Moscopole

Moscopole or Voskopoja (Albanian: Voskopojë; Aromanian: Moscopole, with several other variants; Greek: Μοσχόπολις, romanized: Moschopolis) is a village in Korçë County in southeastern Albania. During the 18th century, it was the cultural and commercial center of the Aromanians. At its peak, in the mid 18th century, it hosted the first printing house in the Ottoman Balkans outside Constantinople, educational institutions and numerous churches. It became a leading center of Greek culture but also with elements of Albanian and Aromanian culture, all with great influence from Western civilization.

One view attributes the decline of the city to a series of raids by Muslim Albanian bandits. Moscopole was initially attacked and almost destroyed by those bandit groups in 1769 following the participation of the residents in the preparations for a Greek revolt supported by the Russian Empire. Its decline culminated with the destruction of 1788 and the flight of its population. Moscopole, once a prosperous city, was reduced to a small village by Ali Pasha of Ioannina. According to another view, the city's decline was mainly due to the relocation of the trade routes in central and eastern Europe following these raids. The decline pushed parts of the population to leave, making Moscopole the original homeland of much of the Aromanian diaspora.

Today Moscopole, known as Voskopojë, is a small mountain village, and along with a few other local settlements is considered a holy place by local Orthodox Christians. Aromanians no longer form a majority of the population, with incoming Christian and Muslim Albanians having further settled in the village, especially after World War II. Still, Moscopole has held a key place within Aromanian nationalism, and many Aromanian writers have written about Moscopole in a mythical and utopian way, mourning the city's destruction, an event which gave rise to comparisons between Moscopole and Jerusalem and potrayals such as a "New Jerusalem", "New Athens" or "Arcadia of the Balkans". Greek historians have claimed the city's population as Greek, while Romanian historians have claimed it as Romanian. However, ethnic affiliations at the time were fluid; when the refugees from Moscopole moved to Austria in 1769, they declared themselves to be Macedonians, which was a geographic identity rather than an ethnic one.