Korçë

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View of Korçë from the Heroes' Cemetery overlooking the town

Church in Korçë (Photo by Marc Morell)

Korçë (Albanian: Korçë or Korça, Greek: Κορυτσά, Italian: Corizza, South Slavic: Корча, Korcha or Корче, Korče, Aromanian: Curceaua, Turkish: Görice) is a major city in south-eastern Albania, located at 40°37′N 20°46′E near the border with Greece. It has a population of around 60,000 people (2003 estimate), making it the fifth largest city in Albania. It stands on a plateau some 850 m (2,800 feet) above sea level, surrounded by the Morava Mountains.

1 History
2 Culture
3 Economy
4 Archeology
5 Sport
6 References
7 See also

[edit] History

The Korça region has been inhabited from the earliest times with Neolithic remains found indicating occupation of the city for last 6000 years. The Copper ( Bakri) epoch, lasted from 3000 BC to 2100 BC, followed by a Bronze Age influenced in city 's cultural. In the Iron Age cultural influences from Greece became very strong.

A town Coviza is mentioned in medieval documents in 1280. The modern town dates from the end of the 15th Century, when Iljaz Hoxha, under the command of Sultan Mehmet II, developed Korça. The Ottoman occupation began in 1440, and after Hoxha's heroic role in the siege of Constantinople, in 1453; he was awarded the title, 'Iljaz Bey Mirahor'. Korçë was a sandjak of the Manastir vilayet in Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman rule over Korçë lasted until 1912 but the city's proximity to Greece, who claimed the entire Orthodox population as Greek, led to its being fiercely contested in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. The city was occupied by Greek forces in 6 December 1912. Its incorporation into Albania in 1913 was controversial, as Greece claimed it as part of a region called "Northern Epirus". However, in accordance with the Corfu Protocol signed between Greece and Albania in 1914 and the ethnographic survey that preceded it, the city was included in the newly formed Autonomous Northern Epirus zone, the autonomous status of which, however, never came in force.

The English Albanologist Edith Durham was forced to leave Korça at this time. She described the situation in her letter directed to H. Hodgkingson on 11 January 1939:

The pro-Greek gang at King's College started a story that I had had to fly for my life from Korcha because they all wanted to be Greek and I had tried to stir up Albanian trouble. The truth being that I and Nevison, who was there as a correspondent, made a forced march of three days- two nights sleeping on the bare ground-across the mountains to Berat at the urgent request of the Albanians. Berat being the nearest station from which a tegram could be sent, uncontrolled be the Greeks. Nevison drafted the telegram to the Council of Ambassadors in London begging that no attention be paid to the Greek account of a meeting asking for Greek rule. This meeting having been a forced one held with Greek bayonets. This telegram saved Korcha. The Greek governor made everyone paint their shops blue and white. And after the hideous cruelty of the Greeks when they raided south Albania in 1914...I have no use whatever for Greeks. I can never forget the crowds of refugee women and children dying and starving under the olive trees around Vlora....

The matter was never bothered about. But it was I believe, part of the whole Sarajevo crime plot. The Greeks and Sebs were workin together to take Albania. They meant to drive out Wied. And it was they who planned the rising against him. While I was still at Vlora, the Serbs sent a message they would attack Vlore and they had France and Russia on their side. Vlore had better surrender. But the Austrian attack on Serbia stooped that.

Greek forces returned to occupy the city from 10 July 1914 during the early part of the First World War. It was then taken by the Austro-Hungarians, then by the Greeks again and finally by France, which occupied Korçë between 1916-1920. It was ultimately awarded to Albania by the International Boundary Commission which determined the country's post-war borders.

During the inter-war period, the city became a hotbed of Communist agitation. Albania's future dictator, Enver Hoxha, lived there and was both a pupil and a teacher at the town's French school. Korçë's underground Communist movement became the nucleus of Hoxha's Albanian Party of Labour.

Korçë was occupied by Italian forces in 1939, along with the rest of the country. After the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War, it fell to the Greek Army in November 1940, and remained under Greek occupation until the German attack in April 1941. After Italy's withdrawal from the war in 1943, the town was occupied by the Germans until October 24, 1944.

During the occupation, the city became a major centre of Communist-inspired resistance to the Axis occupation of Albania. The establishment of the Albanian Party of Labour – the Communist Party – was formally proclaimed in Korçë in 1941. Albanian rule was restored in 1944 following the withdrawal of German forces.

After the war, the area suffered from Hoxha's dictatorial regime, who fought against the rich despite the fact that they fought against the occupation. Thousands of people from Korca were sent in concentration camps or executed, just because they disagreed with Hoxha's regime. Hundreds of people escaped from Korca, to settled in Boston, USA.After 1990 Korca was one of the six cities where newly Democratic Party won all the constituencies. Popular revolts in Fabruary 1991 ended with the fall of Hoxha statue. Politically, Korca is bastion of Democratic Party of Sali Berisha where its candidates have won almost all constests in local and perlaimentary level in 16 years democratic era. It is a multiethnic city, with a majority Albanian population with a small minority population comprised of Greeks, Aromanians, Macedonian Slavs and Romas .

[edit] Culture

Korçë has been an important religious center for Orthodox Christians and Muslims for centuries. It is the seat of an Orthodox metropolitan bishop and also possesses a large 15th century mosque. There is also a sizeable Bektashi Muslim community in and around Korçë, with its main center being the Turan Tekke.

During the Ottoman period it became one of the centres of the growing Albanian identity. The first school teaching in the Albanian language was established there in 1887, followed by Albania's first school for girls in 1891.

[edit] Economy

During the 20th century, Korçë gained a substantial industrial capacity in addition to its historic role as a commercial and agricultural centre. The plateau on which the city stands is highly fertile and is one of Albania's main wheat-growing areas. Local industries include the manufacture of knitwear, rugs, textiles, flour-milling, brewing, and sugar-refining. Deposits of lignite coal are mined in the mountains nearby.

[edit] Archeology

The following excerpt is from N.G.L Hammond's Alexander's Campaign in Illyria:

"The district of Tren has an extraordinarily large number of fortifications. They are as follows.

Kalaja e Ventrokut

The River Tren which once flowed from Lake Ventrok into the Devoll has been replaced by the Ventrok Channel, which is part of the modern system of irrigation. On the north side of this Chnnel and a short distance before one comes to the narrow passage which is known as the Gryke e Ujkut, there is a consideragle limestone hill, an ofshoot of Mt Spile. The western side of the hill falls very steeply to the plain, and on the top of this western side there is a fortification wall of rough stones which is canted on the outer face only. The wall runs for some 280 m along the top and at two high points behind it there are two artificial tumuli. The side of the hill which faces the Gryke e Ujkut is less steep; between it and the Gryke e Ujkut there is a level space alongside the Ventrok Channel.

Kalaja e Shpelles

On the south side of the Ventrok Channel there is a limestone bluff which is partly alongside the narrow passage. Some of its cliffs overhang the passage, and at the foot of one of them, near the narrowest part of the passage, is situated the cave of Tren, which has been excavated. It was occupied first in the Balkan Eneolithic period. It and the adjacent area were an 'important centre of habitation' in the Late Bronze Age with evidence of agriculture, pastoralism, fishing and hunting. It was occupied again late in the Hellenistic period and in the early medieval period. ... Half-way or so up this east side of the bluff there is wall which runs parallel to the top of the bluff for a distance of some 90 m; this at least as far as the wall had been cleared by excavation when we were there. The wall, made of rough stones, some small and others up to a metre long, is some three metres wide. Many sherds of painted pottery, dated to the Early Iron Age, probably to the ninth and eighth centuries, lay on the ground inside the wall, showing that it had been an inhabited and fortified site.

Kalaja e Trajanit

On this surface we were able to see a series of five fortification walls, each running roughly at right-angles to the line of cliffs which overhang the narrow passage; the eastern ends of these walls are linked by a single wall. There is a small area at the highest point which is enclosed by a wall. The total length of this system of walls is some three kilometres; it provides defence in depth.

Kalaja e Mokut

To the south-east of Mt Trajan and above the village of Tren there is a single wall of fortification which runs up the steep hillside and crosses over the ridge. The wall is some 500m long. It served as a defence against attack from the south or the east. This wall too is clearly seen from the plain below.

Shuec

Beyond the narrow passage and on the north side of Lake Ventrok some rising ground is fortified with an agger. This agger and the settlement it encloses are of the Early Iron Age. Two tumuli which date probably to the same period are visible on the flat ground near the agger.

Gorice

..."

Other documented locations include the following:

Vashtëmia Podgorie Bellovodë Symizë Ventrok Trajan Tren Bilisht Zvezdë Drenovë Barç Kuçi i Zi Kamenicë Rëmbec

[edit] Sport

The football (soccer) club is KS Skënderbeu Korçë, Albanian Champion on 1933.

[edit] References

N.G.L Hammond, Alexander's Campaign in Illyria, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, pp 4-25. 1974
James Pettifer, Albania & Kosovo, A & C Black, London (2001, ISBN 0713650168)
François Pouqueville, Voyage en Morée, à Constantinople, an Albanie, et dans plusieurs autres parties de l'Empire othoman, pendant les années 1798, 1799, 1800 et 1801. (1805)
T.J. Winnifrith Badlands-Borderlands A History of Northern Epirus/Southern Albania (2003)