Janina vilayet

Albanians The territory of the Janina vilayet was the central area of the Albanian Pashalik of Yanina, which under Ali 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 when they were massacred by the Ottoman Empire in the town of Manastir in 1830, in order to prevent any potential spread of the Albanian national movement. Janina Vilayet was one of the main centers of the cultural and political life of Albanians who lived in Janina Vilayet and Monastir Vilayet. 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, the Zosimaia. was one of the six deputies from Janina Vilayet in the first Ottoman Parliament in 1876–1877. Abdyl Frashëri, from Frashër, modern Albania, together with Mehmet Ali Vrioni from Berat (also in modern Albania), and some members of Ioannina's Albanian community, founded the Albanian Committee of Janina in May 1877. 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. In 1906 the organization Epirote Society was founded by members of the Greek diaspora, Panagiotis Danglis and Spyros Spyromilios, that aimed at the annexation of the vilayet to Greece by supplying local Greeks with firearms. End of Ottoman rule During the Albanian Revolt of 1912 Janina Vilayet was proposed as one of four vilayets consisting Albanian Vilayet. The Ottoman 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. Following the First Balkan War of 1912–1913 and the Treaty of London the southern part of the vilayet, including Ioannina, was incorporated into Greece. Greece had also seized the northern part of the vilayet during the Balkan Wars, but the Treaty of Bucharest, which concluded the Second Balkan War, assigned it to Albania. == Demographics ==

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. The vilayet was predominantly inhabited by Albanians and Greeks, while the major religions were Islam and Christian Orthodoxy. The districts of Janina which were later incorporated into Greece were heavily Greek. According to the 1890/91 Ottoman Yearly report, the vilayet of Janina had 512,812 inhabitants, of which 44% were Muslims, 48% were orthodox Christians 7% were Aromanians, 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. According to Aram Andonyan and Zavren Biberyan in 1908 of a total population of 648,000, 315,000 inhabitants were Albanians, most of which were Muslims and Orthodox, and some who were adherents of Roman Catholicism. Aromanians and Greeks were about 180,000 and 110,000 respectively. 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 of Mehmet V, Ottoman Sultan) had a slight majority of Greeks, and that of Berat north was predominantly Albanian. 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. According to Sir Hamilton 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. According to Zafer Golen two-thirds of the population were Albanian Muslims, 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. Lontos estimated that 3/4 of the population was Christian. ==Administrative divisions==

Sanjaks of the Vilayet: • Sanjak of Ioannina (Yanya, Aydonat, Filat, Maçova, Leskovik, Koniçe) • Sanjak of Ergiri (Ergiri, Delvine, Sarandoz, Premedi, Fraşer, Tepedelen, Kurvelesh, Himara) • Sanjak of Preveze (Preveze, Loros, Margliç) • Sanjak of Berat (Berat, Avlonya, Loşine, Fir) ==See also==