20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

754 Nistor BarduAromanians, became in that time a real metropolis of the Aromanians fromSouthern Albania and from the entire Epir 1 .Between 1720-1770, Moscople offered the image of a large commercialand industrial center, organized on corporations, producing guns,silverware, cloth, carpets etc, merchandise which, through the network oftrade routes, well-developed and guarded by the caravans’ gendarmerie, gotinside Macedonia, Greece, and further to Venice, Trieste, Vienna, Leipzig,Timisoara and Brasov, in Egypt and Asia Minor. (Popovici, 1934: 62-63;Iorga, 1969: 254; Papacostea loc.cit. supra. etc.)Traveling greatly, the Moscopolen merchants were taking to far awaylands and bringing to Moscopole, varied merchandise, but also ideas of theEnlightened West, where some of them had opened trade houses 2 . Reachingin the Transylvania of XVIII century, they “were present at the upliftingshow of the awakening of national consciousness”, contributing withmoney to the printing of books written by priests, teachers and Romanianstudents from Ardeal and Banat, and living the pride of being descendantsof Romans too. (Iorga, op.cit., 254; Peyfuss, 1996: 134) In their wandering,they must have brought such books to Moscopole and to other places oforigin from Balkan Peninsula, and these could have get in the hands ofAromanian scholars who acted in full Enlightenment Age, as we will see,for the spiritual progress of the nation they were part of.2. Moscopole’s economic well-being triggered a subsequent culturalgrowth, as happened in major economic centers of Western Europe. Nextto monumental buildings, there were many churches whose paintingsremained up today (24 churches for a population of 24,000 inhabitants,as Falo tells us (2003: 70, 114) 3 , several schools, the Moscopolens wereespecially proud of The New Academy (Νεα Ακαδεµία) “the most preciousjewel of the city” (Const. Skenderis 1906, Ιστορία τής άραίας και συγκρόνου1Papacostea 1983: 366-367, In a vintage paper kept at State Archives fromBudapest and reproduced by Papahagi, Per. 1909: 20-21, was written: “Moscopolit sitaest in Macedonia, confiniis Albaniae, urbs amplissima, non modo in tota Grecia, sed etiamfere per totum Turcarum imperium”. About the people, it is mentioned: “cives ius omnesunius nationis et religionis christianae graeci ritus eiusdem linguae que ab ipsis appellaturRomana…ipsis que inter se Romani dicuntur et nominantur”. (loc..cit.).2To this extent, read Papahagi, V. 1935, passim, Djuvara 1996: 100. Among themajor Western cities mentioned, we note Venice, Ancona, Vienna, Leipzig, Novi Sad,Bratislava, Belgrade etc.3Dhori Falo 2003, Tragjedia e Voskopojës ( Tragjedia e një qyteti ), Tirana. Theauthor, professor at Moscopole, did systematic research on the city and its history for 25years.