Breakthrough years of Kosovo's Yugoslav reality - The road to unfathomable misfortunes and complications

Writing for Kosovo Online: Dragan Bisenic, journalist

Czech historian Jan Pelikan rewrote and published a very significant work about Serbia, more specifically about Kosovo ("New Ways, Kosovo 1958 - 1968", Official Gazzete, 2022, translated by Vladan Matic) which is the result of the author's multi-year research of the key decade in which the character changed, and thus the historical place of Kosovo and Metohija in socialist Yugoslavia. Pelikan is a professor at Charles University in Prague, at the Department of Balkan and Yugoslav Studies, an author who knows Serbia well in his work and is one of the authors of the capital book History of Serbia published in Czech language.

The book has an adequate title "New Ways" (Serb. Novim Putevima) because it clearly shows the new position of Kosovo as a province within Serbia, especially after the reckoning and fall of Aleksandar Rankovic at the IV Plenum in 1966. Based on Pelikan's research, it is clear that it was a turning point in which new actors set new tasks, who are driven by different motives, and who make new alliances to achieve their goals. On the side of Kosovo, in a new chance and in an offensive position, Fadil Hoxha, the Albanian staff who remained in Kosovo, Veli Deva, Mark Krasniqi, and Xhavit Nimani. Ali Shukriu and Sinan Hasani were considered pro-Yugoslav functionaries among the Albanians. At the reception at Kardelj, Shukriu warned of the danger of excessive and too rapid expansion of Kosovo's autonomy. That is why they were sent to the federal authorities and lost their influence in Kosovo, while Fadil Hoxha came back and became the leader of the Albanians, together with Veli Deva. Although he was in the position of vice-president of the federal assembly "as a representative of the most numerous nationality located in three federal units", Xhavit Nimani belonged to this duo and actively participated in the politics of the province.

On the shaken and weakened Serbian side, the main characters are changing. First, they are Dobrivoje Radosavljevic, Milos Minic, Dragi Stamenkovic and Petar Stambolic. A little later, Draza Markovic, Marko Nikezic, and Latinka Perovic take the stage. At the federal level, Tito is indisputable, but he is already 75 years old, and next to him is the "second man", Edvard Kardelj, with Vladimir Bakaric and Koca Popovic as Rankovic's successor as vice-president of the SFRY.

Already in 1967, Kardelj and Bakaric entered the scene as proponents of constitutional changes that changed the character of relations in the federal state. Within this framework, the new leadership of Kosovo is trying in every way to distance itself as much as possible from Serbia and to obtain the status of a republic. While Radosavljevic, Minic, Marko Nikezic as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Koca Popovic, who do not see this as a danger to the interests of Serbia, Dragi Stamenkovic pointed out more sharply the discrimination and forced emigration of the Serbs from Kosovo immediately after the Brijuni Plenum and strongly criticized the demands of Kosovo Albanians for the status of the republic. Already in February 1966, Nikezic and the federal government adopted the thawing of relations with Albania. In the new circumstances, that's what recommended him two years later for the position of president of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia. Soon, Stamenkovic and Radosavljevic were transferred to the back of the stage, and Draza Markovic, Marko Nikezic, and Latinka Perovic stepped in. Petar Stambolic and Milos Minic were her constants.

The celebration of the "Serbian" New Year in 1967 in Kosovo took on the dimensions of a first-class political scandal with the determination of the new leadership to deal fiercely with its participants. In such an atmosphere, but only a few months after the request for a meeting, Tito met with the leadership of the province.

On March 20, 1967, Tito spoke with the Serbian leadership about Kosovo. Kardelj was also present. Bobi Radosavljevic presented that there were daily demands for a republic. He did not criticize them but presented them as a natural development. Unlike him, this was done by Petar Stambolic and Dragi Stamenkovic. Stambolic said that the starting point was only the fact that there were a million Albanians living in Kosovo, while many other important aspects were being neglected, while Stamenkovic spoke of the pressures on the Serbs who lost their jobs and who were forced to emigrate.

Kardelj replied that there was no way to stop the awakening of the people and that an attempt to suppress them would lead to a new appearance in a far more explosive and therefore more dangerous form. Radosavljevic said that Kosovo Albanians wanted to improve relations with Albania, and had asked Tito for permission, but Tito had laconically refused.

Dobrivoje Radosavljevic and Milos Minic were generous and almost automatically met the demands of the Kosovo Albanians. Minic believed that Kosovo should have the elements of statehood, including the right to self-determination. Hasani and Shukriu will return to Kosovo only after the second wave of Albanian demonstrations in 1982.

Mika Spiljak, as the president of the federal government, visited Kosovo in August 1967. In the conversation with him, the Albanians wanted to establish relations with Albania and improve the position of the Albanians in Montenegro and Macedonia. And in the fall, they talked with the Serbian leadership about the position of the Albanians in Belgrade, who numbered around 15,000.

In January 1968, however, the attitude of Belgrade completely changed, which was no longer ready to allow Kosovo to leave the borders of Serbia, although the leadership in Belgrade did not pay much attention to what was happening in Kosovo, not even to the celebration of Skanderbeg's jubilee in January 1968 in the spirit Albanian national intoxication.

The shock came quite suddenly, at the 14th session of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia in May 1968, where Professor Jovan Marjanovic and then Dobrica Cosic spoke harshly about the development in Kosovo, the position of the Serbs and Serbia.

"If the road today leads to the creation of a single Albanian state, the realization of Shqiptar national sovereignty, i.e. the secession of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia and Yugoslavia, then severe and tragic collisions and unfathomable historical accidents and complications are inevitable," Cosic said. The Serbian Central Committee did not believe either Marjanovic or Cosic. The first to attack them was Dobrivoje Radosavljevic, then Kole Shiroka, Xhavit Nimani, and Katarina Patrnogic, who at the time supported "radical Albanian demands", as Pelikan says. Veli Deva called Cosic "a demoralizing politician who stopped believing in socialism and the League of Communists". The Serbian politicians from Kosovo were even harsher, while the proposal for conclusions on distancing themselves from Cosic's and Marjanovic's assessments was drawn up by Milos Minic and presented by Petar Stambolic. The session was open to the public, and Radosavljevic reproached Cosic and Marjanovic for choosing "one of the least appropriate ways" to solve the problems in Kosovo and Metohija.

Student protests that broke out in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other countries dealt with social issues, but the goal of the demonstrations in Kosovo in October and November 1968 was different. The demonstrators, mostly Albanian students, demanded a republic and a university in the Albanian language. Three years later, in 1971, the University of Pristina was founded. Kosovo became a "constituent factor of the federation", which allowed it to step outside the jurisdiction of Serbia with one foot.

Pelikan's book shows all the misunderstandings, collisions, and wanderings of socialist Serbia in the search for the right attitude towards Kosovo, but it also clearly represents the continuity of the strategy for separating Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia and annexing it to Albania, and how few Serbian cadres saw it in the right light.