Chandra Prakash Bhongir, Civil Engr, May04 - Repositories

and those to the north, the Serbs. Conveniently, this move concurred with the span of
time in which the Serbs formed their national and religious identity in a land that is
none other than present day Kosovo–an Albanian land currently inhabited by
Albanian people. The irony continues today more then seven centuries later. The
Serbs maintain that the land belongs rightly to them: “ Why should these Muslim
foreigners, who came only 300 years ago to Old Serbia, the historic heartland of our
nation, have autonomy there? Never!” 11
History, however, dictates the contrary. Albanians did not just reappear during
the fourteenth century. They were there all along, before the Slavic invasions and
after the dissolution of the Serbian Empire in the fourteenth century. According to
William Armstrong, Albanians were, “...autochthonous...Their appellation as
Albanians in these lands dates from the year 1079.” 12 The earliest revolts of the
Albanians against the Byzantine rule date as far back as the eleventh century. It was
not until the twelfth century that the Albanian nobles took sole possession of their
lands. Even though a consolidated state did not exist, these nobles were able to keep
foreign invaders out of their lands until the rise of the Ottoman Turks during the
fourteenth century. 13
1996):39.
1905): 195.
11 Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History, (New York: Vintage Books,
12 William Jackson Armstrong, The Heroes of Defeat, (Ohio: The Robert Clarke Company,
13 Universiteti Shteteror ne Tirane, George Kastriot-Scanderbeg and the Albanian-Turkish
War of the XV Century, (Tirane: Tirane University Press,1967): 5.
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