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Serbian
KOSOVO and METOHIJA
The magnitude of Kosovo reverberates
across the centuries. It has survived 609 years and throughout the succeeding generations
Kosovo has become the inspiration of an entire nation. And through its grandeur and its
religious example it has influenced other nations to seek freedom. Kosovo permanently
changed the face of Europe and altered history. Kosovo, 100 years before Columbus sailed
for the New World, was a statement for religious freedom and the belief that no man had a
right to rule another. Rather than to consent to become slaves to tyranny, the Serbs
willingly gave their lives for their religious belief. Seldom in history have we witnessed
such a commitment. The Serbs on the Kosovo Field not only paid with the staggering loss of
77,000 lives in one day of battle, but the Serbian nation suffered 500 years of Ottoman
slavery as the consequence. Historians have never spoken of Kosovo as though it were an
event in the past that will never happen again. Through the centuries, Serbian sacrifice
and Kosovo have become synonymous.
The Serbian people have continually assumed that in every century they would again find it
necessary to defend their rights to their land, self-determination, and freedom of
worship. History in the Balkans continuously repeats itself! In 1690, more than 180,000
Serbs were forced from Kosovo and, again, an equal number were exiled in 1737. After the
Congress of Berlin, in 1878, another 150,000 Serbs were expelled. This ongoing trend took
on tragic proportions following the war in Crete between Turkey and Greece in 1897.
Diplomatic efforts to stem the tide of atrocities against Serbs were useless, but
documentation remains to testify to the crimes committed against the Serbian population.
The Balkan war of 1912 was fought not only by Serbs but by Montenegrins, Bulgarians, and
Greeks to liberate their people from centuries of uninterrupted Islamic aggression. The
situation is little changed today.
To understand Kosovo, the American people need to compare the current Balkan crisis with
its own American Civil War in which just 4% of the population lost their lives compared to
Serbia who lost 52% of her adult male population in WWI and another 26% of her overall
population in WWII. Readers of this forum need reminding that during the American Civil
War it was the loyal Virginia citizens who refused to secede from the union and formed the
state of West Virginia in 1863. Certainly Serbs deserve the same rights to remain in their
union, a union which was internationally recognized as a nation in 1878 at the Congress of
Berlin.
Not a single head of state, nor any American president, senator, or humanitarian group
raised their voices as 200,000 Serbs were "ethnically cleansed" from Kosovo in
the last 2 decades. People should be asking, why are the Serbs destined to suffer and be
persecuted?
In
September 1992, Jehoshua Porat, reporting in the Israeli daily Ha'Artz, claimed: "It
seems we have caught the same syndrome as the Russians -- fear that we shall lose billions
of dollars from the United States and the West if we say something good about Serbs."
Serbs are perplex when the media proclaims Kosovo as Serbian territory, then encourages
the Albanians who comprise a majority in just the last 40 years, to secede and seek
self-determination while denying the Serbs that same right in Croatia in 1991 in areas
where Serbs were the majority and in Bosnia in 1992 where Serbs represented 31% of the
population and owned 62% of the land. It was arrogant that the world awarded the Bosnian
Muslims for gaining their majority population through their genocide of the Serbs in WWII.
Awarding the Albanians for the same disgusting deeds in Kosovo would make a mockery of
democratic principles.
During King Milutin's reign of 40 years (1281-1321), he built 40 churches in Kosovo. There
are more than 140 Serbian churches and monasteries in Kosovo, a significant number having
been built before 1459. More than 75 were built after 1459. There are also more than 80
church ruins that date prior to 1459. The actual seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church was
first established in Kosovo at the Pec Patriarchate in 1346 (pictured at the top of this
page). The Patriarchate remained in Pec until 1939, when in fear of WWII it was moved to
Belgrade. The surviving Monasteries of Pec, Decani, The Virgin of Ljeviska, and Gracanica
are monuments to the Serbian people, their dedication to their faith, and a testimony to
their cultural achievements.
The time has come for a more balanced and fair assessment of the situation and a review of
the facts, not hysterical propaganda. As the Very Rev. Mateja Matejic has observed, "Serbs
were the first to anticipate the grave peril coming at one time from Islam and then from
Nazism and finally Communism. They were the first to resist ... making the victories of
others possible, even if they themselves were defeated."
The following pages of this forum are intended to provide the discerning American reader
with historical facts unethically withheld from them by the partisan press and American
politicians with a hidden agenda in the Balkans.
Above text written by William Dorich, author of the 1992 book, "Kosovo"
NEXT:
[ Kosovo -
the early History ]
[ On-line book:
"Kosovo" ]
[ The
problems in Kosovo before NATO attack ]
[ Albanian
mafia and Kosovo ]
[ NATO
attacks Yugoslavia ]
The truth belongs to us all.
Feel
free to download, copy and redistribute.
Last revised: May 31, 2004
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