Kalamata


Kalamata is the second most populous city of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece after Patras, and the largest city of the homonymous administrative region. As the capital and chief port of the Messenia regional unit, it lies along the Nedon River at the head of the Messenian Gulf.
The 2021 census recorded 72,906 inhabitants for the wider Kalamata Municipality, of which 66,135 resided in the municipal unit of Kalamata, and 58,816 in the city proper. Kalamata is renowned as the land of the Kalamatianos dance, Kalamata olives and Kalamata olive oil.

Name

The modern name Kalamáta likely comes from ; another hypothesis is a corruption of the older name.

Administration

The municipality Kalamata was formed as part of the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following four former municipalities, each of which subsequently became municipal units:
The municipality has an area of, the area of the municipal unit is.

Subdivisions

The municipal unit of Kalamata is subdivided into the following communities :
Municipal Unit:
  • Kalamata
Local communities:
The province of Kalamata was one of the provinces of the Messenia Prefecture. Its territory corresponded with that of the current municipalities Kalamata and West Mani. It was abolished in 2006.

History

Kalamata occupies the site of an ancient city, the identity of which has been disputed. The name clearly refers to ancient Calamae, but it has been established in the 20th century that the actual site is that of ancient Pharae, a city already mentioned by Homer. It was long believed that the area that the city presently occupies was covered by the sea during ancient times, but the proto-Greek and Archaic-period remains that were unearthed at Akovitika region prove otherwise.

Middle Ages

Pharae was rather unimportant in antiquity, and the site continued in obscurity until middle Byzantine times. Kalamata is first mentioned in the 10th-century Life of St. Nikon the Metanoeite with its modern name. Medieval Kalamata was not a port, as the local coast offered no shelter to ships from the weather, but lay further inland, at the foot of the western outliers of Mount Taygetos. As the capital of the fertile Messenian plain, the town experienced a period of prosperity in the 11th–12th centuries, as attested by the five surviving churches built in this period, including the Church of the Holy Apostles, as well as the comments of the Arab geographer al-Idrisi, who calls it a "large and populous" town.
Following the Fourth Crusade, Kalamata was conquered by Frankish feudal lords William of Champlitte and Geoffrey of Villehardouin in 1205, when its Byzantine fortress was apparently in so bad a state that it could not be defended against them. Thus, the town became part of the Principality of Achaea, and after Champlitte granted its possession to Geoffrey of Villehardouin, the town was the center of the Villehardouins' patrimony in the Principality. Prince William II of Villehardouin was born and died there. After William II's death in 1278, Kalamata remained in the hands of his widow, Anna Komnene Doukaina, but when she remarried to Nicholas II of Saint Omer, King Charles of Anjou was loath to see this important castle in the hands of a vassal, and in 1282 Anna exchanged it with lands elsewhere in Messenia.
In 1292 or 1293, two local Melingoi Slavic captains managed to capture the castle of Kalamata by a ruse and, aided by 600 of their fellow villagers, took over the entire lower town as well in the name of the Byzantine emperor, Andronikos II Palaiologos. Constable John Chauderon in vain tried to secure their surrender, and was sent to Constantinople, where Andronikos agreed to hand the town over, but then immediately ordered his governor in Mystras not to do so. In the event, the town was recovered by the Franks through the intercession of a local Greek, a certain Sgouromalles. In 1298, the town formed the dowry of Princess Matilda of Hainaut upon her marriage to Guy II de la Roche. Matilda retained Kalamata as her fief until 1322, when she was dispossessed and the territory reverted to the princely domain. In 1358, Prince Robert gifted the châtellenie of Kalamata to his wife, Marie de Bourbon, who kept it until her death in 1377. The town remained one of the largest in the Morea—a 1391 document places it, with 300 hearths, on par with Glarentza—but it nevertheless declined in importance throughout the 14th and 15th centuries in favour of other nearby sites like Androusa. Kalamata remained in Frankish hands until near the end of the Principality of Achaea, coming under the control of the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea only in 1428.

Ottoman period and War of Independence

Kalamata was occupied by the Ottomans in 1481. In 1659, during the long war between Ottomans and Venetians over Crete, the Venetian commander Francesco Morosini, captured Kalamata in an effort to divert Ottoman attention from the Siege of Candia, and raise a wider revolt. The Venetian fleet took Kalamata without effort, as the Ottomans abandoned the town. The town and its castle were plundered and destroyed, and all able-bodied men were carried off to serve as rowers in the Venetian galleys. Morosini returned in 1685, at the start of the Morean War: on 14 September 1685 the Venetians defeated an Ottoman army before Kalamata, and again plundered and destroyed the town's castle, as it was judged obsolete. Kalamata was then ruled by Venice as part of the "Kingdom of the Morea". During the Venetian occupation the city was developed and thrived economically. However, the Ottomans reoccupied Kalamata in the war of 1715 and controlled it until the Greek War of Independence.
File:Petrompeis by Hess.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Petros Mavromichalis raises Messenia in revolt, by Peter von Hess
Kalamata was the first city to be liberated as the Greeks rose in the Greek War of Independence. On 23 March 1821, it was taken over by the Greek revolutionary forces under the command of generals Theodoros Kolokotronis, Petros Mavromichalis and Papaflessas. However, in 1825, the invading Ottoman officer Ibrahim Pasha destroyed the city.

Modern period

In independent Greece, Kalamata was rebuilt and became one of the most important ports in the Mediterranean Sea. It is not surprising that the second-oldest Chamber of Commerce in the Mediterranean, after that of Marseille, exists in Kalamata. In 1934, a large strike of harbor workers occurred in Kalamata. The strike was violently suppressed by the government, resulting in the death of five workers and two other residents of the town.
During World War II on 29 April 1941, a battle was fought near the port between the invading German forces and the 2nd New Zealand Division, for which Jack Hinton was later awarded the Victoria Cross. Kalamata was liberated on 9 September 1944, after a battle between ELAS and the local Nazi collaborators.
Kalamata was again in the news on 13 September 1986, when it was hit by an earthquake that measured 6.2 on the surface wave magnitude scale. It was described as "moderately strong" but caused heavy damage throughout the city, killed 20 people and injured 330 others.
Kalamata has developed into a modern provincial capital and has returned to growth in recent years. Today, Kalamata has the second largest population and mercantile activity in Peloponnese. It makes important exports, particularly of local products such as raisins, olives and olive oil. It is also the seat of the Metropolitan Bishop of Messenia. The current Metropolitan Bishop is Chrysostomus III of Kalamata, since 15 March 2007.

Sights

Maria Callas Alumni Association of the Music School of Kalamata / "Maria Callas Museum"
There are numerous historical and cultural sights in Kalamata, such as the Villehardouin castle, the Ypapanti Byzantine church, the Kalograion monastery with its silk-weaving workshop where the Kalamata scarves are made, and the municipal railway park. The Church of the Holy Apostles is where Mavromichalis declared the revolt against Ottoman rule in 1821. Art collections are housed at the Municipal Gallery, the Archaeological Museum of Messenia and the Folk Art Museum.
Kalamata's cathedral of the Ypapanti nestles beneath the 14th-century Frankish castle. The foundation stone was laid on 25 January 1860, and the building was consecrated on 19 August 1873. It suffered great damage during the 1986 earthquake, but was subsequently restored. The Festival of the Ypapanti is of national importance for the Greek Orthodox Church and, locally, the occasion for a holiday, when the procession of what is believed to be a miraculous icon, first introduced in 1889, takes place.
In late January 2010, the city hosted the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the cathedral. He was offered the golden key of the city. The region around Kalamata has provided two Ecumenical patriarchs in the past.