Legacies of Destruction: Architecture as a Nationalist Battleground in Kosovo

Abstract

Architectural destruction is often perceived as inevitable collateral damage during modern conflict, but a major facet of the Kosovo War of 1998-9 and its aftermath was the deliberate targeting and demolition of architectural heritage on a massive scale. Both Serbian and Kosovar Albanian nationalists participated in this desecration, the most widespread wave of violence against religious architecture on European soil since the infamous Kristallnacht riots under Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. This thesis explains this destruction through analysis of the chauvinist nationalist narratives endorsed by both Serbian and Kosovar Albanian leaders and media which reframed architectural heritage as symbols of oppression and trauma requiring destruction. For both Serbs and Kosovar Albanians, destroying the opposing nation’s architecture came to be understood as central to a concentrated effort towards purifying the Kosovar cultural landscape and asserting ownership. This thesis intends primarily to answer how nationalist narratives of both Serbs and Kosovar Albanians centered the sacred architecture of the opposing nation as targets of violence and why these efforts proved so devastating. Through analysis of key figures, events, and cases of architectural destruction, I argue that the nationalist narratives of these two nations transformed architecture into emblems representing myths of supremacy, fears of destruction, and historical trauma.