to defeat the brothers and, for the first time the region came under the rule of a Serb, as it was annexed by Dragutin.
Responding to Dragutin's annexation of Braničevo the Bulgarian prince named Shishman that came to rule the semi-independent principality of Vidin around 1280, began to attack the Serbian domains to his west. Shishman was a vassal of Nogai Khan, Khan of the Golden Horde and sought to expand his territories to the west, invading Serbia coming as far as Hvosno, the Bulgarians failed to capture Zdrelo and were pursued back to Vidin by the Serbs. Milutin devastated Vidin and the rest of Shishman's dominion, making Shishman take refuge on the other side of the Danube; the two however became allies after Milutin married Serbian župan Dragoš to the daughter of Shishman Milutin would give his daughter Anna to Shishman's son Michael who would become the Tsar of Bulgaria in 1323. Milutin and Nogai Khan would soon come into conflict because of the war with the Vidin principality. Nogai launched a campaign against Serbia but Milutin offered peace sending his son Stefan Dečanski to Nogai's court. Stefan stayed with his entourage there until 1296 or Nogai Khan's death in 1299.
Disputes began between Milutin and his brother Stefan Dragutin after a peace treaty with the Byzantine Empire was signed in 1299. Dragutin in the meantime held lands from Braničevo in the east to the Bosna river in the west, his capital was Belgrade. War broke out between the brothers and lasted, with sporadic cease-fires, until Dragutin's death in 1314. During this war Milutin appointed Stefan Dečanski as regent in Zeta, modern Montenegro; this meant that Stefan Dečanski was to be heir to the throne in Serbia and not Dragutin's son Stefan Vladislav II. He captured Durres in 1296. On 15 March 1306 Milutin issued a charter to Ratac in which he appointed his son Stephen as his future successor; the Battle of Gallipoli was fought by Serbian troops sent by Stefan Milutin to aid Byzantine Emperor Andronikos in the defense of his lands against the Turks. After numerous attempts in subduing the Turks, the crumbling Byzantine Empire was forced to enlist the help of Serbia; the Turks were looting and pillaging the countryside and the two armies converged at the Gallipoli peninsula where the Turks were decisively defeated.
Out of the gratitude to Serbia, the town of Kucovo was donated. Upon Stefan Dragutin's death in 1314 Milutin conquered most of his lands including Belgrade, but in 1319 Charles I of Hungary regained control over Belgrade and banovina Mačva while Milutin held control in Braničevo. In the year 1314 Milutin's son Stefan Dečanski rebelled against his father, but was captured and sent to exile in Constantinople. For the rest of Milutin's reign his youngest son Stefan Constantine was considered as heir to the throne, but in the spring of 1321 Stefan Dečanski returned to Serbia and was pardoned by his father. By his first wife, Jelena, a minor Serbian noblewoman, he had two children: King Stephen Uroš III Anna Neda, who married Michael Shishman of BulgariaBy his second wife, daughter of sebastokratōr John I Doukas of Thessaly, he had no children. By his third wife, daughter of King Stephen V of Hungary and Elizabeth the Cuman, Milutin had: Zorica, known as Tsaritsa By his fourth wife, the daughter of George I of Bulgaria, Stefan Uroš II Milutin had the following children: Stefan Konstantin, anti-KingBy his fifth wife Simonis, the daughter of Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos, he had no children.
At the end of Milutin's life Serbia was second in st
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999; the official NATO operation code name was Operation Allied Force. The bombings continued until an agreement was reached that led to the withdrawal of Yugoslav armed forces from Kosovo, the establishment of United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo; the bloodshed, ethnic cleansing of thousands of Albanians driving them into neighbouring countries, the potential of it to destabilize the region provoked intervention by international organizations and agencies, such as the United Nations, NATO, INGOs. NATO countries attempted to gain authorisation from the United Nations Security Council for military action, but were opposed by China and Russia that indicated they would veto such a proposal. NATO launched a campaign without UN authorisation, which it described as a humanitarian intervention.
The FRY described the NATO campaign as an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign country, in violation of international law because it did not have UN Security Council support. The bombing killed between 489 and 528 civilians, destroyed bridges, industrial plants, public buildings, private businesses, as well as barracks and military installations. In the days after the Yugoslav Army withdrew, over 164,000 Serbs and 24,000 Roma left Kosovo and many of the remaining civilians were victims of abuse. After Kosovo and other Yugoslav Wars, Serbia became home to the highest number of refugees and IDPs in Europe; the NATO bombing marked the second major combat operation in its history, following the 1995 NATO bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was the first time that NATO had used military force without the approval of the UN Security Council. After September 1990 when the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution had been unilaterally repealed by the Socialist Republic of Serbia, Kosovo's autonomy suffered and so the region was faced with state organized oppression: from the early 1990s, Albanian language radio and television were restricted and newspapers shut down.
Kosovar Albanians were fired in large numbers from public enterprises and institutions, including banks, the post office and schools. In June 1991 the University of Priština assembly and several faculty councils were dissolved and replaced by Serbs. Kosovar Albanian teachers were prevented from entering school premises for the new school year beginning in September 1991, forcing students to study at home. Kosovar Albanians started an insurgency against Belgrade when the Kosovo Liberation Army was founded in 1996. Armed clashes between the two sides broke out in early 1998. A NATO-facilitated ceasefire was signed on 15 October, but both sides broke it two months and fighting resumed; when the killing of 45 Kosovar Albanians in the Račak massacre was reported in January 1999, NATO decided that the conflict could only be settled by introducing a military peacekeeping force to forcibly restrain the two sides. After the Rambouillet Accords broke down on 23 March with Yugoslav rejection of an external peacekeeping force, NATO prepared to install the peacekeepers by force.
NATO's objectives in the Kosovo conflict were stated at the North Atlantic Council meeting held at NATO headquarters in Brussels on April 12, 1999: An end to all military action and the immediate termination of violence and repressive activities by the Milosevic government. Operation Allied Force predominantly used a large-scale air campaign to destroy Yugoslav military infrastructure from high altitudes. After the third day of aerial bombing, NATO had destroyed all of its strategic military targets in Yugoslavia. Despite this, the Yugoslav Army continued to function and to attack Kosovo Liberation Army insurgents inside Kosovo in the regions of Northern and Southwest Kosovo. NATO bombed strategic economic and societal targets, such as bridges, military facilities, official government facilities, factories, using long-range cruise missiles to hit defended targets, such as strategic installations in Belgrade and Pristina; the NATO air forces targeted infrastructure, such as power plants, water-processing plants and the state-owned broadcaster, causing much environmental and economic damage throughout Yugoslavia.
The Rand Corporation examined the issue in a study. The Dutch then-foreign minister Jozias van Aartsen said that the strikes on Yugoslavia should be such as to weaken their military capabilities and prevent further humanitarian atrocities. Due to restrictive media laws, media in Yugoslavia carried little coverage of what its forces were doing in Kosovo, or of other countries' attitudes to the humanitarian crisis. According to John Keegan, the capitulation of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War marked a turning point in the history of warfare, it "proved that a war can be won by air power alone". By comparison, diplomacy had failed before the war, the d
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script for Serbo-Croatian, developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write standard modern Serbian and Montenegrin, the other being Latin. In Croatian and Bosnian, only the Latin alphabet is used. Karadžić based his alphabet on the previous "Slavonic-Serbian" script, following the principle of "write as you speak and read as it is written", removing obsolete letters and letters representing iotified vowels, introducing ⟨J⟩ from the Latin alphabet instead, adding several consonant letters for sounds specific to Serbian phonology. During the same period, Croatian linguists led by Ljudevit Gaj adapted the Latin alphabet, in use in western South Slavic areas, using the same principles; as a result of this joint effort and Latin alphabets for Serbo-Croatian have a complete one-to-one congruence, with the Latin digraphs Lj, Nj, Dž counting as single letters. Vuk's Cyrillic alphabet was adopted in Serbia in 1868, was in exclusive use in the country up to the inter-war period.
Both alphabets were co-official in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Due to the shared cultural area, Gaj's Latin alphabet saw a gradual adoption in Serbia since, both scripts are used to write modern standard Serbian and Bosnian. In Serbia, Cyrillic is seen as being more traditional, has the official status, it is an official script in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro, along with Latin. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was used as a basis for the Macedonian alphabet with the work of Krste Misirkov and Venko Markovski. Cyrillic is in official use in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although the Bosnian language "officially accept both alphabets", the Latin script is always used in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whereas Cyrillic is in everyday use in Republika Srpska; the Serbian language in Croatia is recognized as a minority language, the use of Cyrillic in bilingual signs has sparked protests and vandalism. Cyrillic is an important symbol of Serbian identity.
In Serbia, official documents are printed in Cyrillic only though, according to a 2014 survey, 47% of the Serbian population write in the Latin alphabet whereas 36% write in Cyrillic. The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, along with the equivalent forms in the Serbian Latin alphabet and the International Phonetic Alphabet value for each letter: According to tradition, Glagolitic was invented by the Byzantine Christian missionaries and brothers Cyril and Methodius in the 860s, amid the Christianization of the Slavs. Glagolitic appears to be older, predating the introduction of Christianity, only formalized by Cyril and expanded to cover non-Greek sounds. Cyrillic was created by the orders of Boris I of Bulgaria by Cyril's disciples at the Preslav Literary School in the 890s; the earliest form of Cyrillic was the ustav, based on Greek uncial script, augmented by ligatures and letters from the Glagolitic alphabet for consonants not found in Greek.
There was no distinction between lowercase letters. The literary Slavic language was based on the Bulgarian dialect of Thessaloniki. Part of the Serbian literary heritage of the Middle Ages are works such as Vukan Gospels, St. Sava's Nomocanon, Dušan's Code, Munich Serbian Psalter, others; the first printed book in Serbian was the Cetinje Octoechos. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić fled Serbia during the Serbian Revolution to Vienna. There he met a linguist with interest in slavistics. Kopitar and Sava Mrkalj helped Vuk to reform its orthography, he finalized the alphabet in 1818 with the Serbian Dictionary. Karadžić reformed the Serbian literary language and standardised the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet by following strict phonemic principles on the Johann Christoph Adelung' model and Jan Hus' Czech alphabet. Karadžić's reforms of the Serbian literary language modernised it and distanced it from Serbian and Russian Church Slavonic, instead bringing it closer to common folk speech to the dialect of Eastern Herzegovina which he spoke.
Karadžić was, together with Đuro Daničić, the main Serbian signatory to the Vienna Literary Agreement of 1850 which, encouraged by Austrian authorities, laid the foundation for the Serbian language, various forms of which are used by Serbs in Serbia, Montenegro and Herzegovina and Croatia today. Karadžić translated the New Testament into Serbian, published in 1868, he wrote several books. In his letters from 1815-1818 he used: Ю, Я, Ы and Ѳ. In his 1815 song book he dropped the Ѣ; the alphabet was adopted in 1868, four years after his death. From the Old Slavic script Vuk retained these 24 letters: He added one Latin letter: And 5 new ones: He removed: Orders issued on the 3 and 13 October 1914 banned the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, limiting it for use in religious instruction. A decree was passed on January 3, 1915, that banned Serbian Cyrillic from public use. An imperial order in October 25, 1915, banned the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, except "within the scope of Serb Orthodox Church
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state in Southeast Europe and Central Europe that existed from 1929 until 1941, during the interwar period and beginning of World War II. The preliminary kingdom was formed in 1918 by the merger of the provisional State of Slovenes and Serbs with the independent Kingdom of Serbia; the Kingdom of Montenegro had united with Serbia five days whereas the regions of Kosovo and Vardar Macedonia were parts of Serbia prior to the unification. It was called the Kingdom of Serbs and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" was its colloquial name from its origins; the official name of the state was changed to "Kingdom of Yugoslavia" by King Alexander I on 3 October 1929. The state was ruled by the Serbian dynasty of Karađorđević, which ruled the Kingdom of Serbia under Peter I from 1903 onward. Peter I became the first king of Yugoslavia until his death in 1921, he was succeeded by his son Alexander I, regent for his father. He was known as "Alexander the Unifier" and he renamed the kingdom "Yugoslavia" in 1929.
He was assassinated in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, during his visit to France in 1934. The crown passed to his then-still under-aged son Peter. Alexander's cousin Paul ruled as Prince regent until 1941; the royal family flew to London the same year, prior to the country being invaded by the Axis powers. In April 1941, the country was occupied and partitioned by the Axis powers. A royal government-in-exile, recognized by the United Kingdom and by all the Allies, was established in London. In 1944, after pressure from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the King recognized the government of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia as the legitimate government; this was established on 2 November following the signing of the Treaty of Vis by Ivan Šubašić and Josip Broz Tito. Following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand by the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip, which led to the outbreak of World War I, the subsequent invasion and military occupation of Serbia.
South Slavic nationalism escalated and Slavic nationalists called for the independence and unification of the South Slavic nationalities of Austria-Hungary along with Serbia and Montenegro into a single State of Slovenes and Serbs. The Dalmatian Croat politician Ante Trumbić became a prominent South Slavic leader during the war and led the Yugoslav Committee that lobbied the Allies to support the creation of an independent Yugoslavia. Trumbić faced initial hostility from Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić, who preferred an enlarged Serbia over a unified Yugoslav state. However, both Pašić and Trumbić agreed to a compromise, delivered at the Corfu Declaration on 20 July 1917 that advocated the creation of a united state of Serbs and Slovenes to be led by the Serbian House of Karađorđević. In 1916, the Yugoslav Committee started negotiations with the Serbian Government in exile, on which they decided on the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, declaring the joint Corfu Declaration in 1917, the meetings were held at the Municipal Theatre of Corfu.
In November 1918 the National Council of the State of Slovenes and Serbs appointed 28 members to start negotiation with the representatives of the government of the Kingdom of Serbia and Montenegro on creation of a new Yugoslav state, the delegation negotiated directly with regent Alexander Karađorđević. The negotiations would end, with the delegation of the National Council of the State of Slovenes and Serbs lead by dr Ante Pavelić reading the address in front of regent Alexander, who represented his father, King Peter I of Serbia, by which acceptance the Kingdom of Serbs and Slovens was established; the name of the new Yugoslav state was: "Kingdom of Serbs and Slovenes" or its abbreviated form "Kingdom of SHS". The new kingdom was made up of the independent kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, of a substantial amount of territory, part of Austria–Hungary, the State of Slovenes and Serbs; the main states which formed the new Kingdom were: State of Slovenes and Serbs and Vojvodina Kingdom of Serbia with Kingdom of MontenegroThe creation of the state was supported by pan-Slavists and Yugoslav nationalists.
For the pan-Slavic movement, all of the South Slav people had united into a single state. The newly established Kingdom of Serbs and Slovenes participated in the Paris Peace Conference with Trumbić as the country's representative. Since the Allies had lured the Italians into the war with a promise of substantial territorial gains in exchange, which cut off a quarter of Slovene ethnic territory from the remaining three-quarters of Slovenes living in the Kingdom of SHS, Trumbić vouched for the inclusion of most Slavs living in the former Austria-Hungary to be included within the borders of the new Kingdom of Serbs and Slovenes. With the Treaty of Rapallo a population of half a million Slavs Slovenes, were subjected to force
Kosovo Albanians
The Albanians or Kosovars commonly Kosovo Albanians, Kosovar Albanians or Kosovan Albanians, constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo. According to the 1991 Yugoslav census, boycotted by Albanians, there were 1,596,072 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo or 81.6% of population. By the estimation in year 2000, there were between 1,584,000 and 1,733,600 Albanians in Kosovo or 88% of population. Albanians of Kosovo are Ghegs, they speak Gheg Albanian, more the Northwestern and Northeastern Gheg variants. Kosovar Albanians are ethnic Albanians with ancestry or descent in the region, regardless of whether they live in Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians belong to the ethnic Albanian sub-group of Ghegs, who inhabit the north of Albania, north of the Shkumbin river, southern Serbia, western parts of western Republic of Macedonia. In the 14th century in two chrysobulls or decrees by Serbian rulers, villages of Albanians alongside Vlachs are cited in the first as being between the White Drin and Lim rivers, in the second a total of nine Albanian villages are cited within the vicinity of Prizren.
Toponyms such as Arbanaška and Đjake shows an Albanian presence in the Toplica and Southern Morava regions since the Late Middle Ages. Significant clusters of Albanian populations lived in Kosovo in the west and centre before and after the Habsburg invasion of 1689–1690, while in Eastern Kosovo they were a small minority. Due to the Ottoman-Hapsburg wars and their aftermath, Albanians from contemporary northern Albania and Western Kosovo settled in wider Kosovo and the Toplica and Morava regions in the second half of the 18th century, at times instigated by Ottoman authorities. Serbian sources regarding the contemporary Kosovo Albanian population attribute their origin to contemporary Albania, whereby sizable numbers of Albanian tribes came and settled Kosovo in the late 17th century, most intensively between mid-18th century and the 1840s; the migrating parts of tribes maintained a tribal household structure. A 1930s Serbian study by Atanasije Urošević estimated that 90% of Kosovo Albanians descended from these migrating tribes.
Historian Noel Malcolm has criticized the Urošević study, as it focused on Eastern Kosovo, while omitting Western Kosovo to reach those conclusions. Malcolm noted that commonalities of Kosovo Albanian family names with Albanian clan names is not always indicative of having Albanian Malësi clan origins, as some people were agglomerated into clans while many other Kosovo Albanians lack such names. Kosovo was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1455 to 1912, at first as part of the eyalet of Rumelia, from 1864 as a separate province. During this time, Islam was introduced to the population. Today, Sunni Islam is the predominant religion of Kosovo Albanians; the Ottoman term Arnavudluk meaning Albania was used in Ottoman state records for areas such as southern Serbia and Kosovo. Evliya Çelebi in his travels within the region during 1660 referred to the western and central part of what is today Kosovo as Arnavudluk and described the town of Vučitrn's inhabitants as having knowledge of Albanian or Turkish with few speakers of Slavic languages.
A large number of Albanians alongside smaller numbers of urban Turks were expelled and/or fled from what is now contemporary southern Serbia during the Serbian–Ottoman War. Many settled in Kosovo, where they and their descendants are known as muhaxhir muhaxher, some bear the surname Muhaxhiri/Muhaxheri or most others the village name of origin. During the late Ottoman period, ethno-national Albanian identity as expressed in contemporary times did not exist amongst the wider Kosovo Albanian-speaking population. Instead collective identities were based upon either socio-professional, socio-economic, regional, or religious identities and sometimes relations between Muslim and Christian Albanians were tense; as a reaction against the Congress of Berlin, which had given some Albanian-populated territories to Serbia and Montenegro, Albanians from Kosovo, formed the League of Prizren in Prizren in June 1878. Hundreds of Albanian leaders gathered in Prizren and opposed the Serbian and Montenegrin jurisdiction.
Serbia complained to the Western Powers that the promised territories were not being held because the Ottomans were hesitating to do that. Western Powers put pressure to the Ottomans and in 1881, the Ottoman Army started the fighting against Albanians; the Prizren League created a Provisional Government with a President, Prime Minister and Ministries of War and Foreign Ministry. After three years of war, the Albanians were defeated. Many of the leaders were imprisoned. In 1910, an Albanian uprising spread from Pristina and lasted until the Ottoman Sultan's visit to Kosovo in June 1911; the aim of the League of Prizren was to unite the four Albanian-inhabited Vilayets by merging the majority of Albanian inhabitants within the Ottoman Empire into one Albanian vilayet. However at that time Serbs consisted about 25% of the whole Vilayet of Kosovo's overall population and were opposing the Albanian aims along with Turks and other Slavs in Kosovo, which prevented the Albanian movements from establishing their rule over Kosovo.
In 1912 during the Balkan Wars, most of eastern Kosovo was taken by the Kingdom of Serbia, while the Kingdom of Montenegro took western Kosovo, which a majority of its inhabitants call "the plateau of
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