Muhamet Tërnava, historian and university professor, passed away. He was born in the village of Lismir in Fushë Kosova, in 1947. He finished primary school in his hometown, and high school in Pristina. He completed his history studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Prishtina, while he completed his post-graduate studies in Zadar, Croatia, where he defended his doctoral thesis “Popullsia e Kosovës gjatë shekujve XIV–XVI” (“Population of Kosovo during the 14th-16th centuries”). For this study, he collected documents from many archives and libraries, such as Paris, Sorbonne, Belgrade, Skopje, Tirana and Pristina, Zadar, Dubrovnik, etc. For a short time (1971–1972) he worked at the Albanological Institute of Pristina and then, for nearly ten years, he worked at the history department of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Pristina. In 1982 he was imprisoned and sentenced for political reasons and, after serving his sentence, he was not allowed to return to the University until 1995. In this same year, his dissertation was published by the Albanian Institute of Pristina. Meanwhile, Muhamet Tërnava participated in various scientific gatherings and published several papers in local and foreign magazines. His studies from medieval history were published in the compilation titled “Studime për mesjetën” (“Studies on the middle ages”)(1995), which includes texts of scientific interest, such as “Shqiptarët në feudin e Deçanit“ (“Albanians in the feudal of Deçan“), “Migrimet e popullsisë në territorin e sotëm të Kosovës gjatë shekujve XIV–XVI” (“The migrations of the population in the territory of present-day Kosovo during the 14th–16th centuries”), “Shqiptarët në qytetet e Kosovës në shekujt XV–XVI“ (“Albanians in the cities of Kosovo in the 15th–16th centuries”), “Përhapja e islamizmit në territorin e sotëm të Kosovës deri në fund të shekullit XVII“ (“The spread of Islam in the territory of present-day Kosovo until the end of the 17th century”), “Prizreni gjatë gjysmës së dytë të shekullit XVI“ (“Prizren during the second half of the 16th century”), etc., while later he also published the monograph “Kaçaniku me rrethinë deri në Luftën e Dytë Botërore“(“Kaçanik surrounded until the Second World War”) (1995). (In the photo: Muhamet Tërnava)
Text: The encyclopedic dictionary of Kosovo – Vol. II, Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, Prishtina, 2018, page 1660–1661.
Graphic processing: AHCF
