Historian Insists Serbia Has Never Committed Genocide against Albanians

Nebojsa Damnjanovic(Photo:PrintScreen YouTube)

Historian Nebojsa Damnjanovic on July 20 dismissed Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti’s claims about alleged genocides committed by the state of Serbia against the Albanian population in the 19th and 20th century as absolutely untrue and without any historical evidence.   

Damnjanovic, a museum advisor and curator at the Historical Museum of Serbia, told BETA that in the 19th century, the Arbanasi people, then the name of the Albanians, considered themselves the Turks. He added that the Arbanasi, who as Ottoman Empire soldiers had been settled in the regions of south and southeastern Serbia in the late 19th century, voluntarily left these regions following Serbia’s victory over the Ottoman Empire as they did not wish to live in a Christian state.

If the Serbs had committed genocides against the Albanians in the late 19th and early 20th century, the Albanians would not have outnumbered the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija in 1941 or 2000, the historian specified. “If genocide had been committed, the Albanians would not have been a majority in Kosovo. The so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) exiled some 250,000 Serbs from Kosovo in 199,” Damnjanovic stressed.

In Brussels on July 19, Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti accused Serbia of having committed three genocides against the Albanians since 1878.