KAVITA PURI on how historical conflicts haunt the wars of today
HIDDEN HISTORIES
IN JUNE 1989, SERBIAN PRESIDENT SLOBODAN Milošević delivered a speech at Gazimestan, a monument near the town of Kosovo Polje standing close to the site known as the Field of Blackbirds. This watchtower, not far from Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, marks the site of the battle of Kosovo – an event that occupies a unique position in Serbia’s national story.
Fought on 15 June 1389, that battle saw Serb forces attempting to fight off an invading Ottoman army. The bloody clash left the leaders of the opposing armies – Ottoman sultan Murad I and Serbian ruler Prince Lazar – among the thousands of dead on both sides. Milošević’s speech commemorated the 600th anniversary of the battle, against a background of rising tension between ethnic Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. He mooted the possibility of “armed battles” in Serbia’s future national development. Less than two years later, the Yugoslav Wars erupted.
Fast forward nearly 10 years, and Yugoslavia had disintegrated following the worst conflicts in Europe since the Second World War, during which Serbia attempted to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of its Albanian population. Only after Nato intervened in 1999 did the fighting end.
Back then, I read everything I could find to understand what was happening – and this battle kept coming up. In his 1998 book Kosovo: A Short History, Noel Malcolm writes: “The significance of this battle to the Serbian people is not to be measured simply in terms of its politico-strategic consequences. The story of the battle… has become a totem or talisman of Serbian identity, so that this event has a status unlike that of anything else in the history of the Serbs.”
There is much that is disputed about the events of June 1389, often depending on whether they’re viewed from a Serbian or ethnic Albanian perspective. The competing narratives – and the myths and fears generated by the battle of Kosovo – show how historical events can take on significance in a version of a national story, and can even be a factor in triggering new wars centuries later.
That’s why, to understand the conflict in Kosovo in 1999, I first needed to understand
