The origin of the name Preveza is contested, but is probably Slavic Albanian for “passage”. Maybe it means the north-south passage across the neck of the Ambracian Gulf, or the passage through the neck itself from the gulf to the open Ionian Sea?
The vista I’m enjoying now is of the neck out towards the sea and Lefkada. In 1810, this view would have been from the Albanian Ali Pasha’s part of Turkey towards the British protectorate of Lefkada. None of that changed as an immediate result of the Greek War of Independence (1821 – 1830). In 1864, I would have been looking from Ottoman Turkey to Greece, after Britain gave the Ionian Islands to Greece. It was not until 1912 (during the first Balkan War), that Preveza became a Greek town and at that point my view would be a completely Greek one, as it were.
In 1813, the Reverend Hughes visited Preveza. This was only fifteen years after Ali Pasha had attacked and sacked the town, which then had been taken previously from the Venetians by Napoleon’s French forces. He wrote about the aftermath:
“Its inhabitants are now reduced to about 3000, and these for the most part worn down by famine and disease, stalk like spectres about the deserted streets over which the gloom of departed prosperity is spread. Most of the houses, and all the churches, except one, have been levelled to the ground; the greatest part of the present inhabitants dwell in the suburbs, under sheds literally constructed of hurdles, open to the sight of every passer-by, and exposed to all the winds of heaven.
Tim Pott’s book also includes a description of the event from Leake’s book of 1835 (Travels in Northern Greece):
“Of 175 inhabitants of Preveza, who were taken in the place and accused of having abetted the French, three only were saved. The heads of the Prevezans, and those of the Greeks and the French killed at Nicopolis, amounting to 300, were sent to Constantinople. By heads is to be understood the skins only, which are stuffed with straw and moistened before they are presented to the Grand Vezir."
Nevertheless, Leake considered Preveza, “one of the best towns in Greece.” Potts relates:
“In spite of its drawbacks and poor housing [Leake] liked the abundant gardens containing fig, walnut and apricot trees, as well as the olive plantations… Pouqueville (1820-22) wrote enthusiastically about the town as it was under the Venetians, with its orchards and extremely clean houses, its fertile soil, a safe haven for tens of thousands of Greeks who remained free in that corner of Epirus. After Ali Pasha attacked it, it was soon inhabited by Albanians, to whom Ali distributed the houses, the furniture and the fields of the former Greek owners”.
So, it seems that Ali Pasha pursued some form of ethnic cleansing to rid the town of its troublesome Souliots? And I’m not sure what ethnic mix the current town possesses. And what does to be Greek actually mean?
It seems that, like elsewhere around the world, how you identify as a group can cause a whole lot of bother. After WWI, Greece (with the help of the Allies) gained a lot of territory from the waning Ottoman empire. But the subsequent Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) reversed much of that. If you found yourself as a Turk in Greek-owned territory, or vice-versa, that was bad news, and you could be persecuted at best. To ease the tensions, there was an agreed mass population swap in 1923. Between 1919 and 1923 perhaps 1.5 million people abandoned their homes and moved, some possibly into the vacated properties of people migrating the other way. But who was Turkish and who was Greek?
According to James Heneage (The Shortest History of Greece), Herodotus said that being Greek was sharing a language, religion, blood and way of life. For example, although Alexander the Great:
“…was from Macedonia, he spoke Greek, worshipped Greek gods and had Greek blood in his veins via his mother, Olympias, whose family was from Epirus. Yet could a man who claimed descent from Zeus-Ammon (a hybrid of Greek and Egyptian deities) really be said to subscribe to the Greek way of life?”
Anyway, as far as 1923 went, I understand the definition came down largely to religion: if you were Orthodox Christian you were deemed to be Greek, and you were deemed to be a Turk if you were a Muslim. [It's when you understand events like this, that the formation of Pakistan (only 23 years later in 1947), and the migration and associated atrocities, starts not to sound so unprecedented and bonkers. Anyway, most of this happened in what is now eastern Greece and not around Epirus.]
Do all the marina staff that we meet, or the owners of the tavernas where we eat, or the fisherman landing their morning catch, all now feel and identify as Greek? Even if they did, Greece has been a nation of waring factions driven by wildly different political affiliations. I’m sure that sad subject will come up in later blogs.
But as an example of how fickle the situation of being Greek has been, let’s consider the subject of the largest statue in the town. (Statues are a good, topical subject to get stuck-into aren’t they?!) The statue is of a chap called Odysseus (nice Greek name) Androutsos. He grew up in Ali Pasha’s court and became a commander. But he defected to the Greek revolutionaries in 1818 and helped defeat his old Ottoman boss. In 1821 he gained distinction in the War of Independence, but after falling out with the Greek rebels, he sought amnesty and re-joined the Ottomans! In a subsequent battle, the Greek rebels caught and executed him.
And yet here is an Ottoman, who was a traitor to Greece, having fought against the Greek independence movement, with the honour of having the largest statue in the Preveza. Because he had in his past fought and beaten a Turk, his later treachery was forgiven and he is a hero. Interesting.
Comments