Albania, Serbia and that drone

Why is Kosovo so important to both Serbs and Albanians?

On October 14, 2014, in Belgrade's Partizan stadium, a match between Serbia and Albania is taking place. It has been 50 years since the two national teams last faced each other.

Officially, a place at the 2016 Euros is at stake. In reality, there is much more.

Then, in the 41st minute, Pandora's box explodes.

Spectators—and soon the players—notice something hovering above the stadium: a drone, carrying a flag. After a few seconds, everyone sees that the flag is Albanian, distinguished by its red and black colours. But there is much more to it.

Depicted on the flag is a map of Albania. However, these are not the officially recognised borders of the modern state. Instead, they depict the borders of "Ethnic Albania." Alongside the map are the faces of two legendary figures from Albanian history: Ismail Qemali, the founder of modern Albania, and Isa Boletini, a key figure in the uprisings against the Ottoman Empire and Serbia. The flag also bears a single word: autochthonous.

As the drone descends to the players' level, Serbian defender Stefan Mitrović grabs the flag. Seconds later, Albanian player Bekim Balaj snatches it from his hands. The Albanian player rushes toward the sideline, intent on removing the flag from the pitch, convinced it was the right course of action.

Lorik Cana confirms this in the BBC podcast "Sport Witness" hosted by Jack Butcher.

“The first thing that came to my mind was, go very quickly and take it out as soon as possible to actually restart the game and keep everyone down, because I knew it could be very tense.”

But as Balaj tries to exit the field, a Serbian fan runs onto the pitch from the opposite side and strikes him with a plastic chair. Cana, the Albanian captain, intervenes to defend his teammate, and a brawl erupts. Other Serbian fans attempt to storm the pitch. The stadium erupts in a roar of hatred, filled with insults and anti-Albanian chants. The match is halted, and there are fears of the situation escalating further.

Some try to calm the waters; others seek to inflame the situation even more. Cana, back on his feet, gathers his players and leads them off the field. As the Albanians try to enter the tunnel to the dressing rooms, a barrage of objects rains down on them. Several Serbian fans who invaded the pitch tried to assault them.

Amid the chaos, two Serbian players, Kolarov and Ivanovic, manage to de-escalate the situation. Kolarov even escorts Xhaka into the tunnel, urging his people to stop.

The match is suspended. It would never be replayed.

UEFA initially decided to award a 3-0 walkover victory to Serbia and to penalise both federations: the Serbian FA was sanctioned with two home matches to be played behind closed doors and a three-point deduction, while both federations were fined €100,000.

However, the Albanian Federation appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne. In July 2015, the CAS overturned UEFA's decision and awarded the 3-0 victory to Albania, ruling that organisational failures and a lack of security guarantees from the Serbian federation were the decisive factors in the match's abandonment.

These were three crucial points that changed the destiny of the qualifying group. Serbia lost all hope of qualifying for EURO 2016, while Albania, partly thanks to those three points, achieved the miracle of qualifying for a major international competition for the first time in its history.

The incident was initiated by a single individual, Ismail Morina, but it was far more than a simple act of sporting misconduct. It was a metaphor for the complex and tense relations between Serbs and Albanians, rooted in the issue of Kosovo ( Kosova, in Albanian).

It served as yet another demonstration of how geopolitical disputes and historical narratives can ignite passions, even on a football pitch. Tomorrow evening, in Tirana, Albania and Serbia will meet again. This time, a place at the next World Cup is officially at stake. But between Albanians and Serbs, there is always much more at stake.

But why is Kosovo so important to both Serbs and Albanians?

What is the story behind the flag of Ethnic Albania?

Will there be more clashes tomorrow night?

The Battle of Kosovo Polje

To understand Kosovo's importance to Serbs and Albanians requires a significant leap back in time to June 15, 1389, the day the Battle of the Field of Blackbirds (Kosovo Polje in Serbian, Fusha e Kosovës in Albanian) was fought.

It remains one of the most significant events in Balkan history, particularly for the Serbian national identity. The conflict pitted a Christian army—composed mainly of Serbs under Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović but also including Bosnian, Albanian, Vlach, and Hungarian contingents—against the expansionist forces of the Ottoman Empire, led by Sultan Murad I.

The battle was exceptionally bloody, with both sides suffering immense losses. Both leaders, Prince Lazar and Sultan Murad I, were killed. Lazar was captured and executed by the Ottomans, while Sultan Murad I was slain by the Serbian knight Miloš Obilić, a central figure in Serbian epic poetry. A team bearing his name, FK Obilić, would later become famous during its two-year presidency under Zeljko Ražnatović, better known as Arkan. I talked about it in this article.

Strategically, the Ottomans' greater ability to replenish their forces made the battle a turning point, paving the way for the gradual Ottoman conquest of Serbia and much of the Balkans in the subsequent decades. The medieval Serbian state, though not immediately extinguished, became an Ottoman vassal and lost its full independence.

In the Serbian national narrative, the Battle of Kosovo is the foundational event—the "Serbian Golgotha." It is interpreted not as a military defeat but as a moral and spiritual victory, a heroic sacrifice to defend Christianity and the Serbian identity. Prince Lazar is venerated as a holy martyr by the Serbian Orthodox Church, and centuries of Serbian epic poetry have cemented the myth of Kosovo as the "cradle of the Serbian nation," a sacred land, and a perennial vow to "reconquer" or preserve it.

This narrative has been crucial in shaping the Serbian collective consciousness and has often been politically instrumentalised, particularly during the 19th and 20th centuries, to justify territorial claims and nationalist policies, as seen in the Balkan Wars and, more recently, during the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo conflict.

From the Albanian perspective, their historical participation in the battle alongside Christian forces against the Ottomans is sometimes highlighted, though this view is less central to their national historiography than it is for Serbs. Some Albanian historians point to the presence of Albanian feudal lords and their contingents in Lazar's army.

The historiographical dispute centres on the long-term significance of the battle and, more broadly, the historical claim over the Kosovo region, which was inhabited by Illyrians long before the arrival of the Slavs.

This battle, fought over 600 years ago, remains a symbol of extraordinary power. Laden with conflicting meanings, it is used to support competing identities and territorial claims, making Kosovo not just a historical site but an epicentre of divided memories.

Kosovo in Yugoslavia

Another historical period essential to understanding this story's complexity is the era of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, famous for the mnemonic: six states, five nations, four languages, three religions, two alphabets, and one Tito.

The end of World War II saw the birth of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) under Josip Broz Tito. In addition to its six republics, there were two autonomous regions: Vojvodina and the region of Kosovo and Metohija.

"Metohija" derives from the Greek metóchia (μετόχια), meaning "monastic properties." In Serbo-Croatian, it translates to "land of monasteries," referencing the significant Serbian Orthodox monasteries in southwestern Kosovo, an area known in Albanian as Rrafshi i Dukagjinit (the Dukagjin plateau).

Initially, Kosovo's autonomy was quite limited. The region, like the rest of Yugoslavia, was under strong centralised control. A significant change for the Albanian population occurred with the constitutional reforms of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1974, a new Yugoslav Constitution granted the region an unprecedented level of autonomy, starting with its name. "Metohija" was removed from the official title, and it became the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo. Albanians gained their provincial constitution, parliament, government, and judicial system, as well as direct representation in federal bodies, including the collective Yugoslav presidency (with veto power).

Albanian became an official language on par with Serbo-Croatian. This period marked a significant cultural, educational (with the expansion of the University of Pristina, founded in 1969-70, where instruction was also offered in Albanian), and political affirmation for the Albanian population of Kosovo.

The situation in the region began to deteriorate in 1980 with the death of Tito, the man who had managed the miracle of creating and holding Yugoslavia together. It is worth noting that Yugoslavia was so named because it was the land of the South Slavs. All its constituent peoples were ethnically Slavic and spoke closely related languages. Only Slovenian and Macedonian differ more significantly from Serbo-Croatian, which was spoken in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia.

And then there were the Albanians, who lived (and still live) predominantly in Kosovo but also in Montenegro, Macedonia (now North Macedonia), and Serbia. The Albanians are an ethnically distinct people. Their ancestors were the Illyrians, who were not a Slavic people. The Albanian language is a unique branch of the Indo-European language family and is unrelated to the Slavic languages.

In short, Albanians and Slavs are two very different people. This is the primary reason why Kosovo Albanians never truly embraced being part of Yugoslavia and always wished to break away from it. They never felt it was their own country, nor did they ever identify with it.

The gigantic void left by Tito was filled by Slobodan Milošević in Serbia. He began to leverage Serbian nationalism and an alleged threat to Kosovo Serbs from Albanians. This was a fabrication concocted by Kosovo Serbs for Milošević's first visit to the region—a deception brilliantly documented in what is arguably the best documentary ever made on the wars in the former Yugoslavia, produced by the BBC (starting at minute 3:40).

Milošević orchestrated a political and propaganda campaign to revoke Kosovo's autonomy. Between 1989 and 1990, through a series of political manoeuvres and imposed constitutional amendments, the autonomy of both Kosovo and Vojvodina was drastically reduced and then effectively abolished by Serbia.

Kosovo's autonomous institutions were dissolved, Albanian-language media were shut down or placed under strict Serbian control, and tens of thousands of Albanians were fired from public sector jobs, schools, and hospitals. This unilateral act by Milošević was a crucial factor in exacerbating ethnic tensions and contributed significantly to the spiral that led to the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the subsequent wars.

The suppression of Kosovo's autonomy was perceived by Albanians as a reassertion of Serbian dominance. It was the first spark that destabilized the situation and ignited the Yugoslav Wars, which raged throughout the last decade of the 20th century. These are wars that, even today, the vast majority of European media seem to have forgotten.

When Russia attacked Kyiv in February 2022, many described the conflict as the first in Europe since World War II. The Yugoslav Wars were fought in the European Union's backyard, yet many pretended not to see them.

There were thousands of victims in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, and Kosovo. The fact that Europeans have already forgotten this speaks volumes about their level of ignorance. Yet they present themselves daily as ambassadors of universal values like peace, democracy, and freedom of speech, while simultaneously ignoring the most significant event in their continent's recent history. It does become difficult to take them seriously.

1998-1999: The Kosovo War – Ethnic Cleansing and International Intervention

The Kosovo War was the bloody culmination of decades-long tensions between Kosovo's Albanian population and Slobodan Milošević's Serbian regime. The policy of peaceful resistance, pursued for much of the 1990s by the Kosovar Albanian leadership under Ibrahim Rugova, had failed to produce concrete results.

Serbian repression continued, while the international community remained focused on the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. This environment led to the gradual emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK) in the mid-1990s. If peaceful resistance was proving ineffective, it was time to prepare for violence.

UÇK attacks intensified between 1997 and early 1998. The response from Serbian security forces and the Yugoslav army was disproportionate and brutal, often targeting the Albanian civilian population indiscriminately.

A turning point was the Prekaz massacre in March 1998, where Serbian forces attacked the family compound of Adem Jashari, a UÇK founder, killing over 50 people, including many women and children. This event galvanised popular support for the UÇK and triggered a large-scale insurgency.

Throughout 1998, the conflict escalated. Serbian forces launched massive offensives against UÇK-controlled areas, employing tactics that included shelling villages, summary executions, rape, property destruction, and the forced expulsion of Albanian civilians, creating hundreds of thousands of internal refugees and displaced persons.

According to numerous human rights organisations and later indictments by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the goal of these actions was to terrorise the Albanian population and alter the region's demographic makeup. In other words: a full-fledged ethnic cleansing campaign.

Despite diplomatic efforts and ceasefire agreements, the violence continued. The Račak massacre in January 1999, where over 40 Albanian civilians were killed by Serbian forces, was another key event that pushed the international community toward more decisive action. The Rambouillet negotiations in February-March 1999, aimed at finding a political solution, failed when the Serbian delegation refused to accept the proposed terms, which included broad autonomy for Kosovo and the deployment of a NATO peacekeeping force.

On March 24, 1999, NATO launched an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, codenamed "Operation Allied Force." The operation, undertaken without explicit authorisation from the UN Security Council (due to the threat of a Russian and Chinese veto), was justified by NATO as a humanitarian intervention to prevent an even greater humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo.

During the 78 days of NATO bombing, Serbian and Yugoslav forces intensified their ethnic cleansing operations in Kosovo. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other organisations, approximately 850,000 Kosovo Albanians were forcibly expelled from their homes and driven into Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro, while hundreds of thousands more were internally displaced.

Numerous massacres were carried out, identity documents were systematically destroyed, and entire villages were burned to the ground. According to Human Rights Watch, over 10,000 Albanian civilians were killed during the conflict.

The UÇK also committed abuses and war crimes, though on a smaller scale than Serbian forces, including the kidnapping and murder of Serbs, Roma, and Albanians considered collaborators.

The independence of Kosovo

After nearly nine years of international administration under the United Nations (UNMIK), in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the Parliament of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, proclaiming the birth of the Republic of Kosovo.

This decision was the culmination of a lengthy political process and status negotiations facilitated by the UN and led by Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari. The Ahtisaari Plan, presented in 2007, had recommended supervised independence for Kosovo but failed to gain unanimous support in the UN Security Council, primarily due to opposition from Serbia's ally, Russia.

The Declaration of Independence immediately divided the international community.

The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy were among the first to recognise Kosovo's independence. They argued that it was a unique case, necessitated by the history of repression under Milošević and the practical impossibility of Kosovo returning to Serbian rule.

To date, around 100 UN member states have recognised Kosovo, though the exact number fluctuates due to occasional withdrawals of recognition.

Serbia, on the other hand, reacted with extreme hostility, immediately declaring the move null and void. It considered the declaration a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as of UN Resolution 1244.

Russia and China, permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto power, staunchly supported the Serbian position, blocking Kosovo's accession to the UN as a member state. Other countries, including Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, and Cyprus—as well as India and Brazil—did not recognise independence, often due to concerns about their separatist movements or adherence to the principle of territorial integrity.

To challenge the legality of the secession, Serbia requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On July 22, 2010, the ICJ concluded that the declaration of independence of Kosovo did not violate general international law or UN Resolution 1244, as these norms contained no explicit prohibition of such declarations.

Independence only deepened the fracture, but under pressure from the European Union, it also opened a channel for dialogue—first technical, then political—between Belgrade and Pristina starting in 2011. This dialogue led to several agreements, most notably the 2013 Brussels Agreement, which aimed to normalise relations and define the status of the Serb minority in northern Kosovo through the creation of an "Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities." The implementation of these agreements has been slow and fraught with frequent crises and stalemates.

While independence did not trigger the feared chain reaction of large-scale violence, it redefined the political map of the Balkans, leaving open numerous issues that continue to shape regional dynamics. One of these was symbolized by the flag flown by the drone: Ethnic Albania.

Ethnic Albania

Here, too, we must step back in time, to 1912, the year of Albania's birth. The proclamation of Albanian independence and the subsequent 1913 Conference of London, which defined the borders of the new state, left approximately half of the Albanian-speaking population and vast territories they inhabited outside of the newborn Albania. These lands were assigned to Serbia (which gained Kosovo and much of modern-day North Macedonia), Montenegro, and Greece.

"Ethnic Albania," often incorrectly labelled "Greater Albania," is a nationalist concept advocating for the unification of all territories considered historically or ethnically Albanian into a single nation-state. These territories include the current Republic of Albania; Kosovo; Albanian-majority areas of western North Macedonia (namely the regions of Tetovo, Gostivar, Struga, and Debar); the Preševo Valley (Preševë, Medveđa, and Bujanovac) in southern Serbia; and parts of southern and eastern Montenegro (areas around Ulcinj, Plav, Gusinje, and Rožaje). It also includes the region of Chameria (Çamëria) in northwestern Greece, which was inhabited by the Chams, an Albanian-speaking population that suffered a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

The governments of Albania and Kosovo do not officially endorse the goal of an Ethnic Albania. Their stated policies are oriented toward Euro-Atlantic integration (joining the EU and NATO) within their existing borders and promoting the rights of Albanian minorities in neighbouring countries through political and diplomatic channels.

What Will Happen Tomorrow Night?

After the clashes in Belgrade, Albania and Serbia met for the return leg in Tirana. The match concluded with a 2-0 victory for the Serbian national team. There were no incidents, and everything proceeded smoothly.

Tomorrow's match will undoubtedly be charged with tension, but the hope remains that clashes like those in Belgrade will never be repeated. It does, however, raise the question of why UEFA continues to permit these two national teams to compete against each other.

The risk is ever-present, and tensions between the governments of Kosovo and Serbia have not diminished in recent years—on the contrary. The resentment and hatred are still palpable when Albanian and Serbian footballers face off. During the 2020 Euros, Marko Arnautovic, an Austrian national of Serbian descent, scored a 3-1 goal against North Macedonia and turned to opponent Alioski, insulting him by referencing his mother's Albanian nationality. To do so, he used the term "Šiptar" instead of "Albanac."

"Šiptar" is used as a derogatory slur for a person of Albanian nationality. The Supreme Court of Belgrade has confirmed that the term is racist and offensive, ruling that it defines Albanians as racially inferior to Serbs.

The images of Xhaka and Shaqiri making the eagle gesture after scoring against Serbia have travelled the world. The last time Switzerland and Serbia met at the Euros, the tension between Granit Xhaka and the Serbian players was visible for all 90 minutes.

The 2014 drone incident, though a specific event that now seems distant, remains a potent symbol of how deep and unresolved the dynamics between these two peoples remain. And most likely, they will never be resolved.

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