Moscopole printing house
{{Short description|Defunct printing house in Moscopole, now Albania}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2023}}
{{Infobox publisher
| name = Moscopole printing house
| image =
| caption =
| parent =
| status = Defunct
| traded_as =
| predecessor =
| founded = 1720/1731
| founder = Georgios Konstantinidis
| successor =
| country = Ottoman Empire
| headquarters = Moscopole
| distribution =
| keypeople =
| publications =
| topics =
| genre =
| imprints =
| owner = Georgios Konstantinidis
}}
The Moscopole printing house was an 18th-century printing house founded in Moscopole, formerly a prosperous city in the Ottoman Empire and now a village in Albania.
Moscopole is located at a distance of {{convert|21|km|abbr=off}} from modern Korçë, in the mountains of southeastern Albania, at an altitude of {{convert|1160|m|abbr=off}}.{{Cite web |title=Moscopole was the cultural center of the Aromanians – Assembly of European Regions |url=https://aer.eu/moscopole/ |date=2016-01-05 |access-date=2024-10-16 |website=aer.eu}}
History
The Moscopole printing house was founded by the monk Georgios Konstantinidis.{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=qvAzAAAAIAAJ&q=new+athens |title=Greek, Roman and Byzantine studies |publisher=Duke University |year=1981 |page=90}} Konstantinidis, owner of the printing house, was a teacher at the New Academy of Moscopole, and he might have been the same person as Gregory of Durrës.{{cite web|last=Elsie|first=Robert|url=http://www.albanianliterature.net/authors_early/gregory_of_durres/gregory.html|title=GREGORY OF DURRËS|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120113235236/http://www.albanianliterature.net/authors_early/gregory_of_durres/gregory.html|archive-date=2012-01-13}} The printing house of Moscopole was founded in 1720{{cite book|title=Rreth Alfabetit te shqipes |trans-title=Around the Albanian Alphabet)|last=Lloshi |first=Xhevat|year=2008 |publisher=Logos |isbn=978-9989-58-268-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9_gXTda0HS8C&q=gjuha+letrare+dhe+gjuha+standarde&pg=PA191 |page=103 |language= sq |access-date=2010-06-01}} or in 1731,{{Cite book|last=Mikropoulos|title=Elevating and Safeguarding Culture Using Tools of the Information Society: Dusty traces of the Muslim culture| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=optXTg3ovBYC&q=moschopolis |year=2008|publisher=Earthlab|pages=315–316|isbn=978-960-233-187-3|first=Tassos A.}} and was the second printing house in the Balkans after that of Constantinople (now Istanbul).{{cite thesis|url=http://phdtheses.ekt.gr/eadd/handle/10442/1624?locale=en |script-title=el:Θεόδωρος Αναστασίου Καβαλλιώτης (1718; 1789). Ο Διδάσκαλος του Γένους |author= Kekridis Eustathios |year= 1989 |publisher= Aristotle University of Thessaloniki |language=el, en |access-date=2010-09-11 |page=44 |doi=10.12681/eadd/1624 }}
The printing house of Moscopole produced religious literature and school textbooks using the Greek language.{{cite book |last1=Detrez |first1=Raymond |title=Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies |date=15 July 2013 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-25076-5 |page=52 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FGmJqMflYgoC&pg=PA52 |language=en}} A total of twenty books can be attributed without doubt to the Moscopole printing press.Yll Rugova (2022). [https://books.google.com/books?id=q4mIEAAAQBAJ Tipografia shqiptare 1555–1912], p. 130–131. "The press of Moscopole must have operated between 1731 and 1760. We know for sure 20 volumes printed there, of which today 189 copies are kept in different collections and libraries." They are mainly constituted by the collection of the Services to the Saints (1750) but also by the Introduction of Grammar (1760) by the local scholar Theodore Kavalliotis. The printing house had close ties with the Monastery of Saint Naum, now in North Macedonia.
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
{{Moscopole}}
{{Modern Greek Enlightenment}}
Category:1720 establishments in Europe
Category:1731 establishments in Europe
Category:Modern Greek Enlightenment
Category:18th century in Albania