Himarë (also Albanian: Himara or Himarë, Greek: Χειμάρρα) is a town and a region in southern Albania, opposite the north end of the Greek island of Corfu.
The only study held after the fall of communism, conducted by South European Pact claims that the Greek community is the biggest minority living in Albania. The Greek community reached 75 thousand or 3% of the total papulation[2] up to the beginning of the 1990s according to this study. However, the same study claims that "this figure has considerably inflated." Apart from the town of Himarë, the district includes eight other villages: Dhermi, (the second largest settlement of the region), Palasë, Vuno, Pilur, Qeparo, Shën Vasil, Kudhës, and Ilias.
Contents
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1 Geography
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2 Name
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3 History
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3.1 Ancient history
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3.2 Middle Ages and early modern times
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4 From 1799 to present times
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5 Language
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6 Religion
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7 Famous modern Himariotes
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8 References
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9 More Historical and Ethnological Information on Himara
|  [edit] Geography
The Himarë 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. At the north, the region begins with the rugged mountains, which the Roman poet Horace characterized as beautiful and breathtaking. Then, from the Logaras National Park, the "thunder mountains" ("Akrokeravnia Ori" in the local Greek dialect) extend along the northeast with their constantly misty complexion. The highway that winds down from the Logaras canyon towards the sea is one of the steepest and most dangerous mountain roads in Europe, as shown by the numerous commemorative markers raised where motorists have fallen into the canyon. The first village encountered after passing through the "katsikodromos" ('goat road') is called Palse. A short distance south lies Dhermi village, the biggest in the region after the town of Himarë. The English landscape painter Edward Lear visited Palasa and Dhermi while traveling through the region in 1844 and described them as more magnificent in their location than any other village he had seen in Himarë, resembling closely the Doric Greek speaking settlements of Lakonia and Messenia in southern Peloponnese. On the southern end, Himarë's mountainous terrain runs along the sea coast towards the village of Vuno (Greek for 'mountain') before reaching the town of Himarë, and further south ending in the village of Qeparo (Greek for 'full of gardens'), the third largest hamlet in the region.
[edit] Name
There are two theories concerning the origins of the name Himara . The first one is geographic as well as folkloric; the ancient (and Byzantine) city was situated on a hilltop surrounded by a torrent [χείμαρρος (himaros) in Greek] and was thus named Himara (Χειμάρρα). The second theory proposes that the city took its name from Χιμάρα, a corruption of the name Χίμαιρα (Chimera). This version is archaeologically attested as, at the ancient Greek acropolis of the city, an ancient epigraph reading in Doric Greek: "Phoebus Apollo founded the city of Chímaira" (ΦΟΙΒΟΣ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝ ΧΙΜΑΙΡΑΝ ΕΠΟΛΙΣΕΝ) was unearthed. However, most Greek inhabitants of Himara use both versions of the name for the city and this practice seems to go back to Byzantine times when official documents referred to Himara both as "Χειμάρρα" or "Χιμάρα" .
[edit] History [edit] Ancient history
In antiquity the region was inhabited by the Greek tribe of the Chaonians[1]. The Chaonians were one of the three principal Greek-speaking tribes of Epirus, along with the Thesprotians and the Molossians.[2][3] 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 region 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 and the Macedonian tribes. 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."
[edit] 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.[4]
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.
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