Morfou

Morfu Μόρφου Morfou Güzelyurt / Omorfo
Basic data
State :	Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (de facto)
District :	Güzelyurt
Geographic coordinates :	35 ° 12 ′  N , 33 ° 0 ′  E Coordinates: 35 ° 12 ′  N , 33 ° 0 ′  E
Residents :	18,946 (2011)
Mayor :	Mahmut Özçınar

Morfu or Morphou , Greek Μόρφου Morfou ( Turkish Omorfo or Güzelyurt "beautiful home"), is a city in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus .

The area around Morfou is Cyprus' most important growing area for citrus fruits , the yields of which make up a considerable part of the export income of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

history

Bronze Age settlements, Spartan founding

A settlement was discovered north of Morfou near Toumba tou Skourou , which was dated to the late Bronze Age . However, in the area of ​​Morfou Toumba tou Skourou , copper was processed; the settlement was between 1300 and 1100 BC. BC, probably destroyed before the 12th century. Their successor settlement existed until around 700 BC. At Ambelia, too, early Bronze Age settlement remains of a place that existed until the Hellenistic period were discovered. A nearby necropolis contained artifacts from the Geometric to the Hellenistic periods.

Morfou itself may have been founded by Spartans, who the in Sparta respected cult of Aphrodite Morpho brought to Cyprus.

Kingdom of Cyprus, Maronite Parish

At the latest after the end of the Crusader states (1291), numerous Maronites came to Cyprus, who spoke mainly Arabic and lived mainly in Famagusta . But also in Koruçam (Turkish: Kormacit) north of Morfou a community emerged that, in contrast to most of the Maronites, whose relatives moved south, continued to exist after 1974.

Agios Mamas

Venetian rule (1489–1571)

In 1489 the island came to Venice . Around 1528, Morfou was sold by the Republic of Venice to the Greek Efgenios Syngliticos for 28,500 ducats. At that time it was one of the 20 largest villages in Cyprus. However, the Council of Ten reserved the right to repurchase it within five years. This was actually attempted in 1530, and in 1534 even using funds from the coin. Eventually Efgenios paid 60,000 ducats , an extraordinarily large sum, to keep Morfou and Aradippou at Larnaka . He also lent the Signoria 20,000 ducats for a year.

Ottoman rule (1571–1878)

Images of the Church of Agios Mamas in Alexander Drummond : Travels through different Cities of Germany, Italy, Greece and several parts of Asia, as far as the banks of the Euphrates: In a series of letters. Containing An Account of what is most remarkable in their Present State, As well as in their Monuments of Antiquity , W. Strahan, London 1754, between pp. 254 and 255. Drummond described the church as “the handsomest building of its kind in the whole island ”(p. 267) and“ It was almost finished when the Turks conquered the island. ”He found the“ corridore ”that existed at the time so ugly that he did not include it.

British rule

Great Britain dominated the island from 1878, Morfou's population was estimated at 3,000 that year. From 1931, London established a uniform school system. In Morfou there was a Greek-Turkish teacher training college, which was opposed by Greek nationalists, especially since English was also taught there. In 1896 the growing village became an independent municipality. Madder was grown in the area in the 19th century , but in the 20th century the island became the center of orange, lemon and grapefruit cultivation, where 51% of the island's citrus fruits were produced before 1974. During the Second World War, the Italian Air Force attacked Morfou as well as Paphos, Nicosia and Famagusta.

Independence, civil war, Turkish occupation (since 1974), immigration

In 1960 Morfou had 6,480 inhabitants. In the 1970s, the community was of considerable importance. This became evident on July 12, 1973, when Archbishop Makarios III. who was also President of Cyprus, who deposed the three bishops of the island at a synod under the presidency of the Patriarch of Alexandria and who now has five bishoprics occupied. In addition, Famagusta and Morfou received new bishops.

Before the Turkish military offensive in 1974, Morfou was almost exclusively inhabited by around 9,000 Cypriot Greeks who had to leave the place after the Turkish army occupied the area on August 16, 1974. Of the Greek Cypriots missing in 1618, 140 came from the area around Morfou. The former city government continued its work in Limassol . The Cypriot Turkish government changed Morfou to the Turkish name Güzelyurt, the place which was previously translated as 'beautiful place' - derived from the well-formed or well-designed Aphrodite - was now called 'beautiful land'.

The Güzelyurt Fatih Camii , the mosque built before 2005

After three decades in which Morfou-Güzelyurt with its border location had to record a severe economic decline, Bishop Neophytos of Morfou traveled to the Turkish town and negotiated with the local government. In doing so, he broke a taboo of the Orthodox Church, which refused to accept its authority. In the meantime the population had increased relatively strongly. In 1985 10,179 people lived in the village, in 1997 there were already 13,000 and in 2006 there were 15,252.

In 2004, the Annan Plan provided for Güzelyurt-Morfou and its surroundings to be awarded to the newly founded Greek-Cypriot state of Cyprus. One of the motives that led to the rejection on the Greek Cypriot side was the compensation of the displaced persons in 1974, which was considered too low. In addition, only 20% of the displaced persons were allowed to return to their places of origin within a period of 25 years. In contrast, the displaced Turkish Cypriots were granted the right to return. There was also criticism of the limited freedom of movement in the economic field and the permanent presence of Turkish army units .

In 2006, the place had about 12,000 inhabitants, of whom only 500 belonged to the Cypriot Turkish population, while the rest of them had immigrated from Turkey or the south of the island. Due to the uncertain affiliation to the Greek or Turkish part of the island, the residents viewed their presence as more temporary. Many of the 1500 Turkish residents of the neighboring town of Doğancı campaigned for the return of the Greeks. In the 2003 votes, 54% of the local population came forward for a contractual agreement. On the 29th anniversary of the occupation, a demonstration for the unification of Cyprus was held, which was also attended by a few Turks. Since then, a demonstration by the displaced residents of the town has taken place at the border every October. The still incumbent mayor in exile, Charalambos Pittas, plays a leading role.

traffic

The city was the terminus of the Famagusta – Morphou railway, which existed from 1904 to 1951 .

Attractions

View of the Morfou Bay

• The monastery of Agios Mamas with the tomb of Saint Mamas
• The Morfou Antiquities Museum with finds from solos
• Surroundings:
  • The ruins and theater of ancient Greece of Soli
  • The Persian Palace of Vouni
  • The Bronze Age settlement Toumba tou Skourou

sons and daughters of the town

• Antigoni Papadopoulou (* 1954), Greek Cypriot politician

literature

• Cornelius Vermeule: The Ram Cults of Cyprus: Pastoral to Paphian at Morphou , in: RDAC (1974) 199-238.
• Emily Vermeule : Toumba tou Skourou: The mound of darkness: A Bronze Age town on Morphou Bay in Cyprus . Harvard University Cyprus Archaeological Expedition, Cambridge 1974.

Web links

Wikivoyage: Morphou / Güzelyurt  - travel guide

Remarks

1. ^ Excavations at Toumba tou Skourou, Morphou, 1971 , in: V. Karageorghis (ed.): Acts of the International Archaeological Symposium 'The Mycenaeans in the Eastern Mediterranean' , Nicosia 1973, pp. 25-33.
2. ^ A. Bernard Knapp: The Archeology of Cyprus. From Earliest Prehistory Through the Bronze Age , Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 407.
3. ^ A. Bernard Knapp: The Archeology of Cyprus. From Earliest Prehistory Through the Bronze Age , Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 474.
4. ↑ Silvia Ferrara (ed.): Cypro-Minoan Inscriptions , Vol. 1: Analysis , Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 86, note 230.
5. ^ Trevor Bryce: The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia. The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire , Routledge, 2009, p. 481.
6. ↑ Morphou , Richard Stillwell, William L. MacDonald, Marian Holland McAllister, Stillwell, Richard, MacDonald, William L., McAlister, Marian Holland (Eds.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites .
7. ↑ Chares Demetriou: Big Structures, Social Boundaries, and Identity in Cyprus, 1400–1700 , in: American Behavioral Scientist 51 (2008), p. 1486.
8. ↑ Benjamin Arbel : Greek Magnates in Venetian Cyprus: The Case of the Synglitico Family. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995) 325–337 (Symposium on Byzantium and the Italians, 13th-15th Centuries), here: p. 326.
9. ^ Rebecca Bryant: Imagining the Modern: The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus , IBTauris, 2004, p. 164.
10. ↑ J. Thomson: A journey through Cyprus in the autumn of 1878. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, New Monthly Series 1/2, 1879, p. 101.
11. ↑ Steven Katsineris: The tenacious exiles: The struggle of the people of Morphou , in: The Guardian, November 8, 2006.
12. ↑ Tabitha Morgan: Sweet and Bitter Island. A History of the British in Cyprus , IBTauris, 2010, p. 172.
13. ^ The Population of the Mixed Villages of Cyprus based on the 1960 Census , PDF, website peace-cyprus.org.
14. ↑ Andrekos Varnava, Michalis N. Michael: The Archbishops of Cyprus in the Modern Age. The Changing Role of the Archbishop-Ethnarch, their Identities and Politics , Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, p. 285.
15. ↑ Victor Roudometof, Irene Dietzel: The Orthodox Church of Cyprus , in: Lucian N. Leustean (Ed.): Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century , Routledge, 2014, o. P.
16. ↑ Turkish controlled area: The most important places with statistics on their population ( Memento of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), World Gazetteer , at archive.org, September 30, 2007 (data for 1985, 1997 and 2006).
17. ^ The Annan Plan for Cyprus. "Let us seize this chance for peace in a United Cyprus Republic" .