Serres - History

History

Serres became the site of a major fortress built by the Byzantine Empire to guard the empire's northern frontier and the strategic Rupel Pass into Bulgaria. It was seized by the Bulgarians in the 15th century. In 1196 in the battle of Serres the Byzantines were defeated by the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Asen I. Nine years later in 1205 the Bulgarian Emperor Kaloyan defeated here an army of the Latin Empire and incorporated the town in the Bulgarian Empire. In 1256 it was captured by the Nicaean Empire. Serres fell to Serbia in the 1345 and became a capital of Stefan Dušan, the Serbian King. Dušan was so satisfied with the capture of the third major Byzantine city that he crowned himself Emperor of Serbs and Greeks. After his death his Empire fell into feudal anarchy and the Empress Consort Helena continued to govern Serres area from 1356. In 1365 she was ousted by Despot Jovan Uglješa Mrnjavčević, who forged a tiny but powerful mini-state in Serres. After the 1371 Battle of Maritsa, the Byzantines retook Serres under their control. Soon, however, in 1383 the Ottomans conquered it. Serres became a sanjak centre in the province of Rumelia between 1383-1826, and afterwards of Selanik Vilayeti between 1826-1912. In the aftermath of the battle of Lepanto in 1571, Turkish reprisals were directed at the Greek populations who had shown sympathy and had sporadically risen up across Greece. The metropolis of Serres was looted along with seven other churches, while land and land titles owned by the Monastery of St John the Baptist were confiscated. At the end of the 18th C, Serres was cotton producing area, exporting 50,000 balls of cotton to Germany, France, Venice and Livorno. The metropolitan (Greek Orthodox bishop) Gabriel founded in 1735 the Greek School of Serres which he directed until 1745. The school was maintained by donations from wealthy Greek merchants, among them Ioannes Constas from Vienna with 10,800 florins and the banker and tragic leader of the Greek revolution in Macedonia Emmanuel Pappas, who donated 1,000 Turkish silver coins. Minas Minoides taught Philosophy and Grammar in 1815-19. The school operated also in the period of the Greek revolution under Argyrios Paparizou from Siatista.

In the early 20th century, the city became a focus of anti-Ottoman unrest, which resulted in the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903. A Bulgarian army, which was commanded by Georgi Todorov captured Serres during the First Balkan War on November 6, 1912 but was forced to withdraw by Greek forces commanded by Constantine I during the Second Balkan War. the first to enter Seres was the colonel Napoleon Sotilis head of the seventh regiment on July 11, 1913 ( the seventh regiment was not part of the Greek regular army. it was createded and trained by the colonel Sotilis). It was reoccupied by Bulgaria in both the First World War and Second World War. In 1943, its Jewish population was deported to Treblinka and destroyed. Since the war, Serres has benefited from government-led programmes to develop its economy with foreign capital.