Opolje

The Serbian rulers King Stephen Uroš III (in 1326) and Emperor Stephen Dušan (in 1348, 1355) mentioned many of the Opolje and Gora villages in their charters, which shows that they existed before those dates.[2] Opolje was a church estate of the Church of the Holy Theotokos in Prizren throughout the Middle Ages.[7]

The surrounding region possesses a good amount of Aromanian toponyms which Dumbrowski argues show the linguistic situation before Slavification.[8]

In one of Nemanja’s charters giving property to Hilandar, 170 Vlachs are mentioned, located in villages around Prizren. When Dečanski founded his monastery of Dečani in 1330, he referred to ‘villages and katuns of Vlachs and Albanians’ in the area of the white Drin.[9] King Stefan Dečanski granted the Visoki Dečani monastery with pasture land along with Vlach and Albanian katuns around Drim and Lim rivers of whom had to carry salt and provide serf labour for the monastery[10]

In 1455, the southern territories of the Serbian Despotate were annexed by the Ottomans, and organized into the beylerbeylik of Rumelia. Gora, in its broadest meaning, became a nahiyah of the Sanjak of Prizren.[11] The Ottoman conquest resulted in the old trade routes that linked the Adriatic to the Aegean and Black sea lost their importance because of the insecurity on the roads, and the towns and villages along the roads stopped growing.[11] There are no sources which name Opolje a nahiya in the 15th century.[12] Ottoman cadastral records indicate that the Opoja region was inhabited by a dominant Albanian majority of mixed Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic faith during the 15th-16th centuries due to the anthroponomy present; additionally, most of the region was islamised by 1571. In the second half of the 15th century, the Ottoman defters of 1571 and 1591 indicated that Opoja had become a territorial administrative division with a dominant Timar system. 18 timars were recorded in the 23 villages of Opoja in 1571, and 13 timars in 1591. At the end of the 16th century, in the Nahiya of Opoja, of the 27 newly-Islamised households spread across 9 villages, 24 had Albanian last names and only 3 had Slavic last names. Of the 37 Christian households spread across 8 villages, 36 had Albanian or Albanian-Slav anthroponomy whereas only 1 had Slavic anthroponomy. Of the 23 field owners of the Nahiya, 18 had Albanian names and 5 had Slavic names.[13]

A prominent family of Opoja in the 16th century emerged in the new social environment. The Kuka, descendants of Iljaz Kuka built many public buildings, trade routes, shops and left a large endowment (waqf) to the city of Prizren. The mosque of Iljaz Kuka, rebuilt by his grandson Mehmed Bey Kuka (known as Kukli Bey) is one of the oldest mosques of Prizren. [14]

Opolje and other rural areas of the upper Drin valleys were economically tied to Prizren.[15]

From 1945 to [sometime after 1981] Opolje was part of the municipality of Gora, but was then given status of a municipality (due to its Albanian population, as opposed to Gora, which was inhabited by Gorani people). It was abolished on November 3, 1992, under the law of the federal Federal Yugoslav Republic of Serbia, and instead joined into the municipality of Prizren.[1] The Gora municipality and Opoja region remained separated during the Milošević period.[16]

During the Kosovo war (1999), Albanians from Opoja fled to neighbouring Albania in cars, trucks and tractors along with others on foot that following the conflict returned home.[17] After the war, Opoja was merged with Gora to form the municipality of Dragaš by the United Nations Mission (UNMIK) and the new administrative unit has an Albanian majority.[16][17] Located in Gora, the town of Dragash is the regional and municipal centre for both the Opoja and Gora regions of Dragash municipality.[16]