Place:Priština, Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro

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Pristina is the capital of Kosovo and seat of Pristina Municipality and Pristina District. The largest city by area and population of Kosovo, Pristina is predominantly populated by ethnic Albanians and consitutes the second-largest ethnic Albanian-inhabited capital after Tirana, Albania.

Inhabited by humans since prehistoric times, the area of Pristina was home to several Illyrian peoples. King Bardyllis of the Dardanians brought various tribes together in the 4th century BC and established the Dardanian Kingdom. The heritage of the classical era is represented by the settlement of Ulpiana, which was considered as one of the most influential Roman cities in the Balkan Peninsula. After the Roman Empire was divided into a western and an eastern half, the area remained within the Byzantine Empire between the 5th and 9th centuries. In the middle of the 9th century, it was ceded to the First Bulgarian Empire, before falling again under Byzantine occupation in the early 11th century and then in the late 11th century to the Second Bulgarian Empire.

In the late Middle Ages, Pristina was an important town in Medieval Serbia constituting the royal estate of Serbian kings. Following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, Pristina became an important mining and trading center due to its strategic position near the rich mining town of Novo Brdo. The city was known for its trade fairs and items, such as goatskin and goat hair as well as gunpowder. The first mosque in Pristina was built in the late 14th century while under Serbian rule.

Pristina is the capital and the economic, financial, political and trade center of Kosovo, due to its location in the center of the country. It is the seat of power of the Government of Kosovo, the residences for work of the President and Prime Minister of Kosovo, and the Parliament of Kosovo. Pristina is also the most important transportation junction of Kosovo for air, rail, and roads. Pristina International Airport is the largest airport of the country and among the largest in the region. A range of expressways and motorways, such as the R 6 and R 7, radiate out the city and connect it to Albania and North Macedonia.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Early development

The area of Pristina has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times by several neolithic cultures, including Baden, Bubanj-Hum, Starcevo and Vinca. The earliest recognised references were discovered in Gracanica, Matiçan and Ulpiana.^[1] During the 4th century BC, King Bardyllis brought various Illyrian tribes together, establishing the Dardanian Kingdom.^[2][3][4] Following the Roman conquest of Illyria in 168 BC, Romans colonized and founded several cities in the region.

Ulpiana was an important Roman city on the Balkan Peninsula and in the 2nd century BC it was declared a municipium. Ulpiana suffered tremendous damage from an earthquake in 518 AD. After the Roman Empire was divided into a western and an eastern half, the area remained within the Byzantine Empire for the following centuries. Emperor Justinian I rebuilt the city in great splendor and renamed it "Justiniana Secunda", although with the arrival of Slavs in the 6th century, the settlement again fell into disrepair.^[5] In the middle of the 9th century, it was ceded to the First Bulgarian Empire.

11th to 16th centuries

In the early 11th century it fell under Byzantine rule and the area was included into a province called Bulgaria. Between the late 11th and middle of the 13th century it was ceded several times to the Second Bulgarian Empire. The city was a royal estate of Stefan Milutin, Stefan Uroš III, Stefan Dušan, Stefan Uroš V and Vuk Branković.^[6] The nearby Gračanica monastery was founded by Milutin in ca. 1315. The first historical record mentioning Pristina by its name dates back to 1342 when the Byzantine Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos described Pristina as a 'village'.^[1] During the time of the Kingdom of Serbia in the early 14th century, the main route between the Western Balkans and Constantinople ran through Pristina. At the turn of the 15th century during the time of the Serbian Despotate, Pristina was a major trading post for silver, with many traders hailing from the Republic of Ragusa.

Between the end of the 14th and the middle of the 15th century, Ottoman rule was gradually imposed in the town. In the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, Pristina developed as an important mining and trading center thanks to its proximity to the rich mining town of Novo Brdo, and due to its position of the Balkan trade routes. In the 15th century the toponym Arnaut was recorded in the town ,which indicates an Albanian presence. The old town stretching out between the Vellusha and Prishtevka rivers which are both covered over today, became an important crafts and trade center. In 1455 Pristina had a significant Muslim Albanian population. Pristina was famous for its annual trade fairs (Panair)^[1] and its goat hide and goat hair articles. Around 50 different crafts were practiced from tanning to leather dying, belt making and silk weaving, as well as crafts related to the military – armorers, smiths, and saddle makers. As early as 1485, Pristina artisans also started producing gunpowder. Trade was thriving and there was a growing colony of Ragusan traders (from modern day Dubrovnik) providing the link between Pristina's craftsmen and the outside world.^[1] The first mosque was constructed in the late 14th century while still under Serbian rule.^[1] The 1487 defter recorded 412 Christian and 94 Muslim households in Pristina, which at the time was administratively part of the Sanjak of Vučitrn.

In the early Ottoman era, Islam was an urban phenomenon and only spread slowly with increasing urbanization. The travel writer Evliya Celebi, visiting Pristina in the 1660s was impressed with its fine gardens and vineyards.^[1] In those years, Pristina was part of the Vıçıtırın Sanjak and its 2,000 families enjoyed the peace and stability of the Ottoman era. Economic life was controlled by the guild system (esnafs) with the tanners' and bakers' guild controlling prices, limiting unfair competition and acting as banks for their members. Religious life was dominated by religious charitable organizations often building mosques or fountains and providing charity to the poor.

17th to 20th centuries

During the Austro-Turkish War in the late 17th century, Pristina citizens under the leadership of the Catholic Albanian priest Pjetër Bogdani pledged loyalty to the Austrian army and supplied troops. He contributed a force of 6,000 Albanian soldiers to the Austrian army which had arrived in Pristina. Under Austrian occupation, The Fatih Mosque (Mbretit Mosque) was briefly converted to a Jesuit church.^[1] Following the Austrian defeat in January 1690, Pristina's inhabitants were left at the mercy of Ottoman and Tatar troops who took revenge against the local population as punishment for their co-operation with the Austrians. A French officer traveling to Pristina noted soon afterwards that "Pristina looked impressive from a distance but close up it is a mass of muddy streets and houses made of earth".^[1]

The year 1874 marked a turning point. That year the railway between Salonika and Mitrovica started operations and the seat of the vilayet of Prizren was relocated to Pristina. This privileged position as capital of the Ottoman vilayet lasted only for a short while. from January until August 1912, Pristina was liberated from Ottoman rule by Albanian rebel forces led by Hasan Prishtina. However, The Kingdom of Serbia opposed the plan for a Greater Albania, preferring a partition of the European territory of the Ottoman Empire among the four Balkan allies. On October 22, 1912, Serb forces took Pristina. However, Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the first Balkan War, occupied Kosovo in 1915 and took Pristina under Bulgarian occupation.

During the Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars, Prishtina suffered many atrocities; the Serbian army entered Pristina on 22 October. Albanian and Turkish households were looted and destroyed, and women and children were killed. A Danish journalist based in Skopje reported that the Serbian campaign in Pristina "had taken on the character of a horrific massacring of the Albanian population".^[7][8] An estimated 5,000 people in Pristina were murder in the early days of the Serbian occupation.^[8] The events have been interpreted as an early attempt to change the region's demographics.^[7] Serbian settlers were brought into the city, and Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić bought of land. Pristinans who wore a plis were targeted by the Serbian army; those who wore the Turkish fez were safe, and the price of a fez rose steeply.

In late October 1918, the 11th French colonial division took over Pristina and returned Pristina back to what then became the 'First Yugoslavia' on the 1st of December 1918.^[9] In September 1920, the decree of the colonization of the new southern lands' facilitated the takeover by Serb colonists of large Ottoman estates in Pristina and land seized from Albanians.^[9] The interwar period saw the first exodus of Albanian and Turkish speaking population.^[1][9] From 1929 to 1941, Priština was part of the Vardar Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

On 17 April 1941, Yugoslavia surrendered unconditionally to axis forces. On 29 June, Benito Mussolini proclaimed a greater Albania, with most of Kosovo under Italian occupation united with Albania. There ensued mass killings of Serbs, in particular colonists, and an exodus of tens of thousands of Serbs. After the capitulation of Italy, Nazi Germany took control of the city. In May 1944, 281 local Jews were arrested by units of the 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg (1st Albanian), which was made up mostly of Muslim Albanians. The Jews were later deported to Germany, where many were killed. The few surviving Jewish families in Pristina eventually left for Israel in 1949.^[1] As a result of World War II and forced migration, Pristina's population dropped to 9,631 inhabitants.^[1]

The communist decision to make Pristina the capital of Kosovo in 1947 ushered a period of rapid development and outright destruction. The Yugoslav communist slogan at the time was uništi stari graditi novi (destroy the old, build the new). In a misguided effort to modernize the town, communists set out to destroy the Ottoman bazaar and large parts of the historic center, including mosques, catholic churches and Ottoman houses.^[1] A second agreement signed between Yugoslavia and Turkey in 1953 led to the exodus of several hundreds more Albanian families from Pristina. They left behind their homes, properties and businesses.^[1] However, this policy changed under the new constitution ratified in 1974. Few of the Ottoman town houses survived the communists' modernization drive, with the exception of those that were nationalized like today's Emin Gjiku Museum or the building of the Institute for the Protection of Monuments.

As capital city and seat of the government, Pristina creamed off a large share of Yugoslav development funds channeled into Kosovo. As a result, the city's population and its economy changed rapidly. In 1966, Pristina had few paved roads, the old town houses had running water and cholera was still a problem. Prizren continued to be the largest town in Kosovo. Massive investments in state institutions like the newly founded University of Pristina, the construction of new high-rise socialist apartment blocks and a new industrial zone on the outskirts of Pristina attracted large number of internal migrants. This ended a long period when the institution had been run as an outpost of Belgrade University and gave a major boost to Albanian-language education and culture in Kosovo. The Albanians were also allowed to use the Albanian flag.

Within a decade, Pristina nearly doubled its population from about 69,514 in 1971 to 109,208 in 1981.^[1] This golden age of externally financed rapid growth was cut short by Yugoslavia's economic collapse and the 1981 student revolts. Pristina, like the rest of Kosovo slid into a deepening economic and social crisis. The year 1989 saw the revocation of Kosovo's autonomy under Milošević, the rise of Serb nationalism and mass dismissal of ethnic Albanians.^[1]

Kosovo War

Following the reduction of Kosovo's autonomy by former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević in 1989, a harshly repressive regime was imposed throughout Kosovo by the Yugoslav government with Albanians largely being purged from state industries and institutions.^[1] The LDK's role meant, that when the Kosovo Liberation Army began to attack Serbian and Yugoslav forces from 1996 onwards, Pristina remained largely calm until the outbreak of the Kosovo War in March 1999. Pristina was spared large scale destruction compared to towns like Gjakova or Peja that suffered heavily at the hands of Serbian forces. For their strategic importance, however, a number of military targets were hit in Pristina during NATO's aerial campaign, including the post office, police headquarters and army barracks, today's Adem Jashari garrison on the road to Kosovo Polje.

Widespread violence broke out in Pristina. Serbian and Yugoslav forces shelled several districts and, in conjunction with paramilitaries, conducted large-scale expulsions of ethnic Albanians accompanied by widespread looting and destruction of Albanian properties. Many of those expelled were directed onto trains apparently brought to Pristina's main station for the express purpose of deporting them to the border of North Macedonia, where they were forced into exile.

The majority Albanian population fled Pristina in large numbers to escape Serb policy and paramilitary units. The first NATO troops to enter the city in early June 1999 were Norwegian special forces from FSK Forsvarets Spesialkommando and soldiers from the British Special Air Service 22 S.A.S, although to NATO's diplomatic embarrassment Russian troops arrived first at the airport. Apartments were occupied illegally and the Roma quarters behind the city park was torched. Several strategic targets in Pristina were attacked by NATO during the war, but serious physical damage appears to have largely been restricted to a few specific neighbourhoods shelled by Yugoslav security forces. At the end of the war the Serbs became victims of violence committed by Kosovo Albanian extremists. On numerous occasions Serbs were killed by mobs of Kosovo Albanian extremists for merely speaking Serbian in public or being identified as a Serb. Violence reached its pinnacle in 2004 when Kosovo Albanian extremists were moving from apartment block to apartment block attacking and ransacking the residences of remaining Serbs. A majority of the city's 45,000 Serb inhabitants fled from Kosovo and today only several dozen remain in the city.

As a capital city and seat of the UN administration (UNMIK), Pristina has benefited greatly from a high concentration of international staff with disposable income and international organizations with sizable budgets. The injection of reconstruction funds from donors, international organizations and the Albanian diaspora has fueled an unrivaled, yet short-lived, economic boom. A plethora of new cafes, restaurants and private businesses opened to cater for new (and international) demand with the beginning of a new era for Pristina.

21st century

Pristina International Airport's new terminal opened for operations in October 2013, which was built in response to a growing demand for air travel in Kosovo. In November of the same year, the R7 motorway as part of the Albania-Kosovo motorway, linking Pristina and the Albanian city of Durrës on the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast, was completed. Another extensive development for the city has been the completion of the R6 motorway in 2019, connecting Pristina to the Macedonian city of Skopje.

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