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"Demographics of Kosovo"
14th century
[edit] 1321-1331
The
Dečani charters (
Serbian: Дечанске хрисовуље) from 1321-1331 by
Stephen Uroš III Dečanski of Serbia contains a detailed list of households and villages in
Metohija and northwestern
Albania. The first charter concludes that this region was
ethnically Serb.
[20]
89 settlements with 2,666 households were recorded of which:
[21]
- 86 Serbian settlements (96,6%)
- 3 Albanian settlements (3,3%)
2,166 livestock households of 2,666 agricultural households:
- 2,122 Serbian households (98%)
- 44 Albanian households (2%)
[edit] 15th century
The ethnic composition of Kosovo's population during this period included Serbs, Albanians, and
Vlachs along with a token number of
Greeks,
Armenians, Saxons, and
Bulgarians, according to Serbian monastic charters or
chrysobulls (
Hrisovulja). A majority of the
given names in the charters are overwhelmingly Serbian (Of 24,795 names, 23,774 were ethnic Serb names, 470 of Roman origin, 65 of Albanian origin and 61 of Greek origin).
Researches of the early Turkish
cadastre (
Defter) is often interpreted in two ways. Serbian scholars draw the conclusion that Serbs were majority until the 17th century. Alain Ducellier claims that the population of Kosovo in the 14th and 15th centuries was in fact "still Albanian and Christian."
[22]
[edit] 1455
1455: Turkish cadastral tax census (defter)[23] of the
Brankovic dynasty lands (covering most of present-day
Kosovo) recorded:
- 480 villages,
- 13,693 adult males,
- 12,985 dwellings,
- 14,087 household heads (480 widows and 13,607 adult males).
Totally there were around 75,000 inhabitants in 590 villages comprising modern-day Kosovo.
Turkish defter did not give any data on
ethnicity. However, Yugoslav and Serbian sholars have researched ethnic structure of Kosovo population. According to them there were
[24]:
- 13,000 Serb dwellings present in all 480 villages and towns
- 75 Vlach dwellings in 34 villages
- 46 Albanian dwellings in 23 villages
- 17 Bulgarian dwellings in 10 villages
- 5 Greek dwellings in Lauša, Vučitrn
- 1 Jewish dwelling in Vučitrn
- 1 Croat dwelling
[edit] 1487
1487: A census of the House of Branković[
citation needed]
- 16,729 Christian housing (412 in Pristina and Vučitrn)
- 117 Muslim households (94 in Pristina and 83 in rural areas)
- 131 Christian household of which 52% in Suho Grlo were Serbs
- 6,124 Christian housings (99%)
- 55 Moslem houses (1%)
[edit] 16th century
[edit] 1520-1535
- Vučitrn: 19,614 households
- Christians
- 700 Muslim households (3,5%)
- Prizren
- Christians
- 359 Muslim households (2%)
[edit] 1582
1582: Ottoman defter census (Tahrir defterleri)[25]
- 235 villages of which some 30 have Albanian families besides the majorital Orthodox Serbs.
- City of Peć - 18 mahalas; 3 free, 13 Muslim (newly Islamicised), 5 Serbian (2 houses were Albanian)
- Village Osek - Muslim (Islamicised) majority, with some settled Christian Albanians
- Village Selojani - Muslim majority, small Christian Albanian and Serb population
- Village Mramor - 22 houses. Albanian majority
- Village Belovci - 50 Serbian houses.
- Village Granica - 65 Serbian houses.
- Village Belo Polje[disambiguation needed
] - 2 Serbian mahalas. 3 priests.
- Village Bukovica - Serbian. 2 converts to Islam.
- Village Lipovac - Islamicised Albanian.
- Village Trakakin - Albanian. Islamicised majority.
- Village Baba - Serbian. 1 convert to Islam.
- Village Videš - Serbian.
- Village Veliki Đurđevik - 64 Serbian houses. 2 families from Prizren and Vučitrn.
- 17 Serb villages: 1 Albanian house.
- Village Suho Grlo - 3 Serbian mahalas. 1 Islamicised Serb.
- 3 Serb villages
- 17 Serb villages: 3 Muslim houses. 8 priests.
- Village Zlokućani - Serbian. 5 Muslim houses.
- Village Kavlica - Serbian. 8 Muslim houses.
- Village Strelice - 70 Serbian houses. few Islamicised.
- 8 Serb villages
- Village Rusance - Albanian majority. 3 Muslims.
- Village Muževine - Serbian. 1 priest.
- Village Srednja Crnja - 8 Albanian Muslim houses.
- 34 Serb villages: total 2 Albanian houses in 2 villages.
- Village Njivokos - Serbian majority. Notable Islamicisation.
- Village Vrela Manastir - Serbian.
- 13 Serb villages: 1 Islamicised house.
- Village Gusnica - 20 Albanian Islamicised houses.
- 15 Serb villages: Islamicisation occurred in 3 villages.
- Village Vinodol - Serbian. 8 soldier houses from Bosnian Sandzak.
- Village (?) - Serbs, Albanians and Muslims.
- 20 Serb villages: occurrence of Islamicisation.
- 2 Albanian villages: Islamicised.
- 39 Serb villages: 9 monasteries (one is Dečani). 1 Albanian male.
- Village Brestovac - 10 Albanian houses.
- Village Belica - 35 Muslim houses.
- 56 villages: 42 Serb villages of which 14 with a Muslim minority.
- Village Novosel - Muslim and Albanian.
- Village Labranima - Serbian majority. 2 Muslim houses.
- Village Dubak - 10 Albanian houses and 9 Muslim houses.
- Village Dobroševo - 28 houses. Albanian majority. 3 Muslim houses.
- Village Šankovac - Serbian majority. 3 Muslim houses.
- Village Dobrič-Dol - Muslim.
- Village Gornji Petrič - Serbian majority. ~50 Serbian houses, 3 Muslim houses.
- Village Vranić - Muslim and Albanian.
- Village Crni Potok - 25 Muslim houses.
- Village Arženik - Serbian. Few Muslim houses.
- Village Prelopci - Serbs, Albanians and Muslims.
- Village Rugovo - 86 Serbian houses.
- 41 villages - Serb majority, Albanian minority.
[edit] 1591
Ottoman defter from 1591
[26]:
- Prizren - Serbian majority, significant Albanian minority
- Gora - Serbian.
- Opolje - Albanian Muslim.
[edit] 17th - 18th centuries
The
Great Turkish War of 1683–1699 between the
Ottomans and the
Habsburgs led to the flight of a substantial part of
Serbian population to
Austrian held
Vojvodina and the
Military Frontier - about 37,000 families of Serb refugees were led by Patriarch Arsenije III Crnojević settled in the Habsburg Monarchy, mostly from today's Kosovo - this being known as the
Great Migration of Serbs. And then again, from the period between 1717 and 1737, the Second Migration of Serbs.
[edit] 19th century
Ethnographic map of Balkans (detail),
Atlas Général Vidal-Lablache, Paris, 1898.
19th century data about the population of
Kosovo tend to be rather conflicting, giving sometimes numerical superiority to the
Serbs and sometimes to the
Albanians. The Ottoman statistics are regarded as unreliable, as the empire counted its citizens by religion rather than nationality, using birth records rather than surveys of individuals.
A study in 1838 by an Austrian physician, dr.
Joseph Müller found
Metohija to be mostly Slavic (Serbian) in character.
[27] Müller gives data for the three counties (
Bezirke) of
Prizren,
Peć and
Đakovica which roughly covered
Dukagjini, the portion adjacent to Albania and most affected by Albanian settlers. Out of 195,000 inhabitants in Dukagjini, Müller found:
Müller's observations on towns:
Map published by French ethnographer
G. Lejean[28] in 1861 shows that Albanians lived on around 57% of the territory of today's province while a similar map, published by British travellers
G. M. Mackenzie and
A. P. Irby[28] in 1867 shows slightly less; these maps don't show which population was larger overall. Nevethless, maps cannot be used to measure population as they leave out density.
A study done in 1871 by
Austrian colonel
Peter Kukulj[29] for the internal use of the
Austro-Hungarian army showed that the mutesarifluk of
Prizren (corresponding largely to present-day Kosovo) had some 500,000 inhabitants, of which:
Ethnic distribution of Albanians,
The Historical Atlas, New York, 1911.
Modern Serbian sources estimated that around 400,000
[30] Serbs were cleansed out of the
Vilayet of Kosovo between 1876 and 1912, especially during the
Greek-Ottoman War in 1897.
[31]
Maps published by German historian
Kiepert[28] in 1876,
J. Hahn[28] and Austrian consul
K. Sax,
[28] show that
Albanians live on most of the territory of today's province, however they don't show which population is larger. According to these, the regions of
Kosovska Mitrovica and
Kosovo Polje were settled mostly by
Serbs, whereas most of the terrirory of western and eastern parts of today's province was settled by
Muslim Albanians.
An Austrian statistics
[32] published in 1899 estimated:
At the end of the 19th century, Spiridon Gopchevich, an Austrian traveller - comprised a statistics and published them in Vienna. They established that Prizren had 60,000 citizens of whome 11,000 were Christian Serbs and 36,000 Moslem Serbs. The remaining population were Turks, Albanians, Tzintzars and Roma. For Pec he said that it had 2,530 households of which 1,600 were Mohammedan, 700 Christian Serb, 200 Catholic Albanian and 10 Turkish.
Note:
Descendants of Muslim Serbs mentioned by travelers today mostly self-declare as Muslims by nationality, Bosniaks or Gorani. Also note that territory of Ottoman Kosovo Vilayet was quite different than modern-day Kosovo.
[edit] 20th century
Ethnic composition of Kosovo in 1911.
British journalist
H. Brailsford estimated in 1906
[33] that two-thirds of the population of Kosovo was Albanian and one-third Serbian. The most populous western districts of
Đakovica and
Peć were said to have between 20,000 and 25,000 Albanian households, as against some 5,000 Serbian ones. A map of
Alfred Stead,
[34] published in 1909 , shows that similar numbers of Serbs and Albanians were living in the territory.
German scholar
Gustav Weigand gave the following statistical data about the population of Kosovo,
[35] based on the pre-war situation in Kosovo in 1912:
- Pristina District: 67% Albanians, 30% Serbs
- Prizren District: 63% Albanians, 36% Serbs
- Vučitrn District: 90% Albanians, 10% Serbs
- Uroševac District: 70% Albanians, 30% Serbs
- Gnjilane District: 75% Albanians, 23% Serbs
- Mitrovica District: 60% Serbs, 40% Albanians
Metohija with the town of
Đakovica is furthermore defined as almost exclusively Albanian by Weigand.
[35] Citing Serbian sources, Noel Malcolm also states that in 1912 when Kosovo came under
Serbian control, "the Orthodox Serb population at less than 25%,
[6]"
