Krani (; ) is a village in the Resen Municipality in

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

, roughly south of the municipal centre of Resen.

History

Krani has four known archaeological sites, two of which are from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, one from

Late Antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

, and one from the

Hellenistic era In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the Roma ...

. The latter was a fishing settlement and the two from the Middle Ages were churches. In 1905, Arvati's population consisted of 256 Bulgarian Exarchists and 342

Albanians The Albanians are an ethnic group native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, Albanian culture, culture, Albanian history, history and Albanian language, language. They are the main ethnic group of Albania and Kosovo, ...

. There was a Bulgarian school in the village.D.M.Brancoff. "La Macédoine et sa Population Chrétienne". Paris, 1905, рр. 170-171.
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Demographics

Krani is inhabited by a

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

Muslim Albanian majority and an Orthodox Macedonian minority. A small number of Albanian speaking Muslim Romani used to live in Krani and during the latter decades of the 20th century have migrated to

Ohrid Ohrid ( ) is a city in North Macedonia and is the seat of the Ohrid Municipality. It is the largest city on Lake Ohrid and the eighth-largest city in the country, with the municipality recording a population of over 42,000 inhabitants as of ...

and Resen. In the late Ottoman period, some

Bektashi Bektashism (, ) is a tariqa, Sufi order of Islam that evolved in 13th-century western Anatolia and became widespread in the Ottoman Empire. It is named after the wali, ''walī'' "saint" Haji Bektash Veli, with adherents called Bektashis. The ...

Albanians, known locally as ''Kolonjarë'', used to also reside in the village of Krani. The national census in 2002 showed that Krani had 416 residents, less than half of its 1961 population.Censuses of population 1948 – 2002
The data on the mother tongues of Krani's residents, according to the 2002 census, is very similar to the ethnic makeup of the village with 311 declaring Albanian their mother tongue, followed by 104 declaring Macedonian, and one declaring Serbian.

Religion

The main religions in the village are Islam and Orthodox Christianity, with 309 belonging to the former and 105 to the latter, as of the latest census. Additionally, two individuals declared Catholicism as their religion. These figures suggest that the ethnic Macedonian population is Orthodox Christian, while the Albanian population is Muslim, as is the case nationally. Krani has two churches, the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary and the Church of St Nicholas. It also has one mosque.

Gallery

File:Trilingual sign hailing entrance on road to both the villages of Krani and Arvati 1.jpg, Trilingual sign hailing entrance on road to both the villages of Krani and Arvati, in Krani File:Krani village 6.jpg, Architecture of Krani File:Krani village 52.jpg, Traditional architecture of Krani File:Krani village 54.jpg, Krani River and traditional architecture of Krani File:Krani village 24.jpg, Old school of Krani (now disused) File:Xhamia e Kranjës dhe Arvatit 12.jpg, Centuries-old plane tree in mosque yard File:Викиекспедиција Преспа 214.jpg, Mosque of Krani File:Varrezat e Vjetra Myslimane të Kranjës dhe Arvatit 1.jpg, Old Muslim cemetery of Krani (Ottoman era - mid 20th century) File:Varrezat myslimane të Kranjës 2.jpg, Muslim cemetery of Krani File:Orthodox church of Krani 2.jpg, Orthodox church of Krani File:Orthodox church and cemetery of Krani.jpg, Orthodox church and cemetery of Krani File:Krani village 26.jpg, Sheep in Krani

People from Krani

* Ali Aliu (born 1934), writer and translator

References

{{coord, 40, 56, N, 21, 07, E, display=title, region:MK_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki Villages in Resen Municipality Albanian communities in North Macedonia