The history of modern Kosovo is written on the face of 42-year-old Nebojsa Vujovic, especially when the subject turns to his childhood and his family. It is of course one man's history, but in his eyes one can see both the pain and the resolve which is driving the Serb side of this conflict.
Mr Vujovic grew up in Kosovo, the son of a government official. In 1966, Josep Broz Tito, the Communist strongman who ruled Yugoslavia from 1945, turned his attention to the simmering tensions in the region between the minority Serb population and the Albanians, who were pushing for status as an independent republic. In a move that some say was an attempt to placate the Albanian movement, Tito dismissed his interior minister, Aleksander Rankovic, a Serb who had begun to oppose Tito's new more liberal policy toward Albanian independence.
That was the day that this boy's life changed dramatically. Mr Vujovic's father was one of the 300 officials loyal to Mr Rankovic who were dismissed from their jobs. The entire family was forced to flee Kosovo.
"I was nine years old and my ear was torn apart by an Albanian teacher who was outraged that I was the son of a Serb official," said Mr Vujovic. "They took me to the hospital, but the surgeon wouldn't operate on me because of who my father was. This, to a nine-year-old boy. Thanks to a Serb, I was transported to a hospital in Pristina where they operated on me and saved my life."
Within 72 hours, Mr Vujovic's family - his mother's eight siblings, including his three-year-old brother, and his father's two brothers - had fled Kosovo and scattered to various parts of Serbia. But the memory of his home, the place he calls Kosovo Metohija, using its full name which means blackbird and monastery estate, has never left Mr Vujovic.
This memory is significant because today Mr Vujovic is the spokesman for the federal Foreign Ministry here. He is the man most quoted as speaking on behalf of the government and on behalf of President Slobodan Milosevic, to whom he is said to be close. He lived in the US - in Washington - for nine years as the highest-ranking Yugoslav diplomat there until relations were severed. And he leaves no doubt whenever he speaks about the status of Kosovo in the political sphere.
"There is no one here, no one who represents anyone, who will give up Kosovo Metohija. The unity of this nation is firm . . . no matter what the price," he said. "No one likes war, everyone wants the suffering to stop, the killing of civilians, the destruction of the infrastructure. They want the refugees to come back and to organise a multi-ethnic state. But not at the price of losing Kosovo. Kosovo is Serbia and Serbia is Kosovo. That is the way it is going to stay, no matter what happens."
Mr Vujovic said one of his biggest frustrations was his inability to persuade people in Washington, during his last days there, that Yugoslavia was not Bosnia.
"They used Bosnia as a prototype," he said. "They thought they'd bomb for a few days and it would be over. No one would listen. It was a complete misunderstanding and miscalculation. I told them they would create one political party in Yugoslavia, the Save Kosovo Party, and they have."
Aside from misreading the intensity of Serb passions toward Kosovo, Mr Vujovic says also that the West forgot about Titoism. His point on this is especially interesting as Tito was no hero to Serb nationalists.
"Remember Tito. It is the thing they forget. Whatever you hear now about Tito, remember one thing. Tito had patience. He was able to suffer because he believed in something. And he prevailed. That mentality and methodology is still here. We're suffering, we're dying, the bombs are flying, but we have no choice. We will defend ourselves."
Like many others here, Mr Vujovic rejects the notion that NATO is waging a war on behalf of human rights for Albanian refugees. He rejects the idea that the Serb military implemented an organised campaign of ethnically cleansing the province. Calling Kosovo a small, obscure place, he regards the bombing campaign as a US-led NATO experiment in controlling Europe and in preserving its own reason for existence.
"Is this for the sake of the Kosovo Albanians? Would they care if Albanians disappeared from the earth? You tell me. This is a global village for them. For us it is a local village. We are open to negotiation. We are open to the G8 agreement. We are rational people. But Kosovo is a small place. Why do you need 60,000 troops with heavy arms? And why NATO? What is wrong with a UN force? These are questions that there must be answers for."
Although the Russian envoy, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, is set to arrive in Belgrade this week for discussions, one of a flurry of diplomatic missions around European capitals, many Yugoslav officials make no secret of their distrust of the Russians' role as a peacemaker. Mr Milosevic, for example, is said to loathe President Yeltsin and the feeling is said to be mutual.
Asked about Russia's role, Mr Vujovic is circumspect. "May I answer in my way? The one who is doing the eating should be doing the cooking. Who has played a major role in this? The US. The one who is implementing should be the one who is negotiating."
With the economy in shambles, factories destroyed and roads torn up, the nature of life here has changed.
Amid conflicting signals that Yugoslav officials want to strike a peace deal, come reports that protests against the war are growing.
More than 3,000 people demonstrated in front of the town hall in Krusevac for three hours on Monday, according to reports from VIP, an independent news agency. They carried photographs of dead Yugoslav soldiers, with signs saying: "We want sons, not coffins." When the mayor, Mr Miloje Milhajlovic, tried to address the crowd he was booed and stoned.
His explanation that the municipality could not secure the return of military personnel was received with shouts and stones.
A similar protest took place in the town of Aleksandrovac, where 100 relatives objected to reservists being sent to Kosovo. Reports said the bodies of Yugoslav soldiers killed in the war had been returned to families in the towns and this contributed to the protests.