The 1968 demonstrations in Kosovo were initiated under the circumstances of the wave of student demonstrations which marked the 1960s worldwide, including Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). However student movements in Kosovo (1968) were also impacted by an already elevated level of citizens’ dissatisfaction with the overall social, political, economic, and cultural position of Albanians in comparison to others in SFRY. Albanian students, studying at the higher education institutions in Prishtina, then functioning under the umbrella of the University of Belgrade, founded the “Committee of Students” which later served as the main body for the organization of the 1968 student demonstrations. Some members of this Committee included: Osman Dumoshi from Prishtina (student, Technical Faculty), Adil Pireva from Podujeva (student, Philosophical Faculty), Selatin Novosella from Vushtrria (student, Albanian language and literature), and others. Students used public demonstrations as a method to achieve their goals. The main demands of demonstrators included: the creation of an Albanian language university in Prishtina, establishing Albanian as an official language of government in Kosovo, self-determination for Kosovo and Albanian areas in Macedonia and Montenegro, and giving Kosovo the status of a republic within SFRY with its own Constitution.
Student movements in Kosovo were not characterized as only socially motivated. Due to the demands for “self-determination as well as a Republic,” the nationalist character of the 1968 student demonstrations was noted by most of the authors that wrote about this topic as well as by the organizers of the 1968 student movements. These student reactions were the first political resistance actions of Albanians in Kosovo during socialism. And they are considered as important also due to the fact that after these demonstrations the SFRY Constitution will be amended in 1968 and 1971 to allow more local control in the autonomous province of Kosovo, further more the University of Prishtina was founded in November 1969.
The materials are kept in the Archives of Kosovo. These materials are spread in different fonds, whereas the main ones include: "Arkivi i Prishtinës, fodni Komiteti krahinor i lidhjes së komunistëve të Kosovës" (Archive of Prishtina, fond Central Committee of the Kosovo’s Communist League), years: 1968, 1969 and "Arkivi i Prishtinës, fondi gazata ‘Rilindja’" (Archive of Prishtina, fond Newspaper ‘Rilindja’), years: 1968, 1969.
The up-mentioned fonds contain items that the Central Committee of the Kosovo’s Communist League and Newspaper ‘Rilindja’, handed over to the archive in December 1988 and 1989. Public institutions hand over their documents to the Kosovo Archives every twenty years. Thus, the collection was, until then, in the possession of Central Committee of the Kosovo’s Communist League and of the Newspaper ‘Rilindja’.
