Kuršumlija

Kuršumlija ( sr-Cyrl, Куршумлија, ) is a town and municipality located in the Toplica District of the southern Serbia. It is situated near the rivers Toplica, Kosanica and Banjska, southeast of Mount Kopaonik and northwest of Mount Radan. As of 2011, the town has 13,306 inhabitants, while municipality has 19,213.

Geography

Kuršumlija sits on the area of and administratively is in Toplica District. Its borders the municipalities of Brus, Blace, Prokuplje, Medveđa, Podujevo, and Leposavić. Its southwest border (105 km) is within the disputed territory of Kosovo.

History

The Romans established the Ad Fines military outpost in the 3rd century AD. There are also remains of churches from the Byzantine period. The Serbian principality of Rascia expanded from this region. Stefan Nemanja, a Serbian lord (župan), and the founder of Nemanjić dynasty, built his residence here, as well as the two monasteries of St Nicolas and the Holy Mother of God (before 1168).

There are many historical sights in Kuršumlija from that era: Mara Tower, Ivan Tower, and many medieval churches. The name in that period was Bele Crkve (White Churches) and Toplica. After the invasion by the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century, the Ottomans gave the town its current name, simply by translating the old name, Bele Crkve (White Churches). During Ottoman rule Kuršumlija was part of the Sanjak of Niš.

Toponyms such as ''Arbanaška'' and ''Đjake'' shows an Albanian presence in the Toplica and Southern Morava regions (located north-east of contemporary Kosovo) before the expulsion of Albanians during 1877–78 period.

The rural parts of Toplica valley and adjoining semi-mountainous interior was inhabited by compact Muslim Albanian population while Serbs in those areas lived near the river mouths and mountain slopes and both peoples inhabited other regions of the South Morava river basin.Luković, Miloš (2011
"Development of the Modern Serbian state and abolishment of Ottoman Agrarian relations in the 19th century"
''Český lid''. 98. (3): 298. "During the second war (December 1877—January 1878) the Muslim population fled towns (Vranya (Vranje), Leskovac, Ürgüp (Prokuplje), Niş (Niš), Şehirköy (Pirot), etc.) as well as rural settlements where they comprised ethnically compact communities (certain parts of Toplica, Jablanica, Pusta Reka, Masurica and other regions in the South Morava River basin). At the end of the war these Muslim refugees ended up in the region of Kosovo and Metohija, in the territory of the Ottoman Empire, following the demarcation of the new border with the Principality of Serbia. 8 8On Muslim refugees (''muhaciri'') from the regions of southeast Serbia, who relocated in Macedonia and Kosovo, see Trifunovski 1978, Radovanovič 2000."

As the wider Toplica region, Kuršumlija also had an Albanian majority. These Albanians were expelled by Serbian forcesUka, Sabit (2004). ''Gjurmë mbi shqiptarët e Sanxhakut të Nishit deri më 1912 races on Albanians of the Sanjak of Nish up to 1912'. Verana. p. 155; ; "Në kohët e sotme fshatra të Jabllanicës, të banuara kryesisht me shqiptare, janë këto: Tupalla, Kapiti, Gërbavci, Sfirca, Llapashtica e Epërrne. Ndërkaq, fshatra me popullsi te përzier me shqiptar, malazezë dhe serbë, jane këto: Stara Banja, Ramabanja, Banja e Sjarinës, Gjylekreshta (Gjylekari), Sijarina dhe qendra komunale Medvegja. Dy familje shqiptare ndeshen edhe në Iagjen e Marovicës, e quajtur Sinanovë, si dhe disa familje në vetë qendrën e Leskovcit. Vllasa është zyrtarisht lagje e fshatit Gërbavc, Dediqi, është lagje e Medvegjes dhe Dukati, lagje e Sijarinës. Në popull konsiderohen edhe si vendbanime të veçanta. Kështu qendron gjendja demografike e trevës në fjalë, përndryshe para Luftës se Dytë Botërore Sijarina dhe Gjylekari ishin fshatra me populisi të perzier, bile në këtë te fundit ishin shumë familje serbe, kurse tani shumicën e përbëjnë shqiptarët. [In contemporary times, villages in the Jablanica area, inhabited mainly by Albanians, are these: Tupale, Kapiti, Grbavce, Svirca, Gornje Lapaštica. Meanwhile, the mixed villages populated by Albanians, Montenegrins and Serbs, are these: Stara Banja, Ravna Banja, Sjarinska Banja, Đulekrešta (Đulekari) Sijarina and the municipal center Medveđa. Two Albanian families are also encountered in the neighborhood of Marovica called Sinanovo, and some families in the center of Leskovac. Vllasa is formally a neighborhood of the village Grbavce, Dedići is a neighborhood of Medveđa and Dukati, a neighborhood of Sijarina. So this is the demographic situation in question that remains, somewhat different before World War II as Sijarina and Đulekari were villages with mixed populations, even in this latter settlement were many Serb families, and now the majority is made up of Albanians.]"Blumi, Isa (2013)
''Ottoman refugees, 1878–1939: migration in a post-imperial world''
A&C Black, pg. 50; ; "As these Niš refugees waited for acknowledgment from locals, they took measures to ensure that they were properly accommodated by often confiscating food stored in towns. They also simply appropriated lands and began to build shelter on them. A number of cases also point to banditry in the form of livestock raiding and "illegal" hunting in communal forests, all parts of refugees’ repertoire... At this early stage of the crisis, such actions overwhelmed the Ottoman state, with the institution least capable of addressing these issues being the newly created Muhacirin Müdüriyeti... Ignored in the scholarship, these acts of survival by desperate refugees constituted a serious threat to the established Kosovar communities. The leaders of these communities thus spent considerable efforts lobbying the Sultan to do something about the refugees. While these Niš muhacir would in some ways integrate into the larger regional context, as evidenced later, they, and a number of other Albanian-speaking refugees streaming in for the next 20 years from Montenegro and Serbia, constituted a strong opposition block to the Sultan’s rule."; pg. 53; "One can observe that in strategically important areas, the new Serbian state purposefully left the old Ottoman laws intact. More important, when the state wished to enforce its authority, officials felt it necessary to seek the assistance of those with some experience, using the old Ottoman administrative codes to assist judges make rulings. There still remained, however, the problem of the region being largely depopulated as a consequence of the wars... Belgrade needed these people, mostly the landowners of the productive farmlands surrounding these towns, back. In subsequent attempts to lure these economically vital people back, while paying lip-service to the nationalist calls for "purification", Belgrade officials adopted a compromise position that satisfied both economic rationalists who argued that Serbia needed these people and those who wanted to separate "Albanians" from "Serbs". Instead of returning to their "mixed" villages and towns of the previous Ottoman era, these "Albanians," "Pomoks," and "Turks" were encouraged to move into concentrated clusters of villages in Masurica, and Gornja Jablanica that the Serbian state set up for them. For this "repatriation" to work, however, authorities needed the cooperation of local leaders to help persuade members of their community who were refugees in Ottoman territories to "return." In this regard, the collaboration between Shahid Pasha and the Serbian regime stands out. An Albanian who commanded the Sofia barracks during the war, Shahid Pasha negotiated directly with the future king of Serbia, Prince Milan Obrenović, to secure the safety of those returnees who would settle in the many villages of Gornja Jablanica. To help facilitate such collaborative ventures, laws were needed that would guarantee the safety of these communities likely to be targeted by the rising nationalist elements infiltrating the Serbian army at the time. Indeed, throughout the 1880s, efforts were made to regulate the interaction between exiled Muslim landowners and those local and newly immigrant farmers working their lands. Furthermore, laws passed in early 1880 began a process of managing the resettlement of the region that accommodated those refugees who came from Austrian-controlled Herzegovina and from Bulgaria. Cooperation, in other words, was the preferred form of exchange within the borderland, not violent confrontation." in a way that today would be characterized as ethnic cleansing.Müller, Dietmar (2009)
"Orientalism and Nation: Jews and Muslims as Alterity in Southeastern Europe in the Age of Nation-States, 1878–1941"
''East Central Europe''. 36. (1): 70; "For Serbia the war of 1878, where the Serbians fought side by side with Russian and Romanian troops against the Ottoman Empire, and the Berlin Congress were of central importance, as in the Romanian case. The beginning of a new quality of the Serbian-Albanian history of conflict was marked by the expulsion of Albanian Muslims from Niš Sandžak which was part and parcel of the fighting (Clewing 2000 : 45ff.; Jagodić 1998; Pllana 1985); Driving out the Albanians from the annexed territory, now called "New Serbia," was a result of collaboration between regular troops and guerrilla forces, and it was done in a manner which can be characterized as ethnic cleansing, since the victims were not only the combatants, but also virtually any civilian regardless of their attitude towards the Serbians (Müller, 2005). The majority of the refugees settled in neighboring Kosovo where they shed their bitter feelings on the local Serbs and ousted some of them from merchant positions, thereby enlarging the area of Serbian-Albanian conflict and intensifying it." According to the travels of M. Rakić, There were 127 villages in the Kuršumlija district, with Kuršumlija being the only town. After the Serbo-Ottoman war in 1878, the town remained completely vacant after the war. The Muslims who left the region were Albanians. It is estimated that approximately 17,604 Albanians left the Kuršumlija district during this time.

In 1878, Kuršumlija became a part of the Principality of Serbia, which in 1882 became the Kingdom of Serbia. From 1929 to 1941, Kuršumlija was part of the Morava Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

1999 NATO bombing

Kuršumlija was bombed on multiple occasions during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav army barracks were struck by NATO bombs on March 24, 1999, after which nine officers and two soldiers were killed. A total of 41 soldiers were injured in the same bombing that night. On April 12, 1999, six civilians were killed in Merdare from NATO airstrikes on the border of Kuršumlija and Podujevo.

Settlements

Aside from the town of Kuršumlija, the following villages consist the municipality of Kuršumlija:

Demographics

The municipality of Kuršumlija includes one urban and 89 rural settlements. According to the 2011 census there are 19,213 inhabitants in the municipality. The municipality of Kuršumlija has 6,962 households with 2,76 members on average, while the number of homes is 11,374.

The religious structure of the municipality is predominantly Serbian Orthodox (18,764), with minorities like Atheists (22), Muslims (17), Catholics (14) and others. Most of the population speaks Serbian (18,687).

The composition of population by sex and average age:
* Male - 9,862 (41.54 years) and
* Female - 9,351 (44.43 years).

A total of 7,356 citizens (older than 15 years) have secondary education (44.8%), while 1,606 citizens have higher education (9.8%). Of those with higher education, 898 (5.5%) have university education.

Ethnic groups

The ethnic composition of the municipality:

Tourism

Kuršumlija is known for a natural monument of hoodoos near Mount Radan known as ''Đavolja Varoš'' ('Devil's Town'). There are three spas (''banjas''): the Prolom Banja, Kuršumlijska Banja, and Lukovska Banja. Prolom water is bottled at the Prolom Spa.

File:Đavolja Varoš.jpg, ''Devil's Town''
File:Devil's Town 1 - Ђавоља Варош.jpg, ''Devil's Town''
File:Djavolja varos - Miodrag 3.jpg, ''Devil's Town''
File:Djavolja varos - Miodrag 2.jpg, ''Devil's Town''
File:Prolom Banja Freska2.jpg, ''Prolom Spa Center''
File:Куршумлиска Бања - Kuršumliska banja.jpg, ''Kuršumlija Spa Center Hotel''

Economy

The following table gives a preview of total number of registered people employed in legal entities per their core activity (as of 2018):

Gallery

File:Немањина престоница.jpg, ''St. Nicholas Monastery''
File:Sveti Nikola Kursumlija11.jpg, ''St. Nicholas Monastery''
File:Manastir Svetog Nikole u Kuršumliji.JPG, ''St. Nicholas Monastery''
File:Orthodox Church Irinej.jpg, ''Orthodox Church Irinej''
File:28.09.13 Kuršumlija 711.013 (10101106915).jpg, ''Kuršumlija Railway station''


File:Pan Kursumlija.jpg, ''Panorama of Kuršumlija''

Notable natives or residents

*The most notable Grand Prince of Serbia, Stefan Nemanja, established his first capital, Bele Crkve, near the location of today's Kuršumlija in 1166–1172. His wife, Grand Princess Anastasia (Ana), died and was buried here as a nun, St. Anastasia Nemanjic.
* Sultania Mara, daughter of Despot Đurađ Branković, later wife of the Ottoman Emperor Murad II, and step mother of Emperor Mehmed II also at the end of her life came to live here as a nun in monastery of Holy Mother of God, where she made a fortress called Mara Tower. She died in around 1487.
* Kosta Pećanac, a notable Serbian soldier in the First and Second World War. His house is protected of by the municipality.
*Dragoljub Mićunović (born in 1930. in Merdare, Kuršumlija), professor of at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. He was a dissident during the Communist period, and the first president of the Democratic Party. He was the first president of parliament of State Union of Serbia & Montenegro.
* Momčilo Đokić, He played a total of 13 matches for the Yugoslavia national football team. His debut was on April 13, 1930, against Bulgaria, in Belgrade, a 6–1 win, and his fairway match was on December 13, 1936, in Paris against France, a 0–1 loss. He played all the matches at the 1930 FIFA World Cup in Uruguay.
* Žarko Dragojević, director, born in Kuršumlija, professor at the Faculty of Drama at the University of Belgrade. He is director of several notable films, including (House by the tracks) and (Night in my mother's house). He also directed many documentaries, among them series on Serbian monasteries for the Serbian national broadcaster (RTS).
* Vojin Šulović, academician, humanist, doctor of gynaecology. 7 July and October awards of city of Belgrade winner. Also Serbian medical society award winner and Serbian warrior medallist. Smederevo and Kuršumlija municipality freeman.in memoriam academician Vojin ŠuloViĆ(1923-2008)

See also

* Toplica District
* Administrative divisions of Serbia

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kursumlija

Populated places in Toplica District
Municipalities and cities of Southern and Eastern Serbia