Author: Janka Júlia Csepregi  A review of the rich scholarly literature on the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the wars of the  1990s published over the past few decades shows that the so-called “Kosovo question” often  appears as a framing element in interpretations that, rightly so, approach the process of  dissolution from a transnational and holistic perspective. Namely, the situation of Kosovo is  typically discussed in the introductory sections where different scholars outline the dire  situation unfolding from the complex crisis of the 1980s in Yugoslavia and the nationalist  mobilization fueled by Milošević, which first escalated in Kosovo. As accounts follow the course of events and the development of armed conflicts and wars in the independent republics,  it is not until 1998 that Kosovo returns to the narrative, as the „last in the line of conflicts” to  be solved following the dissolution (see e.g. Baker 2015; Sundhaussen 2014).  Photo: Unsplash/Xhiliana Nevertheless, the marginalization of the question of Kosovo in the 1990s is not only a  phenomenon in scholarly interpretations. In fact, the situation in Kosovo was sidelined and  largely neglected for a period in contemporary international discourse concerning developments  in Yugoslavia, too. Although the human rights issue in Kosovo was in the center of both  domestic and international attention during the economic and political crisis unfolding in the  1980s in Yugoslavia, armed conflict first escalated in the breakaway republics claiming  independence, and the question of Kosovo remained marginalized until the late 1990s.   Reason for the collapse of Yugoslavia  Scholarly explanations of the dissolution of Yugoslavia can be broadly  grouped into several strands that emerged from the early 1990s onward (Dragović-Soso 2007).  The first body of arguments focused on longue durée causes of ethnic conflict. Be it the  essentialist vision of “ancient hatred” among the “Balkan people,” promoted already during the  Balkan Wars in the West, the highly contested theory of the clash of civilizations, or approaches  of historical geography depicting Yugoslavia as a peripheral space shaped by former  multinational empires, these explanations view the multinational and multiconfessional  character of Yugoslavia as the main source of therefore unavoidable conflict.  Similarly, another  group of historians highlights the failure of the ideology of “Yugoslavism” to integrate  inherently incompatible identities, most notably those of the two biggest state-building nations,  the Serbs and the Croats. Whether attributed to Serbian hegemonism or Croatian and Slovenian  separatism, interpretations focusing on the legacy of the first Yugoslav state portray the  multinational state as an impossible idea doomed to failure.   Shifting the focus from the roots of violence to the process of disintegration, a third body of  scholarship examines the evolution of socialist Yugoslavia, with particular attention to the 1974  Constitution and the confederalization of the constitutional system. These institutionalist  explanations emphasize how deep economic and political crises contested the socialist legacy  and eventually led to state collapse, while leaving unanswered the question of whether political  reinvention could have prevented it. More recent and now widespread approaches reject the  predetermined nature of the collapse and instead stress the responsibility and agency of political  and intellectual elites in promoting tensions and inducing fear, primarily through state controlled media.  Without denying the significance of the systemic crisis that delegitimized  socialism, scholars argue that it was the active dissemination of nationalist ideologies and hatred  by elites that made disintegration inevitable, generating influential debates on elite-led versus  grassroots dynamics and the processes of national mobilization. In contrast with these  perspectives, scholars have also turned toward international factors, such as the role of  international financial institutions or Western recognition policies in the early 1990s, with debates over the timing, extent, and moral value of international intervention continuing to  shape both academic interpretations and the legacy of the 1990s wars.   Methodological nationalism and transitional perspective In the past few years, the academic scholarship on Yugoslavia’s dissolution has increasingly  been accused of essentializing the Yugoslav case and „reading history backwards”. This  phenomenon does not only concern the „nationalizing” historiography of post-Yugoslav nation  states that tendentially relies on a research agenda aimed at normalizing the successor states  „backwards” and projecting its current reality back in history (called methodological  nationalism).  On the contrary, this methodological bias is also characteristic of international  scholarship that until the present day has viewed the country’s dissolution „shaped by its end”,  focusing on developments in Socialist Yugoslavia leading to its failure while neglecting  evidence that suggests the opposite. In fact, this is also reflected in the general direction of this  research, namely in the large number of works that focus on the ethnic nature of the conflict, in  contrast to the common Yugoslav topoi that characterized historiography before the breakup  (Bieber 2016:1–3). This approach therefore suggests a turn in new research directions such as  e.g. a shift from political history to the Yugoslav Lebenswelt or a focus on the ’havenots’ rather  than the ’haves’ of Yugoslav society in order to understand the existing social inequalities that  could play a role in inidividuals’ response to nationalist mobilization (Archer 2016; Galijaš  2016).   By applying a  transnational perspective, the essay understands developments in Kosovo as an integral part of  the broader process of Yugoslavia’s dissolution and the unfolding armed conflicts, which are  treated as neither predetermined nor inevitable. Consequently, in order to avoid the trap of  “reading history backwards,” the discussion concentrates on the initial phase of the conflict  rather than on its more frequently analyzed escalation.   The evolution of the international attitude towards the Kosovo issue  Although Kosovo was initially perceived as a fundamental issue in the context of Yugoslavia’s  dissolution, after the recognition of the Western republics it was excluded from the peace  process and viewed as an internal matter of Serbia by the international community. How can  one explain the neglection of the Kosovo issue in the early 1990s? In the following I will argue  that the international assessment and handling of the Kosovo issue was overshadowed by  the unfolding conflict in the Western republics and was therefore primarily dependent on  the intentions concerning Yugoslavia’s survival.   Firstly, observing the evolution of the international attitude towards the Kosovo question, it  seems that it was only in the foreground of international attention as long as Western powers  were insisting on the preservation of Yugoslavia. Early American and European initiatives,  including sanctions imposed on the entire territory of the former Yugoslavia (such as the arms embargo), formed part of a broader strategy aimed at preserving Yugoslavia and treating  Kosovo as a core issue to be resolved within the framework of the Yugoslav state (Bellamy  2002:18). However, the realisation that Yugoslavia could not be held together eventually led to  the recognition of the member republics that declared their independence and therefore worked  as a self-fulfilling prophecy, giving international legitimation for the breakup. Consequently, as  Kosovo did not gain such recognition, it was no longer treated as a constituent part of  Yugoslavia but an internal matter for Serbia, thus losing legal grounds for international  engagement and what is more, becoming a victim of sanctions imposed at Serbia (Bellamy  2002:13, 16). In this way, with the abandonment of Yugoslavia's survival, the settlement of the  Kosovo issue was also removed from the agenda, which is well symbolized by the fact that  Rugova's 1991 letter to Lord Carrington advocating Kosovo's independence remained  completely unanswered (Bellamy 2002:26).   Secondly, when it comes to the handling of the Kosovo issue, namely the marginalization and  delayed involvement in the resolution of the situation of Kosovo Albanians, was significantly  influenced by the development of conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This can  be observed at different stages of the process of Yugoslavia’s dissolution. First of all, this  interrelation already played a role in the non-recognition of Kosovo.  Delayed escalation of the conflict Even though until 1989 it  was a constituent part of the SFRY with legally defined borders layed down in the constitution,  Kosovo did not gain international recognition together with other republics, one of the main  reason of which was the Western powers’ fear of creating a precedent and thus legitimizing the  claims of Serbs in Croatia and BiH (Bellamy 2002:24–26). However, this was not the only  occasion when the issue in Kosovo was neglected in favor of the resolution of other, seemingly larger-scale conflicts.  After a short period of limited international engagement in Kosovo  characterised by the presence of the CSCE Mission of Long Duration and the ICFY, in their  efforts to win Milosević over to Bosnia's cause, the international powers withdrew even this  low level of their presence from Kosovo, thereby handing it over to Serbian autocracy (Bellamy  2002:65). Although peace in Bosnia was ultimately achieved and appears to have been worth  the cost, it remains uncertain whether “sacrificing” Kosovo—and thereby postponing its  resolution on the international agenda—ultimately contributed to the strengthening of the  radical wing of the Albanian movement and to the delayed escalation of the conflict.   In the context of the Kosovo conflict, both academic literature and public discourse often  mention that a key factor in the involvement of international forces on such a scale (NATO  airstrike) was the ’Bosnia syndrome’, i.e. the ‘never again’ conviction following the traumatic  experience of the Bosnian war (Bellamy 2002:69).  However, as can be seen from the above,  even in the early stages of the conflict, the international handling of the Kosovo issue depended  largely on events in other member states, rather than on internal political power relations and  the extent of Serbian political repression. As we shall see below, this considerably limited the  scope of the Albanian movement and greatly influenced the form and dynamics of the  resistance.   The dynamics of the resistance in Kosovo   The multifaceted crisis that unfolded in Yugoslavia following Tito's death first erupted in  Kosovo, where the malfunctions of the socio-economic system had already led to protests as  early as in 1981. Although the protests can be interpreted as manifestations of the particularly  acute consequences of economic and demographic transformation in Kosovo – then the poorest  and most underdeveloped region in Yugoslavia –, by this time the unequal political and  economic representation of ethnic groups had led to growing tensions and thus the 1981 riots  were framed around the discourse of nationality policy and constitutional reform (Pula  2004:801–803). This trend continued to strengthen throughout the 1980s, so that by the 1989  two completely separate and isolated political blocs had emerged in Kosovo, divided along  ethnic lines at both the institutional and social levels: the Serbian nationalizing regime, which  mobilized against the 'Albanization' of Kosovo, and the Albanian national secessionist  movement organizing against Serbian repression (Pula 2004:807).   In the wake of the dissolution of the federal state, despite the particularly dire political and  economic situation of Kosovo, Kosovo Albanians opted for non-violent resistance and started to build a parallel state rather than opening a new front against Serbia following the example of  the Western republics. Even though the claim to independence was articulated as early as in  1991, it was only after the wars in BiH and Croatia ended that the UÇK and the support for  armed resistance gained momentum in Kosovo, leading to armed conflict and the contested  NATO intervention in 1998–1999. The first half of the 1990s in Kosovo was thus marked by  the formation of a grassroots nonviolent resistance movement and the emergence of a parallel  system, which received less attention in academic literature in light of the bloodshed that  followed.   It is assumed that both the social and institutional frame of the conflict and the emerging  Albanian resistance can be rooted in the institutional structures and political identities inherited  from the Yugoslav system (Pula 2004:797–798, 818). The segregated political and social  frameworks that characterized the relation between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo throughout  the 1990s were results of the institutionalization of political repression organized by the state,  excluding Albanians from the decision-making process and thereby forcing them to develop  parallel structures.  In addition, the educational and cultural institutions together with the public  service system that was established and coordinated by the Democratic League of Kosovo  (LDK) parallel to the one provided by the state were all in a sense, sucessors of the earlier  existing autonomy-era institutions being resilient to political repression.  Nevertheless, it is clear  that the relative success of the Albanian movement was largely thanks to the political  opportunities created by the international environment, primarily through the liberalization  following the collapse of state socialist systems in Eastern Europe. Accordingly, similarly to  the political transformation in Eastern bloc countries, the dynamics and chances of political  movements were tied to international support, regardless of internal potential and the extent of  popular support. It seems therefore that it was partly the lack of international recognition that  led to the failure of non-violent resistance. In the following I argue that the marginalization of  the Kosovo question by the international community limited the chances of a peaceful  resolution and in the long run contributed to violent escalation.   Parallel state As I argued above, the international recognition of the Western republics led to the  marginalization of the Kosovo issue in the international discourse, treated as an internal matter  of the Serbian republic. However, in the long term, the recognition of the newly independent  republics and Kosovo's marginalization actually strengthened the separatist aspirations  of the Kosovo Albanians rather than consolidating them.  Even though the Albanian  delegates of the provincial assembly in Kosovo already proclamied their claim for sovereignty in July 1990, this was not yet a shared initiative with the leading organization of the Albanian  movement (LDK) at the time. It was only later and due to the growing political opression by  the Serb state that the formal institutions in Kosovo and the Albanian movement joined forces  and set the common goal of independence. In fact, the main demand of the Albanian movement  in Kosovo even as late as May 1991 was only the republician status and the reversal of Serbia’s  constitutional reforms. Yet by the summer of 1991, with the breakup of Yugoslavia becoming a  realistic scenario, the LDK made the independence of Kosovo as its main political objective,  which gained popular legitimation by the referendum held in September 1991 (Pula 2004:806).   The Kosovar Albanians’ claim for self-determination was then engraved in the Kaçanik  constitution amended in October 1991 by the regional Assembly, laying down the groundwork  for the legitimate claim of independence and the basis of the parallel state of the 1990s. This  process was further escalated and in a sense concluded with the EC and later US recognition of  the independent republics, setting off an irreversible domino effect whereby the Albanian  movement, fearing even greater Serbian oppression without the constitutional framework of  Yugoslavia and counting on Western intervention, could no longer back down from its demand  for independence (Pula 2004:816).   Recognising of Kosovo Although the demand for independence was no longer challenged, the non-violent movement  organized under Rugova's leadership in the 1990s nevertheless prevented violent escalation and  maintained the possibility of a peaceful resolution, a chance that was dismissed by the  international community. In other words, the lack of international (both political and  economic) support for the parallel state and the missed opportunity to negotiate with  Rugova eventually undermined the LDK’s legitimacy and reduced the popularity of its  strategy of nonviolent resistance, contributing to the rise of the UÇK. On one hand, the  sanctions imposed on Kosovo through Serbia, along with Kosovo’s exclusion from the  negotiations, further intensified tensions between local Serbian and Albanian communities amid  the ongoing economic and political crisis (Bellamy 2002:24–26).  Furthermore, the region's  economic decline further increased dissatisfaction, thereby boosting support for more radical  forces. On the other hand, it seems that the international community missed a core opportunity  for a peaceful settlement by failing to use their diplomatic leverage to negotiate and reach an  agreement with the more consolidated wing of the Albanian movement led by Rugova.   The nonviolent resistance led by the LDK operated on the basis of the principle of peaceful  coexistence, which, in addition to monitoring and documenting cases of human rights  violations, paid particular attention to preventing and sanctioning radical and violent forms of Albanian resistance, avoiding confrontations with the Serbian police. Even though the early  1990s were marked by public demonstrations, strikes, and guerrilla attacks in Kosovo, by 1992  the parallel state had taken institutional shape and gained broad popular support, marginalizing  the position of clandestine groups and therefore the public support for armed resistance.  In any  case, the earlier disbandment of Kosovo’s Territorial Defense force and the removal of ethnic  Albanians from the police units have heavily hampered the organization of a full-blown armed  resistance, which, even more so in the absence of Rugova's political will to establish a defense  force, remained off the agenda. Although Rugova's system was subject to criticism both within  the LDK and among its opponents, e.g. within the student movement, partly learning from the  political culture of peaceful transitions in Central Eastern Europe and partly in recognition of  the given circumstances, the system of non-violent resistance enjoyed widespread support and  was reinforced by the 1992 elections, completing the institutional framework of the parallel  state (Pula 2004:808–812, 816–817; Hetemi 2020:212–214.)   Although Rugova’s parallel system was firmly institutionalised and rooted in broad popular  support, its credibility was gradually eroded by the absence of progress concerning Kosovo’s  independent status and its international recognition, especially in light of the peace negotiations  in Dayton.  The international society missed the opportunity to engage with or include Rugova  in diplomatic processes, which weakened the appeal of his nonviolent strategy among Kosovo  Albanians and had led to his growing political marginalisation after 1995. This sustained non engagement, coupled with the implicit acceptance of Serbia’s claim over Kosovo, created space  for more radical actors such as the UÇK to gain popular support after Dayton (Bellamy  2002:65–66; Sundhaussen 2014:368–369). Consequently, the emergence of armed resistance  was not simply the result of internal dynamics but was closely linked to international policies  reshaping the political landscape in Kosovo.   Missed opportunity Even though it is clear that the escalation of conflict in Kosovo in 1998–1999 was not solely  determined by international factors, in my essay I attempted to show how the prospects for a  peaceful resolution were profoundly altered by the broader context of Yugoslavia’s dissolution  and the selective recognition policies of the early 1990s. The international community’s  marginalization of the Kosovo issue—its delayed engagement and failure to negotiate with the  more consolidated and nonviolent wing of the Albanian movement led by Rugova—represents  a critical missed opportunity to prevent escalation on the diplomatic level.  By turning away from Kosovo, international powers did not resolve the conflict but merely postponed it,  reducing the likelihood of a peaceful resolution and indirectly contributing to the later rise of  armed resistance.   As shown, the developments in Kosovo were deeply intertwined with both the dynamics of the  Yugoslav wars in Croatia and Bosnia and the international handling of those crises and the  Kosovo issue was subordinated to wider regional calculations rather than addressed on its own  terms. Just as the “Bosnia syndrome” prompted NATO intervention during the escalation in  Kosovo, the hope of securing peace in Dayton had earlier shaped the international approach to  the Kosovo issue, and it was precisely this, i.e. Kosovo’s exclusion from the peace negotiations  that undermined Rugova’s legitimacy and contributed to the radicalization of the Albanian  movement. This interdependence underscores the necessity of analyzing the dissolution of  Yugoslavia and the related conflicts as a single, interrelated process.   Literature Archer, Rory. “Social Inequalities and the Study of Yugoslavia’s Dissolution.” In Debating theEnd of Yugoslavia, edited by Florian Bieber, Armina Galijaš, and Rory Archer, 135–151.Oxton/New York: Routledge, 2016.Baker, Catherine. The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. London: Macmillan Education UK, 2015.Bellamy, Alex J. “Kosovo and the Dissolution of Yugoslavia.” In Kosovo and InternationalSociety, edited by Alex J. Bellamy, 16–36. 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