A peace built on separation
“This is a piece of heaven on Earth,” the monk said. “When you are here, you feel it.”
Dressed in a long black robe and stroking a long black beard, the monk’s words would seem a simple phrase, a holy man talking about a holy place. But nothing is simple here. His home, the Banjska Monastery, is set high above a village just outside of Mitrovica in Kosovo — a divided city in a divided country that still bears the scars of wars dating back more than 600 years.
Built between 1313 and 1317 by the Serbian King Stefan Milutin, the monastery was his burial site until the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.
That battle, between the Christian Serbs and the Ottoman Turks, has been highly mythologized. What is known is that the Serb leader, Prince Lazar, was killed. His death has become a symbol of Serb suffering and resistance that still resonates.
As the myth goes, on the night before the battle, Lazar was visited by a saint in the form of a grey falcon with a message from the Virgin Mary.
He could win the battle and find a kingdom on earth. Or he could lose the battle and find a kingdom in heaven. He chose to lose.
On June 28, 1989, on the 600th anniversary of the battle, Slobodan Milosevic arrived by helicopter at the site and reframed the choice that faced Lazar. It was time, he said, for Serbs to find their “heaven on earth.”
What ensued was an ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovo’s Albanians that lasted until a 78-day United States-led NATO bombing campaign in 1999.
Two decades later, this remains a land more divided than at peace. Here in Mitrovica, in the northern part of Kosovo, ethnic Serbs dominate; only recently have police began wearing the country’s official uniform.
Many people here do not see themselves as part of Kosovo as it currently exists. They want to be a part of Serbia but feel like pawns in the bigger game as Serbia seeks membership in the European Union, and expect to be forsaken by Belgrade if that day comes.
At a recent town-hall meeting in Mitrovica, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic faced angry and distrustful residents who asked who would protect them, saying they needed weapons.
Every day, the call to prayer echoes from a mosque on the southern side of the bridge that spans the Ibar River, which cuts through the city. Ethnic Serbs across the bridge can hear the muezzin’s song as they walk past a statue only recently erected. It is dedicated to Prince Lazar. He is looking across the bridge, which is guarded by international peacekeepers. It is easy to tell when you are driving in the ethnic Serbian area even before you see any international troops. Many cars don’t have licence plates or have plates issued by Serbia, which are considered illegal by the government in Pristina.
Children go to separate schools. Men work in separate industries. Families eat in different restaurants.
As a descendant of Milutin and Lazar, the monk, who only goes by his given priestly name Georgije, gave voice to the Serb sense of persecution.
“First we were forced to live under the Turks. Now it is under the Albanians and the Americans.”
But Serbs remember, he said. And he was hopeful that the Serbs would restore their medieval dominion over Kosovo once again.