The Vilayet of Janina, Yanya or Ioannina () was a first-level administrative division (

vilayet A vilayet (, "province"), also known by #Names, various other names, was a first-order administrative division of the later Ottoman Empire. It was introduced in the Vilayet Law of 21 January 1867, part of the Tanzimat reform movement initiated b ...

) of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, established in 1867. In the late 19th century, it reportedly had an area of .Europe
by Éliseé Reclus, page 152 It was created by merging the Pashalik of Yanina and the Pashalik of Berat with the sanjaks of Janina, Berat, Ergiri, Preveze, Tırhala and Kesriye. Kesriye was later demoted to kaza and bounded to Monastir Vilayet and Tırhala was given to Greece in 1881.

History

Greek National Movement in Epirus

Although part of the local population contributed greatly to the

Greek War of Independence The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. In 1826, the Greeks were assisted ...

(1821–1830) the region of Epirus did not become part of the Greek state that time. In 1878, a

rebellion Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...

broke out with the revolutionaries, mostly Epirotes, taking control of Sarandë and Delvinë. However, it was suppressed by the Ottoman troops, who burned 20 villages of the region. In the following year, the Greek population of Ioannina region authorized a committee in order to present to the European governments their wish for union with Greece. In 1906 the organization ''Epirote Society'' was founded by members of the Epirote diaspora, Panagiotis Danglis and Spyros Spyromilios, that aimed at the annexation of the region to Greece by supplying local Greeks with firearms.

Albanian National Awakening

Janina Vilayet was one of the main centers of the cultural and political life of

Albanians The Albanians are an ethnic group native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, Albanian culture, culture, Albanian history, history and Albanian language, language. They are the main ethnic group of Albania and Kosovo, ...

who lived in Janina Vilayet and Monastir Vilayet. One of the most important reasons was the influence by Greek education and culture south-Albanian writers received in the famous Greek school of Ioannina, the Zosimaia. Abdyl Frashëri, the first political ideologue of the Albanian National Awakening was one of the six deputies from Janina Vilayet in the first Ottoman Parliament in 1876–1877. Abdyl Frashëri, from Frashër, modern

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

, together with

Mehmet Ali Vrioni Mehmet Ali Vrioni was an Albanian politician and the vice president of the League of Prizren. Life Mehmet Ali Bey was from the famous landowning bey family of Berat named Vrioni. In 1877 he became one of the founders of the Central Comm ...

from Berat (also in modern

), and some members of Ioannina's Albanian community, founded the Albanian Committee of Janina in May 1877. Frashëri fought against decisions of the Treaty of San Stefano. However, the League of Prizren, was primarily Muslim Albanian, while the local Orthodox Christians felt more sympathy to the Greek cause.

End of Ottoman rule

During the Albanian Revolt of 1912 Janina Vilayet was proposed as one of four vilayets consisting Albanian Vilayet. The Ottoman government ended the Albanian revolts by accepting almost all demands of Albanian rebels on September 4, 1912, which included the formation of the vilayet later in 1912. Following the

First Balkan War The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, Kingdom of Greece, Greece and Kingdom of Montenegro, Montenegro) agai ...

of 1912–1913 and the Treaty of London the southern part of the vilayet, including Ioannina, was incorporated into Greece. Greece had also seized northern Epirus during the Balkan Wars, but the Treaty of Bucharest, which concluded the Second Balkan War, assigned Northern Epirus to Albania.

Demographics

The vilayet of Janina was ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse. There have been a number of estimates about the ethnicity and the religious affiliation of the local population. The Ottoman Empire classified and counted its citizens according to religion and not ethnicity, which led to inefficient censuses and lack of classification of populations according to their ethnic groups. The vilayet was predominantly inhabited by

and

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

, while the major religions were Islam and Christian Orthodoxy.Stephanie Schwanders-Sievers,Bernd Jürgen Fischer
Albanian identities: myth and history
Indiana University Press, 2002. , p. 57. The districts of Janina which were later incorporated into Greece were heavily Greek. According to the 1890/91 Ottoman Yearly report, the vilayet of Janina had 512,812 inhabitants, of which 44% were Muslims, 48% were orthodox Christians 7% were

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 Bulgari ...

, and 0.7% were Jewish. Orthodox Albanians constituted for 52% of the Orthodox population, whilst Greeks constituted 48% of the Orthodox population. Albanians accounted for 69% of the population whilst Greeks accounted for 23% of it. According to Aram Andonyan and Zavren Biberyan in 1908 of a total population of 648,000, 315,000 inhabitants were

, most of which were Muslims and Orthodox, and some who were adherents of

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. Aromanians and

were about 180,000 and 110,000 respectively. Smaller communities included

Bulgarians Bulgarians (, ) are a nation and South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and its neighbouring region, who share a common Bulgarian ancestry, culture, history and language. They form the majority of the population in Bulgaria, ...

, Turks, Romanis and

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

. According to Tom Winnifrith and Eleftheria Nikolaidou the Ottoman statistics of 1908 after the recognition of the Aromanian community provide the following figures per ethnic group: out of a total population of 550,000 the Greeks were the most numerous (300,000), followed by Albanians (210,000), Aromanians (25,000) and the Jewish community (3,000). Nikolaidou adds that the sanjaks of Janina, Preveza and Gjirokastër were predominantly Greek, the sanjak of Igoumenitsa (then Gümeniçe, Reşadiye between 1909 and 1913 due to honour of Mehmet V, Ottoman Sultan) had a slight majority of Greeks, and that of Berat north was predominantly Albanian. According to her the official Ottoman statistics in the Vilayet of Janina had the tendency to favor the Albanian element at the expense of the Greek one. Winnifrith states that a decline of the population is noticeable in these figures as a result of emigration to Greece and America, while the Aromanian figure appears small. Heraclides & Kromidha (2023) argue that Albanians were the majority in the whole vilayet with 2/3 of Albanians being Muslims, while Christian Orthodox Greeks formed a strong minority. Albanians were dominant in the north and center of the vilayet, and Greeks dominant in the south. According to Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb in 1895 there were c. 224,000 Muslims. The Orthodox population included c. 118,000 Greeks (partly of Albanian origin, Hellenized over a century by Greek religious and educational institutions) and c. 129,500 Albanians, and the Jewish population amounted to 3,500 people. According to Zafer Golen two-thirds of the population were Albanian Muslims,MEHMET AKĠF ERSOY’UN GENÇLĠĞĠNDE BALKANLAR’DA OSMANLI
while according to Dimitrios Chasiotis c. 419,403 of the total population were Greeks, along with 239,000 Turks and Albanians, and 6,000 Jews.M. V. Sakellariou
Epirus, 4000 years of Greek history and civilization
Ekdotikē Athēnōn, 1997, , p. 356 Lontos estimated that 3/4 of the population was Christian.

Administrative divisions

Sanjaks of the Vilayet:Yanya Vilayeti , Tarih ve Medeniyet
/ref> # Sanjak of Ioannina ( Yanya, Aydonat, Filat, Maçova, Leskovik, Koniçe) # Sanjak of Ergiri ( Ergiri, Delvine, Sarandoz, Premedi, Fraşer, Tepedelen, Kurvelesh, Himara) # Sanjak of Preveze ( Preveze, Loros, Margliç) # Sanjak of Berat ( Berat, Avlonya, Loşine, Fir)

Sources

References

External links

* * {{coord missing, Albania, Greece States and territories disestablished in 1913 Vilayets of the Ottoman Empire in Europe Ottoman Greece Ottoman Albania Ottoman Epirus 1867 establishments in the Ottoman Empire 1912 disestablishments in the Ottoman Empire