The name of Peshkopi is derived from the word
peshkop meaning
bishop in
Albanian and from
Episkopè in
Greek. Bulgarian maps of the eleventh century show the town under the name
Presolengrad. The region of Dibër was subsumed under the
Archbishopric of Ohrid in 1019, and one year later received the status of an episcopate with its center in the Bulke ward of Peshkopi, located in what is now the neighborhood of Dobrovë. The central church of the Dibër Episcopate was that of St. Stephen (). The seat of the Episcopate would later be relocated, but the town of Peshkopi retained its name. Peshkopi is referenced as early as the fifteenth century under the name
Peskopia. The region today known as Dibër was inhabited in pre-Christian times by the Illyrian tribe known to the Romans as
Penestae, Πενέσται in
Ancient Greek (). By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the
Ottoman Empire had completed its conquest of Albania. Under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Peshkopi (then
Debre-i Zir, which meant "Lower Debre" in
Persian) was a small market town, overshadowed by the larger and more flamboyant
Debar (, "Greater Dibër"), which today lies just over the
Macedonian border. The population of Peshkopi was almost completely Muslim by 1583. In 1873 an Ottoman barracks was built in Peshkopi, housing up to 8,000 soldiers. In the aftermath of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, a
Serbian army occupied Dibër and entered Peshkopi in early December 1912. Albanian forces retook the city on September 20, 1913.
Bulgarian army soldiers invaded Peshkopi on January 1, 1916. The
Austro-Hungarian Empire, an ally of Bulgaria, brought an army to Peshkopi on April 12, 1916, and engaged in punitive house-burnings and executions throughout the region in an attempt to quell local resistance. The Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians departed the area in September 1918.
Italian forces invaded Albania in 1939, reaching Peshkopi on April 15. Albanian Communist partisans retook Peshkopi on September 9, 1943. The following October, the partisans defeated
Balli Kombëtar forces in an armed battle for control of the city. In July 1944, German forces occupied the city, but were expelled later that same month. Fighting continued in the Dibër region until early September, leaving the Communist-dominated
National Liberation Army () in control. == Geography ==