Serbian KOSOVO and METOHIJA, by William Dorich

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 HaArtz, 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 Milutins 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.