Political Violence in a Borderland. The Region of Kastoria under Italian Occupation (1941-1943)

The article investigates the history of the small province of Kastoria, Western Macedonia, during the Italian occupation between 1941 and 1943. The province of Kastoria was inhabited by an ethnically mixed population comprising Greeks, Vlachs and Slavophones. During the occupation the Italian authorities promoted the formation of militias of Slavophones to help quell the resistance. In order to explain the formation of these collaborationist units, the articles first explores the history of the region in the 1920ies and 1930ies. Then it focuses on the occupation years until the Slavophone militias were formed in 1943. It concludes that interethnic violence was neither the necessary outcome of preceding etnic cleavages, nor the result of the Italian policy of divide et impera. Interethnic strifes derived rather from socio-economic dynamics that led to the reemergence of preexisting patters of ethnicization of conflis over ressources.