Gračanica, Kosovo
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Gračanica Грачаница/Gračanica (Serbian) Graçanica or Graçanicë (Albanian) |
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| Town and municipality | |
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 Gračanica
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| Coordinates: 42°36′N 21°12′E / 42.600°N 21.200°ECoordinates: 42°36′N 21°12′E / 42.600°N 21.200°E | |
| Country | Kosovo |
| District | District of Pristina |
| Established | 29 December 2009 |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Vladeta Kostić |
| Area | |
| • Total | 131.25 km2 (50.68 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 588 m (1,929 ft) |
| Population (2014) | |
| • Total | 11,720 |
| • Density | 89/km2 (230/sq mi) |
| • Town | 4,500 |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) |
| Postal code | 10000 |
| Website | kk |
Gračanica (on Serbian, Грачаница) or Graçanica (on Albanian, Graçanicë), is a town and municipality in central Kosovo. It is centered on the Gračanica Monastery, ten kilometers east of Pristina. The 1999 Kosovo War and its aftermath transformed Gračanica from a sleepy village into an administrative center serving the needs of the 75,000 Kosovo Serbs living south of the Ibar River. After the 2013 Brussels Agreement the municipality became part of the Community of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo.
The settlement is situated in the spacious valley of the Gračanka river, by the river, on the exit of the gorge between the hill of Veletina (874m) and sloping hill of Glasnovik on the south, and hill of Steževac (794m) on the northeast.
Pope Benedict IX mentioned the village as Grazaniza in a letter from 1303. It was mentioned in King Stefan Milutin's founding charter of the Gračanica Monastery (1321). In the 15th century the settlement was a notable commercial centre. Until the 17th century it had a notable Ragusan community. It seems that the settlement was abandoned in 1689 during the Austrian penetration into Kosovo and Metohija in the Great Turkish War. In 1901, it had 60 houses, all Serb, with 400 inhabitants.
On 6 June, 2000, a grenade was thrown at a crowd of ethnic Serbs waiting for a bus in the town square, injuring three people, which was followed by some civil unrest. On 15 March 2004 a Serb teenager was killed in a drive-by shooting in the village of Čaglavica (partly in Gračanica). This event led to the 2004 unrest in Kosovo. In the aftermath of the unrest, another Serb teenager was killed in a drive-by shooting on June 5, 2004. In 2016, a bomb was thrown at the porch of a Serb house in Donja Gušterica.
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Wikipedia