Albanians now rewrite the history of the 1389 Kosovo battle
Palgrave Macmillan Publishers, based in New York, will soon publish a book that rewrites the way the Serbian medieval hero Milos Obilic is depicted, portraying him as an "Albanian knight".
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Monday, July 06, 2009
The Belgrade daily, Politika reported that the new take on the 1389 Battle of Kosovo will represent the Serbian hero in a totally new light.
The controversial book, written by Anna Di Lellio, will be titled "Battle for Kosovo, 1389: An Albanian Epic", and will offer readers a "fantastic story of Murat's attack on Kosovo and the murder of Murat by the Albanian knight Millosh Kopiliq".
On the publisher's internet site, the book is marketed as claiming to show "that Millosh Kopiliq is more often presented from the Serbian perspective, which extols particularly the valor of the Serb knight Milos Obilic", while this work will reveal a "better nuanced story for understanding this strong myth of nationalism and belonging".
In the introduction, the publisher notes that the Battle of Kosovo "has great symbolism for the formation of the modern Balkan states, especially the nationalist spheres of the South Slavs and Serbs".
Di Lellio, is described as a guest lecturer on a masters degree program for international cooperation at the New School University, based in New York, and working also for the Kosovo Institute for Journalism and Communication based in Pristina.
The timing of the book's release comes close to the Serbian holy day of St Vitus's Day, or Vidovdan, which was celebrated on June 28. The day marks the martyrdom of the Serbs who lost their lives at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.
Serbs are accusing the Kosovo Albanians of trying to commit a cultural genocide in Kosovo by rewriting history and portraying as their own Serb Orthodox monasteries.
