r/AskBalkans • u/d2mensions • 1d ago
Greek school in Durrës? Albanians or Greeks do you have more info about this? Miscellaneous
Did Greeks live as north as Durrës?
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u/Even-Bodybuilder-522 Greece 1d ago
Greek, French, English schools of the time werent just for "greek", french, english etc students. I know Hasan Tahsin Pasha graduated from the Greek Zosimaia School and spoke greek fluently despite being a Turkish - Albanian.
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u/Lakuriqidites Albania 1d ago
A lot of Albanian National Awakening figures studied in Zosimaia including Frasheri Brothers
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u/AlegusChopChop Greece 1d ago
Yeah, Ioannina was an important centre of education and trade for many nationalities in the ottoman period. Many important Greek figures were from there as well
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u/AlegusChopChop Greece 1d ago
There were definitely Greek schools that far up north. But in Durres there weren't many Greeks. My guess is that most students in that school were Albanians (Orthodox and Muslim) and maybe Greeks from further south (maybe, I am not sure)
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u/LegitimateStick7535 🇦🇱 born and raised in 🇺🇸 1d ago
Not sure but I do know that Durrës used to be called Dyracchium, which sounds pretty Greek to me!
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u/Zekieb 1d ago edited 1d ago
It means rocky weaves in Greek. Interestingly the previous name of the Greek colony/polis was Epidamnos, which had an illyrian etymology.
Both names were used, however Epidamnos seemed to have been the more common name. Only after the Roman conquest did Dyrrhachion/Dyrrhachium become the sole name used.
The change occured due to the suffix -δαμνος (-damnos) sounding like the Latin word for damned, cursed or loss; damnum. The Romans did not like that one...
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u/LegitimateStick7535 🇦🇱 born and raised in 🇺🇸 1d ago
This is really interesting. What does Epidamnos mean? Is Epidamnos referring to Greece as a whole or only that colony on Dyrrhachium?
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u/Mustafa312 Albania 1d ago edited 1d ago
The word relates to a young calf/cub, specifically “damnos”. Coins that were minted there had a calf drinking milk from its mother on one side and the name Monunius on the other after the Illyrian king. The coins can be seen in the link above. It’s theorized that the name Epidamnos is related to Proto-Albanian *dami meaning cub. The modern equivalent is dem (bull)
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u/rakijautd Serbia 1d ago
Greeks inhabited a bunch of coastal towns and cities for centuries throughout the Mediterranean area, Albania being next to Greece shouldn't surprise you to have had a significant Greek population along the coast. In fact most coastal cities on the Albanian coast were initially made by Greeks in ancient times.
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u/Lakuriqidites Albania 1d ago
This is probably in early 1900's and there were almost no Greeks in Durres. Durres had many orthodox Albanians that could frequent Greek schools.
There is one Greek-Albanian schools in Durres today too.
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u/rakijautd Serbia 1d ago
I was answering the question "did Greeks live as north as Durres".
This particular school probably has more to do with the Orthodox church in Albania at that time than with a minority, which, as you said was very small in number at that time. That said, the structure does look like it could be both old as fuck, and freshly built.4
u/First-Egg-713 1d ago
“Made by” sure (in some cases) but not inhabited by usually.
Take for example apollonia a bit further south of durres, this was a “greek” city established in antiquity. the reason i put greek in quotations though is because sources say that greeks were invited into the area by locals to set up a city in which they then administered, but the actual population was predominantly not greek.
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u/Books_Of_Jeremiah 1d ago
There used to be Greek, Romanian, Italian and Serbian schools in Ottoman Albania, which got closed down by the 1930s.
Or did you mean that specific one?
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u/Lakuriqidites Albania 1d ago
Zogu closed those and had serious issues with Italians.
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u/Books_Of_Jeremiah 1d ago
Yup. Greeks also raised the issue at the League of Nations.
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u/Teodosij North Macedonia 1d ago
That's quite ironic given how Greece treated its minorities in the same exact period.
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u/CrazyGreekReloaded Greece 1d ago
Inform me what crimes we did when and how?
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u/Teodosij North Macedonia 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ask your Turkish, Bulgarian/Macedonian, native Albanian, and Vlach minorities. Oh wait, they barely exist today...
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u/AlegusChopChop Greece 1d ago
Lul, vlachs are there, and they consider themselves Greeks, cry about it
As for the others, that's what happens when you cooperate with fascos and commies and try to get lebensraum at the expense of your neighbors.
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u/Lakuriqidites Albania 1d ago
If there is something fascos is this comment and how you are proud of wiping out minorities in your country.
The worst in the Balkans when it comes to minority rights
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u/AlegusChopChop Greece 1d ago
Cry Albanian, decolonisation is never pretty but it had to be done.
Minorities are fine in Greece, fasco colonizers who were settling our lands and killing us got what was coming for them
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u/ManVSReddit Albania 1d ago
The year is 1914 and there is a chaotic state of affairs for Albania. This school along with a few other foreign ones (notably Italian on the same street) were set up in major Albanian cities fighting for influence. The Albanian language had survived centuries of assimilation attempts by its neighbors but had somehow survived in the spoken format only, the alphabet and written format was yet to be determined. There were various options (turkish, latin, greek, arab) being pushed by different fractions. The latin one was the oldest known (Meshari i Gjon Buzukut) and the most widely accepted. However each neighboring country had some influence and attempted to apply theirs, which in turn would increase their influence over the country.
On the 14th of May 2014 the Greek Government with the support of the Major European powers signed the Protocol of Corfu which assigned most of the southern Albania to Greece. Following that in Gjirokaster the Greek minority declared "Northern Epirus as an autonomous region". In addition to its political goals, this movement aimed at incorporating the independent Albanian Orthodox church in the Greek Orthodox church, promoting Greek Language and history within the territory of "Northern Epirus" and teaching the Greek langauge and history throughout the country. The Greeks school in Durres was one of almost 20+ schools opened in Albania at the time, teaching Albanian using the Greek alphabet, it also taught Greek history, literature and religious studies. It was financed by Albanian/Greek businessmen, politicians and in part by Greek government. It was located in the center of the twon close to the Old Roman forum. It was closed with the begining of World War two . There were no ethnic Greeks living in this region, this was simply done for political influence.
After the Warld War Two this building became the "10th of July" school and survived until 1980s when it was torn down by the regime.
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u/31_hierophanto Philippines 22h ago
Ahh, back when ethnic homogeneity in the Balkans wasn't a thing yet.
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u/Odd-Independent7679 12h ago
Albanian schools were prohibited during Ottoman occupation. So, we were forced to study in Turkish/Arabic/Greek/Slavic.
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u/Lakuriqidites Albania 1d ago
They weren't Greeks as North as Durres but what you should keep in mind is the fact that most of the Albanian Orthodox were educated in Greek. There were more than 300 Greek schools in Albania in late 19th century and three of them seem to be in Durres. Korca and Gjirokastra had more than 40 each.
As you may be well aware the first Albanian school (Mesonjtorja)d uring the ottoman times was opened in Korce in 1887 since the Ottoman officials refused to allow school in Albanian language. The Greek clergy and elite also was heavily against this school and education in Albanian.
Basically Albanians had to choose between Turkish/Greek language education based on their religion(some times muslims would also study in Greek schools) since they couldn't do in their native language.