Anton Çeta

Prishtina – Kosovo marks today the 26th anniversary of the campaign aiming to end the carnage of feuds and vendettas.

In the 1990s Anton Çetta, a professor at the University of Prishtina, led a large-scale reconciliation movement to end blood feuds in Kosovo. The large national movement for blood feud reconciliation was in progress under professor Anton Çetta for more than seven years.

From 1990 to 1997, hundreds of families involved in blood feuds were reconciled through a mass campaign initiated by the late Anton Çetta, a retired professor from the University of Prishtina.

Çetta toured hundreds of villages, convincing men to forget their family feuds and organizing ceremonies of reconciliation that featured feasting, music and dance. It was tough work. Çetta said at the time, “It is not easy for families required to draw blood to forgive, because for many centuries, families who did not take vengeance were considered cowards.”

But they were helped by a widespread feeling that Albanians needed to unite against the Serbian government.