Janjevci
From Free net encyclopedia
Janjevci (Janjevs) are inhabitants of the Kosovo town of Janjevo and surrounding villages, located near Pristina as well as villages centered on Letnica near Vitina (Papare, Vrmez, Vrnavo Kolo).
The Janjevs as a specific group are one of two Catholic Slavic regional subgroups in Kosovo, belonging to the Slavic ethnicity. They are mostly descended from traders who settled in Kosovo's towns during the 14th century from the Republic of Dubrovnik and other Ragusan colonies in central Bosnia. They have maintained their Catholic faith throughout the centuries thanks in part to the Archbishopric of Bar (Primate of Serbia) which maintained their parishes. Their identity is blurred, their traditions and customs reveal strong ties with local Serbian paraphernalia but nominally, they identified as Latins (Latini) or Catholics. In Communist Yugoslavia, they adopted the Croatian internal nationality (many Janjev refugees from Kosovo now live in abandoned homes in the former Srpska Krajina in Croatia).
The first written mention is by pope Benedict XII in 1303, mentioning Janjevo as the center of the catholic parish of Sveti Nikola.
Since 1991, due to pressure from Muslim Albanians and then because of the Kosovo War they have been migrating from Kosovo, mostly to Croatia, a singular choice for Slavic catholics during the process of Yugoslavia's disintegration and the Yugoslav wars.
In 1992, some inhabitants from Letnica, another Catholic Slavic village in Kosovo, emigrated to Croatia and settled in homes of ethnically cleansed Serbs in the villages of Voćin and Varešnica in western Slavonia.
Many of the Janjevci settled in Serb homes in inner Dalmatia in 1996, particularly the village of Kistanje, which was left deserted in 1995 following the ethnic cleansing operation Operation Oluja. After the return of some of its Serb inhabitants from exile, the village became divided between two hostile communities. The Janjevci have since returned most of the Serbian houses to their owners and the Croat state has begun building them new homes in a new part of Kistanje called Novo Naselje (lit. New Settlement).
This population exchange is allegedly due to a plan of Franjo Tuđman for ethnic homogenization in which he provoked Serbs to leave and colonized the parts where they previously lived (or still do, like in Kistanje) with Janjevci and refugees from Bosnia. This plan was written in his book Bespuća povijesne zbiljnosti/"Horrors of war" in which he favorised "humane relocation" (humano preseljenje). The Janjevci were also prized by Croat nationalists, including the Church, for their higher birth rate, a plan to replenish Croatia and outnumber the local Orthodox Serbs.
Before 1991, there were 8,062 Janjevci in Kosovo. In 1998 about 1,300 remained. After the Kosovo War, in Janjevci itself only around 350 remained, the rest fled mostly to Croatia.
The present sitation is as described: 'With the downfall of Milosevic's policy in Kosovo and with the exodus of most of the Serb population, the survival of the remaining Croat population also became uncertain. Albanian plunderers from neighbouring villages terrorised them and as a result they asked Croatia to help them leave Letnica collectively' [1]
There is an attempt in progress to find proper place for them in Croatia, and to enable it to take them all together on secure ground.