Novo Brdo , Kosovo - 15th-16th century

[DamCz]

Ragusan documents attest to the presence of a significant number of Albanians living in Novo Brdo throughout the 14th and early 15th centuries, including members of the Catholic Albanian clergy with names such as Gjergjash and Gjinko, Gjini, son of Gjergji, the presbyter (1382); the reverend Gjergj Gega, Nikollë Tanushi, Gjergj Andrea Pellini and Nikolla Progonovic. In the book of debtors belonging to Ragusan merchant Mihail Lukarevic, who resided in Novo Brdo during the 1430s, 150 Albanian household heads were mentioned as living in Novo Brdo with their families. They worked as miners, artisans and specialists in the mines of Novo Brdo. The anthroponomy of these figures is characteristically Albanian; distinctive Albanian names such as Gjon, Gjin, Tanush, Progon, Lek, Gjergj and Bibë are mentioned. Some families had a mixed Slav-Albanian anthroponomy - that is to say, a Slavic first name and an Albanian last name, or last names with Albanian patronyms and Slavic suffixes such as Gjonoviç, Gjinoviq, Progonoviq, Bushatoviq, Dodishiq, Kondiq, Lekiq and other such names. Many Albanian Catholic priests were registered as residing in Novo Brdo, as well as in towns like Janjevo, Trepça, Prizren and others.[4]

In the Ottoman Defter of 1591, the city of Novo Brdo itself was recorded within the Sanjak of Viçitrina - this defter included the household heads of the city. The city consisted of several Muslim neighbourhoods (Mahalla/Mëhalla); they were Xhamia Sherif (Sherif Mosque, 26 households), Kasap (11 households), Hamam (21 households), Darbbane (40 households) and Mehmed Çelebi (5 households). There was also 6 Jewish households, including 1 that hailed from Catalonia and 1 that hailed from Castille. Of the Christian neighbourhoods (Mahalla/Mëhalla), the following had inhabitants of mixed Albanian-Slavic/Orthodox anthroponomy: Sokraja (15 households), Pop Simoni (12 households), Çarshi (13) and Himandin (9). Slavic/Orthodox anthroponomy predominated in the following neighbourhoods:Sveti Petra (19 households), Sveti Nika (9 households), Marko Kërsti (26 households), Filip (9 households), Pop Krilovina (10 households), Kallogjer Gligorija (6 households), Kovaç Radosavi (16 households), Shagliçiq (8 households), Shuster (14 households) and Vuka Mrkshiq (8 households). Characteristic Albanian anthroponomy predominated in the following neighbourhoods: Protopop (9 households), Izllatar (9 households), Pop Grobani (Grubani) (5 households), Pop Bozha (4 households) and Kuriçka (13 households).[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Brdo

[DamCz]

It had a Christian Albanian population and the town was also significantly Islamised and they were probably Albanians too , here I have taken a screenshot of some of the Islamised neigborhoods

[Dušan]

Pure Slavic toponym Novo Brdo shows you are intruders here.
Pure Slavic toponym Kosovo shows you are intruders here.


Back to mountains of north Albania or to EU, you decide.

[Dušan]

Novo Brdo was important town and fortress in medieval Serbia.

[DamCz]

We got plenty of other towns too that show this territory had an old Albanian population such as Vushtrri, Janjevo, Prishtina, Trepca , Llapi area etc, The Toplica area had an old Albanian population too. Many of these areas were also Islamised.

Many of the Christians in Novo Brdo also had Albanian names such Koka, Mati, Jaku, Nina, Kola etc ... It's interesting how you keep relying only on some dubious 1455 register which mainly covers some villages in the East , We got registers for Western Kosovo too that shows the continuity of Albanian population there too both in the 15th and 16th century of villages there, we got other documents too. Don't come into my threads with your crap.

[DamCz]

Toplica - Nish area:

Toponyms such as Arbanaška River, Arbanaško Hill, Arbanaška Mountain, Arbanaška, Arbanasce, Arbanashka Petrila, Arnautski Potok, Alban, Arbanashka Brenica, Arbanas, Gjinofc Kulla, Marash, Gjinofc, Đake, Kastrat, Berišane, Mandi, Muzace, Mazarać etc. shows an Albanian presence in the Toplica and Southern Morava regions (located north-east of contemporary Kosovo) and in the Preševo Valley since the late Middle Ages.[22][23][24][25] Albanians in the region were Orthodox Christians, were in contact with Slavic populations and as such many also bore Orthodox Slavic names such as in the village Arbanas, the name of the inhabitants were: Stojan, Dajin, Dane Stojan, Mati Marko, Andrija Marko, Dimsha Marko, Luka Gjurko, Nikolla Luka, Pjetri Dimja, Stojan Pjetri, Gjura Marko, Lazar Stepa, Gjura Pejash etc.[26]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expuls...7%E2%80%931878

[Dušan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Brdo

The region is especially known for its role in mining during medieval times, in particular after the construction of the Novo Brdo Fortress by Stefan Milutin (King of Serbia)

In Serbian (and also English) "Novo Brdo" is used, literally meaning "New Hill". The name was derived from the medieval Serbian mining town of Novo Brdo.

The castle, or fortress, is thought to date back to the time of the Serbian Empire.

At the first half of 15th century, Serbian Orthodox bishops of Lipjan resided in Novo Brdo.

The medieval settlement was an important producer of Serbian pottery and other goods.

Novo Brdo was the last Serbian town to remain standing during the first Ottoman invasion.

[Dušan]

Novo Brdo Fortress is a medieval Serbian fortress in Kosovo. Its ruins are located near the town of Novo Brdo, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) east of Pristina. The fortress was built in the late 13th century by king Stephen Uroš II Milutin of Serbia to protect gold, silver, iron and lead mines which were abundant throughout the area.

Novo Brdo was at its height during the Serbian Despotate (1402–1459), when it was the most important mining area and second most important town in Serbia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Brdo_Fortress

[DamCz]

For the Has region of Kosovo from 1571 I have opened here that shows it was entirely inhabited by Albanians: https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...osovo-register , we also got registers for the Opoja region which shows it was entirely inabited by Albanians almost.

Here I have added some villages for the Gjakova area from 1485 which had significant villages with Albanian names: https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...ik-Kosovo-1485 , there are some more, we also got registers from 1582 which shows a continuity in that area and some from 1571, Gjakova as a town itself in 1571-1582 had people with majority Albanian names. We got plenty of registers that show a continuity.

Same thing for the Prizren area and the Peja / Pec area in Kosovo, we got documents and villages from 14th-16th century too that shows the continuity of Albanians in that terrritory , That's just counting people with Albanian names or people we know were Albanians. Prizren as a town was an Albanian town, we got registers that show this and travellers that noted the ethnic make up of the inhabitants:

Lazaro Soranzo, writing in the 16th century, noted the town was inhabited "more by Albanians then by Serbs".[44] In 1624 Pjeter Mazrreku reported the town was inhabited by a majority Muslims, almost all of them Albanians.[45] In 1651, the Albanian Catholic priest of Prizren Gregor Mazrreku reported: ‘Some of the men (and there are very many of these) say: “We are Christians in our hearts, we have only changed our religious affiliation to get out of paying taxes which the Muslims imposed on us” and for that reason they say... “dear Reverend, come and give us confession and Holy Communion secretly.” But I have not done this up till now, nor does it seem right to me'.[46]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prizren


In that same area of Prizren there were at least nine Albanian villages mentioned in the 14th century:

In 1330, Serbian king Stefan Dečanski explicitly mentioned the presence of Albanians and the Albanian names of villages in Kosovo, in particular in the districts of Prizren and that of Skopje. A chrisobull of the Serbian Tsar Stefan Dušan that was given to the Monastery of Saint Mihail and Gavril in Prizren between the years of 1348-1353 states the presence of Albanians in the vicinity of Prizren, the Plains of Metohija and in the villages of Drenica. Within this chrisobull, nine Albanian stock-breeding villages within the vicinity of Prizren are mentioned explicitly - these villages are known with the names Gjinovci (Gjinajt), Magjerci, Bjellogllavci (Kryebardhët), Flokovci (Flokajt), Crnça, Caparci (Çaparajt), Gjonovci (Gjonajt), Shpinadinci (Shpinajt) and Novaci. Entire Albanian villages were gifted by Serbian kings, particularly Stefan Dušan, as presents to Serb monasteries within Prizren, Deçan and Tetova.[13] Additionally, people with Albanian anthroponomy are repeatedly mentioned in a 1348 chrysobull of Stefan Dušan that lists those who pray at the monastery of St. Michael and Gabriel in Prizren as well as some of the inhabitants of the city itself and the surrounding villages. In one of Stefan Dušan's documents in 1355, a soldier with Albanian anthroponomy is exclusively mentioned as one of the people who must continuously pay the Monastery of St. Nicholas in the village of Billushë near Prizren.[14]

Also many other villages we know were Albanians in that area like Mazrek, Kojushe, Milaj, Zym, Gorozhup, Celina, Zojz, Lutogllava etc

[DamCz]

As for Austrian-Ottoman wars in 1690, those were Albanians that revolted which I have shown here: https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...a-in-the-1660s , Unlike these Serbs who supposedly claim they revolted and Albanians are supposed to of invaded the area to take their place which is nothing but a fairytale and ironically was even openly spread by this Croat on this forum for years even when Albanians confronted her , the Serb population loss is also exaggerated, of course we can use travellers and Austrian sources from that time which gives us an insight into Kosovo's population prior to these events, we got Ottoman sources, Austrian, Catholic sources etc. Most of the towns in Kosovo at that time were Muslim Albanian also as not only shown by 16th century registers but also confirmed by various sources from the 17th century.

The Turkish traveller Evliya Celebi included the Llapi area in north-east Kosovo, Western and Central Kosovo as part of 'Albania' in the 1660's

In 1660 Çelebi went to Kosovo and referred to the central part of the region as Arnavud (آرناوود) and noted that in Vushtrri its inhabitants were speakers of Albanian or Turkish and few spoke Bosnian.[18] The highlands around the Tetovo, Peja and Prizren areas Çelebi considered as being the "mountains of Arnavudluk".[18] Çelebi referred to the "mountains of Peja" as being in Arnavudluk (آرناوودلق) and considered the Ibar river that converged in Mitrovica as forming Kosovo's border with Bosnia.[18] He viewed the "Kılab" or Llapi river as having its source in Arnavudluk (Albania) and by extension the Sitnica as being part of that river.[18] Çelebi also included the central mountains of Kosovo within Arnavudluk.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evliya_%C3%87elebi

Arnavudluk / Arnavud was a term for 'Albania' it should be noted.

So I wonder where this Croat that spread this false history for years that Albanians are supposed to of only arrived into this territory after 1690 and according to this Croat this is supposed to of started some kind of ethno nationalistic conflict , what kind of fairytales is this person ? Its even more funny how she agreed with some member here that made some remarks about Kosova , in fact in Kosova we don't see a conflict until the 19th-20th century after Expulsion of Albanians out of the Toplica area , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expuls...7%E2%80%931878 , even there you had an old Albanian population before people from Northern Albania and Kosovo moved to the area. This further changed the demographics of Kosova.


Also it's interesting how the Serbs claim they are the original inhabitants despite they are nowhere mentioned in this territory until they invaded it in the 12th-14th century, yet they keep claiming it is historically theirs and how they are the original inhabitants despite most of the history here is not theirs, colonizing and holding a territory for a certain period doesn't make you the original inhabitants first and foremost nor historically. Of course they have manipulated the history of this place to make it seem like Albanians invaded this territory and they are the originals but it's not exactly what happened here. This territory has changed demographics plenty of times, was also under Roman occupation , Byzantine, Bulgar etc

And this territory has been continiously inhabited by Albanians , in fact the Dardani were the most ancient inhabitants of this territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardani , which in fact is an Albanian word


In Kosova there are also other important historical events which occurred that were important to Albanians. The Serbs in the 19th-20th century when they occupied were mainly a bunch of invaders as described even by a Serb writer himself:

The first victims of Serbian imperialism were Macedonia and Kosova. However, pan-Serbian imperialists, although forced by the more powerful imperialists to draw back from the Albanian coast, have kept the best and more fertile place of Albania: Kosova. We call Kosova the whole region inhabited by Albanians: Kosova, Metohia and the south part of the old Sanjak to Novi Pazar. More than 500,000 Albanians became slaves of a new ruler. Besides them, there are aditional 150-200 thousand Albanians in Macedonia. That is, there are altogether 650-700 thousand Albanians in Yugoslavia.
Serbianisation of Kosova is the wildest example of a nation in the time of the Balkan War and the Second World War. The wildest terroristic and inquisition methods that were used in Kosova have not been seen either in Eastern Ukraine, or in Bjelorussia that are under Poland, or in Besarabia and Dobrudza that are under Rumania... Only Macedonia can be close to Kosova from this aspect.
When Serbian imperialists invaded Kosova, they informed the world that they would return again their historical rights they had in 1389 (before the battle of Kosova). Basing themselves on these ‘historical rights', either Italy, or France, or Greece, or Turkey could rise and request to get half of Europe, as they had once these regions in their hands. Furthermore, France could request a part of Russia, as Napoleon went once to Moscow in 1812.

Kosova is a merely Albanian region, and has only 10 to 15% Serbs settled there in older times.
The first means that Serbian imperialists put in effect were medieval military means, or means of colonial invaders: extermination of population, military operations, disarmament of population, crushing the armed resistance, etc.
In 1912 and 1913, 120,000 Albanians were exterminated - men, women, boys, old men and women, children - hundreds of villages were shot by heavy guns, a large number of them were burned down, more in Kosova and less in Macedonia.
It is to observe that the representative of Russian imperialist tsarist politics, minister of Russia in Belgrade, Hartvig, blessed this policy of extermination that was carried out by Belgrade. The Russian Orthodox Tsar extended his assistance to the Orthodox Serbian brother, king Petar and his son Aleksandar, to exterminate a whole people and expand the Orthodox religion in the Balkans. At least 50,000 Albanians were forced to emigrate to Turkey and Albania and become immigrants, in order to save their lives.
The extermination of the Albanians rarefied Albanian masses in Kosova to a certain degree, but it could not change the Albanian character that Kosova has had. The intention to exterminate the Albanians in Kosova was to settle Serbs instead of them, to colonise Kosova by Serbs, serbisianation of Kosova. Nevertheless, until the end of 1912, owing to great resistance on the part of the Albanians, colonisation made a relatively slow progress. Only a small number of Serbs were settled in the region of Kosova in the first stages.

The names of Bajram Curri, Azem Bejta and hundreds of other brave men that have fallen at that war, have been carved in the hearts of the Albanians of Kosova.
In 1920 more than 10,000 ‘kaçaks' were on the mountains of Kosova. There were 2,000 of them in Llab only. In 1920, in the time of the uprising of Llab, the Serbian military, under the command of colonel Radovan Rodovic, bombarded the big Albanian village of Prapashtica, and all the houses were ruined.
Similar to Llab, Albanian national movements were organised in many other regions of Kosova, and were crushed by great Serbian forces in 1919 and 1924. We can mention here the movements of Plava, Gucia, Rugova in 1919, of Prishtina in 1921, Drenica in 1923, Mitrovica in 1924 and again of Drenica in 1924. By quelling these uprisings, the Serbian military killed 2,600 Albanians.

National resistance in this way was limited to the fights of detachments of ‘kaçaks'. According to an official report of Serbian government, there were 1,200 organised ‘kaçaks' in detachments in 1924. In 1927, the Serbian police published a report: 310 Albanian ‘kaçaks' were killed, 175 caught as prisoners and 626 surrendered.
In 1927, the movement of ‘kaçaks' ceased to act, but the spirit of ‘kaçaks' lives in every village and will never cease to exist until Kosova is free. The pan-Serbian regime knows this quite well. That is why it has decided to denationalise Kosova totally, not only by crushing wildly the Albanian movement, but also by grabbing their land and colonising Kosova by Serbs. I am going to discuss this matter in the next issue of Liria Kombëtare.”

This is from a Serb himself, so please enlighten us here what is it that ''Europe can learn from '' ? The Serbs were a bunch of invaders in a territory mainly inhabited by Albanians yet think they are liberating some kind of land when all it has done is deepened the Albanian character of this region and the region has become a symbol of Albanian resistance against various invaders (Serbs, Ottomans etc) .




Of course we know Croats are more Chetnik than Chetnik themselves