Part One
Ebru Süleyman: Welcome.
Mahmut Mumci: Thank you very much. As far as I understand, your intention is to do an interview with me. First, I want to provide you some information about me. I actually have two names, Mahmut and Idris. This is because, before I was born, I had a brother named Idris and he passed away, that is why they named me after him. But they didn’t want to repeat the same name, so they also gave me the other name which I use on a daily basis. I don’t want to bother you with this name issue any longer, but I only found out about this when I was in primary school.
For applying to high school, I needed my birth certificate, but unfortunately there was no Mahmut registered at city hall. I was lucky that the register that was working there at that time was our neighbor, Şeraffettin Salih. He said, “You are not Idris, Idris passed away, but you are not Mahmut either, now I will find you in here.” And he knew when I was born, so he searched the registrations and he found that formally my name is Idris not Mahmut, and I only found out about this when I was doing my registration for high school. The situation was straightened out, but all my life, I had to use two names, my friends and family were calling me Mahmut, and in all formal relations I was Idris.
Ebru Süleyman: So this reminds you of your family.
Mahmut Mumci: Yes, that’s right. Then I paid more attention to understand why this happened, turns out that my uncle wanted to honor his father by giving me his name, so when he registered me at city hall, he only gave the name Idris but not Mahmut. Year 1947, September the 10th is the day that this happened because that day is my birthday.
I was born here in Pristina in a craftsman’s family. My father, grandfather and the ones before them were either craftsmen or a trader. My father worked both in crafts and agriculture. We had fields and animals. That type of life lasted until the year 1968. After that year, it was forbidden to have animals in gardens in Pristina, that is why animals were removed from houses. After that, my father worked only in a saddler shop and took care of his children.
Ebru Süleyman: So his profession as a craftsman was saddlery?
Mahmut Mumci: My father was a saddler. As a kid, I remember that Pristina was a well-known place for craftsmen. According to some data, there were 250 craftsmen shops at that time, at the bazaar, the most common professions were saddlers, shoemakers and tailors. The prominent family for saddlery was our Mumci family. The prominent family for shoemakers was the Sraja family, they had at least four or five shops.
Ebru Süleyman: Can you explain what is saddlery for those who don’t know it? What kind of profession is this?
Mahmut Mumci: So now this profession, saddlery is directly relevant to animals. In other words, saddler is the one who provides and makes the necessary equipment {smiles} for animals to run. They used leather in their work. They made the neck collar, the ring and saddle, they were used for riding horses. Bridle and headstall, they had everything that you needed. In fact, I spent quite a lot of time of my childhood as a helper in my father’s shop. Well, I wasn’t there all the time, until I was in the third year of my university, I used to help my father in his shop.
After I made it to the third year in university, my path was certain. I had completed more than half of my lectures in the faculty. I was quite good and a successful student. That is why I had to leave my job. I continued with my university. Because I was a successful student, I got the university scholarship. At the same time, I was working as an assistant for the histology courses. I was lucky that everything went great in the last years of university, so I never had any financial problems. During those times, the saddlery profession was almost over. Because cars, horses and animals were banned from Pristina, that’s why there was no need for saddlers anymore.
Ebru Süleyman: Do you remember your grandfather? Idris?
Mahmut Mumci: Now, when we talk about my family tree {smiles}, I don’t remember my grandfather, but because I am interested in such manners, I know that I am the seventh generation of my family. According to information that I could access, I am the seventh generation of my family that lived in Pristina. After me, there are my kids, so I could say that we have an eight generation of history here in Pristina.
If I have to put my finger on it, I can’t explain because I don’t have any information about why they migrated here. There are several stories, but I can say that we have been here since the eighth generation.
Ebru Süleyman: So the 8th generation you have been in Pristina?
Mahmut Mumci: Yes. Now my father’s name is Mehmet, Mehmet’s father is Idris, which is also my formal name. Idris’s father’s name is also Mehmet and Mehmet’s father’s name is Aguş. After Aguş, there is someone named Ahmet. Well, if you put it in the order like this, I am the seventh generation.
Ebru Süleyman: What about your mom?
Mahmut Mumci: My mother, she is also from an old family from Pristina. Actually, my mother’s family is complicated. My mother’s father is from Gjakova… Where were we? Like I said, my mother’s father is from Gjakova and her mother is from Prizren. Mrs. Bercüzan, she came to Pristina in 1907 as a bride.
Ebru Süleyman: 1907?
Mahmut Mumci: Yes, in 1907. They are my mother’s family from Skopje. Her father was Sadik and her grandfather was Hayrullah. In 1904 or 1905, they settled in Pristina from Skopje.
Ebru Süleyman: You were born in 1947, so you spent your childhood in Pristina in the ‘50s right? Do you remember that period? The neighborhoods?
Mahmut Mumci: How can I forget? Our home was in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Pristina, they called it Yeni Meytepler [New Schools] neighborhood because our street was around the old Vuk Karadžić Primary School. Actually they called that street Kanlilar neighborhood. Also next to the Kanlilar family’s home, there was big empty land.
Ebru Süleyman: Which house belongs to the Kanlilar family?
Mahmut Mumci: Right next to us, below Suna’s home. There was big empty land named Narka. All neighborhood kids used to gather there. There was no foreigner on our street. Everyone had Turkish origins and they were all from Pristina. Only two families were from Montenegro and Serbia. I remember it like today, when you entered our street after where the schools are, just on the right when you keep on walking up, the first home belongs to Abdurrahman and to his brother. They were both shoemaker craftsmen. Then around the ‘50s, in ‘56 – ‘57, they migrated to Turkey. Their neighbor was Kemal Şaban, who also was one of the last principals of Meto Bajraktar. Turkish primary schools, one of the last principals… Kemal Şaban also had two brothers. One of them was our poet Naim, he passed away, he used to write children’s poems. And there was Ahmet, his other brother.
After these houses, there was a family who came from Janjevo and settled here, the Bikliç family, Uncle Hasim. Above them was Mrs. Cüzade. Mrs. Cüzade was a woman who became a widow at an early age, she had two daughters, Hatice and Hamdiye. A lot of these people are no longer alive, but passed away. Only Mrs. Cüzade’s one daughter is alive, Hamdiye, she lives in Pristina but not in the same neighborhood. Above them, there was Mr. Şemsi and Mrs. Şükriye living together. Faruk, Celal and Süvey were their children. Süvey used to be a pharmacist, he also passed away. Celal and Faruk are still in Pristina, but not in their old home, they moved somewhere else. After them, there was Mr. Şemsi’s uncle Mr. Ahmet. Mr. Ahmet also had four children, sons. One of them died in war, in fact he was a war hero…
Ebru Süleyman: In which war?
Mahmut Mumci: In the Second World War, while he was fighting as a partizan, he was slaughtered in 1943, his name was Zeynel. His other brothers, Kemal used to be a carpenter. Also another brother Bedri, he used to be a carpenter as well also there was Şerafetdin. Şerafetdin is the one who I mentioned earlier, the one working as a clerk in the city hall, who found the clues and found my formal name. Above us, there was Uncle Faik living. He was also a shoemaker, and he also migrated to Turkey. After them, there was the Maçka family’s home. In the Maçka family, there was Mrs. Cemile and Mrs. Vezire. Two siblings, one of them living on the first floor, the other one on the second floor. They had this really old and large house, Turkish Ottoman style.
Ebru Süleyman: At that time, were all the houses the same? The old ones?
Mahmut Mumci: Yes, all of them.
Ebru Süleyman: Now the one next to Elena Gjika…
Mahmut Mumci: The Kocadiş’ home.
Ebru Süleyman: They looked like Kocadiş’ home right?
Mahmut Mumci: A little bit smaller, not that large but there were houses who looked like that one. Now on our street, there are only two old houses left. One of them is Mrs. Cüzade’s home, now her grandchild Pleorat is living there. And on the street corner is Şaçir’s home, deceased Şaçir Toygar’s home, there was her mother Mrs. Çamile. Now Şaçir’s wife and children are still living there. Today Emel, Abdülrahman, Ercan, they are still living there.
These all were on the right side of our street. Now if you go in the same direction again on the left side, the first house was Tanik family’s home. They were also two brothers, craftsman Halit and his brother who worked as a shoemaker. They had a shoemaker shop. Below them there was Zaim’s home. They still live there, they didn’t move, their old house used to have a really large garden, and it was really interesting, but unfortunately they tore down the house and made a new one. Uncle Feta and Ferat used to live there.
Ebru Süleyman: What was interesting about that house? The architecture?
Mahmut Mumci: In terms of architecture, I especially remember when we were little, we used to go there as a kid, and it had very interesting decorations on the ceiling, but what a shame that it is gone now, all gone… Below them there was Mr. Hayrullah’s house, who was a cleric, hafız[1]Hayrullah. He had a calm personality. He also had two sons, Ismail and Ibrahim. They both passed away. He has one grandson Vedat, the house still belongs to them, but they are living in Turkey. They used to come and go, but lately they have stopped visiting their house.
Ebru Süleyman: So you spent your childhood in this neighborhood?
Mahmut Mumci: Yes, in this neighborhood. I had a lot of friends there. When you start counting from below, there were Atıf, Edip, Erdem, Mazhar, İsak from Janjevo. They were all living in the same house. Then above them, there was an Albanian family living on our street, the Vershevcs. Skender Vrshevci, as a matter of fact, they are still living there, and they also settled there so early that we were only speaking Turkish with each other. Even today {smiling} we still speak Turkish, we are the only two that didn’t move from there anyways. Also there are neighbors of Skender, Nozan’s living there, Uncle Aliş’s grandchildren.
Above all of them, in the neighborhood I mentioned Kanlilar, there were two families living there. The Binçe family, some of them still live there. Kemal, Ümran and İskeder. And they had two more sisters Masume and Suzan, they are living in Denmark right now. Kemal was my classmate in school. Just like this… The ones that I mentioned from Janjevo, they all moved to Turkey. There was Uncle Hakki, Mahzar’s grandfather, he was also my classmate.
Ebru Süleyman: When did they move?
Mahmut Mumci: They moved in 1956. Also migrations to Turkey started in ‘55. Year ‘55 – ‘56 – ‘57, these are the years that people migrated the most. It’s really interesting that I had a photograph from my first grade in school. In that photograph, there are 40 students. Only twelve of them stayed in Pristina; all the others migrated to Turkey.
Ebru Süleyman: In which year did you start going to school?
Mahmut Mumci: I started school in the year 1954.
Ebru Süleyman: So in ‘54, there were 40 students in school.
Mahmut Mumci: More than 40 students actually. Yes. In ‘54, we were 40, more than 40 students, 42 in school. But in ‘55, a lot of them migrated. So in the second grade, I guess that our number fell down by a half. I cannot remember all of them but, I remember most of them, the ones who stayed here. I registered at Meto Bajraktar Primary School, which just opened. And there were not 40 but more than 40 students in our class. My first teacher’s name was Ismail Siçan or Aksoy, he had two surnames, but he used Siçan more. Then one day, our teachers made a list about where we live. According to that list, they divided our class into two, and they moved some of us to Vuk Karadžić.
Ebru Süleyman: So you started going to school at Meto Bajraktar and then continued at Vuk Karadžić?
Mahmut Mumci: Yes, I continued there, I finished the first grade there. For the second grade, they had opened a class in the gymnasium, today’s high school, it is called Sami Frasheri. Back then, it was called Miladin Popović. Primary school students, we finished our second grade there. That year we had two teachers. First Naim Şaban, then he went to do his military service, and Mrs. Behice covered for him. Then again in the third grade, they changed our school. We went to the old technical school, where we call it Lovac in front of Internat. Today, it is city hall’s archive building. That building is also remaining from the Ottomans.
Ebru Süleyman: So the technical school was the one next to the white building, today’s city hall archive building?
Mahmut Mumci: Yes, yes, the old one, where the archive building is. At that time, the school’s name used to be Miladin Popović. So I finished the third and fourth grade there. There our teacher’s name was Müberrah. Teacher Müberrah, actually she was from Mitrovica, but her husband was a politician, so they had to move to Pristina, and that’s how she became our teacher. Then we moved again to Meto Bajraktar and I finished my fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth year there, and then went to high school. After high school, I went to university.
Ebru Süleyman: About these migrations that started in ‘55, during ‘55 – ‘56, why did people migrate from here?
Mahmut Mumci: We were so young, so we couldn’t understand exactly why. We only predicted that, this family is gone, maybe they will go too. But when we achieved awareness after some age, I surely can say that the reason was pressure. There was a case that everybody knew really well and made a lot of people’s lives miserable. They used to say that supposedly there are some families hiding guns in their home, and they used to force themselves into family members in order to collect guns from houses. Here our folks were the ones who suffered a lot. With all the beating, money, they couldn’t handle this pressure, so in other words, they were forced to migrate. They asked, “Why Turkey?” Because no one else accepted, at that time, people who migrated were not only Turkish, there were Albanian families too, but Turkey accepted everyone. Now, here, according to some data, supposedly there was an agreement between Yugoslavia and Turkey, based on this agreement, Turkey had accepted all immigrants. They were almost forced to migrate, people sold all of their stuff or abandoned their homes and migrated almost completely naked.
Ebru Süleyman: I guess these families had a lot of farms and stuff but they were all nationalized, right?
Mahmut Mumci: Yes, everything was nationalized, but this is some kind of pressure. They interrupted their lifestyle with force, for example, ferece[2] was a tradition back at that time and they made it forbidden to wear. There was pressure on religion in schools, in order to move people away from religion, the mosques were either turned into shopping centers or were being shut down.
Ebru Süleyman: In the ‘50s, what did people used to wear? Did they wear ferece?
Mahmut Mumci: Well, as much as I remember, until the year ‘51 – ‘52, ladies in Pristina used to wear ferece. Although that was rare, you could see women without ferece, the ones who were wearing it were usually locals. Then in year ‘51, ‘52, ferece was banned, it was forbidden to wear. Ferece was forbidden, but the ones who wanted could only wear a scarf on their heads. Then, when we slowly look at the situation in schools, we can now understand some pressures that we were not aware of before. For example, besides the other classes, we had Serbian language as a mandatory class, almost every day in a week, at least three classes. Also, if you had a bad grade in Serbian language, it was mandatory that you have to repeat your grade. You would lose a year just because you didn’t know Serbian language very well.
Ebru Süleyman: So classes were usually held in Turkish language, but Serbian language was extra?
Mahmut Mumci: Now you had only one class of Serbian language when you were in primary school. The others were held in Turkish. It was because you had only one teacher, but we often held classes in Serbian because supposedly there was not enough staff for teaching in Turkish. For example, chemistry, physics, arts, back in that time, we had a class called “good writing,” Serbian teachers would also teach these classes to us.
Ebru Süleyman: When you were a kid, you obviously went outside to play. Do you remember those times?
Mahmut Mumci: Of course, kids not playing in the streets {smiles}, there is no such thing, we played around in our neighborhood with kids, we played various games. We played hide and seek {smiles}, we played a game called “fanta” with marbles, or sometimes we used walnuts to play that game. Then there was a game called “five stones”… alti taş [six stones], we would dig a hole and throw stones at that hole from a distance, the one who could throw all the stones into the hole would win the game. Then there was a game called derecik [little river], we played that. We would blow up carbide for special days like Eid or Ramadan. We would dig a hole in Narka where I mentioned before. We would place a tin there and fill it with carbide so it would make a sound when it exploded.
Ebru Süleyman: What is carbide?
Mahmut Mumci: Carbide is gunpowder, some kind of raw gunpowder. Like that, we used to say carbide explosion. During those times, we often used to go out with neighborhood kids and walk around. We would go to Tavuk Bahçe [Chicken Garden] and Gırmi [Gërmia]. After Tavuk Bahçe, there was a place called Strlişte, “field of fire.” It was a teferiç [picnic] place for the towners, people would often go to the ridge, they used to call it the ridge as well. Actually back in those times, Pristina had four teferiç places. First one is this ridge, the second one is Tavuk Bahçe , the third one is Gırmi and the fourth one Dragodan, they used to call it Çingene baglıgi [Gypsy’s vineyard], people would often go here for teferiç .
Ebru Süleyman: What would you do for teferiç?
Mahmut Mumci: Now when you say teferiç, we mean picnic, it’s all the same. We would prepare food, the ones easy to carry, and we used to drink tea and coffee there.
Ebru Süleyman: Did you used to drink tea from a samovar?[3]
Mahmut Mumci: Yes from a samovar, and we also used to light a fire. As much as I remember, everybody drank tea in their home, at least once a day. One teapot for sure and maybe, when guests came, they would also drink tea a second time. Yes. In our neighborhood, every house had a large garden. In those gardens, there were various flowers and trees. Among these trees, there was a gazebo and we would hang out there and enjoy {smiling}.
Ebru Süleyman: Was the gazebo in the garden?
Mahmut Mumci: Yes, it was usually made from wood, and we would hang out in there, usually in the middle of the garden or in the corner, but there were no houses without flowers.
Ebru Süleyman: I guess the town was more beautiful back in those times, right?
Mahmut Mumci: Now we can count it, on our street up to the schools, to the Rijeka street, there were eight on the other side, ten {counting}, there used to be 18 houses, now today, if we go there to count houses again, there would be more than 30. So everybody used to have large gardens, where you could hang out comfortably. Also houses were large, there weren’t any small houses.
Ebru Süleyman: You finished primary school, then high school?
Mahmut Mumci: After finishing primary school, I registered in high school.
Ebru Süleyman: Where did you finish your high school?
Mahmut Mumci: In Pristina.
Ebru Süleyman: Yes, but at which high school?
Mahmut Mumci: I studied at Sami Frasheri, back in time, it used to be called Miladin Popović, but then they changed it to Ivo Lola Ribar. Now it’s last name is Sami Frasheri.
Ebru Süleyman: So in these times you were studying in high school and also helping your father at work?
Mahmut Mumci: Yes. Until I graduated from high school, I was a trainee at my father’s shop.
Ebru Süleyman: Where was your father’s shop located?
Mahmut Mumci: It was in the old bazaar.
Ebru Süleyman: In the Covered Bazaar on Divan Yoli street?
Mahmut Mumci: Well, I missed the bazaar with covers because it was demolished in ‘46, ‘47, but according to the information we have, it was just below the Çarşi Camisi [Mosque’s Bazaar].
Ebru Süleyman: It was below the Çarşi Camisi?
Mahmut Mumci: While going to Divan Yoli street, in that dead end. There were three things, three streets {explaining with his hands} in the old bazaar. At the end of the road, there used to be a şadırvan,[4] after the şadırvan, there were again three streets to the north, where the craftsmen’s shops were located.
Ebru Süleyman: So today, the şadırvan isn’t there anymore, right?
Mahmut Mumci: No, no, no. This şadırvan used to be really close to the sculpture in the main square. I think that the remains of the şadırvan used to be there until the year 1960. Then there were landscape projects. Because of that, the bazaar was demolished, and there was no trace of old sculptures. According to some information, in the old bazaar, there used to be more than 200 craftsman shops in Pristina. They all had specific locations, for example, there was a blacksmith bazaar, saddler or tailors’ bazaar. They all had specific locations.
Ebru Süleyman: Where were they? For example, tailors?
Mahmut Mumci: Tailors… now when you go to the north from the bazaar on the first street, there used to be saddlers and shoemakers. Other than these professions, on the second street, there were mostly tailors. And on the third street, there was an Uzor[5] shop. That street was the ropemakers’ street, there were ropemaker’s shops there.
Ebru Süleyman: Where was your father’s shop, I guess you said it was in the old bazaar?
Mahmut Mumci: In the old bazaar, where I spent my childhood as a trainee, also they used to call it the old bazaar street, I remember the owners of every shop. Now it’s…
Ebru Süleyman: Where is it now?
Mahmut Mumci: The only remaining building from the old bazaar is the shops below the Kosovo Parliament Building and Social Insurance Institution. Now the first shop is jewelry, I guess the second one is a lawyer, then there is a coffeehouse, I guess Barış from Bölükbaş’s family is running it. There is only one shoemaker shop that has never changed, it belongs to the Straja family. The last owner Irfan passed away, now it is rented to someone who is continuing the same profession.
Ebru Süleyman: So that shop is the only structure that remains from the old bazaar…
Mahmut Mumci: From the old bazaar, that is the only shop that remains. On the other side, all the shops are in the same place on Divan Yoli street, but the owners and the professions are different now. In front of these shops, there used to be an inn, they used to call it Bitli Han [Liced Inn]. There used to be a fountain, bitli çeşme [liced fountain]. A lot of people from the bazaar used that fountain. Either that fountain or Çarşi Cami’s fountain. The old fountain still remains there.
Ebru Süleyman: Do you remember that inn?
Mahmut Mumci: I remember, I remember. That inn was demolished in the year of 1956. That is where the ProCredit building is in the same place now.
Ebru Süleyman: Because my grandfather told me about this, his father owned the inn, he used to work there.
Mahmut Mumci: Yes, it’s possible, I remember when it was an inn, also, I remember that there was an entrance to the inn from the Bitli [Liced] street {explains with his hands} with doors and arch, you would enter from there, and there was a big space for cars, people used to come there on Sundays with their cars. It had two floors, there were rooms upstairs, and downstairs was used as storage.
From the inn to Divan Yoli street, there used to be a barrel maker, a craftsman who makes barrels. Also, we had a friend from school named Ibrahim, we used to call him Kataroz, their shop used to be there. They had a kebab shop next to them. From the old bazaar street walking down to robemakers street, there used to be a synagogue, so in the bazaar, also Jews used to have shops besides Turks and Albanians. Back in that time, there were two quiltmakers, one watchmaker and two tailors that I can remember. Kara Kusević and Nasko were Jewish watchmakers. There was also the Pirličević family who used to be tailors as well. They were the craftsmen from the old bazaar.
Ebru Süleyman: Where was this synagogue located?
Mahmut Mumci: The synagogue is next to the Parliament’s biggest entrance. After that area was demolished, they moved the synagogue. The synagogue still remains today, they moved it next to Emincik’s place, next to the Ethnological Museum.
Ebru Süleyman: So I guess the Jewish families aren’t living here anymore?
Mahmut Mumci: I heard that Jewish families lived here during the Second World War. They were protected by locals. Some of them were taken by German invaders to concentration camps. Then after the Israeli state was established, they slowly started to migrate. I remember there was a Jew’s grave above Tavuk Bahçe. It wasn’t far away from our neighborhood, so we would often go there. I don’t remember the exact number, but there were ten, twelve graves like a tomb. We would go there {smiles} lay down into the graves, take our clothes off and sunbathe. There were Jewish symbols and Hebranic writings, but I am not sure if they still remain or not. I heard that there are still three or four graves and they have taken them under protection {explains with his hands}, but I have not seen it.
Ebru Süleyman: Now they call this place the Boxing Club, what was that place before?
Mahmut Mumci: The building was built in the Serbian period, Serbo-Croatian Kingdom period. It was made as a sports club. It was made for performing various sports, as a sports club. Also, after the war, the Sokol [Hawk] residence’s owner was the Pristina Boxing Club, they used to continue their exercises there. Also Pristina received the best results in the sport of boxing. I do remember there was the Radnički Klub [Workers’ Club] whose boxers won championships several times while we lived in Yugoslavia. There were some successful boxers there from the center of the town. For example, Mehemet Ali Türbedar, İbuş Çolak. There was Bırklaç in heavyweight boxing, there was no one who could defeat him, he was really successful.
Ebru Süleyman: It’s interesting, so boxing was Pristina’s sport.
Mahmut Mumci: Best results in Pristina in sports were from the sport of boxing. Until the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, it was successful, then the ‘80s, there was a period of regression. Then in the ‘80s, the first wrestling club was established. Also, they made big progress, even that Pristina wrestling club had a world champion in freestyle wrestling. We also had a Mediterranean Champion. I have knowledge about all this because I was one of the councilmen when the club was established. I was even assigned to the presidency for two periods. That is why we had such great results.
Ebru Süleyman: Did you also practice the sports?
Mahmut Mumci: Not in wrestling, only in administration {smiles}, not active in sports, I don’t have an athlete’s body.
[1] A term used by Muslims for someone who has completely memorized the Quran.
[2] Turk.: ferece, a veil concealing the whole face except the eyes, worn by Muslim women in public.
[3] A heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water.
[4] The fresh water drinking fountain in the main square of Prizren. Shadervan (Sadirvan in Arabic) means precisely a fountain, built to provide water for more than one person at once, usually for ritual ablutions, and is a typical element of Ottoman architecture.
[5] State franchise store.
