What is the Monastiri Research List?

What geographical area are included?

• Bitola, Macedonia
• Macedonia, Greece
• Monastir, Tunisia
• Beli Manastir, Croatia

A City: Monastir (Manastir) (Bitol) (Bitolj) (Bitola)

• Visiting the Family Clans of Cassorola, we learn, "Monastir was how the Greeks called a Balkan/Macedonian town now the second largest in the [Former Yugoslav] Republic of Macedonia (pop. 122,173 in 1991ce; altitude 600 meters), near the border with Greece, straddling the River Dragur, (also known locally as the Vardar) at the foot of Mt Pelister, in the Baba mountains. Manastir is the spelling reflecting the most frequent pronunciation, and some Arabic sources use this transliteration. The Slavic names of the town are transliterated from a Cyrillic orthography and pronunciation with no analogues in English, and so have been variously rendered as Bitol, Bitolj and Bitola."

• Map of Republic of Macedonia: You will find Bitola a hairline above the -41^oN latitude line and moving from left to right from the 21^oE it is about a third of the way towards the 22^oE longitude line.

A Province: Macedonia, Greece

• The NW province of Greece, called Macedonia bordered on the East by the province of Thrace, on the West and South West by the province of Epirus, and the South by Thessaly and Thessaloniki (Salonika). Although, not named Monastir, many Jewish families have roots in this province as well as neighboring Thessaloniki and, too, refered to themselves as "Turks" coming from "Monastir".

• Map of Greece and its Provinces.

A City: Monastir, Tunisia

• Although, historically a moslem city, this town, which is large enough to have 6 international airports, is often forgotten as a resource. During the Jewish Golden Age (9th century), Monastir, Tunisia had a very large Jewish population and I have also been told that at one time there used to be an extraordinarily large Jewish population during the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

• An interesting excerpt from Ethnologue of Tunisia contains as its first item: "ARABIC, JUDEO-TUNISIAN [AJT] 500 in Tunisia (1994 H. Mutzafi); 45,000 in Israel (1995); 50,000 in all countries. Also in France, Spain, Italy, USA. Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic. Dialects: FES, TUNIS. A lexicon of 5,000 words in 1950 had 79% words of Arabic origin, 15% Romance loanwords, 4.4% Hebrew loanwords, 1.6% others (D. Cohen 1985.254). Formerly written in Hebrew script. Most of the Jews in Tunisia now speak French. Medium intelligibility with Judeo-Moroccan Arabic and Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic, but none with Judeo-Iraqi Arabic. Jewish. Bible portions 1897-1937. Survey needed."

• From Carthage to Modern Tunisia: "There are a number of important civilizations which took place on this land since the antiquity. Initially it started with the Phoenician settlement and colonization. Then Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Ottomans and French assumed the control over the land and its people. By being very successful maritime traders, Phoenicians taught the local Berbers advanced forms of agriculture and urban living. All the other successive civilizations left something behind to make the modern Tunisia today, very interesting and attractive for modern-day travellers."

• Map of Tunisia: Monastir is located just below (south of) 36^o latitude on the coast. (very large)

• Map of Tunisia (smaller, but not very clear).

A Township: Beli Manastir in the Baranja Region of Croatia

• During the Holocaust, this township "achieved a minor notoriety as the site of ethnic cleansing condemned by the UN".

• On that same note, the following excerpt regarding the history of Croation within ex-Yugoslavia:
  "After the military defeat of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941, parts of Croatia were annected to Italy and Hungary, and the rest of Croatia was occupied by the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In this part of Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina the occupational forces enabled the formation of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH, Nezavisna drzava Hrvatska, 1941-1945), with its own fascist ustasha order introduced from Italy and Germany, and with Ante Pavelic as its president. It brought misfortune to many Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and Croats. The aim of the Ustasha regime was to have ethnically pure Croatian territories. Mass executions were organized in the infamous Jasenovac concentration camp, similar to those in Germany and Poland. A part of captives has been left to the German occupational rule in NDH and transported to concentration camps in Germany and Poland. There is no doubt that this was the darkest period of the Croatian history. For those wishing to obtain a more complete information on the history of Independent state of Croatia we recommend to consult an essay of Sentija in [Macan, Sentija]. We also recommend you to consult an extensive book of [Paul Garde]."

• From the World Travel Guide: "GEOGRAPHY: A long coastal Adriatic region (narrowing as it goes north-south; the major ports being Rijeka, Pula, Zadar, Sibenik, Split and Dubrovnik) and a larger inland area (running west-east from Zagreb to the Danubian border with Serbia). Croatia has borders with Slovenia and Hungary (north), Serbia and Montenegro (east), and Bosnia-Hercegovina (southeast from Zagreb; northeast from the Adriatic coastline)."

• Refer to the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts for more possible information leads. "Certain subjects pertaining to the history of the regions of Slavonia and Baranja are being researched at the HAZU Institute for Scientific Work in Osijek.