migrations as a constant of the serbian history: on the example of kosovo and metohija under the ottoman rule

The results of the Ottoman census books for the Branković Region, i.e., the sanjaks (provinces) of Vučitrn, Skadar and Dukadjin dating from the second half of the 15th and 16lh century, placed in the context of the general political and historical events in the Ottoman Empire, present some of the most valuable sources for the research of demographic movements in Kosovo and Metohija during the first two centuries of the Ottoman rule. Those data show the ethnic homogenity of the Serbian population of present-day Kosovo and Metohija in the above-mentioned historical period. The ethnic structure of Kosovo and Metohija radically changed immediately after the Great Migration of the Serbs in 1690, whe n the Serbian population left this region, and their settlements were occupied by Albanian nomadic tribes, who descended into these fertile lands from the harsh mountain regions of northern Albania. Although this issue has not been satisfactorily elaborated in historical science so far, the available sources make it possible to draw some firm conclusions about the forcibly changed ethnic structure of Kosovo and Metohija, beginning with the 18th century, when an Albanian settlement network was established in a region that had a majority Serbian population during medieval times and the first centuries of the Ottoman rule