Folegandros
The history of Folegandros goes back to the remote past. Usually the island follows the common history of the complex of the Cyclades.
The first reference to Folegandros comes from Greek Mythology. According to one of the myths, the island was inhabited for the first time by shepherds coming from western Continental Greece, who came here, looking for grassland for their flocks. Obviously, the shepherds were all men and thus the island was called “Polyandros” (meaning in Greek “with a lot of men”). This ancient name was maintained for a long time and the marines used to call the island “Polykandro”. Anyway, historically, the first settlers of the island seem to have been the Carians who came there from Asia Minor.
Greek Mythology also informs us that Minoans from Crete, led by Folegandros, one of the sons of king Minos came to the island. It is after him that the island was given its name. As it is evidenced by historic sources, in fact, several Cretans who were persecuted in their homeland, found refuge on the island of Folegandros. Another suggestion for the name of the island states that Folegandros owes its name to the Phoenicians. These famous merchants of the early 1 st millennium b.C. seem to have used the island as a base and roadstead when they traveled in the Aegean and the Mediterranean. Having observed the rocky and stony geography of the island, they called it «phelekgundari», which in their language meant “stony land”. Later on, due to this characteristic, the ancient writer Aratos called Folegandros “land of iron”.
Archaeological finds, mainly inscriptions, show that the island was settled by Dorians at the end of the 2 nd millennium b.C. In the 5 th century b.C. Folegandros, despite the Doric origin of its population, was put under the domination of the Athenians, the dominants of the entire Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean in this period of time. According to an inscription found on the island, in 425, Folegandros paid an annual tax of 2.000 attic drachms to the Athenians, while at the same time the nearby island of Sikinos had to pay only 1.000. This was probably due to the fact that Folegandros did not become a member of the First Athenian Alliance in 478; it was incorporated to it much later.
During this period of time at Folegandros there was the cult of Artemis Selasforos (Diana) and Apollo Prostaterios (“the protector”). Several coins made of copper and dated in the 3 rd and 2 nd centuries b.C. were found on the island, bearing on one face the prince Folegandros and on the other a sacred bull. After the defeat of the Athenians at Chaeronia in 338 b.C., the island passed to Macedonian domination and then to the domination of the successors of Alexander the Great, mostly the Ptolemy’s. Due to the isolation of the island, the Romans, who succeeded the Macedonians, used the island as a place of exile.
Later on, during the Byzantine period, Folegandros had the destiny of the rest of Cyclades. Only little information is available for this period of time. All we know is that the island was an Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, until mid 17 th century, when it became part of the Archdiocese of Sifnos. In 1204, after the Francs conquered Constantinople, it was dominated by the Venetians. The Venetian Marco Sanudo became the dominant of the island, as well as of most of the islands of the central Aegean, and founded the Duchy of Naxos, or Duchy of the Archipelago, as it was then called.
Sanudo was a good governor, tolerant enough to the locals. He accepted and confirmed the religious freedom of the residents, which made him popular and highly respected. Among other, Sanudo constructed a castle around the village, on the part of the sea, to protect the population from the attacks of pirates, quite common in these times. In 1269, the Byzantine admiral Licarius took possession of some of the Cycladic islands; Folegandros was one of them. The Byzantines kept the islands until 1307, when they were conquered by the Spanish, under the leadership of Giannoulis Dacoronia.
In 1464 the family of Gozadini became dominants of Folegandros and kept the island until 1617, when the Ottomans took possession of it, after several attacks during the last centuries of the Venetian domination. During this period, the island was led under tribute to Kapoudan Pasha (the admiral of the Ottoman navy) and paid an annual sum of 1.500 piastres. As the island, pretty isolated, was always a safe shelter for the pirates, Tzanoum Hotza, the Kapoudan Pasha in 1715 attacked the island anew, sacked it and sold the population into slavery. Only few of the population survived, who later on returned to their homes. It is in this period that the few population of Folegandros invited several families from the nearby islands, from Crete, from the Peloponnese and from other parts of Greece, to come and settle to the island, so that the population increase.
During the 18 th century the island flourished thanks to commercial activities; in this period consuls of European states were appointed to the island. After 1770 Folegandros was conquered by the Russians for four years, until the end of the war between Russians and Ottomans in 1774, when the Ottomans regained it. The Ottomans dominated the island until the end of the Greek Revolution of 1821, when the island was liberated and incorporated to the young Greek State. A quite characteristic feature of the history of the island is that during the 20 th century Folegandros served again as a place to send the political exiles, exactly as it had happened during the Roman domination some two thousand years ago.
Until 1970 the island, along with several other parts of Greece, suffered a considerable reduction of its population, due to the migration of the residents. The last few decades, things in Folegandros have changed, thanks to the development of tourism. Despite the tourist development and the development of infra-structure, the population has not undergone rapid social changes, nor has the environment lost its character and originality.
Today the official symbol of the Community of Folegandros is the synonymous mythic Cretan prince.
Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folegandros
http://mapmistress.blog.com/2012/11/22/folegandros/
