A day in Bitola

Turns out Bitola has a lot of history. I started the day with a quick stroll around  and an obvios observation is that are equally prominent mosques and churches.  I have also noticed that Turkey is very active in providing funds for the restoration of ottoman era buildings.  In a way it seems odd that Macedonians would want to restore reminders of their 500 year long oppression by the ottomans. But it also suggests they are perhaps at ease with their past.
Heraclea lyncestis sits on the outskirts of Bitola, and only started to be excavated in the early sixties. A lot of it remains untouched. What has been uncovered is Roma era, but the place was founded, i think, by the macedonians. It has all the hallmarks of a roman town, baths, law courts, theatre ( unlike western empire amphitheatres. Gladiatorial entertainment never took off in the east), late empire christian basilica, and of course the well paved roads and plumbing, still visible in and on the ground. But the particular claim to fame of the place is its almost intact mosaics, still lying in situ, where they were uncovered. Lots of other little bits of flotsam and jetsam lying around to interest me.  i think the aesthetics of ruins are probably as interesting to me as what they can tell us. I love finding little bits of tombstone lying in the grass or propped against a wall.

Later on i visited the bitola museum and it was a revelation. There were the usual odds snd ends of archeaological finds going back to the paleaolithic, but it was the later things that interested me the most. The icon gallery was a little disappointing, in that almost all of them were from the 19th century. But it does let you see how, to this untrained eye, there had been virtually no stylistic or subject changes in well over a 1000 years. There is saint george, stabbing a dragon, looking exactly as he did when painted in 1000 ce. I guess it also the same with church design, which is also basically the same to my eye.

Now i got to the really interesting bits. The city was apparently a hotbed of resistance to ottoman rule at the end of the 19th century and it was right on the front in world war one. The eastern front, which western europeans rarely hear about. Almost the whole town was razed just like those in northern france and belgium. The fighting was between the bulgarians and french, italian, serbian and russian forces on the allied side.
Once again, in world war two, it was at the centre of partisan resistance to the axis powers, again in the form of Bulgarians,  who rounded up and deported 1000s of jews from the area, and sent to Treblinka. A list of the founding partisans of bitola showed their dates of birth and death. 80% of them were all dead by the end of 1942. The same year they started operations. Two of the founding group were women.
And it was on to a big exhibition about kemal ataturk. Turns out he went to military school in the very building.  So Bitola had a part to play in the founding of modern Turkey as well.
There was a touching letter from a girl who caught Ataturk's eye. Her father found out and forbade her from seeing him again. But the most striking item for an Australian brought up on the ANZAC myth, is the diorama of the fighting st gallipoli. In an act of what RSL clubs might see as heresy, there is not one mention of Australians or ANZACS!
And that is the end of the history lesson.
A last bit of trivia. I find trying to read the macedonian script incredibly hard. An odd mixture of greek and latin script, but with the letters not sounding like you'd  think. H is N, N is I, C is used where english uses S, J is Y and so on. Then there are the really weird ones...
Off to Greece tomorrow. Hopefully to climb mout olympos, but weather not looking good for it...

Photos:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/pyk5nBWU2Sw6x3Pn7