Prishtina

Prishtina, PRICHTINA, or Pristina, the chief town of a sanjak in the vilayet of Kossovo, Albania, European Turkey; on a small tributary of the river Sitnitza, an affluent of the Ibar, and 3 m. E. of the Prishtina station on the Salonica-Mitrovitza railway. Pop. (1905), about 11,000. Prishtina is the seat of a governor-general and of a general of division, and possesses many mosques, a military hospital and a higher class school. The trade is considerable, the exports including chrome, wheat, maize, barley, skins, wine and timber from the magnificent beech forests in the sanjak. The plain of Kossovo (Kossovopolye, " Field of Blackbirds"), to the west, was the scene of the battle in which the Servian empire was destroyed by the Turks in 1389. To the south-east lies the partly ruined monastery of Grachanitza founded by King Milutin of Servia (1275-1321). Among the frescoes are a remarkable head of Christ in the dome, and portraits of the founder and his queen Simonida, daughter of Andronicus II. Palaeologus.

See G. M. M. Mackenzie and A. P. Irby, Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey (1877).