Plikati is a village in the municipal unit of Mastorochoria, Ioannina regional unit, Greece. It is one of the northernmost villages in Epirus. The village is situated at the foot of the Grammos mountains, at 1,240 m elevation, close to the Albanian border. Plikati is 3 km north of Gorgopotamos, 8 km west of Aetomilitsa, 9 km southeast of Ersekë (Albania) and 28 km north of Konitsa. Plikati has traditionally been populated by an Arvanite population and it is the only village today in Konitsa municipality where Albanian is still spoken. An Aromanian minority is also present in the village.

Population

History

Plikati is an old village, with a church dating from the 16th century. It is one of the villages of the Epirus region in Greece which are inhabited by Arvanites (Christian Albanians). Its people are sometimes called Arvanites, although the Albanian dialect they speak is different from that of Arvanitika-speakers of southern Greece and much closer to Tosk Albanian. Due to overpopulation, poverty and raids by Muslim Albanians from the nearby Kolonjë region (located today in Albania) in the 19th century, many of its inhabitants moved away and founded new villages in the area around Florina (Belkameni and Negovani) <ref name=Koukoudis>Koukoudis, Asterios (2003). The Vlachs: Metropolis and Diaspora. Zitros. pp. 300-301. "The Arvanitovlachs cohabited not only with other Vlachs [Aromanians] but also with Arvanites. In 1841, some Arvanitovlachs, together with some numerous Arvanites and a few Greki, established the village of Drossopiyi (formally Belkameni), and in 1861 the village if Flambouro (formally Negovani, Niguváńl’i). The first settlers in those two villages near Florina had come from Plikati in the Konitsa area, on the southern slopes of Grammos. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, a period when various settlements were being destroyed and numerous Christian population groups both Vlach and non-Vlach, were on the move, Arvanites and Arvanitovlachs from Dangëlli and Kolonjë sought refugee there. They may also have included Vlachs from the ruined Vlach villages on Grammos, Grammousta and Nikolicë. However, most of the population of Plikati was Arvanite. In 1839, pressure from the Arnauts of Kolonjë drove much of the population of Plikati were enduring then must have been similar to those which resulted in the destruction and depopulation of Bitskopoulo at that time. The Arvanitovlach families who ended up in Drossopiyi and Flambouro must have come from, or had some earlier connection with, various parts of Epiros, not just Plikati, such as Parakalamos and Fourka in Ioannina prefecture, as also various villages in southern Albania, mainly in the Kolonjë area, such as Frashër, Radimisht, Barmash, Qafzez, Shtikë, Qytezë, and Dardhë. In about the same period, or a little earlier, some Arvanitovlachs went to Lehovo, another Arvanite village near Florina. Liakos reports that the Vlachs who helped to establish Flabouro and Drossopiyi had sought refuge in Plikati, and also in the neighbouring villages of Playa and Hionades, after their previous homes in Valiani had been destroyed. Valiani was an Arvanitovlach settlement on the western (now Albanian) side of Mount Grammos, east of Ersekë. Though Plikati is said to be the only Arvanite village in Konitsa province today. and Larissa (Kazaklar).