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Demographic history of Kosovo

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Ottoman Rule

14th century

The Dečani Charter from 1330 contained detailed list of households and chartered villages in Metohija and northwestern Albania:

3 of 89 settlements were Albanian, the other being non-Albanian.
Out of the 2,166 farming homesteads and 2,666 houses in cattle-grazing land, 44 were registrated as Albanian (1,8%). Others were registered as Slavic i. e. Serbian.

The non-Serbian population of Kosovo didn't exceed 2% by the end of the 14th century.

15th century

1455: Turkish cadastral tax census (defter) of the Brankovic dynasty lands (covering 80% of present-day Kosovo) recorded 480 villages, 13,693 adult males, 12,985 dwellings, 14,087 household heads (480 widows and 13,607 adult males). By ethnicity:

  • 12,985 Serbian dwellings present in all 480 villages and towns
  • 75 Vlach dwellings in 34 villages
  • 46 Albanian dwellings in 23 villages
  • 17 Bulgarian dwellings in 10 villages
  • 5 Greek dwellings in Lauša, Vučitrn
  • 1 Jewish dwelling in Vučitrn
  • 1 Croat dwelling

1487: A census of the House of Branković Ottoman

  • Rural areas:

17th - 18th century

The Great Turkish War of 1683-1699 between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs led to the flight of a substantial part of Kosovan Serbian population to Austrian held Vojvodina and the Military Frontier - over 180,000 Serbs; 20,000 Serbs left Prizren alone. Following this an influx of Moslem Albanian from the highlands (Malesi) occurred, mostly into Metohija. The process continued in 18th century.

The same was repeated during the Second Migration of Serbs in 1737.

19th century

19th century data about the population of Kosovo tend to be rather conflicting, giving sometimes numerical superiority to the Serbs and sometimes to the Albanians. The Ottoman statistics are regarded as unreliable, as the empire counted its citizens by religion rather than nationality, using birth records rather than surveys of individuals.

A study in 1838 by an Austrian physician, dr. Joseph Müller found Metohija to be mostly Slavic (Serbian) in character. Müller gives data for the three counties (Bezirke) of Prizren, Peć and Đakovica which roughly covered Metohija, the portion adjacent to Albania and most affected by Albanian settlers. Out of 195,000 inhabitants in Metohija, Müller found:

Müller's observations on towns:

Map published by French ethnographer G. Lejean in 1861 shows that Albanians lived on around 57% of the territory of today's province while a similar map, published by British travellers G. M. Mackenzie and A. P. Irby in 1867 shows slightly less; these maps don't show which population was larger overall.

A study done in 1871 by Austrian colonel Peter Kukulj for the internal use of the Austro-Hungarian army showed that the mutesarifluk of Prizren (corresponding largely to present-day Kosovo) had some 500,000 inhabitants, of which:

It is estimated that between 200,000 and 400,000 Serbs were cleansed out of the Vilayet of Kosovo between 1876 and 1912, especially during the Greek-Ottoman War in 1897.

Maps published by German historian Kiepert in 1876, J. Hahn and Austrian consul K. Sax, show that Albanians live on most of the territory of today's province, however they don't show which population is larger. According to these, the regions of Kosovska Mitrovica and Kosovo Polje were settled mostly by Serbs, whereas most of the terrirory of western and eastern parts of today's province was settled by Moslem Albanians.

An Austrian statistics published in 1899 estimated:

20th century

British journalist H. Brailsford estimated that two-thirds of the population of Kosovo was Albanian and one-third Serbian. The most populous western districts of Djakovica and Pec were said to have between 20,000 and 25,000 Albanian households, as against some 5,000 Serbian ones. Map of Alfred Stead, published in 1909, shows that similar numbers of Serbs and Albanians were living in the territory.

German scholar Gustav Weigand gave the following statistical data about the population of Kosovo, based on the pre-war situation in Kosovo in 1912:

Metohija with the town of Djakovica is furthermore defined as almost exclusively Albanian by Weigand.

The Ottomans conducted a population census in the Viyalet of Kosovo, just before its fall:

The population composition changed a lot in the 20th century. Expulsion of Albanians took place continuously, according to an ill-famous document, prepared by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts leading member, Vaso Čubrilović, in the document called "Iseljavanje Arnauta" (from Serbian "Expulsion of Arnauts").

Serbia and Yugoslavia

Balkan Wars and World War I-World War II

Retaking of Kosovo by Serbia in 1912 resulting in suppression of the local Albanian population and ethnic cleansing of some regions.

  • 1921 a total of 439,010 inhabitants whereof 280,440 (64.1%) Albanians

A map of the Serbian census of 1921* shows that most of the terrirory was settled by Albanians, with Serbian enclaves around Prizren, Sredska Zupa and Pristina. Religion on the largest part of the territory was Islam with Eastern Orthodox enclaves around Kosovska Mitrovica, Pristina and Gnjilane.

Colonisation programmes were implemented by the Serbian authorities in the periods between 1922 and 1929, and 1933 and 1938 leading to the settlement of some 10,000 Serbian families, mostly in northern Kosovo, Kosovo Polje and along the Lab River.

An agreement on the emigration of some 200,000 Albanians and Turks was signed with the Republic of Turkey in 1938. As Turkey pulled out of the agreement at an early stage for fear of not being able to accommodate the immigrants, only 4,000 Muslims left the province.

However, The Yugoslav authorities conducted a census on the region of Kosovo - estimating 125,000 Albanians in 1939.

World War II-1968

Most of the teritorry of today's province is occupied by Italian-controlled Greater Albania, massacres of some 10,000Serbs, ethnic cleansing of about 80 to 100,000 or more (including all of the colonists) and settling of 100,000 of Albanians from Albania.

1968-1989: Autonomy

After the province gained autonomy, local provincial Statistical office given authority over census whereas the rest of the country's census was under the tutelage of the Federal Statistical Commission. Allegations of census rigging (for the 1971 and 1981) by Turk, Muslim and Roma minorities who claim forceful Albanization. Serb claims Albanians drastically overincreased their own numbers. Nothing could be substantiated though because the Kosovo Statistical offices were under exclusive Albanian control which was against the national norm at the time which dicated that census takers had to be of different nationalities (i.e. one Albanian and one Serb not both Albanian as was the case in the two following censa).

1971: 1,243,693 total inhabitants

Albanians take ever-increasing control of Autonomous province with the introduction of the 1974 Constitution of SFRY.

1989-1999: Centralized Yugoslav Control

Ethnic map of Kosovo

Yugoslav Central Government reasserts control over Kosovo in 1989.

Official Yugoslav statistical results, almost all Albanians and some Roma, Muslims boyott the census following a call by Ibrahim Rugova to boycott Serbian institutions. 1991 359,346 total population

Official Yugoslav statistical corrections and projections, with the help of previous census results (1948-1981):

1,956,196 Total population

The corrections should not taken to be fully accurate. The number of Albanians is sometimes regarded as being an underestimate. On the other hand, it is sometimes regarded as an overestimate, being derived from earlier censa which are believed to be overestimates. The Statistical Office of Kosovo states that the quality of the 1991 census is "questionable." .

In September 1993, the Bosniak parlament returned their historical name Bosniaks, during the regime of communist Yugoslavia, made as a compromise between a Moslem Communist leader Hamdija Pozderac and the Serbian communists. Some Kosovar Muslims have started using this term to refer to themselves since.

1995 Hivzi Islami's estimate

In the year of 1995, Dr. Hivzi Islami of the Prishtina Demographic Department for Kosovo conducted an unofficial census estimate for Kosova. There was a total of around 2,200,000 Kosovar inhabitants according to the department:

  • Albanians - around 1,960,000 (89.9%); 1,360,000 without the diaspora
  • Serbs - around 140,000 (6.3%)
  • Muslims - around 40,000 (1.9%)
  • Roma - around 40,000 (1.9%)
  • Turks - around 8,000 (0.3%)
  • Montenegrins - around 7,000 (0.3%)
  • others - around 5,000 (0.2%)

The same department counted in the list of all Albanian diaspora that had the Yugoslav citizenship - a list of around 500,000 ethnic Albanians with Yugoslav citizenship living abroad:

Refugees in the second half of 1998

Just before the 13 October 1998, UNHCR estimated that there were around 200,000 misplaced people in Kosovo in the civil war that already engulphed half of the province. Of that, some 120,000 were displaced abroad (forming 80% of FRJ's displaced diaspora):

1998 Federal Secretariat of Information

In 1998 the Federal Secretariat of Information in Belgrade estimated a pre-term population census for the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija listing around 1,378,980 citizens:

Kosovo War refugees

The total list of countries to which the refugees refuged and in what numbers:

abroad:

other countries to which Kosovars refuged:

1999-present: UN administration

During the Kosovo War in 1999, over 700,000 ethnic Albanians and around 100,000 ethnic Serbs were forced out of the province to neighbouring Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Serbia. After the United Nations took over administration of Kosovo following the war, the vast majority of the Albanian refugees returned.

Many non-Albanians - chiefly Serbs and Roma - fled or were expelled, mostly to the rest of Serbia at the end of the war, with further refugee outflows occurring as the result of sporadic ethnic violence. The number of registered refugees is around 250,000. The non-Albanian population in Kosovo is now about half of its pre-war total. The largest concentration of Serbs in the province is in the north, but many remain in Kosovo Serb enclaves surrounded by Albanian-populated areas. Also Gorani people, living on the south-most tip of the Kosovo are systematicaly opressed and denied their minority rights.

A large number of Albanians have moved into Kosovo since 1999, due to the complete liberalization of the Kosovo-Albania border. The veracity of this claim is unclear; the Statistical Office of Kosovo states that "there are at present no reliable statistics on migration in Kosovo."

The 2000 Living Standard Measurement Survey by Statistical Office of Kosovo (rejected by Belgrade): Total population estimated between 1,8 and 2,0 million, however, it was boycotted largely by non-Albanians.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates the population at 2.0 to 2.2 million people, extrapolating from voter registration data recorded by the UNMIK Department of Local Administration in 2000.

Some estimates by Albanian demographers estimate a population of 2.4 million Albanians living in Kosovo today. This is regarded by most independent observers as an overestimate as it would imply a total population of some 2.5-2.6 million people in Kosovo, much higher than other estimates.

See also

References

  1. The original Turkish-language copy of the census is stored in Istanbul's archives. However, in 1972 the Sarajevo Institute of Middle Eastern Studies translated the census and published an analysis of it Kovačević Mr. Ešref, Handžić A., Hadžibegović H. Oblast Brankovića - Opširni katastarski popis iz 1455., Orijentalni institut, Sarajevo 1972. Subsequently others have covered the subject as well such as Vukanović Tatomir, Srbi na Kosovu, Vranje, 1986.
  2. ^ Gustav Weigand, Ethnographie von Makedonien, Leipzig, 1924; Густав Вайганд, Етнография на Македония (Bulgarian translation)
  3. Dr. Joseph Müller, Albanien, Rumelien und die Österreichisch-montenegrinische Gränze, Prag, 1844
  4. ^ H.R. Wilkinson, Maps and Politics; a review of the ethnographic cartography of Macedonia, Liverpool University Press, 1951
  5. Das Fürstenthum Serbien und Türkisch-Serbien, eine militärisch-geographische Skizze von Peter Kukolj, Major im k.k.Generalstabe, Wien 1871
  6. http://www.kosovo.net/sk/history/kosovo_origins/ko_chapter2.html
  7. Detailbeschreibung des Sandzaks Plevlje und des Vilajets Kosovo (Mit 8 Beilagen und 10 Taffeln), Als Manuskript gedruckt, Vien 1899, 80-81.
  8. H. N. Brailsford, Macedonia, Its Races and Their Future, London, 1906
  9. Servia by the Servians, Compiled and Edited by Alfred Stead, With a Map, London (William Heinemann), 1909. (Etnographical Map of Servia, Scale 1:2.750.000).
  10. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (1914). Report of the International Commission To Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars. Washington: The Carnegie Endowment.
  11. ^ Vickers, Miranda. Between Serb and Albanian - A History of Kosovo. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998 (quoting the official publications of the results of the 1921 and 1931 censuses in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / the Kingdom of Yugoslavia)
  12. Zec, Stevan, "Maps of our dividings political atlas of Yugoslav countries in XX century", Beograd : Beogradsko mašinsko-grafičko preduzeće, 1991.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference Krizman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference Istorija was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference CCJ was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Politika was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Official Yugoslav censa results 1948-1981
  18. Cite error: The named reference Annexe was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. BBC:
  20. UNHCR: 2002 Annual Statistical Report: Serbia and Montenegro, pg. 9
  21. http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=1981
  22. http://www.rastko.org.yu/rastko-gora/index.php
  23. People's Daily: Belgrade to Reject Results of U.N.-Conducted Census in Kosovo
  24. Living Standard Measurement Survey 2000, Statistical Office of Kosovo - see also Kosovo and its Population
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