GREEK EDUCATION IN MONASTIR - PELAGONIA

GREEK EDUCATION IN MONASTIR - PELAGONIA 19
Association of Constantinople” – the “Ministry of Education” 5 of the unredeemed
Greek populations – and the “Macedonian Fraternal Organisation of
Friends of Education” (1871), which joined forces to try to stiffen defences
against foreign nationalist movements. The contribution made by these societies
was of incalculable value, for through their activities (establishing
new schools, publishing books and textbooks, providing scholarships and
bursaries, drawing up curricula, etc.) they played a substantial and decisive
role in awakening, educating and cultivating the enslaved Greek population.
Further, the various Macedonian associations, societies and fraternal organisations
that with their support sprang up across Macedonia served as agencies
for the organisation of the Greek population of the region and paved the
way for the Macedonian Struggle. Education was, however, used as an ideological
and nation-building tool by others as well, notably the foreign “pretenders”
who pursued an unrelenting programme of activity through the
creation of their own ethnic schools. 6
. GREEK EDUCATION IN MACEDONIA
The growth of Greek education in Macedonia (the vilayets of Monastir
and Thessaloniki) in the second half of the 19 th century and early years of
the 20 th was truly spectacular. Whereas in 1877 Edward Stanford could
count 111 Greek schools with a total of 5361 pupils in the ecclesiastical district
of Kastoria, Pelagonia, Velousa, Koritsa and Vodena, 7 just a few years
later (in 1886) Ioannis Kalostypis reported “the total number of Greek
schools in Macedonia” to be 846 (3 gymnasiums (or ‘high schools’), 3
teaching training schools, one seminary, 71 ‘Greek Schools’ (or ‘middle
schools’), 74 girls’ schools, 283 primary schools, 80 nursery schools and
331 elementary (or ‘dame’) schools), with 45,870 pupils. 8
5. Konstantinos Vakalopoulos, - (History
of the Northern Greeks - Macedonia), Thessaloniki 1991 2 , 336.
6. Antonis M. Koltsidas, Ideological constitution, 300-301.
7. V. Bérard, . . –
– – – – (Turkey and Hellenism. Travels in Macedonia.
Greeks – Turks – Vlachs – Albanians – Bulgarians – Serbs), Athens 1987, 278.
8. Ioannis . Kalostypis, . , , -
(Macedonia. An economic, geographical, historical and
ethnological study.), Athens 1886 (rp: Thessaloniki 1991), 59. Comparable data for 1800 and
1885 in G. Chassiotis, L’instruction publique chez les Grecs depuis la prise de Constantinople
jusqu’à nos jours, Paris 1881. See also the Table of Greek Schools in Macedonia in the