July 9 (Reuters) - Here is a profile of newly independent Kosovo which expects to secure up to 1.5 billion euros at a donor conference on Friday.

HISTORY & PEOPLE:

-- Kosovo became part of the Kingdom of Serbia in the early 13th century, with a mixed population of Serbs, Albanians and Vlachs. The Nemanjic dynasty made it the spiritual heartland of Serbia, giving lands to the Orthodox Church and building monasteries that stand today.

-- Many Serbs left in the 500 years after the Ottoman Empire defeated the Serbs at the 1389 Battle of Kosovo while the Albanians grew in number. Mutual expulsions and migrations to and from Albania in the early 20th century changed Kosovo's makeup.

VIOLENCE & WAR:

-- Ethnic tensions escalated in the 1980s as Yugoslavia began to crumble and economic conditions deteriorated. Populist Slobodan Milosevic used Serb nationalism as a springboard to power in 1989, restricting Albanian rights in education and local government.

-- Strikes, protests and violence led to Belgrade declaring a state of emergency in 1990. Albanians demanded independence in renegade elections in 1992 when pacifist leader Ibrahim Rugova was elected president of a self-declared republic.

-- After years of sticking to a policy of passive resistance, Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas launched an armed rebellion in the late 1990s, prompting a brutal crackdown by the Yugoslav army and police.

-- NATO powers warned Milosevic they would not tolerate another round of "ethnic cleansing" in the Balkans. Peace talks in France failed and in March 1999 NATO started bombing Serbia to force it to withdraw its forces from Kosovo.

-- Some 800,000 Albanians fled or were expelled to Macedonia and Albania before Milosevic gave in 78 days later. As his forces pulled out and NATO took over, up to 200,000 Serbs and other ethnic minorities left as well.

FROM LIMBO TO INDEPENDENCE:

-- The two communities -- some two million Albanians and 120,000 Serbs -- have lived separately since 1999, deeply suspicious and occasionally hostile to each other.

-- Albanian impatience for independence and discontent with the United Nations mission running the territory resulted in bursts of violence against the Serb minority.

-- The West recognised the limbo was unsustainable. After almost two years of Serb-Albanian negotiations ended in failure, Kosovo declared independence in February and was recognised by most European Union countries and the United States.

Serbia rejected the secession and has been leaning on Russia to block Kosovo's entry into the United Nations and other international bodies. It is backing the Serb minority in boycotting the new state and its Albanian authorities, deepening its de facto partition.

THE FUTURE:

-- Landlocked and poor, Kosovo looks to its mineral wealth as the driver of an investment boom that will increase living standards and cut into the 40 percent unemployment rate.

-- As part of becoming a fully-fledged state, a constitution came into effect last month which should help the U.N hand over its powers to a new EU mission, once Serbia softens its stance.

-- NATO allies have also agreed to take on the training of a new force, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), as part of moves to reshape the international security presence.

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