2025/08/31-4 Greece/Rhodes: Walking Around Medieval City скачать в хорошем качестве

2025/08/31-4 Greece/Rhodes: Walking Around Medieval City

Rhodes is the largest of Greece's Dodecanese islands and their historical capital; it is the ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, Rhodes constitutes a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean administrative region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is the city of Rhodes, home to its 50,636 inhabitants according to its 2011 census. By 2022, the island’s population had grown to 125,113 people. Located northeast of Crete and southeast of Athens, Rhodes is often referred to by several nicknames: the "Island of the Sun" after its patron sun god Helios; "The Pearl Island"; and "The Island of the Knights", a reference to the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who ruled the island from 1310 to 1522. Historically, Rhodes was famous for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Medieval Old Town of the City of Rhodes has been declared a World Heritage Site. During the early 21st century the island was one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. The island has been known as Ρόδος (Ródos) throughout its history. Similar-sounding ῥόδον (rhódon) in ancient Greek was the word for the rose, whilst in modern Greek the also similar-sounding ρόδι (ródi) or ρόιδο (róido) refers to the pomegranate. It was also called Lindos (Ancient Greek: In addition, the island has been called Rodi in Italian, Rodos in Turkish, and רודי (Rodi) or רודיס (Rodes) in Ladino. Other ancient names were Ρόδη (Rodē), Τελχινίς (Telchinis) and Ηλιάς (Helias). The island's name might be derived from erod, Phoenician for snake, since the island was home to many snakes in antiquity. In the 19th century the island was populated by ethnic groups from the surrounding nations, including Jews, whose presence goes back 2,300 years. Under Ottoman rule, they generally did fairly well, but discrimination and bigotry occasionally arose. In February 1840, the Jews of Rhodes were falsely accused by the Greek Orthodox community of ritually murdering a Christian boy. This became known as the Rhodes blood libel. Austria opened a post-office at RHODUS (Venetian name) before 1864,[38] as witnessed by stamps with Franz Joseph's head. In 1912, Italy seized Rhodes from the Ottomans during the Italo-Turkish War. Being under Italian administration, the island's population was thus spared the "exchange of the minorities" between Greece and Turkey. Rhodes and the rest of the Dodecanese Islands were assigned to Italy in the Treaty of Ouchy. Although the treaty stipulated that the islands were to be returned to Turkey, the advent of World War I prevented this from happening. Turkey ceded them officially to Italy with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. It then became the core of their possession of the Isole Italiane dell'Egeo. Thousands of Italian colonists settled in the island, mainly in the capital "Rodi", while some of them founded farm villages (like "Peveragno Rodio" (1929), "Campochiaro" (1935), "San Marco" (1936) and "Savona" (1938): in 1940 the creation of the "Provincia italiana di Rodi" in the Dodecanese islands was officially proposed. In the late 30s, Mussolini embarked on a program of Italianization, attempting to make the island of Rhodes a transportation hub that would facilitate the spread of Italian culture in Greece and the Levant. The Fascist program coincided with improvements to infrastructure, building imposing buildings such as the Hotel Rodon, the Puccini Theater and many administrative buildings with master architects such as Armando Bernabiti and Florestano Di Fausto. While the government worked at modernization, they also obliterated many historical buildings that did not match their ideal of a modern society. The island suffered through many "governors" appointed by the Italian government. As such, in 1938, the "Leggi razziali" (Racial Laws) were passed, mimicking the footsteps of the antisemitic policies promoted in other European countries. All Jews who served in the government, including the military, were forced to resign, school children were forced to abandon their studies, and all commerce that included any dealings with Jews was forbidden. Following the Italian Armistice of 8 September 1943, the British attempted to get the Italian garrison on Rhodes to change sides. This was anticipated by the German Army, which succeeded in occupying the island with the Battle of Rhodes. In great measure, the German occupation caused the British failure in the subsequent Dodecanese Campaign. After September 1943, the Jews were sent to concentration camps. However, the Turkish Consul Selahattin Ülkümen succeeded, at considerable risk to himself and his family, in saving 42 Jewish families, about 200 persons in total, who had Turkish citizenship or were members of Turkish citizens' families. At the Paris Peace Treaties, Rhodes, together with the other islands of the Dodecanese, was united with Greece in February 1947.