The Society of Folk Dance Historians (SFDH)
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Information: A country.
Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked territory in the Balkan Peninsula, bordered by Albania to the southwest, Macedonia to the southeast, Montenegro to the west, and Serbia to the north and east.
The elected government claimed Kosovo as its own Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. The entire region that today corresponds to the territory is commonly referred to in English simply as Kosovo and in Albanian as Kosova or Kosovë. In Serbia, a formal distinction is made between the eastern and western areas; the term Kosovo is used for the eastern part centred on the historical Kosovo Field, while the western part is called Metohija (known as Dukagjini in Albanian).
Inter-ethnic tensions continued to worsen in Kosovo throughout the 1980s. In 1989, Kosovo, employing a mix of intimidation and political maneuvering, drastically reduced Kosovo's special autonomous status within Serbia and started cultural oppression of the ethnic Albanian population. Kosovo Albanians responded with a non-violent separatist movement, employing widespread civil disobedience and creation of parallel structures in education, medical care, and taxation, with the ultimate goal of achieving the independence of Kosovo. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008.
Kosovo has a lower-middle-income economy and has experienced solid economic growth over the last decade by international financial institutions, and has experienced growth every year since the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis.
National Dance: Shota
Languages: Gheg Albanian, Serbian
Religions: Muslim, Christian
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