The question of national identity and the immigration of Kosovo Muslims to Turkey during the Yugoslav communist regime

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper attempts to answer some questions about the Yugoslav communist regime's identity policy in Kosovo: did the authorities encourage Turkification of Albanians or Albanisation of Turks, and how was the issue of Turkish emigration from Yugoslavia to Turkey handled in the 1950s? Answers to these questions may also prove useful in discussing the question of the determinants of the nationality policy of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito. The study is based on the analysis of state documents kept in different archives in Belgrade, Pristina, and Tirana, and the relevant literature in Serbian, Albanian, Turkish, and English. It is my contention that the Turkish minority in Kosovo was in the first post-war years denied the recognition of its national identity and minority rights, and that its status largely depended on the Yugoslav communist leadership's strategy of subordinating Yugoslavia's national interests to the particular interests of the six federal and two autonomous units into which it was divided. I argue that the Yugoslav government implemented different policies regarding emigration to Turkey in Kosovo and Macedonia and that it sought to halt the emigration of Kosovo Albanians, as evidenced by available data.