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Epirus (Greek Ήπειρος, Ípeiros; see also List of traditional Greek place names), is a province or periphery in northwestern Greece, bounded by West Macedonia and Thessaly to the east, by the province of Sterea Ellada (Central Greece) to the south, the Ionian Sea and the Ionian Islands to the west and Albania to the north. Epirus is divided into the prefectures, called nomoi, of Arta, Ioannina, Preveza and Thesprotia. The province has an area of 9,450 sq km and a population of about 350,000. Its capital and largest city is Ioannina, pop. 100,000. The population includes one of Greece's largest concentrations of Vlachs.
Historically, Epirus extended further north into what is now southern Albania. There is a small Greek minority in southern Albania, which Greeks call North Epirus. Nevertheless, there was a large Albanian minority in southern Epirus, which Albanians call Çamëria. They were expelled after the end of World War II by Zervas's forces because they were accused of collaborating with Nazis; however, there was little evidence for this accusation.
Greece maintained a territorial claim to southern Albania for many years, but today both countries recognise the current border. Greece's main concern currently is the illegal immigration of Albanians seeking work in Greece.
Epirus is largely made up of mountainous ridges, part of the Dinaric Alps, that in places reach 2,650 m. In the east, the Pindus Mountains that form the spine of mainland Greece separate Epirus from Macedonia and Thessaly. Most of Epirus lies on the windward side of the Pindus. The winds from the Ionian Sea offer the region more rainfall than any other part of Greece. Tobacco is grown around Ioannina, and there is also some dairy farming and fishing, but most of the area's food must be imported from other richer regions of Greece. The population is concentrated in the area around Ioannina, which has some manufacturing and service industries. Despite its many attractions, Epirus has not experienced the tourist boom enjoyed by other parts of Greece.
The Climate of Epirus is mainly Alpine. The vegetation is made up mainly of coniferous species. The animal life is specially rich in this area and features among others bears, wolves, foxes, deers and lynxes.
History
The Greek name Epirus signifies "mainland" or "continent", and was originally applied to the whole coast south to the Corinthian Gulf. Epirus was settled by Illyrians early in the second millennium BC and parts of it were much later colonized by the ancient Greeks.
Epirus was ruled from the 6th century by a dynasty, the Molossians, who claimed to be descended from Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. The main importance of Epirus to the Greek cities (polis) was that it was the location of the shrine and the oracle at Dodona, second in importance only to the oracle at Delphi. Arybbas was a respected figure in the ancient world, and his niece, Olympias, married Philip II of Macedon and was the mother of Alexander the Great.
On the death of Arybbas, Alexander succeeded the throne and the title King of Epirus. Aeacides, who succeeded Alexander, espoused the cause of Olympias against Cassander, but was dethroned in 313 BC. His son Pyrrhus came to throne in 295 BC, and for six years fought against the Romans in southern Italy and Sicily. His campaigns gave Epirus a new, but brief, importance.
In the third century BC Epirus remained a substantial power, and the Epirotes attempted to gain control of Macedonia, but in the 2nd century they blundered into war against the Romans, and in 168 BC the Romans pillaged the country and effectively ended its independence. In 146 BC it became part of the province of Roman Macedonia, receiving the name Epirus Vetus, to distinguish it from Epirus Nova to the east. This conquest led to the distruction of 70 cities and villages and to the enslavement of 150 000 Epirotes.
For the next 400 years Epirus was ruled from Rome, until in the 4th century AD it passed to the rule of Constantinople and the Greek Byzantine Empire. When Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Mihal Komneni seized Aetolia and Epirus, and his family ruled the area until 1318 (see Despotate of Epirus). The Empire soon fell into a civil war between John V Palaeologos and John VI, and Epirus fell to the Serbians. Nicephorus II was able to retake Epirus in 1356, to which he also added Thessaly. Nicephorus died putting down an Albanian revolt in 1359 and the despotate was reincorporated into the empire. It was lost again in the following decades to the Tokkos family of Cephalonia, who later lost Epirus to the Ottomans.
The Despotate of Epirus is the independent Greek state that was established after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders (1204). The founder of the state, Mihal Komneni, chose Arta as the capital. The state extended from Nafpaktos to Dyrrachio and from the Adriatic Sea to Thessaly. His brother and successor, Theodhori I (1215 - 1230), was crowned as emperor (1224/5) in Thessaloniki, but his defeat by the Bulgarians put an end to his ambitious plans to liberate Constantinople. The Despot Mihal II (1231- 1267/8) fortified Arta with the castle. He and his succersors established important monasteries (Parigoritissa, Kato Panaghia, etc.) in the wider region of the Despotate. Later, princely weddings brought the Italian family of Orsini to power (1318-1337). Then, In 1430 Ioannina surrendered to the Turks, who in 1449 occupied Arta and, a little later, the rest of the domain.
The period of the Despotate of Epirus was especially flourishing for the arts. Specifically, in the field of architecture was formed the "School of the Despotate", which, influenced by Constantinople, created new forms and decorative preferences of its own. The Despots invited artists from major cities of Greece in order to decorate their churches. The mosaics of Parigoritissa were created by artists from Constantinople or Thessaloniki. There was a special flourishing for sculpture, which was obviously influenced by western models. Italian craftsmen probably worked in the court of the Despots. In the field of literature, remarkable spiritual personalities came from the clergy (Apokafkos, Vardanis, Chomatianos).
In 1443 Gjergj Kastrioti Skenderbeg, revolted against the Ottoman Empire and liberated Albania and Epirus, but on his death Epirus fell to Venice. In the late 15th century, the whole area was overrun by the Ottomans, who ruled it for the next 400 years, the Venetians retaining only a few strongholds along the coast. Under the Ottomans Epirus remained a backwater, with a mixed population of Christians and Muslims.
In the 18th century, as the power of the Ottomans declined, Epirus became a virtually independent region under the despotic rule of Ali Tepelenë, an Albanian brigand who became pasha, or provincial governor, of Ioannina in 1788, and at one time controlled much of western Greece and Albania. When the Greek War of Independence broke out, Ali tried to make himself an independent ruler, but he was deposed and murdered by Ottoman agents in 1822. When Greece became independent, Epirus remained under Ottoman rule.
The Treaty of Berlin of 1881 gave Greece parts of southern Epirus, but it was not until the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 that rest of southern Epirus was given to Greece. This added to Greece a large Albanian population. But the Greeks resented the fact that the northern part of Epirus had been given to Albania, where an extremely small Greek minority lived.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Albania collapsed. Under a March 1915 agreement among the Allies, Italy seized northern Albania and Greece set up the autonomous Greek state of North Epirus in the southern part of the country. Meanwhile, the Greeks from Greece and the Greek minority attacked Erseka And Permeti where many albanians were murdered.
Although the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 awarded the area to Greece after World War I, political developments such as the Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War and, crucially, Italian lobbying in favour of its client state Albania meant that Greece could not sustain its claim to the northern part of Epirus, and the area was finally left inside Albania.
Italy occupied Albania in 1939, and in 1940 invaded Greece. The Greeks counterattacked and soon invaded once again northern Epirus. But the German invasion of April 1941 saw the defeat of Greece, and the whole of Epirus was placed under Italian occupation until 1943, when the Germans took over. The highlands of Epirus became a major theatre of guerilla resistance to the occupation. Following the German withdrawal from Greece in 1944, the Greeks forces of Zervas began their massacres against the Albanians and Slavs of southern Epirus. On June 27, 1944, 1030 Muslim Albanians were tortured and killed in Gumenica. 259 men and women were slaughtered in Filat in August 1944. Filat was attacked again in March 1945, when 431 man and children were executed. 475 women and young girls were raped, and 76 were kidnapped. Some 5800 houses were destroyed and 110 mosques were burned. The rest of the Muslim Albanians were imprisoned and killed on other parts of Greece but most of them went to the Albanian Epirus. The Orthodox Albanians of Greek Epirus (also called Chameria) shared a similar fate but not as violent; they were forced to move to Greek islands and mix with Greeks which was an obvious policy for their assimilation. These were the largest massacres against Albanians of Greek Epirus following the slaughters and deportation to Turkey of thousands of Muslims in the 1920s.
The massacres of the Albanians of Southern Epirus (or Chameria) is denied by the Greeks and is refered as a "non-exstent" issue. Some 250 000 Muslim Chams live around the world. The estimation of Orthodox Chams is 100 000. They all have the documents of their properties in southern Epirus. This issue has not been solved yet.
In August 1949, Greeks attacked the northern part of Epirus (southern Albania) again. Many violent battles were fought until the Albanian forces of Petrit Dume defeated and pushed the Greeks back to southern Epirus.
During Hoxha's regime, the borders of Albania were closed. Ethnic Greeks lost contact with their motherland but they were not assimilated. Hoxha allowed Greek to be taught in elementary schools where ethnic Greeks lived, mainly in Dropulli. Communism collapsed in Albania in 1991 and tensions in southern Albania rose again. In 1994, a Greek extremist group illegally crossed the border and killed three Albanian soldiers in Peshkëpi. Relations between the two countries were not peaceful until Fatos Nano's government gained power.
Despite these tensions, the governments of both Greece and Albania have made a concerted effort in recent years to transcend the enmities of the past and forge a new relationship based on peace and cooperation.
The current President of the Hellenic Republic, Karolos Papoulias, is a native of Ioannina, Epirus.
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