Korçë (; ) is the eighth most populous city of Albania and the seat of Korçë County and Korçë Municipality. The total population of the city was 51,152 and 75,994 of Korçë municipality (2011 census), in a total area of . It stands on a plateau some above sea level, surrounded by the Morava Mountains.
The area of the Old Bazaar, including Mirahori Mosque, is considered as the urban core of the city. Founded by the local Ottoman Albanian nobleman Ilias Bey Mirahori, the urban area of Korçë dates back to the late 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century, however its actual physiognomy was realized in the 19th century, during a period that corresponds with the rapid growth and development of the city. The Old Bazaar has played a dominant role in Albania's market history. Korçë is the largest city of eastern Albania and an important cultural and industrial centre.
Name Korçë is named differently in other languages: , ,Fârshârotu, nr. 31 . pp. 3, 5. or ;Fârshârotu, nr. 34 . pp. 21, 5. Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian: Горица, Goritsa; , Korytsa; ; or ; . The current name is of Slavic origin.The name Korça derives from the Slavic Gorica. Linda White, Peter Dawson, Andrea Dawson, Albania: A Guide and Illustrated Journal, Bradt guides. Bradt Publications, 1995, p. 62, . The word "gorica" means "hill"Law, Gwilim (2010). Administrative Subdivisions of Countries. Page 22 in South Slavic languages, and is a very common toponym in Albania and Slavic countries (e.g. Podgorica in Montenegro, Gorizia, Dolna Gorica in the Pustec municipality, and so on). It is diminutive of the Slavic toponym "gora", meaning mountain, which is also found in placenames throughout Slavic countries as well as non-Slavic countries like Albania, Greece, Italy and Kosovo.
History 15th century
Korçë's foundation is closely related with the actions of Ilias Bey Mirahori, a Muslim Albanian convert born in the village of Panarit in the Korçë area, who acquired large properties in the location of present-day Korçë.; ; ; ; . Ilias Bey was the 'Master of the Stables' of Sultan Bayezid II, and the first equerry and conqueror of Psamathia in the Ottoman capture of Constantinople. In 1484 Ilias Bey received, as a reward from the Sultan, seven villages located in the Korçë area: Leshnjë, Vithkuq, Peshkëpi, Boboshticë, Panarit, Treska, and Trebicka. This accord was finalized gradually through four firmans. In the first firman Leshnjë and Vithkuq were accorded to Ilias Bey as mülk (land tenure). However he met difficulties while collecting the incomes and after twelve years these villages turned into their earlier status of timars, being substituted through a second firman in the year 1497 by the locality Piskopiye, which included two sections. In the third firman (1497) the boundaries of Piskopiye were defined, establishing its demarcation between Mborje, Barç and Bulgarec, a site area corresponding to the territory of today's Korçë city. As a product of this process, the town of Korçë dates from the end of the 15th century.
The name Gorica corresponded to an older fortified settlement, and was later attached to Piskopiye, which was a separate community, and as suggested by its name, a bishop's residence. Ilias Bey founded his works of charity in Piskopiye, building a mosque, an imaret and a muallim-hane and a hammam. Built between 1484 and 1495, the mosque, named after him, represents one of the most important examples of Islamic architecture of Albania and its second oldest mosque after the Sultan's Mosque of Berat. The name Episkopi in Greek signifies a sacred place for the Orthodox faith, however, it is not certain if it was a coincidence or an intended strategy to build a mosque on the site of an older Orthodox church or monastery. With the establishment of the religious, educational and charitable institutions in the area, Ilias Bey must have planned to make the village a local Islamic centre and to raise it to the rank of kasaba ("town"), through the registration of its inhabitants as citizens instead of farmers. Being subjected to the Kaza of Korça, the villages of Episkopi, Boboshtica, Leshnjë and Vithkuq were used in 1505 as sources of income on behalf of the five institutions of Ilias Bey's vakfa. The vakfa he founded also served the purpose of organizing the settlement of Muslim inhabitants in an area that was recently abandoned by the original Christian inhabitants.
The new town must have been dominated initially by the old castle of Mborje. Throughout the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century the castle was maintained by the Ottomans. The Tapu Defter of 1519 records a cemaat of Christian müsellems in the castle. According to this document the village of Mborje (Emboryo), which depended on Korçë (Görice), numbered 88 households of Christians and 18 households of Muslims.
Korça was divided into two great neighborhoods: Varosh and Kasaba. In the 16th century Muslims constituted the 21% of the population of the town and inhabited Kasaba, which was subdivided into the smaller neighborhoods of Çarshi, Ratak, Qoshk and Dere, including the institutions established by Ilias Bey. The Christian population inhabited Varosh, which was subdivided in Varosh i Sipërm (Upper Varosh) and Varosh i Poshtëm (Lower Varosh). Varosh i Sipërm was further subdivided into the smaller neighborhoods of Mano, Barç, Jeni-Mahallë, Qiro, Penço, Manço, Manto and Kala, while Varosh i Poshtëm consisted only of Katavarosh, which was known also as "Lagja e Shën Mërisë", named after the Church that was located there.
Görice was incorporated as a sandjak in the Manastir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire.
18th century When the nearby town of İskopol (Moscopole or Moschopolis or Voskopojë) was destroyed by Ali Pasha's men in 1789, some of its commerce shifted to Görice (Korçë) and Arnavud Belgrad (Berat).Anscom E. Frederick. Albanians and "Mountain Bandits". Princeton papers: interdisciplinary journal of Middle Eastern studies Markus Wiener Publishers, 2002. ISSN 1084-5666, p. "Voskopoje, southeast Albania, commonly known as Moschopolis" p. 100: "The town was sacked three times during the Ottoman wars with Russia and Austria, in 1769, 1772, and 1789, but not by foreign raiders. The last attack, by Ali Pasha's men, practically destroyed the town. Some of its commerce shifted to Gorice (Korçe, Albania) and Arnavud Belgrad, but those towns could not make good the losses suffered by İskopol." Korçë grew as part of its population came from nearby Moscopole. Greek sources (Liakos and Aravandinos) have noted of the Korçë Aromanian populations' origins that in addition to many being from Moscopole, others settled during a time of calm and were from the village of Shalës, Kolonjë and established the market district of Korçë known as Varosh. Aromanians from the Arvanitovlach subgroup that in the early 19th century arrived to the Korçë area played a significant role in establishing the Korçë Christian urban class. In Psalidas' work Geography from 1830 noted that in the district of Varosh in Korçë, 100 Aromanian families lived there. pp. 297-298. "Regarding the origins of the urban Vlachs of Korçë, Liakos notes that, according to a written source dating to 1867, apart from the Moschopolitans, there were also Vlachs from the village of Shalës in Kolonjë, which he describes as a former Arvanitovlach settlement. Aravandinos reports that the people from Shalës and many from Moschopolis probably settled in Korçë in an organised way, when the area was fairly calm after 1834. These settlers established the market district in Korçë known as Varossi. If we bear in mind that the Arvanitovlachs who arrived in the Korçë area in the early nineteenth century played a considerable part in establishing the Christian urban class in Korçë, then we may, rather cautiously perhaps, suppose that one of the places from which they came was Shalës."; p. 361. "Indeed, according to Psalidas's Geography, in around 1830, after the Greek War of Independence and a period of renewed insecurity,... And in the same period, 100 Vlach families were living in the Varossi district of Korçë."
According to French diplomat François Pouqueville there were 1,300 families living in the city in 1805 with two thirds of them being Christian. Korçë went from having a population of 8,200 (1875) to 18,000 (1905) and of those 14,000 adhered to Orthodox Christianity. Of those considered as Greek in Korçë, this was because they adhered to Orthodox Christianity, but Michael Palairet argues that most were probably Aromanians (Vlachs). Sources of the early 20th century report that the population was primarily ethnic Albanian.Muin Çami. Shqiptarët dhe francezët në Korçë (1916 – 1920). Dituria: Tirana 1999. Page 132: "....ushtarakët francezë që qëndruan në Korçë dhe që mundën kështu të njiheshin me karakterin etnik shqiptar të popullsisë dhe me aspiratat e vërteta kombëtare të shumicës dërrmuese të kësaj popullsie. Lajmi i largimit të trupave franceze dhe i zëvendësimit të tyre me ato greke e vuri qeverinë shqiptare dhe veçanërisht rrethet patriotike në trevën e Korçës, përpara një sprove të rëndë." Greek was the language of the elite and the majority of the Aromanian population engaged in commerce, crafts and international trade becoming one of the wealthiest communities in Epirus and Macedonia. Albanians of Korçë were poor, engaging mostly in stockbreeding and agriculture. The inhabitants of the city spoke both Albanian and Greek.
Korçë's cultural isolation was reduced due to Greek schools, the first one being founded in the city at 1724. Subsequently, Muslim Albanian revolutionary intellectuals from the city emerged in the 1840s that wanted to preserve a Muslim Albania within a reformed Ottoman state. Due to increasing Hellenisation by the 1870s, those sentiments became replaced with the concept of an Albanian nation based on linguistic and cultural factors through struggle against a collapsing Ottoman Empire. During the late Ottoman era, Orthodox Albanians involved in the Albanian National Awakening came mainly from Korçë and its surrounding areas. "Most of the Tosk Orthodox patriots came from Korçë and its regions." On the other hand, the city council of Korçë, known as demogerontia (), and the metropolitan bishop of the city who identified as Greeks sent a secret memorandum to the foreign office department of Greece suggesting various ways to tackle activities by Albanian nationalists. In 1885, Jovan Cico Kosturi became the founder of a committee called the Albanian Cultural Society, along with co-founders Thimi Marko and Orhan Pojani, but the formation of the organization was suppressed by both the Ottoman and Orthodox Church authorities, so it went underground and carried on its activities as the Secret Committee of Korça (),Frashëri, Kristo. Rilindja Kombetare Shqiptare. Page 41: "1885, at Korça there was formed a secret committee headed by Jovan Cico Kosturi with co-members Thimi Marko and Orhan Pojani, which assumed the mission to organize in the interior of Albania an Albanian Cultural Society. But due to the Ottoman reaction and phanariot church persecutions, the said society could not be founded. Nevertheless, the Secret Committee of Korça continued its activity for a long time in a clandestine and illegal way". and two years later, in March 1887, with the help of the Frashëri brothers, the Secret Committee set up the first Albanian school.Frashëri, Kristo. Rilindja Kombetare Shqiptare. Page 43: "the Secret Committee of Korça, with the help of Naim Frashëri and Sami Frashëri, set up in the city of Korça, on 7th of March 1887, the first Albanian National School. The first teachers of this sçhool were Pandeli Sotiri (during the first year) and later Petro N. Luarasi and Nuchi Nachi."