The town of Florina is the capital of the Florina regional unit and also the seat of the eponymous municipality. It belongs to the administrative region of Western Macedonia. The town's population is 17,686 people (2011 census). It is in a wooded valley about 13km (8mi) south of the international border of Greece with the Republic of North Macedonia.
Geography
Sakoulevas river and the Cathedral of Florina.
Florina is the gateway to the Prespa Lakes and, until the modernisation of the road system, of the old town of Kastoria. It is located west of Edessa, northwest of Kozani, and northeast of Ioannina and Kastoria cities. Outside the Greek borders it is in proximity to Korçë in Albania and Bitola in North Macedonia. The nearest airports are situated to the east and the south (in Kozani). The mountains of Verno lie to the southwest and Varnous to the northwest.
Winters bring heavy snow and long periods of temperature below freezing point. Furthermore, the town and the surrounding valley is usually covered in thick fog during the winter months that may last even for weeks under specific conditions. During the summer months it becomes a busy market town with an economy boosted by summer and, mostly, winter tourism due to the heavy snowfalls and the nearby ski resorts.
Even though Florina was the site of the first rail line built in the southern Ottoman provinces in the late 19th century, its rail system remains undeveloped. Today, Florina is linked by a single track standard gauge line to Thessaloniki and Bitola, and to Kozani (meter gauge) where it was intended to continue south and link up with the terminal in Kalambaka, in Thessaly but this did not proceed due to the 1930s financial crisis.
Florina is passed by GR-2 (Lake Prespa – Edessa) and GR-3/E65 (Kozani – Florina – Niki – Bitola). The new Motorway 27 (A27) will run east of Florina with its Florina-Niki segment already operational since 2015. The historic Via Egnatia is situated to the east.
Climate
Florina is one of the coldest towns in Greece, because of its elevation and geographic position. Heavy snowfalls, thick fog and below-freezing temperatures are common during the winter months, while the summers are mild. Under the Köppen climate classification, Florina has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) with strong hot-summer continental climate (Dfa) influences.
On 18 January 2012, a temperature of -25.1°C was recorded by the HNMS's station[4] with several reports, however, in the local press for temperatures in villages of the municipality that reached -32°C, but there was no official record of such temperature. The National Observatory of Athens's station reported a temperature of -22.2°C a day earlier in Florina, while the same station continuously recorded minimum temperatures below -20°C from 16 January 2012 until 19 January 2012, with the average maximum temperature for January just -0.6°C, and the prevalence for 13 consecutive days of temperatures below 0°C 24 hours a day.[5] The above situation resulted in the Greek General Secretariat of Civil Protection to declare the municipality of Florina in a state of emergency on 16 January 2012, at the request of the mayor of Florina, due to the polar temperatures and the intense snowfall that prevailed for days.
Source: Hellenic National Meteorological Service [6]
Name
The city's original Byzantine name, Χλέρινον (Chlérinon, "full of green vegetation"), derives from the Greek word χλωρός (chlōrós, "fresh" or "green vegetation"). The name was sometimes Latinized as Florinon (from the Latinflora, "vegetation") in the later Byzantine period, and in early Ottoman documents the forms Chlerina and Florina are both used, with the latter becoming standard after the 17th century. The form with [f] (φλωρός) is a local dialect form of χλωρός in Greek. The local Slavic name for the city is Lerin (Лерин), which is a borrowing of the Byzantine Greek name, but with the loss of the initial [x] characteristic of the local dialect. The Albanian name for the city is Follorinë.[7] In Aromanian, it is Florina, while in both Bulgarian and Macedonian, it is Лерин (Lerin).
Municipality
The current municipality of Florina was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 4 former municipalities, that since 2011 became municipal units:[8]
Florina, view from northern entrance (1916-1918)Panorama of the city of Florina, 1898–1912. Photo taken by Manakis brothers (broken glass plate)Neoclassical houses at the shoreline of Sakoulevas river.
Within the boundaries of the present-day city lie the remains of a Hellenistic settlement on the hill of Agios Panteleimon.[10] Archaeologists excavated on the site in 1930–1934, but a hotel was later built over the ruins. Excavations began again in the 1980s and the total excavated area is now around 8,000 metres square. The buildings uncovered are mostly residential blocks, and the range of finds suggests that the site was continuously inhabited from the 4th century BC until its destruction by fire in the 1st century BC. Many of these finds are now on display in the Archaeological Museum of Florina.
The town is first mentioned in 1334, when the Serbian king Stefan Dušan established a certain Sphrantzes Palaeologus as commander of the fortress of Chlerenon.[11] By 1385, the place had fallen to the Ottomans.[12] An Ottoman defter (cadastral tax census) for the year 1481 records a settlement of 243 households.[13][citation needed]
Greeks from Florina participated in the Greek Revolution of 1821 with the most important fighter being Aggelinas who also fought in Crete while others also fought in Mesologgi.[14] Members of Filiki Eteria were the brothers Loukas Nedelkos and Nikolaos Nedelkos, who were born in the Florina region.
In the late Ottoman period the area surrounding Florina supported the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) who fought against the Ottomans.[17] During the Macedonian Struggle the Greek makedonomachoi gained significant advantage towards the Bulgarian Exarchists within 10 months in 1905 and extended their zone of control in various regions of western Macedonia including the plains north and south of Florina.[18] In 1912 came under the control of the Greek forces as a result of the Ottoman defeat in the First Balkan War. The town was again in the firing line during World War I, during which it was occupied by Bulgaria, and during the Axis Occupation in World War II, when the town became a centre of Slavic separatism.[citation needed]
For part of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949) the mountains of the Florina area were under communist control. The Slavic-Macedonian National Liberation Front, later simply the National Liberation Front or NOF, had a significant presence in the area:[19] by 1946, seven Slav Macedonian partisan units were operating in the Florina area,[20] and NOF had a regional committee based in Florina. When the NOF merged with the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), many Slav Macedonians in the region enlisted as volunteers in the DSE.[21] When the Communists were defeated on 12 February 1949 by the Greek army thousands of communists and Slav Macedonians were evacuated or fled to Yugoslavia and the Eastern Bloc.
Florina is a market town with an economy dominated by agriculture, forestry, summer and winter tourism, cross-border trading and the sale of local produce such as grain, grapes, and vegetables including Florina peppers. It also has textile mills and is known for locally manufactured leather handicrafts.
Florina has 8 radio stations,[24] 2 daily political newspapers, 4 weekly ones, one women's press and two newspapers on sports.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the area lost much of its population to emigration, both to Athens and Thessaloniki as well as US, Canada, Australia and Germany. Following Greece's EU membership and the economic upturn, many from Germany returned.
Neoclassical houses at the shoreline of Sakoulevas river.
Demographics
Austrian diplomat Johann Georg von Hahn visited the city in 1861 and wrote about it in his travel log From Belgrade to Salonica. In it he writes that "[a]bout the houses in Florina, we should indicate that there are at most 3000, with half of the population Albanian and TurkishMuslims and the other half ChristianBulgarians."[25] According to an 1878 French ethnographic book Florina was a town of 1500 households, inhabited by 2800 Muslims and 1800 Bulgarians.[26] In 1896 French diplomat and traveller Victor Bérard visited Florina.[27] He described Florina as "consisting of 1500 houses of Albanians and "converted Slavs", with perhaps a hundred "Turkish" families and 500 Christian families."[27][clarification needed] Bérard noted that "These Slavs nonetheless call themselves Greek and speak Greek—with us at least".[27] In 1901/1902 school year statistics, Greek students were clearly much more than the Bulgarian ones.[28]
A Jewish Sephardi community was present in Florina during the 17th century.[29] Under Ottoman rule, the Jews of Florina had close ties with the Jewish community of Monastir (modern Bitola).[30]Romani people migrated from Anatolia to Florina.[31] In the mid to late 1910s, some Florina Romani migrated to Elbasan and Korçë and compose most of their urban modern Romani populations.[31]
According to Tasos Kostopoulos, after Florina became part of Greece, its population numbered 10,000 with two thirds being Muslim.[32] Many Christian inhabitants of Florina were Slavic speakers with the remainder composed of 30 Aromanian families and 89 Greek refugee families from Thrace and Asia Minor.[32] Florina Christians supported the Greek cause and the Bulgarians were aware that more than half were "Grecomans".[32]
Following the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), the large Aromanian community in Monastir (modern Bitola) was disappointed that the city became part of Serbia and they migrated to Greece.[33] Many went to Thessaloniki and others settled in Florina, where in the late 1920s a new neighbourhood was established named Agia Paraskevi with a population of 600 refugee Aromanian families.[34] During the First World War, 60 Jewish families resettled in Florina after they left Monastir in 1916 to avoid the shelling of the city, later some other Monastirli Jewish families also went to live in Florina after the war.[35][30][36]
The Greek census (1920) recorded 12,513 people in the town and in 1923 there were 4,650 inhabitants (or 1076 families) who were Muslim.[37] Muslim Albanians from Florina and the wider region during the Greek-Turkish population exchange (1923) based on religious criteria were sent to Turkey, and mainly resettled in Bursa.[7][38] Following the Greek-Turkish population exchange, in 1926 within Florina there were Greek refugee families from East Thrace (79), Asia Minor (54), Pontus (7) and the Caucasus (44).[37] The Greek census (1928) recorded 10,585 town inhabitants.[37] In 1928, there were 178 refugee families (750 people)[37] and the Jewish community numbered 500 people.[39]
Local Jews were involved in the textile, agricultural and raw material sectors of Florina's economy.[40] Florina was occupied in World War Two and Jews came under German rule.[41] The Jewish community numbered 400 people in 1940.[42] During April 1943, 372 Florina Jews were sent by the Germans first to the Hirsch ghetto in Thessaloniki and later in May sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where they were gassed.[43][44] In 1945, the Florina Jewish community numbered 64 people, a reduction of 84 percent due to the Holocaust.[45] The Jewish population declined and by 1959 there were 7 Jews in Florina, 1 in 1973 and 0 in 1983.[46]
The Romani of Florina are sedentary and in 1968 they converted from Islam to Orthodoxy.[47] In the modern period, Florina Romani have distanced themselves from their relatives in Elbasan and Korçë, over concerns that links with Muslim Romani could negatively impact their local standing in the area they reside.[47]
During the late twentieth century, Florina numbered some 15,000 inhabitants.[48] Its population was composed of Slavophone Dopii, the Greek Anatolian refugees from the Greek-Turkish population exchange and their descendants, Greeks who had recently left the former Soviet Union, Aromanians and Hellenised Aromanians from Bitola who went to Florina in 1913, Romani, Albanians, and a small number of foreigners.[48]
In fieldwork done by Riki Van Boeschoten in late 1993, the population of Florina is mixed and Greek is often the language used for communication.[49] Minority languages are used in the town, especially on market days when farmers from the villages arrive in Florina to sell their produce.[49] The Romani community of Florina speak Romani and are multilingual in all other languages used in the region.[49]
Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of North Macedonia. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba, Nidže, and Kajmakčalan mountain ranges, 14 kilometres north of the Medžitlija-Níki border crossing with Greece. The city stands at an important junction connecting the south of the Adriatic Sea region with the Aegean Sea and Central Europe, and it is an administrative, cultural, industrial, commercial, and educational centre. It has been known since the Ottoman period as the "City of Consuls", since many European countries had consulates in Bitola.
Florina is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Western Macedonia, in the geographic region of Macedonia, Greece. Its capital is the town of Florina with a population of around 49.500 (2019)
Kastoria is a city in northern Greece in the region of Western Macedonia. It is the capital of Kastoria regional unit, in the geographic region of Macedonia. It is situated on a promontory on the western shore of Lake Orestiada, in a valley surrounded by limestone mountains. The town is known for its many Byzantine churches, Byzantine and Ottoman-era domestic architecture, its lake and its fur clothing industry.
The region of Macedonia is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times.
The Macedonian Struggle was a series of social, political, cultural and military conflicts that were mainly fought between Greek and Bulgarian subjects who lived in Ottoman Macedonia between 1893 and 1912. The conflict was part of a wider rebel war in which revolutionary organizations of Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs all fought over Macedonia. Gradually the Greek and Bulgarian bands gained the upper hand. Though the conflict was largely pacified by the Young Turk Revolution, it remained a low intensity insurgency until the Balkan Wars.
The Battle of Sorovich took place between 21–24 October 1912 (O.S.). It was fought between Greek and Ottoman forces during the First Balkan War, and revolved around the Sorovich (Amyntaio) area. The 5th Greek Division which had been advancing through western Macedonia separately from the bulk of the Greek Army of Thessaly, was attacked outside the village of Lofoi and fell back to Sorovich. It found itself to be heavily outnumbered by an opposing Ottoman force.
Kruševo is a town in North Macedonia. In Macedonian the name means the 'place of pear trees'. It is the highest town in North Macedonia and one of the highest in the Balkans, situated at an altitude of over 1350 m above sea level. The town of Kruševo is the seat of Kruševo Municipality. It is located in the western part of the country, overlooking the region of Pelagonia, 33 and 53 km from the nearby cities of Prilep and Bitola, respectively.
Macedonia is a geographic and former administrative region of Greece, in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and second-most-populous Greek geographic region, with a population of 2.36 million in 2020. It is highly mountainous, with most major urban centres such as Thessaloniki and Kavala being concentrated on its southern coastline. Together with Thrace, and sometimes also Thessaly and Epirus, it is part of Northern Greece. Greek Macedonia encompasses entirely the southern part of the wider region of Macedonia, making up 51% of the total area of that region. Additionally, it forms part of Greece's borders with three countries: Bulgaria to the northeast, North Macedonia to the north, and Albania to the northwest.
Resen is a town in southwestern North Macedonia, with just under 9,000 inhabitants. Resen is approximately equidistant between Bitola and Ohrid. The town rises 880 metres above sea level and is situated near Lake Prespa. Resen is also the only town in the Prespa Lake area and is the seat of Resen Municipality.
The Vilayet of Manastir was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire, created in 1874, dissolved in 1877 and re-established in 1879. The vilayet was occupied during the First Balkan War in 1912 and divided between the Kingdom of Greece and the Kingdom of Serbia, with some parts later becoming part of the newly established Principality of Albania.
Minorities in Greece are small in size compared to Balkan regional standards, and the country is largely ethnically homogeneous. This is mainly due to the population exchanges between Greece and neighboring Turkey and Bulgaria, which removed most Muslims and those Christian Slavs who did not identify as Greeks from Greek territory. The treaty also provided for the resettlement of ethnic Greeks from those countries, later to be followed by refugees. There is no official information for the size of the ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities because asking the population questions pertaining to the topic have been abolished since 1951.
The history of the Jews in North Macedonia stretches back two thousand years, beginning during Roman antiquity, when Jews first arrived in the region. Today, following the Holocaust and emigration, especially to Israel, around 200 Jews remain in North Macedonia, mostly in the capital, Skopje and a few in Štip and Bitola.
Kato Kleines is a village and a former municipality in Florina regional unit, West Macedonia, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Florina, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 188.564 km2. It is 7 km north of the city of Florina. The population was 2,735 in 2011.
Nymfaio and in Ancient Greece: Νυμφαῖον or Νύμφαιον, is a village and a former community in Florina regional unit, Western Macedonia, Greece. After the 2011 local government reform it became a member of the municipality Amyntaio. The municipal unit has an area of 28.209 km2. As of 2011 the village had a population of 132 residents. The village is protected by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture in order to preserve its architectural integrity.
The official language of Greece is Greek, spoken by 99% of the population. In addition, a number of non-official, minority languages and some Greek dialects are spoken as well. The most common foreign languages learned by Greeks are English, German, French and Italian.
The railway from Thessaloniki to Bitola is a 219 kilometres (136 mi) long railway line, that connects the port city Thessaloniki in Greece with Bitola in the Republic of North Macedonia, via Veroia, Edessa, Amyntaio and Florina. The line was opened in 1894 under the name "Société du Chemin de Fer ottoman Salonique-Monastir", when the area was part of the Ottoman Empire. The section between the international border and Bitola is not used anymore, and as of 2013 passenger services are restricted to the section between Thessaloniki and Florina. The easternmost section of the line, Platy–Thessaloniki, is part of the important connection towards Athens and Northern Greece.
Nižepole is a village in the municipality of Bitola, North Macedonia and is an alpine settlement 7.85 kilometers from Bitola.
The Greek state has systematically replaced geographical and topographic names of non-Greek origin with Greek names as part of a policy and ideology of Hellenization. The main objective of the initiative has been to assimilate or hide geographical or topographical names that were deemed foreign and divisive against Greek unity or considered to be "bad Greek". The names that were considered foreign were usually of Albanian, Slavic, and Turkish origin. Most of the name changes occurred in the Arvanite settlements in central Greece and, after the Balkan Wars, in the ethnically heterogeneous northern Greece. Place names of Greek origin were also renamed after names in Classical Greece.
Rafael Moshe Kamhi was a Sephardic Jew from Monastir in Ottoman Macedonia. Besides being Jewish, Kamhi felt also strong attachment to Macedonia as his native homeland. Kamhi was elected as liaison officer of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO). He directly participated in the Miss Stone Affair and in the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising of August 1903.
The Sanjak of Monastir or Manastir or Bitola, was a sanjak within the Rumelia Eyalet (1465–1867) and then the Manastir Vilayet (1874–1912). The administrative seat was in Manastir (Bitola).
1 2 Baltsiotis, Lambros (2011). "The Muslim Chams of Northwestern Greece: The grounds for the expulsion of a "non-existent" minority community". European Journal of Turkish Studies. 12.. para. 28-29; footnote 48. "The Albanian claims on the Albanian speaking population of the areas of Kastoria [Kostur in Albanian] and Florina [Follorinë in Albanian] did not ensure the non-inclusion of this Albanian speaking Muslim population in the Greco-Turkish exchange of populations. Nevertheless, these claims and related struggles were far from leading to any major bilateral or international debate."
↑ Johann Georg von Hahn: [Reise von Belgrad nach Salonik. Viena: 1861, p. 121. https://books.google.bg/books?id=a6JEAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA120] "Die Häuserzahl von Florina, welches wir wohl auch Flurina, aber niemals Filurina aussprechen hörten, wurde uns gewiss übertrieben auf 3000“) angegeben, deren Bewohner halb aus albanesischen und osmanischen Muhammedanern, halb aus christlichen Bulgaren bestünden."
↑ „Ethnographie des Vilayets d'Andrinople, de Monastir et de Salonique, Ethnographie Vilayet de Monsati., p.6-21
1 2 3 Hart, Laurie Kain (2006). "Provincial anthropology, circumlocution, and the copious use of everything." Journal of Modern Greek Studies. 24. (2): 310: "The extreme population movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in (what was to become) the western Macedonian border area of Greece expose what Patrick Finney has called the "longue durée quality of nation-formation (Finney 1993). They include not only the 1919 Bulgarian-Greek population exchange and the Greek-Turkish exchange of 1923, but also innumerable significant, informal, earlier shifts to towns such as Florina by Muslim and Christian Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, Gypsies, Jews, as well as the immigration of Greek Christians from the South after the mid-nineteenth century Ottoman Tanzimat reforms." p. 314. "Florina was not much admired by European travelers in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, particularly, it seems, in contrast to its rival a little to the south, Kastoria. The French traveler Bérard describes it in 1896 as consisting of 1500 houses of Albanians and "converted Slavs", with perhaps a hundred "Turkish" families and 500 Christian families. "These Slavs nonetheless call themselves Greek and speak Greek—with us at least" (Bérard 1911 (1896):307). Bérard identifies only a few hundred Bulgarian sympathizers, but notes that the local Turkish administration is pro-Bulgarian."
↑ Νεότερη ιστορία της Μακεδονίας 1830-1912, Konstantinos Ap. Vakalopoulos, pub. Αντώνιου Σταμούλη, Thessaloniki, 2000, p. 240
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