Himara (also Albanian: Himara or Himarë, Greek: Χειμάρρα) is a town and a region in southern Albania, part of the District of Vlorë. The region of Himara, constitutes of 7 other villages: Dhërmi, Palase, Vuno, Pilur, Qeparo, Shën Vasili, Kudhës and Iliasi. It is part of a larger region known in Albania as Labëria(Greek: Liabouria).Due to its location and warm weather Himara is one of the most attractive tourist town in Albanian Riviera.[1] Himara is notable for its supposed large ethnic Greek population, whose presence can be traced to antiquity.[2] But, other studies states that the Greek minority in Himara was always small.[3]
Geography
The Himara region is characterized by high mountains falling steeply to the sea. There are long white sandy beaches and the few hills close to the sea are generally terraced and planted with olive and citrus trees.
History
Ancient history
In antiquity the region was inhabited by the Greek tribe of the Chaonians[4]. The Chaonians were one of the three principal Greek-speaking tribes of Epirus, along with the Thesprotians and the Molossians.[5][6] The town of Himara is believed to "have been founded by the Chaonians as a trading outpost on the Chaonian shore." "Little else is known of the Chaonians", except that the men wore "white kilts". Their music was also referred to as "sheep bleating", probably referring to the polyphonic musical traditions of the regioncitation needed which survive to this day on all of the area called Epirus.
Following the breakup of Alexander the Great's empire, Himara became part of Epirus under the rule of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, a famous Molossian of that time known for his Pyrrhic victories against the emerging power of Rome(in Southern Italy) and Carthage(in Sicily). When the region was conquered by the Roman Republic in the 2nd century BC, its settlements were badly damaged and some were destroyed by the Roman General Aemilius Paulus. The remains of one of these settlements, a site close to the shore below the druga called Via Egnatia, can still be seen today (although with difficulty, as its remains are now mostly submerged).
Local tradition identifies the area around the Via Egnatia as the site of Julius Caesar's landing in Epirus in pursuit of Pompey the Great during the Roman civil war. He is said to have assembled his army near Himara before marching on to take the town of Oricon (modern archaeological park of Oricum) on the other side of the mountains, near ancient Avlona (modern Vlorë). On the journey Caesar's ship ran into a storm, during which he is famously said to have told the ship's pilot, "Go on, my friend, and fear nothing. You carry Caesar and his fortune on your boat."
Middle Ages and early modern times
Himara and the rest of northern Epirus passed into the hands of the Byzantine Empire following the fall of Rome, but like the rest of the region it became the frequent target of various attackers including the Goths, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, Saracens and Normans[6]. The use of the name "Chaonia" in reference to the region apparently died out during the 12th century, the last time it is recorded (in a Byzantine tax collection document)[6].
The Ottoman Empire overran the rest of northern Epirus from the late 14th century, but Himara was the only region that did not submit to Ottoman Turkish rule. It became a symbol of resistance to the Turks but suffered an almost continuous state of warfare.
In 1481, one year after the Ottomans had landed in Otranto in southern Italy, the Himariotes rose against them under the leadership of Gjon Kastrioti, the son of Skanderbeg, who attempted to regain the lands lost after the death of his father. The attempt failed, but the Himariotes rose again in 1488, and between 1494-1509, destabilising Turkish control but failing to liberate their territory.
The Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent personally led a large army in 1537 in a particularly bloody confrontation in Himarë. The oral lyrical traditions of the region commemorate the war with many folkloric songs. One such song tells the story of the massacre of the rrepira. The Sultan apparently sent word to Palasa inhabitants hiding in the mountains that he wanted to make peace and withdraw from their land and invited them to come down to the rrepire for talks. All those who took the Sultan at his word had all four limbs amputated and the living torsos thrown down the repire into the depths of the ravine. Following these events a group of families fled Himarë for Sicily where they were granted land near Palermo, the village they founded became known as Hora e Arbëreshëvet (Piana degli Albanesi in Italian), meaning Village of the Albanians. The dialect of Arbërisht Albanian spoken in this village to this day has a large amount of Greek vocabulary including the words Të Haristis meaning Thank you, and Horë meaning Village.[7]
Another song tells the story of one Himariot Jannisary officer in the Ottoman service named Xhavara Beylik, who after re-discovering his true identity, cut through to the royal tent and came close to killing the sultan himself, after which point the decimated Ottoman army retreated. Suleyman instead recognized the de facto independence of Himara as an ethnic albanian territory, setting forth a number of laws (or venomet) to regulate the relationship with the Empire. These included such rights as the exemption of the Himariotes from taxes, the right to sail under their own flag into any Ottoman port, and the right to carry guns while travelling in Ottoman territory.
Despite this agreement, the Ottomans subsequently made several unsuccessful attempts to conquer Himara, first in 1571, then again in 1595, 1690 and 1713. In total three different Ottoman sultans personally led military campaigns against Himara, each failing in turn. During these years, the people of Himara established close links to the Italian city states, especially Naples and the powerful Republic of Venice, and later with Austro-Hungary, which controlled Corfu and the other Ionian Islands. During this time and thereafter, many Himariotes emigrated to the outside world and brought valuable skills back home with them. In 1848 even a small village like Dhermi could boast two doctors graduated in Athens and Vienna. However, emigration has also been a source of tragedies and disillusions. Petro Marko an Albanian writer born in Dhermi, describes this wound: It's said that the big stones below are the men that had returned back and had died here. While the men that had left and died abroad are transformed in clouds. They come, shed tears and leave. And the big stones, near the shore, collect their tears as the rain is collected.
It is interesting to note that one of the first Albanian language schools in history was started in Himara around 1660-1661 while the city was still under Ottoman occupation, by Onufër Konstandini and the Catholic missionary Zef Skiroi, thus making Himara one of the first cities where the Albanian renaissance started.
From 1799 to present times
In 1799, Himara came under the rule of Ali Pasha Tepelenë, a Muslim enemy of the Himariotes who had risen from being an Albanian leader to the position of ruler of all of Epirus.
Ali Pasha tried to create good relations with the Himariotes after declaring their enclave part of his emerging semi-independent state, by financing various public works and churches. One church he built still stands today as a major tourist attraction near Himare opposite of the Porto Palermo (Panormos) Castle and is the largest and most magnificent in the region. Local people says that through his local commander he ordered the stonemasons to build the most durable structure they had ever attempted to build, so durable that it could withstand earthquakes and cannon bombardment, otherwise they would pay with their lives. After the church was complete he tested if these requirements were met by firing artillery shots at it from the castle.
The story goes that Ali ordered his soldiers to set the forest above the village of Dhermi on fire. Many Himariotes from the parts that opposed Ali Pasha migrated to Italy, settling partially to the already established Arbëreshë villages of Piana degli Albanesi and Santa Cristina Gela. Ali Pasha's rule over Himara lasted about 20 years until it was abruptly terminated by his murder at the hands of the Turks in his castle of Ioannina. Himara subsequently reverted to its status quo ante of an enclave surrounded by Ottoman territory. To emphasize the region's special status, the terms that the Himariotes had reached with Sultan Suleiman were inscribed on bronze tablets at the request of their leaders, who wanted to record the agreement on a durable medium so as to stress its importance. These tablets were inscribed in Turkish and are still preserved to this day in the Topkapi palace museum in Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey).
Himara was occupied by Italy during the First World War, when the Italians used Austro-Hungarian war prisoners to build a road running through Himara, which greatly reduced the region's isolation. Following WWI, the "Protocol of Corfu" was signed and granted the Himara autonomy though the region remained part of the newly formed Albanian state.
Later, Himara was again occupied by the Italians as the rest of the Italian Invasion in Albania. The Italian Fascist Army was evicted by the Greek Army during the Greek-Italian war of 1940-41 and Himara was briefly annexed to Greece until the German invasion, April 6, 1941.
Language
The vast majority of people in Himarë are bilingual in both Albanian and Greek. Due to high rates of emigration, many people are also fluent in English, French and Italian.
Religion
Modern Himariotes practice the Orthodox Christian faith.
Famous modern Himariotes
- Aleks Çaçi, a well-known writer and Albanian diplomat. He was a Himariot from the village of Palasa.
- George Tenet, Greek American former Director of CIA belonging to the Greek minority in Southern Albania. His mother was born in the village of Qeparo, while his father hails from southern Greece. Tenet held the position from July 1997 to July 2004, making him the second-longest serving director in the agency's history.
- Paskal Milo, leader of the Albanian Social Democracy Party, member of the Albanian Parliament and Professor of Albanian and Foreign literature. Milo has held various posts under the Albanian government in the late 1990s and early 2000s, notably that of foreign minister.[8]
- Sotiris Ninis another Himariot who has become famous in Greece as a young and very promising football player with Panathinaikos of Athens. Ninis is thought to be one of the biggest hopes for the future of the Greek National Football Team which conquered the European Championship 2004 (Euro 2004).
References
- ^ BalkanTravellers "Tourists from Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia Flock to Albania for the Holidays".25 August 2008.http://www.balkantravellers.com/en/read/article/731
- ^ [1]
- ^ The data collected by our observation team, and the many talks they had with the local people in Himare, show that the number of Greek minority people in Himare has been always small. [2]
- ^ Hammond, NGL (1994). Philip of Macedon. London, UK: Duckworth. "Epirus was a land of milk and animal products...The social unit was a small tribe, consisting of several nomadic or semi-nomadic groups, and these tribes, of which more than seventy names are known, coalesced into large tribal coalitions, three in number: Thesprotians, Molossians and Chaonians...We know from the discovery of inscriptions that these tribes were speaking the Greek language (in a West-Greek dialect)"
- ^ Hecataeus of Miletus, Fr.103
- ^ Plutarch, Pyrrhus at The Internet Classics Archive[3]
- ^ http://www.ciaoamerica.org/AlbaneseConnection
- ^ http://www.hri.org/news/greek/mpa/1997/97-07-25.mpa#15 Macedonian Press Agency
- ^ Marko, Petro. Intervistë me vetveten (Retë dhe gurët) (memories). OMSCA, 2000. 99927-40-33-7
More Historical and Ethnological Information on Himara
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