According to mythology, Poseidon, God of the Sea,
fell in love with the Nymph Korkira, kidnapped her
and brought her to the island; since then, the island
took the name of the nymph.
Archaeological excavations have proved that the island
was inhabited since the Palaeolithic Era (7th- 4th centuries
BC) and that during this period Corfu was a very important
commercial centre which inhabitants were the Phoenicians.
The Eretreans from Evia were the first Greek settlers
of the island, moving there during the 8th century; they
were followed by a group of refugees from Corinth who
founded a colony on Corfu.
The town of the island, that was already the capital,
was trading with all the towns of the Adriatic Sea, becoming
an important commercial centre, a strong naval power,
an important colonial town and became independent from
Corinth; since then, the two powerful towns entered in
competition and many conflicts took birth from this.
Corfu asked for military help from the Athenians for an important
battle against Corinth.
The
alliance between Corfu and Athens lasted for a century,
until the Macedonians (under the rule of king Philip II), having
won an important battle, conquered Corfu in 338 B.C. and
put it under their protection.
From 300 BC, Corfu was successively attacked and conquered
by Spartans, Illyrians and Romans, who stayed on the island
from 229 BC to 337 AD.
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After the Division of the Roman Empire, the island of Corfu became part of the Byzantine Empire.
During the Byzantine period, which lasted until 1267 AD,
Corfu was regularly subject to pirate raids and to attacks
from barbarians, Goths or Saracens. Many towers were built to protect the island, such as the Kassiopi Tower. Then Corfu came under
Norman rule, followed by Venetian one.
In 1267, Charles of Anjou, French King of Sicily, took
the island and attempted to replace the existing Orthodox
religion by the Catholic one; the Christian Orthodox
were persecuted and all the church converted to Catholic
churches.
But the attempt of conversion fell and Corfu returned
under Venetian rule in 1386. Corfu stayed under Venetian
domination from 1386 to 1797 while the rest of Greece
was under Ottoman rule.
During Venetian times the island suffered from many pirate’s
attacks. It had a feudal organisation, being divided in
three classes: the nobles, the bourgeoisie and the commoners.
Many insurrections were exploding because of the exploitation
of the majority by the nobles; but those insurrections
were severely repressed. |
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the book enumerating the privileges of
the Nobles.
In 1799, the allied fleet of the Turks, the Russians
and the English disembarked on the island of Corfu. After killing the inhabitants of Mandouki, in the port, they conquered the entire island.
The
"Ionian State" was established from Constantinople in
order to create the Septinsular Republic
but this attempt failed and, in 1807, Corfu returned under
French domination.
The period that followed was a period of prosperity with
many agricultural and social improvements; it was then
that the Ionian Academy was founded, public services reorganised
and schools built.
In parallel, the English began to occupy the Ionian Islands
and reached Corfu in 1815, which they took under their
domination.
The period of English rule was a prosper period for Corfu
because the Greek language became official, new roads
were built, the water supply system was improved
and the first Greek
University was founded in 1824.
Although Corfu was never under the control
of the Turks, its inhabitants helped financially the rest
of Greece to realize the Greek Revolution.
In the 21st of May, 1864, the Ionian Islands were donated from the British to the new King of Greece.
In the 20th century, Corfu took part in the two World Wars and suffered
great damages. In fact, the Ionian Academy, the Public Library and the Municipal Theatre were burnt and totally destroyed by German bombing in 1943 but they were then restored. |
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