Lefkada

Coordinates: 38°43′N 20°39′E / 38.717°N 20.650°E / 38.717; 20.650
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the island. For the island's capital, see Lefkada (city). For the administrative unit, see Lefkada (regional unit).
"Leukas" redirects here. For other uses, see Leucas (disambiguation) and Leucadia (disambiguation).
For the icon painting material, see Levkas.
Lefkada
Λευκάδα
UTC+3 (EEST)
Websitelefkada.gov.gr

Lefkada (Greek: Λευκάδα, Lefkáda, [lefˈkaða]), also known as Lefkas or Leukas[2] (Ancient Greek and Katharevousa: Λευκάς, Leukás, modern pronunciation Lefkás) and Leucadia, is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea on the west coast of Greece, connected to the mainland by a long causeway and floating bridge. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Lefkada.[3] It is situated on the northern part of the island, approximately 25 minutes by automobile away from Aktion National Airport. The island is part of the regional unit of Lefkada.

Geography

The island of Lefkada in a NASA World Wind satellite picture.

Lefkada measures 35 kilometres (22 miles) from north to south, and 15 kilometres (9 miles) from east to west. The area of the island is about 302 square kilometres (117 sq mi), the area of the municipality (including the islands Kalamos, Kastos and several smaller islets) is 333.58 km2 (128.80 sq mi).

Kefalonia, Ithaca
and Meganissi.

20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Nidri is the resort of

Vasiliki, a windsurfing center. There are ferries to Kefalonia and Ithaca from Vasiliki. South of Vasiliki is Cape Lefkada, where Cephalus and the Greek female poet Sappho allegedly leapt to their death from the 30 m high cliffs on two separate occasions.[6]

The famous beach of Porto Katsiki is located on Lefkada's west coast. Lefkada was attached to mainland Greece (see below about Homer's Ithaca being Lefkada). The Corinthians dug a trench in the 7th century BC on its isthmus.[7]

The southernmost tip of the island is called Cape Dukato, a name sometimes applied to the whole island.

Climate

Sunrise in front of the road entrance of the city
Kalamitsi beach

The island has a typical Mediterranean climate with hot summers and cool winters, or Csa according to the Köppen climate classification system.

History

Antiquity

The stories of

Corcyraen participation.[8] In medieval British legend, Brutus of Troy found Lefkada abandoned after pirate attacks, and after offering a sacrifice to a statue of Diana in the temple of a ruined city there, was granted a vision telling him to go to Britain and found an empire.[9]

Brutus in the temple on Lefkada (upper left) in a c. 1475 tapestry now in the Cathedral of the Savior of Zaragoza

The ancient town was founded in the 7th century BC, somewhat to the south of the modern capital of the island.[10] During the Peloponnesian War, Leucas joined the Peloponnesian League.[11]

The town was conquered during the 3rd century by Agathocles of Syracuse.

Middle Ages

Byzantine period

No information survives on the island during the early Byzantine period,[12] when the town possibly disappeared in the turmoils of the Migration Period.[10] Nevertheless, unlike the Epirote mainland, where widespread Slavic settlement is attested from the late 6th until mid-8th centuries,[13] only a handful of traces attest to a Slavic settlement in Lefkada.[12]

Information continues to be sparse during the middle Byzantine period. The island is attested as a bishopric at the

al-Idrisi's geography in the mid-12th century.[12]

Epirote and Latin rule

Further information:
Latinokratia

The

treaty of partition of the Byzantine Empire in 1204.[12] Lefkada apparently became part of the Despotate of Epirus, although this is not explicitly attested until 1259.[12]

The name Santa Maura is first attested for the island and its capital in 1292, when Genoese ships in Byzantine employ raided it.

Count palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos John I Orsini.[15] Orsini soon after received permission from Charles II of Naples to build a castle there,[16] which became the core of the Castle of Santa Maura.[15]

Map of Lefkada by Cristoforo Buondelmonti, c. 1420

The Orsini family lost Lefkada in 1331 to

Walter VI of Brienne, who in 1343 ceded the castrum Sancte Maure and the island to the Venetian Graziano Giorgio.[17][14] In 1360/62, Leonardo I Tocco seized Lefkada, assuming the title of duke (dux Lucate), whence the island is sometimes also referred to as "the Duchy" (el Ducato and variants thereof) in Western sources of the period.[12][18] The local Orthodox archbishop was evicted.[12] After Albanian clans took over much of Epirus in the 1350s and 1360s,[19][20] they launched frequent attacks on the island between 1375 and 1395.[12] Carlo I Tocco (r. 1376–1429) made the island the capital of his domains, which apart from the County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos also included much of the Epirote mainland, and enlarged the fortified town.[10]

In 1413, the Prince of Achaea, Centurione II Zaccaria, launched an attack on Lefkada and its castle with Albanian mercenaries, but were defeated with help from the Republic of Venice.[14] The Ottomans captured most of Epirus[10] and raided the island, leading the Tocci to consider ceding it to the Venetians.[12]

Faced with expanding Ottoman power in the mainland, the Tocci became vassals of the Ottoman sultans.

Mehmed the Conqueror (r. 1444–1446, 1451–1481); but when she died, he married the Aragonese Francesca Marzano. The couple quickly became hated by their Greek subjects due to their oppressive taxation.[21] Lefkada, along with Cephalonia and Zakynthos, was captured by the Ottoman admiral Gedik Ahmed Pasha in 1479. Part of the population was deported to Constantinople
as part of Mehmed's policy to repopulate his capital.[22]

Ottoman period

Manesson Mallet
, 1696

The Ottomans called the island Levkada (

Second Ottoman–Venetian War, but returned it to the Ottomans in the final peace settlement.[15][23] With about a thousand inhabitants in c. 1530, the town of Lefkada was both the largest settlement and the main military installation in the sanjak, with 111 soldiers and 9 artillerymen.[22] As with the rest of the sanjak, at the time the entire population appears to have been Christian, and only the fortress garrisons and administrators were Muslim; thus the only mosques were located inside the fortresses.[22]

A lack of water led to the construction of a 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) long

Kılıç Ali Pasha in 1572–1574 into a hexagonal fortress with large towers as artillery platforms.[25]

In the 17th century, Lefkada became a separate sanjak within the Eyalet of the Archipelago, although according to

maktab), a bath (hammam), and five public fountains (çeshme). The walled town with its 200 stone houses was now occupied exclusively by Muslims, while the two suburbs (varosh) to the east and west were built of wood and had a mixed population. The western one was far larger, with 300 houses to 40–50 in the eastern one, and had a wooden mosque and masjid, a tekke, a maktab, two caravanserais, as well as seven small churches. Evliya remarks that this suburb had many wineshops, which were popular with both the inhabitants and the garrison.[27] Another suburb (the Varosh-i Lefqada) was located on the island itself, with some 700 houses, all of them inhabited by Christian Greeks, who had 20 churches.[28] Evliya's account is corroborated by Jacob Spon and George Wheler's account that the town had about 5,000 to 6,000 inhabitants, mostly Greeks or Turks.[28]

According to the descriptions of travellers like Evliya, Lefkada was an urban centre of some importance, boasting "two of the largest works of Ottoman civil and military architecture in the Western Balkans", namely the aqueduct built by Sultan

Kılıç Ali Pasha in the reign of Sultan Selim II (r. 1566–1574).[10]

Venetian period

Church of the Theotokos, Lefkada city.
Church of the Pantokrator, Lefkada city.

The island was conquered by the Venetians under Francesco Morosini following a sixteen-day siege in 1684, during the opening stages of the Morean War.[23][28] Morosini evacuated the walled town and demolished both it and the two suburbs directly outside the walls, turning them into the castle's glacis. Only the island suburb remained, known as "Amaxiki" until the 19th century. With the evicted inhabitants settling there, this became the main town of the island, the predecessor of the modern city of Lefkada. The Venetians also removed all buildings associated with Islam.[28]

The Venetians modernized the castle in the 1710s, removing the last traces of the medieval castle and adding

Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War, following the Ottoman reconquest of the Morea in 1715, the Venetians initially abandoned Lefkada to focus their resources on the defence of Corfu. The castle was abandoned and partly demolished, but after the Siege of Corfu ended in a Venetian victory, the island was reoccupied and the fortifications restored.[29]

Venetian rule over the island was uninterrupted, apart from a rebellion of the local Greeks in 1769, until the Fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797.[28]

Post-Venetian period until the union with Greece

Following the end of the Republic of Venice in 1797, Lefkada, like the other

Treaty of Tilsit, but in 1810, the British captured the island.[33][34] In 1815, the United Kingdom set up the United States of the Ionian Islands
as a protectorate, including Lefkada.

Much of the town, including the Ottoman aqueduct, was destroyed in an earthquake in 1825. After this, the town was rebuilt in wood to prevent similar damage.

ceded to Greece.[28] The island then numbered about 24,000 inhabitants.[28]

Lafcadio Hearn Historical Center

The first museum in Europe for Lafcadio Hearn, who was born on the island and is named after it, was inaugurated in Lefkada on July 4, 2014, as Lafcadio Hearn Historical Center. It contains early editions, rare books and Japanese collectibles. The visitors, through photos, texts and exhibits, can wander in the significant events of Lafcadio Hearn's life, and also in the civilizations of Europe, America and Japan of late 19th and early 20th centuries through the open mind of his lectures, writings and tales. The municipalities of Kumamoto, Matsue, Shinjuku, Yaizu, as well as Toyama University, the Koizumi family, and other people from Japan and Greece contributed to the establishment of the Lafcadio Hearn Historical Center.

View of Nydri

Municipality

The present municipality of Lefkada was formed in the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 7 former municipalities, which became municipal units:[3]

The municipality covers the island of Lefkada and the smaller islands of Kastos and Kalamos.

Education

Regional Development department, part of Ionian university based in Lefkada.[36]

Transport

Notable people

Bust of Aristotelis Valaoritis

(in chronological order)

Gallery

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "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.
  2. ISBN 978-0-19-975416-8
    . Retrieved 16 June 2011.
  3. ^ a b "ΦΕΚ A 87/2010, Kallikratis reform law text" (in Greek). Government Gazette.
  4. ^ "Population & housing census 2001 (incl. area and average elevation)" (PDF) (in Greek). National Statistical Service of Greece. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-21.
  5. ^ "Oreivatein.com". Archived from the original on 2012-12-09. Retrieved 2012-02-21.
  6. ^ Strabo 10.2.20
  7. ^ Strabo 10.452
  8. ISBN 0-7190-0059-9
  9. ISBN 978-1473849181
    .
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h Kiel 1986, p. 725.
  11. ISBN 0-312-34215-2
    .
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Soustal & Koder 1981, p. 195.
  13. ^ Soustal & Koder 1981, pp. 51–52.
  14. ^ a b c Soustal & Koder 1981, pp. 195, 203.
  15. ^ a b c Brooks 2013, p. 102.
  16. ^ Soustal & Koder 1981, p. 203.
  17. ^ Brooks 2013, p. 287.
  18. ^ Brooks 2013, pp. 102, 287.
  19. ^ Fine 1994, pp. 348–351.
  20. ^ Soustal & Koder 1981, pp. 70–71.
  21. ^ Kiel 1986, pp. 725–726.
  22. ^ a b c d Kiel 1986, p. 726.
  23. ^ a b Soustal & Koder 1981, p. 196.
  24. ^ Kiel 1986, pp. 725, 726, 737.
  25. ^ Kiel 1986, pp. 725, 726.
  26. ^ Birken 1976, pp. 61, 103.
  27. ^ Kiel 1986, pp. 726–727.
  28. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kiel 1986, p. 727.
  29. ^ Brooks 2013, p. 103.
  30. ^ Brooks 2013, pp. 103–104.
  31. ^ Nicholas Charles Pappas (1982). Greeks in Russian military service in the late eighteen and early nineteenth centuries. Stanford University. These troops were recruited from among the fugitive klephtes and armatoloi residing on the Ionian Islands, particularly Lefkas. Among these men were the Captains Anastasios Tselios and Apostolos Levendakls. Tselios was a member of a prominent family of armatoloi from Xeromeros in southwestern Greece. As early as 1802, he had offered his services to the Septinsular Republic, proposing to raise and command a company of sixty men on Lefkas. ... In April 1806, this kapitanios and his men were among a number of refugee armatoloi on Lefkas. including the kapitanaioi Skylodemos, Stratos, Giannes Kolovelones, Konstantes Poules, Giorgakes — — 72 Varnakiotes and others. By June ...
  32. ^ Moschonas 1975, p. 399.
  33. ^ Brooks 2013, p. 104.
  34. ^ Moschonas 1975, pp. 399–400.
  35. ^ Kiel 1986, pp. 727–728.
  36. ^ "Τοποθεσια – Τμήμα Περιφερειακής Ανάπτυξης".

Sources

External links
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