A cloud of blackbirds obscured the fading light as I walked back to my apartment this evening around sunset. Every night as darkness falls, huge flocks of these birds settle in tall trees and in the skeletons of buildings, often receiving some unknown cue to rise again in a huge mass and circle around in the moonlit sky. Their deafening cackles and squawks continue throughout the night, rising in a crescendo together with the whirring of wings as the flocks redeploy from one towering structure to another.
Then, early in the morning when I’m out for a run, the blackbirds’ racket punctures the gentle silence of the sleeping city. But they’re gone by the time I leave for work. As if receiving an order, the flocks rise together every morning and fly elsewhere, only returning to roost above the city again at sunset.
Woven into Serbian folklore and legends, the Kosovo blackbird has served as a sort of emblematic symbol of Serbia’s struggle to maintain control of the region. The name Kosovo evidently comes from the word “kos,” which means blackbird in Serbian. In addition, one of the most commemorated moments in Serbian history, the First Battle of Kosovo in 1389, took place northwest of Prishtina on Kosovo Polje, or the Field of Blackbirds. Serbian troops lost the battle to the Turkish army, their venerated Prince Lazar was slain, and over the course of the next few decades, the Serbian Empire fell to Ottoman occupation.
I’ve been told that the flocks of hundreds of blackbirds that I see every morning and evening are the souls of the dead from that battle on Kosovo Polje in 1389. So initially, I viewed them as a sort of ominous reminder and representation of the lingering influence of Serbian nationalism and people’s memories from the war. Recently however, when I watched a flock of blackbirds rising, I was reminded of that wave of dark emotions that motivates violent conflict, as it rises, spreads and hovers over a group of people.
At the celebration marking the 600th Anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo in June of 1989, Slobodon Milosevic gave a historic speech on the Field of Blackbirds. Milosevic proclaimed that the defeat of the Serbian army by the Ottoman Turks took place due to a “lack of unity and betrayal.” Therefore, he said, “words devoted to unity, solidarity and cooperation among people have no greater significance anywhere … than they have here in the field of Kosovo, which is a symbol of disunity and treason.” Milosevic went on to emphasize the need for unity, in the face of the modern challenges to such unity within Kosovo, in order to protect all Serbs from “defeats, failures and stagnation in the future.” (an English translation of the speech was found on the website, http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bip/docs/kosovo_polje/kosovo_polje.html)
Journalists and political analysts argued later that the speech fueled a Serbian nationalist frenzy and the brutal wars and ethnic cleansings that followed. The speech was given, however, during a period in which economic conditions throughout Yugoslavia had deteriorated. Since the early 1980s, rising inequalities in Kosovo had sparked waves of rioting, ethnic violence and demands for greater autonomy by the Albanian community. Throughout the Balkans, the blackbirds had risen, and they began hover over a dark time in the region’s history, marked by Milosevic’s speech at Kosovo Polje.
On a lighter note, it’s becoming evident that spring is here in Mitrovica. The days are becoming longer, and the sun is becoming stronger. And, from what I hear, the flocks of blackbirds soon will disseminate throughout the countryside, remaining there around the clock during the summertime. I think that we might get some snow on Thursday, but it seems to me that warmer times are coming. Let’s hope that the summer is a long one.
