Is the Kosovo Case a “Unique”? A Comparison Between the Balkan and Transcaucasian Separatism (1)

Preface

Recently the armed conflict between the Armenian and the Azerbaijani militaries was renewed over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh – officially an autonomous province within Azerbaijan. This event once again opened the question of the legitimacy of similar self-proclaimed independence cases around the world and international (non)recognition of such de facto quasi- and client-states (Transnistria, North Cyprus, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, West Sahara, South Sudan, East Timor…).[i] However, from the European perspective, three cases from the Caucasus (Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia) have to be first analyzed in comparison with the Balkan case of Kosovo (in fact, Kosovo-Metochia).

A Domino effect

After February 2008 when Kosovo Albanian-dominated parliament proclaimed Kosovo independence (without organizing a referendum) with obvious US diplomatic support (unilateral recognition) with the explanation that the Kosovo case is unique in the World (i.e., it will be not repeated) one can ask the question: is the problem of the southern Serbian province of Kosovo really unique and surely unrepeatable in some other parts of the world as US administration was trying to convince the rest of the international community?

Consequences of recognition of Kosovo’s independence by one (smaller) part of the international community are already (and going to be in the future) visible primarily in the Caucasus because of the very similar problems and the situation in these two regions. In the Caucasus (where around 50 different ethnolinguistic groups are living together) self-proclaimed independence has already was done by Abkhazia and South Ossetia during their wars of 1991−1993 against the central authorities of Georgia but up to mid-2008 both of these two separatist regions from Georgia were not internationally recognized by any state in the world. The region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which proclaimed its independence in 1991 from Azerbaijan with full military and political support from Armenia, was also not recognized before Kosovo’s independence. We have to remember that separatist movements in the Caucasus in the 1990s occurred at the time when Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed their independence from Yugoslavia and have been soon recognized as independent states and even became accepted members of the Council of Europe and the United Nations.[ii]

However, only several months after the self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo on February 17th, 2008 a wave of recognition of three Caucasus separatist states started as a classic example of a domino effect policy in international relations. It has to be noticed that the experts from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed even in 2007 their real fear in the case of US and EU unilateral recognition of Kosovo independence, the same unilateral diplomatic act could be implied by Russia (and other countries) by recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a matter of diplomatic compensation and as result of domino effect in the international relations. It is also known and from official OSCE sources that the Russian delegates in this pan-European security organization have been constantly warning before 2008 the West that such a scenario is quite possible, but with one peculiarity: from 2007 they stopped to mention the possibility of Russian recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh’s self-proclaimed independence in 1991. It was most probably for the reason that Moscow did not want to spoil good relations with Azerbaijan – a country with huge reserves of natural gas and oil.[iii]

Kosovo

Kosovo is the Balkan region that became during the last 150 years contested land between Serb and Albanian nationalisms. The region (for the Serbs Kosovo and Metochia, for the Albanians Kosova or Kosovë), however, has different historical and national-cultural importance for these two nations.[iv] For the Serbs, Kosovo is the “cradle of Serbia”[v] – a central and pivotal land in regard to their statehood and national identity for the reason that before the Ottoman occupation of Serbia in the mid-15th century it was exactly Kosovo to the administrative, political, cultural, religious and economic center of medieval Serbia. However, differently to the Serb case, for the Albanians this region historically was of marginal importance concerning their national identity and particularly statehood. That became the crucial reason why the great European powers did not include Kosovo into the newly (and for the first time in history) self-proclaimed independent state of Albania (on November 28th, 1912) but recognized Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia after the Balkan Wars (1912−1913).

Kosovo was the birthplace of Serbia as a powerful state but also the place where Serbia lost its real independence to the Ottoman Turks after the Battle of Kosovo on June 28th, 1389. Contrary, the region means simply nothing for the Albanian statehood, but it became the birthplace of Albanian territorial nationalism as it was the town of Prizren in Kosovo where in June 1878 the (First Albanian) Prizren League declared a Greater (Islamic) Albania as an autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire composed by Albania itself, Kosovo, West Macedonia, East Montenegro, and North-West Greece. This megalomania project, nevertheless, left up today to be for all kinds of Albanian chauvinistic nationalists as the cornerstone of their political ideology of a Greater and ethnically pure (Islamic) Albania. This process of purification of Kosovo on both ethnic and confessional bases started by the Muslim Albanians immediately after the Prizren League session in 1878 and was continued during WWII within the borders of Mussolini’s created Greater Albania when up to 20.000 Christian Serbs were killed in the region followed by at least 100.000 expelled Serbs.

The Albanian terror against the Serbs was legalized by the Yugoslav authorities at the time of Kosovo’s very broad autonomy (in fact independence) from 1974 to 1989 but it received a form of genocide on Serbs and all other non-Albanians from the time of NATO occupation of Kosovo in June 1999 up today (the British, US, German, Italian and French military forces occupied different sectors of Kosovo).[vi] As a consequence, the ethnic Albanians today compose 97% of Kosovo’s population compared with only 2% in 1455 (according to the first Ottoman census).[vii] On the other hand, Kosovo’s Albanians were politically oppressed by the Serb-led regimes during the interwar time (1919−1941), the first two decades after WWII, and during the government of Slobodan Milosevic in the years of 1989−1998. However, for the matter of comparison, the Serb oppression had as a single aim just to prevent the territorial separation of Kosovo from the rest of Serbia while the Albanian terror was inspired by a much more serious national goal: to ethnically clean Kosovo as a part of a Greater Albania.

South Ossetia

At first glance, it can be said that the Orthodox South Ossetians are equally separatist as the Muslim Kosovo Albanians. However, the South Ossetians are having sympathies towards the Serbs (not because both of them are the Orthodox) but not towards, as we could expect, separatist Kosovo Albanians. The real reason for such sympathies is similar legal state rights applied by both the Serbs in Kosovo and the South Ossetians – the only European nation in the Caucasus.

Historically, South Ossetia (like Abkhazia) was never an integral part of the sovereign Georgian state, differently from Kosovo in its historical relations with Serbia as Kosovo was not only integral but culturally and politically the most important and even administratively central region of the medieval Serbian state till 1455 when Kosovo became occupied by the Ottomans and a such away separated from the rest of Serbia. Shortly, Kosovo before the Ottoman occupation was the historical, political, administrative, cultural, and church center of Serbia populated before 1700 exclusively by the Serbs (the Albanians came to Kosovo from Albania after 1700).

However, in comparison with the Kosovo-Serbia relation case, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were never of any kind of centers of any kind of Georgian state as all the time they have been provincial (occupied) regions of Georgia even populated by different ethnolinguistic groups. Moreover, Georgia itself had never before the very beginning of the 19th century when entered Russia strongly and united state territory, also differently to Serbia which up to its lost independence in 1459 was profoundly united with Kosovo as its national and state center. Also, differently from Georgia, Serbia by herself and Russian military and diplomatic support regained her state de facto independence during the Serbian Revolution of 1804−1815 against the Ottoman Empire while Georgia was waiting to regain its state independence for the time of self-destruction of the USSR in 1991. It has to be noticed that the present-day territory of Georgia entered Russia in parts – segment by segment. Ossetia as a united territory (not divided into Northern and Southern as today’s situation is) became voluntarily part of the Russian Empire in 1774. The Russian Empress Catherin the Great (1762−1796), in order to be surely convinced that the Ossetians are independent, before the incorporation of this province into the Russian Empire sent a special commission that informed St. Petersburg that “the Ossetians are free people subordinated to no one” (what means in other words, not under any kind of the Georgian rule or subordination).

Georgia itself became part of the Russian Empire in 1804 (27 years later than Ossetia) being before that from 1783 a protectorate of the Russian Empire. This fact is the most important argument used by the South Ossetians in their dispute with the Georgian authorities. Differently to the Ossetians, Kosovo Albanians such arguments do not have in relation to the Serbs. It is known that the Albanians started to settle themselves in the region of Kosovo from present-day North Albania only after the First Serbian Great Migration from the region in 1689 (in fact, from 1753 in big masses). It should be said as well that, according to several Byzantine and Arab sources, the Balkan Albanians are originating from the Caucasus Albania. In the other words, the Caucasus Albanians left in the 9th century their homeland (Dagestan and Azerbaijan) and have been settled by the Arabs in West Sicily and South Italy which they left in 1043 and came to the Balkans (to present-day Central Albania). It means that the Albanians are not authentic Balkan people unlike the Serbs who are most probably one of the oldest Balkan nations (the aboriginal Balkan Illyrians).

Georgia declared its independence during the Russian Civil War in 1918 but became occupied by the Bolshevik Red Army in 1921. Georgia joined the USSR next year as a part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Republic together with Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, Georgia became a separate Soviet Republic in 1936 like Armenia and Azerbaijan. The southern part of Ossetia (together with Abkhazia) was given to be administered by Georgia by the decision of three Georgian Communists – Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Jughashvili), Sergei Ordzonikidze and Avelj Enukindze. Nevertheless, between two parts of Ossetia (North and South) never was a state border before 1994.

The people of South Ossetia on the referendum upon the destiny of the USSR on March 17th, 1991 voted for the existence of the Soviet Union (like the Serbs upon Yugoslavia, but Kosovo Albanians on an illegal referendum to become independent from Serbia like Georgians from the USSR) that was a month before Georgia became independent from the USSR. The referendum on March 17th, 1991 was organized two months after the Georgian army started the war against South Ossetia in which till September of the same year 86 Ossetian villages have been burned. It is calculated that more than 1.000 Ossetians lost their lives and around 12.000 Ossetians emigrated from the South to North Ossetia. This is the point of similarity with expelled around 250.000 Serbs from Kosovo by the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army after the NATO peace-keeping troops entered this province in June 1999 and legalized Muslim Albanian terror over the Christian Serbs and other non-Albanians.

An Independence of the Republic of South Ossetia was proclaimed on May 29th, 1992. However, this legal action has not been understood as a “separatist” because at that time Georgia was not recognized by no one state in the world as an independent one and Georgia was not a member of the United Nations. Oppositely to the South Ossetian case, Kosovo Albanian unilateral independence proclamation on February 18th, 2008 cannot be treated by the international community as a legal one (at least without direct permission by Belgrade) as Kosovo by the international law and agreements is still an integral part of Serbia. Moreover, Serbia (different from Georgia in May 1992) is an internationally recognized independent state and a member of the United Nations. This is a common point of similarity between the Ossetians and the Serbs: both of them are fighting against the separation of one part of the national body and land from the motherland (Ossetia and Serbia).

Abkhazia

Abkhazia is a Caucasian province that was a part of the ex-USSR in the form of the Autonomous Soviet Republic within the Soviet Republic of Georgia. However, in comparison with Kosovo’s status as an Autonomous Province within Serbia from 1974 to 1989, Abkhazia did not reach even half of the rights and power Kosovo had: President, Assembly, police forces, Academy of Science and Arts, Constitution (in direct opposition to the Constitution of Serbia) and even Territorial Defence forces (in fact the provincial army). Nevertheless, in April 1991 Abkhazia became a part of the self-proclaimed independent state of the Republic of Georgia, against the will of both the Abkhazian population of the Islamic denomination (at that time 18% out of all Abkhazian inhabitants) and Abkhazian Russian-speakers (14%). Subsequently, at least one-third of the Abkhazian population opposed its integration into independent Georgia in 1991.

The conflict with Georgian central authorities started when the troops of the Muslim volunteers from neighboring territories, but mainly from Chechnya, helped the local Abkhazian Muslims in their struggle against Tbilisi security forces. Georgia at that time was already involved in the civil war against the Ossetian separatists and for that reason seriously weakened. As a result of the conflict with the Abkhazian separatists, Tbilisi, which lost all control over Abkhazia, was finally forced to accept being militarily defeated and therefore compelled to start political negotiations on the extensive autonomy status of Abkhazia within sovereign Georgia. Ultimately, the negotiations between the Abkhazian government and Georgia became futile, and a very fragile peace was achieved under the civil supervision of the UN observers and the Russian military troops as a guarantor of the peace-treaty implementation.

Georgia was weak to recover political control over the separatist republic of Abkhazia in the 1990s. President Eduard Shevardnadze was ultimately only able to restore some order within Georgia which was at that time under de facto Russian protection and therefore with implicit political-military assistance by Russia. As a consequence, Shevardnadze signed an agreement with Russia on the allowance of 20.000 Russian military troops to be present in two Georgian separatist republics alongside the Russian right to use Georgia’s Black Sea port of Poti.

The economic background of such pro-Russian policy by Shevardnadze is understood from the fact that at that time Georgia was in desperate need of direct Russian economic assistance which is quite visible from the very fact that in 1994 Georgia’s GDP declined to only 25% of its pre-independence level. As a direct Russian economic and financial help, Georgia’s economy became soon stabilized with controlled inflation and state spending reigned in.

Nevertheless, it was clear that Georgia can maintain at least a formal authority over both South Ossetia and Abkhazia only being within the Russian sphere of influence in the region of Transcaucasia. Any change of the side would bring and de facto separation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Tbilisi which, in fact, happened in reality in 2008 due to (irrational) pro-American policy by Mikhail Saakashvili – a leader of the 2003 Georgian colored revolution (the Rose Revolution) which finally removed Shevardnadze from power but six years later and Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia.

End of the first part.

To be continued.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Ex-University Professor

Research Fellow at Centre for Geostrategic Studies

Belgrade, Serbia

www.geostrategy.rs

vsotirovic@yahoo.com

© Vladislav B. Sotirovic 2023

References:

[i] On quasi-states, see [Pål Kolstø, “The Sustainability and Future of Unrecognized Quasi-States”, Journal of Peace Research, vol. 43, no. 6, 2006, 723−740].

[ii] On the Caucasian geopolitics, see [Chorbajian  Levon, Patrick Donabedian, Claude Mutafian, The Caucasian Knot, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed., 1994; Jorge Heine, “The Conflict in the Caucasus: Causing a New Cold War?”, India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, vol. 65, no. 1, 2009, 55−66].

[iii] On the issue of connection between geopolitics and energy, see [Klare Michael, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008].

[iv] However, in the western academic literature on Kosovo as disputed land between the Serbs and the Albanians, usually the region is wrongly presented as central for both nationalities concerning their cultural identity [Jan Palmowski, Dictionary of Contemporary World History from 1900 to the Present Day, Oxford−New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 354].

[v] Радован Самарџић и други, Косово и Метохија у српској историји, Београд: СКЗ, 1989, 5−46.

[vi] On this issue, see [Dragan Kojadinović (ed.), The March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija (March 17-19, 2004) with a survey of destroyed and endangered Christian cultural heritage, Belgrade: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, 2004; Мирко Чупић, Отета земља. Косово и Метохија (злочини, прогони, отпори), Београд: Нолит, 2006; Hannes Hofbauer, Experiment Kosovo. Die Rückker des Kolonialismus, Wien, 2008].

[vii] On the issue of Kosovo War in 1998−1999 and the Albanian terror after the war, see [Judah Tim, Kosovo: War and Revenge, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000].

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