Ano Poroia
Encyclopedia
Ano Poroia is a village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, located in Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...

. The population was 1,529 people (2001). The name literally means "Upper Downpour" in contemporary Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...

.

Geography

The village is located 55 km and 30 km respectively to the Northwest of the town of Serres
Serres
Serres is a city in Greece, seat of the Serres prefecture.Serres may also refer to:Places:* Serres, Germany, a part of Wiernsheim in Baden-WürttembergIn France:* Serres, Aude in the Aude département...

 and to the west of Sidirokastro
Sidirokastro
Sidirokastro is a town and a former municipality in the Serres regional unit, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Sintiki, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It is built near the fertile valley of the river Strymonas, on the bank of the...

. It is at the foot of the Belasitsa (Beles or Kerkini) at an altitude of 380 m. Lake Kerkini
Lake Kerkini
Lake Kerkini , in Greece, is an artificial reservoir that was created in 1932, and then redeveloped in 1980, on the site of what was previously an extremely extensive marshland....

 (Butkovsko lake) is to the south of Ano Poroia.

History

Ano Poroia was founded in the end of the 18th century (c.1800),by Vlachs
Vlachs
Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...

 (at the most) of Pindus
Pindus
The Pindus mountain range is located in northern Greece and southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km long, with a maximum elevation of 2637 m . Because it runs along the border of Thessaly and Epirus, the Pindus range is often called the "spine of Greece"...

 mountain after expulsions led by Ali Pasha
Ali Pasha
Ali Pasha of Tepelena or of Yannina, surnamed Aslan, "the Lion", or the "Lion of Yannina", Ali Pashë Tepelena was an Ottoman Albanian ruler of the western part of Rumelia, the Ottoman Empire's European territory which was also called Pashalik of Yanina. His court was in Ioannina...

 of Ioannina
Ioannina
Ioannina , often called Jannena within Greece, is the largest city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a population of 70,203 . It lies at an elevation of approximately 500 meters above sea level, on the western shore of lake Pamvotis . It is located within the Ioannina municipality, and is the...

. During the 19th century the village was one of the largest and developed in Demirhisar Kaza of the Serres
Serres
Serres is a city in Greece, seat of the Serres prefecture.Serres may also refer to:Places:* Serres, Germany, a part of Wiernsheim in Baden-WürttembergIn France:* Serres, Aude in the Aude département...

 Sandjak. The main occupation was farming (tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

, flax
Flax
Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...

, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

, barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...

, rye
Rye
Rye is a grass grown extensively as a grain and as a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe and is closely related to barley and wheat. Rye grain is used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, some whiskeys, some vodkas, and animal fodder...

), sericulture, and commerce. The population was composed of Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...

 , Vlachs and Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

.

In "Ethnographie des vilayets d'Adrianople, de Monastir et de Salonique" (issued in Constantinople in 1878 and concerning the population in 1873) it was written that Gorni Poroi was a village, and had 320 households with 1,000 Bulgarians and 60 Vlachs.
Gustav Weigand -German linguist and specialist in Balkan languages (esp.Bulgarian and Aromanian)- passed during early 20th century.He mentions 750 households.450 of them Bulgarian,200 Vlachic and 100 Turkish.

At first both Bulgarians and Vlachs heard the same liturgy and they belonged to a unified church that was serving in Greek.

The oldest school that ever existed in the village is mentioned in 1819.It was a Greek elementary school that was attended by Vlachs and a few Bulgarian children of the wealthier class. The first conflict between Bulgarians and Greekophiles was registered in 1883, when Bulgarians tried and achieved to separate from the Greek church and education and regenerate their own. According to Vasil Kanchov
Vasil Kanchov
Vasil Kanchov was a Bulgarian geographer, ethnographer and politician.- Biography :Vasil Kanchov was born in Vratsa. Upon graduating from High school in Lom, Bulgaria, he entered the University of Harkov, then in Russia. During the Serbo-Bulgarian War 1885 he suspended his education and took part...

, in 1891 the village had two Bulgarian churches (serving in Church-Slavonic) and a Vlach church (serving in Greek). There were two Bulgarian elementary schools, and one Greek elementary school that was attended by Vlachs. According to Kantchov, there were 3,780 people living in the village around 1900. 2,200 of them were Bulgarian, 480 were Turkish, and 1,100 Vlachs.

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Bulgarian people in Gorni Poroi were within the borders of the Bulgarian Exarchate
Bulgarian Exarchate
The Bulgarian Exarchate was the official name of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church before its autocephaly was recognized by the Ecumenical See in 1945 and the Bulgarian Patriarchate was restored in 1953....

, and the Vlachs had their own Romanian Parish and they were engaged in a conflict with the Bulgarians. According to Dimitar Mishev, the secretary of the exarchate, in 1905 there were 3,840 Bulgarian exarchatists, 25 Greeks, and 750 Vlachs. There was a Greek elementary school and a Bulgarian elementary and middle-high school.

The 7th Rila Division liberated the village from the Ottoman Empire in October 1912, during the First Balkan War
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, pitted the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success...

. During the Second Balkan War
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 29 June 1913. Bulgaria had a prewar agreement about the division of region of Macedonia...

, on the 9th of July, 1913, Gorni Poroy was set on fire by the Greek army.

After the war, the village remained within the borders of Greece.A large portion of the Bulgarian population, as well some Vlachs, emigrated to Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

. They went primarily to the towns of Petrich
Petrich
Petrich is a town in Blagoevgrad Province in southwestern Bulgaria, located at the foot of the Belasica Mountains in the Strumeshnitsa Valley. , the town has 29920 inhabitants.Petrich is located close to the borders with Greece and the Republic of Macedonia...

, Blagoevgrad
Blagoevgrad
Blagoevgrad is а city in southwestern Bulgaria, the administrative centre of Blagoevgrad Province, with a population of about 74,302 . It lies on the banks of the Blagoevgradska Bistritsa River....

, and Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...

, and to the villages on the northern slopes of Belasitsa, Belasitsa
Belasitsa (village)
Belasitsa is a village in the municipality of Petrich, in Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria.-References:...

, Kolarovo
Kolarovo, Blagoevgrad Province
Kolarovo, Blagoevgrad Province is a village in the municipality of Petrich, in Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria.-References:...

, Samuilovo
Samuilovo, Blagoevgrad Province
Samuilovo, Blagoevgrad Province is a village in the municipality of Petrich, in Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria.-References:...

, Klyuch
Klyuch
Klyuch , in Medieval Greek known as Kleidion and in Latin known as Clidium, is a village in south-westernmost Bulgaria, part of Petrich municipality, Blagoevgrad Province. It lies at , 455 metres above sea level...

, Skrat
Skrat, Blagoevgrad Province
Skrat, Blagoevgrad Province is a village in the municipality of Petrich, in Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria.-References:...

.In 1913 according to the Greek statistic ministry there were 2.684 Greeks in the village (including Vlachs). In the 1920s, Greek refugees from Asia Minor settled down in the village.

Born in Ano Poroia

  • Ivancho voivoda (1848–1896), Bulgarian revolutionary
  • Yordan Ivanov (1908 - ?), Bulgarian chemist, professor at Sofia University
    Sofia University
    The St. Clement of Ohrid University of Sofia or Sofia University is the oldest higher education institution in Bulgaria, founded on 1 October 1888...

  • Petros Penas (1902–1994), Greek historian
  • Dimitrios Itsios (1906–1941), Greek soldier who murdered by Nazis
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