Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija (1946–1974)
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| Autonomna Pokrajina Kosovo i Metohija Аутономна Покрајина Косово и Метохиja Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija |
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| An Autonomous Province of the Socialist Republic of Serbia |
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| Capital | Priština | |||
| Official languages | Serbo-Croatian | |||
| Area - Total - Water |
10,686 km² Negligible |
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| Population - Total - Density |
1,584,441 183.1/km² |
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| Currency | Yugoslav dinar | |||
| Time zone | UTC + 1 | |||
The Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija (Serbian, Croatian, Serbo-Croatian: Autonomna Pokrajina Kosovo i Metohija, Аутономна Покрајина Косово и Метохија Albanian: Territori Autonom i Kosovës dhe Metohisë) was an autonomous province of Serbia, within the larger federation of Yugoslavia from 1963 to 1974, when it was replaced by the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo. From 1946 to 1963 it was Autonomous District of Kosovo and Metohija, i.e. a lower level of self-autonomomy than Vojvodina with which it was equalised in 1963.
[edit] History and background
During the interwar period, the constitutional status of Kosovo within Yugoslavia was unclear. In 1944, Tito had written that it "will obtain a broader autonomy, and the question of which federal unit they are joined to will depend on the people themselves, through their representatives" although in practice decisionmaking was centralised and undemocratic.[1] There were various proposals to join Kosovo to other areas (even to Albania) but in 1945 it was decided to join Kosovo to Serbia. However, one piece of the former Ottoman province of Kosovo was given to the new Yugoslav republic of Macedonia (including the former capital Skopje), whilst another part had passed to Montenegro (mainly Pljevlja, Bijelo Polje and Rožaje), also a new entity. In July 1945, a "Resolution for the annexation of Kosovo-Metohija to federal Serbia" was passed by Kosovo's "Regional People's Council".[2]
In principle, Albanian became an official language; but little changed in practice as most judges and government officials were Slavs. In the immediate post-war years there was a certain amount of cooperation with the Albanian government, which even sent a few Albanian-speaking teachers to Kosovo.
After the break with Cominform in 1948, the Tito government tightened some policies, including stricter collectivisation. This led to serious reductions in grain production in Kosovo; there were food shortages across Yugoslavia. In parallel with this, the Hoxha government began to criticise Yugoslav rule over Kosovo; the Tito government responded with crackdowns on the local population, in search of "traitors" and "fifth columnists", although the earliest underground pro-Tirana group was not founded until the early 1960s.[3]
Kosovo officially became an autonomous province in 1963. Tensions between ethnic Albanians and the Yugoslav government were significant, not only due to national tensions but also due to political ideological concerns, especially regarding relations with neighbouring Albania.[4] Harsh repressive measures were imposed on Kosovo Albanians due to suspicions that they there were Kosovo Albanian sympathisers of the Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha of Albania.[4] In 1956, a show trial in Pristina was held in which multiple Albanian Communists of Kosovo were convicted of being infiltrators from Albania and were given long prison sentences.[4] High-ranking Serbian communist official Aleksandar Ranković sought to secure the position of the Serbs in Kosovo and gave them dominance in Kosovo's nomenklatura.[5]
Islam in Kosovo at this time was repressed and both Albanians and Muslim Slavs were encouraged to declare themselves to be Turkish and emigrate to Turkey.[4] At the same time Serbs and Montenegrins dominated the government, security forces, and industrial employment in Kosovo.[4] Albanians resented these conditions and protested against them in the late 1960s, accusing the actions taken by authorities in Kosovo as being colonialist, as well as demanding that Kosovo be made a republic, or declaring support for Albania.[4]
After the ouster of Ranković in 1966, the agenda of pro-decentralisation reformers in Yugoslavia, especially from Slovenia and Croatia succeeded in the late 1960s in attaining substantial decentralisation of powers, creating substantial autonomy in Kosovo and Vojvodina, and recognising a Muslim Yugoslav nationality.[6] As a result of these reforms, there was a massive overhaul of Kosovo's nomenklatura and police, that shifted from being Serb-dominated to ethnic Albanian-dominated through firing Serbs in large scale.[6] Further concessions were made to the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo in response to unrest, including the creation of the University of Pristina as an Albanian language institution.[6] These changes created widespread fear amongst Serbs that they were being made second-class citizens in Yugoslavia by these changes.[7]
The Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija received more and more autonomy and self-government within Serbia and Yugoslavia during the 1970s, and its name was officially changed in 1974 to Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo ("and Metohija" was removed because it was not used by the Kosovo Albanians and "Socialist" was added to further show the Socialist ideal of the then SFRY). In the 1974 Constitution of Yugoslavia, Kosovo was granted major autonomy, allowing it to have its own administration, assembly, and judiciary; as well as having a membership in the collective presidency and the Yugoslav parliament, in which it held veto power.[8]
[edit] References
- ^ Malcolm, Noel. Kosovo: A Short History. London: Macmillan. pp. 315. ISBN 0330412248.
- ^ Malcolm, Noel. Kosovo: A Short History. London: Macmillan. pp. 316. ISBN 0330412248.
- ^ Malcolm, Noel. Kosovo: A Short History. London: Macmillan. pp. 322. ISBN 0330412248.
- ^ a b c d e f Independent International Commission on Kosovo. The Kosovo report: conflict, international response, lessons learned. New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 35.
- ^ Melissa Katherine Bokovoy, Jill A. Irvine, Carol S. Lilly. State-society relations in Yugoslavia, 1945–1992. Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997. Pp. 295.
- ^ a b c Melissa Katherine Bokovoy, Jill A. Irvine, Carol S. Lilly. State-society relations in Yugoslavia, 1945–1992. Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997. Pp. 296.
- ^ Melissa Katherine Bokovoy, Jill A. Irvine, Carol S. Lilly. State-society relations in Yugoslavia, 1945–1992. Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997. Pp. 301.
- ^ Independent International Commission on Kosovo. The Kosovo report: conflict, international response, lessons learned. New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 35–36.
[edit] See also
