Kardhiq

Kardhiq is a village in the former Cepo commune, Gjirokastër County, Albania.[1] At the 2015 local government reform it became part of the municipality Gjirokastër.[2] The village is inhabited by Muslim Albanians and an Orthodox Albanian population.[3] Kardhiq Castle is located near the village.

Kardhiq
Village
Kardhiq
Coordinates: 40°7′18″N 20°1′39″E
Country	Albania
County	Gjirokastër
Municipality	Gjirokastër
Municipal unit	Cepo
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)

History

On 15 March 1812, the village was destroyed and 730 of its Muslim Albanian inhabitants were massacred by Greek forces of Thanasis Vagias serving the local Ottoman Albanian ruler Ali Pasha. The later ordered the massacre due to a long-standing vendetta he had with the village.[4][5][6]

Notable people

• Hasan Dosti, jurist and Balli Kombëtar leader

References

1. "Location of Kardhiq". Retrieved 2010-06-03.
2. "Law nr. 115/2014" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2015-06-25.
3. Kallivretakis, Leonidas (1995). "Η ελληνική κοινότητα της Αλβανίας υπό το πρίσμα της ιστορικής γεωγραφίας και δημογραφίας [The Greek Community of Albania in terms of historical geography and demography]." In Nikolakopoulos, Ilias, Kouloubis Theodoros A. & Thanos M. Veremis (eds). Ο Ελληνισμός της Αλβανίας [The Greeks of Albania]. University of Athens. p. 51. " ΑΧ Αλβανοί Ορθόδοξοι Χριστιανοί, AM Αλβανοί Μουσουλμάνοι" p.56. "KARDHIQ ΓΑΡΔΙΚΙ 225 ΑΜ + ΑΧ"
4. Santas, Constantine (1976). Aristotelis Valaoritis. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-8057-6246-4. Thanasis Vayias, a man who allegedly led the hordes of Ali Pasha against a village of Epirus, Gardiki, resulting in the massacre of seven hundred men, women, and children.
5. Potts, Jim (2010). The Ionian Islands and Epirus: A Cultural History. Oxford University Press. pp. 158–159. ISBN 9780199754168.
6. Foss, Arthur (1978). Epirus. Faber. ISBN 978-0571104888. p. 139. "Hughes had also admired Derviziana and the prospect across the valley, ‘one of the noblest valleys in Epirus. Here he met a shepherd boy with a pipe fashioned from an eagle’s wing. This eagle had carried away several lambs in his care so, armed with a long Albanian knife, he had climbed up the mountain steep, grappled with and killed the marauder on its nest. Hugh’s hosts had been at the massacre at Gardhiki in Albania when Ali Pasha used Greeks to slaughter the Albanian-Muslim villagers, who had raped his tigress of a mother and his sister. Muslim troops, although loyal to the Vizier, had refused to carry out this instruction."