| ولايت يانیه Vilâyet-i Yānyâ | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vilayet ofOttoman Empire | |||||||||||
| 1867–1912 | |||||||||||
Flag | |||||||||||
The Janina Vilayet in 1867–1912 | |||||||||||
| Capital | Yanya (Ioannina) | ||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||
• 1897[1] | 595,108 | ||||||||||
• 1911[2] | 560,835 | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| 1867 | |||||||||||
| 1912 | |||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | Albania Greece | ||||||||||

TheVilayet of Janina,Yanya orIoannina (Ottoman Turkish:ولايت يانیه,romanized: Vilâyet-i Yanya)[3] was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of theOttoman Empire, established in 1867.[4] In the late 19th century, it reportedly had an area of 18,320 square kilometres (7,070 sq mi).[5] It was created by merging thePashalik of Yanina and thePashalik of Berat with the sanjaks ofJanina,Berat,Ergiri,Preveze,Tırhala andKesriye. Kesriye was later demoted to kaza and bounded toMonastir Vilayet and Tırhala wasgiven to Greece in 1881. With the end of the Ottoman rule, the southern area of the vilayed became part of Greece and its northern area became part ofAlbania.
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The territory of the Janina vilayet was the central area of the AlbanianPashalik of Yanina, which underAli Pasha of Tepelena acquired an increasingly independent status within the Ottoman Empire, until Ali Pasha's rebellion against the Porte was crushed. Thereafter, the power and autonomy acquired by the Albanian beys of the region ended whenthey were massacred by the Ottoman Empire in the town ofManastir in 1830, in order to prevent any potential spread of theAlbanian national movement.[6]
Janina Vilayet was one of the main centers of the cultural and political life ofAlbanians who lived in Janina Vilayet andMonastir Vilayet.[7] One of the most important reasons was the influence by Greek education and culture south-Albanian writers received in the famous Greek school of Ioannina, theZosimaia.[7]Abdyl Frashëri, the first political ideologue of theAlbanian National Awakening[8] was one of the six deputies from Janina Vilayet in the firstOttoman Parliament in 1876–1877.[9]Abdyl Frashëri, fromFrashër, modernAlbania, together withMehmet Ali Vrioni fromBerat (also in modernAlbania), and some members ofIoannina's Albanian community, founded theAlbanian Committee of Janina in May 1877.[7] Frashëri fought against decisions of theTreaty of San Stefano.[7]


Although part of the local population contributed greatly to theGreek War of Independence (1821–1830), thePashalik of Yanina did not become part of the Greek state. In 1878, arebellion broke out with the revolutionaries, mostly local Greeks, taking control ofSarandë and Delvinë. However, it was suppressed by the Ottoman troops, who burned 20 villages of the region.[10]
In the following year, the Greek population of Ioannina region authorized a committee in order to present to the European governments their wish for union with Greece.[11]
In 1906 the organizationEpirote Society was founded by members of the Greek diaspora,Panagiotis Danglis andSpyros Spyromilios, that aimed at the annexation of the vilayet to Greece[12] by supplying local Greeks with firearms.[13]
During theAlbanian Revolt of 1912 Janina Vilayet was proposed as one of four vilayets consistingAlbanian Vilayet. TheOttoman government ended the Albanian revolts by accepting almost all demands of Albanian rebels on September 4, 1912, which included the formation of the vilayet later in 1912.[14]
Following theFirst Balkan War of 1912–1913 and theTreaty of London the southern part of the vilayet, includingIoannina, was incorporated into Greece.[15] Greece had also seized the northern part of the vilayet during theBalkan Wars, but theTreaty of Bucharest, which concluded theSecond Balkan War, assigned it to Albania.[16]
The vilayet of Janina was ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse.
There have been a number of estimates about the ethnicity and the religious affiliation of the local population. The Ottoman Empire classified and counted its citizens according to religion and not ethnicity, which led to inefficient censuses and lack of classification of populations according to their ethnic groups.[17][18][19][20][21] The vilayet was predominantly inhabited byAlbanians andGreeks, while the major religions were Islam and Christian Orthodoxy.[22][23][24] The districts of Janina which were later incorporated into Greece were heavily Greek.[25][26]
According to the 1890/91 Ottoman Yearly report, the vilayet of Janina had 512,812 inhabitants, of which 44% were Muslims, 48% wereorthodox Christians 7% wereAromanians, and 0.7% were Jewish. Orthodox Albanians constituted for 52% of the Orthodox population, whilst Greeks constituted 48% of the Orthodox population. Albanians accounted for 69% of the population whilst Greeks accounted for 23% of it.[27]
According to Aram Andonyan and Zavren Biberyan in 1908 of a total population of 648,000, 315,000 inhabitants wereAlbanians, most of which were Muslims and Orthodox, and some who were adherents ofRoman Catholicism.[28] Aromanians andGreeks were about 180,000 and 110,000 respectively.[28] Smaller communities includedBulgarians,Turks,Romanis andJews.[28]
According to Tom Winnifrith and Eleftheria Nikolaidou the Ottoman statistics of 1908 afterthe recognition of the Aromanian community provide the following figures per ethnic group: out of a total population of 550,000 the Greeks were the most numerous (300,000), followed by Albanians (210,000), Aromanians (25,000) and the Jewish community (3,000).[29][30] Nikolaidou adds that the sanjaks of Janina, Preveza and Gjirokastër were predominantly Greek, the sanjak of Igoumenitsa (then Gümeniçe, Reşadiye between 1909 and 1913 due to honour ofMehmet V, Ottoman Sultan) had a slight majority of Greeks, and that of Berat north was predominantly Albanian.[29] According to her the official Ottoman statistics in the Vilayet of Janina had the tendency to favor the Albanian element at the expense of the Greek one.[31] Winnifrith considers the Ottoman statistics of 1908 as unreliable. He states that a decline of the population is noticeable in these figures as a result of emigration to Greece and America, while the Aromanian figure appears small.[30]
Heraclides & Kromidha (2023) argue that Albanians were the majority in the whole vilayet with 2/3 of Albanians being Muslims, while Christian Orthodox Greeks formed a strong minority. Albanians were dominant in the north and center of the vilayet, and Greeks dominant in the south.[32]
According to SirHamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb in 1895 there were c. 224,000 Muslims. The Orthodox population included c. 118,000 Greeks (partly of Albanian origin, Hellenized over a century by Greek religious and educational institutions) and c. 129,500 Albanians, and the Jewish population amounted to 3,500 people.[33] According to Zafer Golen two-thirds of the population were Albanian Muslims,[34] while according to Dimitrios Chasiotis c. 419,403 of the total population were Greeks, along with 239,000 Turks and Albanians, and 6,000 Jews.[35] Lontos estimated that 3/4 of the population was Christian.[35]
| Ottoman Official statistic of 1893 & 1911 | |||||||
| Group | 1893[36] | 1911[2] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orthodox ("Greeks")[38] | 286,304 | 311,032 | |||||
| Muslims ("Turks")[38] | 225,415 | 244,638 | |||||
| Jews | 3,677 | 3,990 | |||||
| Catholics | 83 | - | |||||
| Other | 997 | 1,175 | |||||
| Total | 516,476 | 560,835 | |||||
Non-official estimates of Yanya Vilayet | ||||||
| Ethnicity | 1890-91(Dushku)[27] | 1895 (Gibb)[39] | 1908 (Andonyan & Biberyan)[28] | 1908 (Nikolaidou)[29] | ||
| Albanians | 353,840 | 129,517 - 353,495 | 315,000 | 210,000 | ||
| Greeks | 117,947 | 118,033 | 110,000 | 300,000 | ||
| Aromanians | 35,897 | 180,000 | 25,000 | |||
| Turks | 0 - 223,885 | 10,000 | 20,000 | |||
| Bulgarians | 20,000 | |||||
| Romani | 7,000 | |||||
| Jews | 3,590 | 3,517 | 6,000 | 3,000 | ||
| Total | 512,812 | 474,952 | 648,000 | 550,000 | ||
Sanjaks of the Vilayet:[40]
the first political ideologue of the Albanian Revival..
In the first Ottoman parliament of 1876–1877 he was one of six deputies appointed for Iannina villayet
Turkish figures in 1908, after the authorities... Vlachs is remarkably small
In the Pashalik of Janina under Ali Pasha, a multiethnic semi-independent entity of some 75,000 square kilometres, which dominated the scene for more than 30 years, from 1788 until late 1821, the Greeks (Greek speakers to be more exact) formed the majority because the Pashalik was not confined to the original vilayet of Janina, but included other parts of southern Albania, a section of central Macedonia, most of Thessaly and even a large chunk of Sterea Ellada (Rumeli as it was then known), save for Viotia and Attica, as well as the city of Patras in Peloponnese (Morea as it was then known). (.) According to Nathalie Clayer and other specialists, to the north and centre of the vilayet, the Albanians dominated and in the south the Greeks. Most commentators tended to draw a line in the vilayet, from Saranda to Konica or from Himara and Girokaster to Konica, on the north of which the Albanians dominated and in the south the Greeks were preponderant. But there were several exceptions to this demarcation, such as the Chams in the south and the Vlachs and Roma in various places. In the whole vilayet, the Greek presence and influence were considerable in these 90 years, with the Greeks a strong minority but with the Albanian speakers, be they Muslim and Orthodox Christians, the majority of the population, two-thirds of which were Muslim Tosks and one-third Orthodox Christian Tosks, living mainly in the santzak of Girokaster and in the north and west of the Janina santzak.
According to the Ottoman year-book of 1895 there were, in the province of Yanya (Epirus and Albania south of the Devoll River), 223,885 Muslims, 118,033 Greeks, 129,517 Orthodox Albanians, 3,517 Jews and only 93 Roman Catholics. It must be added that a part of these Greeks were in origin Orthodox Albanians graecised through the Greek religious and educational institutions which were zealously founded beginning with the second half of the 18th century.
war im ubrigen noch keinerlei Nationalbewustsein anzutreffen, den nicht nationale, sodern religiose Kriterien bestimmten die Zugehorigkeit zu einer sozialen Gruppe, wobei alle Orthodoxe Christen unisono als Griechen galten, wahrend "Turk" fur Muslimen stand..." [...all Orthodox Christians were considered as "Greeks", while in the same fashion Muslims as "Turks