To fully understand the expansion of NATO in the Balkans we have to proceed to a deeper historical sketch of the region, which requires an autonomous and deeper analysis. Such a deeper analysis cannot be done in the context of this text, therefore we will make a brief historical review that will help to understand the developments in the region, developments that shaped the present-day Balkans.
In the early history of the Balkans, starting from the 6th – 7th century with the migration of Slavic tribes from northern and northeastern Europe, the Carpathian Mountains and the Russian steppes until the rise of the first dominions and kingdoms, citizenship as such did not exist. The Slavic tribes gradually abandoned their old Slavic gods and accepted Christianity. The fall of the Roman Empire and later the split between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, corresponding to Byzantium and Rome, naturally affected the region, creating an invisible line between Eastern and Western Balkans. However, this split, until the rise of stable national sentiments and ethnic associations, did not actually produce a “Balkanization” of the Slavic groups in the region.
From the beginning of the 10th century there were many Slavic sovereign structures on the territory of modern Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia, Skopje, which later developed into the first kingdoms of the region. The creation of such kingdoms and powers did not produce national identity and national hatred or fanaticism, as many analysts and historians think. Over the centuries various alliances were created or others dissolved, regardless of ethnic relations, there were agreements and alliances between various Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian and Hungarian kingdoms. These ties were mostly territorial and political, rarely ethnic or religious. The same is true of early Christianity among the Slavs. It was a common process and the split between Orthodox and Catholic affected the Slavic aristocracy on a practical and political level and not on a religious one.
Therefore, during a long period of Slavic history in the Balkans, the rivalries in the region were not the result of religious rivalries, but ordinary rivalries between specific authorities, regardless of whether they belonged to the Orthodox or Catholic doctrine, since “national affiliation” was not dominant. The various alliances functioned or disintegrated over time, regardless of “national affiliation” and religious cleavage.
This was also true in medieval Bosnia, as before the Ottoman occupation Bosnia was inhabited mainly by Serbs and Croats, two large Slavic groups, groups which were Christian with mixed Orthodox and Catholic influences. Therefore we could find many Serbian populations living in the Catholic area and accepting the Catholic Church instead of the Orthodox. The situation changed after the Ottoman occupation. The shift took place when a large part of the population embraced Islam for reasons of coercion, pressure, security, benefits, as well as planned migrations of the population from Ottoman-Turkish areas.
When considering the non-Slavic population of the region we must also refer to the name Skiptar by which the Albanians of Kosovo or the Kosovars want to call themselves. The Albanians in Kosovo from the 17th century until today call themselves Skiptars and call their country Skiperia or Skipnia (in the northern Albanian dialects). Before the 17th century, Scepters were characterized as Arbes or Arbenes, the Ottomans called them Arnauts, from where the word Arvanites came from in Greek.
After World War II during Yugoslavia and the Tito era, the original name Skiptar for the ethnic community of Kosovo was considered by the communist regime as derogatory and gradually introduced the term “Albanian” community. Therefore there is no term Kosovar as a nationality or ethnicity in Kosovo. The name Kosovar (like the name Macedonski) was a term created by the West to describe a “Kosovian” ethnicity, to associate this artificial ethnic term with the territory of Kosovo, just as the artificial ethnic term “Macedonian” is associated with the territory of Macedonia. Therefore the Kosovars (Albanians of Kosovo) could be represented as the native population of Kosovo, while the Serbs and other ethnic groups would be seen as “occupying” or “foreign” forces to the Kosovars. This “ethnic fraud” would have long-term consequences for the region, as will the “Macedonian ethnicity” fraud. In fact this fraud was an artificially planned action to smooth the territorial subordination of Kosovo Albanians to the state of Albania. This was a classic fraud of history, absolutely similar to the fraud of the state of “North Macedonia”. In the case of “Macedonia” the rationale is the territorial subordination of the south to the north.
The Skiptars in Kosovo are not a genuine population of the indigenous majority of the region, there is evidence of this in the Turkish National Library and in the old tax registers of the Ottoman Empire dating back to the 15th century. The Ottoman tax collectors were very precise with these registers and listed every Christian Serb or Croat family, every Albanian family in the area, so they could do their job properly.
In the middle of the 15th century in Kosovo there were 13,000 Serbian houses in a total of 480 villages and towns in the region. There were 46 Albanian houses in 23 villages, 17 Bulgarian houses in 10 villages and 5 Greek houses in Laos and Vucitrn, one Jewish and one Croatian in Vucitrn. In the census that had been made, 95.88% of the population was of Serbian origin. About 500 years ago, there were 46 houses in Kosovo, Albanian households distributed in 23 villages, while Serbs had 13,000 households in 480 villages and towns. Also, not a single Albanian toponym is recorded in all of Kosovo at that time, even today the name of the self-proclaimed capital of this artificial state is Serbian, Pristina.
The Skiptars, or Arbenes, or Arnauts settled Kosovo during mass migrations, mainly when the Serbs suffered heavy losses in wars or were displaced by the Ottomans. The most important migration, however, took place after World War II when Albanians were escaping from the strict communist regime of Ember Hoxha. Almost all of these immigrants never accepted Yugoslav or Serbian citizenship.
During the Ottoman period there were several mass movements of Serbian population from Serbia, Montenegro and Herzegovina to the western Balkans, to the territory of present-day Croatia. They mixed there with the native Croatian population and over time a small minority converted to Catholicism, but most remained faithful to Orthodoxy.
Historically, it is confirmed that during the medieval era there were no ethnic conflicts or hostilities between ethnic groups, since the various ethnicities were mainly distinguished from each other as Catholics or Orthodox and not explicitly as Croats or Serbs. Both Serbs and Croats during these centuries lived in this region fighting against the Ottoman invaders without adversity and hatred between them. The situation gradually changed under the Ottoman occupation. Part of the local population converted to Islam and then those who converted to Islam were considered traitors to Christianity, so hatred and enmity began to develop on both sides. In addition, the Ottomans transferred the Turkish population to the occupied territories, a tactic that Turkey still follows in our days in Cyprus, a population that was always considered foreign and occupying. Interestingly, this Islamic part of the Balkan population was always associated with the Ottoman forces against the Orthodox and Catholic majority, which deepened the hatred and fanaticism.
The significant bigotry and hatred between the Balkan ethnicities is of relatively recent historical period dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the roots of this bigotry coincide with the rise of the Croat and Slovene ethnic origins in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy . During the First World War, strong national movements developed that wanted to get rid of the rule of this Monarchy, the Pan-Slavic movements of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs embraced the idea of a multinational state gathering of all the South Slavic nations. At that time Serbia and Montenegro were the only states with internationally recognized sovereignty and therefore accepting the Serbian crown was a logical step and the fastest way to achieve the long dreamed of secession from Austria and Hungary. In this historical phase was born in 1918 the Kingdom of SHS (Srba, Hrvata, Slovenaca i.e. Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
It is also important to emphasize that the majority of the Turkic population migrated after the Balkan Wars from the area of the SHS Kingdom to Turkey, today the Turkic population almost does not exist in the Western Balkans region, there are only isolated traces of it. Most Muslims are Serbs, Croats, Scythians who converted to Islam voluntarily or were forced to do so.
The collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was associated with ethnic and religious civil wars and conflicts, with NATO and the US bearing huge responsibilities, shamefully contributing arms supplies to favored ethnic groups and training, financing terrorists. In the context of the “imperial” policy of “divide et impera” anger and ethnic hatred awoke in the Balkans, while at the same time Turkey with the help of Saudi Arabia upgraded its plans in the old Ottoman possessions through the so-called “Muslim arc” or “green corridor”, a policy that has been inexorably implemented by Ankara for the last two decades.
