[4] At its peak, in the mid 18th century, it hosted the first printing house in the Ottoman Balkans outside Constantinople, educational institutions and numerous churches.

[11][12] Moscopole was initially attacked and almost destroyed by those groups in 1769 following the participation of the residents in the preparations for a Greek revolt supported by the Russian Empire.

[19] In modern times, Aromanians no longer form a majority of the population, with incoming Christian and Muslim Albanians having further settled in the village, especially after World War II.

According to Xhufi, it would be difficult to designate as a “plain” an isolated habitat at an altitude of 1,220 meters above sea level, preferring a link to the Greek word polis.

This is possibly due to the scribe of the Codex, Michel the former bishop of Gorë, being a native of the neighboring village of Shipskë, itself inhabited historically by an Aromanian population.

However, when it comes to archival documents transcribed into the Codex, such as decisions of the Synod of the Patriarchate of Ohrid or even of the meetings of the clergy of Moscopole, Michel seems to have preferred the form Voskopoja.

[35] Pouqueville identified Moscopole with the citadel of Museion, one of the 46 fortresses that, according to Procopius of Caesarea, Emperor Justinian I (527–565) had built in the province of Macedonia to defend against barbarian attacks.

It would therefore be difficult to think that Justinian I would not have undertaken military fortifications in the area, which formed a corridor that in the future would be one of the most important passageways through which the migrating Slavic populations coming from Macedonia and moving towards the West entered.

Having left Albania in 1478, he describes in detail all the surrounding villages, including Voskop which, at the time of his writing in 1510, was according to him abandoned "una terra che si chiama Vescop, la quale è distrutta".

However, in another passage of his chronicle, Muzaka mentions Voskop again, but this time adding to it the name Beci, a village in the Opar zone proper "Voscopebeci".

As for its appearance in the pre-Ottoman Middle Ages, an affirmation of Johann Georg von Hahn, in which he recounts having read a codex of Moscopole in 1843, during his tenure as consul of Austria-Hungary.

Subject to any reservations as to the possibility of an ancient or paleo-Byzantine substratum of the site, it is likely that Moscopole has existed, at least since the 14th century, in its initial function of pastoral agglomeration.

This activity led to the establishment of wool processing and carpet manufacturing units and the development of tanneries, while other locals became metal workers and silver and copper smiths.

[13] During the middle of the 18th century, the city became an important economic center whose influence spread over the boundaries of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, and reached further the Ottoman-ruled Eastern Orthodox world.

Indeed, in 1770, a priest from Moscopole felt proud to call it a city when giving evidence before foreign authorities in Hungary (Moscopolis urbs Albaniae).

If we refer to a local and more reliable source, the Codex of the monastery of Saint-Prodrome, its author Michel of Shipska (1779) still qualifies Moscopole as a village (ή χώρα Μοσχόπολις).

The mountain above the monastery of Saint Prodrome continued to serve as a pasture for the inhabitants of the area, even when the aspect of a craft and commercial town had become predominant in relation to its historically pastoral profile.

The Codex of this monastery explicitly attests that at the end of the 17th century, butter, cheese and other livestock products were still the foodstuffs by which dues were paid or donations were made to it.

[50] This establishment produced a total of nineteen books, mainly the collection of the Services to the Saints but also the Introduction of Grammar by the local scholar Theodore Kavalliotis.

[66] Some of the commercial elite moved to the Archduchy of Austria, and the Kingdom of Hungary, especially to the respective capitals of Vienna and Budapest, but also to Transylvania, where they had an important role in the early national awakening of Romania.

Romanian historian Sorin Antohi described the Aromanian elites engaging in this utopic literary discourse about Moscopole as having an exalted feeling of finding of a "magnetic beauty and without any imperfection of a brilliant city" which "evokes a dreamlike image".

The now village was destroyed again in 1916 during World War I by the marauding Albanian bands of Sali Butka,[69] who set Moscopole on fire and killed a number of local civilians.

The remaining buildings were razed three times during the partisan warfare of World War II: once by Italian troops and twice by the Albanian nationalist Balli Kombëtar organization.

[78] The first Ottoman register of the area of Korça and Permet at the end of the 14th century does not mention Moscopole, and also omittes many of the surrounding villages in the region mountain range of Opar.

Moscopole appears with certainty a few decades later in the Great Register bonds of the kaza of Korça, Bilisht and Krupishta of the year 1568/9, as a rural settlement with 330 household heads.

The fact was confirmed by a 1935 analysis of family names that showed that in the 18th century the majority of the population were indeed Aromanians, but there were also Greeks, Albanians and Bulgarians present in the city.

Around 30 old families remained, with the socio-political crisis that engulfed the nearby Opar region resulting in Albanian Christians leaving their previous homes and settling in Moscopole.

[86] In modern times, Aromanians no longer form a majority of the population, with incoming Christian and Muslim Albanians having further settled in the village, especially after the Second World War.

[45] Of the original around 24–30 churches of Moscopole, besides the St. John the Baptist Monastery (Albanian: Manastiri i Shën Prodhromit or Manastiri i Shën Gjon Pagëzorit; Greek: Μονή Αγίου Ιωάννου του Προδρόμου) in the vicinity of the town,[45] only five have survived into modern times: Some of the ruined churches include the following: There is a combination of mild valley climate in the lower parts and true Alpine climate in the higher regions.

[citation needed] Favorable climate conditions make this center ideal for winter, summer, sport and recreation tourism, so there are tourists during the whole year, and not only from areas of Albania, but also foreigners.