Eastern Thrace history · History of Eastern Thrace
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History of Eastern Thrace
History of Eastern Thrace
Thracians, an ancient people speaking an Indo-European language and whom the larger area surrounding the region was named after (which derived from the Thracian Zrayka) were the native folk of the region. Except a brief period during Odrysian Kingdom (5th?3rd century BC), these warrior tribes never formed a united nation. Except for landmark-ish tumulii, which they erected for their nobles as monumental tombs, not much other than some ruins and artifacts hardly distinguishable from natural formations by untrained eyes is left physically from this period, although some villages and rivers across the region still carry names that are phonetically corrupted forms of their original Thracian names.
Around 4000 BC, Greek colonists from Aegean Islands made their debut in the region along the Marmara coast, although never succeed to penetrate much inland due to opposition of vicious Thracian tribes. Some of the cities Greeks founded in the region still exist to this day, such as Tekirdağ.
Around 335 BC, Alexander the Great?part of army of whom was actually consisted of Thracian troops?showed up in the region on his way to India.
It was the Romans?who took over the region around the early years of Christ?who first truly united the region into a single authority and named it the province of Thracia. Since the region was on the main route (named Via Egnatia) between the later Roman capital of Constantinople and Rome, the other major city of the empire, it never fell into a backwater status.
After the Roman Empire was divided in two, Eastern Thrace consecutively changed hands between Bulgarian Kingdom and Byzantine Empire, or Eastern Roman Empire, several times in 10th century CE.
Ottoman Turks set foot in around 1350s for the first time in Thrace (and in Europe). Eastern Thrace was mainly the warehouse and breadbasket of the imperial capital of Constantinople during this period in addition to its strategic importance stemmed from the fact that it lies on the major routes between the capital and its European possessions.
During the turmoil before, during, and after WWI, local Greeks and Bulgarians, who formed a substantial part of region's population, emigrated to Greece and Bulgaria respectively, and replaced in return by Turkish/Muslim immigrants from mostly Greece and Bulgaria, but also from other Balkan countries. 1950s also saw a Jewish emigration from the region towards newly-founded Israel.
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Eastern Thrace Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.