Moscopole
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Voskopojë | |
  Voskopojë
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| Coordinates: 40°37′N 20°41′E / 40.617°N 20.683°ECoordinates: 40°37′N 20°41′E / 40.617°N 20.683°E | |
| Country |  Albania |
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| County | Korçë County |
| District | Korçë District |
| Time zone | Central European Time (UTC+1) |
| - Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) |
| Car Plates | KO |
Moscopole (Albanian: Voskopoja; Aromanian: Moscopole, Moscopolea; Greek: Μοσχόπολις, Moscopolis or Moschopolis) is a small village in southeastern Albania. In the 18th century, it was a major Balkan city and cultural and commercial center of the Aromanians, as well as Albanians and Greeks[1][2], having notably the first printing press in the Balkans and many churches, but it was razed in 1788 by Ali Pasha.
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[edit] Geography
Voskopoja is located at a distance of 21 km from Korçë, in the mountains of southeastern Albania, at an altitude of 1160 meters.
[edit] History
Although located in a rather isolated place in the mountains of southern Albania, the city rose to become the most important center of the Aromanians. In its glory days (1760s), it is said that it had a population surpassing 60,000 and was the second most important city of the Balkans in regard to population and prosperity, surpassed only by Constantinople; but this is questioned by Peyfuss.
The city is said to have been mostly populated by Vlachs/Aromanians. A 1935 analysis of the family names shows that the majority of the population were indeed Vlachs. There were also Greek merchants. According to the German historian Johann Thunmann who visited Moscopole and wrote a history of the Aromanians in 1774, everyone in the city spoke Aromanian; many also spoke Greek (the language of the Byzantine Empire), which was used for writing contracts.
Toward the end of the 18th century, the city flourished due to commerce with Germany, Venice and Constantinople and it had various manufacturing plants, around 70 churches, banks, a printing press (the only other press of Ottoman Europe was in Istanbul), and even a university (The Greek Academy, or Hellênikon Frôntistêrion, founded in 1744). A cultural effervescence arose in Moscopole, and many authors published their works in both the Greek language (which was the language of culture of the Balkans at the time) and Aromanian written in the Greek alphabet. In 1770, the first dictionary of four modern Balkan languages (Greek, Albanian, Vlach/Aromanian and Bulgarian) was published here. Daniel Mоscopolites a Vlach-speaking native priest of Moscopole, compiled a quadrilingual lexicon of Greek, Vlach, Bulgarian and Albanian, with the purpose of helping to learn Greek. In this work, which was first published in 1793 Daniel writes, inter alia, as follows: Albanians, Vlachs, Bulgarians, speakers of other tongues, rejoice and prepare yourselves one and all to become Greeks.[7]
| Part of a series on |
| Aromanians |
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| Culture |
| Caloian List of Aromanians Etymology |
| By region or country |
| Greece · Albania Republic of Macedonia Serbia · Bulgaria · Romania |
| Major settlements |
| Moscopole · Kruševo Muzachia · Pindus Grammos · Pharsala |
| Language |
| Alphabet · Dialects |
| History |
| Self-identification Great Wallachia |
| Related groups |
| Romanians · Morlachs Megleno-Romanians Istro-Romanians |
The 1769 sacking and pillaging by the Ottomans was just the first of a series of attacks, which culminated with the razing of 1788 by the troops of Ali Pasha. The survivors were thus forced to flee, most of them emigrating mainly to Thessaly and Macedonia (where they returned to their ancestral occupation of animal husbandry). Some of the commercial elite moved to Austria-Hungary, especially to the two capitals Vienna and Budapest, but also in Transylvania, where they had an important role in the early National awakening of Romania.
The city never rose to its earlier status. It was destroyed again in 1916 during World War I by marauding Albanian bands[8]. The remaining buildings were razed during the partisan warfare of World War II three times: once by Italian troops and twice by the Albanian collaborationist Balli Kombëtar organization[9]. Of the old city, only five Orthodox churches survive and lie in ruin. In 2002, they were put on the World Monuments Fund's Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites.
Today, Voskopoja is just a small mountain village in the Albanian District of Korçë. Memories of the lost city of Moscopole still remain an important part of the culture of Vlachs.
[edit] Population
- 1750: 45,000
- 1788: 60,000
- 2000: 700
[edit] Notes
- ^ Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Published by B. Blackwell., 1990, p.24
- ^ The Muslim Bonaparte: Diplomacy and Orientalism in Ali Pasha's Greece.Katherine Elizabeth Fleming. University Press, 1999. ISBN 0691001944
- ^ Multiculturalism, alteritate, istoricitate «Multiculturalism, Historicity and “The image of the Other”» by Alexandru Niculescu, Literary Romania (România literară), issue: 32 / 2002, pages: 22,23,
- ^ Angeliki Konstantakopoulou, Η ελληνική γλώσσα στα Βαλκάνια 1750-1850. Το τετράγλωσσο λεξικό του Δανιήλ Μοσχοπολίτη [The Greek language in the Balkans 1750-1850. The dictionary in four languages of Daniel Moschopolite]. Ioannina 1988, 11.
- ^ Peyfuss, Max Demeter: Die Druckerei von Moschopolis, 1731-1769. Buchdruck und Heiligenverehrung im Erzbistum Achrida. Wien - Köln 1989. (= Wiener Archiv f. Geschichte des Slawentums u. Osteuropas. 13), ISBN 3-205-98571-0.
- ^ Kahl, Thede: Wurde in Moschopolis auch Bulgarisch gesprochen? In: Probleme de filologie slavă XV, Editura Universităţii de Vest, Timişoara 2007, S. 484-494, ISSN 1453-763X.
- ^ "The Bulgarian National Awakening and its Spread into Macedonia", by Antonios-Aimilios Tachiaos, pp. 21-23, published by Thessaloniki's Society for Macedonian Studies, 1990.]
- ^ Badlands, borderlands: a history of Northern Epirus/Southern Albania. Tom Winnifrith. Duckworth, 2002. ISBN 9780715632017, p. 61.
- ^ Pyrrhus J., Ruches (1965) (in English), Albania's Captives, Chicago: Argonaut, pp. 213, http://books.google.com/books?hl=el&id=2k9pAAAAMAAJ&dq=albania%27s+captives&q=Bejo&pgis=1#search_anchor
[edit] References
- Nicolas Trifon, Des Aroumains aux Tsintsares - Destinées Historiques Et Littéraires D’un Peuple Méconnu (in French)
- Asterios Koukoudis Studies on the Vlachs (in Greek and English)
- Românii din Albania - Aromânii (in Romanian)
- Steliu Lambru, Narrating National Utopia - The Case Moschopolis in the Aromanian National Discourse (in English)
- Robert Elsie, [1] (in English)
- Max Demeter Peyfuss, Die Druckerei von Moschopolis, 1731-1769: Buchdruck und Heiligenverehrung im Erzbistum Achrida, Vienna, 1989, ISBN 3-205-98571-0, reviewed in [2]. Includes not only a discussion of the printing press, but also of the city.
Coordinates: 40°37′N 20°35′E / 40.617°N 20.583°E
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