Kotas, Florina
Kotas | |
|---|---|
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  Kotas | |
| Coordinates: 40°41′36″N 21°10′14″E / 40.69333°N 21.17056°E | |
| Country | Greece |
| Administrative region | Western Macedonia |
| Regional unit | Florina |
| Municipality | Prespes |
| Municipal unit | Prespes |
| Community | Kotas |
| Population (2021)[1] | |
• Community | 24 |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 (EEST) |
Kotas (Greek: Κώτας, before 1927: Ρούλια – Roulia,[2] between 1927 and 1932: Κατωχώρι – Katochori;[3] Bulgarian: Руля, Rulya;[4] Macedonian: Рулја, Rulja)[5] is a community and village in Florina Regional Unit, Western Macedonia, Greece. The village has an altitude of 890 m (2,920 ft).[6]
Kotas is located south–west from Florina on a road to Albania in the Korestia area and situated in mountainous terrain.[7] The total land area of the village Kotas is 1,593 hectares, with a majority as forest, followed by use for agriculture and a small remainder as grasslands.[8] The village was renamed after Kottas Christou, a Greek revolutionary active during the Macedonian Struggle.[9][10] His former house in the village is the Captain Kottas Museum dedicated in his honour.[9]
A Christian village, Roulia belonged to the Patriarchate and following the Ilinden Uprising (1903) most of the inhabitants belonged to the Bulgarian Exarchate.[11][12][13] In statistics gathered by Vasil Kanchov in 1900, Roulia was populated by 500 Christian Bulgarians.[14] According to villagers of the 2010s, the inhabitants in this period had a Greek national consciousness.[9] Kottas Christou, a native of the village became its muhtar (a leading notable) in 1896.[15] Christou led an armed group from 1898 onward which fought the Muslim beys in the Korestia region, while his allegiances shifted from pro–Bulgarian to pro–Greek.[15]
An attack by the Ottoman army on Roulia in 1902 was resisted by Christou, later Ottoman reinforcements made him flee and the inhabitants leave, while the village was looted.[9] In June 1904, Ottoman forces surrounded Roulia and after a search of the village arrested Christou and later hanged him in 1905 at Monastir (modern Bitola).[9] The population numbered 550 in 1912,[13] 504 in 1920 and 491 in 1928.[16]
In the late interwar period, the fields of the village were of poor quality and situated on nearby mountainous terrain with a few having access to irrigation.[7] In Kotas some 630 villagers (80 families) had 400 hectres for cultivation and half of the land each year was left fallow.[7] Crops grown were corn, wheat, rye, beans and potatoes.[7] Reliant on earnings based on agricultural activities and harvests, animal husbandry, some remittances from immigrants abroad and veteran's war pensions, the average yearly family income of the village was 15,100 drachmas.[7] Among the Slavic Macedonian population, a few folkloric traditions of the village differed from the shared culture of the wider region.[17]
The population of Kotas was 586 in 1940.[6][16] In the Greek Civil War, the village was occupied by the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG).[18] Kotas was part of a logistics supply route and a hub from Albania used by DAG during the civil war.[19] Charles Schermerhorn, a UN social worker present in the region during the civil war stated the village politically orientated to the left.[20] He described the situation for the youth in Kotas as "very bad".[20] Of the 278 children aged 14 and under in early 1947, most had been evacuated by the guerillas in spring 1948 and 45 remained.[20] Parents of the removed children wanted them returned.[20] William H. McNeill, a US army representative also present in the region stated Kotas was a Slavophone village, conditions were dire and corroborated the information provided by Schermerhorn of the missing children.[21] The population of Kotas, a Slavic Macedonian village was reduced by 63 percent due to the impacts of the Second World War and the civil war.[22] Nearly two thirds of the remaining villagers were female.[23]
The population of Kotas was 218 in 1951, 182 in 1961,[6] and 59 in 1981.[16] Pre–war and post–war immigration from Kotas led to the formation of a diaspora and most of the village population lives abroad in the northern suburbs of Melbourne in Australia.[24] The modern village economy is based on lumbering and livestock.[25] Kotas had 22 inhabitants in 2011.[26][16] The village population is small and in decline.[25] It is composed mainly of retirees.[9] In the late 2010s, the elderly of the village speak a Slavic language, while the youth have no knowledge of it.[9] Several exiled villagers from the civil war and their descendants who live in Bitola, North Macedonia return to the village to visit relatives.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ "Αποτελέσματα Απογραφής Πληθυσμού - Κατοικιών 2021, Μόνιμος Πληθυσμός κατά οικισμό" [Results of the 2021 Population - Housing Census, Permanent population by settlement] (in Greek). Hellenic Statistical Authority. 29 March 2024.
- ^ Institute for Neohellenic Research. "Name Changes of Settlements in Greece: Roulia – Katochori". Pandektis. Retrieved 4 April 2025.
- ^ Hellenic Agency for Local Development and Local Government. "Διοικητικές Μεταβολές των Οικισμών: Ρούλια – Κατωχώρι – Κώτας" [Administrative Changes of Settlements: Roulia – Katochori – Kotas]. EETAA (in Greek). Retrieved 4 April 2025.
- ^ Traykov, Veselin (1993). История на българската емиграция в Северна Америка: От началото ѝ през средата на XIXв. до 80–те години на XX век [History of Bulgarian Emigration to North America: From its beginning in the mid–19th century to the 1980s] (in Bulgarian). St. Kliment Ohridski University Press. pp. 32, 352. ISBN 9789540702063.
- ^ Dimeski, Dimitar (1993). Аферите во Битолскиот вилает: 1895–1903 [The affairs of Bitola Vilayet: 1895–1903]. Matica Makedonska. pp. 50, 135.
- ^ a b c Laiou 1987, p. 80.
- ^ a b c d e Koliopoulos 1999, p.47.
- ^ Ntassiou 2022, p. 374. "Kotas; Forest: 1,099, Agriculture: 445, Grasslands: 49, Total area (ha): 1,593."
- ^ a b c d e f g h Aslanidi, Nikou (25 September 2018). ""Είμαι Έλληνας, άπιστοι..."" [«I am Greek, infidels...»] (in Greek). Makedonia. Archived from the original on 2 December 2021. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
- ^ Miska 2020, pp. 27–28, 35.
- ^ Silyanov, Hristo (1983). Освободителните борби на Македония [The liberation struggles of Macedonia] (in Bulgarian). Vol. 2. Izd–vo Nauka i izkustvo. p. 125. ISBN 9789540911533.
- ^ Papavizas, George C. (2015). Claiming Macedonia: The Struggle for the Heritage, Territory and Name of the Historic Hellenic Land, 1862-2004. McFarland. p. 57. ISBN 9781476610191.
- ^ a b Miska 2020, p. 67.
- ^ Kanchov, Vasil (1970). "Македония, Етнография и статистика" [Macedonia, Ethnography and Statistics]. In Hristov, Hristo A. (ed.). Избрани произведения [Selected works] (in Bulgarian). Vol. 2. Nauka i Izkustvo. p. 565. "Руля; Българи Хр. 500"
- ^ a b Chotzidis, Angelos A. (1993). The Events of 1903 in Macedonia as Presented in European Diplomatic Correspondence. Museum of the Macedonian Struggle. p. 65. ISBN 9789608530331.
- ^ a b c d Ntassiou, Konstantina (2022). "Studying abandoned settlements' renaissance in the context of rural geography: perspectives for Prespes, Greece". European Planning Studies. 30 (2): 368. Bibcode:2022EurPS..30..359N. doi:10.1080/09654313.2021.1957085. "Kotas; Census_2011: 22; Census_1981: 59; Census_1928: 491; Census_1940: 586; Census_1920: 504"
- ^ Popvasileva, Aleksandra (1974). "Пророк Еремија во народната традиција и кај Македонците во Егејскиот дел на Македонија" [Prophet Jeremiah in folk tradition and among the Macedonians in the Aegean part of Macedonia]. Makedonski Foklor (in Macedonian). 13: 157.
- ^ Laiou 1987, pp. 80, 82.
- ^ Shrader, Charles R. (1999). The Withered Vine: Logistics and the Communist Insurgency in Greece, 1945–1949. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 192–193. ISBN 9780313028564.
- ^ a b c d Van Steen 2023, p. 220.
- ^ Van Steen, Gonda (2023). The Battle for Bodies, Hearts and Minds in Postwar Greece: Social Worker Charles Schermerhorn in Thessaloniki, 1946–1951. Taylor & Francis. p. 221. ISBN 9781003811855.
- ^ Koliopoulos, John S. (1999). Plundered Loyalties: Axis Occupation and Civil Strife in Greek West Macedonia, 1941–1949. Hurst. p. 287. ISBN 9781850653813.
- ^ Laiou, Angeliki E. (1987). "Population Movements in the Greek Countryside during the Civil War". In Bærentzen, Lars; Iatrides, John O.; Langwitz Smith, Ole (eds.). Studies in the History of the Greek Civil War, 1945–1949. Museum Tusculanum Press. p. 100. ISBN 9788772890043.
- ^ Tamis, Anastasios (2005). The Greeks in Australia. Cambridge University Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780521547437.
- ^ a b Ntassiou 2022, p. 375. "Kotas, Population < 150 (in 2011 census): YES; Proportion gradual difference 2011–1981 (%): −63; Pre-existing in 1923: YES; Characterization: small and declining; Assessment of economy type: lumbering, livestock"
- ^ Miska, Marialena Argyro (2020). Επώνυμοι Τόποι: Ονομασίες Οικισμών στην Περιοχή της Φλώρινας [Named Places: Names of Settlements in the Florina Region] (Master's thesis) (in Greek). University of Western Macedonia. p. 68. Retrieved 22 April 2025.