Margariti () is a village and a former municipality in Thesprotia, Epirus, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Igoumenitsa, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 149.223 km2. Population 1,931 (2021).
Name The toponym Margariti () is thought to come from Margaritos, a pirate of the Emirate of Sicily to whom the Crusader Normans surrendered their holdings on the Ionian coast in the 12th century.: The name of the Margariti citadel is thought to refer to 'Margaritos', a pirate and emir of the Sicilian fleet, known from late twelfth-century chronicles for his involvement in the affairs of the Crusader state in Jerusalem. The Normans surrendered their territories in the Ionian Sea to him in the twelfth century. The toponym is of uncertain origin and is attested for the first time during the 16th century. In the Albanian language it is known as Margëlliç and in Ottoman Turkish as Margliç. This form is attested since 1611, when Gjon Mekuli from Parga reports to the Venetians that Marghelici had been affected by the plague. Historical documents tend to use the form Margariti.
Margariti was not used as the name of the area for most of its existence. The settlements and the region were known as the nahiye/kaza of Mazarak, the name of a village 6km to the south of modern Margariti. Mazarak was the central settlement of the Albanian Mazreku clan, which provided the guard of the citadel of Margariti. Until the 19th century, the region was known as the kaza of Mazarak in Ottoman records. Marglic/Margariti appears as the common name of the kaza/nahiye as early as the salname 1865.
History Various ancient sites have been located in the vicinity of the modern settlement. There is a possibility that Margariti was founded before the 16th century.
Early Ottoman Period The Ottoman defter of 1530 that was based on the information of a register made under Selim I in 1519-1520 is the first source to mention the hamlet of “Margarit”, which had only 8 Christian households; the neighbouring villages were also devoid of Muslims. The Ottoman fort in the settlement was built in the first half of the 16th century. Margariti was the administrative center of the nahiye of Mazaraki which in 1551 was renamed to Margariti. The name refers to the Albanian Mazreku tribe which lived in the region and who, via their military services, founded the core of Margariti.
The nahiye had 38 and 35 villages in 1551 and 1613 respectively whereas the settlement of Margariti itself had 17 and 20 households in 1551 and 1613 respectively. It was located on the Venetian-Ottoman borderlands of the time. The locals of the areas of Paramythia, Parakalamos and Margariti were specifically harassed by the Venetians and the inhabitants of Venetian Corfu in violation of the Ottoman-Venetian treaty of 1540. In the register of 1551, 17 names were recorded as being inhabitants of Margariti, 14 of which were household heads and 3 bachelors. The anthroponyms recorded were almost exclusively Albanian in character: Duka Bruni; Spani Deda; Gjon Ilia; Qesar Dhima; Menksh Leka; Tupe (Popa) Todri; Gjin Jorga; Popa Brushi; Gjin Gjoni; Gjon Jani; Andria Qesari; Gjin Popa (Tope); Jani Nika; Papa Mihali; Gjon Shorri; Gjon Nika. The defter of 1551 enumerates the members of the garrison of the “castle of Margaliç” with a castle commander (Dizdar) and 17 soldiers. Their pay was covered by the tax revenue of a group of villages in the district of Margariti.
In 1570, the Venetian commander Girolamo Zane unsuccessfully attacked the fort of Margariti. In 1571, a group of Albanians from Margariti travelled to Corfu and asked for assistance to take the fort of Margariti from the Ottomans. The Venetian governor of Corfu initially assessed that the force of the group was too small (200-250 men) for the attack. After the Battle of Lepanto, crucial support was provided by armed units during the second siege of Margariti (November 10–14, 1571); revolutionary leader Petros Lantzas became a key figure by organizing the military movements and securing the cooperation of the population in the surrounding region.
A larger force of 6,000 Venetians and Corfiots, which also included local groups from Parga and Paramythia, assembled under the Venetian commander Sebastiano Venier and attacked the fort of Margariti, which was seized and burnt after a four-day siege.Psimouli, p. 59: "Η αδιάλειπτη επιθετική δράση της φρουράς του κάστρου του Μαργαριτιού ενάντια στη βενετική κτήση της Πάργας θα προκαλέσει τη συνδυασμένη επίθεση Βενετών, Κερκυραίων και τοπικών δυνάμεων από κατοίκους της περιοχής Πάργας 224 και Παραμυθιάς, οι οποίοι και κατεδαφίζουν το φρούριο. The fall of Margariti had a profound impact in the Christian states of the West as well as among the Greek population of Epirus that lived under Ottoman rule. Venice commissioned a painting for the Doge's Palace to commemorate the destruction of the fort of Margariti. This was one of the final Venetian incursions in Ottoman territory and in the following decades, the region stopped being a battleground district.
After the conclusion of peace between the Ottomans and the Venetians on 7 March 1573, Margariti remained in the possession of the Ottomans. The Cham Albanians who had escaped returned and rebuilt the castle. The Ottoman defter of 1583 shows that Margaliç had only slightly grown, as the number of households increased to only 10 with another 10 unmarried adult males in the settlement. The household heads had Albanian names such as Gjin, Gjon and Duka, although there were three priests with Greek Orthodox names and one recent Muslim convert. Each household paid around 100 Akçe as tax annually, which is the common average for villages situated on arable land that were not very productive.
Local Muslim converts appear in Margariti as early as the 16th century. It is noted that the conversion to Islam of the guard of Margariti, which came from the local medieval Albanian Mazaraki clan, must have been finalized before 1571.: (translation) Mazërreku (Mazaraki) was the permanent settlement of the core group of the Mazërreku fis since its early days. The settlement appears in the early Ottoman era as the seat of a kaza. In the beginning of the 16th century, the core of Margariti (Margëlliç) was founded via the military services of this group of settlers, the guarding of the fortress and the final conversion to Islam of the Albanian-speaking guard before 1571. A century later, in 1670, when Evliya Çelebi passed through Margariti, he noted that there were 200 houses within the citadel and another 1,200 were located in the town which had developed around it. At this time, the town of Margariti, which was split into seven neighbourhoods and had a population of 5,000-6,000 inhabitants, had mainly converted to Islam. Çelebi recorded two Friday mosques with stone minarets and tile-covered roofs in the town, but no churches. He also recorded seven masjids divided across the neighbourhoods that did not hold Friday services and functioned as prayer rooms. Additionally, two primary schools (mektep), a hamam, two caravanserais, two tekkes and a number of shops were recorded; a madrasa was constructed in the town at some point during the 1670s following Evliya's visit. The position of Margariti at the Venetian-Ottoman border was a cause of friction as the interests of the Venetians and the Albanian beys of Margariti resulted in disputes for the control of the agricultural territory between Parga and the inland territory.: "The aghas and beys of Margariti (Margëlliç) were by default enemies of the Venetians because they were concerned by a possible Venetian inland expansion via the increase of the hinterland of Parga which meant reduction of the vital space of the [beys] of Margariti in lands of high agricultural value in particular." Evliya's visit occurred during the last years of the Cretan War, when there was a constant threat of Venetian attack. An Ottoman budget record of 1669/70 shows that the small castle of Margariti had eight gunners, and an estimated 40-50 Janissaries.
Late Ottoman period The local Albanian Çapari family emerged in this era. By the end of the 18th century, Hasan Çapari, the leading figure of the family, owned the entire plain of Fanari (to the south of Margariti). Cham Albanian landlords of Margariti and Paramythia were in conflict with Ali Pasha of Yannina during much of the existence of the Pashalik of Yanina. After Ali occupied the town in 1811 following a stubborn resistance led by Hasan Aga of Margariti, the settlement lost much of its prosperity. During the Tanzimat reforms of 1861, Margariti once again became the centre of a Kaza in the Sanjak of Preveza. Representatives from Margariti were part of the southern branch of the League of Prizren.
In 1880, Muslim Albanians constituted 82% of Margariti's population with a total of 1,100 inhabitants; the remainder consisted of 240 Christians. The Kaza of Margariti itself numbered to 48 villages with 3,813 Christians and 15,202 Muslims, making the Kaza 80% Muslim. In 1898, Sami Frasheri describes Margariti as a town with about 3,000 Muslim Albanian inhabitants, although this figure is slightly exaggerated. During this time, the Kaza of Margariti, which included the nahiyes of Margariti (largely coterminous to the modern municipality), Parga and Fanari included 71 villages with a total of 25,000 inhabitants, all of which spoke Albanian and most of which were Muslim.
20th century Margariti was represented as part of the delegation of Chameria by prominent local figure Jakup Veseli when Albania declared its independence in 1912. Some Albanian beys of Margariti were willing to accept Greek rule during the Balkan Wars. In February 1913, Margariti was taken by the Greek army and incorporated into Greece following the Treaty of London (May 1913). Margariti was one of the most severely damaged Cham settlements by Greek militia. Following the annexation of Margariti there was a decrease of its population of Muslim Albanians. From 1913 to 1920, its population dropped from 2606 to 1803. During that period all village elders of the region gathered and declared that they would resist the incorporation of the area into Greece.
According to the Greek census of 1928, the town of Margariti had dropped to 1,805 inhabitants of which 200 were Greeks, who had increased as part of the gradual Hellenization of Albanian-majority towns in the area in the 1920s. According to the Greek census of 1928, the Eparchy of Margariti (including Margariti, Parga, Fanari, Perdika) had 14,531 inhabitants of which only 5,000 were Muslim Chams.: "Until the early 20th century, economic strength lay in the hands of the Muslim landowner class, many of whom were engaged in commerce and usury. This situation had been changing gradually since the mid-19th century as small numbers of individuals and later families from the province of Ioannina, settled in the principal towns of the region establishing business. By the 1920s, they were joined by local men who slowly came to constitute an elite that threatened to wrest economic control from the Muslim notables. The presence of these men led to a gradual Hellenization of formerly Albanian-majority towns, like Margariti and Filiates that was viewed with disdain by the Muslim peasantry."