Prishtina occupied by the Bulgarians and the "disappearance" of over three thousand inhabitants

According to the Serbian census of 1912, which, according to the testimony of police inspector Milorad A. Vujčić, was organized by the police in cooperation with local government representatives, Pristina had 18.174 inhabitants. Yes, in Prishtina in the twenties, 17 of its inhabitants had Romanian (Cincans) as their mother tongue, 9 Russian, 5 Polish, 4 German, 3 Czech, 3 French, 2 Slovenian, 1 Italian and 1.433 Prishtinians spoke unknown languages! According to the last census of 1924, Pristina had 2.928 houses with 14.760 inhabitants. So in the time frame of 12 years, today's capital of Kosovo had 3.414 fewer inhabitants

The Bulgarian prefect of Pristina who "previously lived as an Albanian"

The prefect of Pristina in the years 1917-1918 was the Strugan Arseni Jovkov (1882-1924), but before he exercised this function he had emigrated to Bulgaria. Jovkov, in addition to speaking the Albanian language, in one case he had stated that he had previously lived as an Albanian, which implies that the prefect of Pristina will have been a Bulgarianized Albanian, as over the years many Orthodox Albanians were assimilated of today's North Macedonia.

Among the many materials archived in the State Archives of Bulgaria in Sofia are also those of Bulgarian researchers, who, by order of the Bulgarian Army Headquarters, visited the "new villages", as they called the occupied countries, for the purpose of research. They had stayed in Pristina in the summer and autumn of 1916.

"On August 28, 1916, I returned from Janje to Pristina and the next morning I spent seeing the city: I visited the main mosque 'Sultan Fati Mehmed', which is a large building built in the year 865 according to Hijri or 1513 AD ", wrote researcher Vasil Zlatarski. He further presented other details from the visit. "In the courtyard of this mosque there are ancient inscriptions (fragments), while the only church 'Saint Nicholas' is a new building from the beginning of the 1827th century with a beautiful iconostasis and woodwork made by Dibran craftsmen. The motifs and compositions worked by these masters are taken from the Holy Scriptures, as they are also in the church 'Sveti Spas', in Skopje, and apparently all these were made by the same masters of Galishnik, which is confirmed chronologically. According to the Bulgarian deputy bishop of Pristina, the church was built in 1824, while the Skopje iconostasis dates from 1902. There is also a mural painting in the church, but it is completely new, from XNUMX, with Serbian inscriptions on it. Let's remember that the Albanian masters of Dibra and Reka e Madhe were among the best known in all the Balkan countries with their works in churches.

Even prof. Zlatarski, like the Serbian journalists, did not miss the opportunity not to visit some of the well-known places in Kosovo at that time.

also Culture Supplement 26 under 2023 Prishtina on October 23, 1912 and 1915

"In the afternoon of the same day, I went by car to the graves of the Turkish heroes of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389: first to the grave of the Grand Vizier of Sultan Murat in Gazimestan and to that of Sulejman Bajraktar, which is located on a hill five kilometers northwest of Pristina, from where the heights of Kopaonik can be seen. The graves are located in a round building, which was erected in the place where the two aforementioned personalities fell. I saw that the condition of the buildings was bad and apparently they were not maintained because the floors were completely rotten, next to the tomb there was also a small building for the reception of guests. On the northern side, near the tomb itself, there is a special harem of the hoxha, which guards the tomb of Sultan Murat. Hoxha's name is Ismail Haxhiu, whose family has taken care of the tomb for almost 150 consecutive years. In the same yard are the graves of Hafëz Pasha (probably the governor of Thessaloniki), Rifat Pasha, Hoxha Ali, the father of the current Hoxha and his brother," concluded Zllatarski.

Albanians, "Serbs of the Muslim faith"

"After the First Balkan War, about 2.000 Albanians and Turks emigrated from the city of Pristina to Anatolia. Most of them were immigrants from Prokupla, Niš and other places of "old Serbia!", wrote Stefan Dimitrov, adding that "emigration and migration has not stopped even today and it is expected that it will be the same in the future. The explanation of the emigration of the population in the District of Pristina can be found to some extent in the mutual relations between individual nationalities, on the one hand, and on the other hand, in the relations of the different regimes established with the two main national groups of the local population. I have said above that there is a great antagonism between the Albanians and the Serbs of the District of Pristina, and it is not recent. In the last three years, the Serbian government has taken care to strengthen the Serbian element everywhere, and especially in the District of Pristina. For this purpose, the Serbian government was helped by the Serbs of Leskoci, Prokuple and other Serbian villages, and this government especially helped in the purchase of land from the Albanians, which were often at negligible prices.

The researcher Stefan Dimitrov then described some concrete cases of the behavior of the Serbian occupying power towards the local Albanians. "During the Serbian regime, Albanians in these countries could not enjoy the freedom of the right to education, they did not have any national, even religious, rights. The Serbian government treated the Albanians here as Serbs 'of the Muslim faith'. But what most angered the Albanians against the Serbian government was the unimaginable economic oppression they were subjected to. Despite the thefts, robberies, murders and tortures that happened every day on the Albanian population, the taxes imposed by the Serbs were unbearable, in some cases they even exceeded the income of the properties from which they were collected. Thus, the rich Prishtina citizen Shukri Ramadani had to pay 910 dinars in tax for his properties in Cërkvenovodicë (near Obiliq), while the income of these properties reached the amount of only 660 dinars. The same, Shukri Ramadani paid 6.500 dinars in taxes for one of his mills... How the Albanian population was burdened by high taxes can be judged from the fact that in 1914, the Municipality of Pristina (the city with 4 small villages around it) had to to pay 400.000 dinars in tax, there have even been cases, like the one with Hysen Efendi, the representative of the big owner Fuad Pasha, who submitted a request to the Serbian government that in exchange for paying taxes, she could receive all the blessings of earned from cultivated land", Dimitrov concluded.

"Albanians from Pristina speak Turkish in their homes..."

"The majority population in Pristina is Albanian, but most of them still feel Turkish. The Albanians from Pristina speak Turkish in their homes, while the speech of the Serbs of Kosovo is very different from the speech of the Serbs of Sumady and it is rather closer to the North Macedonian speech and there are many pure Bulgarian words in it, which the Serbian of Sumady does not knows them", wrote prof. Atanas Ishirkov, who also provided data for the capital of Kosovo. "Prishtina lies far from the railway, because the Albanians with influence in this city did not want to have it close. Prishtina has about 3.000 houses with a population of 15.960 inhabitants. Of them, there are 11.486 Albanians, 4.164 Serbs and 328 Jews. In the city, there are beautiful and old mosques built 300-500 years ago, then there is also a beautiful government mansion here," concluded Ishirkov, who is one of the rare ones who without hesitation presented the number of Albanian residents in the capital of Kosovo, which unfortunately, as a result of unprecedented circumstances in the following years, has been changed.

For twelve years, 3.414 inhabitants "disappeared" from Pristina

also Culture Supplement June 1, 2025 End of 1931: Prishtina with 57 thousand inhabitants and 9 thousand houses

According to the Serbian census of 1912, which, according to the testimony of police inspector Milorad A. Vujčić, was organized by the police in cooperation with local government representatives, Pristina had 18.174 inhabitants, while according to the Bulgarian census of 1917, the capital of Kosovo as mentioned above, it had 15.960 inhabitants. So, during the two occupations, the capital of Kosovo lost 2.214 inhabitants, taking into account the wars that took place, that is, the massacres, deportations, burnings and destruction of material goods, it is a little unbelievable to believe this figure. While in the official census of 1921, two years after the end of the First World War, Pristina had 14.338 inhabitants. However, even during this census, as a result of the coercive circumstances on the part of the government, the majority of Prishtina residents declared themselves as Turks. Even the registrants had to declare their religious and linguistic affiliation provided for by the registration rules organized by the existing state of the Kingdom of Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian. In the corresponding census, 9.684 Prishtina declared themselves Muslims, 4.191 Orthodox, 322 Israelis, 124 Roman Catholics, and 17 Prishtina evangelicals.

While 7.115 Pristinas chose Turkish as their mother tongue, 4.325 Serbo-Croatians, 1.421 Pristinas still did not give up their mother tongue - the Albanian language. In Prishtina in the twenties, 17 of its inhabitants had Romanian (Cincars) as their mother tongue, 9 Russian, 5 Polish, 4 German, 3 Czech, 3 French, 2 Slovenian, 1 Italian and 1.433 Prishtinians spoke unknown languages. While eight years later, according to the last census of 1924, Pristina had 2.928 houses with 14.760 inhabitants. So in the time frame of 12 years, today's capital of Kosovo had 3.414 fewer inhabitants.