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Palasë ( or ''Palasa''; , ''Palasa'') also Paljasa () (), is a village in
Himarë Himarë ( sq-definite, Himara; , ''Chimara'' or Χειμάρρα, ''Cheimarra'') is a Municipalities of Albania, municipality and region in Vlorë County, southern Albania. The municipality has a total area of and consists of the administrative ...
municipality (13 kilometres from the town),
Vlorë County Vlorë County (; ) is one of the 12 counties of Albania with the city of Vlorë being the county capital. The county spans and has a total population of 146,681 people as of 2023. It borders the counties of Fier and Gjirokastër, as well as th ...
, southern
Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...
. It is located near the Llogara National Park and next to the Ionian coast on the
Albanian Riviera The Albanian Riviera (, ), also popularly known as Bregu, is a coastline along the north-eastern Ionian Sea in the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing the districts of Sarandë and Vlorë in south-western Albania. It forms an important section of t ...
. The village is inhabited by ethnic Greeks who speak the unique
Himariote Greek dialect Himariote Greek ( or , ''Cheimarriṓtika'' ; ) is a dialect of the Greek language that is mainly spoken by ethnic Greeks in the Himara region of Albania. Despite the small distances between the settlements in the region, there exists some dial ...
.


History

In
classical antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...
,
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
writer
Lucan Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November AD 39 – 30 April AD 65), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba, Hispania Baetica (present-day Córdoba, Spain). He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imper ...
recorded a site named Palaeste on the Ceraunian Mountains in
Chaonia Chaonia or Chaon ( or Χάων) was the name of the northwestern part of Epirus, the homeland of the Epirote Greek tribe of the Chaonians. It was one of the three main areas of ethnic division of Epirus, the other being Molossia and Thesprot ...
, which may correspond to modern-day Palasë. The name ''Palaeste'' is considered to be Illyrian. ''Palaeste'' was also considered as being geographically located in southern Illyria, next to Oricum.: "Zu *pal- "Sumpf, seichtes Gewasser". Es gab illyrische Stämme der Plaraioi bzw . Palarioi ; s . auch Palaeste , Stadt in Südillyrien bei Orikon" In Palaeste,
Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...
landed from Brundusium, in order to carry on the
war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...
against
Pompey Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey ( ) or Pompey the Great, was a Roman general and statesman who was prominent in the last decades of the Roman Republic. ...
.
Lucan Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November AD 39 – 30 April AD 65), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba, Hispania Baetica (present-day Córdoba, Spain). He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imper ...
, '' Phars''
5.460
"''caelo languente fretoque naufragii spes omnis abit. sed nocte fugata laesum nube dies iubar extulit imaque sensim concussit pelagi mouitque Ceraunia nautis. inde rapi coepere rates atque aequora classem curua sequi, quae iam uento fluctuque secundo lapsa Palaestinas uncis confixit harenas. prima duces iunctis uidit consistere castris tellus, quam uolucer Genusus, quam mollior Hapsus circumeunt ripis.''"
According to another local legend the settlement was initially located on the coast on a location once known as Meghalihora (), but due to pirate attacks in 12th-13th century it was moved slightly inland. In the local Greek dialect of Himara the change /st/ > /s/ is a typical phonetic rule. Thus if Palaeste is linguistically connected with modern Greek Paliasa then this change must have taken place before 1582. Palasë is recorded in the Ottoman ''
defter A ''defter'' was a type of tax register and land cadastre in the Ottoman Empire. Etymology The term is derived from Greek , literally 'processed animal skin, leather, fur', meaning a book, having pages of goat parchment used along with papyrus ...
'' of 1583 as a settlement in the Sanjak of Delvina with a total of 95 households. The anthroponymy recorded predominantly belonged to the Albanian onomastic sphere (e.g., ''Gjin Gjoni'', ''Leka Kosta'', ''Nika Pali''), however, personal names reflecting broader Orthodox Christian anthroponymy - both Greek (e.g., ''Andrea Komnini'', ''Jorgo Kristulli'') and Slavic (e.g., ''Vaso Petko'', ''Dhimo Bojko'') - are also recorded. In 1632 an Albanian school was established in Palasë. In 1663 a Greek school was established in Palasë. The Italian missionary Giuseppe Schirò wrote in 1722 that Palasë was inhabited by Greeks. It is still not clear if there was any significant migration to or from the village. Andrei Sobolev in fieldwork in the 21st century further documented that the families Babe, Gjinajt, Çaço, Paço, Xhelilaj, and Mëhilli hailed from Dukat, while few others (Milaj, Papadhates) hailed from Krujë and the
Peloponnese The Peloponnese ( ), Peloponnesus ( ; , ) or Morea (; ) is a peninsula and geographic region in Southern Greece, and the southernmost region of the Balkans. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridg ...
. In 1720, the villages of Himara, Palasa, Ilias, Vuno, Pilur and Qeparo refused to submit to the Pasha of Delvina. Until the 1750s Himarë was composed of more than 50 villages, but by the end of the 1780s it comprised only 16, situated by the seashore from Saranda to Palasë. Later on, with Ali Pasha's defeat, the region of Himara shrunk to only seven villages. In 1872, a Greek elementary school was operating in Palasa sponsored by a wealthy local, Nasios Dimoulis. In 1914 Palasa joined the movement of
Spyros Spyromilios Spyros Spyromilios (; 1864–1930) was a Greek Gendarmerie officer and guerrilla fighter who took part in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, the Greek Struggle for Macedonia, and the Balkan Wars. In 1914 he proclaimed the Autonomy of his native tow ...
during the establishment of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus. In September 1916, the provinces of Himarë and
Tepelenë Tepelenë ( sq-definite, Tepelena) is a city and a municipality in Gjirokastër County, in the south of Albania. The town is on the left bank of the Vjosa River, about three kilometres downstream from its union with the Drino. Until the abolition ...
became part of the Vlorë prefecture and were placed under the control of the Italian armed forces. The city of Himarë became the official capital of the region and was responsible for the administration of the traditionally Orthodox coastal villages of Palasë, Dhërmi,
Kudhës Kudhës is a village on the Albanian Riviera, Vlorë County, Albania. It is part of the Himarë municipality. Etymology Kudhës and the river with the same name is related to the Albanian language, Albanian word ''kudh'' "pot, jug", therefore me ...
, Qeparo, Vuno and Iljas. With the incorporation of the region in the Albanian state the locals were officially recognized as part of the Greek minority. In 1934 part of the local population asked for intervention by the
League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...
for the opening of a Greek school in the village. However, the minority status in Palasë was revoked during the
People's Republic of Albania The People's Socialist Republic of Albania, () was the Marxist-Leninist state that existed in Albania from 10 January 1946 to the 29 April 1991. Originally founded as the People's Republic of Albania from 1946 to 1976, it was governed by the P ...
with the explanation that there were not enough Greek speakers.


Geography

The village is located several kilometres northwest of the town of Dhërmi, and is accessed via the main road leading out of the town. The Llogara Pass and Çika Mountain are nearby. The Thunderbolt Mountains, the western chain of the Ceraunian Mountains, enclose the area on its northern and northeastern side. The area opens up on its southwestern side with the mountain of Çika and descends towards the Ionian coast, with the
Greek Islands Greece has many islands, with estimates ranging from somewhere around 1,200 to 6,000, depending on the minimum size to take into account. The number of inhabited islands is variously cited as between 166 and 227. The largest Greek island by ...
of Othonas and
Corfu Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...
in the distance. The village contains narrow stone roads and quaint white houses and is built around a 400-year-old ''
platanus ''Platanus'' ( ) is a genus consisting of a small number of tree species native to the Northern Hemisphere. They are the sole living members of the family Platanaceae. All mature members of ''Platanus'' are tall, reaching in height. The type ...
'' (plane tree), which is central to village life and the pride of the village. Geologically the terrain belongs to the western part of the Ionian Tectonic plate. This section of the coastline is referred to by geologists as the ''Palasë- Butrint coastline''. Palasë's beach is 1.5 kilometres in length. North of Palasë, is located a small bay, named Gramma ('letter' in Greek), accessible only by sea, with the surrounding cliffs containing various epigraphs, texts and symbols, perhaps carved out by sailors.


Language

The inhabitants of Palasë are bilingual as they mainly speak a variant of the
Himariote Greek dialect Himariote Greek ( or , ''Cheimarriṓtika'' ; ) is a dialect of the Greek language that is mainly spoken by ethnic Greeks in the Himara region of Albania. Despite the small distances between the settlements in the region, there exists some dial ...
, and partly the
Tosk Albanian Tosk ( sq-definite, toskërishtja) is the southern group of dialects of the Albanian language, spoken by the ethnographic group known as Tosks. The line of demarcation between Tosk and Gheg (the northern variety) is the Shkumbin River. Tosk is ...
. The local Greek idiom retains features of an older Greek linguistic substratum. Although Greek speakers, the locals are also fluent in Albanian. Bilingualism in Palasa often takes the form of compartmentalized or situational, bilingualism. In this form of bilingualism, different languages are used in different social contexts. In Palasa, Greek is used in the context of Greek Orthodox rituals, while Albanian is used in transmitting traditional, folk mythological rituals. Lexical borrowings from Albanian to Greek are found in the terminology which concerns village life. It indicates that the culture of the village was originally Albanian and reflects the function of the older language (Albanian) as prevailing in affairs of village life. Toponyms of Greek origin are found more densely in the area of Palasë than in other areas of the southern Albanian coast. Some of them are of archaic origin and preserve unique features of the Greek language.


Notable people

* Aleks Çaçi, writer and publicist * Paskal Milo (born 1949), politician


Movies

The 1987 film ''The Waxed Shirts'' (albanian: Këmishët me dyllë) was filmed in Palasë.
. National Center of Cinematography


See also

* Palaeste * Ceraunian Mountains * Caesar's Beach *
Chaonians The Chaonians () were an Ancient Greeks, ancient Greek people that inhabited the historical Epirus, region of Epirus which today is part of northwestern Greece and southern Albania.; ; ; ; ; Together with the Molossians and the Thesprotians, the ...
* Dhermi * Greeks in Albania * Himara *
Himariote Greek dialect Himariote Greek ( or , ''Cheimarriṓtika'' ; ) is a dialect of the Greek language that is mainly spoken by ethnic Greeks in the Himara region of Albania. Despite the small distances between the settlements in the region, there exists some dial ...
* Tourism in Albania


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Palase Populated places in Himara Epirus Albanian Ionian Sea Coast Labëria Greek communities in Albania Villages in Vlorë County