Page 660 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

December 3rd, 1894
Marinko Djordjević from Dobrotin owed 10 gorschen for the taxes when two zaptiahs came from Priština to collect taxes in Dobrotin. Marinko did not have the money to pay asking them to wait until tomorrow intending to pay the tax tomor- row. Neverrtheless, they took the cauldron with boiling wa- ter from the fire and spilled it on his daughter andjelija thus burning her legs. The girl is now crippled.
at the end of December 1895, there came three albanians to buy tobacco in the store of Milan Simin in the village of Kuzmin, in the District of Priština. They took the tobacco but refused to pay for it. a brawl erupted and the albanians opened gunfire at the Serbs killing one Serb. The brother of the victim, who himself was under attack, fired his revolver in self-defense killing one of the albanian assailants. Then the albanians wounded him as well. None of the albanians got arrested; only the wounded Serb Filip Simin.
February 4th and March 1895
On the eve of Ramadan, it was announced via the telal [town- -crier] in Priština that shooting shall be prohibited as the cus- tom prescribes. Nevertheless, the albanians totally disre- garded that announcement having fired 2,000 gunshots on that very eve. On that occasion a Turk child was shot dead and two men were wounded. although the whole town knew that the perpetrators ought to be sentenced to imprisonment and fined, all of the detained were released. 70 Turks were arrested for the shooting incident but they were immedi- ately released and got away with it. and as regards the crime of shooting a child, a Serb peasant Marko N. from Čaglavica was arrested and held responsible for it though he neither had a gun nor was involved in the shooting incident at all.
On February 26th, in Priština, a store owner Pota ilijić, Gačkić, a greengrocer, was smoking in the premises of his shop. it was during Ramadan. an albanian, who found him- self in the shop, verbally assaulted Pota accusing him of smok- ing during Ramadan [smoking is prohibited during Rama- dan]. Pota replied that he being a Serb was allowed to smoke in his own shop. The albanian pulled out a knife and wound- ed Pota heavily in the leg. The albanian was arrested that night but was immediately released undisturbedly leaving for Mitrovica unlike Pota Stanojević, an ethnic Serb, who hap- pened to be in the shop at the time of the assault and who prevented the murder taking the knife from the albanian— he was arrested and imprisoned for the whole month. He is now accused of wounding Pota ilijić.
a tasildar (tax-collector) named Mustafa Pashina, chaush from Suva Varoš, came to Donja Gušterica to collect taxes. He summoned 70 peasants, taxpayers, demanding money from them. 50 of them who had enough money, paid the tax, while he was beating and trampling for two hours on those who could not afford to pay; then, he forced them to take off their coats and having soaked the coats in the river, forced the peasants to put on the coats thus soaked with cold water driving them out in the wind “to dry off ”. Many of them fell seriously ill due to this torture.
Not a mere investigation has been taken against that civil servant and overt terror-monger. The peasants are afraid to complain against him in fear of revenge.
Sima Andrejević Igumanov
Sima Andrejević Igumanov (1804–1882) is one of those patriots from Kosovo of whom Patriarch Paul (Pavle) says that he dedicated not only all of his wealth, but all of himself to the educational and humanitar- ian goals through which he became a great benefac- tor of the Serbian people
This merchant, living ascetically and giving him- self totally to God, who earned his wealth working in Constantinople, Odessa and Kiev, Belgrade, donated to the church, monasteries, orphanages, schools, stu- dent homes, singing societies, while also helping the sick and handicapped, and providing stipends for stu- dents
Mourning the death of his son Manojlo, who died in 1865, Sima Igumanov “adopted all the youth of his region” He decided to establish a Serbian Orthodox Seminary (Bogoslovija) in Prizren in 1871 This was a great event, not only for Serbs who were not yet lib- erated in Old Serbia, but all Serbian people
Through Sima Igumanov’s hard work and savings he did good, which, through his testament, he left to eternally bear the desired fruits Thus, the endowment which bears his name would become one of the most fruitful establishments of that kind among the Serbi- anpeople ThemissionoftheSeminary,asitwaswrit- ten in the Project of its structure, was “to prepare the youth of Serbian nationality and Orthodox faith in the Ottoman empire to serve as priests and teachers for the people”
The archives of the Sima Igumanov Fund were in disarray in the Historical Archives of Belgrade, but through the efforts of Patriarch Pavle the endowment renewed its work, implying the return of the mansion in central Belgrade, built in 1938
After the exodus of the Serbian people from Koso- vo and Metohija in 1999 the Prizren Seminary was temporarily moved to Niš where a new, immense build- ing was constructed for the education of future Ser- bian priests, built exclusively through the funds of the Igumanov endowment Only in recent years has the Seminary, after being renovated, partially returned to Prizren
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