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155-712: With up to 23,000 employees, Trepča was once one of the biggest companies in Yugoslavia . In the 1930s, the Selection Trust gained the rights to exploit the Stari Trg mine close to Mitrovica. After World War II , under socialist management, the company further expanded. The enterprise known as Trepča was a conglomerate of 40 mines and factories, located mostly in Kosovo but also in locations in Montenegro . But

310-537: A new constitution and relinquished his dictatorship in 1931. However, Alexander's policies later encountered opposition from other European powers stemming from developments in Italy and Germany, where Fascists and Nazis rose to power, and the Soviet Union , where Joseph Stalin became absolute ruler. None of these three regimes favored the policy pursued by Alexander I. In fact, Italy and Germany wanted to revise

465-520: A square town developed around Trepča. The mining activity answered the needs of the successive lords and their suzerains , for it financed military activities, such as the construction of fortresses along the Ibar valley for protection against the Ottoman threats. On 15 June 1389, a dozen kilometers south from Trepča, the famous Battle of Kosovo occurred. In 1390/91 Serbia became an Ottoman vassal, but

620-580: A Kosovar republic. This angered Serbia's leadership which proceeded to use police force and later, federal police troops to restore civil order. In January 1990, the extraordinary 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was convened, where the Serbian and Slovenian delegations argued over the future of the League of Communists and Yugoslavia. The Serbian delegation, led by Milošević, insisted on

775-678: A Latinis, Grecis et Sclauis ita quod in nullo se intelligunt cum aliis nationibus. (Namely, the above-mentioned Albanians have a language that is different from the languages of Latins, Greeks and Slavs, so that they do not understand each other at all.) The oldest attested document written in Albanian dates to 1462, while the first audio recording in the language was made by Norbert Jokl on 4 April 1914 in Vienna . However, as Fortson notes, Albanian written works existed before this point; they have simply been lost. The existence of written Albanian

930-455: A close relationship between the two Communist countries, and enable Yugoslavia to start a civil war in Greece and use Albania and Bulgaria as bases. Stalin vetoed this agreement and it was never realised. The break between Belgrade and Moscow was now imminent. Yugoslavia solved the national issue of nations and nationalities (national minorities) in a way that all nations and nationalities had

1085-573: A common period of prehistoric coexistence of several Indo-European dialects in the Balkans prior to 2000 BC. To this group would belong Albanian, Ancient Greek , Armenian , Phrygian , fragmentary attested languages such as Macedonian , Thracian , or Illyrian , and the relatively well-attested Messapic in Southern Italy. The common features of this group appear at the phonological, morphological, and lexical levels, presumably resulting from

1240-597: A common state for all South Slavic peoples, emerged in the late 17th century and gained prominence through the Illyrian Movement of the 19th century. The name was created by the combination of the Slavic words jug ("south") and Slaveni / Sloveni (Slavs). Moves towards the formal creation of Yugoslavia accelerated after the 1917 Corfu Declaration between the Yugoslav Committee and

1395-588: A dubious traffic incident after he started to complain about Tito's politics. Minister of the interior Aleksandar Ranković lost all of his titles and rights after a major disagreement with Tito regarding state politics. Some influential ministers in government, such as Edvard Kardelj or Stane Dolanc , were more important than the Prime Minister. First cracks in the tightly governed system surfaced when students in Belgrade and several other cities joined

1550-533: A federation (this date was celebrated as Republic Day after the war). The Yugoslav Partisans were able to expel the Axis from Serbia in 1944 and the rest of Yugoslavia in 1945. The Red Army provided limited assistance with the liberation of Belgrade and withdrew after the war was over. In May 1945, the Partisans met with Allied forces outside former Yugoslav borders, after also taking over Trieste and parts of

1705-603: A free fall and social programmes collapsed; creating within the population an atmosphere of social despair and hopelessness. This was a critical turning point in the events to follow. After Tito's death on 4 May 1980, ethnic tensions grew in Yugoslavia. The legacy of the Constitution of 1974 threw the system of decision-making into a state of paralysis, made all the more hopeless as the conflict of interests became irreconcilable. The Albanian majority in Kosovo demanded

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1860-472: A large amount (or the majority) of their sea environment lexicon. A similar phenomenon could be observed with agricultural terms. While the words for 'arable land', 'wheat', 'cereals', 'vineyard', 'yoke', 'harvesting', 'cattle breeding', etc. are native, the words for 'ploughing', 'farm' and 'farmer', agricultural practices, and some harvesting tools are foreign. This, again, points to intense contact with other languages and people, rather than providing evidence of

2015-542: A minimum: Serbia proper, then-loyal Montenegro, Vojvodina, and Kosovo. As a result of these events, ethnic Albanian miners in Kosovo organised the 1989 Kosovo miners' strike , which dovetailed into an ethnic conflict between the Albanians and the non-Albanians in the province. At around 80% of the population of Kosovo in the 1980s , ethnic-Albanians were the majority. With Milošević gaining control over Kosovo in 1989,

2170-475: A number of isoglosses with Albanian. Other linguists linked the Albanian language with Latin , Greek and Armenian , while placing Germanic and Balto-Slavic in another branch of Indo-European. In current scholarship there is evidence that Albanian is closely related to Greek and Armenian, while the fact that it is a satem language is less significant. Armenian Greek Phrygian (extinct) Messapic (extinct) Gheg Tosk Messapic

2325-647: A policy of "one person, one vote" which would empower the plurality population, the Serbs . In turn, the Slovenian delegation, supported by Croats, sought to reform Yugoslavia by devolving even more power to republics, but were voted down. As a result, the Slovene and Croatian delegations left the Congress and the all-Yugoslav Communist party was dissolved. The constitutional crisis that inevitably followed resulted in

2480-547: A possible linguistic homeland (also known as a Urheimat ). The centre of Albanian settlement remained the Mat River. In 1079, the Albanians were recorded farther south in the valley of the Shkumbin River. The Shkumbin, a 181 km long river that lies near the old Via Egnatia , is approximately the boundary of the primary dialect division for Albanian, Tosk and Gheg . The characteristics of Tosk and Gheg in

2635-513: A revival of greater Serbian hegemonism. Through a series of moves known as the " anti-bureaucratic revolution ", Milošević succeeded in reducing the autonomy of Vojvodina and of Kosovo and Metohija, but both entities retained a vote in the Yugoslav Presidency Council. The very instrument that reduced Serbian influence before was now used to increase it: in the eight-member Council, Serbia could now count on four votes at

2790-530: A rise of nationalism in all republics: Slovenia and Croatia voiced demands for looser ties within the federation. Following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, each of the republics held multi-party elections in 1990. Slovenia and Croatia held the elections in April since their communist parties chose to cede power peacefully. Other Yugoslav republics—especially Serbia—were more or less dissatisfied with

2945-469: A stable economy. The Trepča mine complex has not recovered from its lost production during the war. Trepča once accounted for 70 percent of Kosovo's gross domestic product , but since the war ended in 1999, the partition of Mitrovica between Kosovar Albanians and Serbs loyal to Belgrade keeps most of Trepča's facilities closed. According to various statistics, the complex can not be reopened without at least $ 650 million of foreign investment to repair and update

3100-933: A strong sense of identity and are unique in that they speak an archaic dialect of Tosk Albanian called Arbëresh . In the United States and Canada, there are approximately 250,000 Albanian speakers. It is primarily spoken on the East Coast of the United States, in cities like New York City, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit, as well as in parts of the states of New Jersey, Ohio, and Connecticut. In Argentina, there are nearly 40,000 Albanian speakers , mostly in Buenos Aires. Approximately 1.3 million people of Albanian ancestry live in Turkey , with more than 500,000 recognizing their ancestry, language and culture . There are other estimates, however, that place

3255-419: Is all that remains of the huge complex that during the 1980s employed 20,000 workers, and accounted for 70% of all Yugoslavia's mineral wealth. The mines still have a reserve of 60.5 million tonnes of ore grading 4.96% lead , 3.3% zinc and 74.4 gr/tonne silver , which translates as three million tonnes of lead, two million tonnes of zinc and 4,500 tonnes of silver. Stari Trg is one of the rare mines which

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3410-614: Is also spoken by 450,000 Albanian immigrants in Greece, making it one of the commonly spoken languages in the country after Greek. Albanian is the third most common mother tongue among foreign residents in Italy . This is due to a substantial Albanian immigration to Italy. Italy has a historical Albanian minority of about 500,000, scattered across southern Italy, known as Arbëreshë . Approximately 1 million Albanians from Kosovo are dispersed throughout Germany , Switzerland and Austria . These are mainly immigrants from Kosovo who migrated during

3565-507: Is called Albanoid in reference to a specific ethnolinguistically pertinent and historically compact language group. Whether descendants or sisters of what was called ' Illyrian ' by classical sources, Albanian and Messapic , on the basis of shared features and innovations, are grouped together in a common branch in the current phylogenetic classification of the Indo-European language family. The first written mention of Albanian

3720-608: Is considered the closest language to Albanian, grouped in a common branch titled Illyric in Hyllested & Joseph (2022). Hyllested & Joseph (2022) in agreement with recent bibliography identify Greco-Phrygian as the IE branch closest to the Albanian-Messapic one. These two branches form an areal grouping – which is often called "Balkan IE" – with Armenian. The hypothesis of the " Balkan Indo-European " continuum posits

3875-573: Is continuously in decline, as represented here: Yugoslavia Yugoslavia ( / ˌ j uː ɡ oʊ ˈ s l ɑː v i ə / ; lit.   ' Land of the South Slavs ' ) was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 to 1992. It came into existence following World War I , under the name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from the merger of

4030-442: Is estimated that the necessary improvements would cost between 15 and 30 million US dollars. This would be justifiable if full scale mining were to return as a 2001 UNMIK report said that “ 29,000,000 tonnes of mine-run ore at grades varying from 3.40 to 3.45% Pb, 2.23 to 2.36% Zn and 74 to 81 grams/tonne Ag, i.e., around 999,000 tonnes Pb, 670,000 tonnes Zn and 2,200 tonnes Ag ” are available. To make use of Trepča, foreign investment

4185-564: Is estimated to have as many as 7.5 million native speakers. Albanian and other Paleo-Balkan languages had their formative core in the Balkans after the Indo-European migrations in the region. Albanian in antiquity is often thought to have been an Illyrian language for obvious geographic and historical reasons, or otherwise an unmentioned Balkan Indo-European language that was closely related to Illyrian and Messapic . The Indo-European subfamily that gave rise to Albanian

4340-687: Is explicitly mentioned in a letter attested from 1332, and the first preserved books, including both those in Gheg and in Tosk, share orthographic features that indicate that some form of common literary language had developed. By the Late Middle Ages , during the period of Humanism and the European Renaissance , the term lingua epirotica ' Epirotan language ' was preferred in the intellectual, literary, and clerical circles of

4495-400: Is no danger for the surroundings. Expecting military takeover, the management "fortified" the complex with goods wagons , locomotives and slag , while it was lit with powerful reflector lights, looking like a "space ship". On early 14 August 2000, at 3:45, 3,000 mostly US soldiers stormed the premises, using tanks, amphibians and helicopters. French soldiers, using battering ram , broke into

4650-465: Is required. Since financial means to upgrade the mines’ facilities themselves are absent, and there is not enough foreign aid still reaching Kosovo to make a difference, the complex still will not be used at its highest level. The concern that letting in foreign investors will give away their promising source of natural resources since the complex is considered a treasure for the nation needs to be appeased in order for its privatization to happen sooner. In

4805-598: Is spoken in North-western Greece, while Arvanitika is spoken by the Arvanites in southern Greece. In addition, Arbëresh is spoken by the Arbëreshë people, descendants of 15th and 16th century migrants who settled in southeastern Italy, in small communities in the regions of Sicily and Calabria . These settlements originated from the (Arvanites) communities probably of Peloponnese known as Morea in

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4960-486: Is spoken in the south, and Gheg spoken in the north. Standard Albanian is based on the Tosk dialect. The Shkumbin River is the rough dividing line between the two dialects. Gheg is divided into four sub-dialects: Northwest Gheg, Northeast Gheg, Central Gheg and Southern Gheg. It is primarily spoken in northern Albania, Kosovo , and throughout Montenegro and northwestern North Macedonia . One fairly divergent dialect

5115-576: Is the Upper Reka dialect , which is however classified as Central Gheg. There is also a diaspora dialect in Croatia , the Arbanasi dialect . Tosk is divided into five sub-dialects, including Northern Tosk (the most numerous in speakers), Labërisht , Cham , Arvanitika , and Arbëresh . Tosk is spoken in southern Albania, southwestern North Macedonia and northern and southern Greece. Cham Albanian

5270-399: Is the most probable. Although Albanian shares lexical isoglosses with Greek , Germanic , and to a lesser extent Balto-Slavic , the vocabulary of Albanian is quite distinct. In 1995, Taylor, Ringe , and Warnow used quantitative linguistic techniques that appeared to obtain an Albanian subgrouping with Germanic, a result which the authors had already reasonably downplayed. Indeed,

5425-651: Is the native language of the Albanian people . Standard Albanian is the official language of Albania and Kosovo , and a co-official language in North Macedonia and Montenegro , as well as a recognized minority language of Italy , Croatia , Romania and Serbia . It is also spoken in Greece and by the Albanian diaspora , which is generally concentrated in the Americas , Europe and Oceania . Albanian

5580-569: Is the official language of Albania and Kosovo and a co-official language in North Macedonia and Montenegro . Albanian is a recognised minority language in Croatia , Italy , Romania and in Serbia . Albanian is also spoken by a minority in Greece , specifically in the Thesprotia and Preveza regional units and in a few villages in Ioannina and Florina regional units in Greece. It

5735-483: Is today Kosovo was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy but the area around Trepča was part of the German-installed Serbian state . The mines were under the direct German administration, allowing the continued flow of minerals for the production of ammunition and submarine batteries. Output of these products was continued in the period after 1945, in the new, Communist Yugoslavia. Since 1939 the complex

5890-499: The 1974 constitution , stopping the alleged chauvinist and hegemonistic politics of the time, amnesty for the strike leaders, etc. The strike lasted eight days, being known as the longest underground strike to have been held. It eventually ended after the hospitalization of 180 miners and the resignation of the heads of the pro-Milošević leaders Rahman Morina , Ali Šukrija and Husamedin Azemi. This complex progressively collapsed during

6045-463: The Congress of Dibra decided that Albanian schools would finally be allowed. Albanian is an isolate within the Indo-European language family; no other language has been conclusively linked to its branch . The only other languages that are the sole surviving members of a branch of Indo-European are Armenian and Greek. The Albanian language is part of the Indo-European language family and

6200-629: The Janissary of Muhammad Ali Pasha , an Albanian who became Wāli , and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan . In addition to the dynasty that he established, a large part of the former Egyptian and Sudanese aristocracy was of Albanian origin. In addition to the recent emigrants, there are older diasporic communities around the world. Albanian is also spoken by Albanian diaspora communities residing in Australia and New Zealand . The Albanian language has two distinct dialects, Tosk which

6355-675: The Kingdom of Serbia with the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs , and constituted the first union of South Slavic peoples as a sovereign state , following centuries of foreign rule over the region under the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy . Peter I of Serbia was its first sovereign . The kingdom gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris . The official name of

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6510-808: The Korçë District , Kamnik in Kolonja , Kolsh in the Kukës District , Rashtan in Librazhd , and Nezir in the Mat District . As in other parts of Europe, these PreIE people joined the migratory Indo-European tribes that entered the Balkans and contributed to the formation of the historical Paleo-Balkan tribes. In terms of linguistics, the pre-Indo-European substrate language spoken in the southern Balkans probably influenced pre-Proto-Albanian ,

6665-867: The League of Prizren and culminated with the Congress of Manastir held by Albanian intellectuals from 14 to 22 November 1908, in Manastir (present day Bitola ), which decided on which alphabet to use, and what the standardised spelling would be for standard Albanian. This is how the literary language remains. The alphabet is the Latin alphabet with the addition of the letters ⟨ ë ⟩ , ⟨ ç ⟩ , and ten digraphs : dh , th , xh , gj , nj , ng , ll , rr , zh and sh . According to Robert Elsie : The hundred years between 1750 and 1850 were an age of astounding orthographic diversity in Albania. In this period,

6820-526: The Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, which remained the official affiliation of the country until it dissolved. On 7 April 1963, the nation changed its official name to Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Josip Broz Tito was named President for life . In the SFRY, each republic and province had its own constitution, supreme court, parliament, president and prime minister. At the top of

6975-620: The Yugoslav Wars . From 1993 to 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia tried political and military leaders from the former Yugoslavia for war crimes , genocide, and other crimes committed during those wars. After the breakup, the republics of Montenegro and Serbia formed a reduced federative state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). This state aspired to

7130-577: The flotation in Zvečan ( Stan Trg ), was opened in the same place as the ancient medieval pit. The name Stan Trg is a misprint by the British administration of the mine, derived from the toponym Stari Trg which in Serbian means old place , or old market . Amazingly, the obvious misprint was not corrected in any later document nor mine plan. The flotation in Zvečan was operational until 31 March 1941. In that period it processed 6 million tons of ore. The ore

7285-692: The 14th century, but they failed to cite specific words. The oldest surviving documents written in Albanian are the " formula e pagëzimit " (Baptismal formula), Un'te paghesont' pr'emenit t'Atit e t'Birit e t'Spertit Senit . ("I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit ") recorded by Pal Engjelli, Bishop of Durrës in 1462 in the Gheg dialect, and some New Testament verses from that period. The linguists Stefan Schumacher and Joachim Matzinger (University of Vienna) assert that

7440-536: The 1974 constitution as weakening Serbia's influence and jeopardising the unity of the country by allowing the republics the right to separate. According to official statistics, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, Yugoslavia was among the fastest growing countries, approaching the ranges reported in South Korea and other countries undergoing an economic miracle . The unique socialist system in Yugoslavia, where factories were worker cooperatives and decision-making

7595-531: The 1990s. In Switzerland , the Albanian language is the sixth most spoken language with 176,293 native speakers. Albanian became an official language in North Macedonia on 15 January 2019. There are large numbers of Albanian speakers in the United States, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Canada . Some of the first ethnic Albanians to arrive in the United States were the Arbëreshë. The Arbëreshë have

7750-505: The Albanian and Germanic branches share a relatively moderate number of lexical cognates. Many shared grammatical elements or features of these two branches do not corroborate the lexical isoglosses. Albanian also shares lexical linguistic affinity with Latin and Romance languages. Sharing linguistic features unique to the languages of the Balkans , Albanian also forms a part of the Balkan linguistic area or sprachbund . The place and

7905-426: The Albanian language was on 14 July 1284 in Ragusa in modern Croatia ( Dubrovnik ) when a crime witness named Matthew testified: "I heard a voice crying on the mountain in the Albanian language" ( Latin : Audivi unam vocem, clamantem in monte in lingua albanesca ). The Albanian language is also mentioned in the Descriptio Europae Orientalis dated in 1308: Habent enim Albani prefati linguam distinctam

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8060-435: The Albanian language was put to writing in at least ten different alphabets – most certainly a record for European languages. ... the diverse forms in which this old Balkan language was recorded, from the earliest documents to the beginning of the twentieth century ... consist of adaptations of the Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Cyrillic alphabets and (what is even more interesting) a number of locally invented writing systems. Most of

8215-512: The Albanians of Kosovo and Hungarians of Vojvodina. Both provinces were afforded much of the same status as the six republics of Yugoslavia, though they could not secede. Vojvodina and Kosovo formed the provinces of the Republic of Serbia but also formed part of the federation, which led to the unique situation in which Central Serbia did not have its own assembly but a joint assembly with its provinces represented in it. Albanian and Hungarian became nationally recognised minority languages, and

8370-546: The Croatian Defence minister Martin Špegelj and two unidentified men. The video, filmed by the Yugoslav counter-intelligence ( KOS, Kontra-obavještajna služba ), showed Špegel announcing that they were at war with the army and giving instructions about arms smuggling as well as methods of dealing with the Yugoslav Army's officers stationed in Croatian cities. Serbia and JNA used this discovery of Croatian rearmament for propaganda purposes. Guns were also fired from army bases through Croatia. Elsewhere, tensions were running high. In

8525-426: The Croatian armed forces ("police") and civilians mark the beginning of the Yugoslav war that inflamed the region. Similarly, the attempt to replace Yugoslav frontier police by Slovene police forces provoked regional armed conflicts which ended with a minimal number of victims. A similar attempt in Bosnia and Herzegovina led to a war that lasted more than three years (see below). The results of all these conflicts were

8680-462: The Dalmatian coast towards the interior almost a year before Croatian leadership made any move towards independence. These uprisings were more or less discreetly backed by the Serb-dominated federal army (JNA). The Serbs in Croatia proclaimed "Serb autonomous areas", which were later united into the Republic of Serb Krajina . The federal army tried to disarm the territorial defence forces of Slovenia (the republics had their local defence forces similar to

8835-428: The First Tunnel or that bodies were incinerated in the manhole furnace. After several months of investigation, French, German, Dutch and American investigators concluded that the furnace in question wasn't operational when the alleged crime happened. General Nash then claimed that Trepča needs to be closed because of the environmental pollution, though French minister for environment, Dominique Voynet concluded that there

8990-429: The Government of the Republic of Kosovo, the Assembly provided two new articles, by which the status of Trepca will be regulated by a special law of Strategy and, while companies that have entered the process of reorganization, bankruptcy or liquidation, terminated with the entry into force of this law without the need for any judicial decision. Albanian employees declared a strike and would not emerge from underground until

9145-400: The Home Guard) in 1990 but was not completely successful. Still, Slovenia began to covertly import arms to replenish its armed forces. Croatia also embarked upon the illegal importation of arms, (following the disarmament of the republics' armed forces by the federal army) mainly from Hungary. These activities were under constant surveillance and produced a video of a secret meeting between

9300-482: The Marshall plan. However, in 1948 Tito broke decisively with Stalin on other issues, making Yugoslavia an independent communist state. Yugoslavia requested American aid. American leaders were internally divided, but finally agreed and began sending money on a small scale in 1949, and on a much larger scale 1950–53. The American aid was not part of the Marshall plan. Tito criticised both Eastern Bloc and NATO nations and, together with India and other countries, started

9455-404: The Middle Ages. Among them the Arvanites call themselves Arbëror and sometime Arbëresh. The Arbëresh dialect is closely related to the Arvanites dialect with more Italian vocabulary absorbed during different periods of time. The Albanian language has been written using many alphabets since the earliest records from the 15th century. The history of Albanian language orthography is closely related to

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9610-556: The SFRY were the socialist republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia , Macedonia , Montenegro , Serbia , and Slovenia . Within Serbia were the two socialist autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina , which following the adoption of 1974 Yugoslav Constitution were largely equal to the other members of the federation. After an economic and political crisis and the rise of nationalism and ethnic conflicts following Tito's death in 1980, Yugoslavia broke up along its republics' borders, at first into five countries, leading to

9765-426: The Serbo-Croat of Bosnia and Montenegro altered to a form based on the speech of the local people and not on the standards of Zagreb and Belgrade. In Slovenia the recognized minorities were Hungarians and Italians. The fact that these autonomous provinces held the same voting power as the republics but unlike other republics could not legally separate from Yugoslavia satisfied Croatia and Slovenia, but in Serbia and in

9920-420: The Serbs (having in mind Croatian Serbs) should also have a right to self-determination. Albanian language Albanian ( endonym : shqip [ʃcip] , gjuha shqipe [ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ] , or arbërisht [aɾbəˈɾiʃt] ) is an Indo-European language and the only surviving representative of the Albanoid branch , which belongs to the Paleo-Balkan group . It

10075-425: The Serbs , the mining activity ceased completely. After World War I ended, the newly formed Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (future Yugoslavia), instigated the geological surveys of the medieval ore mines in order to ease the payments of the war credits. Prime minister Nikola Pašić , who became the concessionary of the Stari Trg ore deposits, hired Fran Tućan to do the explorations. Tućan reported about

10230-443: The Shkumbin river since the Post-Roman and Pre-Slavic period, straddling the Jireček Line . Centuries-old communities speaking Albanian dialects can be found scattered in Greece (the Arvanites and some communities in Epirus , Western Macedonia and Western Thrace ), Croatia (the Arbanasi ), Italy (the Arbëreshë ) as well as in Romania , Turkey and Ukraine . The Malsia e Madhe Gheg Albanian and two varieties of

10385-412: The Tosk dialect, Arvanitika in Greece and Arbëresh in southern Italy, have preserved archaic elements of the language. Ethnic Albanians constitute a large diaspora , with many having long assimilated in different cultures and communities. Consequently, Albanian-speakers do not correspond to the total ethnic Albanian population, as many ethnic Albanians may identify as Albanian but are unable to speak

10540-466: The UNMIK-installed management board. The arrival of KFOR in June 1999 led to an outburst of the mining complex. The northern mines remained owned and operated by Serbs, while the southern mines were in Albanian hands. After the forces of FR Yugoslavia withdrew from Kosovo in 1999, the chaos ensued in the period during the takeover by KFOR and UNMIK , a military and a civilian administration, respectively. The units of UÇK looted and destroyed much of

10695-565: The Yugoslav government were the President (Tito), the federal Prime Minister, and the federal Parliament (a collective Presidency was formed after Tito's death in 1980). Also important were the Communist Party general secretaries for each republic and province, and the general secretary of Central Committee of the Communist Party. Tito was the most powerful person in the country, followed by republican and provincial premiers and presidents, and Communist Party presidents. Slobodan Penezić Krcun, Tito's chief of secret police in Serbia, fell victim to

10850-431: The Zvečan complex is a 303-metre-high (994 ft) industrial chimney . From 1930 to 1985, 131 million tons of lead and zinc ore was processed. Until the production ceased in 2000, historical total output included: 3,3 million tons of refined lead, 4,100 tons of refined silver and 3,300 tons of bismuth. Calculated in 2017 parity, production of the complex was $ 360 million in 1975 and $ 340 million in 1987. In 1985, Trepča

11005-403: The actual number of dead was about 1 million. On 11 November 1945, elections were held with only the Communist-led People's Front appearing on the ballot, securing all 354 seats. On 29 November, while still in exile, King Peter II was deposed by Yugoslavia's Constituent Assembly , and the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was declared. However, he refused to abdicate. Marshal Tito

11160-733: The almost total emigration of the Serbs from all three regions, the massive displacement of the populations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the establishment of the three new independent states. The separation of Macedonia was peaceful, although the Yugoslav Army occupied the peak of the Straža mountain on Macedonian soil. Serbian uprisings in Croatia began in August 1990 by blocking roads leading from

11315-509: The central administrative building. Soldiers arrested the CEO , Novak Bjelić, who was 3 hours later expelled into central Serbia on the orders of Kouchner. Kouchner ordered the shut down of Trepča. On 4 January 2001, Serbian deputy prime minister Nebojša Čović signed a document which returned the seat of the company to Zvečan and changes the structure of Trepča, transforming it back to the state owned company, which effectively retroactively legalized

11470-560: The constitution was heavily amended to replace the emphasis on democratic centralism with workers' self-management and decentralization . The Communist Party was renamed to the League of Communists and adopted Titoism at its congress the previous year . All the Communist European Countries had deferred to Stalin and rejected the Marshall Plan aid in 1947. Tito, at first went along and rejected

11625-457: The contact between the various languages. The concept of this linguistic group is explained as a kind of language league of the Bronze Age (a specific areal-linguistics phenomenon), although it also consisted of languages that were related to each other. A common prestage posterior to PIE comprising Albanian, Greek, and Armenian, is considered as a possible scenario. In this light, due to

11780-531: The control of the Communist Party, and on recognition of the multiple nationalities. The flags of the republics used versions of the red flag or Slavic tricolor , with a red star in the centre or in the canton. Tito's regional goal was to expand south and take control of Albania and parts of Greece. In 1947, negotiations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria led to the Bled agreement , which proposed to form

11935-477: The country and responded in a manner to appease both Croats and Serbs: he ordered the arrest of the Croatian Spring protestors while at the same time conceding to some of their demands. Following the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution , Serbia's influence in the country was significantly reduced, while its autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo were granted greater autonomy, along with greater rights for

12090-552: The country were occupied by Bulgaria , Hungary, and Italy. From 1941 to 1945, the Croatian Ustaše regime persecuted and murdered around 300,000 Serbs, along with at least 30,000 Jews and Roma; hundreds of thousands of Serbs were also expelled and another 200,000-300,000 were forced to convert to Catholicism . From the start, the Yugoslav resistance forces consisted of two factions: the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and

12245-796: The cultural orientation and knowledge of certain foreign languages among Albanian writers. The earliest written Albanian records come from the Gheg area in makeshift spellings based on Italian or Greek. Originally, the Tosk dialect was written in the Greek alphabet and the Gheg dialect was written in the Latin script . Both dialects had also been written in the Ottoman Turkish version of the Arabic script , Cyrillic , and some local alphabets ( Elbasan , Vithkuqi , Todhri , Veso Bey, Jan Vellara and others, see original Albanian alphabets ). More specifically,

12400-524: The decision, while all other republics, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, voted against. The tie delayed an escalation of conflicts, but not for long. Following the first multi-party election results, in the autumn of 1990, the republics of Slovenia and Croatia proposed transforming Yugoslavia into a loose confederation of six republics. By this proposal, republics would have right to self-determination. However Milošević rejected all such proposals, arguing that like Slovenes and Croats,

12555-488: The democratisation in two of the republics and proposed different sanctions (e.g. Serbian "customs tax" for Slovene products) against the two, but as the year progressed, other republics' communist parties saw the inevitability of the democratisation process. In December, as the last member of the federation, Serbia held parliamentary elections confirming the rule of former communists in the republic. Slovenia and Croatia elected governments oriented towards greater autonomy of

12710-644: The electric company, he ordered the shutting down of the power supply to the mine. An alternative power line, which connected the mine with the grid in the Central Serbia was then established. The mine was supplied with water via the 30 km (19 mi) long concrete canal from the Gazivode Lake . Claiming that two Albanian children fell into the canal, Kouchner order for the water to be cut, too. The company then organized alternative water supply system which consisted of powerful water pumps which pumped

12865-649: The exiled royal government and the Allies , but they soon focused increasingly on combating the Partisans rather than the occupying Axis forces. By the end of the war, the Chetnik movement transformed into a collaborationist Serb nationalist militia completely dependent on Axis supplies. The Chetniks also persecuted and killed Muslims and Croats , with an estimated 50,000-68,000 victims (of which 41,000 were civilians). The highly mobile Partisans, however, carried on their guerrilla warfare with great success. Most notable of

13020-459: The first literary records of Albanian date from the 16th century. The oldest known Albanian printed book, Meshari , or "missal", was written in 1555 by Gjon Buzuku , a Roman Catholic cleric. In 1635, Frang Bardhi wrote the first Latin–Albanian dictionary. The first Albanian school is believed to have been opened by Franciscans in 1638 in Pdhanë . One of the earliest Albanian dictionaries

13175-607: The first owner and a head of the modern Trepča mines. On 9 September 1927 he launched the Trepča Mines Limited subsidiary in London and the mines were operational under that name until the end of World War II, so the founding act of the later company said: "Founded on 9 December 1927, Broad and son, 1 Great Winchester Street, London ECZ". Exploitation of the ore began in 1930 ("First tunnel" in Stari Trg). On 14 August 1930,

13330-527: The following years, certain legislation like a new mining law and regulations for investment incentives, will support privatization efforts if approved in order for the complex to work and be used at its highest level. In January 2015, the government of Kosovo said it would nationalise the Trepča mining complex because the Privatization Agency of Kosovo (KPA) had failed to come up with a plan for

13485-551: The government of the Kingdom of Serbia . The country was formed in 1918 immediately after World War I as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia . It was commonly referred to at the time as a " Versailles state". Later, King Alexander I renamed the country to Yugoslavia in 1929. On 20 June 1928, Serb deputy Puniša Račić shot at five members of

13640-453: The government the guarantor of the company’s debt." As of March 2019, the Serbian managers of RMHK Trepca were still fighting a rearguard action against the nationalization. The impact on town of Mitrovica was a major one. In only one census period of 10 years, from 1961 to 1971, the town grew by 57,7% (26,721 to 42,126). Kosovo has not yet fully recovered from the 1998–99 war and has failed since declaring independence in 2008 to build

13795-469: The heart of its operations, and the source of most of its raw material, is the vast mining complex to the east of Mitrovica in the north of Kosovo, famous since Roman times. However, with the closure of several mines and factories in the late 1980s and 1990s, the Trepča mining complex in Kosovo now comprises only seven lead and zinc mines, three concentrators, one smelter, and one zinc plant. Mines are categorized according to their geographic location: This

13950-454: The increasing ethno-political tension and the resignation of most Albanian workers. At the time, an estimated 25,000 tons per year of sulphur dioxide pollution were discharged by the smokestack, and lead levels in the air rose to more than 100 times the acceptable levels in the EU. On 18 September 1999, the mineralogical museum of the mine, where guarded treasures had been accumulated since 1966,

14105-627: The international treaties signed after World War I, and the Soviets were determined to regain their positions in Europe and pursue a more active international policy. Alexander attempted to create a centralised Yugoslavia. He decided to abolish Yugoslavia's historic regions, and new internal boundaries were drawn for provinces or banovinas. The banovinas were named after rivers. Many politicians were jailed or kept under police surveillance. During his reign, communist movements were restricted. The king

14260-541: The invading German forces. More than 300,000 Yugoslav officers and soldiers were taken prisoner. The Axis Powers occupied Yugoslavia and split it up. The Independent State of Croatia was established as a Nazi satellite state, ruled by the fascist militia known as the Ustaše that came into existence in 1929, but was relatively limited in its activities until 1941. German troops occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as part of Serbia and Slovenia , while other parts of

14415-541: The language. Standard Albanian is a standardised form of spoken Albanian based on Tosk . The language is spoken by approximately 6 million people in the Balkans, primarily in Albania, Kosovo , North Macedonia , Serbia , Montenegro and Greece . However, due to old communities in Italy and the large Albanian diaspora , the worldwide total of speakers is much higher than in Southern Europe and numbers approximately 7.5 million. The Albanian language

14570-601: The larger number of possible shared innovations between Greek and Armenian, it appears reasonable to assume, at least tentatively, that Albanian was the first Balkan IE language to branch off. This split and the following ones were perhaps very close in time, allowing only a narrow time frame for shared innovations. Albanian represents one of the core languages of the Balkan Sprachbund . Glottolog and Ethnologue recognize four Albanian languages. They are classified as follows: The first attested written mention of

14725-401: The last fifteen years, for reasons such as outdated installations; neglect and lack of maintenance, repair, and reinvestment; absence of control over production; robbery of equipment and workshops, and " Milosevic apparatchik" mine manager Novak Bjelic . Privatization attempts remained without great follow-up. The downgrade increased from 1990 with the reduction of Kosovo's autonomy by Belgrade,

14880-580: The late 1930s was marked by growing intolerance between the principal figures, by the aggressive attitude of the totalitarian regimes, and by the certainty that the order set up after World War I was losing its strongholds and its sponsors their strength. Supported and pressured by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany , Croatian leader Vladko Maček and his party managed the creation of the Banovina of Croatia (Autonomous Region with significant internal self-government) in 1939. The agreement specified that Croatia

15035-465: The latter alphabets have now been forgotten and are unknown, even to the Albanians themselves. Albanian constitutes one of the eleven major branches of the Indo-European language family , within which it occupies an independent position. In 1854, Albanian was demonstrated to be an Indo-European language by the philologist Franz Bopp . Albanian was formerly compared by a few Indo-European linguists with Germanic and Balto-Slavic , all of which share

15190-484: The massive ore findings. In 1925 a big exploration program was carried out by the British company, Selection Trust , which assessed the huge potential of the ore deposit and acquired the concession in 1926. The concession was obtained by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty , American-born British industrialist who founded the Selection Trust, nicknamed "King of copper", from Rade Pašić, son of Nikola Pašić. Beatty became

15345-543: The military occupation of the complex. As of 2017, the only remaining operational part of the complex were the Kopaonik mines and the flotation in Leposavić . The Trepča mining complex is derelict in a failing state that has immense potential, but has so far been ignored by serious investors for myriad reasons. The mine effectively went out of production as a result of the 1999 civil war and has been rumored to be part of

15500-622: The mine continued to function normally. In 1455 the Ottoomans, under the Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror , captured Trepča. Several neighborhoods in the area of Trepča according to the Ottoman defter of 1591 were Islamised and the other neighborhoods contained people with a mixture of Christian, Albanian and Slavic names. According to Selami Pulaha, Trepča in the 16th century had a significant Albanian population. 13 heads of families in

15655-461: The mine's future. Partly due to its murky ownership structure and numerous creditor claims with a draft law, but fearing bankruptcy and liquidation then the government changed this decision, then approved a special draft law except which includes two new articles those for completion changes according to which certain social enterprise could become public by decision of the Assembly. At the request of

15810-400: The mine's properties while international forces did nothing to stop it. UNMIK was authorized to take over all the state owned companies. However, Trepča wasn't organized as a plain, state-owned property, but was transformed into the joint-stock company in 1996. UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner personally asked for the documentation on the ownership of Trepča, but he wasn't authorized to take over

15965-429: The names for fish and for agricultural activities (such as ploughing ) are borrowed from other languages. A deeper analysis of the vocabulary, however, shows that could be a consequence of a prolonged Latin domination of the coastal and plain areas of the country, rather than evidence of the original environment in which the Albanian language was formed. For example, the word for 'fish' is borrowed from Latin, but not

16120-481: The neighborhood of Trepz and 22 heads of families in the neighborhood Mekisha bore typical Albanian names. Under the Ottoman rule, Trepča, and all the other mines (like Novo Brdo ) began to depopulate and deteriorate. During the Austro-Turkish War from 1683 to 1699 , the town of Trepča and its mine were destroyed in 1685. Followed by the massive depopulation as a result of the 1690 Great Migration of

16275-507: The new autonomous province of Kosovo, reaction was different. Serbs saw the new constitution as conceding to Croat and ethnic Albanian nationalists. Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo saw the creation of an autonomous province as not being enough, and demanded that Kosovo become a constituent republic with the right to separate from Yugoslavia. This created tensions within the Communist leadership, particularly among Communist Serb officials who viewed

16430-456: The north and Tosk spoken to the south of the Shkumbin river . Their characteristics in the treatment of both native words and loanwords provide evidence that the split into the northern and the southern dialects occurred after Christianisation of the region (4th century AD), and most likely not later than the 6th century AD, hence possibly occupying roughly their present area divided by

16585-518: The number of people in Turkey with Albanian ancestry and or background upward to 5 million. However, the vast majority of this population is assimilated and no longer possesses fluency in the Albanian language, though a vibrant Albanian community maintains its distinct identity in Istanbul to this day. Egypt also lays claim to about 18,000 Albanians, mostly Tosk speakers. Many are descendants of

16740-472: The only surviving representative of its own branch , which belongs to the Paleo-Balkan group . Although it is still uncertain which ancient mentioned language of the Balkans it continues, or where in the region its speakers lived. In general, there is insufficient evidence to connect Albanian with one of those languages, whether Illyrian , Thracian , or Dacian . Among these possibilities, Illyrian

16895-498: The opposition Croatian Peasant Party in the National Assembly , resulting in the death of two deputies on the spot and that of leader Stjepan Radić a few weeks later. On 6 January 1929, King Alexander I got rid of the constitution , banned national political parties , assumed executive power , and renamed the country Yugoslavia. He hoped to curb separatist tendencies and mitigate nationalist passions. He imposed

17050-478: The original residency changed drastically leaving only a minimum number of Serbians in the region. The number of Serbs in Kosovo was quickly declining for several reasons, among them the ever-increasing ethnic tensions and subsequent emigration from the area. Meanwhile, Slovenia , under the presidency of Milan Kučan , and Croatia supported the Albanian miners and their struggle for formal recognition. Initial strikes turned into widespread demonstrations demanding

17205-499: The parliament adopts the law on public enterprises. They ended their strike when Kosovo government officials said they would consider bringing up nationalization again. In October 2016, the nationalisation process went ahead over Serbian diplomatic protest. The mine "had been held in trust and readied for sale" since 1999 by the UN-protected Kosovo Privatization Agency . The "legislation makes

17360-606: The public protest and incarcerated the leaders, though many key Croatian representatives in the Party silently supported this cause. As a result, a new Constitution was ratified in 1974, which gave more rights to the individual republics in Yugoslavia and provinces in Serbia. After the Yugoslav Partisans took over the country at the end of WWII, nationalism was banned from being publicly promoted. Overall relative peace

17515-441: The reason for the conflict in the first place. Its economy is in dire straits and there are few options to improve it. Trepča, despite its problems, provides one of the few significant development opportunities. The facility needs major upgrades, but the mineral reserves are great enough to offset the start-up costs. Most importantly, a reactivated Trepča would provide several thousand jobs and increase Kosovo's foreign exchange. It

17670-522: The regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina was reduced by the 1974 Constitution. Because its two autonomous provinces had de facto prerogatives of full-fledged republics, Serbia found that its hands were tied, for the republican government was restricted in making and carrying out decisions that would apply to the provinces. Since the provinces had a vote in the Federal Presidency Council (an eight-member council composed of representatives from

17825-452: The republics (under Milan Kučan and Franjo Tuđman , respectively). Serbia and Montenegro elected candidates who favoured Yugoslav unity. The Croat quest for independence led to large Serb communities within Croatia rebelling and trying to secede from the Croat republic. Serbs in Croatia would not accept the status of a national minority in a sovereign Croatia since they would be demoted from

17980-472: The royalist Chetniks , with the former receiving Allied recognition at the Tehran conference (1943). The heavily pro-Serbian Chetniks were led by Draža Mihajlović , while the pan-Yugoslav oriented Partisans were led by Josip Broz Tito . The Partisans initiated a guerrilla campaign that developed into the largest resistance army in occupied Western and Central Europe. The Chetniks were initially supported by

18135-614: The same fate. In other words, in less than two years "the trigger mechanism" (under the Financial Operations Act) had led to the layoff of more than 600,000 workers out of a total industrial workforce of the order of 2.7 million. An additional 20% of the work force, or half a million people, were not paid wages during the early months of 1990 as enterprises sought to avoid bankruptcy. The largest concentrations of bankrupt firms and lay-offs were in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo. Real earnings were in

18290-543: The same month, the Army leaders met with the Presidency of Yugoslavia in an attempt to get them to declare a state of emergency which would allow for the army to take control of the country. The army was seen as an arm of the Serbian government by that time so the consequence feared by the other republics was to be total Serbian domination of the union. The representatives of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Vojvodina voted for

18445-460: The same rights. However, most of the German minority of Yugoslavia, most of whom had collaborated during the occupation and had been recruited to German forces, were expelled towards Germany or Austria. The country distanced itself from the Soviets in 1948 (cf. Cominform and Informbiro ) and started to build its own way to socialism under the political leadership of Josip Broz Tito. Accordingly,

18600-484: The same time, Western economies went into recession, decreasing demand for Yugoslav imports thereby creating a large debt problem. In 1989, 248 firms were declared bankrupt or were liquidated and 89,400 workers were laid off according to official sources . During the first nine months of 1990 and directly following the adoption of the IMF programme, another 889 enterprises with a combined work-force of 525,000 workers suffered

18755-565: The second half of the 13th century, as it was mentioned for the first time in 1303 in one charter of the Pope Boniface VIII . As Stari Trg was one of the Europe's richest mines of lead, zinc, silver and gold, King Milutin set a coin mint there, which was operational for over a century. Emperor Dušan appointed a special knez to administer Trepča. The mine reached its pinnacle during the reign of Dušan's successor, Emperor Uroš . On 11 March 1363, Uroš awarded Vuk Branković with

18910-569: The six republics and the two autonomous provinces), they sometimes even entered into coalitions with other republics, thus outvoting Serbia. Serbia's political impotence made it possible for others to exert pressure on the 2 million Serbs (20% of the total Serbian population) living outside Serbia. After Tito's death, Serbian communist leader Slobodan Milošević began making his way toward the pinnacle of Serbian leadership. Milošević sought to restore pre-1974 Serbian sovereignty. Other republics, especially Slovenia and Croatia, denounced his proposal as

19065-568: The smelters and refineries. Geologically, the Trepča area belongs to the Mississippi Valley-Type of mineral deposits. It has beautiful occurrence of skarn , so as the Novo Brdo mine. Trepča was the largest Galena and Sphalerite mine in Yugoslavia. More than sixty minerals are listed up to date, most of which from a museological viewpoint are of exceptional quality. They include: The amount of ore mining in Kosovo

19220-579: The southern Austrian provinces of Styria and Carinthia . However, the Partisans withdrew from Trieste in June of the same year under heavy pressure from Stalin, who did not want a confrontation with the other Allies. Western attempts to reunite the Partisans, who denied the supremacy of the old government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , and the émigrés loyal to the king led to the Tito-Šubašić Agreement in June 1944; however, Marshal Josip Broz Tito

19375-561: The state was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929. The kingdom was invaded and occupied by the Axis powers in April 1941. In 1943, Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed by the Partisan resistance . In 1944, King Peter II , then living in exile , recognised it as the legitimate government. After a communist government was elected in November 1945, the monarchy

19530-525: The status of a constituent nation. The war broke out when the new regimes tried to replace Yugoslav civilian and military forces with secessionist forces. When, in August 1990, Croatia attempted to replace police in the Serb-populated Croat Krajina by force, the population first looked for refuge in the Yugoslav Army barracks, while the army remained passive. The civilians then organised armed resistance. These armed conflicts between

19685-488: The status of a republic in the 1981 protests in Kosovo while Serbian authorities suppressed this sentiment and proceeded to reduce the province's autonomy. In 1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts drafted a memorandum addressing some burning issues concerning the position of Serbs as the most numerous people in Yugoslavia. The largest Yugoslav republic in territory and population, Serbia's influence over

19840-581: The status of sole legal successor to the SFRY, but those claims were opposed by the other former republics. Eventually, it accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession and in 2003 its official name was changed to Serbia and Montenegro. This state dissolved when Montenegro and Serbia each became independent states in 2006, with Kosovo having an ongoing dispute over its declaration of independence in 2008. The concept of Yugoslavia , as

19995-477: The stock company, which French newspaper Le Monde wrote about at the time. Serbian management of the company tried to continue the production in the facilities north of the Ibar river which remained out of Albanian control, as much as it was possible: 9 mines out of 14, 6 out of 8 flotation units, 1 out of 2 metallurgy factories and 9 out of 17 factories or 70% of the capacities. As Kouchner had administrative rule over

20150-646: The successive influxes of the Byzantine , Bulgarian, Serbian, Albanian and Turkish people helps explain the cultural mixing and the legacies of old grievances which underlie the chaos of the 1990s. During his reign (1243–76), King Uroš invited the Saxon miners to Serbia, in order to develop the state's mines. The Saxons (called Sasi by the Serbs) built settlements and churches around the mines and were granted with keeping their identity. Trepča mine probably originated in

20305-478: The time that the Albanian language was formed are uncertain. The American linguist Eric Hamp has said that during an unknown chronological period a pre-Albanian population (termed as "Albanoid" by Hamp) inhabited areas stretching from Poland to the southwestern Balkans. Further analysis has suggested that it was in a mountainous region rather than on a plain or seacoast. The words for plants and animals characteristic of mountainous regions are entirely original, but

20460-564: The time, and used as a synonym for the Albanian language. Published in Rome in 1635, by the Albanian bishop and writer Frang Bardhi, the first dictionary of the Albanian language was titled Latin : Dictionarium latino-epiroticum ' Latin-Epirotan dictionary ' . During the five-century period of the Ottoman presence in Albania , the language was not officially recognised until 1909, when

20615-594: The title of "ruler of Drenica, Kosovo and Trepča". Trepča was governed by Branković until 1396 when he was captured by the Ottomans. Also known as a major trading town, Trepča had representatives from the rich, trading cities, like Split and Kotor on the Adriatic , while trading city of Dubrovnik appointed a consul. As with the others mines in the Medieval Serbia ( Brskovo , Rudnik , Janjevo , Novo Brdo),

20770-572: The treatment of the native words and loanwords from other languages are evidence that the dialectal split preceded the Slavic migrations to the Balkans , which means that in that period (the 5th to 6th centuries AD), Albanians were occupying nearly the same area around the Shkumbin river, which straddled the Jireček Line . References to the existence of Albanian as a distinct language survive from

20925-786: The treaty and launched a coup d'état when the king returned on 27 March . Army General Dušan Simović seized power, arrested the Vienna delegation, exiled Prince Paul, and ended the regency, giving 17-year-old King Peter full powers. Hitler then decided to attack Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, followed immediately by an invasion of Greece where Mussolini had previously been repelled. At 5:12 a.m. on 6 April 1941, German , Italian and Hungarian forces invaded Yugoslavia . The German Air Force ( Luftwaffe ) bombed Belgrade and other major Yugoslav cities. On 17 April, representatives of Yugoslavia's various regions signed an armistice with Germany in Belgrade, ending eleven days of resistance against

21080-578: The victories against the occupying forces were the battles of Neretva and Sutjeska . On 25 November 1942, the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia was convened in Bihać , modern day Bosnia and Herzegovina . The council reconvened on 29 November 1943, in Jajce , also in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and established the basis for post-war organisation of the country, establishing

21235-601: The water from the Ibar river via the two-way pipeline into the pools on the slopes of the Zvečan Hill. From there, using free fall , the water was conducted to the factories. The official seat of the company was transferred to Belgrade , but the management remained in Zvečan. Chief of the US section of the KFOR, General William L. Nash tried to shut it down, too, giving statements that 700 bodies of dead Albanians were suspected to be in

21390-421: The word for 'gills' which is native. Indigenous are also the words for 'ship', 'raft', 'navigation', 'sea shelves' and a few names of fish kinds, but not the words for 'sail', 'row' and 'harbor'; objects pertaining to navigation itself and a large part of sea fauna. This rather shows that Proto-Albanians were pushed away from coastal areas in early times (probably after the Latin conquest of the region) and thus lost

21545-646: The worldwide protests of 1968 . President Josip Broz Tito gradually stopped the protests by giving in to some of the students' demands and saying that "students are right" during a televised speech. However, in the following years, he dealt with the leaders of the protests by sacking them from university and Communist party posts. A more severe sign of disobedience was so-called Croatian Spring of 1970 and 1971, when students in Zagreb organised demonstrations for greater civil liberties and greater Croatian autonomy, followed by mass protests across Croatia. The regime stifled

21700-544: The writers from northern Albania and under the influence of the Catholic Church used Latin letters, those in southern Albania and under the influence of the Greek Orthodox church used Greek letters, while others throughout Albania and under the influence of Islam used Arabic letters. There were initial attempts to create an original Albanian alphabet during the 1750–1850 period. These attempts intensified after

21855-604: Was Europe's 1st and world's 5th largest raw lead smelting facility and one of the largest for processing zinc. Production capacity included: 3.5 million tons of ore, 165,000 tons of raw lead, 110,000 tons of refined lead, 40,000 tons of electrolytic zinc, 100 tons of fine silver, 100 tons of refined bismuth, 72 tons of cadmium, 200 kg of gold, 20,000 tons of lead batteries, 280,000 tons of sulfuric acid, 100,000 tons of sulfur-phosphate and 150,000 tons of composite fertilizers. It produced over 80% of refined lead and over 50% of refined zinc in Yugoslavia. The 1989 Kosovo miners' strike

22010-726: Was a hunger strike initiated by some workers of the Trepča Mines on 20 February 1989 against the abolition of the autonomy of the Province of Kosovo by the Socialist Republic of Serbia . The strike quickly gained support in Slovenia and Croatia, while in Belgrade protests were held against the Slovenian, Albanian and Croatian demands for decentralization. The strike council articulated ten requirements, which included obeying

22165-452: Was abolished, and the country was renamed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. It acquired the territories of Istria , Rijeka , and Zadar from Italy . Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito ruled the country from 1944 as prime minister and later as president until his death in 1980. In 1963, the country was renamed for the final time, as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). The six constituent republics that made up

22320-446: Was assassinated in Marseille during an official visit to France in 1934 by Vlado Chernozemski , an experienced marksman from Ivan Mihailov 's Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization with the cooperation of the Ustaše , a Croatian fascist revolutionary organisation. Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Peter II and a regency council headed by his cousin, Prince Paul . The international political scene in

22475-427: Was expanded and reconstructed on several occasions. After the World War II , Tito 's SFR Yugoslavia nationalized the enterprise. Marking the 40th anniversary, on 9 December 1967 a new lead smelter was opened (at the time, the 4th largest in the world), so as the zinc electrolysis plant and an automotive battery plant. New flotation in Zvečan was built in 1985, in the First tunnel, closer to Stari Trg. The landmark of

22630-481: Was in 1284 in a witness testimony from the Republic of Ragusa , while a letter written by Dominican Friar Gulielmus Adea in 1332 mentions the Albanians using the Latin alphabet in their writings. The oldest surviving attestation of modern Albanian is from 1462. The two main Albanian dialect groups (or varieties ), Gheg and Tosk , are primarily distinguished by phonological differences and are mutually intelligible in their standard varieties, with Gheg spoken to

22785-419: Was in control and was determined to lead an independent communist state, starting as a prime minister. He had the support of Moscow and London and led by far the strongest Partisan force with 800,000 men. The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II is 1,704,000. Subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavić and Bogoljub Kočović showed that

22940-597: Was less centralized than in other socialist countries, may have led to the stronger growth. However, even if the absolute value of the growth rates was not as high as indicated by the official statistics, both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were characterized by surprisingly high growth rates of both income and education during the 1950s. The period of European growth ended after the oil price shock in 1970s. Following that, an economic crisis erupted in Yugoslavia due to disastrous economic policies such as borrowing vast amounts of Western capital to fund growth through exports. At

23095-418: Was now in full control, and all opposition elements were eliminated. On 31 January 1946, the new constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia , modelled after the Constitution of the Soviet Union , established six republics , an autonomous province, and an autonomous district that were a part of Serbia. The federal capital was Belgrade. The policy focused on a strong central government under

23250-451: Was operational from the Roman period. Many constructions back in the Roman Empire were constructed including fortresses , wells , drosses , etc. The main fortress was built for the Roman city Municipium Dardanorum which was the capital city of a Roman province in Dardani . With the collapse of the Roman Empire and Slavic migrations, mining activity decreased leading to closure until the late Medieval Era (1000–1492). The long history of

23405-452: Was plundered by thieves benefiting from the confusion. It was reported that the most invaluable vivianite specimen of the museum, more than 1,500 of the crystals collected inside the mine since 1927, and 150 specimens which had been given by 30 countries from all over the world had disappeared. UNMIK inherited a large problem through its trusteeship of the assets, and in February 2002, Bjelic suffered from criminal court proceedings brought by

23560-412: Was retained under Tito's rule, though nationalist protests did occur, but these were usually repressed and nationalist leaders were arrested and some were executed by Yugoslav officials. However, the Croatian Spring protests in the 1970s were backed by large numbers of Croats who complained that Yugoslavia remained a Serb hegemony. Tito, whose home republic was Croatia, was concerned over the stability of

23715-403: Was to remain part of Yugoslavia, but it was hurriedly building an independent political identity in international relations. Prince Paul submitted to fascist pressure and signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna on 25 March 1941, hoping to continue keeping Yugoslavia out of the war. However, this was at the expense of popular support for Paul's regency. Senior military officers were also opposed to

23870-449: Was transported to the floatation first on the bullock carts , until a 6.5 km (4.0 mi) long industrial cable car transportation was built. A lead smeltery and refinery became operational in Zvečan in 1939. During the German occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II, Stari Trg , the centerpiece mine, supplied 40 percent of lead used in the Nazi war industry. After the German-lead Invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, most of what

24025-453: Was written in 1693; it was the Italian manuscript Pratichae Schrivaneschae authored by the Montenegrin sea captain Julije Balović and includes a multilingual dictionary of hundreds of the most frequently used words in everyday life in Italian, Slavic, Greek, Albanian, and Turkish . Pre-Indo-European (PreIE) sites are found throughout the territory of Albania. Such PreIE sites existed in Maliq , Vashtëmi , Burimas , Barç , Dërsnik in

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