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Slobodan Milosevic, speech delivered at Gazimestan, Kosovo, 28 June 1989, on the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo.

Six centuries ago, Serbia defended itself on the Field of Kosovo. Today, six centuries later, we are again engaged in battles. They are not armed battles, though such things are not yet excluded. But regardless of what kind of battles they may be, they cannot be won without resolve, courage and sacrifice. Whoever has betrayed Kosovo has betrayed Serbia. Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. It is the place where our history, our culture and our identity were born. No force and no authority can take it from us. The Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija have been leaving their homeland under pressure from Albanian nationalists. This is not just a Serbian national problem. It is a problem that threatens all of Yugoslavia.

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Western editorial cartoon published in 1998, showing a large hand labelled "Belgrade" squeezing a small map outline of Kosovo. Tiny figures representing Kosovo Albanians are being pushed out of the borders. A cracked Yugoslav flag hangs in the background.

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Ibrahim Rugova, President of the self-declared Republic of Kosovo, interview with the New York Times, March 1998.

For nearly a decade we have pursued a policy of nonviolent resistance. We have built our own institutions: schools, hospitals, a parallel government. We have asked only for what is our right under international law: self-determination. Belgrade responds with repression. Our language has been banned from official use. Our university has been closed. Our elected assembly has been dissolved. Serbian police patrol our streets as an occupying force. We have been patient, but patience has limits. The international community speaks of human rights and the rule of law, yet it does nothing while two million people are denied their most basic freedoms. If the world does not act, others will act in our place, and the consequences will be far worse than anything we have seen so far.

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Historian Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History, published 1998.

The roots of the Kosovo conflict lay in the deliberate dismantling of Kosovo's autonomy by Slobodan Milosevic between 1989 and 1990. Under the 1974 Yugoslav constitution, Kosovo had enjoyed substantial autonomy as a province within Serbia, with its own assembly, judiciary, and police force. Milosevic revoked this autonomy through a series of constitutional amendments imposed under military pressure, stripping Kosovo's Albanian majority of political representation and replacing Albanian officials, teachers, and police with Serbs. The effect was to reduce a population that was approximately 90% Albanian to the status of a subject people in their own territory. The parallel state built by Ibrahim Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo sustained Albanian civic life through the 1990s, but its policy of nonviolent resistance was increasingly challenged by younger Albanians who saw armed struggle as the only remaining option.

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A speech by Josip Broz Tito made on 29 November 1943 in Belgrade.

We are very well aware that the traitor government is doing all it can to smuggle itself back into Yugoslavia at any cost (and that goes for the king too) before the people utter their decisive word on their future. We know that certain reactionary circles abroad are helping that government. But we also know that the vast majority of progressive democratic elements in the Allied countries sincerely desire our people to decide their future for themselves … We have been slandered from all sides … All the occupiers and traitors … say that our people's liberation struggle in Yugoslavia is purely a communist affair, involving the bolshevization of a country, an attempt by the communists to seize power, the abolition of private property, the destruction of the church and of religion, the destruction of culture and so on … Very few people believe these lies any longer, and least of all the people of Yugoslavia … The times are past when a handful of reactionaries could ascribe such matters to the communists of Yugoslavia, in order to isolate them from the people. Bearing this in mind … It is essential to take steps to ensure that our peoples obtain a state system based on the brotherhood and equality of rights of all peoples of Yugoslavia and which would guarantee genuine liberty and democracy to all sections of the community. The monarchy has completely discredited itself in the eyes of the people during the last twenty-three years. The evidence for this has been proved hundreds of thousands of times and all our peoples know it. Only a republican form of government can ensure that such disasters never again come upon our people.

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A speech by Josip Broz Tito made on 14 February 1945 in Belgrade.

Our sacrifices are terrible. I can safely say that there is no other part of the world which has been devastated on a vaster scale than Yugoslavia. Every tenth Yugoslav has perished in this struggle in which we were forced to wrest armaments from our enemies, to freeze without clothing, and to die without medication. Nevertheless our optimism and faith have proved justified. The greatest gain of this conflict between democracy and fascism lies in the fact that it has drawn together everything that was good in humanity. The unity of the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain is the best guarantee to the peoples of the world that Nazi horrors will never again be repeated. In organizing our country on the sacred principles of democracy and of concern for the common man, we Yugoslavs believe that we are making our best contribution to this harmonious community.

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A speech by Josip Broz Tito made on 9 May 1945 in Belgrade.

Peoples of Yugoslavia! Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Moslems! The long-desired day has dawned which you have been waiting for with such yearning. The day of rejoicing has come to us here, too. Finally the greatest fascist power in Europe is vanquished, Germany, which incited so much suffering upon our people and took so many victims. The powers that tried to enslave you have been vanquished. You were offered enticements by the German and Italian fascists in order to lead you to exterminate each other. But your best sons and daughters, inspired with love for their homeland and for you, her peoples, thwarted this diabolical enemy plan. Instead of mutual dissension and hostility, you are today united in a new and happier Yugoslavia. Instead of the old Yugoslavia, rotten with corruption and injustice, today we have the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia of equal peoples. This is the result of the victory of our glorious Yugoslav Army, it is the result of your endurance, your self-sacrifice and faith in your just cause … We must make our brotherhood and unity even stronger, so that never again can any force destroy it.

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Extract from Stevan K. Pavlowitch, Hitler's New Disorder: The Second World War in Yugoslavia (2008).

Tito's wartime speeches were carefully crafted to appeal to multiple audiences at once. While denouncing the monarchy and advocating for a federal republic, he deliberately avoided mentioning communism as the guiding ideology, instead emphasizing brotherhood, equality, and democratic principles. This rhetorical strategy served to broaden support beyond committed communists, reassuring Western Allies while simultaneously laying the groundwork for a post-war communist state. The language of national unity masked what was, in practice, a communist-led movement with clear revolutionary aims.

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Miloševic´ speaking in Kosovo in 1989.

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Speech Miloševic´ gave at Kosovo Polje (the "Field of Blackbirds") to a crowd of largely Serb Kosovars on 24-25 April 1987.

Nationalism always means isolation from others, being locked in a closed circle, and that also means stopping growth, because without cooperation and connection with Yugoslavia, and then widening vistas, there is no progress. Every nation and nationality which shuts itself off and isolates itself behaves irresponsibly toward their constituents' growth. That is why, before anything else, we communists must do all that is required to eliminate the consequences of nationalist and separatist behaviour … But our goal is to emerge from a state of hatred, intolerance and mistrust. That all people in Kosovo live well. And that is why, in relation to that goal, I want to tell you colleagues, yes, you need to stay here. This is your land. Your homes are here, your memories … You need to stay here because of your forefathers and because of your descendants. You would shame your forefathers and disappoint your descendants … We'll change it together, we, Serbia and all of Yugoslavia! … we can at least stop the exodus, we can assure the condition that all people that live on Kosovo be in their homes, live under equal rights and equal allotment of Kosovo economic opportunity before anything else, and then all other opportunities … All of Yugoslavia is with you. The issue isn't that it's a problem for Yugoslavia, but Yugoslavia and Kosovo. Yugoslavia doesn't exist without Kosovo! Yugoslavia would disintegrate without Kosovo! Yugoslavia and Serbia will never give up Kosovo!

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Excerpts from the speech by Miloševic´ at a rally in Belgrade, 19 November 1988.

Comrades, no meeting as big as this has been held in Belgrade since its liberation. The last time such a great number of people, united by a great idea, gathered in the streets of Belgrade was on 20th October 1944. At that time the people in the streets of Belgrade were celebrating victory in the war. At that time, just as today, members of all Yugoslav peoples and nationalities assembled here in togetherness. The most important thing that we must resolve at this time is to establish peace and order in Kosovo. There is no more urgent task for Serbia, nor should there be any other more pressing task for all of Yugoslavia, because the solidarity of the Yugoslav peoples and especially of Yugoslav workers have always been their greatest and strongest characteristic … For this reason, it is difficult to explain why this solidarity has been late in manifesting itself to a greater extent, more quickly, and with a greater love when citizens of our own country have been concerned. The long absence of this solidarity with the boundless suffering of the Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo constitutes an incurable wound to their hearts and to the heart of all of Serbia. We shall win the battle for Kosovo regardless of the obstacles facing us inside and outside the country … Nobody should be surprised that all Serbia rose up last summer because of Kosovo. Kosovo is the very centre of its history, its culture, and its memory. All people have a love which burns in their hearts forever. For a Serb that love is Kosovo. That is why Kosovo will remain in Serbia. That will not be at the expense of Albanians. I can tell the Albanians in Kosovo that nobody has ever found it difficult to live in Serbia because he is not Serbian. Serbia has always been open to everybody to the homeless, to the poor and the rich alike, to the happy and the desperate, to those who were only passing through and to those who wanted to stay.

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Excerpts from the speech by Miloševic´ at Gazimestan, Kosovo, 28 June 1989 (the 600th anniversary of the Battle of the Blackbirds between Serbian and Ottoman forces).

At the time when this famous historical battle was fought in Kosovo, the people were looking at the stars, expecting aid from them. Now, six centuries later, they are looking at the stars again, waiting to conquer them. On the first occasion, they could allow themselves to be disunited and to have hatred and treason because they lived in smaller, weakly interlinked worlds. Now, as people on this planet, they cannot conquer even their own planet if they are not united, let alone other planets, unless they live in mutual harmony and solidarity. Therefore, words devoted to unity, solidarity, and cooperation among people have no greater significance anywhere on the soil of our motherland than they have here in the field of Kosovo, which is a symbol of disunity and treason. In the memory of the Serbian people, this disunity was decisive in causing the loss of the battle and in bringing about the fate which Serbia suffered for a full six centuries. Even if it were not so, from a historical point of view, it remains certain that the people regarded disunity as its greatest disaster. Therefore it is the obligation of the people to remove disunity, so that they may protect themselves from defeats, failures, and stagnation in the future. Six centuries later, now, we are again engaged in battles and are facing battles. They are not armed battles, although such things cannot be excluded yet … Our chief battle now concerns implementing the economic, political, cultural, and general social prosperity, finding a quicker and more successful approach to a civilization in which people will live in the 21st century. Six centuries ago, Serbia heroically defended itself in the field of Kosovo, but it also defended Europe. Serbia was at that time the bastion that defended European culture, religion, and European society in general. Therefore today it appears not only unjust but even unhistorical and completely absurd to talk about Serbia's belonging to Europe. Serbia has been a part of Europe incessantly, now just as much as it was in the past … In this spirit we now endeavour to build a society, rich and democratic, and thus to contribute to the prosperity of this beautiful country, this unjustly suffering country, but also to contribute to the efforts of all the progressive people of our age that make for a better and happier world. Let the memory of Kosovo heroism live forever! Long live Serbia! Long live Yugoslavia!

Long live peace and brotherhood among peoples.