Moscopole
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Voskopojë, Albanian:Voskopoja; Aromanian: Moscopole, Moscopolea; Greek: Μοσχόπολις, Moscopolis or Moschopolis; Macedonian/Bulgarian: Москополе; Serbian: Moskopolje) 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, 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] 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, although 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. (Peyfuss)
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 to Greece (where they returned to their ancestral occupation of animal husbandry), Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. 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, and the remaining buildings were razed during the partisan warfare of World War II. 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
[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] 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.
