Moscopole printing house

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Moscopole printing house
StatusDefunct
Founded1720/1731
Founder Georgios Konstantinidis
Country of origin Ottoman Empire
Headquarters location Moscopole
Owner(s)Georgios Konstantinidis

The Moscopole printing house was an 18th-century printing house founded in Moscopole, formerly a prosperous city in the Ottoman Empire and now a village in Albania.

Moscopole is located at a distance of 21 kilometres (13 miles) from modern Korçë, in the mountains of southeastern Albania, at an altitude of 1,160 metres (3,810 feet). [1]

History

The Moscopole printing house was founded by the monk Georgios Konstantinidis. [2] Konstantinidis, owner of the printing house, was a teacher at the New Academy of Moscopole, and he might have been the same person as Gregory of Durrës. [3] The printing house of Moscopole was founded in 1720 [4] or in 1731, [5] and was the second printing house in the Balkans after that of Constantinople (now Istanbul). [6]

The printing house of Moscopole produced religious literature and school textbooks using the Greek language. [7] A total of twenty books can be attributed without doubt to the Moscopole printing press. [8] They are mainly constituted by the collection of the Services to the Saints (1750) but also by the Introduction of Grammar (1760) by the local scholar Theodore Kavalliotis. The printing house had close ties with the Monastery of Saint Naum, now in North Macedonia. [5]

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References

  1. "Moscopole was the cultural center of the Aromanians – Assembly of European Regions". aer.eu. 5 January 2016. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  2. Greek, Roman and Byzantine studies. Duke University. 1981. p. 90.
  3. Elsie, Robert. "GREGORY OF DURRËS". Archived from the original on 13 January 2012.
  4. Lloshi, Xhevat (2008). Rreth Alfabetit te shqipes [Around the Albanian Alphabet)] (in Albanian). Logos. p. 103. ISBN   978-9989-58-268-4 . Retrieved 1 June 2010.
  5. 1 2 Mikropoulos, Tassos A. (2008). Elevating and Safeguarding Culture Using Tools of the Information Society: Dusty traces of the Muslim culture. Earthlab. pp. 315–316. ISBN   978-960-233-187-3.
  6. Kekridis Eustathios (1989). Θεόδωρος Αναστασίου Καβαλλιώτης (1718; 1789). Ο Διδάσκαλος του Γένους (Thesis) (in Greek and English). Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. p. 44. doi:10.12681/eadd/1624 . Retrieved 11 September 2010.
  7. Detrez, Raymond (15 July 2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. BRILL. p. 52. ISBN   978-90-04-25076-5.
  8. Yll Rugova (2022). Tipografia shqiptare 1555–1912, p. 130–131. "The press of Moscopole must have operated between 1731 and 1760. We know for sure 20 volumes printed there, of which today 189 copies are kept in different collections and libraries."