History

Early history
The area in and around Pristina has been inhabited for nearly 10,000 years.[7]
 Early Neolithic findings were discovered dating as far back as the 8th century BC, in the areas surrounding Pristina, i.e.: Matiçan,Gračanica
 and Ulpiana
.[7]
[8]
 In the 4th century BC, Bardyllis
 brought various tribes together in the region, establishing theDardanian Kingdom
.[9]
[10]
[11]
 After the Roman conquest of Illyria in 168 BC, Romans colonized and founded several cities in the region, which they named Dardania.[12]

During the Roman period, Pristina was part of the province of Dardania
 and Ulpiana was considered one of the most important Roman cities in the Balkans. In the 2nd century AD, Ulpiana became a Roman municipium. The city suffered tremendous damage from an earthquake in AD 518.[13]
The Byzantine
 Emperor Justinian I
 decided to rebuild the city in great splendor and renamed it Justiniana Secunda
 but with the arrival of Slav tribes in the 6th century the city again fell into disrepair.[13]
Medieval period
In Serbian Archbishop Sava
's "Life of Saint Simeon", written between 1201 and 1208, the "župe
" (counties) of Sitnica and Lipljan are mentioned, which had territory around present-day Pristina. Pristina was an important town in Medieval Serbia
, having been a royal estate of Stefan Milutin
, Stefan Uroš III
, Stefan Dušan
, Stefan Uroš V
 andVuk Branković
.[14]
[15]
 The medieval fort of Višegrad, whose ruins lie three kilometres east of the city centre, was mentioned in Milutin's time,[16]
 and served as his capital,[17]
 and the nearby Gračanica monastery
 was founded by him in ca. 1315. The first historical record mentioning Pristina by its name dates back to 1342 when the Byzantine Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos
 described Pristina as a 'village'.[7]
["better source needed
"] In the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, Pristina developed as an important mining and trading center thanks to its proximity to the rich mining town of Novo Brdo
, and due to its position of the Balkan trade routes. The old town stretching out between the Vellusha and Prishtevka rivers which are both covered over today, became an important crafts and trade center. Pristina was famous for its annual trade fairs ("Panair")[7]
 and its goat hide and goat hair articles. Around 50 different crafts were practiced from tanning to leather dying, belt making and silk weaving, as well as crafts related to the military – armorers, smiths, and saddle makers. As early as 1485, Pristina artisans also started producing gunpowder. Trade was thriving and there was a growing colony of Ragusan
traders (from modern day Dubrovnik
) providing the link between Pristina's craftsmen and the outside world.[7]
 The first mosque was constructed in the late 14th century while still under Serbian rule.[7]
 The 1487 defter recorded 412 Christian and 94 Muslim households in Pristina, which at the time was administratively part of the Sanjak of Vučitrn
.Initial Ottoman period
In the early Ottoman era, Islam
 was an urban phenomenon and only spread slowly with increasing urbanization. The travel writer Evliya Celebi
, visiting Pristina in the 1660s was impressed with its fine gardens and vineyards.[7]
 In those years, Pristina was part of the Vıçıtırın Sanjak and its 2,000 families enjoyed the peace and stability of the Ottoman era. Economic life was controlled by the guild system ("esnafs") with the tanners' and bakers' guild controlling prices, limiting unfair competition and acting as banks for their members. Religious life was dominated by religious charitable organizations often building mosques or fountains and providing charity to the poor.Austrian-Turkish War
During the Austrian-Turkish War
 in the late 17th century, Pristina citizens under the leadership of the Catholic Albanian priestPjetër Bogdani
 pledged loyalty to the Austrian army and supplied troops. He contributed a force of 6,000 Albanian soldiers to the Austrian army which had arrived in Pristina. Under Austrian occupation, the Fatih Mosque ("Mbretit Mosque") was briefly converted to a Jesuit
church.[7]

Following the Austrian defeat in January 1690, Pristina's inhabitants were left at the mercy of Ottoman and Tatar
 troops who took revenge against the local population as punishment for their co-operation with the Austrians. A French officer traveling to Pristina noted soon afterwards that "Pristina looked impressive from a distance but close up it is a mass of muddy streets and houses made of earth".[7]
Declining Ottoman era and Balkan War
Pristina, end of the 19th century
The year 1874 marked a turning point. That year the railway between Salonika
 andMitroviça
 started operations and the seat of the vilayet of Prizren was relocated to Pristina. This privileged position as capital of the Ottoman vilayet lasted only for a short while. from January until August 1912, Pristina was liberated from Ottoman rule by Albanian rebel forces led by Hasan Prishtina
.[18]
 However, The Kingdom of Serbia
 opposed the plan for a Greater Albania
, preferring a partition of the European territory of the Ottoman Empire
among the four Balkan allies
.[19]
 On October 22, 1912, Serb forces took Pristina. However, Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the first Balkan War, occupied Kosovo in 1915 and took Pristina under Bulgarian occupation.[20]
 In late October 1918, the 11th French colonial division took over Pristina and returned Pristina back to what then became the 'First Yugoslavia
' on the 1st of December 1918.[20]
 On September 1920, the decree of the colonization of the new southern lands' facilitated the takeover by Serb colonists of large Ottoman estates in Pristina and land seized from Albanians.[20]
 The interwar period saw the first exodus of Albanian and Turkish speaking population.[7]
[20]
World War II
Plaque on a war memorial in Pristina. The text reads "At this location on 23 October 1944, German Nazis executed 104 Albanian patriots who gave their lives for the freedom and independence of their country - Society of anti-Nazi and national liberation veterans of Kosovo".
On 17 April 1941, Yugoslavia surrendered unconditionally to axis forces. On 29 June,Benito Mussolini
 proclaimed a greater Albania, with most of Kosovo under Italian occupation united with Albania. There ensued mass killings of Serbs, in particular colonialists, and an exodus of tens of thousands of Serbs.[21]
 [22]
 After the capitulation of Italy, Nazi Germany
 took control of Pristina. Under German occupation in the 1940s, a large part of Pristina's already small Jewish community was deported. The few surviving families eventually left for Israel in 1949.[7]
 As a result of these wars and forced migration, Pristina's population dropped to 9,631 inhabitants.[7]
Pristina after World War II
Monument ofBrotherhood and Unity
in Pristina
The communist decision to make Pristina the capital of Kosovo in 1947 ushered a period of rapid development and outright destruction. The Yugoslav communist slogan at the time was *uništi stari graditi novi* (destroy the old, build the new). In a misguided effort to modernize the town, communists set out to destroy the Ottoman bazaar and large parts of the historic center, including mosques, catholic churches and Ottoman houses.[7]
 A second agreement signed between Yugoslavia and Turkey in 1953 led to the exodus of several hundreds more Albanian families from Pristina. They left behind their homes, properties and businesses.[7]
 However, this policy changed under the new constitution
ratified in 1974. Few of the Ottoman town houses survived the communists' modernization drive, with the exception of those that were nationalized like today's Emin Gjiku Museum or the building of the Institute for the Protection of Monuments.["citation needed
"]
National Public Library
As capital city and seat of the government, Pristina creamed off a large share of Yugoslav development funds channeled into Kosovo. As a result the city's population and its economy changed rapidly. In 1966, Pristina had few paved roads, the old town houses had running water and Cholera
 was still a problem.Prizren
 continued to be the largest town in Kosovo. Massive investments in state institutions like the newly foundedUniversity of Pristina
, the construction of new high-rise socialist apartment blocks and a new industrial zone on the outskirts of Pristina attracted large number of internal migrants. This ended a long period when the institution had been run as an outpost of Belgrade University
 and gave a major boost to Albanian-language education and culture in Kosovo. The Albanians were also allowed to use the Albanian flag.["citation needed
"]
Within a decade, Pristina nearly doubled its population from about 69,514 in 1971 to 109,208 in 1981.[7]
 This golden age of externally financed rapid growth was cut short by Yugoslavia's economic collapse and the 1981 student revolts
. Pristina, like the rest of Kosovo slid into a deepenin