Because of the ongoing wave of Serbian articles asking for Kosovo to be retroceded to

their former ruler I decided to make a short history of the Kosovo region and let you
decide if Kosovo is the so-called cradle of the Serbian nation or not.

The first inhabitants of Kosovo to be recorded are the Dardani tribe from the Thracian
family of tribes. Back then the Thracians inhabited most of the Central and South-Eastern
Europe, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Aegean in the south, and from the Adriatic
Sea and the Tatra Mountains to the west as far as the Caspian Sea and beyond to the east,
land ruled by the powerful queen of the Messagetae. Herodotus wrote that coming second
after the Hindus, The Thracians were the most numerous of all people.
The Dardani were a war-like people, so fierce that they pose a threat even to Macedonia
and Illyria. It was a known fact that the Thracian tribes used to fight each other in
absence of foreign intrusions. The historian Papazoglu considers the Dardani as the most
stable and the most conservative ethnic element in the area even when they were
militarily and politically subjected to the Roman Empire. This information is critical
when you need to establish the heirs of Kosovo.

Starting with 160BC Kosovo became part of the Roman Empire who brought troops and
colonists to the area. Latin language became official and soon as the language of the
masses. It is not very well known if the Thracians were Romanized and adopted Latin or
if the Thracian languages and Latin belonged to the same family and were somehow
familiar. When the poet Ovid came to Tomis, on the shores of Black Sea he stated that
the Getae (Thracian tribe) used to understand his poems written in Latin and make fun of
his accent. Nevertheless when the Roman Empire collapsed the Romanized population
known as Vlachs (also known in English as Wallachians) remained in the area. The
Vlach are the same in language and culture with the modern day Romanians.

The Slavic migrations reached the area in the 6th and 7th century and merged with the
autochthonous people. Years later, Kosovo became part of the Bulgar - Vlach Tsardom
which was ruled by a Vlach dynasty. Until 1018 the area was switched constantly
between the Tsardom and the Eastern Roman Empire.
By the end of the 12th century, the principality of Rascia managed to conquer Kosovo and
were the first Serbs to do so. By the 14th century Kosovo was considered the political and
spiritual centre of Serbia.

In 1389, in the battle of Kosovo Polje, a Christian army made of Serbs, Croats and
Vlachs was defeated by the Ottoman Empire. Soon the area will be fully conquered and
Islam will be introduced to the population. For more then 450 years, Kosovo was under
the Turkish yoke. Numerous groups of Serbs and Vlachs were dislocated because they
didn’t want to accept Islam and the Turkish rule. The next centuries are characterized by
the migration of the Christians towards north and the expansion of the Albanians in their
place.

Albania, just like Kosovo was inhabited by Thracian tribes since antiquity and they went
through the same political and military changes that Kosovo did. To this day, the
southern part of Albania is still inhabited by Vlachs, especially in the mountain areas
were they could not be controlled or oppressed.
After the defeat in front of the Ottomans, the alliance between the Albanian rulers and the
Turks facilitated the mass conversion to Islam. Soon they expanded into Kosovo and
northern Macedonia and with the help of the Turks they managed to take control and
denationalize the autochthonous population.

This is a short history of the area of Kosovo. Now I ask of you, who are the heirs of
Kosovo? Is Kosovo the so-called cradle of Serbia or is it actually the birth place of
Thracians and Illyrians, Romans and Vlachs, Serbs or Slavs, Albanians or Kosovars?
Or is actually the same people that inhabited the land for millenniums and who had to
change their language and religion as the powers of the day seen fit?