Page 880 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Metropolitan amfilohije (Radović)
desecrating this sacred place. The monastery is still with- out KFOR protection, but the sisters do not want to leave the endowment, neither the desecrated church nor St. ja- nicije’s tomb.
Bishop atanasije jevtić has also arrived in Prizren to- day. Under the KFOR protection, Bishop artemije has left Prizren together with the priesthood, monastics and 250 faithful people who were for days under the albanian siege, and has moved to Gračanica Monastery.
...
in Novo Selo, Stanojko Mihajlović (55) has been killed by a firearm. He was not buried, because it was dangerous to go take his body of which nothing is known yet. Milorad Radević built a church in Pećka Banja. just as it was conse- crated, it had to be left behind. The donor mourned over it and left on Sunday. except for the church, he also left a new parochial house, a hall, just commenced frescography...
What is this i meet in Metohija burning in flames: a suicidal tendency, nihilism, spirit of destruction? These days everything in her is along these lines: the destruction of a national being, disappearance of a state, everything...
at my request to General Del Vecchio and to his amaze- ment that i ask for something like this, he hosted us a meet- ing at his office, in a former beer factory with one of the albanian commanders in chief, ethem Çeku. i explained the italian general the reason as to why i asked for this en- counter: there are more and more murdered and kidnapped Serbs in Peć and the surroundings, the looting and plunder are at their full swing, and if it is possible, the Church wants in this way, too, to save at least someone and contribute to ending of violence. Ceku arrives late with a shaved head and bald scalp, under arms and with a dozen companions. i find out he used to be a steel merchant. He says a greeting without looking at me, full of himself and his power. He speaks albanian, addressing me through an interpreter, who translates his words in italian, although Çeku speaks Serbian well. While opening the meeting, the italian gen- eral speaks about his peacemaking role. i mention “bessa”15 and respect for the albanians. “We aren’t Shqiptars, we are albanians!” all of a sudden Çeku angrily speaks out. “i know that your homeland is called Shqipnia,” i reply wondering at his anger, “and her inhabitants—Shqiptars. i learned this from Marko Miljanov...” i certainly do not tell him of what even science knows very well: that us Serbs most often called them the Arbanas or Arnauts (ethnic albanians, in Serbian and Turkish language respectivly) for centuries, and as of the 20th century more and more often—the Shq- iptars, and more and more rarely the way they most often called themselves, according to a Russian scientist Selis- chov—the Ghegs. in some Caucasian languages even to- day the word “gheg” means “warrior, fighter” especially on horseback.16
15
Neither do i tell ethem Çeku and his like-minded com- panions that we used to have this kind of naming of his compatriots up until the time of the communist dictator- ship when we were forced by the communists of our blood but of their brains to stop calling our own Old Serbia—Old Serbia and to begin calling her more neutrally—Kosovo and Metohija, or Kosmet for short.
and in this dictatorship we were weaned from this and from everything else what we are and what we were in the past by all possible means of autocratic compulsion, which gave a measure and place to everything in accordance with their views, especially over the prominent politically eligi- ble, as they would say today “politically correct” individu- als, who acted on its behalf: from now on the Arnauts must be called albanians and under no circumstances and never different than that! So it was in politics, so it was in the media, so it was in science, education, sport but surpris- ingly by the time in Church, too. For this or that reason, Church stopped calling the most numerous Serbian neigh- bors in Old Serbia the way she did in the time of St. Basil of Ostrog, the Deacon avacum and the renowned Sima igu- manov—the Arbanas or Arnauts (ethnic albanians), call- ing them more often only—albanians.
it is only today that we can see the ultimate goal of this joint effort the initial trigger of which were the positions of the German and austro-Hungarian philological schools on turning old Caucasian tribes, similar to the Circassians, who initially called themselves “Ghegers”—which means “warriors,” and Toskers, and only later arbers, Shqiptars, into a new european nation with a newly designed identity of “european ancients” who will be called albanians, and their country neither Ghegeria, Toskeria or arberia any- more but albania, the country of albans that is. The Ger- mans and the austro-Hungarians worked very hard on this during the 19th century, although the educated europe used the name albans to call most various “newcomers, immi- grants,” generally strangers from non-european mainland, starting with the Scots, and never solely the tribes which emigrated in the waves from the Caucasus, in the service of powerful armies, into the countries of Orthodox Greeks and Serbs, from epirus and Thessalia, from Zeta and Old Serbia (Kosovo and Metohija and Slavic Macedonia), as it has become common today.
Hence, in the late 19th century austro-Hungarian sci- ence gave a decisive contribution to turning albanians into new allies of the German political and state expansionism
16 Hence, starting from the original name Gheg of the newly mi- grated albanian-worriors on their horses who were also distin- guished by a specific walking style of professional riders, bow-legged and staggered, supported by the habit of squatting and talking while sitting on one’s hunkers, just as it can be seen to this very dayamong elderlz albanians and their Caucasian kinsmen the Chechens, the Serbs used to call such walking style “gheg” (waddle), and the harsh- ness of the character and customs it was coupled with “crudity, pro- vincialism.” as a social phenomenon, its carriers were named “ghegs, gedzas, gegovans, gedzovans” (boors, barbarians)—Ed.
albanian cultural precept meaning “word of honor,” “to keep the promise”—transl note
878