Metochia

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Metohija (yellow) within Kosovo
View over the plain by Lake Radonjić

Metohija ( Serbian Метохија Metohija , Albanian  Rrafsh i Dukagjinit or short Dukagjin or Dukagjini ) is the official language of Serbia , the name for the western part of Kosovo . The official Serbian name for Kosovo is "Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija " ( Autonomna pokrajina Kosovo i Metohija ). In the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo , which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, however, Metohija is not mentioned.

geography

The area of ​​Metochiens is a lowland surrounded by high mountains. It is separated from the blackbird field (Kosovo polje) in the east by the Crnoljeva , a low mountain range .

Metochien or Rrafsh i Dukagjinit consists in the Serbian understanding of the districts Peć and Prizren and has an area of ​​3340 square kilometers. The population was 790,272 in 2002, or 40 percent of Kosovo's total population of 1,956,194. The unofficial capital (center and largest city) is Prizren . Metochien is 23 kilometers wide and about 60 kilometers long at its widest point. The average altitude is 550 meters. The main river is the White Drin , one of the arms of the Drin . The region is circled by the Mokra Gora mountains in the north, the Prokletije or Bjeshkët e Nemuna in the west, the Šar Planina in the south and the Drenica in the east, which also forms the approximate border to the blackbird field.

history

The name is derived from the Greek metochi ( Middle Greek μετοχή , community ') and refers to the medieval monastic communities that owned a large part of the land in this area of ​​Kosovo. The name originated in the 19th century when the area was still part of the Ottoman Empire. The earlier Serbian names for metochia were Hvosno for the northern, Patkovo for the central and Prizrener Land for the southern areas.

The landscape, which did not bear the name Metohija in the Middle Ages, was divided into several Župe (Gaue). Around 1180 the area came under the rule of the Nemanjids . Metohija was the most developed area in medieval Serbia. In Metochien there were two bishoprics, the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Archbishop in Peć , as well as numerous monasteries, churches and markets. One of the Serbian Tsar's courts was located in Prizren, an important commercial and industrial center.

The term "metochien" was officially used in Serbia only since 1945. The Serbian King Petar spoke in a proclamation "To the Serbian people" at the end of the Second Balkan War of "Old Serbia", which meant all areas conquered by Serbia and Montenegro in the Balkan Wars. Austrian sources from the 17th century use “Old Serbia” and “Turkish Serbia” to refer to the formerly Serbian countries in the Ottoman Empire, including Kosovo and Metohija.

After the victory over the Ottoman Empire in the Balkan Wars , the area was divided between Serbia and Montenegro, and the area around the cities of Peć and Đakovica fell to Montenegro .

In the Kingdom of SHS , since 1929 Yugoslavia, the area belonged to the Zetska banovina .

The first official document in which the name Metohija appears in part is the minutes of the II. Session of the AVNOJ on September 29, 1943; there the creation of an "Autonomous Region of Cosmet " (abbreviation for Kosovo-Metohija, see BiH for Bosna i Hercegovina) was decided. At that time the area belonged to the first Italian, then German satellite state of Greater Albania . To the Kosovo Albanians take for the partisan struggle, representatives of the JCP by the Conference of Bujan in January 1944, a union of the whole Kosovo with Albania in view, saying in its final document of "Kosovo and the Dukagjin level". The resolutions of the conference were reversed at Tito's request and the area was annexed to Yugoslavia in November 1945 as part of the Cosmet Autonomous Region (since 1963 the Cosmet Autonomous Province) in the Serbian state association. The Albanians rejected the name because it reminded of the extensive Serbian church property in Metohija and the area had never been called that before. After the disempowerment of Yugoslav Interior Minister Aleksandar Ranković , the province was renamed Kosovo in 1967. Serbs who disagreed with Tito's Kosovo policy have consciously used the term "cosmet" since then. In the 1980s, the Serbian Orthodox Church did not use the term “metochien” either in an “appeal to the Serbian government for the protection of the spiritual and biological existence of the Serbs in Kosovo”. In the 1986 SANU memorandum , however, “Kosovo and Metohija” were used repeatedly. In the course of the constitutional changes made in Serbia in 1989 and 1990, with which the autonomy rights of Kosovo were largely abolished, the province was again given the full name "Kosovo-Metohija".

Cities

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  1. ↑ a b c d e "Metohija", Lexicon of the Middle Ages
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Petritsch , Karl Kaser u. a .: Kosovo / Kosova. Myths, data, facts, Klagenfurt / Celovec 1999, ISBN 3-85129-304-5 , p. 87
  3. ^ Rajko L. Veselinović, The "Albanians" and "Klimenten" in the Austrian sources at the end of the 17th century. In: Communications from the Austrian State Archives, Vol. 13, Vienna 1960.
  4. ^ Constitution of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1931, Article 83
  5. ↑ Jens Reuter, Die Albaner in Yugoslavien, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-486-51281-1 , p. 43
  6. ↑ Petritsch, Kaser 1999, p. 134
  7. ^ Jens Reuter, Konrad Clewing, The Kosovo Conflict, Klagenfurt / Celovec 2000, ISBN 3-85129-329-0 , p. 148
  8. ↑ Miloš Nikolić, The Tragedy of Yugoslavia, Baden-Baden 2002, ISBN 3-7890-7759-3 , p. 22
  9. ↑ quoted in Petritsch, Kaser 1999, p. 164 f