MIGRATION OF SERBS FROM KOSOVO AND METOHIJA DURING THE YUGOSLAV COMMUNIST REGIME 1958–1981: SCALE AND CAUSES

The go­al of this re­se­arch is to esta­blish the sca­le of, and re­a­sons for, the mi­gra­ti­on of Serbs from Ser­bia’s Au­to­no­mo­us Pro­vin­ce of Ko­so­vo and Me­to­hi­ja du­ring the com­mu­nist re­gi­me in SFR Yugo­sla­via. This study co­vers the pe­ri­od from 1958, when fi­eld re­ports be­gan to syste­ma­ti­cally re­cord Serb mi­gra­ti­on from Ko­so­vo, to 1981, when the de­ath of Jo­sip Broz Ti­to the year be­fo­re and the Al­ba­ni­an de­mon­stra­ti­ons in Pri­sti­na led to a fundamen­tal shift in the ap­pro­ach of the Ser­bi­an and Yugo­slav aut­ho­ri­ti­es to this phe­no­me­non. The re­se­arch is ba­sed pri­ma­rily on do­cu­ments from the Arc­hi­ves of Ko­so­vo, the Arc­hi­ves of Yugo­sla­via, the Cen­tral Sta­te Arc­hi­ves of Al­ba­nia, the Sta­te Arc­hi­ves of Ser­bia, as well as on the analysis of sta­ti­sti­cal da­ta. The fin­dings sug­gest that the re­a­sons be­hind Serb mi­gra­ti­on from Ko­so­vo were pre­do­mi­nantly po­li­ti­cal and se­cu­rity-re­la­ted, rat­her than pu­rely eco­no­mic. They furt­her sug­gest that ter­ri­to­ri­al au­to­nomy gran­ted to a na­ti­o­nal mi­no­rity requi­res ad­di­ti­o­nal me­a­su­res to pro­tect the in­ter­nal mi­no­rity wit­hin the au­to­no­mo­us ter­ri­tory and that the lack of such me­a­su­res in au­to­no­mo­us Ko­so­vo du­ring Ti­to’s re­gi­me promp­ted the mi­gra­ti­on of Serbs from the pro­vin­ce.