Listed 2 sub titles with search on: History for wider area of: "KAVALA Town MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE" .
KAVALA (Town) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
Ancient Neapolis,
the port of Philippi
where apostle Paul first landed on European soil, became the Byzantine town of
Christoupolis, the last stronghold against a host of aggressors; the city was
fortified by Andronikos II Palaeologos only to be pillaged in the 14th century
by irregular bands of Ottoman Turks. From the 15th century, under its new name,
Kavala, this strategically located city once again flowered both economically
and culturally.
Kavala from the 16th to the 19th century
In the middle of the 16th century, the French naturalist Pierre Bellon
described Kavala's walls, baths, places of worship and aqueduct, built during
the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent and the reason for the changed face of the
city (which had previously been reduced to a way station after the Turks destroyed
it in 1391).
Because of the etymology of the word, Bellon believed that Kavala
was founded on the site of the city of Boukefala (Bucephala) and that it was initially
(around 1520-1530) inhabited by Jews of Hungarian origin, who were eventually
surrounded by both Greeks and Muslims.
In the 17th century Evliyia Celebi postulated that the word derived
from Kavalos, son of Philip II, while the French philhellene Charles Sonnini observed
in 1780 that the rock on which the city's houses still cluster resembles a horse
('caballo' in Spanish).
By the end of the 18th century, Kavala had developed into a center
of French commerce
with close ties with Marseille and Constantinople.
It already consisted of five neighborhoods with 900 houses (most of them Turkish).
Outside the fortified peninsula, cotton warehouses were built, which together
with the inns and the customs house gradually came to constitute the city's business
district.
Kavala in the 19th century
While business activities were beginning to spread beyond the city
walls, the administrative center (the Turkish governor's residence) continued
to be located within the fortified hilly peninsula. Between two and three thousand
people were packed into this area, which measured less than 25 acres. Initially,
this was where the small Greek community of Panayia (on the site of the Byzantine
town of Christoupolis) was located.
The future regent of Egypt, Mohamed Ali, was born in the old city.
During his heyday, in 1812, he built the poorhouse where the ancient Parthenon
temple had stood; also called the 'tebelhane' (inn for the lazy), it was later
converted into a muslim theological school.
The Greek business community, which from the mid-19th century had
begun to show considerable growth, built new churches (Ayios Ioannis, 1865-1867),
schools (e.g. the Parthenagogeio or Girls School), hospitals (e.g. the Evangelismos),
and some splendid mansions.
The very profitable tobacco
business had already started to attract a constantly rising number of Christians.
Kavala in the early 20th century
At the turn of the century Kavala was growing by leaps and bounds.
Tobacco exports
were at their peak (circa 10,000 tons annually), reaching a value of almost two
million pounds sterling. The tobacco warehouses were brimming with seasonal laborers
from all over eastern Macedonia.
The Greek population, which constituted the majority of the town's
inhabitants, was thriving. Charitable and pro-education societies of men and women,
clubs, hospitals, athletic associations, printing presses and Greek schools of
every level were founded and prospered in a city that was bursting with life and
nationalist hopes. The newspaper "Flag" was the mouthpiece for advocates
of a free Macedonia.
With the Greek vice consulate as headquarters, prosperous Kavala took
part in the Macedonian
Struggle, both by organizing Greek guerrilla bands and by acting as a post
for the transport and distribution of military supplies and arms.
Kavala after the liberation
Kavala was liberated and incorporated into the Greek state on 6 June
1913, after seven months of Bulgarian occupation.
The city spread out impressively along the waterfront, where most
of the tobacco warehouses were located. Within one century its population had
grown tenfold and its economic prosperity was more than evident.
The change in the flow of trade
at the end of the 19th century and the isolation of the port of Kavala from the
railroad
network had not affected the export traffic. The town's modernization and
wealth, which soon easily absorbed some 25,000 refugees from Thrace and Asia
Minor, was disrupted only by the destruction dealt by the Bulgarian occupations
during the First and Second World Wars.
By kind permission of:Ekdotike Athenon
This text is cited Nov 2003 from the Macedonian Heritage URL below, which contains images.
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