Thessaloniki, Greek: Θεσσαλονίκη, is the second largest city in
Greece. The city is the cultural center and capital of the Macedonia
region. Its buildings from the early Christian and Byzantine periods
have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988.
The urban
area also includes: Triandra, Ampelokipoi, Menemeni,
Eleftherio-Kordelio, Evosmos, Agios Pavlos, Neapoli, Pefka, Sykies,
Nea Efkarpia, Polichni, Stavroupoli, Pylaia.
With over
1,105,000 (2019) inhabitants, it is the second largest city in
Greece after Athens. 1.4 million people live in the greater
Thessaloniki area. The name “Saloniki”, which goes back to the name
“Selanik” of the city under Ottoman rule, is still often used in
Germany.
The city was founded in 315 BC. Founded by King
Kassandros of Macedon in the 1st century BC by merging 26 small
settlements on the Thermaic Gulf into one city. The city got its
name in honor of Thessalonikē, the sister of Alexander the Great.
With the defeat of the Macedonian King Philip V against the Roman
army in 168 BC. The period of the Macedonian Kingdom came to an end
and the region was ruled from 146 BC. BC became the Roman province
of “Macedonia” and Thessaloniki became its capital.
The city
on the Via Egnatia and the Balkan road leading north to the Via
Militaris became an important trading center. Cicero was born in 58
BC. banished here and around 49 BC. The Roman consuls fled to
Thessaloniki. Around 49/50 AD. The apostle Paul (Acts 17:1-4 EU)
visited the city and the second Christian community was founded
(after that of Philippi). Around 300 AD, Thessaloniki became a
residence of the Roman Emperor Galerius. During his time an imperial
palace, the hippodrome, the Arch of Galerius and the rotunda were
built. Around 322, an artificial harbor basin was created by the
Roman Emperor Constantine I.
After 330 Byzantium or After
Constantinople became the eastern imperial residence of the Roman
Empire, Thessaloniki lost its importance. After the empire was
divided into the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, the city was
included in the Eastern Roman Empire. The city contributed to the
Slavic conquests of the Avars and Slavs from the north in the 6th
and 7th centuries. Century successfully resisted as a Roman imperial
city. Nevertheless, attacks continued to occur. The Saracens
plundered the city in 904. As part of the First Crusade,
Thessaloniki was conquered and devastated by the Roman Catholic
Normans around 1185. Since then, the Greek Orthodox city has seen
itself as a victim of Roman Catholic aggression. Around 1204
Thessaloniki became the capital of a short-lived Frankish Crusader
state. After times under the Epirotes and the King of Bulgaria, the
city returned to the Byzantine Empire. It experienced a heyday with
new churches and harbor buildings. The Venetians and Genoese shaped
the city with their own districts.
After the first Turkish
attacks in the 14th century. Thessaloniki was besieged by Sultan
Murad II in 1430 and then incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. As
Selânik, the Ottoman-Islamic culture shaped the city over the next
four hundred years. When the Kingdom of Greece was founded in the
south in 1821/22, the Ottoman troops were able to secure their rule.
In the 19th century The city experienced a massive boom and was
inhabited by Ottoman-Muslim, Jewish and European populations. The
city was connected to the European railway network. In a major fire
in 1890, the Byzantine and Metropolitan churches, the European
quarter and numerous synagogues in the city center burned down and,
in particular, 20,000 Jews became homeless.
The founder of
modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, was born in Thessaloniki in 1881. The
city was connected to the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul,
by a railway line in 1896. In November 1912, in the First Balkan
War, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece declared war on the
Ottoman Empire and the city was besieged by Greek-Bulgarian troops
and abandoned without a fight by the Ottoman commander. With the
Peace of Bucharest, Macedonia and its capital Thessaloniki became
part of Greece in August 1913. Under Greek Prime Minister
Eleftherios Venizelos, Allied troops landed in Salonika in 1915 to
fight against the troops of the Central Powers (Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey). This was followed by the
Greco-Turkish War in 1919/22. This ended in the so-called Asia Minor
catastrophe. The population of Greek origin was expelled from Turkey
and the Muslim-Turkish population was expelled from Macedonia. In
the area, many towns with names like "Nea xxxxxx" were founded by
immigrants of Greek origin. In 1917 a major fire devastated the
southern parts of Thessaloniki and a modern reconstruction took
place.
Thessaloniki had had a Jewish population since New
Testament times and was considered the “Jerusalem of the Balkans”.
In the 15th century Many Sephardic Jews were added. David Ben Gurion
studied Turkish in Thessaloniki around 1910. Before World War II,
the city had 40 synagogues and a Jewish population of 56,000 people.
With the German occupation from April 1941 to October 1943, the
Jewish population was forced to pay protection money with the
horrendous sum of 3 billion drachmas. Since the Nazi regime
considered this amount to be insufficient, the Jewish cemetery was
confiscated and the stones were given away as building materials.
Virtually the entire Jewish population of Thessaloniki was deported
under Aloins Brunner and sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz and
Bergen-Belsen. Only 2,000 of Thessalonian Jews survived the
Holocaust. In 1949, the reconstruction of the city began, whose
residents see themselves as the opposite of the Greek capital
Athens. In 1997 the city became European Capital of Culture.
White Tower (Λευκός Πύργος) The city's landmark is the White Tower,
which stands on the waterfront of Thessaloniki and was part of the
city's fortifications. Whether it was built by the Venetians around 1430
or by the Turks a hundred years later is an unresolved question. What is
certain is that it was used as a prison in Ottoman times. At that time
it was known as the “Blood Tower” because of the executions. The tower
was later covered with white lime. Today, however, you can only see the
light color of the natural stone. The tower has a height of 33m and is 7
floors high. On the lower 6 floors, the Byzantine Museum shows an
exhibition on the history and development of the city. At the top there
is a viewing platform with an excellent view over the waterfront to the
harbor. The excursion buses from Chalkidiki and Piera also meet at the
White Tower. The white tower is about a quarter of an hour's walk from
the city center. The visit is subject to a fee, for security reasons
only a maximum of 70 people are allowed to visit the tower at the same
time, multilingual audio guides.
City walls (Βυζαντινά τείχη της
Θεσσαλονίκης) The city walls of Thessaloniki are still partially
preserved, e.g. B. at the castle and the Trigoniou tower or the 12
Apostles Church. The fortifications date back to the period of Byzantine
rule and were intended to protect the city from Turkish invaders. Some
of the walls have been completely preserved; many sections were
demolished for urban development. Since the wall was repeatedly changed
and expanded over time, the different construction eras can be seen.
Another line of walls is in the northern part of the Acropolis and is
called Eptapyrgio ("Seven Towers"). This section formed the last line of
defense should the enemy break through the outer fortress. It was built
around 1423-1430 by the Venetians to resist the Turkish threat. The
Eptapyrgio consists of a surrounding wall that encloses seven towers.
The middle and largest tower was built by Tsaous Bey, the city's first
Turkish governor. Thus, the Eptapyrgio was called "Yedi Kule" (seven
towers) in Turkish, a name that follows the monument to this day. The
Eptapyrgio housed the city's prison from the end of the 18th century
until 1988 and is now a cultural center. The city fortifications are
located on the hill to the east of the old town.
Galerius Palace (Ανάκτορα του Γαλέριου) . Between 297 and 307,
Galerius redesigned the city in a Roman style with impressive buildings
and fortifications. Together with the eastern walls, a large palace
complex was built - the Galerius Palace. A large part of the facilities
and buildings were later used as quarries or built over, so that today
only a fraction of the former Roman city can be seen.
Arch of
Galerius (Αψίδα Γαλερίου), Εγνατία . The triumphal arch dates back to
Roman times and goes back to Emperor Galerius, under whom it was built
around 300 AD. was built. The illustrations show scenes from the war
against the Persians.
Rotunda Agios Georgios (Ροτόντα) . Originally
designed by the Romans in the early 4th century. The building was built
as a mausoleum in Christian times in the 4th-6th centuries. century
expanded with a propylon and used as a church. Under Ottoman rule it was
converted into a mosque. Today there is a museum in the rotunda. Open:
Mon, Wed-Fri 8:00 a.m. - 7:45 p.m.; Sat, Sun 9:00 a.m. - 4:45 p.m.;
Closed on Tue.
Roman Forum The Ancient Roman Market (or Agora) is
located on the upper side of Aristotle Square. The site is a large
two-terraced forum with two-story stoas, two Roman baths, one of which
has been excavated while the other is buried beneath the city, and a
small theater that was also used for gladiatorial games. Although the
original complex was built before Roman times, it was largely renovated
in the 2nd century. The forum and theater are believed to have been in
use until at least the 6th century.
Excavations at Dioikitiriou
Square. Recent excavations for the creation of an underground car park
in the square in front of the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace
(Dioikitirio) revealed a whole series of ruins of ancient buildings (3rd
century BC) and early Christian to post-Byzantine monuments such as
public buildings, baths. A marble head of Aphrodite and a bronze bust of
Athena were found. etc.
Byzantine Bath (Βυζαντινό Λουτρό Άνω Πόλης) .
This little gem is worth a visit. The bath was in operation until 1940.
Bey Hamam (Μπέη Χαμάμ) . The most important Turkish bath in the city,
built around 1440. It was in operation under the name "Paradise Bath"
(Loutra Paradisou) until 1968. Today it is an event hall.
Geni Hamam.
Built in the 16th century, the building houses the Aigli restaurant,
which also has a live music stage.
Pasha Hamam (Λουτρά Φοίνιξ) .
These Turkish baths operated under the name "Phoenix" until recently.
They were built in 1520-1530.
Pazar Hamam (Yahoudi Hamam) (Γιαχουντί
Χαμάμ) . The building of the former Turkish baths now houses a charming
flower market ("Louloudadika"). It was built in the first half of the
16th century and is currently being restored.
Bezesteni (Μπεζεστένι
Θεσσαλονίκης) . Former fabric market, building with 6 domes. This
covered market square was built at the end of the 15th century and was
the center of Thessaloniki's commercial life for many years.
Birthplace of Kemal Ataturk (Μουσείο Ατατούρκ Θεσσαλονίκης). Today a
museum. It stands on the grounds of the Turkish Consulate General and is
surrounded by a high fence.
OTE TV Tower (Πύργος του ΟΤΕ) . The 75m high tower is located on the city's exhibition grounds. There is a revolving restaurant in its viewing platform.
There are numerous churches in the city of Thessaloniki, even in places where you wouldn't expect them at all. Many of the ancient churches are very small, most of them have the typical design of the cross-dome church. Many of the churches were converted into mosques during the Ottoman occupation, and because of this and the destruction caused by city fires, in many cases some parts of the churches are no longer original. Thessaloniki is considered an important place among Orthodox Christians. Some of the places of worship are part of the world heritage:
Hagios Demetrios The Church of Saint Demetrios is the main church of
Thessaloniki. The five-aisled Greek Orthodox church is located very
close to the city center. A visit to the Hagios Demetrios Church is
definitely worth it. For a better understanding, it is advisable to read
about the church in the literature before visiting so that you can
better understand which part dates from which period. The various
frescoes in the church should be explained to you. The most interesting
part of the church is certainly the crypt, where Saint Demetrios is said
to have experienced his martyrdom, which is free to visit. Only the
chancel is of course closed, as is usual in Greek Orthodox houses of
worship. The church is free to visit and photography is also permitted
with flash.
Agia Sophia (Αγία Σοφία) . Those from the 8th/9th.
century The church is one of the most impressive in Thessaloniki. Right
next to the church in front of the popular "Iktinou" Street, almost 5
meters below street level, lies the ancient monastery and catacombs of
Saint John. It is believed that the tunnels were part of an expanded
aqueduct system built by the Romans before being used as a religious
site by the early Christians. Many archaeological finds indicate an even
earlier use as a pagan temple.
Agios Panteleimonas Byzantine
cross-dome church from the late 13th / 14th century with frescoes worth
seeing.
Panagia Archeiropoietos (Αχειροποίητος) . Dating from the 5th
century, a mosque in Ottoman times, used as a church again since 1930.
Panagia Chalkeon (Παναγιά Χαλκέων) . Byzantine church from the 11th
century.
Latomou Monastery (Osios David Church). The small
cross-domed church, the Catholicon of the Latomou Monastery, was built
in the late 5th century. built and is considered one of the oldest
Byzantine churches. The mosaic of the seated Christ dates from the 5th
century, the frescoes from the 12th century. Price: Free entry.
12
Apostles Church A beautiful Byzantine church, which is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. There is a café and a restaurant in the immediate
vicinity, and parts of the city wall invite you to visit.
Church of
Agios Nikolaos Orphanos (Ναός Αγίου Νικολάου Ορφανού) . It has important
wall paintings from the beginning of the 14th century.
Church of Agia
Ekaterini (Ναός Αγίας Αικατερίνης) . Byzantine church from the late 13th
century.
Chapel of the Transfiguration of the Savior (Ναός
Μεταμόρφωσης του Σωτήρα) . The location below today's building standards
and the small size make them appear inconspicuous.
Vlatades Monastery
(Μονή Βλατάδων) . Founded in the mid-14th century.
Church of the
Prophet Elijah (Ναός Προφήτη Ηλία Θεσσαλονίκης) . is a Byzantine church
from the Paleologian period (1259 to 1453).
Alatza Imaret (Αλατζά Ιμαρέτ) . Mosque worth seeing, restored, used
for exhibitions. One of Thessaloniki's largest and best-preserved
Ottoman mosques.
Hamza Bey Mosque (Αλκαζάρ - Χαμζά μπέη τζαμί),
Εγνατία, Θεσσαλονίκη 546 31 . Mosque worth seeing, restored, used for
exhibitions. It was built in 1467.
Aristotle Square (Πλατεία Αριστοτέλους) . The center is located
around Aristotle Square with the pedestrian zone of Aristotle Street.
Here you can go shopping, eat and drink coffee. But there is also the
traditional Greek market here. It's sometimes very narrow and very
crowded, the barkers are doing their best. Here you can buy pretty much
everything you need for everyday life. Aristotle Square is a major
gateway to downtown Thessaloniki, the main modern Thessaloniki is
gathered around Aristotle Street. Aristotlestrasse is a pedestrian zone
that crosses the city center from south to north. Here you will find
restaurants and cafes, it is the street to “see and be seen” in
Thessaloniki. Many shops can be found on the parallel streets on both
sides of Aristotlestrasse.
Thessaloniki Market (Καπάνι) . If you come
from the sea, you can also reach the famous market. All the goods you
need to live in a Greek household are offered here. Visiting this market
is definitely worth it. It has nothing to do with the well-known tourist
markets, but rather corresponds to the local weekly markets. The market
stalls are crowded in the alleys and offer fish, meat and vegetables
from local production.
Promenade. Thessaloniki Promenade, also known
as "Nikis Avenue" or "Nikis Street", is one of the most picturesque and
popular areas in the city. There are numerous tourist attractions and
activities here. Along the promenade there are various art installations
and sculptures that enrich the cultural atmosphere of the city. It is
also lined with restaurants, cafés and bars. Boat trips and excursions
to Thessaloniki Bay are offered along the promenade. This is a great way
to experience the city from the water. The promenade is also a popular
place for cycling, jogging and walking. There are bike rental stations
nearby if you want to explore the area by bike.
If you walk south from the White Tower along the promenade, you will pass some small parks
The old town is above the white tower, to the north. A large part of the city wall is still preserved here. But there are still a lot of old houses, some of which have been restored. You can really stay here for a long time because the old and new buildings have somehow grown together.
Thessaloniki has two important museums. In the Archaeological Museum,
which is located near the White Tower, the early history of the city up
to the time of Roman rule is shown based on finds from excavations in
Macedonia. The second important museum is the Byzantine Museum, which
gives an overview of the city's history from the Christian-dominated
Byzantine period. There are of course many other small museums on
various topics.
Archaeological Museum (Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο
Θεσσαλονίκης). Tel.: +30 231 083 05 38 . You should take some time to
visit this museum; allow around 2 hours for a visit with more intensive
study. In addition to various special exhibitions, there is a permanent
exhibition with a tour through the history of Greece and Macedonia, all
supported by exhibits that were found around Thessaloniki. It is allowed
to take photos, but only without using the flash.
Byzantine Museum
τού . Located next to the Archaeological Museum, the exhibits illuminate
the history of Macedonia through the Christian era from 300 AD. until
1430, the beginning of Ottoman rule. Frescoes, parts of buildings, grave
goods, coins, etc. are exhibited. In 2005, the Byzantine Museum was
declared "Museum of the Year" in Europe.
Noesis Science and
technology museum in the suburb of Thermi.
Jewish Museum Email:
info@jmth.gr . History of the Jews, especially the Sephardic Jews who
immigrated from Spain after 1492.
Cinema Museum, in the old port.
This is also the center of the annual documentary film festival in
March. Art exhibitions also take place in the nearby halls, which were
renovated in 2011. Open: Mon and Tue 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wed and Fri 9
a.m. to 7 p.m. Price: 2€.
If you want to go shopping, Thessaloniki is the right place for you.
In the city center you can find everything your heart desires, from the
cheapest frock to the outrageously expensive dress, from plastic costume
jewelry to real gold jewelry with precious stones. The city is the
metropolis where people from half of northern Greece / Macedonia go to
shop.
The city center with all of these shops is located around
Aristotle Square and along Aristotle Street, which is a traffic-free
pedestrian zone. There are also a lot of shops in the neighboring
streets; almost every self-respecting fashion brand has a shop here.
There is also a shopping center very close to Aristotle Square.
Heading north along Aristotle Street takes you to the city's traditional
markets. Locally produced goods are offered here: fruit, vegetables,
fish, meat, fabrics and a lot of other stuff... The residents of
Thessaloniki much prefer to get their supplies here than in the big
shopping center.
In addition to the typical Greek cuisine, you can find all the big
fast food chains in Thessaloniki, plenty of international cuisine, and
many Italian restaurants that offer quick dishes such as pizza and
pasta. Upscale restaurants are more likely to be found in the outskirts,
but you have to be lucky to find a cozy one among the many taverns.
Bougatsa is a puff pastry that is popular around Thessaloniki. It is
offered as a sweet dish with cream or semolina pudding, but also as a
savory dish with cheese, minced meat or spinach filling. The respective
filling goes between the layers of puff pastry, which is then baked in
the oven.
Thessaloniki offers an intense nightlife for every taste. From
traditional Greek music to modern Greek music, from jazz to rock and
other music genres. Thanks to its vibrant student community,
Thessaloniki offers a lively and colorful nightlife that few other Greek
cities can match. Bouzoukia nightclubs with traditional Greek live music
are also plentiful. Thessaloniki locals love to eat their favorite
dishes while listening to live music.
Dinner rarely begins before
9 p.m., and most restaurants and taverns stay open until at least 1
a.m., while nightclubs in Thessaloniki and Bouzoukia are open from 11
p.m. until dawn.
Ladadika (Λαδάδικα) . The most famous nightlife
spot in Thessaloniki is Ladadika, a picturesque neighborhood near the
waterfront and harbor. There you will find the best bars, nightclubs and
cafes for a great evening. Ladadika is of historical and cultural
interest as it is one of the oldest districts in the city and captures
the essence of old Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki is famous for its
delicious local cuisine, so don't miss the opportunity to eat in one of
the city's many taverns and restaurants. Thessaloniki's waterfront is a
popular meeting place for locals and tourists alike, with a variety of
restaurants, cafes and bars. In summer there are also bar ships that
depart from Thessaloniki port and offer nighttime views of the city and
a tour of the bay, adding something special to Thessaloniki's famous
nightlife.
Valaoritou Street (Οδός Βαλαωρίτου (Θεσσαλονίκη)) . One of
the best nightlife areas in Thessaloniki is Valaoritou, where the fun
continues well into the night. There are a variety of bars, each with
its own musical and aesthetic taste. The Valaoritou-Syngrou district
particularly attracts young people. This is because here are the clubs
and bars that mainly focus on hip-hop, rock and mainstream music.
Apo
Poli. The winding streets of the Upper Town and the Venetian Castle are
one of the oldest districts of the city and are characterized by the
typical two-story houses and cobbled squares. Here you can sample
culinary delights offered in the area's quaint cafes and taverns and
enjoy the views of the city and the Gulf from above.
Bit Bazaar.
Tucked away in a central square, surrounded by its small two-story house
between Olympou, Veniselou and Tositsa streets, this old bazaar houses
antique shops converted into cafes, taverns and bars playing alternative
music. It is a popular meeting place for students.
Rotunda. Located
near the university district of Thessaloniki, this area is home to many
beautiful and creative bars and attracts a large number of students.
It's not difficult to get a room in Thessaloniki. Many hotels are
located around the city center. Many hotels have settled on the
waterfront promenade. Everything can be found, from simple rooms to
luxury apartments.
Cheap
Crossroads, thanasiou Diakou 1, Agios
Pavlos (bus 23, from or 24, from Egnatia St., to Agios Pavlos stop
(ΑΓΙΟΣ ΠΑΥΛΟΣ)). Tel.: +302 310 203 700. 3 rooms each with 6 beds, 4
beds and 3 beds. Extremely clean and well maintained. 120 meters above
the old town on the Byzantine wall. Price: 14€.
If you still want a little more beach next to the city, you can take
a boat to Peraia (Περαία) and Neoi Epivates (Nεοι Eπιβατες) in around 45
minutes during the season. The crossing for the one-way route is €5,
reduced price €3, as of 2019). These ferry boats - also called
"Thessaloniki Waterbus" - run every two hours from the harbor (directly
at the harbor crane) and from the White Tower. These two places have a
sandy beach as well as numerous bars and restaurants and from the boat
you can enjoy a wonderful view of Thessaloniki from Thermaikos, the sea.
Further information in English: here.
To get to the better
beaches, you have to take a fairly long journey. The destination is
either the coastal towns towards Halkidiki, such as Nea Kallikratia, Nea
Moudania or the towns along the Olympic Riviera towards Katerini.
Alternatively, towards the east, Asprovalta is popular as a bathing
destination.
Thessaloniki is known for its university. The most important university in Greece is located just east of the center of the city. Not only Greeks study here, but also students from all over the world.
As in all of Greece, the keyword unemployment is also a big issue in Thessaloniki. Occasional jobs in particular are often in high demand among Greeks. It is extremely difficult for foreigners to get a job here; The Greek locals have to support themselves from the income, unlike a traveler. The wage level is significantly lower than in Germany, for example.
As in all of Greece, the concept of crime is not an issue in Thessaloniki. Violent crime is almost non-existent and thefts are rare. However, you should of course also follow the usual rules here, i.e. not invite anyone to steal. The police show only a moderate presence.
For medical emergencies, there are hospitals with emergency departments that do not meet the German standard of comfort, but are medically up-to-date. There are numerous pharmacies in the city where you can stock up on medication for minor illnesses; these are usually much cheaper than in Germany.
Thessaloniki was founded by
Cassander and was named after his wife, Thessaloniki, who was the
half-sister of Alexander the Great and daughter of Philip II and his
fifth wife, Princess Nikisipolis of Thessaly. Its name comes from
the composition of the words Thessaly and Victory, in memory of the
victory of the Macedonians and the Common of Thessaly against the
tyrannical regime of Fera and their allies Phocaea, in the context
of the Third Holy War.
The name is found in various forms but
with slightly varied spelling and phonetic variations. Thessaloniki
is an aggressive form, found in the work of Strabo [6] and is used
in Hellenistic times as the name of the city, formed from the name
of a natural person, as was done for Seleucia by Seleucus,
Cassandreia by Cassander, Alexandria by Alexander the Great et al.
However, the predominant form of the name is Thessaloniki. From the
Hellenistic era there are reports with the name Thettaloniki, mainly
from the historian Polybius. while during the Roman period, as
inscriptions and coins show, the figures of Thessalonica and
Thessalonica [city] appeared.
The type Saloniki (h), is found
in the Chronicle of Morea (14th century, pp. 1010, 1075, 3603 etc)
and is common in folk songs. It seems to be older as the Arab
geographer Idris in 1150 mentions the city as Salunik (hence the
Turkish Selianik). In one sense, Salonika came from the long-term
use of the expression in Thessaloniki> st'T'Salounik '>
st'T'Salounik'> f (h) Salounik. The name of the city came from
Salonika (h) in other languages of the region during the medieval
times. The Turkophones and the Ottomans called the city Thessaloniki
(Ottoman: سلاني, Turkish: Selânik) as well as the Jews, who settled
in the city after the Ottoman conquest and spoke Spanish-Hebrew
Latin, the Balkan Slavic populations: Solun ( Солун) and the Vlachs
Saruna (Vlach: Sãrunã).
Remaining a small city during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Philippi
is rarely cited in ancient texts, except for two historical moments, the
battle of Philippi in 42 BC. AD, and around 50 AD. AD the preaching of
Paul of Tarsus.
It is mainly known through the archaeological
excavations carried out since June 1914 by the French School of Athens,
then, from the end of the 1950s, by the University of Thessaloniki and
the archaeological service of Greece. The explorations concern an area
larger than that of Pompeii (63.5 hectares in Pompeii compared to 67
hectares of which only approximately 40 hectares were buildable due to
the steep relief, and barely a fifth is explored by archaeologists). The
site has been abandoned for thirteen centuries and has been spared by
modern reconstructions, which facilitates research, but it piles up
levels from various eras, then is devastated, having long served as a
quarry for neighboring villages, which makes it more complex. historical
understanding.
Epigraphy is another source of historical
information about Philippi. Patiently fed by more than a century of
records on the city and its territory, the epigraphic corpus includes in
2014 nearly 1,500 Latin and Greek inscriptions, mostly from the Roman
period. It is in number the richest corpus of the Roman colonies in the
eastern part of the Empire, rivaling those of the colonies of Corinth
and Antioch of Pisidia, although more important cities.
Site
Philippi is established on the site of the Thasian colony of
Crenides, at the foot of an overhang of Mount Lekani, a massif south of
the Rhodope Mountains, on the northern edge of the marsh which occupied
the entire plain in Antiquity. To the south of this plain rises Mount
Pangea, and the hills of Symbolon block the flow of water towards the
sea. The city is located on a natural terrace at the foot of an isolated
eminence which culminates at almost three hundred meters altitude and
dominates the plain. This conical-shaped hill, elongated in a
southeast-northwest direction, is the acropolis of Philippi, formed of a
gray rock mass of white marble at the break, a material exploited since
Antiquity by several quarries for the construction of the city and its
fortifications.
The philosopher Theophrastus, student of
Aristotle, wrote in the 3rd century BC. in Book V of his work Causes of
Plants that “in Philippi the air used to be heavy; it is much less so
since the land was drained and became entirely cultivable. The air is
lighter for two reasons: drying and cultivation. Indeed, the wasteland
is colder and the air is heavier there. Because of the vegetation which
prevents sunlight from passing through and air from circulating and
because it is full of water which oozes and stagnates. It was like this
around Crenides when the Thracians occupied it; the whole plain was
covered with ponds and trees.”
Appian describes the site in the
1st century BC. BC as follows: “Philippi is a city which formerly bore
the name of Datos, and before this, the name of Crenides, because of the
large number of springs of living water (ϰρῆνας) which emerge from the
the eminence on which it is raised. […] It is located on a fairly steep
mound, and its size is exactly that of the summit of this mound. On the
north side, it is covered by woods […]. On the south side is a marsh
which extends to the sea. To the east, it has the Sapéens and Corpiles
gorges. To the west, a plain which extends as far as Murcinum and
Drabiscum, and as far as the river Strymon, over a space of three
hundred and fifty stadia, and on a fertile and beautiful land.
Philippi was founded by the King of Macedonia, Philip II, in 356 BC. BC, on the site of Crenides. The objective of this foundation was as much to take control of the gold and silver mines of Mount Pangea as to establish a garrison on a strategic crossing point: the site controls the road between Amphipolis and Neapolis, a segment of the great royal road which crosses Macedonia from east to west and which will later be rebuilt by the Romans under the name of Via Egnatia. Philip II provided the new city with important fortifications, which partly blocked the passage between the marshes and the Orbèlos, and sent numerous settlers there. The discovery of new gold mines around the city, in Asyla, contributed to the enrichment of the kingdom of Philip II who established a monetary workshop there. However, according to Victor Martin's study of the duration of exploitation of these mines, they were quickly exhausted, and monetary minting does not seem to go beyond 344 BC. BC, bringing the wealth of the city back to its agricultural land.
Philippi is an independent city allied to the Kingdom of Macedonia. According to inscriptions dated from the Greek period, it has its own calendar with the names of months derived from the Twelve Gods, different from the Macedonian calendar, it has its own political institutions, with among others an eponymous priest, an archon assisted by other magistrates, its council chamber, its treasurer. It was only integrated into this kingdom in the last years of the reign of Philip V, or under his successor Perseus.
The archaeological remains of the city dated with certainty to the
Macedonian and Hellenistic era are rare, which maintains uncertainty
about the exact appearance of the city in its first centuries of
existence. The urban fabric can be guessed by faint marks identified by
scattered surveys: houses with Greek foundations, a crossroads mark
dedicated to Apollo indicate street layouts and suggest an initial
subdivision of the Macedonian foundation into rectangular islets, with
dimensions estimated at 27 × 82.9 meters, perpendicular to the road
which crosses the city. The monuments which, in their initial state,
date back to this period are the enclosure, the theater, the foundations
of a house under the Roman forum, a small temple and above all a
Macedonian tomb, preserved between the cathedral church and its
baptistery, interpreted as a Hellenistic heron (temple dedicated to a
hero).
Despite everything, the city remains modest in size; and
when the Romans definitively destroyed the kingdom of Macedonia in 167
BC to divide it into four distinct entities called merides, it is
Amphipolis and not Philippi which becomes the capital of the first
meris.
The surveys of the enclosure were published in 1938 by
archaeologists, Jacques Roger, for the lower enclosure, Paul Lemerle and
Henri Ducoux for the upper enclosure and the acropolis. The enclosure
poses dating problems due to its continued reuse until the end of the
Byzantine era. Successive reconstructions have hidden the Macedonian
foundations, except in the upper part on the acropolis, where often only
the first foundation, cut from the rock, of this first state remains.
Excavations of the theater, which rests on the eastern curtain wall,
nevertheless made it possible to uncover several layers of the rampart
in the 1990s, whose bossed structure is characteristic of the
Hellenistic period. Their dating is confirmed by a Greek inscription
commemorating the intervention of two Macedonian epistates, named
Pythodôros and Isagoras, perhaps during the reign of Philip V. In the
plain, on the other hand, proof has never been provided with certainty
of the presence of these levels. Some historians, like Georges Perrot,
gave the city a very small surface area, leaning against the rock, more
in agreement with their reading of the literary testimonies, which
placed the rampart further north at the foot of the Acropolis, while
Léon Heuzey anticipated that the city and its Hellenic rampart extended
towards the plain. During the only systematic exploration of the
defensive system of the lower city, in 1937, the high level of the water
table in the plain of Philippi, which was then in full sanitation
operation, prevented archaeologists from reaching the foundations of the
rampart . Nevertheless, the occasional surveys reached the large blocks
of Macedonian foundations, reused as foundations of the Byzantine
ramparts. On the southern part of the site, the Byzantine rampart can be
seen as a line of embankment from which sections of ruins emerge from
point to point, and Jacques Roger believes that this Byzantine layout
must also take up the primitive foundations there.
The enclosure
has the rough shape of a truncated rectangle with a perimeter of 3.5 km,
oriented almost exactly on the cardinal points, from north to south: the
small north side is the only one to have a sinuous layout, which follows
the line of the crest of the acropolis by joining its two summits. The
other sides of the enclosure are generally rectilinear with some
occasional deviations, mainly on the east side, where the curtain wall
describes some recesses quite close to the rack teeth which characterize
certain Greek fortifications. Two monumental gates marked the passage of
the road which crossed the city, "gate of Néapolis" to the east, "gate
of Crenides" to the west, another more modest opened onto the plain and
the marsh, a last at the top of the acropolis served the fortress. The
latter, at the northwest corner of the enclosure, is almost everywhere
replaced by Byzantine constructions.
In the area of today's
city and especially in Toumba, the International Fair, Karabournaki,
Polichni, Nea Efkarpia, Stavroupoli and Pylaia there were
prehistoric and later settlements and settlements. Until the 6th
century BC. the area was inhabited by tribes such as the Phrygians,
the Paeonians, the Mygdons etc. According to Hecataeus the Milesian,
in his time the Thracians and the Greeks prevailed. The period 510
BC-480 BC. the area had been subjugated to the Persians. The
Macedonians must have moved to the area of the Thermaic Gulf in
the 6th century BC.
An important settlement was Thermi, which
is placed by most archaeologists in Karabournaki. It had the largest
and safest port in the region, otherwise Xerxes I of Persia would
not have chosen it to anchor there and rest his fleet. Thermi was
occupied in 431 BC. by the Athenians, who two years later handed it
over to the Macedonian king Perdiccas II. In the second half of the
4th century BC, the Athenians again mediated in order for Thermi to
fall under the rule of the legal heirs to the throne of Macedonia
and not to the usurper Pausanias.
There are two main
testimonies regarding the founding of Thessaloniki. The first
belongs to the ancient historian Strabo and is the most prevalent
among modern historians with differences in the year of foundation.
According to Strabo, in 316 BC. or 315 BC. Kassandros, general
of Macedonia and curator of Alexander IV, the minor son of Alexander
the Great, founded Thessaloniki. In fact, Thessaloniki was one of
the two cities founded by Kassandros. The other was Plataea,
Boeotia.
The second testimony is of Stephen of Byzantium, who
considers Philip II as the founder of the city.
The
prevailing view of the founding of Thessaloniki by the usurper of
the throne of the kingdom of Macedonia, Kassandros, relates his
choice to the perception of the strategic location of this innermost
cavity of the Macedonian coastline, which could easily connect the
hinterland with the sea. creating the conditions for a prosperous
trade movement, while also providing security from raids.
In
addition, Kassandros considered the armament of Thessaloniki as a
second act, which would legitimize his claims to the Macedonian
throne after his marriage to a descendant of the royal dynasty. In
Hellenistic Thessaloniki, as far as we know, there were the tribes:
Antigonis, Dionysia and Asklipia and the municipalities of
Voukefalia and Kekropis.
With the ancient city of Thermi as its main axis, Kassandros
forced the populations of 26 local coastal settlements and villages
of the wider region and western Halkidiki to relocate, creating the
new state, which he named in honor of his wife, Thessaloniki. Due to
its location, which connected Macedonia with the Aegean Sea,
Thessaloniki in a very short time became the most important city in
all of Macedonia. The commercial importance of the city attracted
from early (3rd century BC) various settlers (Egyptians, Syrians,
Jews) increasing its population and topographic size, while
maintaining trade contacts with all ports of the East. From the
historical data it seems that the city had a permanent guard of
Galatian mercenaries.
Very little is known about the
Hellenistic history of the city. In the first years of
Thessaloniki's life, the competition with the also Macedonian colony
of Demitriados in the Pagasitic Gulf began. One could say that it
surpassed the capital Pella in glory and splendor, since it was the
base of the Macedonian fleet. The ancient Macedonians believed that
the city was protected by the gods of Olympus. A section of a
magnificent building has been unveiled in the modern Dioikitirio
square, which may have been the royal residence of the Macedonian
kings.
In 287 BC. When the kings Pyrrhus of Epirus and
Lysimachus defeated the king of Macedonia Demetrius the Besieger, it
seems that Thessaloniki fell temporarily to the possession of the
first and later of the second. In all probability, Thessaloniki was
walled up at the same time as its founding. However, the walls saved
the city in 279 BC, when the Celts attempted to conquer it and were
forced to leave for Delphi and Aetolia. After a series of upheavals,
the Macedonian city fell to the Antigonids (277 BC). In 273 BC. In
the city, the defeated by Pyrros, Antigonus Gonatas, took refuge in
an attempt to regroup the army, in order to beat the invader Pyrros.
There, in fact, a powerful fleet was built in its port, defeating
the Ptolemaic. This benefited the nymph of Thermaikos. From the
years of the reign of Antigonus II began the period of dense
habitation of Thessaloniki. In a decree of Istiaia (270 BC-200 BC),
two Thessalonians are mentioned in the list of its consuls, while in
another of 224 BC / 223 BC. mentions a famous priest of
Thessaloniki. At the same time between the years 239 BC. with 221 BC
The visits of the two Antigonid kings to the city, Demetrius II and
Antigonus III, are reported.
In 197 BC. Philip V took refuge
in Thessaloniki after his defeat in the battle of Kynos Kefalos by
the Romans. In 187 BC. the city minted its first coins with the
inscription THESSALONIKI and depicted Dionysus, Hermes, Pegasus, the
goat and the goat. Also on the 15th of December of the same year,
Philip V issued a royal decree in a marble column, addressed to
Andronikos' trusted representative, for the management of the
Serapion. In 185 BC. King Antigonides accompanied the Roman embassy
to Thessaloniki through the Valley of the Temples. There was a
meeting between Macedonians and Romans about the fate of the
Macedonians under Macedonian rule. After the end of the Thracian
campaign (184 BC-183 BC) a conspiracy was revealed against Philip by
his pro-Roman son, Demetrius, to overthrow him.
In order to
overthrow the pro-Roman hearths of Macedonia that focused on the
coastal cities, Philip transported settlers from the interior of the
country to the coast and vice versa. These harsh measures displeased
Thessaloniki, although this measure promoted its economy and
military security. Eventually he devised his plan of extermination
in Thessaloniki. This happened after wintering in the city in the
winter of 181 BC / 180 BC. During the spring of 179 BC. Philip
toured from Demitriada to Thessaloniki, showing the lords the
successor he intended: Antigonus, nephew of Antigonus Doson.
It is worth mentioning during this period a child of Hellenistic Thessaloniki, Ion. He was the leader together with Artemon of Dolopia, a corps of 400 javelin throwers and an equal number of slingers during the battle of Kallinikos (May 171 BC), which ended with the victory of the Macedonians. He was also the protector of Perseus' sons, whom he later handed over to the Romans after the battle of Pydna. During the Roman-Macedonian wars, in June 169 BC, the city, along with Aeneas, Cassandria and Antigoneia, heroically repulsed the attacks of the Roman fleet of Gaius Mark Figos, in which Eumenes II assisted. of Pergamon and Prussia II of Bithynia. Then 500 Gauls of Thessaloniki, strengthened the defense of Cassandreia, which again repulsed a naval attack by the Romans. At the administrative level the city enjoyed controlled autonomy, which was managed by the Church of the Municipality and the Parliament, being at the same time under the sovereignty of the king, who exercised his political power through civil servants - agents, the Royal, while appointing the military administrator , the Superintendent, who had as subordinates the Superintendent and the Commissioners.
The overthrow of the kingdom of
Antigonids by the Roman troops of the high White Emilius Paul in 168
BC. brought Thessaloniki to the borders of the Roman Republic (Res
publica). Two days after the defeat of Perseus at the Battle of
Pydna, Thessaloniki was surrendered to the Romans (June 24, 168 BC).
Perseus temporarily took refuge in the city, where he ordered its
guard, Eumenes, to gather the Macedonian fleet in the port and set
it on fire.
Until 148 BC, Thessaloniki was the capital of one
of the four administrative districts into which the Romans had
divided the Hellenistic kingdom, stretching from Strymon to Axios
(Macedonia Secunda). However, after the suppression of the
revolution of Andriskos, which seems not to have been supported by
the Thessalonians, an administrative restructuring took place and
Macedonia, with more extensive borders of the kingdom of Antigonids,
was declared a Roman province (Provincia Macedonia), ruled by a
viceroy with a capital praetor in Thessaloniki.
The
construction of the Egnatia Road by the Romans between 146 BC-120
BC, the main military and commercial channel of the eastern
administration, which connected the Adriatic Sea with the Hellespont
and Asia Minor, promoted its significant importance. city and
consolidated its protagonist's paradox within the growing state.
Thus until the second half of the 2nd BC. century, Thessaloniki
had emerged as a dominant crossroads and a base of commercial and
military activity. In fact, in the following years, the gradual
expansion of the Roman state to the east and north resulted in the
removal of the danger of barbaric invasions. The dangers reappeared
on both the eastern and northern borders much later, when the Goths
besieged the city in 254 and 268 AD.
In the civil conflict
between the democrats and the imperialists, which followed the
assassination of Julius Caesar (44 AD), the inhabitants of
Thessaloniki sided with the latter. The complete victory of the
emperors Antonios and Octavian against Brutus and Cassius in 42 AD.
in Philippi led to the granting of more privileges to the city and
the actual self-government with its proclamation as a "free city" -
Civitas Libera.
During Roman rule, many deities were
worshiped in Thessaloniki. Apart from the Dodecatheon, honors and
worship were attributed to Dionysus, the Kaveri and the Egyptian
deities Serapis, Isis and Arpocrates.
During the last
pre-Christian century, more and more Jews moved to Thessaloniki,
creating a large Jewish community, located near the port. In the
synagogue of this community, the Apostle Paul preached the Christian
faith in 50 AD. His two letters to the portion of its Christianized
members, as well as former nationals of the city, are the oldest
texts of the New Testament. However, there is no historical evidence
that the Apostle Paul preached in a Jewish synagogue and the only
reference in his letters has more to do with the concept of
"synagogue" as a gathering.
The Christian community of Thessaloniki prospered and became a
model for all other Greek communities, as can be seen from the First
Epistle of the Apostle Paul, where he praises the local church.
Thessaloniki, like all of Macedonia, followed the long period of
prosperity guaranteed by Pax Romana, the eponymous Roman peace that
ruled the empire until about the end of the Antonin dynasty. The
magnitude of its value is evident from the honorary titles bestowed
on it by a number of emperors. During the main imperial period, many
Thessalonians were granted the right of Roman citizenship (civitas
Romana).
The secular regime ended when Caesar Galerius
settled in Thessaloniki. Then began a fierce persecution of
Christians. Among other things, Agios Dimitrios martyred in 305 in
the city. However, apart from the religious persecutions,
Thessaloniki benefited greatly when it was declared the seat of the
Gallery, as it was decorated with many public buildings and upgraded
politically. Its prosperity continued in the following years, when
the emperor Constantine I built a port in front of the walls, which
was used until the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
At the stage
of the decline of the traditional Roman national-pagan state and the
shift of its center of gravity to the east in order to transform in
less than a century into the new state entity, which was later
called Byzantine, Thessaloniki again played a significant role.
Initially as the capital of Galerius and then as a candidate for the
new capital of the state, it modeled the dynamics that would be
involved during the Christian empire of the East.
The city was associated from the
beginning with the historical figure who would transform the pagan
Roman Empire into the longest-lived Christian kingdom, the founder
of the Byzantine state, Constantine. In 324, Constantine, in the
context of his dispute with Licinius, used Thessaloniki as a
military base, building a new port, the nickname "digging port", in
order to gather in it a fleet of 200 "three-masted" galleys and 2000
merchant ships, the which would carry his army of 120,000 men.
After the final domination of Constantine over Likinios in the
battle of Chrysoupoli, the latter with the intervention of his
sister and husband Constantine the Great was sent into exile to the
fortress of the Acropolis of Thessaloniki. There, according to the
historian Zosimos, he was assassinated on the orders of Constantine.
The transfer of the capital of the empire to the east, to the
old colony of Megara, Byzantium, from here to Constantinople or New
Rome, will contribute to the further promotion of Thessaloniki. The
growing perception of its geostrategic importance and the works that
are being built in the city, with the providence of the emperors
Julian and Theodosius the Great, make it "the eye of Europe and,
above all, of Greece". It becomes "Conqueror", is called
"Megaloupolis" and holds the position of the next city of the empire
after Constantinople (Thessaloniki after the great first Roman
city).
Theodosius the Great, as Augustus of the East
initially, used Thessaloniki as his seat. After repelling the Goths
in 378, he embraced Christianity, at the urging of the bishop of
Thessaloniki, Ascholio, and proceeded to the systematic
fortification of the city, a task he assigned to the Persian
Hormisdas. From Thessaloniki he issued the imperial decree which
defined Christianity as the official religion of the state. Contrary
to what one might expect, Theodosius was not popular with the
Thessalonians, due to the gradual penetration of the Goths into the
Byzantine army and especially into the imperial guard. Thus, in 390,
when the commander of the Gothic garrison, Buterichos, captured a
popular chariot race, riots broke out, during which he lost his
life. In retaliation, Theodosius ordered the trapping and slaughter
of 7,000 Thessalonians at the Hippodrome. Since then, the Hippodrome
has not been reused.
Theodosius was imitated by other
emperors, who settled in Thessaloniki in order to fight the invaders
or the barbaric invaders. The trials of Thessaloniki from the
invasions of the Gothic tribes continued until the end of the 5th
century, when the city managed to ensure a short period of peace and
prosperity. The Macedonian emperor Justinian also helped her, by
giving special weight to her problems and reducing Thessaloniki to
the capital of the Illyrian praetor (ie the Balkans).
By the time of the Iconoclasm, impressive public buildings and
many temples had been erected in the city. However, its walls, in
which enemy raids and siege attempts were crushed, proved more
useful. Between 527-688, the city repulsed dozens of raids by Slavs,
Avars, Persians, Draguvites, Sagudites and Verzites. The
Thessalonians said that they saw Saint Demetrius many times on the
walls, fleeing the invaders.
At the end of the 6th century
the Slavic threat appeared, which was to plunder the city for the
next two centuries. The Slavic tribes, initially under the
leadership of the Avars and later autonomously, made many raids
against Thessaloniki with the most important ones of 586 and 597.
Finally, the Slavic aspirations were given in 688 by the emperor
Justinian II, invoking Rinotmitos, who defeated the Slavs entered
the city triumphantly.
When the Iconoclasm began,
Thessaloniki became a place of exile for the iconoclasts of the
queen. Among them was Saint Theodore the Studite. In reaction to the
iconoclastic attitude of the Church of Rome, the emperor Leo III
Isaurus seized the eastern Illyrian from the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction of Rome and returned it to the Patriarchate of
Constantinople. After this event the archbishop of Thessaloniki
ceased to be the vicar of the Pope and the local church connected
its course with the eastern ecclesiastical administration. In the
second half of the 9th century, the mission to the Slavic peoples of
the Thessalonian brothers Cyril and Methodius took place, whose
action was connected with the beginning of Christianity and the
literature of the Slavs. From Thessaloniki Cyril and Methodius
started in 863 in order to Christianize the Arabs, the Khazars (in
Georgia) and the Slavs (in Great Moravia).
In 904 the city
was attacked by the Saracens (Arabs of the West) led by the
Islamized Leo the Tripoli. The intensity of the attack and the
unpreparedness of the siege led to its conquest and plunder.
Thousands of inhabitants were slaughtered, while more were captured
and sold as slaves. The following centuries were marked by
unsuccessful attempts to occupy Thessaloniki and by the constant
wars of the Byzantine Empire with its enemies, mainly in the
Balkans. Nevertheless, the 10th and the beginning of the 11th
century were characterized as a period of reconstruction and the
empire was divided into "subjects". Thessaloniki became the capital
of a subject that survived until the 15th century.
In
1185 the Norman invaders occupied Durres and then Thessaloniki, a
milestone in the history of the city. In the siege, which began on
August 15, 1185, the Normans used 200 ships and 80,000 men to
blockade the city from land and sea. The supply of the city was not
sufficient, the commander of David Komnenos was not able to properly
organize the defense, he abandoned the defenders and the
reinforcements from Istanbul arrived too late. So the Normans,
within a few days (August 24, 1185) after losing 3,000 soldiers,
captured Thessaloniki, despite the heroic defense of the
inhabitants, and looted it, killing 7,000 of its inhabitants. The
main historian of the fall was the Archbishop of Thessaloniki
Efstathios, from whose work "History of the fall of Thessaloniki
under the Normans" most information is derived.
The
occupation of Constantinople by the Franks in 1204 and the overthrow
of the empire led the Thessalonians to negotiations with the
Frankish ruler Boniface of Momferrato, the result of which was the
surrender of the city on the condition of maintaining the old local
privileges. Boniface founded the Kingdom of Thessaloniki, which was
short-lived, as the city remained under Latin occupation for 20
years.
In 1224 the Despot of Epirus, Theodoros Komninos
Doukas, occupied Thessaloniki and was anointed King and Emperor of
the Romans by the Archbishop of Ohrid Dimitrios Chomatianos.
Thessaloniki was proclaimed co-ruler (Constantinople remained king
even though it was still occupied by the Latins) and became the
capital of the Despotate of Epirus. Theodoros Doukas extended his
territory to Edirne. But before launching the conquest of Istanbul,
he wanted to subjugate Bulgaria.
The decline of Theodoros Doukas's state began with his defeat in 1230 at the Battle of Klokotnitsa by Ivan Assen II. Most of its territory was occupied by the Bulgarians while in Thessaloniki the successors of Theodore continued to reign until 1246, when it was occupied by the emperor of Nicaea John III Dukas Vatatzis. In 1261, Michael XVI Palaiologos occupied Constantinople, which again became the capital of the Byzantines. Over the years, the position of Thessaloniki was upgraded. In the 14th century it became a real empire, as the Byzantine Empire was now based in the Balkans and not in Asia Minor. The city was usually ruled by the emperor's son or another member of the imperial dynasty.
Thessaloniki as a ruler was
involved in the two civil wars, the first between Andronikos II and
Andronikos III (1320-1328) and the second between John VI
Kantakouzinos and John V Palaiologos (1341-1354). In fact, the
attempt of Ioannis Kantakouzinos to occupy the city in 1342 led to
the manifestation of a social revolution. The leaders of the
insurgents were the Zealots, who came from the middle and lower
social strata.
The revolutionary movement of the Zealots
emerged as an original democratic island in the medieval world,
where hegemony, the separation of the nobles from the people and the
"mercy of God" administration were the absolute establishments. The
struggle between the Grand Duke Alexios Apokafkos and Ioannis
Kantakouzinos for dominance over the Byzantine throne led the empire
into a civil war, which resulted in the creation of thousands of
economic refugees, crowded in large urban centers such as
Thessaloniki.
The growing dissatisfaction of the popular
classes against the nobles, who supported Kantakouzenos, brought the
attitude of the Zealots in 1342. At the beginning of the year the
people of Thessaloniki, sided with Anna of Savoy and the Apocalypse
and led by the Zealots, revolted. and looted the houses of the city
governor and the wealthy nobles, while those aristocrats who could
not escape were exiled and slaughtered. After imposing themselves
completely in the city, the Zealots took power.
This early
movement of proletarian claim prevailed until 1349 when a regime of
self-government was imposed. The Zealots then tried to reach an
agreement with the Serbian ruler Stefan Dusan, in order to
strengthen their position. The people of Thessaloniki reacted and
the counter-revolution, organized by members of the imperial court,
overthrew the Zealots, whose leaders were forced to leave the city.
In 1350 Anna of Savoy settled in the city, who ruled in the name
of her son, John V. Contrary to what might be expected, the
political unrest did not prevent the city from flourishing. During
the first half of the 14th century, many scholars lived in
Thessaloniki and temples, monasteries and secular public buildings
were built. Especially in the field of art, the schools of
Thessaloniki influenced the entire Balkan Christian world and
Russia. This whole spiritual movement was called the Palaeologan
Renaissance and is the period during which the ruling Thessaloniki
claims the spiritual primacy of the empire. After 1350, the greatest
theologian of the 14th century and pioneer of the Hesychasm
movement, Saint Gregory Palamas, settled in Thessaloniki. The
hesychastic movement, although it was a brake on the teaching of
philosophical studies and classical education, nevertheless renewed
the monastic movement and art that continued to survive on Mount
Athos even after the overthrow of the Byzantine Empire.
The Ottoman advance into the European territories
of the Byzantine Empire and the gradual occupation of the Balkan
Peninsula manifested their effects in Thessaloniki, which, excluded
from the land and without the possibility of receiving foreign aid
in 1387, after a four-year siege, became a tax haven. AD and
accepted an Ottoman guard. Two years later, and in a climate of
uncertainty that temporarily prevailed after the assassination of
Sultan Murad I, the Thessalonians drove out the Ottoman garrison of
the city.
The historian Doukas mentions the destruction of
Thessaloniki in 1391 by Bayezid I due to the escape of Manuel II
from the sultan's court and his rise to emperor. From that time
there is the first reference in Greek sources for child molestation,
the forced Islamization of children. This happened in 1395 and
refers to a consoling speech of the then Archbishop of Thessaloniki
Isidoros to the parents of the children. Thessaloniki is considered
to be the first major Greek city to pay this "blood tax".
The first Ottoman occupation of the city lasted until 1403 when
Emperor Manuel, taking advantage of the defeat of Bayezid by the
Mongols of Tamerlane at the Battle of Ankara (1402) and the ensuing
civil strife between his sons for succession, succeeded in
Thessaloniki in exchange for his contribution to Bayezid's son,
Suleiman Tselebi.
The alleviation of the internal problems of
the Ottoman hegemony, its new aggressive momentum against the
Byzantine lands but also the weakness of the decadent empire in
their defense led in 1423 Andronikos Palaiologos, son of the emperor
of Thessaloniki Manolos to Paul to the Venetians.
The
seven-year occupation by the troops of the Venetian Republic was
essentially a period of decline for the city. Its naval and land
blockade by the Ottomans meant its economic weakening, which in
combination with the dynastic behavior of the Venetians intensified
popular discontent.
During the siege under Sultan Murad II
the city resisted and did not accept the sultan's proposal for
surrender. Then the sultan "preached with a trumpet (to his army)
saying: I give you everything in the city, men, women, children,
silver and gold, just leave the city to me". Finally, the "ruling
city" of the Eastern Roman Empire was finally occupied by the
Ottomans on March 29, 1430 after a strong siege of three days. Wild
plunder and captivity of the inhabitants followed. The captives are
estimated at about 7,000. Some of them were released after being
bought by relatives and friends, others were not sold, while part of
the population had already left before the fall and did not return.
The sultan allowed those who were liberated to settle in the city
and keep their property, while he confiscated all the property that
was left homeless and distributed it to the Ottomans who settled in
the suburbs (Genitze Vardar). At first he did not bother the
churches and monasteries, but after he returned two years later and
after the Ottomans had settled in the suburbs, he confiscated
churches and monasteries with their property and income. He donated
the most important of them to his confidants or changed them into
mosques and seminaries. He left to the Christians only four small
churches, including that of Agios Dimitrios.
The first years
of the Ottoman conquest were difficult, as the war fronts were still
close, the population had greatly decreased and trade was steadily
declining. In fact, according to sources of the time, the
inhabitants of the city did not exceed 2,000 people at the time
immediately after its conquest. Sultan Murad II brought 1,000
families of Yuruks from Giannitsa and Christians from Halkidiki. The
multinational character of the Ottoman Empire and its relative
tolerance of the "peoples of the Bible", as indicated by the
prevailing Islamic law, helped to settle the persecuted Jews.
Thessaloniki received Ashkenazi Jews from Central European countries
and Sephardim, who were expelled from Spain after the final
overthrow of the Arab state of Granada. It is estimated that by the
end of the 15th century, almost 20,000 Jews from Spain had settled
in Thessaloniki, which radically changed the image of the city. In
the census of 1519, Thessaloniki had 29,220 inhabitants, of whom
53.8% were Jews, 23.5% Muslims and 22.7% Christians.
Between
1520 and 1530 the city had 2645 Jewish families, 1229 Ottoman and
989 Christian. The Jews of Central Europe (Ashkenazim), who began to
settle in Thessaloniki in 1376, were not assimilated by the larger
Jewish population that arrived after 1492 from Spain, as they
remained committed to their own traditions. The Jews were the
dominant element of the city, both demographically and economically.
The different religious communities lived in different
neighborhoods. At the beginning of the 17th century there were 56
Jewish quarters, 48 Muslim and 16 Christian.
The population of the urban center fluctuated considerably,
mainly due to the frequent fires and the many epidemics that plagued
the city until the 18th century. Disagreements were also frequent,
not so much between the three religious communities, but within each
other. Most important was the presence and action of the
pseudo-media Sabethai Sevi, who initially presented himself as the
Messiah to the Jews of Thessaloniki, but later (1666) embraced Islam
along with many thousands of his followers, who were called
"donmedes". [70] Most disputes among Muslims were caused by social
inequalities and janissary uprisings. The most important dispute
concerning the Greek Christian community was the dispute over the
management of the community between the metropolitan of Thessaloniki
and the rulers of the city.
From an economic point of view,
the city began to prosper after 1520. At that time, handicrafts
(textiles, goldsmithing, carpet weaving, tannery) and international
trade developed. This flourishing continued until the middle of the
17th century. Then the economic data changed, as world trade moved
to the Atlantic and the Ottoman Empire itself entered a phase of
decline. The hardship lasted until the second decade of the 18th
century, when trade resumed, this time to Austria and Russia, mainly
through tobacco, wool and cotton. Growth was to continue until the
Napoleonic Wars (1798-1814), when the recession that struck Europe
did not leave the Ottoman Empire unaffected. Freight traffic began
to increase steadily after 1840.
Although at the beginning of
the 19th century the Greeks had come to compete in population and
economy with the Jewish community -especially after the great
massacre at the outbreak of the Greek Revolution of 1821-
Thessaloniki continued to be until 1912 a unique, global city
phenomenon with such a large Jewish community, and was called by the
Jews themselves "Jerusalem of the Balkans" and "Mother of Israel".
Thessaloniki or Thessaloniki, according to the Turkish variant
of its name, continued throughout its stay within the borders of the
sultanate to be an important administrative, economic and religious
center with a role similar to that held in the Byzantine period.
Bath complexes, Islamic monasteries, mosques were erected, and
several Christian temples were converted into places of Muslim
worship. The church of Agios Dimitrios was converted into a mosque
in 1491 and remained so until its liberation in 1912. Until the
Hati-Humayun decree (1856) it was not allowed to build new Christian
churches in places where there were no pre-existing temples. In
1669, the French monk Robert de Dro mentioned Thessaloniki as one of
the most beautiful and famous cities in Greece. In 1737, the French
priest and writer Joseph de la Porte reported that Thessaloniki
numbered 48 mosques, 30 churches and 36 synagogues.
The Thessalonians organized and organized
Hellenism from a very early age, in order to create the conditions
for a universal Greek revolution. The scholar from Thessaloniki,
Grigorios Zalykis, was the pioneer of the establishment of the
secret organization Ellinoglosso Hotel, the forerunner of the
Friendly Society, in Paris in 1809.
The merchant Michael
Ouzounidis was one of the original members of the Friendly Society.
Also, the teacher and scholar Miltiadis Agathonikos contributed a
lot as a teacher to the awakening of the Greeks. Other notable
members of the Friendly Society from Thessaloniki were the diplomat
Dimitrios Argyropoulos, Ioannis Skandalidis, Nikolaos Ouzounidis,
Pantazis Bakaloglous and the merchants Moschos Sakellios, Athanasios
Skandalos, Christodoulos Palos. Sporadic uprisings with mainly
social demands, coming from the Greek population, were relatively
easily suppressed by the administration. However, the Ottomans
showed special cruelty with the outbreak of the revolution in
Halkidiki in March 1821 by the banker and merchant Emmanuel Papa,
when retaliation was applied against the Greeks in Thessaloniki.
Firman of May 3, 1821 reported:
The movement of the unbelievers
and cursed Greeks in Moldavia, spread to the country beyond
Thessaloniki, provoked anarchy and turmoil among the inhabitants
there ... From these events it was once shown that this revolution
of the unbelievers has a general character. devised and pre-planned
after consultation of the whole tribe.
At the proclamation of the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman army
to the Muslims of Thessaloniki, all Muslims aged 16-60 were called
to take up arms against the revolutionaries. A fee of four piastres
was announced for each head that would be delivered to the camp.
Signed by Abdul Kabul Mohammed, "commander of the faithful of
Macedonia and Thessaly".
Initially about 400 Christians, 100
of whom were Mount Athos monks, were taken hostage, most of whom
were later executed. Most of the massacres took place in May 1821,
marking the beginning of a period of terrorism, which lasted until
1823, the year in which the Macedonian revolutionary movements were
suppressed.
During the Greek Revolution of 1821 the Ottomans
also killed the commissioner of the metropolitan of Thessaloniki and
bishop Kitros Meletios, the nobles (members of the Friendly Society)
Georgios Vlalis, Christos Menexes (commissioner of the church of
Agios Minas), Christodoulos Georgios Balaos Polydoros, Athanasios
Skandalidis, Anastasios Gounari, Dimitrios Pappas, Anastasios
Kidoniatis, Argyros Tapouchtsis from Epanomi etc. in the then
Alevragoras square (today's market Kapani - Vlali), on May 18 [80].
Massacres also took place in the area of Rotonda and at the Axios
Gate. Similar scenes unfolded in the courtyard of the metropolitan
church of St. Gregory of Palamas, where 2,000 Greeks had taken
refuge, and many of them were eventually killed by the Turkish mob.
Later, in 1822, the Greek prominent and consul of Denmark, Emmanuel
Kyriakou, was strangled after many days of imprisonment.
In
total, the Greeks of Thessaloniki who fell victim to the executions
of the Ottomans are estimated at 25,000 in 1821 alone, which caused
an irreparable blow to the Greek community of the city (the Greek
community recovered in the 1880s, ie 60 years later). Important
personalities of Thessaloniki who led the Greek games at that time
were Grigorios Zalykis, Miltiadis Agathonikos, Konstantinos Tattis,
Ioannis Goutas Kaftantzoglou, Ioannis Michael (who participated in
the General Assembly of the National Assembly, Ioannis Troizinas,
Paikos, Antonios Papachristou, Anastasios Boudelis and others.
It is characteristic that the first secretary of the Parliament
of the First National Assembly of Epidaurus was Ioannis Skandalidis
from Thessaloniki, one of the proxies of Macedonia, while the
beginning of the Revolution was proclaimed by Dimitrios Argyropoulos
from Thessaloniki on February 21st, February 21st. The revolution in
Macedonia ended around the end of May 1822. After that many warriors
landed in Central and Southern Greece where they continued the
struggle.
The villages near Thessaloniki also suffered great
damage, especially to the area of Halkidiki, even those that did
not revolt. The situation of the province during June and July 1821
is reported by an English eyewitness. After the uprising of Greek
villages in Halkidiki, many Muslims took refuge in Thessaloniki for
protection while their villages were burned. The Turkish army
counterattacked and looted and burned Vasilika, Karabournou, Epanomi
and Galatista and others, even those that had not revolted like
Zagliveri. The monks of the Monastery of Agia Anastasia (Pharmacist)
were beheaded despite opening the doors and welcoming the Turks.
Large numbers of Jews followed the Turkish army and bought booty at
low prices. Women and children were sold as slaves, old women for
40-60 piastres and women and children for 200-300. The entire area
of Kalamaria (meaning western Halkidiki) which numbered about
60,000 inhabitants was destroyed and deserted.
Prominent and
ordinary Greeks were held hostage or even killed by beatings, while
the Greeks also killed the Turks they captured. The Turkish
administration forcibly extracted large sums of money that the
Greeks, in order to save, pledged valuable objects and church
utensils at low prices or borrowed from the Jews at an interest rate
of 30-50%.
The end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829 brought calm to the European territories of Turkey and the consequent economic development. The positive climate was intensified by the Tanzimat reforms from the end of the 1830s. Thessaloniki further increased its commercial power while at the same time the reconstruction of important administrative, educational and private buildings began. The last decades of the 19th century saw a significant increase in population, from 50,000 in 1865 to 90,000 in 1880 and 120,000 in 1895.
In 1877, while international fermentations were taking place that
led to the Treaty of Agios Stefanos, Romanian newspapers published
statistics with Romanian populations in Thessaly, Epirus and
Macedonia in an attempt to appropriate the Vlachs. In this context,
they presented statistics of the Romanian consulate in Thessaloniki,
presenting Thessaloniki with a population of 20,000 Romanians. This
was followed by strong reactions and incidents caused by the Greek
students from Thessaloniki outside the Romanian consulate which
ended in a majestic silent parade (several thousand protesters)
ending at the Romanian consulate. Representatives of the Israeli
community of the city also participated in the silent demonstration,
in order to support the Greekness of the Christian population of the
city.
The consequence of the reactions was that the Ottoman
Governor of Thessaloniki published official statistics presenting
the Greek population at 25,000 (out of a total of almost 90,000
inhabitants) and expelled the Romanian consul. During the Macedonian
Struggle, the Thessalonians organized, founding the Philoptochos
Brotherhood of Men of Thessaloniki in 1871 which developed intense
national action. The prominent of the city Konstantinos Matsas tried
as early as 1899 to equip the Hellenism of the city, realizing the
impending danger. Important Thessaloniki chiefs were Georgios Savvas
and Georgios Pentzikis. On January 20, 1904, a large anti-Bulgarian
rally took place in the city, with the participation of 6,000 Greek
protesters. By 1908, the Thessalonians succeeded in overthrowing the
Bulgarian effort to create nuclei of the Bulgarian population in the
city, by transporting and settling Bulgarian immigrants.
The
current of nationalist ideology, which followed the French
Revolution and spread throughout the Old Continent, began, gradually
growing in the 19th century, to influence the Balkan ethnic groups,
which were in Ottoman territory. A first case of these was the
massacre of consuls in Thessaloniki that took place on May 6, 1876.
The Greek element strongly clashed with the Bulgarian, which
with the action of the komitatzids tried to convert the Orthodox
populations from the normal jurisdiction of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate to the Bulgarian Exarchate Church with the aim of
Bulgarianizing them. After the Aprilians of 1903, this conflict
culminated in the years 1904-1908, during the Macedonian Struggle,
where the headquarters of the Greek fighters was the Greek consulate
in Thessaloniki (today the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle).
Along with the nationalist movements, another movement was
developing with executives from the military and intellectual elite
of the Ottoman Empire and its center in Thessaloniki. The aims of
this movement were the democratization, the modernization and the
transformation into a European-style constitutional monarchy of the
faltering and declining Empire and its political springboard was the
"Committee for Unity and Progress" (İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti) -
Committee of the Union and Progress whose action began in 1896 and
in its ranks included progressive personalities from the dominant
Macedonian ethnicities led by the Turks. The members of this
committee became known as the Neo-Turks (Jön Türkler - Jones Türkler
from the French Jeunes Turcs) and in its first steps became a body
of bourgeois change with anti-imperialist rhetoric.
In June
1908, the Neo-Turks had the power to demand from Sultan Abdul Hamid
II a change of state to a constitutional monarchy. Thus, with an
impressive military move, the third corps of the Ottoman army
started from Thessaloniki in the direction of the headquarters of
the House of Ottomans, Istanbul, where the Neo-Turkish Revolution
culminated, resulting in the concession of the Constitution on July
24, 1908.
The conservative Paleo-Turkish counter-revolution
of 1909 helped the authoritarian Abdul Hamid abolish constitutional
privileges. Soon, however, the Neo-Turks regained control of the
situation, forcing the Sultan to resign and detaining his moderate
brother, Mehmet E. Resat. Abdul Hamid was taken to the political
center of the Neo-Turks, Thessaloniki, where he remained under guard
at the Allatini Mansion (today's historic building of the Region of
Central Macedonia) until 1912.
The last important event of the Ottoman rule in Thessaloniki was the visit to the city of Mehmet on May 31, 1911, as part of his tour of the European territories of the Empire. The highlight of the visit was the parade of ethnic groups in front of the monarch and his impressive pilgrimage to the Hagia Sophia, according to the official formal of Friday's pilgrimage to the Hamidiye Mosque in Istanbul.
The proof of
the real political intentions of the leading group of the Neo-Turks,
whose main goal was the Turkification of the Ottoman Empire, through
the elimination of the minorities, and the hardening of the state
policy towards them brought the outbreak of the First Balkan War.
The four Balkan kingdoms, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro,
declared war on the Ottoman Empire, seeking to conquer and divide
its European territories, inhabited by a significant portion of
their "unredeemed" compatriots.
The city of Thessaloniki was
the disputed "booty" between Greeks and Bulgarians. The victories of
the Greeks in important battles had created a positive atmosphere in
the army, which was heading for the conquest of the Monastery, a
Balkan city with a prosperous Greek population. The head of the army
of Thessaly and commander-in-chief, Successor Constantine, after the
victorious Battle of Sarandaporos was moving towards the Monastery.
The information to the Greek government, however, referred to the
advance of the Bulgarian troops further south, with the aim of
occupying Thessaloniki. Venizelos telegraphed to Konstantinos to
move quickly to Thessaloniki, but when he found out that the
successor was obstructing, he sent the famous telegram:
Once you have received this, hand over the command of the
army to its Commander.
General Staff Lieutenant General Daglin
and leave immediately for Athens,
at the disposal of the Minister
of the Army.
E. Venizelos, Minister of the Army
Thus, on the night of October 26-27, 1912 (Julian
calendar), the plenipotentiary officers, Victor Dousmanis and
Ioannis Metaxas, signed in Thessaloniki the protocols for the
surrender of the city by the Ottoman administration to the Greek
army and on the afternoon of October 27 the first two Greek eunuch
divisions of the Kleomenos division.
Meanwhile, the
Bulgarians, who had approached the city, pressured Hassan Thaksin
Pasha to sign a similar protocol with them. Their proposal, however,
was not accepted with the characteristic answer of the Ottoman
general: "I have only one Thessaloniki, which I have already
surrendered". Nevertheless, the Bulgarian claims did not stop until
the Second Balkan War, when its victorious result, for the Greek
side, brought a final solution to the issue.
Another factor
that tried to influence the territorial regime of Thessaloniki, was
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which with the support of Germany
unsuccessfully sought the internationalization of the city. Another
section of the Jewish community promoted a proposal for an
autonomous regime under Israeli rule abroad.
On October 29, King George I entered the city at the head of army units and on October 30, Metropolitan Gennadios of Thessaloniki performed a eulogy at the then Cathedral of Agios Minas "on the liberation of the city" after 482 years of continuous Ottoman occupation.
After the liberation in 1912,
the Ottoman administrative structure of the city was maintained for
a long time to avoid the economic and social disintegration of the
city. It is characteristic that in the days after the surrender of
the city, the Ottoman gendarmerie continued armed to maintain order,
while the mayor Osman Sait remained mayor, with a few breaks until
1922. In March 1913, King George I was assassinated in Thessaloniki.
Greece has not participated in World War I since its outbreak
despite calls for an alliance from both rival factions. However,
with the excuse of helping Serbia, but also indifference to the
national independence of Greece, Entente forces landed in the city
in October 1915 in order to blackmail Greece's entry into the war.
The Balkan Front was formed, consisting of tens of thousands of
men and intended to provide support to Serbia and Russia. The
National Divide, as the controversy (1916) between King Constantine
IBS and Eleftherios Venizelos was called over Greece's exit from the
First World War, led to the formation of a second government by
Venizelos, based in Thessaloniki. The "Provisional Government of
National Defense" consisted of Venizelos, Daglis and Koundouriotis
the so-called "Triandria". Thus Greece entered the war, on the side
of Entente, leading at the same time to the expulsion of King
Constantine I in favor of his son Alexander.
The great fire
of 1917 was the worst disaster the city suffered in recent years. It
completely destroyed buildings of rare architectural value in the
city center, shops, churches, mosques and synagogues and mainly
thousands of houses, leaving 72,000 residents homeless, and caused
huge economic and social problems in the city already burdened by
the influx of refugees. war zones and Thrace under Bulgarian rule.
The new city was built on the site of these buildings, based on
a plan drawn up by the French architect Ernest Emprar. After the
Asia Minor Catastrophe in 1922, but also in the period 1923-1924, in
the framework of the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange agreed with
the Treaty of Lausanne, refugees from Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace
settled in the city. The influx of refugees was so intense that it
forced the establishment of new, exclusively refugee neighborhoods
and settlements, such as Naples and Kalamaria, while the Muslim
population of the city was included in the "interchangeable" who
were forced to move to Turkey.
In 1925, with the help of
Alexandros Papanastasiou, the University was founded in the city,
which later (1954) was renamed Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
in honor of the philosopher Aristotle and today is the largest
educational institution in Greece. The first International
Exhibition of Thessaloniki was inaugurated on October 3, 1926.
Throughout the interwar period, the social upheavals caused by
the activism of a large number of refugee workers and the capacity
of Jewish workers, gave a great impetus to the already developed
labor movements in the city. As early as 1908, the socialist
organization Federation was founded under the leadership of Abraham
Benaroya, which pioneered the organization of the trade union
movement and later the creation of SEKE / KKE. At the beginning of
the 1930s and until the imposition of the dictatorship of Ioannis
Metaxas, in Thessaloniki there were continuous demonstrations and
strikes by groups of workers such as tobacco workers, tram workers,
etc. The workers' mobilizations culminated in the city in May 1936,
with the great strike and demonstration of the tobacco workers,
which was drowned in blood by the dictatorial government of Metaxa,
with a total of twelve dead, including the 25-year-old motorist
Tassos Tousis More than 280 people were injured. The photo that
immortalized Tasos Tousis's mother mourning him alone in the middle
of the street, at the intersection of Venizelou and Egnatia streets,
was published in the press and was the inspiration for Giannis
Ritsos.
At the same time, several nationalist / anti-Zionist organizations appeared in response to the large presence of Jewish workers, with various problems, most notably the burning of Campbell, a Jewish slum in Kalamaria, on June 29, 1931.
During World War II, on April
9, Thessaloniki was occupied by Nazi forces. The Jews were confined
to the Hirsch community, their property confiscated and divided
between German officers and Greek collaborators. Eventually, the
entire Jewish population of the city was taken to the Nazi
concentration camps of Auschwitz II Birkenau and Bergen-Belzen.
About 46,000 Jews from Thessaloniki were exterminated during that
period. On May 15, 1941, a month after the occupation of the country
by the occupiers, the first resistance organization in Greece,
"Eleftheria", was founded in the Eptalofos refugee district of Asia
Minor, with its newspaper of the same name and the first illegal
printing house in the same district. . Executions of Greeks during
the occupation took place systematically at the Dudular (Diavata)
positions, at the Sedes airport and mainly at the "Pavlos Melas"
Camp, at Eptapyrgio and at the Red House in Damari.
On May
11, 1944, the Nazis executed eight young resistance fighters, aged
20-30, in the area of Kaistri between Eptalofos and Xirokrini. The
city was liberated on October 30, 1944.
In 1954 the Minister of Public Works K.
Karamanlis demolished the tram lines of Thessaloniki and abolished
the tram line Depo-Tsimiski. The tram operated from 1893 as a horse
and from 1908 as an electric one. In 1957, K. Karamanlis, as Prime
Minister, abolished the rest of the tram network and in his place
founded the monopoly private Urban Transport Organization of
Thessaloniki.
On May 27, 1963, Grigoris Lambrakis, a
physician, athlete and politician, was assassinated by
paramilitaries, causing an international outcry over the
authoritarian practices of the Karamanlis government that fueled the
uncontrolled paramilitary mechanism in Greece, culminating in the
assassination in Thessaloniki. The Lambraki case revived George
Papandreou's relentless struggle and played perhaps the most
important role in the fall of the Karamanlis government in the same
year.
During the Dictatorship, many persecutions and tortures
of resistance fighters took place, culminating in the murder - after
torture - by the security organs of George Tsarouchas, a former
member of the EDA. and executives of the K.K.E. In Thessaloniki on
September 5, 1967, Giannis Chalkidis (member of the Lambraki
Democratic Youth of Ampelokipi and the United Democratic Left and
member of the resistance-dictatorship organization Patriotic Front)
was cold-bloodedly killed by the gendarme Antonis Lepitis .
On June 20, 1978, a major earthquake caused a total of 49 deaths and
property damage of 1.2 billion euros, which were soon repaired. 220
people were injured. This earthquake was the first to hit a large
urban center in Greece.
The European Center for the
Development of Vocational Training - Cedefop, one of the
decentralized agencies of the European Union, was established in
1995 in Thessaloniki with the mission of developing and implementing
European policies for vocational education and training.
In
1997 Thessaloniki was the European Capital of Culture and in 2014
the European Youth Capital.
During the period 26 - 28 October
2012 the city celebrated the 100th anniversary of its liberation. In
2017, during the celebrations, the arrival of the historic
Battleship Averoff took place in the port of the city.