Alibey Adasi

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Alibey
Cunda
Moschonisia
Waters Aegean Sea
Archipelago Ayvalık Islands
Geographical location 39 ° 20 '45 "  N , 26 ° 38' 16"  E Coordinates: 39 ° 20 '45 "  N , 26 ° 38' 16"  E
Alibey Adası (Turkey)
Alibey Adasi
surface 23 km²
Highest elevation 180  m
Residents 3321
144 inhabitants / km²

Alibey Adası or Cunda Adası ( Greek Μοσχονήσι or Μοσχονήσος Moschonisia ) is the largest island off Ayvalık in western Turkey and the fourth largest in the whole country. It is located in the Gulf of Edremit in the Aegean Sea . The island is 23 km² and is 16 km from Lesbos . Alibey is part of an archipelago of 22 islands, all of which except Alibey are uninhabited and have been a national park since 1995. Administratively, Alibey belongs to the municipality of Ayvalık and is divided into the Mahalle Mithatpaşa and Namık Kemal. 3321 people live on the island, this number rises to 20,000 in summer due to tourism.

Surname

In the maps of the Ottoman navigator Piri Reis , the islands off Ayvalık appear with the name Yunt adaları . Piri Reis is said to have used the term Yunt to describe the wild herds of horses and donkeys on the islands. The form Cunda is said to have originated from a translation error. The current official name of Alibey was given to the island after the Turkish soldier Ali Çetinkaya, who fought against the Greek occupation in 1922. Another Greek name is Moschonisia, which is said to refer to the scent of the many flowers on the island.

history

Lesbos (left) with the islands of Ayvalık in a map of the Piri Reis'

In the works of ancient Greek authors such as Herodotus , Strabo , and Pliny the Elder there are no details about the island itself. Rather general information about the region was given, according to Herodotus there should have been an Aioli settlement in the area of ​​Alibey . The island only became tangible in 1770, when the Ottoman naval officer Cezayirli Gazi Hassan Pascha found refuge here with a Greek clergyman after the naval battle of Çeşme . On the initiative of the Pasha, the residents of Ayvalık were given autonomous rights and competencies by Ferman . Alibey was affected by the Greek Revolution in 1821 and its Greek population was dispossessed and driven out. These were then able to return in 1824 and their property was returned in 1832. However, Ayvalık's independence was revoked in 1840. In 1862 a mayor's office ( Belediye ) was established on the island .

For a few months in 1922 the island was the seat of the bishopric of the Greek Orthodox Church when Greece occupied the region in the course of the Greco-Turkish War . The bishopric was a neoclassical mansion located on the bank of the city center. The last Metropolitan Ambrosios Pleianthidis was executed by the Turkish army after the Turkish victory in 1922. Several hundred Greek islanders fell victim to the victory on September 19, 1922, only a few children were spared and sent to orphanages. After the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey , the few remaining islanders were forced to emigrate to Greece the following year. Turks from Crete and Lesbos were settled in their place . In 1944 the island was hit by an earthquake that did not claim any lives but severely damaged the buildings.

Geography and cityscape

Alibey is a typical Aegean resort. The main sources of income for the islanders are fishing, olive growing and tourism. There are frequent bus and ferry connections between Alibey and Ayvalık. The island has been connected to the mainland by a bridge over the island of Lale since 1964. This was the first and currently oldest bridge in Turkey that connects land separated by a strait. Poroselen Bay in the north of the island is one of Alibey's main attractions. In ancient times, according to Pausanias, it was the home of a dolphin that saved a drowning boy.

In 2007, after two years of work, all 551 buildings on Alibey were checked and registered by the Turkish Academy of Sciences and the Faculty of Architecture of Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi as part of the “Culture of Turkey Inventory Project”. Funders and sponsors are being sought for the restoration of all buildings. The main landmark of Alibey is the Taxiarch Church (Taksiyarhis Kilisesi) . The large, formerly Greek Orthodox church was abandoned and fell into disrepair, but has since been restored and opened as a museum in 2014.

The Harvard University and the Turkish Koç University have launched a joint project on Alibey to life and organize every summer a course of Ottoman and Turkish language.

gallery

See also

Web links

Commons : Cunda Island  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Ayvalık Nüfusu - Balıkesir , (Turkish)
  2. Evangelos Charitopoulos: Diocese of Moschonisia ( Greek ) Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Μείζονος Ελληνισμού, Μ. Ασία. Archived from the original on February 3, 2014. Retrieved October 14, 2012.
  3. Bruce Clark: Twice a stranger: the mass expulsion that forged modern Greece and Turkey . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 2006, ISBN 978-0-674-02368-0 , p. 25: “On the nearby islet which is known in Greek as Moschonisi and in Turkish as Cunda, several hundred civilians of all ages were taken away and killed, only some of the children were spared and sent to orphanages "
  4. ^ Ottoman Studies Foundation