Prishtina, Kosova

The building in the picture is one of the first things that were pointed out to me when I arrived to Prishtina three days ago. It is an orthodox church, a large one, and it sits unfinished and looking like a big brick fortress on the central yard of Prishtina University's campus. The story of this religious building provides a good introduction to the recent history of Kosovo: The church was built right before the war that broke out in March 1999, after the Albanian majority in Kosovo had been bearing, for about ten years, a harshly repressive regime and a drastic reduction of their autonomy imposed by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. During the years previous to the NATO intervention in 1999, the Albanian majority in Kosovo was largely purged from state industries and institutions, while the Serbian minority accumulated property and power. Prishtina University was one of the most harshly punished institutions by the Milosevic regime, as it was seen as a focus of Albanian nationalism and dissidence. Within two years after Milosevic took over Kosovo, 90% of the faculty and 98% of the students left or were expelled and Serb nationalists were in charge of the administration of the university. In this political climate, the Serbian authorities gave permission to the Orthodox Church to build the temple that you see in the picture right in the middle of Pristina University's campus only large green space. Religion had nothing to do with that, the construction of the religious building was a totally political act aimed to show off the power of the Serbian, orthodox minority over the Albanian, mostly Muslim majority. The church was never finished, as the NATO air attacks in 1999 interrupted the construction works. In the chaotic days right after the war, somebody tried to blow it up, but the building withstood the attack and KFOR warned the Albanian leadership not to try again. So here it is, rising in the center of Prishtina, unfinished and unused but still reminding everyone in the city of their past under Milosevic’s oppressive regime.