The History of the Village |
MESSENIKOLAS ROMAN
TIMES AND LATIN CONQUEST The
village is found at the site of a small, ancient Thessalian town, by the name
of Polichna. This
town constituted one of the fortresses that protected the ancient city of During
the Roman Times, the village was allegedly overrun by the hosts of Pompey
before the latter engaged against the armies of Caesar at the Battle at Pharsala in 48
B.C. it is conjectured by the evidence of some ruined graves found in the
vicinity of the village that a skirmish between the armies was enacted there
before the decisive battle leaving a number of casualties behind. That is why
this place is up till now called Mnemata,
which means “graves”. During
the Latin Conquest after 1204, Polichna was destroyed, possibly by landslides,
and the residents moved a little lower, where they built a new village, which
has survived to this day. The
name of the village allegedly originates in a worthy landowner of the village,
whom the Franks called Misser Nicola
(in modern French monsieur Nicola). He was said to have planted himself
the vineyards himself in the area and specifically the grape of the black
variety, which is exclusively produced at Messenikolas. It should be noted that
According
to another version based on William Miller’s book Latin Conquest in Greece the name derives from the bailli (vassal) of Achaia, Nicola Saint
Omer III. This vassal led a host of 40,000 soldiers who arrived at this area in
1304 to recapture the TURKISH
DOMINATION The
village appears as an organized settlement by the name Mosnikolas in a document
related to a census made by a Murad Bey in 1454 – 1455. The corruption of the name does
not possibly mean that the name does not refer to the present village. TAXATION CENSUS OF MESSENIKOLAS IN THE YEARS 1454-1455 This census was carried out in the years 1454-1455 for the Ottoman state
by MuradBey and his scribe. They went about all the villages of the region and recorded
the inhabitants, their crops and their occupations in general. At the General State Archives in Karditsa there is a ledger in two
volumes published in Turkey in 2001. One volume contains the greatest part of
the census transliterated in the Latin alphabet and the other the whole census
in the Arabic script, which was previously in use all over the Ottoman Empire.
In order to render exactly the sounds he heard, the scribe used also Persian
characters, which makes the text for us harder to understand. This ledger gives us a clear picture of the villages of our area during
the post Byzantine era. In the years of the census Messenikolaswas populated by
42 families, all Christian. The leaders of the 41 families were male and only
one family had a widow as a leader. 15 single males were also attested. The main occupation of the people was, as it is even today, viticulture
as well as wine making. There were also cereal production, apiculture,
sericulture, linen crops and other such pursuits, which are thoroughly
mentioned in the census lists. It is very interesting to note the names of the people. 14 families bore
the surname Vassilis, whereas the
widow was named ZoyaVassilova. 9 families had the surname Tzirtzis
and three the name Birtzagis. Among the names written in the
ledgerconcerning people from Messenikolas and its surrounding area, are still found
today, such as: Paskos, Tsoukalas,
Kardaras, Xenos. Our village was entered in the census ledger as Mosnikolas, which today in Rumanian
means Saint Nicholas or Uncle Nicholas. The volume published in Turkey in 2001 includes in Latin script a great
part of the census along with a mapcontaining the villages: Voniş (Vounesi), Palads(Blasdo), Portice(Portitsa), AyioYorgi(AgiosGeorgios), Kirasia, (Kerasia) Istinko(Kryoneri), Bijila(Bezoula), Tatay(Lambero)
and others. Even Franco is mentioned, while there appears a settlement by the
name of Nikola Çapoga, in the
whereabouts of today’s Mitropolis. Messenikolas was levied an annual tax of 2253 akce (aspra) payable to
the feudal lord or reeve of the villageḤüseyinveled-iTimürdār.
The same lord collected also the taxes from two Moslem villages of the
Thessalian plain, Kesanlu (near
today’s Kedros) and KizilkaSule. It
should be noted that the Moslem population paid fewer taxes as they did not
have to pay the ispence, a sort of
capital tax. The feudal lord, apart from collecting the taxes, had to fulfill
certain military obligations to the Sultan. The feudal administrative regime
was a Byzantine legacy to the Ottomans, who found it most useful to retain. Messenikolas belonged to the sancak
(administrative area) of Trikala, which included the area from Nafpaktos as far
as Platamonas. This sancak comprised three vilayetsin our region. According
to the map Messenikolas, along with Kerasia, Vounesi and Blasdo, belonged to
the Fener (Fanari) vilayet. The remaining villages of the
Nevropolis plateau, from Istinkoand further
on, belonged to the Agrafavilayet.
The third and largest vilayet was the
one of Tirhala(Trikala). Acknowledgments We are deeply indebted to the Historian-Osmanologist of the National
Capodistrian University of Athens (Dpt of Turkic and Contemporary Asiatic
Studies) DrGeorgiosLiakopoulos for his careful task he undertook with great
willingness to transliterate and translate the text of the census. Finally, this publication is dedicated to the memory of our
unforgettable friend and co-villager AlexandrosZoukas, who, more than a score
of years ago, was the first to draw our attention to this as then unpublished
ledger. KRANIAS GIORGOS Translated into English by MILITSIS VASSILIS The following is an exact translation of an excerpt of the census with a
number of explanatory references that DrLiakopoulos had the courtesy to point
out. Since
1525, when the so called Treaty of Tamasion was signed granting autonomy to the
region of Agrafa, Messenikolas and the adjacent area had enjoyed a regime of
self-rule until the time of Ali Pasha of Yannina. The latter abolished the
autonomy of Agrafa in 1790 by violating the treaty. The
next written evidence comes from a 1637 inscription which mentions the sponsor
of the frescoes painted in the village church, dedicated to the Holy Virgin. Still
another evidence arises from an unpublished deed of sales of 17 Nov, 1785
enacted between a certain resident, Stergios Psimmenopoulos or Psimmenos and a
Turk, called Hosinaga. In
1821, along with the rest of With
the founding of the On
June 26, 1848 Messenikolas was raided by a gang of two hundred armed bandits.
The bandits made off with as much booty as they could carry loaded high on pack
animals they seized from the villagers. In
1854 there was again a revolutionary movement, which was instantly quenched by
the Turks. The revolution of 1878 boosted the morale of the Nevropolis residents
and gave wings to their hopes for independence. The rebels gathered at
Messenikolas in order to appoint a provisional administration for the Agrafa
district. The rebels issued a declaration with the following text: “we, the
residents of the different villages, have assembled together, charged with a
special assignment by our villages, to elect the members for the provisional
administration of Agrafa, save the Rentina Command. We have elected the
following: We
entrust these members with the clear assignment to govern the place according
to law, to bespeak our rights before independent Greece and Enlightened Europe,
and to act according to what they think proper for the administration of the
place, so that we may shake off the unbearable yoke of the Turkish Domination
and be united with Mother Greece under the scepter of our beloved and respected
King George I” April 5, 1878, Mesinykola. The rulers of
the villages…
(signatures). THE
When
Thessaly was liberated and annexed to After
the unfortunate Greco-Turkish War of 1897, the Turks recaptured the Thessalian
Plain. Therefore, Messenikolas hosted the Greek political and military
authorities of Karditsa as well as the Division of the Greek Army stationed at
Trikala. While
the defeated Greek Army retreated, the state was unable to control the
situation. Taking advantage of this state of dissolution, a group of convicts
managed to escape from the prison of Chalkida. These fugitives raided the
nearby After
1924, the hero of The
Messenikolitans have always taken part as freedom fighters and paid a heavy
toll to the cause of freedom and independence of their country. Several have
sacrificed their lives in the war for the freedom of During
the Greco-Italian War, on the Albanian mountains, a volunteer army captain and
two other Messenikolitans fell heroically on the battlefield on 12 Nov 1940. During
the Nazi Occupation, the inhabitants of Messenikolas along with other people
from the adjacent villages took an active part in the Resistance against Fascism
and Nazism. The guerillas wreaked havoc in the German and Italian Forces. In
retaliation in June 1943 the Italian Fascists raided the area and burnt down
the villages of the area. The conquerors also killed the priest of Messenikolas
and eleven more non-combatants. Six months later the village suffered a German
raid. The Nazis this time killed twelve villagers and burnt down the village.
After the liberation in 1944, unfortunately destruction and devastations went
on during the internecine war between nationalists and socialists, when
twenty-eight Messenikolitans of both sides lost their lives. During
this period the army evacuated all the residents of the village and moved them
to the nearby town of
POST
WAR PERIOD The
recovery of the village started in the 1970’s when a great number of young
people stayed in the village. During the last decades the village went through
an unusual
construction of residences, which are used either as homes or as country houses
or even as guest houses. The registered high quality vintage wine Messenikolas Black opens new
perspectives to the development of the village today. Public
buildings constructed in the post war period are: 1) The stone building that houses the
Primary School. 2) The building at the top of village that
houses the High School (Gymnasium). 3) The three-story edifice that houses the
municipal guesthouse, the 4) The outdoor recreation center and the
installations for the Wine Festival venue, set in idyllic surroundings. 5) The two-story modern building for the
Town Hall and the Country Surgery. 6) The three-story edifice housing the
Vineyard and Right
in the middle of the village, surrounded by cobbled little piazzas and century
old plane trees, dominates the largest and most imposing stone church of the
whole district, built in 1903 – 1905, dedicated to the Assumption of Mother of
God. After
the abolition of the Until
1974 there also used to be a country court. Today the village hosts a number of
Services, such as the Notary and Land Registry Office, the Post Office and the
Post Savings Bank, Police Station, Country Surgery, Forestry Bureau and
Veterinary Clinic, the Board for the Development of the Plastira Lake Villages
– that was until 1994 – the Water Supply Board for the villages of the
Municipality, and the Local Land Reclamation Organization. In
the last Municipal Reformation, the so called Kapodistrias Scheme, the village claimed the seat of the |