Albanian-speakers of Western Thrace

The Albanians of Western Thrace are a bilingual ethnolinguistic minority in Greek Macedonia and Western Thrace along the border with Turkey. They speak the Northern Tosk subbranch of Tosk Albanian, along with Greek, and are descendants of the Albanian population of Eastern Thrace who migrated during the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s.Greek Helsinki Monitor (1995): "Report: The Arvanites"
Online report
/ref>Euromosaic (1996): "L'arvanite / albanais en Grèce". Report published by the Institut de Sociolingüística Catalana. They are known in Greece as Arvanites of Western Thrace, a name applied to all groups of Albanian origin in Greece (excluding Albanian immigrants). The Albanian-speakers of Western Thrace and Macedonia use the common Albanian self-appellation, "Shqiptar" when speaking their own language and the term "Arvanites" when speaking in Greek. They refer to Albanians from Albania with the exonym "Alvanos". Despite the community's Albanian origin, it denies that it belongs to a minority and self-identifies ethnically and nationally as Greek.

History

During the Ottoman Empire, Albanian communities migrated towards today's European Turkey (Eastern Thrace), especially near Istanbul. Many Muslim Albanians achieved high office in Ottoman society and many of them, most notably the Köprülü family, became Grand Viziers of the Empire. The majority of the Albanian emigration came from Northern Kosovo and the Korça region of Albania. Descendants of this immigrants would later play an important role in the National Renaissance of Albania. The number of Albanians that resided in the region is unknown, as statistical data of the Ottoman Empire were based on religious identification (millets). Thus, the Orthodox Albanians were part of the Rûm millet, while Muslims were categorised alongside Turks.

Among this population, Orthodox Albanians in Eastern Thrace resided in partly homogeneous communities, either villages or neighborhoods, and were mainly descendants of immigrants from the Korça region. At the conclusion of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, Greece and Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which included a population exchange between the two countries. The treaty used religion as the indicator of national affiliation, thus including populations without ethnic provisions, even Albanians, in the population exchange. Under this treaty the Muslims of Greece were exchanged with the Christians of Turkey, with an exception of the Muslims of Western Thrace and the Christians of Istanbul, Imbros and Tenedos.

Under this provision, the Orthodox Albanian community of Eastern Thrace, was re-accommodated in Western Thrace, where they settled mainly in new and ethnically homogeneous villages built in order to receive the refugees. Today, this population lives in the same villages, but a part emigrated to bigger towns such as Thessaloniki and Athens, making the Albanian language less used.

Distribution

The community has settled in the villages of Tychero, Ardánio, Paradimí, Gemisti, Féres, Ántheia, Díkaia, N. Cheimónio, Kavýli, Tarsio, Kípoi, Kleisó, Péplos, Pýthio, Pyrólitho, Rígio, Sakkos, Thourio, Asimenio, Apalos, Lykofi, Sofikó, Paliouri, Ladi, Metaxades and Vrysika. Albanian-speakers inhabit 15 homogeneous and 14 mixed villages:

In the 1953 census in Greece, Albanians formed around 3% of the total population in the Evros, and 0.4% in Xanthi regional unit. In the whole Western Thrace they counted 1.3% of the total population.

See also

*Arvanites
*Minorities in Greece
* Albanians in Greece
* Albanians

References

Further reading

*

External links

GHM report

{{DEFAULTSORT:Albanian-Speakers Of Western Thrace
Western Thrace
Albanians in Greece