Need help finding Greek historical sources

[Sloga]

so the task is probably not too difficult for those who are fluent in Greek. I am always doing ongoing research on my ancestry's and village's history. Without boring people on this forum to death, I am searching for any documentation on possible Greek settlements in Northern Dalmatia (specifically surrounding Zadar), pre-1800s. The reason why I post this here is that I have rummaged through all my Serbian/Croatian/English resources (mostly) online, and have found little to none information. Thus, I think it is evident that if Greek settlements existed in the area and were documented, it would most likely be in Greek. I'm not asking for people to look through any Greek books that they have, but to merely maybe do a quick google search on the topic if they can.

So far, I have reason to believe Greek settlements did exist for these purposes:

-Zadar had significant Byzantine influence, as the St Donatus Cathedral (the city's landmark), was actually built by Greeks during pre-schismatic times.

-The last remaining (Serb) Orthodox Church in the old quarter of Zadar, St Elijah, was actually built for Greek sailors, which obviously means Greek merchants existed there, which is not surprising.

-The least but most interesting shred of quasi-evidence is that in my village Smokovic, the Orthodox church was built in 1567 but it was recently discovered that it was built on a single grave centred in the middle of the Church. Also, it was discovered a church older than that one existed in the village before, apparently a Greek Church. The issue I have here is that it is not surprising to hear of small Greek communities centered at coastlines for trade and whatnot, but my village is approximately 10 km inland, making it less of a merchant community.

-two small communities exist even today nearby, one is called Islam Latinski (Latin), and the other Islam Grcki (Greek). It was believed Catholic Croats lived in the former and Orthodox Serbs lived in the latter, resulting in the names. However, there has always been the literal interpretion that the latter was once a Greek community.


Any help would be greatly appreciated. Like I said, I don't expect anyone to take time out of their day and do research for me, but I figure someone could just do a quick online search and see if they can yield any results, it would be of great significance to me!

[ialmisry]

so the task is probably not too difficult for those who are fluent in Greek. I am always doing ongoing research on my ancestry's and village's history. Without boring people on this forum to death, I am searching for any documentation on possible Greek settlements in Northern Dalmatia (specifically surrounding Zadar), pre-1800s. The reason why I post this here is that I have rummaged through all my Serbian/Croatian/English resources (mostly) online, and have found little to none information. Thus, I think it is evident that if Greek settlements existed in the area and were documented, it would most likely be in Greek. I'm not asking for people to look through any Greek books that they have, but to merely maybe do a quick google search on the topic if they can.

So far, I have reason to believe Greek settlements did exist for these purposes:

-Zadar had significant Byzantine influence, as the St Donatus Cathedral (the city's landmark), was actually built by Greeks during pre-schismatic times.

-The last remaining (Serb) Orthodox Church in the old quarter of Zadar, St Elijah, was actually built for Greek sailors, which obviously means Greek merchants existed there, which is not surprising.

-The least but most interesting shred of quasi-evidence is that in my village Smokovic, the Orthodox church was built in 1567 but it was recently discovered that it was built on a single grave centred in the middle of the Church. Also, it was discovered a church older than that one existed in the village before, apparently a Greek Church. The issue I have here is that it is not surprising to hear of small Greek communities centered at coastlines for trade and whatnot, but my village is approximately 10 km inland, making it less of a merchant community.

-two small communities exist even today nearby, one is called Islam Latinski (Latin), and the other Islam Grcki (Greek). It was believed Catholic Croats lived in the former and Orthodox Serbs lived in the latter, resulting in the names. However, there has always been the literal interpretion that the latter was once a Greek community.


Any help would be greatly appreciated. Like I said, I don't expect anyone to take time out of their day and do research for me, but I figure someone could just do a quick online search and see if they can yield any results, it would be of great significance to me!

lots of luck. A problem will be that Austrian-Hungarian records often refer to Orthodox as "Greek" when they were Serbian, Romanian, etc.

[augustin717]

 I can say that in Transylvania when you find the family name "Grec" or when you find a derivative of it in a toponym it most often refers to the Vlachs from Pindus, Epirus etc.
But it might well be different on the coast of Dalmatia.
Don't you know any family names from Smokovic?
Those would be more reliable-but not absolute-indicators?

[Sloga]

I can say that in Transylvania when you find the family name "Grec" or when you find a derivative of it in a toponym it most often refers to the Vlachs from Pindus, Epirus etc.
But it might well be different on the coast of Dalmatia.
Don't you know any family names from Smokovic?
Those would be more reliable-but not absolute-indicators?

Of course I know family names from Smokovic, in fact I know them all. Serbs, throughout history in Croatia have been referred to as Vlachs or Greek Schismatics. The differentiation is not difficult for me to make when looking at historical documents. What I am looking into is the possibility that Smokovic was in fact a Greek settlement that Serbs settled in and probably entirely assimilated the Greek population.

The Church was built in 1567, which means there must have been an Orthodox community in Smokovic at that time. 1567, predates most Serbian migrations, or "Seobe" to Croatia. It is likely the Serbian settlers actually migrated twice. First fleeing the Ottomans they were invited by the Austrians to live in Northern Croatia. There are historical documents, with names, pointing to a small community of these Serbs from the Zumberak area migrating south and settling around Zadar in the 16th century, which collaborates with the Church being built. (interestingly enough, the remaining Serbs in Zumberak were forced to convert to Greek Catholic and eventually in the 20th century Roman Catholicism).

With the building of the church in 1567 its safe to assume thatw as reletively soon after the arrival of the Serbs. But like I said, there is archaeological proof that another church, said to be Greek, existed in the village before St Georgija was made in 1567. That's why I want to see if there is any documentation of Greek settlements near Zadar, but inland. 

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