Manastiri (Sllovia) lies about 8 km east of Lipjan, at the foot of the Zhegoc mountains. At Oborrjan, Manastir and other localities there are foundations, burial grounds, traces of religious structures and remains of ore processing. Some interpretations of the churches' identity survive as local tradition, while the physical traces themselves indicate an early inhabited landscape.
Sllovi is mentioned in documents from 1331 and 1347, in a chrysobull of Vuk Branković from 1389–92, and in Milica's charter of 1395. A Novo Brdo register from 1498 records the form Sllovina. Albanian muhajir families settled here after 1877–78; later periods brought emigration to Turkey and Macedonia and Slavic colonisation between the world wars.
On 15–16 April 1999, Serbian forces and local Serbian participants carried out killings and massacres in Sllovi; according to the volume's documentation, 48 people were killed, 44 of them village residents. The victims were civilians of different ages. More than 70 houses were burned and two mass graves were found.
Source
Source and further reading
Principal source: Prof. Dr. Jusuf Osmani, Vendbanimet e Kosovës 5 — Lypjani, Prishtinë, 2003.
Source entry: MANASTIRI (Sllovia)
This page presents a selected summary from the published study of the settlement. For complete archival references, family histories, microtoponymy and the full treatment, consult the original volume.