Concerning Thrace : Adrianople in the eighteen-sixties

Abstract

The Greek Consul in Adrianople P. Logothetis informed his Ministry in
Athens about prevailing conditions in the vilayet of Adrianople in his report of
17th October 1865. He begins this report with a statement on education in
Adrianople giving a negative picture of jealousy and poorly understood antagonism between the local Greek citizens and those Greeks who were temporary residents in Adrianople, but receiving, at the same time, the brunt of thepatriotism among the Greeks of Adrianople. Logothetis cites the curriculum of the Greek schools and gives an analysis of all the schools, Greek, Bulgarian,
Turkish, etc. in the city. Logothetis considered that the Greek women of Adrianople were distinguished by their mental agility, their intelligence and their aptitude for learning; the Ottoman women were more intelligent than their
husbands and had a strongly assertive demeanour; the Ottomans, according to
P. Logothetis, of Adrianople were distinguished from others of their race
firstly by their manly bearing and secondly by their love of all things Russian.
Logothetis cites the presence in Adrianople of Slavs and Bulgarians as
well as their national activities during this critical period against the Hellenism of Thrace. Other subjects cited by Logothetis in his report were: methods
of governing; Greek elders; trade in Adrianople; export of carcasses and skins;
and products of the region (rice, roses, wines, oak masts, olives etc.).