The Founding of Viniani
Special thanks given to the NTUA Research Team for anecdotes and statistics.
Photo credit: Meletzis S., recorded by NTUA Research Team
"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."
- Pericles
Overview
Viniani existed as a fortified settlement from Antiquity and Hellenistic times, and its habitation is confirmed during the Byzantine Middle Ages. It may have started as a Slavic settlement, and may owe its name to this settlement. The 15th century shows an indication of one thousand occupants with a strong agricultural economy. By the 18th and 19th centuries, due to plague and epidemics, the population had decreased to 100 inhabitants. About that time, the first settlement was abandoned and resettled to a nearby location of today’s old settlement of Viniani. By late 19th century, Viniani regained strength and recognized establishment partly due to the financial opportunistic establishments of Vinianites that immigrated to Konstantinople and later crossed over to America.
By the 1940’s, the sustained population was about 500 inhabitants, which included more than 100 houses, a school, shops, and government agencies operating the principal offices in our village. During World War II and the Greek Civil War that followed, Viniani was destroyed, pillaged, and burned twice by advancing forces of Germans and Italians followed by fighting Greek forces during the civil war. During the next two decades, VIniani lost many of its young men that immigrated to America, not only seeking a better life for themselves, but also to be able to send help back to their people at the village.
In February of 1966, the devastating earthquake changed again the destiny and relocation of Viniani to its present location which was known as “Livadia” and is now the location of New Viniani, two kilometers away from the original settlement of Viniani.
early settlements and Ottoman rule
Going back to the Middle Ages, research and archaeological finds between the rivers of Acheloos to Tavropos “Megdova” indicates that about forty sites of occupation during early Christian and Byzantine Antiquity. And during the period of Ottoman occupation, the monasteries and the two stone bridges of “Manolis” at Acheloos and the stone bridge of Viniani at “Megdova” indicate a strong existence of human presence in the area known as Agrafa, which means unwritten or undocumented by occupying settlers.
During the Ottoman period, Viniani appears in the census of 1454-1455 just two years after the fall of Konstantinople, as a large settlement of Agrafa. By the next century, in 1525, the treaty of Tamasion was signed between the Beyler Bey Pasha of Larissa and the elders of the villages of Agrafa which allowed for residential development of the mountainous region of Agrafa. By late 18th century, Viniani again is mentioned as property of the Seraskeri of Rumellia, which was transformed into a “Vakoufi” which is a donation for religious purposes.
The surrounding area boasted monasteries in Proussos, Tatarna, Briagianna, Domianous and a monastery in Viniani which was referenced in many writings, but could not be confirmed. During the third year of the Greek Revolution in 1823, a large Turkish force invaded from the western regions of Agrafa in an attempt to put down the uprising of the Greeks in Agrafa. The forces of Mustais Pasha of Skondras burned at least seven monasteries and churches along the way, had mentioned a burnt monastery in Viniani. This though cannot be confirmed.
His men crossed the stone bridge of Viniani at Megdova, passing through Stenoma, Agios, Athanasios and on to Karpenisi. The hill name today as Agios Georgios is located on a steep and protected rocky peak overseeing the gorge of Megdova and the stone bridge which was a central passage of Agrafa. Fortified and occupied during the Hellenistic through the Byzantine and Ottoman periods, it was abandoned by the end of the 18th or early 19th centuries and relocated about half of a kilometer northwest to a more accessible terrain with running water which is our Viniani as we know it.
But the first settlement of Viniani was located in the place called “Tsouknides” located off the southern slope of Saint George’s Chapel. Around about the time of the resettlement of Viniani, to its location as we know as our Viniani, the winds of war were picking up for the Greek population of the Agrafa region to rise up and expel the oppressing Ottoman forces that settled there after the 1450’s. The revolution for Greek independence of 1821 gave cause to the oppressed people of Agrafa and Ipirus to rise to their feet and with their faith placed in God swore “liberty or death”, and by the grace of the Almighty, men, women, and children fought to gain their independence.
Our region of Agrafa had many sworn men that rose to the occasion and considered it a sacred duty to gather and fight off the Ottomans, and gain their freedom along with their land. Some notable men of our region who gave their lives to the cause of independence were Georgios Karaiskakis, Markos Mbotsaris, and the one closest to our region, Katsiantonis and his men. Almost four hundred years of oppression under a foreign ruler, it was to be by the grace of God and the help of monasteries and the hidden schools, that we still maintained our language and passed it on to future generations and kept our culture intact. The sign of the cross gave us strength to endure and persevere. We will add more to this topic about the Greek Revolution of 1821 and how we gained our independence, in later writings to be added in.
A period of immigration
After the Greek Revolution, and with the establishment of the Greek state in 1836, Viniani joined the municipality of Agrafa with Kerasovo as its capital. Viniani belonged to the “Politohoria” with twenty-five settlements, and was inhabited by forty families with approximately 190 inhabitants. Viniani’s population showed a shrinkage by half from the beginning to the end of the Ottoman rule, and another sharp decrease of population at the turn of the 18th to 19th century. The settlement of Viniani is probably noted for the first time on a map in 1851. The German cartographer Heinrich Kiepert in 1878 produced a high precision geographical map depicting Viniani and other settlements around (Stenoma, Marathias, Chryso, Karasovo, Fragkistes, and more). Near the turn of the century in 1896, VIniani was inhabited by 413 people (222 men, and 191 women).
In the following years, two factors lead to the decline in the population. Starting with the Balkan Wars, continuing with World War I, and ending with the Asia Minor campaign and immigration. The 1907 census showed 330 inhabitants in Viniani, and 362 inhabitants in 1920. In 1928, Viniani had 477 inhabitants (233 men, 244 women), and in 1940 reached its highest population of the modern era with 504 inhabitants (234 men, 270 women). It should be noted that already from the end of the 19th century, Viniani followed the wider trend of the Greek countryside; the overseas migration to the United States of America. “God Bless Lady Liberty for holding high the beacon of hope that lit the way for millions of immigrants coming to America seeking only an opportunity for a better life.”
The research of Vinianites immigrating to America was based on the American archives of Ellis Island that identified 94 people that made the trip between 1898 to 1939. This is about a quarter of the population of Viniani who left in the span of a generation. The causes for this mass exodus can be attributed to the inaccessible topography of the area, the poverty of the rural population, and the limited employment opportunities. It should be noted that many families sacrificed everything that they had just to send a son to America, hoping he could prosper for himself and maybe be able to send some help back to the village and to their families that they left behind. Many prayers were said and many “Kandilia” were lit, with many tears for the ones preparing to make the trip across the ocean to reach a land called America. I’d like to think that every Vinianite that crossed the ocean was accompanied by the Twelve Apostles guiding their way.
In those early years, the immigrants were mostly married men, with the exception of three women, and most boarded oceanliners in Patra and few in Piraeus. Reaching America, about half of the immigrants were declared as workers. The remainder were employed in the field of care and hospitality or trades that were in demand for the growth and expansion of the country. These men leaving their wives and families behind, left the role of heading the household to their women. Although growing up there and never venturing no more than twenty to thirty miles from their birthplace, they were referred to as American women by having their husbands travel to America for work.
The small funds that some of these women were receiving from their husbands in America, actually helped the economy of the village either by purchases needed or the employment of fellow villagers to help out with their families or farm chores. In the years to follow, the winds of war had picked up again, and the beginning of World War II which saw the German and Italian attacks on Greece starting in October of 1940.
World War II and the civil war
The war reached the mountains of Evrytania in the beginning of 1942 when guerrilla groups began to operate in the mountains of Agrafa and the surrounding areas of Roumelli. The two main partisan forces were E.L.A.S. and E.D.E.S. that fought to create free areas in mountainous Greece. Viniani from the early days of war was a major hub for the movements of E.L.A.S. and the British allied missions. It is noted that December 1942 saw significant fighting between E.L.A.S. rebels and Italian forces in the area around Viniani. Nevertheless, Viniani remained on the free side of the mountains, inaccessible to the occupying forces and at the same time at the center of E.L.A.S. operations. On March 10th, 1944, the Political Committee of National Liberation known as P.E.E.A. was formed in Viniani which went down in history as the "government of the mountain” with president Alexandros Svolos as head.
Photo credit: Meletzis S., recorded by NTUA Research Team
The National Council of P.E.E.A. resulted from elections with the participation of almost one million citizens in the liberated areas. Its members were sworn in and met at the Viniani Elementary School, while our village became the committee’s headquarters and the capital of “Free Greece”. During that period, Viniani became a safe haven and protected environment by the partisans, meetings of P.E.E.A, the British, and other partisan groups. This brought forth for the village, soup kitchens, medical office, self-government assemblies, social events, photographic and artistic workshops. These people were hosted by the villagers in their own homes, who came and went or settled in the mountains. One of the more noted photographers to capture and document the events of the mountains was Spiros Meletzis who was living in Viniani.
The end of World War II did not mean peace for Greece. The civil war that followed from 1946 to 1949 had dramatic consequences in the Agrafa region. More details to follow on this topic. Our village Viniani of the Agrafa region was basically unknown until 1942, like many other mountainous settlements, but Viniani was at the center of the war storm and political current affairs for the period from 1943 to 1949. With the end of this era, Viniani sank back into obscurity in a devastated countryside with a decimated population. After the period of these successive wars, Viniani had lost one third of its pre-war population. The situation then stabilized for two decades, with its population numbering 368 inhabitants in 1951 and 365 inhabitants in 1961.