There is little about the Western Balkans that its inhabitants agree on. Land, language, religion and belonging are all contested between Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians and Albanians, who live beside one another, next to borders they don’t always recognise. One such group is the Kosovo Serbs; a largely Orthodox Christian group who live in Kosovo but identify with and are loyal to Serbia, often putting them at odds with the Albanian Muslim majority. 

For centuries, the Serbs have seen Kosovo as their homeland, and see the replacement- their word, not mine- of Serbs in the region by Albanian Muslims as an example of a regional- and since the wars of the 1990s, international- conspiracy against Serbia. It is the Kosovo Serbs, their beliefs and grievances, that are the subject of today’s conversation.

My guest for this conversation is Bojan Elek, a researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, a Serbian think tank dedicated to covering goings-on in the Western Balkans. Bojan himself is Serb but was born in Kosovo, so his insights on this minority group not always treated well by their Albanian neighbours were fascinating to hear.