History
This small history of Vlorë, was taken from Wikipedia in English. AWA take no responsability
for mistaken information or errors.
Vlorë is one of the oldest cities of Albania. It was founded in the 6th century
BC and named Aulōn, one of three such colonies on the coast of Illyria, mentioned for the
first time by Ptolemy (Geographia, III, xii, 2). Other geographical documents, such as
Peutinger's "Tabula" and the "Synecdemus" of Hierocles, also mention it. The city was an
important port of the Roman Empire, when it was part of Epirus Nova.
It became an episcopal see in the 5th century. Among the known bishops are Nazarius, in 458,
and Soter, in 553 (Farlati, "Illyricum sacrum", VII, 397-401). The diocese at that time
belonged to the Patriarchate of Rome. In 733 it was annexed, with all eastern Illyricum, to
the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and yet it is not mentioned in any
Notitiae episcopatuum of that Church. The bishopric had probably been suppressed, for, though
the Bulgarians had been in possession of this country for some time, Aulon is not mentioned
in the "Notitiae episcopatuum" of the Patriarchate of Achrida.
Vlorë played a central role in the conflicts between the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the
Byzantine Empire during the 11th and 12th centuries. During the Latin domination a Latin see
was established, and Eubel (Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, I, 124) mentions several of its
bishops. Several of the Latin bishops mentioned by Le Quien (Oriens christianus, III,
855-8), and whom Eubel (I, 541) mentions under the See of Valanea in Syria, belong either to
Aulon in Greece (now Salona) or to Aulon in Albania (Vlorë).
The Ottoman Empire in 1464 conquered Vlorë; and after being in Venetian possession in 1690,
was restored to the Turks in 1691, becoming a caza of the sandjak of Berat in the
vilayet (province) of Janina. The city had about 10,000 inhabitants; there was a Catholic
parish, which belonged to the Archdiocese of Durrës; it persisted nominally as a Titular
see, suffragan of Durrës.
In 1851 it suffered severely from an earthquake.
Ismail Qemali declared Albania's independence in Vlorë on November 28, 1912, during the First
Balkan War. The city became Albania's first capital but was invaded by Italy in 1914 and
occupied until 1920. Italy again invaded Vlorë in 1939, following which Nazi Germany occupied
the city until 1944.
During World War II, the island of Sazan in Bay of Vlorë became the site of a German and
Italian submarine base and naval installations; these were heavily bombed by the Allies.
After WWII, under communism, the port was leased to the Soviet Union as a submarine
base, and played an important part in the conflict between Enver Hoxha and Khrushchev
in 1960-1961, as the Soviet Union had made considerable investments in the naval
facilities and objected strongly to the loss of them as a consequence of Albania
denouncing the USSR as 'revisionist' and taking the Chinese side in the split in
the world communist movement. The Soviet Union threatened to occupy Vlora with Soviet
troops in April 1961, and cut off all Soviet economic, military and technical aid
to Albania. The threat was not carried out, as a result of the simultaneous development
of the Cuban missiles crisis, but Hoxha realized how vulnerable Albania was, and,
after the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, he built the tens of thousands of
ubiquitous concrete bunkers that still litter the entire Albanian landscape. Under
Hoxha Vlorë was an important recruiting centre for the Sigurimi, the secret police.