Early History

The region of Kosovo has been inhabited through millennia of different cultures. Around Pristina, effects are excavated dating back to the 7th century BC. Later the Romans arrived and they conquered Illyria in the year 168 BC The Romans established several settlements in the area called Dardania.

Among other things, the Romans founded the city of Ulpiana, which became one of the most important Roman cities in both Dardania and the Balkans. Ulpiana was hit by a major earthquake in the year 518 and it was to be rebuilt. Emperor Justinian I built the city with impressive facilities and named it Justiniana Secunda. In the same centuries, slaves came to Darnania with contemporary migrations, and with them began the decay of Ulpianas.

By the 300s, the region had been subjugated to the Byzantine Empire instead of the Roman Empire, and that status continued with Bulgarian disruptions until 1180. Several times and, among other things, from the mid-800s to the beginning of the 1000s, Kosovo belonged to the first Bulgarian empire.

Medieval Serbia

The present Kosovo became a significant part of Serbia through the Middle Ages starting from 1180, and Pristina had become an important city, which had a royal residence for several rulers; for example for Stefan Milutin, who ruled 1282-1321. Fortresses and monasteries were erected in the area and the facilities reinforced the strategic importance of the Pristina area.

Pristina’s beginnings are not known in detail, but the town’s name is first known from documents dating from 1342, when Byzantine Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos referred to the city as a village.

Pristina developed rapidly from its smaller size and importance through the 1300s to 1400s, partly on central trade routes in the Balkans and partly on the mines of Novo Brdo. The Serbian era lasted until 1389, when over 500 years of Turkish rule began.

Ottoman Pristina

The Turkish Ottomans’ conquest of the Balkans over a long period of time also affected the Pristina and Kosovo area, which in 1389 became subject to the sultan power. The new rulers left their natural mark on the city, which received its first mosque in the late 1300s. However, the composition and traditions of the population continued for a long time, and after almost a hundred years of Ottoman rule, in 1487 there were 412 and 94 Muslim households in the city.

The 1300-1400s were a time when Pristina was rapidly developing. The city’s craftsmen were well-known and skilled, and annual trade fairs were held to showcase the results of many crafts. Exports from Pristina, among other things, were assisted by merchants from Ragusa, who brought the goods to the Adriatic Sea and beyond.

In the mid-17th century, the traveling writer visited Evliya Celebi Pristina, and he was impressed with the city’s fine landscaping and fields. At that time, there were about 2,000 families living in the city, characterized by good and stable times, and several artisan gifts worked in the city’s life.

The Habsburg year

The centuries-long Ottoman rule over Pristina and Kosovo was interrupted once. It happened in 1689-1690 during the many wars between the Austrian Habsburgs and the Turkish Ottomans.

Catholic Albanian priest Pjetër Bogdani led and placed himself on the Austrian side with 6,000 Albanian soldiers. Austrian troops had arrived in Pristina, but they suffered a defeat in January 1690, and then Ottoman rule continued.

New capital

Over the years, the city of Prizren had been the seat of the Ottomans’ rule of Kosovo, making it the capital of the region. In 1874 this status was moved to Pristina, which for that reason experienced a flourishing.

In 1874 the railway also reached Pristina in the form of the opening of the railway between Thessaloniki and Mitrovica, and it was a time when Pristina was described as a city with a Greek Orthodox bishop, several mosques, a bazaar, bathing facilities and about 8,000 inhabitants.

The Balkan Wars and Ottoman Decline

Throughout the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire of the Turks gradually weakened, and increasingly struggles for independence in the many countries administered by the Ottoman Empire.

In 1912, an Albanian army led by Hasan Prishtina overcame the Ottoman forces, and the goal was to form a Great Banana where Pristina and Kosovo were part of it.

By this time, the Balkans had been formed by Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece, with the aim of combating the remaining territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Serbia opposed the formation of Great Banana, as this was partly part of the Serbs’ landings planned in Kosovo.

In October 1912, Serbia could take Pristina, but Kosovo remained Serbian for only three years, after which Bulgaria occupied the region in 1915 during World War I. After the end of the war, Pristina and Kosovo became Serbian again as part of the first Yugoslavia. Many Serbs moved to the city and the area, settling in former Ottoman residences.

Yugoslavia capitulated to the Axis Powers led by Germany in April 1941. In June of that year, Benito Mussolini proclaimed a new Great Banana under Italian control, and Pristina and Kosovo joined it. Italy was conquered later in the war, and German troops instead occupied Pristina and ruled the region. After World War II, Kosovo again became part of Yugoslavia, and due to the struggles and various purges, the people of Pristina were reduced to less than 10,000.

1945 until today

After World War II, the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia was transformed into a communist republic, and Pristina was made the capital of the Kosovo region.

With the new status of the city and the development of Yugoslavia, a large-scale modernization was initiated in Pristina. Large areas of the old city were redeveloped, and new ones were built under the communist parole of this time to destroy the old ones to build new ones. However, some houses and buildings from the Ottoman period were preserved, but the focus during these decades was a massive expansion of the city.

Pristina’s population rose sharply, reaching 70,000 in the early 1970s and over 100,000 during ten years later. Modern blocks of flats on the outskirts were shot up to the large settlement, and much else was also built in the city, which as a regional capital was allocated funds for the establishment of various institutions such as a university. The city’s growth came mainly through Yugoslavia, and as the Yugoslav economy went down, Pristina’s economy deteriorated and the city stagnated.

In 1999, fighting broke out in Pristina and Kosovo, which, as part of Yugoslavia, had Yugoslav police and Yugoslav army units in the region. There were battles between the Yugoslav authorities and Albanian rebels, and NATO also made some bombardments of strategic targets in the city. The acts of war led to first Russian and NATO forces joining Pristina in June, and in the coming years Kosovo became a UN-administered region.

The presence of the UN and other international organizations led to a reconstruction of Pristina and Kosovo, which with organizations gained access to funds that secured an economic boom with many new cafes and eateries, and the city center has been established since 1999, and several new, beautiful plants and buildings have arrived.