Page 556 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

When a man enters Prizren today, who knew it until the war and immediately afterwards, he feels as if it is somehow very similar to Bitolj [Monastir].
it is also a great city, clean and lovely like an elderly man of beautiful, old age, but deaf, empty and numb of these things as if by magic cast in a deep dream. Those two large nine- teenth century vilayets [administrative unit in the Otto- man empire] cities, one for Pelagonia [a geographic region in Macedonia] and the other for Kosovo, suffered a similar fate. a border advanced both of them separating them from their major agricultural backgrounds, and their market plac- es quieted down and town square grew stronger and the life reduced to merun, which these cities were not accus- tomed to, nor did they increase or blossom as before.
They became, as if to say silenced regions, truly dead- ened magnanimous people who will hardly ever resurrect to that form which they had prior to the wars. it was not in vain that people counted Prizren as the most beautiful city, calling it royal, through epic songs, folk tradition and pop- ular stories and not only because emperor Dušan resided there. That City was of regal beauty for his eyes. Once and today as well. and the City. everything else was a town center or casbah (kasaba), while Prizren was always a city for both Serb and Ottoman Turk. it was surrounded in the region of the fields of Prizren beside the very colorful branch- es on both banks of the Bistrica river dignified, as a capital, imperial. Full of light, fresh mountain air like no other place in the province. The Bistrica cuts its environment in the woods and countless water supplies, old and Turkish, not only on every corner, but almost at every turn provides many Ottoman fountains and drinking fountains. On three sides of the undulating fertile field, and hills on the fourth, where else in open rubble but mostly under vineyards, fruit and chestnuts.
Wherever you turn are tempting resorts, a teferič [a cel- ebration that occurs in fields and wooded areas, on state owned property] everywhere and divine beauty of the blessed, fruitful fields to gigantic boulders up the Bistrica , the eagle cliffs, caves, visible deep valleys old and old re- mains of fortress churches. and everywhere the water, clear and cold water of Šar mountain, which erupts and what cracks or medieval clay pipes...
Prizren was great and bright. Our story about its origin is interesting and the violent Turkish interpretation of the Greek word “Prizren.” according to the Turks, Prizren would be a shining city, gold or golden, foreseen according to the story, Prizren is the beauty of the place, where the city of
Grigorije Božović (1880–1945), the most famous among Ko- sovo Serb writers covering in his short stories various aspects of everyday life and tradition among the Serbs in Kosovo and Meto- hija. For his royalist and democratic convictions he was shot by the communist in 1945.
Nemanjić’s throne was founded. it was great as far as we can remember. and when merchants from Dubrovnik dis- appeared in it, trade continued.
This trading was accepted mainly by Serbs who used it to create not only the unique image of the Prizrenite mer- chant, but also particular Serbian city life, which radiated from there to other cities in Kosovo and beyond. The Priz- ren merchant was famous both in Thessaloniki and Sara- jevo, and he was seen in Constantinople, Trieste, Venice, Marseilles, London and Vienna. The Prizren merchant did not forget Scutari and alexandria either. That contributed that Prizren raises the people’s consciousness that the wealthier Prizren citizens rightly appears before the Otto- man Turk as Serb and popular leader. Since the abolition of the Patriarchate of Peć (1776) it was Prizren who took on the role of the homesteads of the Prizren Serbs, as well as national leadership up until 1912.
Undoubtedly, more combative, wiser and wider patrio- tism has not been made in any of the towns in Old Serbia as it had been in Prizren. This Prizren’s main mark and its greatest spiritual beauty. That is Prizren’s main character- istic and its greatest spiritual beauty; that is Prizren’s merit in the last two hundred years. The Prizren was the best and most beautiful city Serb that lived in all of Old Serbia...
i’m walking through the deadened great city. i encoun- ter people of pure blood, beautiful faces and a little con- fused by their troubles. Generally they are attractive. Both Serbs, and Ottoman Turks, and ethnic albanians (who here
Prizren
Grigorije Božović
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