Kostajnica, from all appearances, looks like a peaceful town, with beautiful scenery and an interesting history. Running down the heart of the town is the Una River. On one side of the river is Croatia; on the other is the Republic of Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a town divided between ethnic rivalries and wars that go back centuries, the most recent being the breakup of the Yugoslav Republic in the 1990s, when Croats fought Serbs and Serbs fought Bosniaks.
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| The Una River divides Kostajnica. |
In 1878 the Kostajnica valley was largely an Albanian community. The Albanians also lived in the rural parts of Toplica, Pusta Reka, and Jablanica valleys while the Serbs lived near the river moths and mountain slopes. The expulsion and genocide of the Albanian population in 1877-1879 left the territory with few Illyrian people, the name for the original inhabitants of the western Balkans. Historian Justin McCarthy estimated that 131,000 Albanian and Turk Muslims lived in the region in 1876. By 1882 the number was 12,000. Most Albanians fled south, many settling in Kosovo. A small number gave up their religion and melted into the Serbian Orthodox population.
Russia was at war against the Ottoman Empire and requested Serbia's help. Because Serbia feared a fifth column among the Muslim population, the Serbs pursued a policy of enforced expulsion and genocide against the Albanians. While the army had security concerns, the Serb government wanted a homogeneous and reliable population in the region. Before the Serbian army could arrive, the Albanians packed and started moving south. The Serb army followed them, destroying villages and their mosques. At the end of the conflict, the Congress of Berlin gave the territorial gains to the Kingdom of Serbia. Albanians were forced to relocate to Kosovo, Macedonia, and Thessaloniki. Others found refuge in the Samsun region near the Black Sea.
Most Albanian refugees were resettled in over 30 large rural settlements in central and southeastern Kosovo. I met recently a descendant of the Kostajnica refugees in Kosovo. She said a small number of Albanians remained in the region and in Kostajnica. The one connection of these people have with their Kosovo cousins is their last name, Kostanica. The name is common to members of the family who live in Kosovo and in their original home in Kostajnica.
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| Kostajnica Castle on the Una River. |
