Kosovars

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Distribution of the ethnic groups in Kosovo

The term Kosovars is used in very inconsistent terms. According to a controversial definition, the term includes all residents of Kosovo , regardless of their respective ethnic affiliation, and is thus intended to represent a geographical designation . Another controversial definition uses Kosovars to refer to the Kosovar Albanians . One point of criticism against the term "Kosovars", which is predominantly used in Western media, is aimed at the fact that the population in Kosovo often continues to prefer self-names such as Albanians, Serbs, Rome, Turks and the like. Kosovar is the stated nationality in the passports of the Republic of Kosovo .

Word formation

The word "Kosovar" is formed from the Slavic toponym Kosov- and the very productive Albanian suffix -ar , which always denotes people.

Concept history

The term first appeared in the early 1920s. At that time tens of thousands of refugees from Kosovo were in Albania . Their political leaders formed a separate group in parliament - the Kosovars. The longer the division of the Albanian settlement area continued, the more the term Kosovar became common in Albanian usage.

As a self-designation, the term was first found in 1942 in the subtitle of a weekly newspaper published by the partisans. As such, Kosovar was and is controversial among the Kosovar Albanians. After the amendment of the Yugoslav constitution of 1974 raised the autonomy rights of the Serbian province of Kosovo within the Yugoslav Republic of Serbia and thus within the Yugoslav Federal Republic - except for the law of secession - to the level of a Yugoslav republic, the Albanian intellectuals were increasingly concerned with the ethnic Debate the identity of one's own ethnic group . Some believed that the decades-long separation from Albania had given rise to a special Kosovar identity and that one could also call oneself a Kosovar. At the same time, this is a recognition of the political reality in Yugoslavia, but not least the claim to be the titular nation of the autonomous province is expressed. Others, however, rejected the self-designation Kosovar because its use would deepen the division of the Albanian nation. Not least because the term was mainly established in Albania, the opponents see it as a plot by the Tuscan- dominated communist government Enver Hoxhas to divide the opposing party in this way .

With the intensification of the Serbian-Albanian conflict during the time of Slobodan Milošević , the term Kosovars came into the international media. There it was often used as a synonym for "Kosovar Albanians", also by Western political leaders such as the German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer or the French President Jacques Chirac , who left the continuing NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia in 1999 with a "cold-blooded genocide of the Kosovars" justified by Milošević. The term Kosvars was also expressly declared as a “synonym” for “Kosovar Albanians” on the part of German KDOM observers who were deployed to monitor Kosovo in the Kosovo conflict . Some journalists and also the UN transferred the name to the non-Albanian population of Kosovo. Both the Serbs and the other minorities in Kosovo, however, did not call themselves Kosovars, at least before the declaration of independence in 2008 , according to the assessment of the former Czechoslovak foreign minister and UN Balkan expert on human rights issues, Jiří Dienstbier . At the same time, attempts have been made in western usage to distinguish the term “Kosovars” as a term for “all residents of the province of Kosovo” from the ethnically differentiating terms “Kosovar Albanians” and “Kosovar Serbs”. In connection with the internationally partially hesitant and still only partially recognized declaration of independence of Kosovo in February 2008, the German-language press came up with the formulation that only the language regulation with the attribution of the name "Kosovars" in the geographical sense to the entire population of the Kosovo is entitled to validity. The Duden gives to the term "Kosovar" only "people of Kosovo", without clarifying whether this all of the residents is meant.

It is currently unclear how the citizens of Kosovo should be called in the two official languages.

Scientific controversy

Diana Johnstone sees in her publication from the year 2000 the use of the term "Kosovar" (in the English form: "Kosovar", Albanian: "Kosovar") by the official Western side ( OSCE - KVM reports) in the light of political partisanship of the "International Community" for the Kosovar Albanian side before and during the NATO attacks on Yugoslavia in 1999 . In their opinion, the term “Kosovar” clearly intends to convey the impression that Kosovo has always belonged exclusively to its population of Albanian ethnic groups and that the Serbs are “invaders”. The Kosovar-Albanian side had adopted the term “Kosovar” with the obvious intention of identifying themselves, but not any other ethnic group, with the province of Kosovo. In a similarly partisan way, the OSCE-KVM also used the term " gypsies ", which was disparagingly connotated both in English and among the Kosovar Albanians , for the Roma who were accused of complicity with the Serbs by Kosovar Albanians and treated in a hostile manner. (in the English form "Gypsies", Albanian: "Maxhupet") used. In order to counter the conceptual confusion and misunderstanding of the events, Johnstone suggested the use of the Albanian self-designation “Shqiptar” (known in English, not yet used in German) instead of the cumbersome phrase “Kosovar Albanians”, which has no negative connotations and in contrast to the term " Albanian " (in English: Albanian) does not imply nationality to Albania , but includes the large number of people of Albanian ethnicity in Kosovo who do not come from Kosovo, but from Albania. She criticizes the fact that the Kosovar Albanian side decided in this situation that the term “Shqiptar” should not be used from outside and that this would be followed. The use of the "honorable" term "Shqiptar" according to Johnstone's statement can be countered by the fact that "Schiptari" ( šiptari ) is a pejorative Serbo-Croatian name for Albanians.

The conflicting use of the term “Kosovars” has been pointed out several times in the literature. In this context, Noam Chomsky comes to the conclusion that all terms contain misleading connotations. He points out that the term “Kosovars” is often used in the sense of “Kosovar Albanians” and prefers the term “Kosovar Albanians” for this use.

literature

  • Noel Malcolm: Kosovo. A short history. New York University Press, New York 1998, 492 pages

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kosovo, Kosova, Metohija Kosovaren ( Memento from February 21, 2013 on WebCite ) , NZZ-Online, Dossier: Kosovo: Road to Independence , February 14, 2008, archived from the original on February 21, 2013.
  2. ↑ eurotopics.net  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.eurotopics.net  
  3. ↑ In the same way the formations këngetar - singer a. qytetar - citizen. See Martin E. Huld: Basic Albanian etymologies . Columbus OH 1984, ISBN 0-89357-135-0 .
  4. ↑ Michael Schmidt-Neke : Development and expansion of the royal dictatorship in Albania (1912-1939) (= Southeast European Works; 84), Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-54321-0 , p. 64.
  5. ↑ Kosova. Organ i commits Kosovar. 1-39 / 40 (1942).
  6. ↑ Kelmendi: Who is Kosovar?
  7. ↑ a b Noam Chomsky : The new military humanism - lessons from Kosovo. 1st edition. edition 8, Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-85990-027-7 , p. 263, footnote 2.
  8. ↑ "Serbia belongs to Europe" . In: Die Zeit , No. 16/1999, conversation with Matthias Geis and Gunter Hofmann
  9. ^ Régis Debray : Open Letter From A Traveler To The President Of The Republic. In: Tariq Ali: Masters of the Universe? - Nato's Balkan Crusade . Verso, 2000, ISBN 1-85984-752-8 , pp. 319–326, here p. 320, with reference to first publication in: Le Monde, May 13, 1999.
  10. ^ Régis Debray : Lettre d'un voyageur au président de la République . ( Memento of February 21, 2013 on WebCite ) In: Le Monde , May 13, 1999; Archived from the Internet version on archives.vigile.net on February 21, 2013.
  11. ↑ Wolfgang Kaufmann: The observer. Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2004, ISBN 3-8334-1200-3 , p. 273.
  12. ↑ On this the former UN human rights commissioner for the Balkans  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Jiří Dienstbier, in the Czech newspaper Pravo (January 8, 2008).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.eurotopics.net  
  13. ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch, Robert Pichler: Kosovo - Kosova - The long way to peace. Wieser, Klagenfurt u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-85129-430-0 , pp. 20f.
  14. ↑ Entry in Duden
  15. ^ Diana Johnstone: Appraisal Of The Two OSCE Reports: “Kosovo / Kosova: As Seen, As Told” . ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. tenc.net (emperors-clothes.com), February 29, 2000 (English). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / emperors-clothes.com
  16. ^ Carl Polónyi: Salvation and Destruction: National Myths and War using the Example of Yugoslavia 1980-2004 . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1724-5 , p. 498.