Kosovo: A Short History

Apparently Mr. Malcome did a good job as lobbyist and a rather poor job as historian; i would recommend everyone who read that book or who intends to read it to visit www.kosovo.com; several Serbian academics analysed his remarks about the history of Kosovo presented in his book; their analysis is scientific, precise and revealing; in any case, it shows that Mr. Malcome should stick rather to popular literature than to History; check simply (...)

Nobody ever wants to talk about the Serbs' point of view. If you watch a movie by a Hungarian film-maker name "Children of Kosovo: 2000" you get a real sense of what happened in Kosovo. This movie gives the view of both Albanian and Serbian children that live in the city of Kosovska Mitrovica.

I was not sure whether to give Malcolm's book a 3 or 4 stars but because it is such a well-researched book, I decided to give it 4, although I would probably agree with the overall rating for his book so far- 3 and a half.
As there is so much to say about his book, this will be a thorough review.

First of all, Malcolm has clearly gone out of his way to write the most extensive book on Kosovo's history of any Western historian. I disagree with the notion that he simply wrote this book to earn some money because the time, help and resources he would have required travelling around Europe to various national libraries, looking through archives from hundreds of years back, asking people for their opinions etc must have been at great financial, as well psychological, cost to himself.
Saying that however, one can see that he visited the Zagreb national library and the library in Tirana but did not visit any libraries in Belgrade, probably the largest city in south-eastern Europe and in this case for Malcolm's research, a vital institution of knowledge.

I reject the excuse that he did not have the time or that the sources in Belgrade's library would have been highly biased in regards to his research because the same could be argued about the sources in Zagreb and Tirana.
Another criticism that I would make is that all of the people that he acknowledges at the beginning of his book are non-Serbs, either Croats, Albanians, Bosnians or Westerners which raises questions about his objectivity.

Now, to the book. I think that the earlier chapters on Kosovo's history are relatively well-balanced but do get the impression that he reserves a disproportionately larger share of the book to talking about the history of the Albanians, rather than the history of Kosovo's Serbs (from the 16th century onwards)
I think that the area of Kosovo that he calls "Eastern Kosovo" is also quite neglected historically, whereas he reserves alot of paper for Western Kosovo, possibly because that area had a much larger population.

From the period 1912-1941, however, Malcolm is blatantly partisan in favour of the Albanians, although certainly the Albanians did suffer terribly at the hands of the Belgrade and local Serbian administrators,leaders and armed forces. While commenting on the atrocities carried out by the Chetniks, Serbian and Montenegrin armies, such as forced conversions in the Pec area, massacres at Urosevac etc he doesn't reserve any space for atrocities committed against Serb civilians in Kosovo, which I find astounding. With Kosovo during WW2 he takes a far more balanced approach and states that Albanians and Serbs were committing atrocities against each other, although the Serbs were clearly receiving the worst of the treatment. However, he then quotes one Croat and one Serb historian and one claims that 3,000 Albanians were killed altogether and the other states that 14,000 were killed. There is a huge discrepancy of 11,000 which is not explained by Malcolm. Also, both generally agree that between 3 and 4,000 Serbs died; how is that so, if he stated previously that they bore the brunt of the atrocities? His own view about the Italian and German occupation of Kosovo seems to be relatively benign as well, and there is no criticism of the highly nationalist Balli Kombetar movement in Kosovo during this period.

Finally, his last two chapters from 1945-1997 are generally fair although I would raise one point. He claims that only about 0.4% of Serbs that emigrated from the period 1966-1980's said they left because of harrassment and violence by Albanians. I personally find this very hard to believe, because there has been plenty of documented evidence to support the theory that many Serbs were leaving because of coercion and violence. Its true that the Albanians have the highest birth rate in Europe and that the economic conditions were poor but to say that 99.6% of Serbs left for these two reasons alone is erroneous.

So, to sum up. Malcolm has clearly done some excellent research on Kosovo and I think that it is completely unfair and incorrect to say that his book is biased all the way through and therefore not worthy to be called a history book. Also, some reviewers criticise Malcolm for using alot more Albanian sources than Serbian ones. I suppose this is understandable, considering that at the time of writing 90% of Kosovo's population was Albanian.
Its also misleading to say that whenever he does quote a Serb, it is simply to attack or negate Serbian beliefs and ideologies.

Malcolm has used a wide variety of Serbian sources and has also disregarded and corrected certain Albanian myths as being false or exaggerations. For example, the notion that Albanians were always a majority in Kosovo and how some Albanian writers refer to the Presevo valley in southern Serbia as "Eastern Kosovo", the claim that 40,000 Albanians died in Kosovo during WW2, etc.
A highly enjoyable book which is slightly spoiled in some chapters due to partisan views.

Enjoyed it very much. Malcolms narrative is superb, and his investigations into so-called truths or myths are brilliant.

Definitely a must-read.

There are so many books on the subject out there, the discriminate reader might have some trouble finding something worth their time and money. However, on the subject of Kosov the best of the whole lot is Noel Malcolm's "Kosovo: A Short History". Why?

1. He's neither Albanian nor Serb
2. Great educational pedigree *the finest education UK and US can offer*
3. The most impressive bibliography
4. Great narrative writing style
5. Whereas he demolishes more Serb myths (simply because they have more) he tackles Albanian myths as well.

6. One such Albanian myth is continous Albanian majority in Kosovo. While Albanian presence in the region has been continuous and SUBSTANTIAL, his research and educated opinion conclude that Albanians have only been a majority there for the past 300 years or so with the serbs number continuously dwindling for whatever reasons, none of which is immigration from Albania proper.