GREEK EDUCATION IN MONASTIR - PELAGONIA

IN LIEU OF PREFACE
AND INTRODUCTION
MONASTIR AND ITS CULTURE
HISTORICAL REVIEW
.1. Monastir is directly associated with the ancient city of Heraclea
Lyncestis, a town in Pelagonia known and identified since the age of
Homer. Today an important archaeological site, Heraclea was wholly rebuilt
in 360-350 BC by Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, over
the remains of an earlier settlement of the same name.
Over the course of its history Heraclea found itself in the sights of the
political designs that accompanied the spread of Macedonian rule, Roman
overlordship and Byzantine imperium, entering into their expansionist and
strategic plans in the context of control over the road routes (Via Egnatia,
valleys of the Aliakmon and Axios rivers) and the creation of, respectively,
buffer states, tetrarchies and themes. Meanwhile, the town itself was expanding
northwards and developing into a city conterminous with presentday
Monastir.
Historical evidence records this greater Heraclea with the names Chlorinon
and Boutelion (in the Byzantine age), Bitolia (in the period 1570-
1612, on a map by Abraham Ortelius), and subsequently, from 1661 at least
(Evliya Çelebi), as Monastir (on account of an old monastery church); the
name Monastir is also attested in 1806 (Fr. Pouqueville).
2. The population of Monastir swelled with the arrival of whole Greek
communities, displaced by the destruction of Moschopolis and its environs
(1769), and later (1812) of Greek villagers from the Pindus massif who
abandoned their homes in the face of Turkish oppression. Throughout this
historical period Monastir was a city whose language and cultural consciousness
were pre-eminently Greek, as was the majority of its population,
whether as individuals they used the Vlach (the largest group), Greek, Slav
or Albanian idiom. The commercial and industrial enterprise of the city’s
Greek population transformed Monastir in its most vitally active period into
an important economic and cultural centre. Moreover, the enrichment of
those citizens of Monastir who emigrated and prospered in other places
proved doubly beneficial to the city, through financial support for its cul-