Epirotes

The term Epirotes ( _el. Ηπειρώτες) refers to the inhabitants of the region of Epirus.cite book | first= Eugene N. | last= Borza | title= In the Shadow of Olympus: the Emergence of Macedon (Revised Edition) | publisher= Princeton University Press | location= Princeton, New Jersey | year= 1992 "Speakers of these various Greek dialects settled different parts of Greece at different times during the Middle Bronze Age, with one group, the 'northwest' Greeks, developing their own dialect and peopling central Epirus. This was the origin of the Molossian or Epirotic tribes." " [...] a proper dialect of Greek, like the dialects spoken by Dorians and Molossians." "The western mountains were peopled by the Molossians (the western Greeks of Epirus)."] cite book | first= NGL | last= Hammond | title= Philip of Macedon | publisher= Duckworth | location= London, UK | year= 1994 "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)"] In Classical antiquity, the Epirotes were grouped into fourteen tribes, the most famous of which were the Thesprotians, who occupied the southern part of Epirus immediately north of the Ambracian Gulf, the Molossians, who occupied the center, and the Chaonians, who occupied the northernmost area, up to the Bay of Avlona (modern-day Vlorë). [Strabo. "The Geography". Book VII, Chapter 7.5 ( [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/7G*.html LacusCurtius] ).] [Plutarch, "Pyrrhus" ( [http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/pyrrhus.html Internet Classics Archive] ).] They spoke a variant of the NW Greek dialect and because they were seen as uncouth by their fellow-Greeks to the south, they were referred to as "barbarians" by some authors. [Thucydides. "History of the Peloponnesian War", Book II.] The neighbors of the Epirotes were the Macedonians to the east and the Illyrians to the north. The Molossians were the most powerful of the Epirotes, and under their king (Pyrrhus of Epirus) they briefly challenged the power of Rome. Following the Pyrrhic victories of Pyrrhus over the Romans, however, the Epirotes fell under Roman rule and 150,000 were sold into slavery.

In the Middle Ages, Epirus was under the rule of the Byzantine Empire. During this time, the region flourished and was settled with numerous Orthodox Christian Greeks. The definition of Epirus came to encompass the entire region from the Ambracian Gulf to Dyrrachium (modern-day Durrës). Some of the most important cities in Epirus, such as Gjirokastër (Argyrokastron), were founded during this period.

The Epirotes played a prominent part in the Greek struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire and the typical 18th-19th century costume of Epirot men, the so-called Foustanella, went on to become the national costume of Greece. Epirus was divided between Greece and Albania following the Balkan Wars, with members of both ethnic groups present on both sides of the border. After World War II, the Muslim Cham Albanians were expelled from Greece for collaborating with the Axis Powers, while many Greeks in Northern Epirus experienced forced Albanisation. [ [http://www.da.mod.uk/colleges/arag/document-listings/balkan/G97 Pettifer, James. "The Greek Minority in Albania - In the Aftermath of Communism". Conflict Studies Research Centre, July 2001, ISBN 1-903584-35-3] , p. 7. "In contrast, Albanian governments use a much lower figure of 58,000 which rests on the unrevised definition of “minority” adopted during the communist period. Under this definition, minority status was limited to those who lived in 99 villages in the southern border areas, thereby excluding important concentrations of Greek settlement in Vlora (perhaps 8000 people in 1994) and in adjoining areas along the coast, ancestral Greek towns such as Himara, and ethnic Greeks living elsewhere throughout the country. Mixed villages outside this designated zone, even those with a clear majority of ethnic Greeks, were not considered minority areas and therefore were denied any Greek-language cultural or educational provisions. In addition, many Greeks were forcibly removed from the minority zones to other parts of the country as a product of communist population policy, an important and constant element of which was to pre-empt ethnic sources of political dissent. Greek place-names were changed to Albanian names, while use of the Greek language, prohibited everywhere outside the minority zones, was prohibited for many official purposes within them as well. Although some Greek-language education existed under communism, pupils were taught only Albanian history and culture, even in Greek-language classes at the primary level. In general, some secondary-level provisions for Greek-language education existed, but, again, only for towns and villages within the designated minority areas and with the additional proviso that there was a majority of Greek-speakers in each class in the school. Because school curricula in the Greek language in the designated minority areas were "de facto" identical with the standard Albanian-language curriculum, efforts to study many of the greatest works of ancient Greek literature were rendered impossible. Nor, with the exception of archaeology (which flourished during the communist period), was it possible to study other aspects of classical Hellenistic culture once opportunities for travel abroad to Moscow State University ended following Albania’s 1961 break with the Soviet Union."] It should be noted, however, that the Albanisation of the Greeks occurred both prior to the war during the reign of King Zog and after the war during the Hoxha regime. [ [http://www.da.mod.uk/colleges/arag/document-listings/balkan/G97 Pettifer, James. "The Greek Minority in Albania - In the Aftermath of Communism". Conflict Studies Research Centre, July 2001, ISBN 1-903584-35-3] , pp. 7-8. The repression of minority culture and education (with the exception of some independent cultural activity, such as folk dancing) was continuous with the policy pursued by the Royalist regime of King Zog, under which Greek-language education had been attacked and eventually virtually eliminated in the 1930s. However, this process was steadily intensified in the post-war years under communism, particularly with the onset in 1967 of the campaign by Albania’s communist party, the Albanian Party of Labour (PLA), to eradicate organised religion, a prime target of which was the Orthodox Church. Many churches were damaged or destroyed during this period, and many Greek-language books were banned because of their religious themes or orientation. Yet, as with other communist states, particularly in the Balkans, where measures putatively geared towards the consolidation of political control intersected with the pursuit of national integration, it is often impossible to distinguish sharply between ideological and ethno-cultural bases of repression. This is all the more true in the case of Albania’s anti-religion campaign because it was merely one element in the broader “Ideological and Cultural Revolution” begun by Hoxha in 1966 but whose main features he outlined at the PLA’s Fourth Congress in 1961.]

Since the end of the Cold War, many Greeks in Northern Epirus are re-discovering their Greek heritage, while the Cham Albanians have called for compensation for their lost lands. The current President of Greece, Karolos Papoulias is a native of Ioannina, Epirus.

Famous Epirotes

*Pyrrhus of Epirus, King of the Molossian tribe and all of Epirus from whom the expression Pyrrhic victory is named after. He challenged the power of Rome and is considered second only to Alexander the Great among ancient Greek generals.
* Pyrros Dimas (Πύρρος Δήμας), the world-famous Greek weight-lifting athlete, whose nickname is "the Lion of Himarra". He is the only weight-lifter in the world to have won four Olympic medals. Three of his medals are gold (1992 Summer Olympics, 1996 Summer Olympics, 2000 Summer Olympics) and the last one, from the Athens 2004 Olympics, is a bronze. He is considered a national hero in Greece.
*Karolos Papoulias (Κάρολος Παπούλιας), the current President of the Hellenic Republic (Greece).

References