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Stefanovikeio () is a small town in
Thessaly Thessaly ( ; ; ancient Aeolic Greek#Thessalian, Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic regions of Greece, geographic and modern administrative regions of Greece, administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient Thessaly, a ...
,
Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
. It is part of the Rigas Feraios municipality, and the municipal unit Karla.


Location

Stefanovikeio is located in the regional unit of Magnesia, in the Rigas Feraios municipality. Before the implementation of the
Kallikratis plan The Kallikratis Programme () is the common name of Greek law 3852/2010 of 2010, a major administrative reform in Greece. It brought about the second major reform of the country's administrative divisions following the 1997 Kapodistrias reform. ...
, it was part of the municipality of Karla, which became a municipal unit. The town is served by a
railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
on the Larissa-Volos branch line.


The name

In 1809,
William Martin Leake William Martin Leake FRS (14 January 17776 January 1860) was an English soldier, spy, topographer, diplomat, antiquarian, writer, and Fellow of the Royal Society. He served in the British Army, spending much of his career in the Mediterrane ...
visited Stefanovikeio and wrote that the "Chatzimes is a
chiflik Chiflik, or chiftlik (Ottoman Turkish: ; ; , ''chiflik''; , ''čiflig''; , ''tsiflíki''; /''čitluk''), is a Turkish term for a system of land management in the Ottoman Empire. Before the chiflik system the Empire used a non-hereditary form o ...
with 50 Greek houses." In all likelihood, "Chatzimes" was the name of the village's Ottoman owner. The headquarters of the Turkish lord of Stefanovikeio, the ' Konaki' (), is the only building that survived the earthquake of 1957. A few years later, in 1815, the name had been changed to Chatzimissi ("Half-a-Hadji")," as Arg. Filippides writes in his book "Geographia Meriki". This name, (), could possibly originate in the fact that the Turkish owner of the area did not manage to complete the
Hajj Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetim ...
to
Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...
and assume the title of
Hajji Hajji (; sometimes spelled Hajjeh, Hadji, Haji, Alhaji, Al-Hadj, Al-Haj or El-Hajj) is an honorific title which is given to a Muslim who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca. Etymology ''Hajji'' is derived from the Arabic ' (), which i ...
. Shortly before the area was taken from the Ottomans and returned to Greece in 1881, the village and the surrounding area were purchases by the Paul Stefanovic Skylitsis. His mother, Eleni Machaira, is said to have encouraged him to give the land away to benefit Greece, and, as reported by the residents, he did donate the land to the Greek state, prompting the people to name the village after him.


History

After the liberation in 1881, owner of the village became a Yugoslav origin, named Paul Stefanovik Skylitsis who - as said - won 11,000 acres by
Lake Karla Lake Karla () is a lake that sits at above sea level making it the only one in the plain of Thessaly. The lake is located at the northern end of the Magnesia regional unit in the Pineios basin, adjacent to Pelion and the Maurovouni mountains. ...
, from the Turkish owner at a card game in Istanbul. Stefanovik acquired his remaining property in Thessaly, by lending money to local beys. However Stefanovik's mother was Greek, and persuaded him to donate the estate to the locals. Stefanovik indeed – as reported by the residents – donated the area to the Greek State, and in recognition of this, the inhabitants named the village after him. After the reparcelling, however, those receiving farms paid to the State the value of land granted. Indeed, in most cases, they paid twice as the government collector who visited the village, usually avoided giving receipts for payments received. Eventually the locals became long-term indebted and financially illiquid. Therefore, if collectors appeared, many fled hiding in the swamps of Karla, reemerging only after the collector and his warden custody departed. Stefanovik, apart from the Stefanovikeio estate, owned some 31 other estates, 26 of which in Thessaly. Apart from livestock ranges, his property in Thessaly comprised more than 66,000 acres of arable land. All and all in his properties – collectively known as Stefanovik lands – 600 families were established. After his death, the estates passed to his London-resident nephew, of the same name. This is stated in the book "The kolligoi (sharecroppers) of Thessaly" by Sophocles Triantafyllides. Later on, in the year 1901, his nephew and heir, sold in turn these Thessalian properties at a low price to the Greek Government, for the purpose to distribute these amongst the local farmers. More specifically, on September 5 of 1901, the will of Stefanovik was made public in Istanbul. By this will – as mentioned in the newspaper "Volos'Thessaly" – amongst other large donations to the Nation, Paul Stefanovik Skylitsis, donated to Greece his Thessalian estates amounting to 22 villages, whose value is estimated to 10,000,000 drachmas of the era, under the condition that the resulted state revenues are given tho the
Ecumenical Patriarchate The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (, ; ; , "Roman Orthodox Patriarchate, Ecumenical Patriarchate of Istanbul") is one of the fifteen to seventeen Autocephaly, autocephalous churches that together compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. ...
and used to finance
Greek Orthodox Church Greek Orthodox Church (, , ) is a term that can refer to any one of three classes of Christian Churches, each associated in some way with Christianity in Greece, Greek Christianity, Antiochian Greek Christians, Levantine Arabic-speaking Christian ...
clerics still functioning under foreign yoke. On 07.12.1901, the Stefanovik estates sale contract was signed for the nominal amount of 80,000 pounds, a price considered as "token sum". The sum was raised via loan approved by the National Bank. On 14.02.1902 began in Larissa the acceptance of the estates by an Ecumenical Surveyor and 05/23/1902, the government decided to rent them, until they become counted and classified by land quality to allow for distribution. Finally on 09.29.1902, was auction for temporary rent in private estate of Stefanovikeiou and Rizomylos (). In 1904, someone by the name of Salih Bey, raised a lawsuit against the London-resident Ioannis Stefanovik, brother of Pavlos Stefanovik, claimed ownership of some estates, then already purchased by the Greek government. Salih Bey claimed he owned land titles for estates he mortgaged to the late Stefanovik; and that he was willing to pay the borrowed amount plus interest, in order to get them back. The case was heard before the Commercial Court of Istanbul on 07.03.1904 without an immediate decision. Finally the Salih case was dropped. However, the submission of the claim caused great alarm to farmers, as appears in Volos newspapers reports of the time. During Turkish rule, the village had been seat of the Bey of Karla region. Furthermore, about 4 km. from the last houses of the village to the side of Karla, traces can be found of older settlements at the sites "Magoula" and "Petra".


References


External links


village website

high school website
{{Rigas Feraios div Populated places in Magnesia (regional unit) Rigas Feraios (municipality) Aromanian settlements in Greece Defunct dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Populated places of the Byzantine Empire