The Arvanites are a people out of Albania presently living in Greece and can thus be classified as Greeks, although they are associated historically with Albanians (see Greeks: nationality; Albanians: nationality). Arvanites is the Greek version of their name, and Arberor, the Albanian version. In northwestern Greece the native name for Albanians is shqiptar.
ORIGINS
The Arvanite presence in Greece resulted from migrations of Albanian Christians from Albania, or from the redrawing of borders, which led to Albanians’ becoming citizens of Greece. As do other Albanians, they have Illyrians among their ancestors.
LANGUAGE
The Arvanite language, known to Greeks as Arvanitika (or to Greek Albanians as Arberichte), is South Albanian (Shqip or Tosk), as opposed to North Albanian (Gheg). Arvanitika has three main dialectical variations: one in Thrace in northeastern Greece, one in northwestern Greece near the Albanian border, and one in central and southern Greece. Because a written form has not been passed down, both the Greek and Latin alphabets have been used to write it. Most Arvanites are now bilingual, also speaking Greek.
HISTORY
Migrations
The earliest Arvanite migrations from what became present-day Albania to present-day Greece are thought to have occurred as early as the 11th and 12th centuries. Others migrated in the 14th and 15th centuries, at the invitation of the Byzantines, when Greece was part of the Byzantine Empire. After the Ottoman Turks (see Turkics) gained control of the Balkan region by the end of the 15th century, other Arvanites are thought to have fled forced Islamization. Another wave of migrations occurred in the 18th century, still during the Ottoman period.
In the early migrations most of the Arvanites settled in the administrative regions known as Central Greece and the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece, or on Greek islands, such as the Cyclades island of Andros. Fewer numbers migrated to northeastern Greece to the east (the Greek regions now known as Central Macedonia and Eastern Macedonia, and Thrace). When the homeland of some of those families who had settled in eastern Thrace became part of Turkey by the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, some of them were relocated to Greece, because the treaty called for an exchange of population; Muslims of Greece resettled in Turkey, and Christians of Turkey resettled in Greece.
The territory of Arvanites in the northwestern regions of Epirus and Western Macedonia became part of Greece as a result of a redrawing of the political map in the early 20th century after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Arvanites near the border, formerly part of a region of southern Albania known as Chameria, are referred to as Chams.
Since the 1950s many Arvanites have been emigrating from their villages to the cities, especially to Athens, the capital of Greece.
For a time after the Greeks won independence from the Ottoman Turks, the Arvanites, some of whom aided the Greeks in the rebellion of 1821-28, were accepted as a separate cultural group within the new Greek nation. Yet Greece ultimately adopted a policy of Hellenization with regard to Arvanites. The growth of an Albanian nationalistic movement in the 20th century exacerbated the issue, contributing to resentment against Arvanites.
The use of Arvanitika has been declining because of Hellenization and urbanization. As for all other minority languages in Greece, except Turkish, Arvanitika has no legal status and is not taught in schools, and Arvanites who move away from ancestral villages are less likely to use it. Their church services—of the Greek Orthodox Church—are held in Greek.
Since the 1980s efforts have been made to preserve Arvanite culture. A number of cultural associations and publications that promote Arvanite identity have been formed. Recordings of traditional songs have furthered a sense of community among the Arvanites.
CULTURE
The traditional Arvanite way of life is built around the farming village. Most Arvanites are Orthodox Christians.
It is estimated that there are about 200,000 citizens of Greece who are identifiable as Arvanites and speak Arvanitika. Yet perhaps as many as 1.6 million Greek citizens have Arvanite ancestry.
Further Reading_
Sarah F. Green. Notes from the Balkans: Locating Marginality and Ambiguity on the Greek-Albanian Border (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2005).
Edwin E. Jacques. The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present (Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 1994).
Lukas D. Tsitsipis. A Linguistic Anthropology of Praxis and Language Shift: Arvanitika (Albanian) and Greek in Contact (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Miranda Vickers. The Albanians: A Modern History (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001).
World History
