Prizren - the Cultural Capital of Kosovo

Prizren

The stark difference with the two most populous cities in Kosovo is beauty.  Pristina, the capital hardly compares to the beauty of Prizren.  The old town of Prizren is like something out of an Ottoman fairy tale.  Situated beneath a mountain with a citadel standing guard, the picturesque town of Prizren sits alongside a river.  During summer, it is busy with tourists from both the Middle East and other parts of Europe.  But, it is obvious, this place feels more Islamic than Europe from both the architecture and the majority of the people.  Don’t let the Islamic texture fool you, as the surface doesn’t tell you the whole story of the tumultuous history of the city. 

 

a destroyed Orthodox Serbian Church, now protected

Like nearly everywhere in the Balkans, this place has changed hands many times through the centuries as empires and kingdoms see sawed for control of this region near the crossroads of two continents.  The Albanian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Ottoman, Austrian, Nazis, and Italian Fascists all shed blood here for a foothold in these parts.  And after all the smoke cleared, it was the Albanians who eventually ended up with the deed.  After the Kosovo War and the help of NATO in the late 1990s, it was clear that Kosovo will be a new nation of Albanians.  The cultural capital of Prizren was overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian and Muslim.  The minority population of Serbians got incredibly smaller and retaliation for years of oppression and terror, when Albanian Muslims retaliated and drove of out the remaining Serbs, destroying their homes and churches.

memorial to the Albanian fighters during the Kosovo War

Despite the tranquil beauty and colorful energy, a buzz, I can’t shake the fact that so much blood and hatred rests here.  On the surface, you may be naive to think that all is forgiven but I can imagine the wounds are too fresh to ignore.  In my own country of the US, in 2018, with the rise of Trump, I can attest that wounds of war and the “memory” of a romanticized past continue to haunt us more than one hundred fifty years later.

Though, my time in Prizren was short, it gave me plenty to contemplate.  It’s like watching a nation of people, long oppressed, who now has the liberty and power to determine and run their lives the way the wish.  This is a “golden age” for the Kosovar people.  They have a chance to direct their own narrative.  I have great interest in how they will go forward.