Η Θεσσαλονίκη και η περιοχή Πέλλας-Γενιτσών στα 1828

Abstract

The historians and topographers specialized in Thessaloniki, as well as the friends of history in general, may find in the above work certain information about the town, given by the Austrian diplomatic observer, in Greece during the last years of the Independence War (1821-1829), Anton Freiherrn von Prokesch-Osten in his 3-volume book «Denkwürdigkeiten...». Prokesch von Osten in several pages of his 3rd volume mentions that, while aboard a warship of the Austrian squadron in the Aegean, he visited Thessaloniki in September 1828. He recorded—in the form of a diary—his impressions of its various sight, its antique, Byzantine and Turkish monuments, especially the famous churches of Aghia Sophia, Aghios Demetrius, Rotonda which had been converted into mosques, its monasteries and its «tekkes» (dervish monasteries), its walls, the Acropolis and the lower town. His information, as it happens with every traveller’s, is naturally not completely accurate, but if examined carefully it offers new unknown elements to enrich our knowledge of the capital of Macedonia. Furthermore the information of Prokesch v. Osten about the regions of ancient Pella and Genitsa are of considerable interest. He visited the regions with some friends of his, with the intention of finding out what remained there of the antiquity. To his disappointment, nearly everything had been filled in with earth through the centuries and the various disasters. Impressive is his description of the underground burial thalami in the region of Genitsa. Has today’s science, one wonders, taken advantage of this information for uncovering those precious remains of the antiquity?