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Ibrahim Rugova. La question du Kosovo - entretiens avec Marie-Francoise Allain et Xavier Galmiche, Preface de I. Kadare. Paris: Fayard,1994. 261 PP.
La question du Kosovo is a selection of conversations with Ibrahim Rugova, the president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo, carried out and presented by two scholars specializing in Eastern Europe: Marie Francoise Allain, an graduate of Columbia University, currently teaching American literature and civilization at the University of Paris VIII and Xavier Galmiche, an expert in Central Europe who teaches in Hungary.
Although Allain and Galmiche had met Rugova in March, 1991 and in February, 1992, the conversations actually took place in June, 1993. The meetings were held in Switzerland on account of the fact that practically no foreign observers or journalists are allowed to enter Kosovo.
The conversations are about the situation in Kosovo since 1981. They are divided into eight chapters, each one being centered on a particular theme. The book also contains, aside from a preface by Ismail Kadare, excerpts of Rugova's creative writings, translated from Albanian into French by Christiane Montecot, a chronology of events since 1878 dealing with Kosovo and Yugoslavia, a bibliography, and various documents pertaining to the Kosovo problem.
1981, the year of the Kosovo demonstrations, is considered as the beginning of Yugoslavia's dislocation. A question often asked is: "Will the war in Yugoslavia end where it began, i.e., in Kosovo?" Thus, the Kosovo question becomes important.
As known, in 1981 the Kosovars (Kosovo Albanians) had requested that the region inhabited by them, which had the status of "autonomous province of Serbia" be recognized as the seventh Republic of the Yugoslav Federation. The peaceful demonstrations organized for this purpose were bloodily crushed by Yugoslav army and police forces. Kosovo was not recognized as the seventh Republic. On March 23, 1989, the parliament of Kosovo voted, under duress, for the suppression of the constitution and the situation, which was very bad in 1981, deteriorated considerably. The well known Kosovar writer, Rexhep Qosja, summed it up in these terms:
...all the power, all the wealth of Kosovo is in the hands of 200,000 Serbs. The Albanians have only the air which no one can take away from them. Our women cannot give birth to children in...