Cargèse (; or ; ; ) is a village and commune in the Corse-du-Sud department of France on the west coast of the island of Corsica, 27 km north of Ajaccio.
The village was established at the end of the 18th century by the descendants of a group of immigrants from the Mani Peninsula of the Greek Peloponnese who had first settled in Corsica a hundred years earlier. The economy of the village is now based around tourism. Cargèse is noted for having two 19th-century churches that face one another across a small valley overlooking the harbour and the sea. One was built by the descendants of the Greek immigrants and the other by native Corsicans.
History Paomia 1676 to 1731 In the second half of the 17th century there was a substantial emigration from the Mani Peninsula of the Greek Peloponnese. This was mainly driven by the wish to escape from the control of the Ottoman Turks but was also prompted by the lack of arable land and by the intense feuding between different clans.
In 1669 the Ottomans captured Crete, and then a year later in 1670, as part of a strategy to strengthen their control over the Inner Mani, they built the fortress of Kelefa on the west side of the Mani peninsula. A number of the inhabitants of the small town of Oitylo (or Vitylo), which lay just 1.5 km west of the fortress, wished to emigrate to avoid the taxation imposed by the Ottomans and negotiated with the Republic of Genoa, which then controlled Corsica, for permission to settle on the island. The Republic offered them a choice of three locations in the Province of Vico and in October 1675 a group of 730 colonists departed from Oitylo and after a short stay in Genoa arrived in Corsica on 14 March 1676. They settled in Paomia, the site of several abandoned hamlets, which is situated 4 km east of the present village of Cargèse at around 450 m in altitude on a hillside overlooking the Gulf of Sagone. The location has similarities to that of Oitylo which also overlooks the sea. The settlers agreed to pledge loyalty to Genoa and to recognise the spiritual authority of the Pope but were allowed to retain the Byzantine Rite as prescribed by the Holy See in Rome.
The colonists prospered and reestablished the five hamlets of Pancone, Corone, Rondolino, Salici and Monte-Rosso, all within a kilometre of one another.; They built (or restored) seven small churches in the different hamlets and a monastery lower down the hillside at Salici next to an abandoned church dedicated to Saint Martin.; The ruins of the monastery and two of the small churches are listed by the French Ministry of Culture: The main church in Rondolino was dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. The large number of churches is probably a reflection of the high proportion of clerics among the colonists. Of the 520 inhabitants listed in July 1676, there were 11 monks, 5 priests, several nuns and a bishop.
The local Corsicans resented the Greek colonists occupying land that they considered to be rightfully theirs and this led to disputes between the two communities. In 1715 an armed gang from Vico attacked the colonists but was eventually beaten off. In 1729, in the island-wide uprising of the Corsicans against the Genoese Republic, the Greeks remained loyal to the Genoese cause and as a result, their hamlets were repeatedly attacked. Finally in April 1731, 55 years after their arrival, the Greek colonists were forced to abandon Paomia and seek refuge in Ajaccio.; ;
Ajaccio 1731 to 1775 The 700 Greeks who took refuge in Ajaccio formed around 20% of the inhabitants of the town (3200 in 1731). They were offered the use of the church of La Madonna del Carmine which is still known as the Chapelle des Grecs.; The Genoese employed 200 of the Greek men as guards to defend the town.; The colonists were far less isolated than they had been in Paomia and there was some intermarriage and many of the men learnt to speak Corsican. Nevertheless, there was ongoing violence between the two communities and the Greeks found it expedient to abandon their traditional dress.; The Genoese Republic had increasing financial problems and had difficulty maintaining law and order on the island. The Greek guards were no longer paid after 1744 and in 1752 the companies were disbanded. The lack of Genoese protection made life very difficult for the colonists, particularly after 1745, and a number of groups chose to emigrate to Sardinia, Menorca and Florida (New Smyrna).; In 1746 about fifty Greek families residing in Cargèse emigrated to Montresta, Sardinia, where they obtained from Carlo Emanuele III territories in the area of the Villa of San Cristoforo di Montresta to establish their new settlement. Many of the inhabitants of the today Montresta are of Greek Maniot descent.La sfortunata storia degli esuli greci che fondarono Montresta (vicino Bosa) Paradisola.it The census of 1773 showed that the Greek population of the town had dropped to 428. The situation changed with the Treaty of Versaille in 1768 when the French gained control of the island and the governor, the Comte de Marbeuf, took a personal interest in the Greek colonists.
Cargèse 1775 to the present day
Marbeuf arranged for the construction of the village of Cargèse on the Puntiglione headland that separates the Gulf of Sagone from the smaller Gulf of Peru. Around 120 terraced houses were built, all paid for by the French crown. In 1775, under the leadership of George-Marie Stephanopoli, most of the Greek colonists moved from Ajaccio to the new village so that by 1784 there were 386 Greeks in Cargèse.; Marbeuf had a large house with a garden built for himself on the west side of the village.
In 1789 and in 1791, with the breakdown in civil order resulting from the French Revolution, Cargèse was subject to a series of attacks by the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages. On each occasion the attackers were driven off but a number of families chose to return to Ajaccio to escape the violence. By 1792 24 families had moved back to Ajaccio, selling their properties in Cargèse to Corsicans.; Thus, from early in its history there were both Greek and Corsican communities in the village.
Britain took control of Corsica in 1794 with Gilbert Elliot acting as viceroy during the short-lived Anglo-Corsican Kingdom. Elliot visited Cargèse in 1795 and recorded his experiences in his journal. At the time the village had population of around 500 people divided into 114 families. The British withdrew from the island in the October of the following year, and almost immediately the inhabitants of Vico, Appriciani, Balogna, Letia and Renno attacked Cargèse. Much of the village was destroyed including Marbeuf's own house. The inhabitants were forced to flee to Ajaccio where they stayed for three months before returning when French forces had reestablished order.;
The village was threatened on two further occasions. In 1814, with the collapse of the First French Empire, the threat of violence forced the inhabitants of Cargèse to surrender some of their farmland to the surrounding hamlets.; The final incident occurred in 1830 at the time of the overthrow of Charles X and the Bourbon monarchy in the July Revolution. Neighbouring villagers again threatened to attack Cargèse but the arrival of a detachment of soldiers from Ajaccio prevented serious bloodshed.;
A substantial proportion of the Greek speaking inhabitants of the village emigrated to Sidi Merouane in Algeria between 1874 and 1876.; Of the total population of 1078 in 1872, it is estimated that 235 emigrated, all of them Greek speakers. The large drop in the Greek population was compensated by an influx of Corsicans making the remaining Greek speakers very much a minority.
In the 20th century the number of Greek speakers rapidly declined and by 1934 there were only 20 Greek speakers in the village. The last native speaker died in 1976, 300 years after the colonists had first arrived on the island. The historian Nick Nicholas has argued that the exceptionally long time that the colonists took to assimilate was a result of several factors including the substantial size of the colony, the large religious presence and the strong antagonism felt between the Corsicans and the settlers.
The census of 1896 recorded 1216 inhabitants but in the first half of the 20th century many young people left the village to find employment in continental France. By 1962 the population had dropped to 665. Since then the expansion of tourism has provided more employment and the population has increased reaching 1,150 in 2023.
The large scale emigration from rural communities was a general phenomenon for most of Corsica in the 20th century. For villages away from the coast that have not witnessed the development of tourism, the effects were severe. For example, Évisa (situated 21 km NE of Cargese as the crow flies) had a population of 1089 in 1886, 401 in 1962 and 196 in 1999.
Population
Churches The village contains two 19th-century Catholic churches that face one another across a small valley overlooking the sea. The church on the east side was built by native Corsicans and descendants of the Greek colonists who had adopted the Latin liturgical rites. The church on the west side, the Greek church, was built by the descendants of the Greek colonists who had retained the use of the Byzantine Rite. From 1964 until 2005, Monseigneur Florent Marchiano conducted services in the two churches on alternate Sundays. On his retirement he was not replaced and instead each Sunday a priest from Vico comes to the village to conduct mass in the Latin church. A priest based in Athens, Archimandrite Armaos Athanasios, visits Cargèse several times a year to conduct services in the Greek church. As of September 2021, Archimandrite Antoine Forget was transferred from the Greek Melkite Catholic parish in Marseille to be pastor of both the Greek and Latin churches in Cargese, allowing weekly liturgies in both churches.
Latin church of the Assumption
The Latin church was the first to be built. Construction began in 1825 but was held up because of the lack of finance. A total of 14 requests were made to the French government for assistance before the church was completed 1850. The trompe-l'œil decoration was executed in 1928-1930 by the Russian painter Nicolas Ivanoff, a resident of Cargèse. The nave was decorated by Edmond Rocchiccioli between 1970 and 1975 while the choir was decorated between 1992 and 1997 by Russian artists Anastassiya Sokolova and Valeri Tchernoritski.
In 1999-2000 the church was completely restored in a project jointly financed by the Assemblée Régionale Corse, the Conseil Général de la Corse du Sud and the Commune of Cargèse.
The building consists of a barrel-vaulted nave with two semicircular side chapels. The choir is separated from the nave by steps and the communion table. The square bell tower on the north side of the church is capped by an octagonal lantern. The three bells date from 1887.
Above the entrance door is a 17th-century painting attributed to the School of Bologna. This work originally formed part of the collection of Cardinal Fesch and is one of four paintings given to Cargèse by the town of Ajaccio in 1865. Each of the churches now houses two of the paintings. The stained-glass window above the main entrance representing the Immaculate Conception was installed in 2000.
Greek Catholic church of Saint Spyridon