Kosovo has been in the Serbian news a lot lately so I wanted to get a bit of historical background on the place. In February they declared independence and that caused protests in Serbia. It is a place of conflict and violence.
Kosovo was the southern part of Serbia. It held 20% of the Serbian population and composed about 12% of its land mass. The area is small compared to the USA, with Kosovo only being ¼ the size of my home of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It is actually only a bit bigger than Iron county. The majority (> 90%) of the population is Albanian but many Serbs consider it the “cultural heartland” of the nation and the scene of Serbian Orthodox monasteries, historic battlefields, and other historic sites.
It was my goal in reading Kosovo: A Short History by Noel Malcolm, to learn more about why some Serbs feel so strongly about the place, considering it is now mostly Albanian. The question of Kosovo independence is a touchy subject with Serbs and this particular book caused many ill-feelings with the Serbs. It is not my place to form an opinion this question and I will read more on Kosovo. I can say it is sad to have had so much death and hate in the breakup of Yugoslavia. This is the last bit of it. The topic of Kosovo will come up in conversation with my future Serb friends and I do want to visit the place to see it for myself, so some background on the area will not hurt.
In general, I disagree with the former US president Woodrow Wilson regarding his view on independence movements. When the great powers were deciding the fate of nations and peoples after World War I, he had the philosophy that if an area was mostly homogeneous in regards to ethnicity, that they should have self-determination. That sounds nice, but the world is more complex than that. I see that a strength of the USA is the union of many different kinds of people to form one unified government and more importantly, one economy. Personally, I believe that standard of living takes precedence over everything and it is nicer to live in a bigger economy. There are more opportunities to earn a living and have a better home and lifestyle for individual families. I am not sure that this movement of smaller and smaller nations is beneficial in this regard.
I am mix of Slovak and Polish descent. I am a “pan-Slavist” and wish that the Slavs would have banded together from the beginning to form one country. They would have had a better standard of living and wielded more power in defending themselves against larger outside powers like the Ottomans and the Nazis. According to Wikipedia there are 320 million Slavs. Imagine if Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia along with the Slavs of former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria formed one country. It would also be more powerful than current European heavyweights, Germany and France.
As I move through the book, I’ll blog more about what I am learning.
Bill's Blog 
Incidentally, I found your site and “Kosovo a short history” is a great read
You also can read “Under the holy lime Tree” by Sabrina P. Ramet about the pan Slavism. A printout of the article will be e better read and an advice: make some Albanian friends to have a balanced view.
Thanks, I’ll look up the book and will try to make some Albanian friends to hear what they have to say.
Sorry to tell you this, but Noel Malcolm is a bad choice if you want a non-biased, neutral point of view. I can’t forward any authors to you since I followed the events from the beginning in western media as well as in independent media, know the timeline and know who did what and therefore don’t need some fairy-tale teller to tell me how someone is not right because of his very own inventions and alterations to the history, he will just try to portray things the way he needs them to fit his view on the world-view. And that goes for nearly anyone you ask, be it a serbian or an albanian. If you want facts, grab an encyclopedia, they are the most neutral you can get. Encyclopedia Brittanica for example. Whatever else you read will be biased and trying to put some certain point of view upon you. Greetings.