History of Spartila
History and culture
The village of Spartylas conceals a fascinating history that has shaped its culture. It is one of the oldest European cultural centers, mentioned in documents and maps from the 15th century. However, its history seems to fade into the depths of time.
Many villages on the northern side of Corfu, like Peritheia, initially developed in lowland areas not visible from the sea. With the disappearance of the threat from pirates and Ottoman attacks in the 18th century, they were relocated to their current location. There are still ruins of one of these villages in the plain towards Pantokrator. However, documents indicate that Spartylas existed as a fortified settlement in its current location for a very long time.
Evidence of this is the architectural structure of the village, which was fortified and consisted of various enclosed and fenced sections with large gates. There are numerous historical depictions where the village can be recognized in its present location from very early times. The eight family names that still live in the village were already mentioned in documents from the 16th century.
Architecture
The northern part of the village, known as "Pano Rouga," originally sat at the edge of a cliff, which was later covered by buildings constructed from the 18th century onwards. The current road is approximately 8 meters lower than the original center of the village.
A similar situation exists in the southern part of the village, known as "Kato Rouga." In three places, the gates of sections of the village can still be clearly recognized.
The ancient houses were built in accordance with the northern Italian style of the Venetian period, with window openings, arches, and overall proportions similar to the villages of Liguria. The houses were built close to each other, utilizing every space within the protective walls of the village. This basic structure as a fortified village created the characteristic stone paths and stairs that maintain the charm of the village center to this day.
The gardens were located outside the village, as in other fortified villages. Almost every house had its own well within the courtyard. Several of the arches of the bastions that protected sections of the village are still preserved.
Traditional houses in Spartylas were constructed from quarried stone with a wall thickness of 80 centimeters or more. The wooden beams and ceilings were made from cypress wood. Additionally, the area of Spartylas is situated above various geological substrata, so the stones of the walls include basalt, limestone, and sandstone. The walls were mortared with clay without plaster and coated with lime. Three traditional colors were used: white from burnt lime, ochre, and Venetian red in various pastel shades.
The traditional farmhouses had a smokehouse outside the main house, with a stone oven for baking bread and a hearth corner with a large copper cauldron. The roof tiles of the smokehouse were loosely placed, allowing the passage of smoke. This protected the roof beam from pests.
Above the living rooms on the first floor, there was a ceiling suspended from the roof beam. There was a hole at each end of the attic for ventilation of the roof space. This construction provided protection from the heat in summer, while in winter, the animals warmed the ground floor living rooms, as the intermediate ceiling consisted of wooden panels.
Village of Three Streams
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Spartylas is also referred to in old sources as the "village of the three streams." In reality, three streams converge at the lower part of the village. The winter water flow through the village is abundant due to the steep slope - Corfu receives a higher amount of precipitation than many areas in Europe, with an average of over 1000 millimeters per square meter. Due to the village's geographical location and winter storms, sometimes it rains horizontally "through the keyhole" in winter. Until the 20th century, there was a water-powered flour mill just below the village, the ruins of which are still preserved today.
The village is situated in a position that leads to a plateau to the west, which extends to Sokraki. There were the gardens of families where grapes and vegetables were cultivated. Until the 20th century, there was a small lake in this plateau, which is depicted in old maps and likely contained fish. The outlet of this lake was blasted in the 1950s to acquire more land for vine cultivation. Since then, a small temporary body of water forms only in winter. The steep slope of many houses meant that many walls were damp from below, and even small streams ran through many houses in winter. Life in these houses in winter must have been very challenging. In summer, however, the thick, partially damp walls are pleasantly cool.
A brief overview of the history of Corfu
The story of Spartila can only be understood in the context of the turbulent history of Corfu. Its strategic location between two cultural regions shaped the island like no other over the last 1000 years.
Corfu is one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in Europe - over 30,000 years of settlement history can be traced.
In antiquity, the island of the Phaeacians is also mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, as the last stop of Odysseus, who was taken care of by the island's inhabitants after his shipwreck and brought back to Ithaca. A field off the town of Corfu is often referred to as the fossilized ship of the Phaeacians.
In fact, the island has been prosperous since ancient times: there is evidence of the cultivation of fruit and wine, which the Greeks and later the Romans used as supplies when they traveled to the western Mediterranean. There are depictions of apple harvesting in Corfu up to the 19th century. Due to the strong currents of the Ionian Sea, there was always a great abundance of fish in the bay.
Corfu belonged to the Byzantine Empire, but was on the edge of the empire and could no longer be protected by Constantinople after the rise of the Ottoman Empire. After a brief connection with Naples, Venice took over as a protective power in the 1st century and shaped the island for many centuries. Venice was a major power in the late Middle Ages, but as a commercial empire that dominated trade in products from Asia and northern Europe, it did not aspire to become a territorial great empire. Important locations for Venice were essentially Corfu and Crete, because through these two islands the routes of merchant ships from Venice to the ports of the Near East could be secured militarily. Crete fell into the hands of the Ottomans in 1648 after the 30-year occupation of Chania. Corfu thus acquired even more decisive importance for securing access to the Adriatic. The Ottomans had already tried to occupy the island several times at that time. Several major naval battles took place between the 15th and 18th centuries - there are numerous accounts of them. Venice was at least able to protect the city's population in the old fortress. In 1537, Ottoman invaders killed most of the rural population of Corfu or sold them as slaves in Alexandria. However, the fortress could not be taken - the Ottomans left again. Weakened by the genocide, the Venetian aristocrats very quickly settled families from the mainland and mainly from Crete in Corfu. Therefore, the majority of the current population of Corfu has an immigrant background from other parts of Greece.
However, this is probably not the case for the majority of families in Sparta. There are documents dating back to before 1537 that mention these families in Sparta. Thus, some Spartiada families are part of the original population of the island and apparently managed to survive the genocide of 1537. This is probably due, on the one hand, to the fortification of the village. In addition, there is - in addition to a hidden settlement behind the mountain - also a heavily camouflaged cave system around the village, which was difficult to access and also offered protection to the inhabitants as well as to the rebels in later times (for example during World War II). These caves can be visited today with the help of guides from the Speleological Society of Corfu. There are about 300 accessible caves in Corfu. There are reports from ancient people that one of the caves extends from the north of the village almost to Pyrgi and was used as a hiding place in ancient times.
Free peasants with their own land
The Venetians mainly cultivated olive trees in Corfu. Even today, the island has 4.7 million olive trees, some of which are over 800 years old. Oil was a valuable commodity as fuel and food until the late Middle Ages. The families the Venetians settled from other parts of Greece had to work in the olive groves and their sons had to serve in the Venetian army to defend the island. Old notarial maps show in the area around the village that the families of the village had their own land centuries ago. Unlike Spartiala, many other villages in Corfu were inhabited mostly by feudal peasants who performed services in the olive groves of the Venetian aristocracy for a fee and sometimes lived in precarious conditions. A large part of the families in Sparta were free farmers, which suggests property relations before the Venetian period.
(Map of Spartila)
As merchants, the Venetians were accountants and recorded every birth, marriage and death from the 16th century, while introducing notarization for land transactions. The Municipal Archives of Corfu are therefore an El Dorado for genealogists and historians.
Island of naval battles and Asian travelers
Corfu must have been of great importance during the late Middle Ages and early modern times as a bridge for trade with Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire and Asia. This is evidenced by the abundance of historical depictions of the island. Crusaders who crossed the sea also stopped here. In all early atlases (including Orthelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum from 1570), Corfu is depicted as the same size as the city of Cologne, for example. Almost all the important cartographers of the early modern period created their own map of Corfu. In all these depictions there are references to naval battles and in most of them Spartylas is also recorded. This very warlike past, the permanent fear of attack, must have shaped Spartila's life as well. At the same time, culture and nature were influenced by the Venetian trade with Asia. Typical "Corfucian" plants such as Koum Kuat, rare plants endemic only to Corfu or a large collection of Asiatica in the Asiatic Museum show this.
On August 10, 1716, the last major battle for Corfu took place. An armada of hundreds of Ottoman ships faced a much smaller number of ships from an alliance of Venetians, Maltese, English and French. A storm destroyed much of the Ottoman fleet and probably thanks to the ingenuity of a young German officer (Matthias Johann von der Schulenburg), Corfu won its freedom. An Ottoman victory would have serious consequences for Europe, as the entrance to the Adriatic would probably no longer be defensible. During the same period, the Ottomans also found themselves several times at the gates of Vienna. The battle of 1716 has gone down in naval history as a tactical masterpiece and the Homann cartographer's illustration was used for a long time to train captains worldwide and in naval schools. Spartylas also features prominently in it. August 10 is celebrated every year as a public holiday in Kofu (Barkarola). There is also a historical novel on the subject: "The King of Corfu".
Prosperity in the village
The Venetians were followed by the French as a colonial power of protection, later by the English and both, shaping above all the urban landscape of the city of Corfu. For the island and for the village of Spartyla, a period of prosperity began in the 18th century. Olive oil was still a valuable commodity. Spartylas was dominated and shaped for over 500 years by various larger family factions (Theodotou, Gisdakis, Fronimos, Geranos, Hartofylakas, Zervos, Arbanitakis, Salvanou) - each of which had their own olive mills. These mills were operated with horses and donkeys Olive oil was used since ancient times not only as food, but mainly as fuel for lamps. There were eight olive mills in the village - 2 of which still exist today in their original condition. There were two facilities for transporting the oil: one in Agios Nikolaos in Barbati (south of the villa of the large land-owning family Kaiafala - formerly a Venetian noble Pieri family) and a port in Pyrgi, founded in 1576 by the Fronimos family. From this port there was also a regular ferry service to Corfu Town until the 1960s.
Even in the 70s of the last century, one could buy a car with the efficiency of one ton of oil. Large families with several hundred olive trees produced several tons of oil per year.
The prosperity of the village well into the 20th century is documented by contracts and inheritance certificates, reports of large weddings, the building of churches, but also images of wonderful traditional costumes decorated with gold and ornate large wedding chests.
Seven churches
A document from 1820 records 7 churches, some of which still exist today. The oldest church is likely that of Panagia, located slightly southeast of the village, which is used several times a year for major celebrations. The church of Agios Ilias is possibly the oldest in the village itself and continues to be a prominent part of the "Pano Rouga" fortification. The precinct of the church was probably the initial space where village celebrations took place. Older residents mentioned regular festivities, music, and even in the 1980s, there was a weekly news bulletin from a mobile cinema. Each viewer brought their own chair.
The church of Agios Spyridon, primarily used today, was probably built in the 18th century. The characteristic bell tower dates from the 20th century and was constructed by an architect well-known in Greece, who hailed from the village. Other churches and chapels are situated on Taxiarhis Hill, which is in ruins and can be approached by a path from the village, offering one of the most impressive views on the entire island. There is also the chapel of Agios Nikolaos on a hill to the west of the village, which is also in ruins. Two other chapels existed in Barbati - one being the family tomb of the Kefala family and the cemetery church above the village. Over the centuries, the village's history also includes significant priests who left their spiritual mark on the village. Many written records and entries in the archives of Corfu testify to this. Religion played a central role in daily life and in shaping the course of the year, as was the case in all rural communities of the era. Life must have been difficult without ecclesiastical support. Priests were also the masters of the farmers' annual calendar - a significant practical function. The Venetians accepted the Orthodox Church as equal to the Catholic Church, and the Greek language was recognized as the second official language. Both are unusual for the time and are documented in one of the early historical books of the modern era. This cultural blend, which can still be seen in many ceremonies - for example, Easter - is also what makes Corfu so appealing. Until the 20th century, as in many countries in the Balkans, there were also superstitions and partly pagan customs, such as prayers for health or fetishism, which were blended with traditional medical and physiotherapeutic customs and became partially accepted in the mysticism of the Orthodox Church. In every home, at least one icon was hung in a corner, and a flame from the Easter vigil always burned in an oil lamp.
Clan companies
Village communities, like everywhere in the world, are communities of fate characterized by specific patterns of social relations. The aforementioned family clans had significant structural importance in the village. People built houses together, protected themselves and their extended families, helped each other in harvests, and defended themselves in case of raids.
For a long time, the elders of the family clans also decided on family matters (patriarchy) - for example, for marriages, which were conducted between two individuals for strategic reasons, as in other parts of the world, forming a family alliance. With major weddings, not only the union of two people was celebrated, but also the strengthening of the union of the family clans. As in all of Greece, the best man at a wedding belongs to the close family circle of the couple.
Due to the absence of state structures and generally state-guaranteed social security, these clans and their cohesion were necessary for the survival of a village. Documents from the 16th century also testify to conflicts between the clans, which were even judged by the highest court of the city of Corfu and confirmed by a notary.
Even today, some people in Spartilas feel that they belong to their own extensive families. However, genealogical trees, dating back to the 16th century, show that almost everyone in the village is related to everyone else.
Village life in the 20th century
Until the 1970s, Spartilas hosted more than 10 coffeehouses. Most of them were located along the main road in the center of the village. Two of them were situated to the south in "Kato Rouga." Initially, only the men of the village gathered at the coffeehouses, where strictly regulated beverages like coffee, ouzo, wine, and tsipouro - the Greek grappa, were served. Later, other drinks like beer and lemonade were added. Occasionally, appetizers were served, but not full meals. The coffeehouses were significant social meeting places, and people, following the clan patterns, mainly visited the coffeehouse of their own family clan.
Women also gathered, but in a clearly regulated manner, in the so-called "rouges" - the front yards of the villages, where they sat on benches, weaved, and conversed. The presence of women was not allowed in the coffeehouses of the time.
Life in the houses was very different from today. There was no electricity until 1965 and running water until 1978. Apart from the wells of the family clans, there was a large well in the center of the village, below the road, where women often met to wash clothes. The clothes went through various stages of washing. In the houses, women stored water in large clay amphorae, buried in the ground, to keep it cool. Washing was done with small containers of water hung on the wall. The toilet was located in the stable or in the field outside the village.
Music and stories
The close daily contact among them created a special sense of closeness, which the elderly still feel today. There was an exceptional tradition of oral storytelling of myths and family stories, which strengthened the cohesion of the extended family and seems to have transmitted values. Additionally, almost every family had musical instruments, primarily the violin and the Corfiot mandolin. Later, the bouzouki replaced the mandolin in Corfu. Furthermore, the clarinet, flute, and drum were equally popular. The elderly possessed a large treasure trove of songs, which they both cherished and passed down.
In many villages, immigrants brought music and dances from other parts of Greece. No other region in Greece has as many successful musicians as Corfu. This is not only due to the preservation of traditional songs, but also to the competition of the alternating occupying forces for the best military orchestra. When Queen Victoria forbade British soldiers from playing in orchestras, they were replaced by Corfiots. This is how the many large symphonic orchestras of Corfu were formed. Many villages have their own orchestras and music schools - even in Spartylas, a large portion of the children play an instrument. It was only the television and later the internet that slightly diverted people's attention from the community of the village towards their nuclear families and their own living rooms. The elderly report that there was almost always music and singing in various parts of the village every evening.
Costumes and cultural self-awareness
At the 'rouges' (gathering spaces), women would weave in the evenings while sharing their stories, or they would spin threads using a small hand-operated wool-spinner, something very characteristic of Corfu. Some women also had sewing machines or wove carpets on large looms, few of which have survived to this day. Until the 1930s, everyone wore the traditional costume of the northern island. This attire became well-known in Europe and was depicted in detail in a large engraving in a book called 'The Costumes of Europe'. Corfiot costumes have been featured in countless representations by artists all over Europe in the last 200 years. Even in the 1950s, Spartylas organized dance evenings with the authentic costumes of the village for tourists from Club Mediteranee. There are many photos from this. The traditional men's clothing with the 'harem' pants disappeared from the village already in the 1930s, replaced by the European suit with a vest and a white shirt as an expression of modernity (but also of a specific political stance). Elderly women continued to wear the everyday black and white attire until around 2000.
Autonomous power supply
The village of Spartyla was a self-sufficient village over the centuries. All the main trades existed in the village: there were several shoemakers, locksmiths, carpenters, two general merchants. The women almost all had sewing machines. Families lived off the produce of their own gardens. In "Kambo" (the plateau west of the village) and the second highest plateau behind the village towards Pantokratora, most families had their own fields. There is a special geological structure up there: the collapses in the karst mountains form natural cavities that look like small craters in which humus has formed. This landscape structure is clearly visible from the top of Pantokrator. These hollows were not visible from the sea and you can still see that they were used agriculturally as fields, vineyards or as pastures for sheep. Each family had a piece of land here, which can still be seen today in the land office land maps that you can see recently. Among other things, grain was grown on this plateau. A little above the village, next to the recycling yard, there is one of the village's two brick threshing floors for grain processing. Each family also had a small grain mill at home, which consisted of two stone slabs. On Saturdays, wheat bread was baked together in the ovens and then the still warm oven was used for "Chicken in the Oven" or "Stuffed".
In earlier times (until the 20th century), the diet in Spartylas was very different from today. While bread has been a staple in the Mediterranean for thousands of years, in Spartylas, the main source of protein was essentially legumes. Ancient Corfiot rural cuisine knew countless dishes from various types of lentils, beans, chickpeas, and vegetables, some of which are unknown today. Even today, the elderly women know many different names for legumes.
Families would have chicken no more than once a month. Goats and sheep were used for milk and cheese production, and the lambs and kids were slaughtered only on holidays, and meat dishes were exclusively reserved for those days.
The now common potatoes as a side dish and tomatoes in salads arrived in Greece, as well as in the whole of Europe, only in the 19th century, but along with pork souvlaki, they constitute the "classic" Greek cuisine in the minds of many Greeks and tourists today. For centuries, people lived on dishes that are unknown to many people in Corfu today.
Characteristic of the old "traditional" cuisine of Spartylas, for example, were dishes cooked in layers in a large copper cauldron. People often had no more than one large pot. Alternatively, there were fried dishes in a frying pan, or on holidays, meat dishes in the "tapi" of the oven.
Almost all families produced their own wine. This wine was fermented in the autumn, and in order to preserve it until summer, they often made it slightly sour (vinegar!) by opening the glass bottles at the end of fermentation.
Later, the wine was often diluted with a little water to accompany the meal. This way of consuming wine has been known and used in the Mediterranean since antiquity, but it did not contribute to the good reputation of Spartylas as a viticultural region.
This is a light, somewhat acidic red wine. Sometimes, in the traditional grape variety "Agriorghitiko" (which is cultivated in the kamara), the very old and pest-resistant variety "Mavrodaphne" has been added, which is often used for perguola. The vineyard has a flowery, almost rotten taste and not all wine lovers appreciate this aroma of the wine, which is quite characteristic of the village.
Water has always had special significance for Spartylas. Rainy winters, especially at an altitude of about 400 meters, always provided sufficient water throughout history. Since the village is located near a plateau on a slope and because there is no longer any development above the village, the water in the village continues to be of excellent quality and clean, and is still drinkable from most wells.
The 20th century in Spartila - World Wars
The First World War, which devastated Europe, was only marginally disastrous for the island due to Greece's neutrality. Corfu was for a time the seat of the Serbian government in exile. In 1923, Fascist Italy invaded Corfu and bombarded the city, but the crisis was de-escalated. Fascist ideas, however, also prevailed in Greece and the idea of Greater Greece, the wars in Asia Minor against the disintegrating Ottoman Empire in the 1920s, the subsequent first ethnic cleansing and the separation of the Greek and Turkish populations also affected Corfu little.
The Second World War was even more devastating for Corfu: Mussolini invaded the island of Corfu for a second time in October 1940. Corfu town was bombed again and it is said that a bomb also fell on Spartila. According to the older ones, there was a bomb crater and a small lake, which was later filled, in the place where the Astera cafe is today. The Italian occupation troops were stationed in Spartila and there was a large artillery and trenches to the west of the village, because from this point one could see the north-west part of the island. This position was later bombed again by the German invasion forces. These trenches and the remains of shelters still exist today, but they are so overgrown with wild berry bushes that they are hard to find. It is said in the village that Empress Sissy originally wanted to build her Achilles on this spot, but was reportedly rejected by the village elders. An early reference to the Spartans, who were considered independent and demure, or a well-told story of identity creation.
During the German occupation, which began in 1943 and lasted thereafter, the German invaders established their accommodations in Spartylas. Some of the village's inhabitants fought as resistance fighters in units in Albania and Yugoslavia. Spartylas found itself at the center of the conquerors' interest, as they could control almost the entire island from there in both directions. Additionally, the winding road to the village had been constructed in the 1930s, allowing entry to the village by car.
During the German occupation, the Germans imposed on the Greeks the expenses of the occupation, which amounted to up to 90% of the gross national product at that time, causing tremendous hunger. Corfu had a large Jewish community, which played a significant role in trade between the Ottoman and Venetian empires and in the city's society. In 1944, a commando unit of the German Wehrmacht abducted 2,000 Jews to Auschwitz - only 100 returned.
Already during World War II, the communist and resistance forces splintered under various exile governments. The Communists had support from Tito and later from Moscow, while the right-wing forces were supported by Great Britain and later by the United States. This division affected entire families and was felt in Spartylas until the late 2000s. In the café, even 50 years after the war, nobody sat next to the wrong person!
Spartila "Little Moscow"
Spartylas has long had a nickname: "little Moscow". There is one person about the political orientation of Spartilas, which is still mainly "left", which is assumed to have played an important role in this and which leads directly to one of the most important figures in world history: Stefanos Gisdakis was a village boy and studied and practiced medicine in Zurich at the beginning of the century. There he met Vladimir Lenin, who had escaped from Munich and later became the founder of the Soviet Union. Stefanos Gisdakis allowed himself to be persuaded by his communist ideas and reportedly even worked as his doctor for a time.
Returning to Corfu, he founded the first Communist Party before 1920. You can read about this on the homepage of the Greek Communist Party (link!). Stefanos died of tuberculosis in 1920, but there was a growing group of active communists in Spartila - names like Lenin or Stalina were used several times as first names in the village. There are (non-existent) statements that communist fighters from Spartila were directly funded by Moscow. In "revenge" for the conservative government, Spartylas was reportedly one of the last villages to get electricity and running water in the 1960s.
Regardless of the truth of these speculations, Spartylas is still today considered a predominantly left-wing village - unlike other villages in the region. According to the older residents, the segregation and ideologicalization into political blocs greatly changed the village and still divides people even today.
It is certain, however, that the Second World War and the Greek Civil War impoverished the majority of the village. Not much remains of the relative prosperity of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the peasants managed to survive as self-supporters, oil had to be given away during occupation, and families without land of their own starved and had to beg bread from the wealthier. During this period and even after, many women supported their families by collecting mountain herbs. The wild herbs (eg oregano) in the inaccessible massif behind the village towards Pantokrator have even today a quality that cannot be achieved with cultivated herbs. The women knew the spots, gathered the herbs together and dried them on white linen cloths in the village square and in Panagia. Buyers of spice brands and top chefs would come and buy this special commodity, giving the women a source of income in difficult times.
