The province of Kosovo lies within the republic of Serbia, in eastern Europe. It is governed by Serbia, though most of the residents are not Serbian. Attempts to gain independence from Serbia in the 1990s led to brutal fighting in the province. Ultimately the attempts were unsuccessful. Pristina is the administrative capital of Kosovo.

People and culture

Kosovo's population was once a mixture of Albanian and Slavic speakers. The Serbian Slavic speakers were mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians, and the region featured many Eastern Orthodox monuments. In the 14th century, however, the Turkish Ottoman Empire took over the area. During the Ottoman occupation of the region, from 1389 to 1912, many of the Christian Serbians left. This resulted in an Albanian majority. At the end of the 20th century about 90 percent of the people of the province were Albanians, most of whom were Muslims.

History

Some 600 years ago Kosovo lay at the heart of the Serbian empire. When the whole region was conquered by the Ottoman army in 1389, the two regions gained separate identities. Serbia won independence from Turkey early in the 19th century and regained control of Kosovo in 1912. In 1918 Serbia, including Kosovo, became a part of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia). But Serbia's attempts to resettle Serbs in Kosovo were opposed by the local ethnic Albanians.

After World War II (1939–45), the new federal government of Yugoslavia granted Kosovo the status of an autonomous or independent province within the republic of Serbia.

However, in 1989 Yugoslavian leaders introduced changes that took away Kosovo's autonomy. The province's Albanians staged violent protests over the decision, but Kosovo remained a part of Serbia even after the rest of the Yugoslav republic broke apart in 1991.

Kosovo's Albanians began a nationalist movement that led to armed rebellion by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1996. The rebellion provoked a brutal response from the Serbian government, who adopted a policy of “ethnic cleansing,” or racial cleansing, against the Albanian citizens of the province. By 1998 widespread fighting had broken out between the KLA and Serbian units.

In an attempt to halt this policy, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched a bombing campaign in Kosovo and across Serbia beginning in March 1999. After 11 weeks of bombardment, 900,000 of the 2 million ethnic-Albanian Kosovars had been expelled by the Serbs from the region and another 500,000 had been displaced within Kosovo.

The NATO bombardment continued until June. According to the peace agreement Serb forces were to be removed from Kosovo and NATO peacekeeping troops were to replace them. Many of the refugees returned, to their homes as well as to some sort of normalcy in the region.