Dragaš (Komuna e Dragashit)
Dragaš was named after Serbian medieval noble family of the same name which served Dušan the Mighty (r. 1331-1355) and Uroš the Weak (r. 1355-1371). From 1877 to 1913, Dragaş was part of Kosovo Vilayet in the Ottoman Empire. From 1929 to 1941, Dragaš was part of the Vardar Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. From 1941 to 1999 Dragaš was part of the autonomous province of Kosovo within the republic of Serbia and part of the Yugoslav federation.
The Gora municipality and Opoja region (attached to Prizren municipality) remained separated during the Milošević period. During the Kosovo war (1999), Albanians from Opoja fled to neighbouring Albania in cars, trucks and tractors along with others on foot that following the conflict returned home. After the war, the Gorani-majority Gora municipality was merged with the Albanian inhabited Opoja region to form the municipality of Dragash by the United Nations Mission (UNMIK) and the new administrative unit has an Albanian majority.
The town of Dragash is the regional and municipal centre for both the Gora and Opoja regions of Dragash municipality. Following 1999, Dragash has a mixed population of Gorani, whom live in the lower neighbourhood and Albanians in the upper neighbourhood that constitute the majority of inhabitants.
Apart from the multiethic town of Dragash, the Gorani of Kosovo continue to live in villages primarily inhabited by their community in Gora and relations with Albanians remain tense. Albanians predominantly live in the Opoja region. Mixed marriage between both communities do not occur with the exception of a few Gorani families that have migrated to Prizren.
Map - Dragaš (Komuna e Dragashit)
Map
Country - Kosovo
In classical antiquity, the central tribe which emerged in the territory of Kosovo were the Dardani, who formed an independent polity known as the Kingdom of Dardania in the 4th century BC. It was annexed by the Roman Empire by the 1st century BC, and for the next millennium, the territory remained part of the Byzantine Empire, whose rule was eroded by Slavic invasions beginning in the 6th–7th century AD. In the centuries thereafter, control of the area alternated between the Byzantines and the First Bulgarian Empire. By the 13th century, Kosovo became the core of the Serbian medieval state, and has also been the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church from the 14th century, when its status was upgraded to a patriarchate. Ottoman expansion in the Balkans in the late 14th and 15th century led to the decline and fall of the Serbian Empire; the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 is considered to be one of the defining moments in Serbian medieval history. The Ottomans fully conquered the region after the Second Battle of Kosovo. The Ottoman Empire ruled the area for almost five centuries until 1912.
Currency / Language
ISO | Language |
---|---|
SQ | Albanian language |
SR | Serbian language |