ABOUT

DRAGASH/DRAGAŠ

The essential asset of Dragash/Dragaš is that it interweaves its heritage of cultural traditions and natural features. It narrates the rural mountain cultures and ways of life that have responded to and developed in this remote mountain landscape over the centuries, where it creates an authentic sense of place through tracks, paths, agricultural buildings and patterns, rites, festivals, and traditions.

Dragash/Dragaš is most southern municipality of Kosovo, bordering with neighbouring countries, such as North Macedonia to the east and south, and Albania to the west. In the north, Dragash/Dragaš is bordered by the Municipality of Prizren, which is the center of the southern region of Kosovo, where Dragash/Dragaš is also located. The town is 37 km away from Prizren.

The municipality of Dragash/Dragaš covers an area of 435.8 km2, approximately 4% of the entire territory of Kosovo, and is the eighth largest among the 38 municipalities of Kosovo. The municipality of Dragash/Dragaš includes 36 settlements, with the small town of Dragash/Dragaš as the centre. The most populated villages are Restelicë/Restelica, Bresanë/Brodosavce, and Breznë/Brezna with over 1900 inhabitants. A specific characteristic of Dragash/Dragaš are the wide expanses of pastures that have made this area suitable for livestock, agriculture, and agricultural products.

In Dragash/Dragaš, the most significant peaks are:
Koritnik in the northwest on the border with Albania (2262m), Karanikollë/Karanikole Hill in the northwest (2409m), Maje/ë in the east (2493m), Head of Kaçi/ Kači in the north of Brod (2207m), Great Vraça/Vrača in the southeast (2536m, the highest peak) and the Priest’s Chapel in the southwest (2075m).

A significant part of the Municipality of Dragash/Dragaš (24.206,52 Ha) has been declared part of the ‘Sharri National Park’. The region is rich with water resources and two main rivers – Pllavë/Plava and Restelicë/Resstelica, with a number of tributaries and three lakes. The villages of Gorë/Gora, settled in the mountains, are more compact than the villages of Opojë/Opolje which are located in the plains with scattered houses.

HISTORY OF DRAGASH/DRAGAŠ

The settlement in Dragash/Dragaš is said to date back to ancient times, similar to other places in the Prizren region where evidence of life has been found since the Neolithic and Stone Age, as well as important evidence from the Roman and Ottoman periods. As a high mountain area, the topographical and climatic conditions have had a great influence on the approach which has been important for the history and socio-cultural development of this area.

Prizren was known for its strong trade as a crossroads for military and commercial routes, so it was a very important center with which the communities in the Dragash/Dragaš area had strong ties, as they still have today.

A mountain road connects Dragash/Dragaš with Dibra through Restelicë/a, and the position of this village as a gateway to this road probably explains why this village is such a large and inhabited settlement

It is likely that the connections between the inhabitants of North Macedonia and Central/Eastern Albania through the Dragash/Dragaš Mountains had a significant impact on the development of the common and monumental architecture of Kosovo. The word “Gora” means “mountain” in the Slavic language, so the Gorani are said to be mountaineers.

The language spoken by Gorani (‘Nashinski’, which translates as ‘our’) is a combination of Macedonian, Bosnian, Serbian and Turkish. Linguistically, Slavic languages were spoken in the mountainous region of Sharr/Šar, where nineteenth-century travellers state that ‘Macedonian’ and ‘Bulgarian’ languages were spoken throughout the territory.