 |
| Serbian priests blessing Serbian commanders before massacring the population of Kosovo in 1912, source: Facebook |
Historically and politically, the liberation of June 1999 was a response to the Serbian occupation of October 1912. In the long journey of the people of Kosovo, there are some periods more determining than others. However, the short intervals between them in chronological order and the significance of the events within them have marginalized some events in history, as has been the case with the days of the Serbian occupation of Kosovo during the First Balkan War. Perhaps those that are so terrible and sad, one somehow prefers to forget some of them, to move on with life more easily.
 |
| Street in Prishtina, Kosovo (Photo: Fred Boissonnas, 1913 |
October 22, 1912, marks one of the darkest days in the modern history of Albanians and Kosovo! On that day, 111 years ago, Serbian Chetnik units and the regular Serbian army occupied Pristina and killed thousands of Albanian civilians. Four days earlier, on October 18, 1912, about 255,000 Serbian soldiers, divided into three groups, set out to attack in three directions, one day after Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Among them, the Third Army of Serbia, with about 76,000 soldiers, commanded by General Bozhidar Jankoviq, was tasked with the occupation of Kosovo.
 |
| Sitting are the Albanians captured by the Serbian army in 1912 |
The first battle of this war took place two days earlier, when Serbian voivode Vojisllav Tankosiq, leading a Chetnik detachment, attacked the border point in Merdare. On the third day of the fighting, the Chetniks were joined by the regular Serbian army, with whom they defeated Albanian troops. From Merdara, they continued through the Llap Valley towards Pristina, encountering resistance on the way at Mount Kulina, where the villages of Tenezhdoll, Lupç, and Vranidoll meet. Other Serbian military units, coming from Medvegja, aimed for Pristina, passing through the villages of Sfircë and Prapashticë.
 |
| Serbian officers, commanders and heads of anti-Albanian clans who participated in the invasion of Kosovo in 1912 |
In the afternoon of October 22, 1912, Vojisllav Tankosiq entered Pristina at the head of Chetnik troops, clearing the way for the soldiers of the Third Army of the Kingdom of Serbia. They jointly carried out crimes against the civilian population of Pristina and its villages. For this, Vojisllav Tankosiq was promoted to the rank of major. At that time, these photographs were taken, with one showing Vojisllav Tankosiq kneeling among other Chetniks, while in another photograph, he posed in Serbian military uniform.
 |
| coins dedicated to the invasion of Kosovo by the Serbs in 1912 |
Chetnik and Serbian military troops killed thousands of Albanian men and imprisoned thousands more, as seen in a photograph where a group of Pristina Albanians is sitting on the ground surrounded by Serbian soldiers. In the Serbian military war medal to honor those who occupied Kosovo, the names of 20 cities are written, with Pristina's being the first on the bottom right leaf.
In an article from the American newspaper The New York Times, dated December 31, 1912, titled "Serbian Army Leaves Behind a Path of Bloodshed," citing reports from the Austro-Hungarian authorities, it is said that around Pristina, 5,000 people were killed. According to these reports, Chetniks and Serbian soldiers burned villages, killed men in front of women, and stabbed children with bayonets.
A few months later, in 1913, Swiss photographer Fred Boissonnas took a photograph showing Pristina at a time when the city had been devastated by the loss of thousands of people killed and many others imprisoned. The First Balkan War caused the deaths of thousands of Albanians. According to reports from foreign correspondents, only in Kosovo, the Serbian army and Chetnik groups killed over 25,000 Albanians. The year 1912, when Serbia occupied Kosovo, was a dark era that would be followed by the long twentieth century, during which the invading Serbia exercised systematic violence, expropriation, colonization, persecution, oppression, imprisonment, violence, killings, and massacres of thousands of Albanians across generations, committing genocide, until Kosovo's liberation in 1999.
Exactly 111 years later, Pristina is a modern city with authentic culture, serving as the capital of the Republic of Kosovo, a parliamentary republic with developed democracy and a clear political future among other European states.