Parga
Parga is a town and municipality located in the northwestern part of the regional unit of Preveza in Epirus, northwestern Greece. The seat of the municipality is the village Kanallaki. Parga lies on the Ionian coast between the cities of Preveza and Igoumenitsa. It is a resort town known for its natural environment.
History
In antiquity, the area was inhabited by the Greek tribe of the Thesprotians. Mycenean tholos tombs have been discovered in the vicinity of Parga. The ancient town of Toryne was located there during the late Hellenistic Age. It owes its name due to the shape of its beach.
Parga itself is mentioned for the first time in 1318; the name is most likely of Slavic origin. Two years later, the town and its sugarcane plantation proceeds were unsuccessfully offered by Nicholas Orsini, the Despot of Epirus, to the Republic of Venice in exchange for Venetian aid against the Byzantine Empire. During the Epirote rebellion of 1338/39 against the Byzantine emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, Parga remained loyal to the emperor. The town came under the control of Albanian ruler John Spata of Arta in the 1390s. Vonko, who was also vassal of the Venetians in Fanari, was the governor of Parga at this time. After Spata's death, he tried to carve his own fiefdom in 1400. The townspeople considered his rule tyrannical, overthrew him and asked the Venetians for protection.
The town passed under Venetian control in 140 and was administered as a mainland exclave of the Venetian possession of Corfu, under a castellan. Ottoman raids were particularly heavy in the mid 15th century, as the senate gave the citizens of the town a 10-year tax exemption in 1454. A Romaniote Jewish community was recorded in 1496 in Venetian Parga.
In 1570 Parga was under the control of Greek rebels under Emmanuel Mormoris that temporarily managed to overthrow Ottoman rule from the coastal regions of Epirus. Though under Venetian control the town was subject to raids by Ottoman Albanian bands. During Ottoman rule in Epirus, the inhabitants of Parga displayed continuous support for Greek revolutionary activities.
Apart from brief periods of Ottoman possession, the town remained in Venetian hands until the Fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797. It then passed to France. As the relations of France with Ali Pasha deteriorated over his ambitions against the mainland exclave of Parga, the French twice considered using the men of their "Albanian" regiment against the mainland, but nothing came of these plans. The leading figure of the political life of Parga in this transitional period was Hasan Çapari, a strong adversary of Ali Pasha and a very wealthy landowner from nearby Margariti, who in 1807 sought Russian support as the British navy was harassing the locals of Parga. In 1812 the adjacent settlement of Agia that belonged to Parga was captured by Daut Bey, nephew of Ali Pasha. He then massacred and enslaved the local population. Daut was killed during the following siege against Parga. In 1815, with the fortunes of the French failing, the citizens of Parga revolted against French rule and sought the protection of the British. In 1819, the British sold the city to Ali Pasha of Ioannina (the subject of Francesco Hayez's later painting The Refugees of Parga), and it later passed to full Ottoman rule. This decision was highly unpopular among the population of Parga, a predominantly Greek inhabited and extremely pro-Venetian settlement. Parga then ceased to provide a refuge for Klephts and Souliotes and many residents of Parga moved to nearby Corfu rather than live under Ottoman rule. As such Parga was completely abandoned by its inhabitants after the British departure and its handover to Ali Pasha in 1819. Ali Pasha brought local Albanian speakers from Chameria to repopulate Parga.
During the first year of the Greek War of Independence (1821) the Ottoman garrison of Parga was unsuccessfully attacked by a small force of Souliotes and men of the local diaspora. In 1831 some Muslim refugee families from the Peloponnese were resettled in Parga by Reşid Mehmed Pasha According to an 1877 report by the Greek vice-consul, in Parga lived 365 Christian and 180 Muslim families. In 1877 the predominant language in Parga was Greek since even the local Muslim element spoke Greek, while some of them also spoke Albanian. In the early 20th century, apart from Albanian speakers, a considerable part of the Parga Muslims were Greek speakers and Romani, many of whom had immigrated to the area from southern Greece after the Greek war of independence in 1821. Ottoman rule in Parga and the rest of Epirus ended in 1913 following the victory of Greece in the Balkan Wars, and the town became part of Greece. As a result of the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the state of Greece in November 1924 transported to Turkey, 1,500 Albanian-speaking Muslims from Parga, as not being of Albanian origin. The Muslims of Parga had acquired Ottoman citizenship in 1913 but had later renounced it. On this basis, the Greek government considered them to be Turkish. As a result of protests, a Mixed Commission under the League of Nations with representatives from Greece and Albania was formed. On February 2, 1926, Qenan Mesare, the Albanian representative protested against the forced relocations to Turkey from the region of Chameria, the worsening of the living conditions for the Cham community and specifically referred to the village of Parga, where the majority were transferred to Turkey. In 1927, a group of 20 Muslim families petitioned for their planned exchange to be annulled. This small group was eventually allowed to remain in Parga via mediation by the League of Nations which made their status "non-exchangeable".
During the Axis Occupation of Greece, in August 1943, Parga was targeted by the German anti-guerrilla operation named 'Augustus'. The Wehrmacht units were actively assisted by units of the Italian army and armed Cham Albanian groups under Nuri Dino, Mazar Dino and Abdul Qasim. On August 10, 1943, the National Republican Greek League (EDES) and the Cham Balli Kombëtar (BK) held a meeting in Parga, attended by representatives of the two organizations including Mazar Dino. EDES asked for the disarmament of the Cham units and for their activity to pass under EDES command. These demands were met with refusal by the Cham BK. On 28 June 1944, EDES took the village and killed 52 Albanians. The following month the left-wing National Liberation Front (EAM) arrested 40 local Muslims and executed them. The remaining members of the Muslim community were saved by units of EDES. In general violent incidents in Summer-Autumn 1944 were quite limited and the civilian Muslim community was not found in danger. During the conflicts that resulted in the German retreat, the Axis troops around Parga had the armed support of Cham units. At the end of the war, the remaining Muslim Chams fled to Albania.
Various cultural and educational foundations in Parga were erected due to bequests by prominent locals, such as Athanasios Deskas. The modern town in general preserves its traditional architectural features.