Milosevic's Vidovdan Must End in Kosovo

Vidovdan ceased being history in 1989. For Kosovo Albanians, it became the political prologue to dispossession, persecution, ethnic cleansing and a peace still unfinished today.

On 28 June each year, the fields surrounding Gazimestan, just outside Pristina, once again become the stage upon which competing visions of history collide. For many Serbs, Vidovdan is a day of profound religious, cultural and historical significance, commemorating the Battle of Kosovo of 1389. For Kosovo Albanians, however, the date evokes a far more recent and traumatic history. It is remembered not through medieval legend but through the political project that began there in 1989, when Slobodan Milosevic transformed an anniversary into a vehicle for nationalist mobilisation. That moment altered the course of the Balkans. It marked the beginning of a decade in which constitutional protections were dismantled, an entire population was systematically marginalised, and a political crisis ultimately descended into war.

History is rarely dangerous in itself. What makes history dangerous is its political use. Nations need collective memory. They need places of remembrance, ceremonies and …