Samarina
Samarina (, ) is a village and a former municipality in Grevena regional unit, West Macedonia, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Grevena, of which it is a municipal unit. Its population primarily consists of Aromanians (Vlachs). "Vlachohoria, or the four famous Koutsovlach villages of Grevena–Samarina, Perivoli, Avdella, and Smixi–are described as the summer villages of the Koutsovlach, where Aroumani is spoken." "The four Vlach villages of Grevena (Perivoli, Avdella, Smixi, Samarina)" "the Vlach town of Samarina" The population was 253 people as of 2021. It attracts many tourists due to its scenic location and beautiful pine and beech forests. The municipal unit has an area of 97.245 km2 (37½ sq. mi.). Location Samarina is located on an eastern spur of Mount Smolikas, the highest of the Pindus range and the second-highest mountain in all of Greece. At an altitude of , it is considered one of the highest villages in Greece an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Samarina Republic
Samarina Republic () or Republic of the Pindus (; ) is a historiographic name for the attempt and proposal to create an Aromanian canton under the protection of Italy during World War I. A declaration of independence was issued on 29 August 1917 by some Aromanian figures at Samarina and other villages of the Pindus mountains of northern Greece during the short period of occupation by Italy of the area in July and August 1917. In the immediate withdrawal of Italians a few days later, Greek troops retook control of the region claimed by the canton without meeting any resistance. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zicu Araia
Zicu A. Araia (1 July 1877 – 1948; , ) was an Aromanian poet, schoolteacher and separatist leader. Born in Samarina in the Pindus mountains, Araia was an exception among the Aromanian writers who emigrated from their homeland, returning to the Pindus after two years in Romania and living there until his death. Araia was teacher at Romanian schools in the region for decades, he himself had been educated in such schools. Araia's poetic production, although small in number, stands among the most important contributions to Aromanian literature. His poems focus on pastoral, folkloric and ethnographic aspects of the Aromanians, such as the lives of Aromanian shepherds or landscapes familiar to the Aromanians. Araia also played an important role in the two Aromanian separatist projects that took place in Greece in the 20th century: that of World War I, the self-declared canton in Samarina; and that of World War II, the Principality of the Pindus, with Araia having been an importan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alcibiades Diamandi
Alcibiades Diamandi (13 August 1893 – 9 July 1948, sometimes spelled ''Diamanti'' or ''Diamantis''; ; ) was an Aromanian political figure of Greece and Axis collaborator, active during the First and Second world wars in connection with the Italian occupation forces and Romania. By 1942, he fled to Romania and after the end of the Second World War he was sentenced by the Special Traitor's Courts in Greece to death. In Romania he was jailed by the new Communist government and died there in 1948. From Samarina to Bucharest Alcibiades Diamandi was born in 1894, in Samarina, into a wealthy Aromanian (Vlach) family. He studied at the Greek Gymnasium in Siatista, continuing his studies in Romania where he became involved in the Aromanian separatist movement. During the course of World War I he served as a non-commissioned officer in the Greek army. In 1917, he formed an armed Aromanian separatist band that operated in the Pindus mountains, then part of the Italian protectorate o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Principality Of Pindus
The Principality of the Pindus (; ; ; ) is a name given to describe a self-declared autonomous Aromanian political entity in the territory of Greece during World War II. In 1941, the territory of Greece was occupied by Italy, Germany and Bulgaria during World War II. At that time, Alcibiades Diamandi, an Aromanian residing in Samarina who had earlier been the lead of a previous attempt to create an Aromanian political entity, was active with an organization that later literature named the Roman Legion. As part of the activity of the organization in the areas of mainly Thessaly (and Epirus, and West Macedonia), it was mentioned as an intention of Diamandi to create a semi-independent entity by the name "Principality of the Pindus" or "Pindus Canton" with himself as the "Prince". The Roman Legion was never able to assert itself over the Aromanians whom it supposedly represented; it received small support from the local population. The existence of the self-declared principali ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aromanians
The Aromanians () are an Ethnic groups in Europe, ethnic group native to the southern Balkans who speak Aromanian language, Aromanian, an Eastern Romance language. They traditionally live in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, northern and central Greece, and North Macedonia, and can currently be found in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, south-western and eastern North Macedonia, northern and central Greece, southern Serbia, and south-eastern Romania (Northern Dobruja). An Aromanian diaspora living outside these places also exists. The Aromanians are known by several other names, such as "Vlachs" or "Macedo-Romanians" (sometimes used to also refer to the Megleno-Romanians). The term "Vlachs" is used in Greece and in other countries to refer to the Aromanians, with this term having been more widespread in the past to refer to all Romance-speaking peoples of the Balkan Peninsula and Carpathian Mountains region (Southeast Europe). Their ver ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aromanian People
The Aromanians () are an ethnic group native to the southern Balkans who speak Aromanian, an Eastern Romance language. They traditionally live in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, northern and central Greece, and North Macedonia, and can currently be found in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, south-western and eastern North Macedonia, northern and central Greece, southern Serbia, and south-eastern Romania (Northern Dobruja). An Aromanian diaspora living outside these places also exists. The Aromanians are known by several other names, such as "Vlachs" or "Macedo-Romanians" (sometimes used to also refer to the Megleno-Romanians). The term "Vlachs" is used in Greece and in other countries to refer to the Aromanians, with this term having been more widespread in the past to refer to all Romance-speaking peoples of the Balkan Peninsula and Carpathian Mountains region (Southeast Europe). Their vernacular, Aromanian, is an Eastern Romance ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman Legion (1941–1943)
The Roman Legion (), also known as the Vlach Legion () in later bibliography, was a pro-Axis political and paramilitary organization active in Greece in 1941–1942, in the regions of Thessaly and Macedonia. It was created by Alcibiades Diamandi, an Aromanian (Vlach) from Samarina (, or ) who served as an agent of Italy and Romania.Οι Κουτσόβλαχοι, Εθνολογική και λαογραφική μελέτη, Α. Κολτσίδας (Antones Mich Koltsidas), 1976, σελ. 115 "...στον πράκτορα των ιταλορουμανικών συμφερόντων Αλκιβιάδη Διαμάντη/ref> The Roman Legion initially had around 2,000 members, and was supported by a small part of the local Aromanians. It consisted of the dregs of the local population, such as former criminals. Davide Rodogno. ''Fascism's European empire: Italian occupation during the Second World War''. Cambridge University Press, 2006. p. 326. It was dissolved in 1942. History Dia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nicolaos Matussis
Nicolaos Matussis, also spelled as Nicolae Matussi (; 1899–1991), was an Aromanian lawyer, politician and leader of the Roman Legion, a collaborationist, separatist Aromanian paramilitary unit active during World War II in central Greece. Early life Nicolaos Matussis was born in the village of Samarina in 1899, into an Aromanian family. After graduating from the Gymnasium in Trikala, he studied law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He then went on to work as a lawyer in Larissa. He was a devoted Aromanian nationalist and became an early member of the Communist Party of Greece, even becoming a member of its central committee before being expelled from it in 1926. He then returned to Larissa where he was active in Ioannis Sofianopoulos's . World War II With the beginning of the Axis occupation of Greece, Matussis reestablished his links with Alcibiades Diamandi whom he had first met in 1920. Together they founded the Aromanian separatist state of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Andreas Tzimas
Andreas Tzimas (; 1 September 1909 – 1 December 1972), known also under his World War II-era ''nom de guerre'' of Vasilis Samariniotis (Βασίλης Σαμαρινιώτης), was a leading Greek Communist politician, best known as one of the leading triumvirate of the Greek People's Liberation Army during the Axis occupation of Greece. After the war, he fell into disfavour and died in obscurity in exile in Prague. Life Andreas Tzimas was an Aromanian. The eldest of four children, Tzimas was born to the family of Dimitrios Tzimas, an Aromanian jurist and lawyer from Samarina. Andreas' mother originated from an Aromanian family from Moscopole, in what is now Albania. Born in Kastoria, Tzimas spent his first years in Skopje, where his father had moved, until the Balkan Wars led the family to relocate once more to Kastoria, which now had passed from the Ottoman Empire to the Kingdom of Greece. Despite his father's conservative and royalist tendencies—he even served briefl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vlachs
Vlach ( ), also Wallachian and many other variants, is a term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in Southeast Europe—south of the Danube (the Balkan peninsula) and north of the Danube. Although it has also been used to name present-day Romanians, the term "Vlach" today refers primarily to speakers of the Eastern Romance languages who live south of the Danube, in Albania, Bulgaria, northern Greece, North Macedonia and eastern Serbia. These people include the ethnic groups of the Aromanians, the Megleno-Romanians and, in Serbia, the Timok Romanians. The term also became a synonym in the Balkans for the social category of shepherds, and was also used for non-Romance-speaking peoples, in recent times in the western Balkans derogatively. The term is also used to refer to the ethnographic group of Moravian Vlachs who speak a Slavic language but originate from Romanians, as well as for Morlachs ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pindus
The Pindus (also Pindos or Pindhos; ; ; ) is a mountain range located in Northern Greece and Southern Albania. It is roughly long, with a maximum elevation of (Smolikas, Mount Smolikas). Because it runs along the border of Thessaly and Epirus, the Pindus range is known colloquially as the ''spine of Greece''. The mountain range stretches from near the Greek-Albanian border in southern Albania, entering the Epirus (region), Epirus and Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia regions in northern Greece down to the north of the Peloponnese. Geologically, it is an extension of the Dinaric Alps, which dominate the western region of the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. History of the name Historically, the name Pindos refers to the mountainous territory that separates the greater Epirus region from the regions of Macedonia and Thessaly. According to John Tzetzes (a 12th-century Byzantine writer), the Pindos range was then called Metzovon. When translated (between 1682/83 and 1689) to a more co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Grevena
Grevena (, ''Grevená'' ; ) is a town and Communities and Municipalities of Greece, municipality in Western Macedonia, northern Greece, capital of the Grevena (regional unit), Grevena regional unit. The town's current population is 12,515 citizens (2021). It lies about from Athens and about from Thessaloniki. The municipality's population is 25,905. Grevena has had access to the A2 motorway (Greece), A2 motorway (Egnatia Odos) since the early 2000s, which now connects Igoumenitsa with Thessaloniki and Alexandroupoli at the border with Turkey. Mountains surround the municipality, which is situated by the river Greveniotikos river, Greveniotikos, which itself flows into the Aliakmon. Other significant towns in the municipality are Amygdaliés and Méga Seiríni. Municipal Museum (Grevena), Grevena Municipal Museum is located in the town. History Ottoman period Under Ottoman rule, Grevena was a small administrative and military centre, the seat of a kaza belonging to the Sanjak o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |