page_title: Bitola
section_title: Ottoman rule
hierarchical_section_title: Bitola / History / Ottoman rule
caption_attribution_description: Македонски: Питомци од Воената академија на Турската армија заедно со Ќемал Ататурк, снимени пред зградата на Академијата. Битола 1909 година (оштетена плоча) English: Cadets from the Military Academy of the Turkish army and Kemal Ataturk, taken in front of the Academy. Bitola 1909 (Damaged glass plate) This media file is produced by Wikipedian in Residence in Category:Wikipedian in Residence at DARM in 2016.
context_page_description: Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of North Macedonia. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba, Nidže and Kajmakčalan mountain ranges, 14 kilometres north of the Medžitlija-Níki border crossing with Greece. The city stands at an important junction connecting the south of the Adriatic Sea region with the Aegean Sea and Central Europe, and is an administrative, cultural, industrial, commercial, and educational centre. It has been known since the Ottoman period as "The City of The Consuls", since many European countries had consulates in Bitola.
  Bitola, known during the Ottoman Empire as Manastir or Monastir, is one of the oldest cities in North Macedonia. It was founded as Heraclea Lyncestis in the middle of the 4th century BC by Philip II of Macedon. The city was the last capital of Ottoman Rumelia, from 1836 to 1867. According to the 2002 census, Bitola is the second-largest city in the country. Bitola is also the seat of the Bitola Municipality.
context_section_description: From 1382 to 1912, Bitola was part of the Ottoman Empire, at which time it was called Monastir. Fierce battles took place near the city during the Ottoman conquest. Ottoman rule was completely established after the death of Prince Marko in 1395 when the Ottoman Empire established the Sanjak of Ohrid as a part of the Rumelia Eyalet and one of the earliest established sanjaks in Europe. Before it became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1395 Bitola was part of the realm of Prince Marko. Initially its county town was Bitola and later it was Ohrid, so it was sometimes referred to as the Sanjak of Monastir and sometimes as the Sanjak of Bitola.
  After the Austro-Ottoman wars, the trade development and the overall prosperity of the city declined. But in the late 19th century, it again became the second-largest city in the wider southern Balkan region after Salonica.
  In 1874, Manastır became the center of Monastir Vilayet which included the sanjaks of Debra, Serfidze, Elbasan, Manastır (Bitola), Görice and the towns of Kırcaova, Pirlepe, Florina, Kesriye and Grevena.
  Traditionally a strong trading center, Bitola was also known as "the city of the consuls". In the final period of Ottoman rule (1878-1912), Bitola had consulates from twelve countries. During the same period, there were a number of prestigious schools in the city, including a military academy that, among others, was attended by the Turkish reformer Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In 1883, there were 19 schools in Monastir, of which 11 were Greek, 5 were Bulgarian and 3 were Romanian. Bitola was also the headquarters of many cultural organizations at that time.
  According to a 1911 Ottoman census, there were 350,000 Greeks, 246,000 Bulgarians and 456,000 Muslims in the vilayet of Manastır, however the basis of the Ottoman censuses was the millet system where people were assigned an ethnicity according to their religion. Therefore all Sunni Muslims were categorised as "Turks" even though many of them were Albanians, while all members of the Greek Orthodox church were listed as "Greeks" although this group was primarily composed of Aromanians, Slavs and South Albanians, with probably only a few being genuine Greeks. The Slavic-speakers were divided between the Bulgarian majority and a small Serbian minority.
  Bitola's population itself was greatly diverse. It numbered some 50,000 at the end of the 19th century. There were around 7,000 Aromanians, most of whom fully embraced the Hellenist culture, although some preferred the Romanian culture. Bitola also had a significant Muslim population - 11,000 (Turks, Roma, and Albanians) as well as a Jewish community of 5,200. The Slavic-speakers were divided between the Bulgarian Exarchate - 8,000, and the Greek Patriarchate - 6,300.
  In 1894, Manastır was connected with Selanik by train. The first motion picture made in the Balkans was produced by the Aromanian Manakis brothers in Manastır in 1903. In their honour, the annual [[Manaki Brothers Film Festival
  |Manaki Brothers International Cinematographers Film Festival]] is held in Bitola since 1979.
  In November 1905, the Secret Committee for the Liberation of Albania, a secret organization formed to fight for the liberation of Albania from the Ottoman Empire, was founded by Bajo Topulli and other Albanian nationalists and intellectuals. Three years later, the Congress of Manastir of 1908, which standardized the modern Albanian alphabet, was held in the city. The congress was held at the house of Fehim Zavalani. Mit'hat Frashëri was chairman of the congress. The participants in the Congress were prominent figures from the cultural and political life of Albanian-inhabited territories in the Balkans, and the Albanian diaspora.
caption: Turkish Military Academy (1909)
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