Greekification and Hellenization of Albanians of Epirus and Chamëria

Written by Petrit Latifi

The article cites various quotes from historical documents discussing the Albanian heritage and history of Epirus and modern day north-western Greece.

The Patriotic Association of Arvanites, in 1883

“On 4.6.1883, prominent Arvanites from various parts of the then liberated Greece founded the association “The Albanian Vlamides” [its first president was Markos Botsaris’ first cousin], with the aim of the smooth integration of the “Albanians” outside (the then) borders.
 The founding text develops insightful and profound political thought. The role of European powers organizing the distribution of the territories that the retreating, declining Ottoman Empire will leave behind has been understood.

Hobhouse observed that as he approached Gjirokastra, the clothing of the villagers changed and the loose woolen frock of the Greeks was replaced by the cotton frock of the Albanians, while they now used the Albanian language more. While in the city of Ioannina the Christian inhabitants spoke more Greek, in the Epirus countryside most of them spoke Albanian while the men spoke Greek more. (John Cam Hobhouse, “A journey through Albania and other provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople, during the years 1809 and 1810”, James Cawthorn, London 1813)

Regarding Gjirokastra, Holland, who visited Albania in 1812, reports that the city had a population of 4,000 families of which only 140 were Greek (Henry Holland, Travels in The Ionian Isles, Albania, Thhessaly, Macedonia, &c., during the years 1812 and 1813, 1815, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown: 1899, p.272). This information is confirmed by data published in 1913 by the general headquarters of the Greek army, according to which of the 11,590 inhabitants of Gjirokastra, 9,895 were Albanians and only 1,695 were Greeks. (R. Puax, Unhappy Northern Epirus, ed. 1913)

Holland also writes that the Himariotes belong to the Albanian tribe of the Liapi, who were settled between Vlora and Delvino. Therefore, the fact that the Himariotes are bilingual Albanians (regardless of whether many of them have acquired a Greek national consciousness) is not Hoxha’s Albanian propaganda.

According to Athanasios Psalidas: “Korytza or Gjortza, a town with 800 houses, half Muslim and half Christian… all the inhabitants are Albanian and do not know any other language. And the city of Argyrokastro… contains about 2500 houses, of which almost 300 are inhabited by Christians, and the rest by Turks. Both Christians and Turks are Albanians.” (See Kosmas of Thesprotou and Athanasios Psalidas…, p. 14. 66), obviously meaning by ‘Christians’ and ‘Turks’ Christians and Muslims.

The Albanian character of the two cities is also testified by Panagiotis Aravantinos: “Gyortza or Korytza, a city of Macedonia, the city was inhabited by 2000 families, almost all Albanian families..”, while for Argyrokastro he notes that “this city is already inhabited by approximately 2000 Ottoman families, most of them of Albanian origin, rich and businessmen… and by 200 Christian small merchants and craftsmen.” (P. A. P., “Chronographia of Epirus”, Athens 1856, volume B, p. 18. 41)

Aravantinos himself adds elsewhere about Korçë: “Its population at this time amounted to twenty thousand souls, of which only 10% professed Islam. Its inhabitants belong mainly to the Albanian tribe, they speak the Albanian language as their mother tongue, while the men in general more or less know and speak Greek.” (Panagiotis Aravantinos, “Description of Epirus”, NPM, Ioannina 1984, volume A, pp. 52, 114)

Let’s see what Dassarites Elias says: “Throughout the 40,000-inhabited valley of Koritsa, the archaic Albanian language (of the Illyrian-Pelasgian lineage) is spoken, of the Indo-European family of languages, as in most parts of Epirus, where according to Strabo ‘the race of Epirusians is always bilingual’…” (“On the Girl” by Elias Dassarites, in the “Bulletin of the Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece”, vol. 5, Athens: From the Perris Brothers Printing House, 1900, p. 135)

Korçë was therefore a predominantly Albanian city. According to a British memorandum of 28/1/1919, Korçë was considered predominantly Albanian. (N. Petsalis-Diomidis, Greece at the Paris Peace Conference (1919), Thessaloniki 1978)

Greek propaganda exploited the fact that the inhabitants of Korçë were mostly Orthodox Christians, some of whom were Vlachs. In 1923, the League of Nations committee noted: “In Korçë there is essentially no Greek-speaking population and when Clemenceau said in 1913 that the majority of the population there were Greeks, this opinion, which is not consistent with the facts, reflects the confusion between religion and ethnological status. This confusion was very common in the discussion of Balkan issues, according to which the Orthodox religion was identified with the Greek nationality.” (The Greek Minority of Albania, Kritiki ed., Athens, 2003, p. 28)

The British writer, teacher and explorer, Henry Fanshawe Tozer (1829-1916), visited Albania in 1865. He writes about Gjirokastra that: “The city is essentially inhabited by Albanians and the Greeks who are there are considered foreigners. The women here wear a white veil or towel, wrapped around the head, and hung backwards.” while to the south of Gjirokastra, as he writes, there are Greek villages. (Henry Fanshawe Tozer, Researches in the Highlands of Turkey, Including Visits to Mounts Ida, Athos, Olympus, and Pelion, to the Mirdite Albanians, and Other Remote Tribes, (London: John Murray 1869), Volume 1, Chapter X, pp. 218-233;)

At the beginning of the 19th century and later, British, French and Austrian travelers who visited Lountzeria (an area north of Gjirokastër also known as ‘Lintzouria’), most of them coming via Ioannina, described the Lountzeriotes as Orthodox Christians who spoke Albanian, and had the feeling that, starting from Delvinaki, they were entering another country. Greek was not spoken as in more southern areas, while there were also differences in the lifestyle and customs of the villagers.

“The villages of Lintzouria are Albanian Christians, similarly all of Zagoria are Christian Albanians, starting from Seperin, the largest of its villages. Riza contains the villages of Pestani, Kodra, Lekli, Lambovon, Hormovo, Irenti and so on, Albanian Christians, brave in wars.” (Athanasiou Psalida (and Kosmas of Thesprotus), “Geography of Albania and Epirus, from an unpublished manuscript of Kosmas of Thesprotus, with topographic drawings and geographical maps of the same”, prefaces and notes by Athan. Ch. Papacharisi, Ioannina 1964, p. 65;)

Hobhouse, who in 1813 visited the village of Qestorat in Lountzeria, writes: “In this place everything was different from what it was in the Greek villages. We were the recipients of a special attention and kindness from the person who hosted us, but I saw nothing in his face (although he was a Christian) of the trembling, melancholy, shy look of the Greek villagers.

His farmhouse was impeccably plastered, and whitewashed, and had a stable and small storeroom on the ground floor, and two bedrooms on the upper floor, in a slightly different style from what we had seen in lower Albania. It could certainly be described as comfortable, and here we spent our best night since we came from Ioannina.” (John Cam Hobhouse, “A journey through Albania and other provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople, during the years 1809 and 1810”, James Cawthorn, London 1813)

On the other hand, Ottoman sources and traveler reports indicate that at the beginning of the 19th century the Drinos Valley, also known as the Dropoli Plain, which is one of the two main areas where a percentage of the Greek minority currently resides, was largely an Albanian area.

The French diplomat and philologist Auguste Dozon (1822-1890), served as French Consul in Belgrade (1854-1863), Mostar (1863-1865, 1875-1878), Plovdiv (1865-1869), Ioannina (1869-1875), Cyprus (1878-1881), and Thessaloniki (1881-1885). He was particularly interested in the Albanian language, which he began to learn in Ioannina after meeting Johann Georg von Hahn and young Albanian students, in the former capital of Albania (as he called Ioannina).

The result of his research into the Albanian language and folklore tradition, especially oral Albanian literature, is recorded in his books ‘Manuel de la langue chkipe ou albanaise’ [Manual of the Skip or Albanian language], published in Paris in 1879, and ‘Contes albanais, recueillis et traduits’ [Albanian folk tales, collected and translated], published in Paris in 1881.

About Leskoviki he says: “The Muslims who constitute more than 5/6 of the population of Leskoviki, almost all call themselves beys… They were once considered very fanatical and it was only 7 or 8 years ago that they allowed a church to be built. The Bektashi sect has spread among them and the number of its followers has risen to 60 within a few years… None of the men leaves their house without a group of armed bodyguards, a common phenomenon in Albanian areas where bloody feuds are quite widespread.”

While for Korçë he says: “Less than 1/6 of the population are Muslims. They constitute about 200 out of 1,500 houses in total. There are only 2 mosques, one of which is very small… The Christians of Korçë are worthy of admiration for the sacrifices they have made to educate the young people and help the poor because, like the inhabitants (of all religions) of other Turkish cities, they are subject to the taxes which the government and its officials impose on them from time to time, and from which they cannot escape without earning the disapproval of the authorities…

The population of this region, Muslims and Christians, is almost entirely Albanian… In the vicinity of Korçë, there are only two small Bulgarian villages, and a winter settlement of Vlachs.” (Auguste Dozon, Excursion en Albanie, (report sent to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Consular and Commercial Affairs, in Paris), published in Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, Paris, June 1875 – Translated from the French by Robert Elsie.

“…The Orthodox Christians in the Albanian south, who, through Greek education and the influence of the Orthodox Church, had acquired a Greek consciousness and many of them became pioneers in strengthening Greek culture and also benefited the Greek state in various ways.

The influence of Hellenism on the Albanian Orthodox was such that, when the Albanian national idea developed, in the last three decades of the 19th century, they were very confused about their national identity. Consequently, we observe the phenomenon of protagonists of the two national movements coming from the same village. For example, the village of Qestorat in Gjirokastër was the birthplace of the well-known benefactor Kristaq Zografi (1820-1896) and his son Georgios, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, a leading figure of the Greek national movement and the first governor-general of Epirus after its liberation in 1913. The same village was also the birthplace of the leading figure of the Albanian national movement Pandeli Sotiri, who was a student of the Greek teacher Koto Hoxhi.

Hoxhi used to teach the Albanian language secretly to his students, which is why he clashed with the Greek consulate in Ioannina, where he had actually made an unfortunate request for the establishment of an Albanian school. He was actually excommunicated by the Bishop of Gjirokastër.

Furthermore, apart from Sotiri, the Qestorat school produced another important representative of the Albanian national movement, Petro Nini Luarasi…I believe that one could imagine, keeping in mind the proportions, how these young Albanians could have been in the 19th century in their villages, studying in Greek schools initially in their own villages and later in the Zosimaia School in Ioannina, and thus being influenced by Greek culture, a fact that, in combination with the Christian Orthodox cultural tradition with which they grew up at home, led them to Hellenization…” (Vassilis Nitsiakos, On the Border: Transborder Mobility, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries on the Albanian-Greek frontier, LIT Verlag Münster, Berlin 2010, p. 153-154)

Let us now look at an example of the Hellenization of Epirus (and not only) and the Albanians, from Lunxhëri, through the church this time.
 ”It is also very well known, in this part of the Balkans, and back in Ottoman times, the ethnonyms ‘Greek’ and ‘Christian Orthodox’ were pretty much synonymous, so that it was difficult to be a Christian and say that you were not Greek.

Lunxhëri is the epitome of this ambiguity or opposition. At the beginning of the 19th century and later, British, French and Austrian travellers who visited Luntzeria, most of them coming via Ioannina, described the Luntzeriotes as Orthodox Christians who spoke Albanian, and they had the feeling that, starting from Delvinaki, they were entering another country, even though political borders did not exist at that time.

They did not speak Greek, as they did further south, there was a change in the way of life and customs of the villagers… Greek, however, was used in church services throughout Luntzeria, and the elderly women from the village of Këllëz said that ‘we women did not understand what the priest was saying’. It is also said that the young men who left Lunxhëri on the road of kurbet (exile) to Constantinople, spoke only Albanian and learned Greek and Turkish in Constantinople. (Gilles De Rapper, Better than Muslims, not as good as Greeks: Emigration as experienced and imagined by the Albanian Christians of Lunxhëri, Sussex Academic Press, 2005, p.10-11)

This was the tight embrace from the Greek Orthodox Church. It is worth mentioning that when in Boston, USA, an Orthodox Christian Albanian, Kristaq Dishnica, a member of the Albanian community of Hudson, Massachusetts, died of severe influenza, a Greek Orthodox priest there refused to sing the funeral service. The reason was that Dishnica was among those who demanded that church services for Christian Albanians be held in the Albanian language. (Constance J. Tarasar, Orthodox America, 1794-1976: development of the Orthodox Church in America, Bavarian State Library, (1975), p. 309)

It was then that Fan Noli and a group of Albanian patriots created the independent Orthodox Church of Albania in New England. Noli, born in the Albanian villages of Eastern Thrace and the first priest of this church, a writer, poet, historian, musicologist, composer, excellent translator of classical works (Shakespeare, Omar Khayyam, etc.), a personality with worldwide recognition whose work attracted the admiration of Bernard Shaw, Thomas Mann, Sibelius and others, a master of ten languages, was ordained a priest in 1908 by the Russian Orthodox bishop of Alaska in the USA.

Thus, the first liturgy with the Orthodox liturgy in the Albanian language was held in Boston on March 22, 1908. In 1921-22, through a clergy-laity conference, Noli declared the Albanian Orthodox Church autocephalous and was placed at its head in 1923 as Metropolitan of Durres. (Stavro Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening 1878-1912, Princeton 1967, pp. 162-163)

At the same time, the much smaller Roman Catholic Church of Albania initially had an Indian nuncio and from 1992-93 an Albanian primate from Mirdita (a region of northern Albania inhabited by Catholic Christians) and 4 Albanian or Albanian-born bishops, even for the small Uniate diocese of the South (created in 1660 when the Orthodox bishop joined the Uniate, while over 3,000 believers remain to this day). After 1998, Albanian bishops were finally appointed to the Albanian Orthodox Church.

Regarding the Albanian immigrants in the U.S. who had joined the Albanian national movement, the consul of Monastir argued in 1909: “America should also attract our attention, where the Albanianism of the Orthodox has unfortunately made great progress…” (A.Y.E., 1909, I’, no. 517, Consulate of Monastir to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Monastir, 25 June 1909)

Therefore, Albanianism proceeded unfortunately according to the Greek consul, precisely because the goal of Greece was the assimilation and Hellenization of every Orthodox Christian, regardless of his real origin. The Orthodox priests supported in their own way, as we have seen, the aspirations of the Greek government and were against the establishment of Albanian schools and against the introduction of the Albanian language in religious church services.

As early as 1892, Metropolitan Philaretos of Kastoria, addressing sections of the population of his spiritual territory, called on the faithful to oppose the effort to establish Albanian schools, which was then underway, going so far as to claim that the Albanian language essentially did not exist. (Stavro Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening 1878-1912, Princeton 1967, pp. 137-138.)

It is worth mentioning here that the Roman Catholic Church allowed the Arberes of Calabria to use the Albanian language during their liturgy and church services in the Orthodox liturgy.

The Albanian newspaper “Drita” printed in Sofia wrote about Metropolitan Photios of Korçë:

“Our Archpriest is pious, but also a perfect Jesuit, he always fasts but also moves every evil motive against us unfortunate Albanians in order to thwart every national goal of ours, in order to convert us to the Greek idea, taking care with infernal means to close our Albanian schools, so that investigations are carried out on every Albanian, indifferent to our further fate and limiting us with fines and curses and excommunications not to speak our native language neither on the street, nor in social gatherings, nor even in our own homes! An absurd demand and audacious claim! In other words, to impose even on our elderly parents, our grandparents and the rest of our elderly relatives, to converse with us in Greek! … But with more right, Your Eminence? What are you that you impose on us in this way? Are you not a clergyman, a hired hand for our Christian duties? … If we dare to accuse your language and ethnicity, will you hate us? Of course. Then with what right do you accuse and persecute our language and ethnicity?”

– (Drita Newspaper, issue no. 74, A.Y.E. (Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) 1906, 64. 3)

The embrace of Albanians by the Greek Orthodox Church continues in some way even today. At the initiative of the Orthodox Church of Albania and with the support of the “Breath of Love” Foundation of the Church of Albania, a bilingual private eight-grade Primary School operates in Gjirokastër, as well as other bilingual primary and secondary schools (Kindergartens, a four-grade Unified Ecclesiastical Lyceum, a Technical Lyceum and a Vocational Training Institute). Also, bilingual private schools operate in Korçë (Omir), Tirana (Arsakeio) and Himara, where children are taught Greek history, Greek national holidays, the Greek national anthem, etc. These schools are attended not only by the children of the Greeks of Albania, but also by Albanian students.

Souliotis Koutsonikas, a fighter in 1821, mentions about the areas of Liapouria, Tirana and other Albanian areas that in them “the Albanian language is spoken”, which is known to this day, while about Tsamouria he mentions that “the Albanian language is mainly spoken”, which means that the Greek language was also spoken [to a lesser extent].

Voldkampf also mentions ”‘The Chams, men and women, in addition to Albanian, also express themselves with COMFORT in plain Greek.” Here Voldkampf also mentions that men and women in Chamouria also speak plain Greek and indeed with comfort.

Aravantinos, a fighter of 1821, referring to the languages spoken in each region of Epirus and Albania, states for all the villages of Tsamouria that they spoke Albanian and Greek, that is, mainly Albanian and secondarily Greek in most of them and bilingual in some of them, in contrast to more northern Albanian regions, e.g. Lamperia, where he states that in the villages of the region only Albanian was spoken.

While Baltsiotis, despite his exaggerations about the expansion of the Albanian language, mentions, among other things, Tsamouria. ”‘Although the langue-vehicule of the area was Albanian, a much higher status was attributed to the Greek language, even among the Muslims themselves” That is, in the so-called Tsamouria, from the Filiates in the north to the outskirts of Margariti in the south, even the Muslims of the area spoke Greek.

Peraivos mentions the same, among others, the Muslims of Tsamouria:

“… although they speak the Albanian dialect, as natural but also after the simple Greek, both men and women express themselves correctly, especially those who live around Paramythia.”

We see that he mentions that all the Tsamouri, men and women, spoke simple Greek , but that especially the Muslims of Paramythia and the villages near it  spoke »correctly», men and women, simple Greek.”

While Epirus’ Christovassilis  noted in his work a century ago that  many Muslims of Tsamouria also spoke Greek. William Eaton mentions, among other things:

“The Muslim inhabitants of Paramythia and its province had Greek as their mother tongue …..” So he also mentions that the Muslims of the province of Paramythia, that is, of eastern Tsamouria, were at least bilingual, that is, they also had Greek as their mother tongue.

The Englishman Woodhouse of the Allied mission who lived in western Epirus during the occupation of 1941-44  mentions, among other things, the Albanian Chams in his book “The Apple of Discord”: ”The Chams are racially, partly Albanian, partly Greek and partly Turk.”

The British writer, teacher and explorer, Henry Fanshawe Tozer (1829-1916), visited Albania in 1865. He writes about Gjirokastra that:

“The city is essentially inhabited by Albanians and the Greeks who are there are considered foreigners. The women here wear a white veil or towel, wrapped around the head, and hung backwards.” while to the south of Gjirokastra, as he writes, there are Greek villages. (Henry Fanshawe Tozer, Researches in the Highlands of Turkey, Including Visits to Mounts Ida, Athos, Olympus, and Pelion, to the Mirdite Albanians, and Other Remote Tribes, (London: John Murray 1869), Volume 1, Chapter X, pp. 218-233;)

“The villages of Lintzouria are Albanian Christians, similarly all of Zagoria are Christian Albanians, starting from Seperin, the largest of its villages. Riza contains the villages of Pestani, Kodra, Lekli, Lambovon, Hormovo, Erenti and so on, Albanian Christians, brave in wars.” (Athanasiou Psalida (and Kosmas of Thesprotus), “Geography of Albania and Epirus, from an unpublished manuscript of Kosmas of Thesprotus, with topographic drawings and geographical maps of the same”, prefaces and notes by Athan. Ch. Papacharisi, Ioannina 1964, p. 65;)

Athanasios Psalidas and Kosmas Thesprotos, therefore, in the early 19th century, considered Lunxhëri and Rrëzë as Albanian regions inhabited by Albanian Orthodox Christians. As Gilles De Rapper also records in ‘Better than Muslims, not as good as Greeks.’ (‘The New Albanian Migration’, Sussex Academic Press, pp.173-194, 2005) these two areas are inhabited by a) Albanian Christian Orthodox – except for the village of Erind where Muslims live – who call themselves Lunxhot or autochthonous (autoktonë) while others call them villagers (fshatarë), b) a few Albanian Muslims who have come from Labëri and who are usually called Muslims by the locals, and c) a few Vlach families who were settled in the area by the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, whom the locals call ‘të asa’ (those who came) while they themselves usually call themselves ‘çoban’ (shepherds).

On the other hand, Ottoman sources and traveler reports indicate that at the beginning of the 19th century, the Drinos Valley, also known as the Dropoli Plain, which is one of the two areas where the largest percentage of the Greek minority currently resides, belonged to the largest extent to Albanians.

“The (Greek) claim to southern Albania (Epirus) is based entirely on the claim that the majority of the population is Greek. The Greeks number 120,000 as Greeks and 80,000 as Albanians. But who are the ‘Greeks’? At least 5/6 of them [about 80%] – if not more – are Albanian Christians of the Orthodox faith, Albanian in origin and language, who, because they recognize the Patriarchate of Constantinople, are considered Greeks in the sense of having been assimilated by Greek culture.” (“The Nineteenth Century and After XIX-XX a Monthly Review”, founded by James Knowles, Vol. LXXXVI, July-December 1919, page 645.)

The British traveler and writer Edmund Spencer states the same thing in his book ‘Travels in European Turkey, in 1850, through Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thrace, Albania, and Epirus, with a visit to Greece and the Ionian Isles’ (published in London in 1851) in the part of the book he calls ‘A journey from Ohrid to Janina’, where he considers that a large part of the Greeks and Greek-speaking people of southern Albania were in fact Hellenized Albanians, who were influenced – linguistically and culturally – by the Greek Orthodox Church.

The Encyclopedia Britannica states the same in 1910, that there was a population of Greeks in Epirus, but who were not genuine Greeks (implying that it was a population that had been assimilated by the Greeks and were now Greek-speaking): “There is a considerable population of Greek-speakers in Epirus, who, however, must be distinguished from the genuine Greeks of Ioannina, Preveza and the more southern regions. These may be estimated at around 100,000.” (Encyclopedia Britannica, section on Albania, 1910, p. 483)

Baron John Cam Hobhouse Broughton, referring not only to Epirus, tells us about the ‘Greeks’ who are Albanians, Vlachs or Bulgarians in origin, who are not in fact of Greek origin but members of the Greek Orthodox Church and for this reason they are also usually called ‘Greeks’ or ‘Romans’ (Romans):

“A large proportion of those included under the term ‘Romans’ or Christians of the Greek Orthodox Church…are certainly of mixed origin…These are the Albanians, Maniots, Macedonians, Bulgarians and Vlach Greeks…If we look at the Greeks as a whole, they cannot, however, be clearly referred to as a separate people, but rather as a religious group opposed to the established order of the church of the Ottoman Empire…” (John Cam Hobhouse, A Journey Through Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia to Constantinople, during the years 1809 and 1810, (James Cawthorn, London 1813), Vol. II, p. 58)

“Finally a treaty in Constantinople in July 1881, by which the delimitation of a (border) boundary less favorable to Greece was entrusted to an international commission… Greece did not abandon its intention to invade southern Albania until a naval protest and blockade of its coasts was carried out by the Great Powers… From then on Greece took every possible step to detach southern Albania from Turkey by a gradual infiltration and Hellenization of the population.” (Stavro Skendi, The Albanian national awakening, 1878-1912, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 57)

Let’s look at the population census carried out by the II Bureau of the Greek General Staff in 1913 and published in 1919. While the population of southern Albania (Northern Epirus) is categorized into Greeks and Albanians, it is found that all Christian villages have been characterized as Greek, regardless of whether their inhabitants are Greek or Albanian, regardless of whether their native language is Greek or Albanian.

It is worth noting here that the international boundary commission established in 1913 to examine the demarcation of the border between Albania and Greece had to deal with funny tricks created by the Greeks (trying to show that various areas of Albania were inhabited by Greeks), such as what Captain Leveson Gower recounts: “The commission arrives at a village in the evening… the ringing of a bell is heard… the Greeks have erected a makeshift bell tower on a tree…” (Edith Durham, ‘The Burden of the Balkans’, London 1905)

Since I referred to the efforts to Hellenize the Christian Albanians of Epirus and southern Albania, let’s look at two testimonies. Let us look at the testimony of Ekrem Bey Vlora, who visited Berat in 1908:

“In parallel with my visit to the Turkish indantiyye school, I also visited the main Greek school. This gave me an opportunity to check the efforts of the present-day Greeks to civilize the agrarian and barbaric Albanians. My guide was the Greek Consul. The school is in a large, rather dilapidated house in the Mangalem neighborhood. It is the equivalent of a six-grade high school.

In addition, Berat has eight elementary Greek schools – four for boys and four for girls. The high school has been operating for more than thirty years and is the first institution of its kind to be built in the sanjak of Berat. Seventy to eighty boys are taught here without tuition, the expenses being covered by the Association for the Propagation of the Greek Language in Athens.

The teachers are mainly appointed by the metropolitan and paid by Athens. The church has imposed a small tax on the population, at the rate of ten piastres (two crowns) per year, which is collected by the subashi, often only from the wealthiest. It is for the payment of the salaries of the priests, but the greater part ends up in the treasury of the Greek school association in Athens.

I must say that the teaching in this school and in the other state Greek schools is better in almost every respect than that in the Turkish school. The Greeks have worked devotedly and diligently for decades, pursuing fixed goals, with the intention of assimilating the population. Anyone who is not convinced by my interpretation of the intentions and results of this “civilizing and scholastic” work should come to Berat in the afternoon, when the children – all Albanians – leave school, while singing the Greek national anthem.” (Ekrem bey Vlora, Aus Berat und vom Tomor: Tagebuchblätter, (Sarajevo: Daniel A. Kajon, 1911), p. 24-54 – Translated from the German by Robert Elsie.)

The Danish archaeologist Peter Oluf Brønstedt, who visited Preveza on December 12, 1812, said that:

“Every Christian Albanian who has received any kind of education understands modern Greek, often better than his mother tongue. All philological education, in religious and other schools, is carried out in modern Greek, except for a few tribes, who for some centuries have embraced Islam…” (Peter Oluf Brønstedt, Interview with Ali Pacha of Joanina, in the Autumn of 1812; with Some Particulars of Epirus, and the Albanians of the Present Day, (Edited with an introduction by Jacob Isager), Athens: The Danish Institute at Athens 1999, p. 34-77)

The same village was also the birthplace of the leading figure of the Albanian national movement Pandeli Sotiri, who was a student of the Greek teacher Koto Hoxhi. Hoxhi used to teach the Albanian language secretly to his students, which is why he clashed with the Greek consulate in Ioannina, where he had actually made an unfortunate request for the establishment of an Albanian school.

He was actually excommunicated by the Bishop of Gjirokastër. Furthermore, apart from Sotiri, the Qestorat school produced another important representative of the Albanian national movement, Petro Nini Luarasi…I believe that one could imagine, keeping in mind the proportions, how these young Albanians could have been in the 19th century in their villages, studying in Greek schools initially in their own villages and later in the Zosimaia School in Ioannina, and thus being influenced by Greek culture, a fact that, in combination with the Christian Orthodox cultural tradition with which they grew up at home, led them to Hellenization…” (Vassilis Nitsiakos, On the Border: Transborder Mobility, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries on the Albanian-Greek frontier, LIT Verlag Münster, Berlin 2010, p. 153-154)
Let’s now look at an example of the Hellenization of Epirus (and not only) and the Albanians, from Lundzeria, this time through the church.

“It is also very well known, in this part of the Balkans, and back in Ottoman times, the ethnonyms ‘Greek’ and ‘Christian Orthodox’ were pretty much synonymous, so that it was difficult to be Christian and say that you were not Greek. Lunxhëri is the epitome of this ambiguity or opposition.

At the beginning of the 19th century and later, British, French and Austrian travelers who visited Lunxhëri, most of them coming via Ioannina, described the Lunxhëri as Orthodox Christians who spoke Albanian, and they had the feeling that, starting from Delvinaki, they were entering another country, even though the political borders did not exist at that time.

They did not speak Greek, as they did further south, there was a change in the way of life and customs of the villagers… Greek, however, was used in church services throughout Lunxhëri, and the old women from the village of Këllëz said that ‘we women did not understand what the priest was saying’.

It is also said that the young men who left Lunxhëri on the road of kurbet (exile) to Constantinople, spoke only Albanian and learned Greek and Turkish in Constantinople.” (Gilles De Rapper, Better than Muslims, not as good as Greeks: Emigration as experienced and imagined by the Albanian Christians of Lunxhëri, Sussex Academic Press, 2005, p.10-11)

This was the tight embrace from the Greek Orthodox Church.
 It is worth mentioning that when in Boston, USA, an Orthodox Christian Albanian, Kristaq Dishnica, a member of the Albanian community of Hudson, Massachusetts, died of severe influenza, a Greek Orthodox priest there refused to sing the funeral service. The reason was that Dishnica was among those who demanded that church services for Christian Albanians be held in the Albanian language. (Constance J. Tarasar, Orthodox America, 1794-1976: development of the Orthodox Church in America, Bavarian State Library, (1975), p. 309)

It should be noted that the patriarchate deposed the co-protagonists of the independence of the Orthodox Church of Albania, Metropolitan of Belgrade (Berat) Bessarion Giovani and Priest At Vasili Markou, whom it later reinstated. However, even after 1990 and while there were notable Albanian Orthodox priests in America, the initially exarch of the Patriarchate and then Archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Albania, Anastasios, appointed Greek bishops and priests, provoking reactions. At the same time, the much smaller Roman Catholic Church of Albania initially had an Indian nuncio and from 1992-93 an Albanian primate from Mirdita (a region of northern Albania inhabited by Catholic Christians) and 4 Albanian or Albanian-born bishops, even for the small Uniate diocese of the South (created in 1660 when the Orthodox bishop joined the Uniate, while over 3,000 believers remain to this day). After 1998, Albanian bishops were finally appointed to the Albanian Orthodox Church.

It is worth mentioning here that the Roman Catholic Church allowed the Arberes of Calabria to use the Albanian language during their liturgy and church services in the Orthodox liturgy.

Let’s see what some Greeks had said and written and judge their propaganda.

“… Hellenism, inextricably linked with Christianity, is represented in Epirus by the Albanian-speaking and 77,103 Vlach-speaking Christians…” (Ch. Christovassilis, “Epirus geographically and ethnologically from the most ancient times to the present day”, Hellenism, volume 8 (1905), pp. 497-502.)

In fact, according to them, Hellenism is represented by Albanian-speaking and Vlach-speaking Christians. So according to them, there were no Albanians, there were only Albanian-speaking and Vlach-speaking Greeks. We continue.

“…if the exiled Albanians of Epirus had maintained their ancestral religion until now, Hellenism in Epirus would have no rival today, except for the ruling Authority” (C. Christovassilis, “Epirus geographically and ethnologically from the earliest times to the present day”, Hellenism, volume 8 (1905), pp. 205-208.)

What does the ‘poet’ want to tell us here? He wants to say that if the Albanians had not become Muslims and had all remained Orthodox Christians, it would have been easier for them to be Hellenized, since the only obstacle would not have been religion (Islam), but only Ottoman rule (the ruling authority). We continue.

“The Orthodox Albanians have always been and will be Greeks.” (Pavlos Karolidis, “Albania and Albanians”, Hellenism, volume 5 (1899), pp. 635-637.)

Here the author becomes more revealing. He believes that the Orthodox Albanians were and will be Greeks, so in this way he means that Greece had the right to possess the territories of Epirus (northern and southern). However, the Orthodox Albanians are what their name says, they are Albanians.

“The Orthodox Albanians are Greeks, neither more nor less. Likewise, the Turkish Albanians are Turks.” (Pavlos Karolidis, “The Greek Albanians in Lower Italy and Sicily”, Hellenism, volume 7 (1904), pp. 176-183.)

Certainly, Christian Orthodox Albanians are not Greeks but Albanians, just as Muslim Albanians are not Turks but Albanians. Certainly, over the years, many Christian Orthodox Albanians became Hellenized and many Muslim Albanians became Turkified. ‘Turkish Albanians’ were called by Christians to Muslim Albanians, but this is wrong. In those years, whoever embraced Islam was said to have become Turkified. Certainly, this is a wrong perception, as whoever changes his religion does not mean that he also changes his origin. The above author obviously knows this, but uses the various words in such a way as to project what he wants. The author wants to say that Orthodox Albanians are Greeks, so we are entitled to annex their lands to our territory.

“… Albanian ethnicity does not exist in History, because it was not created in it, but there is an Albanian race, divided into two large ethnicities, the Turkish and the Greek…” (Pavlos Karolidis, “The Greek-Albanians in Lower Italy and Sicily”, Hellenism, volume 7 (1904), pp. 176-183.)

Albanians belong to one ethnicity, the Albanian. Otherwise, the answer to this excerpt is the same as the one above. The author’s purpose and intentions are obvious.

Let’s see what the Greek consul of Vlora said in 1901: “But not content with its actions against the Muslim Albanians, Austria is attempting to instill division and discord in our own compatriots, dividing them into three categories, those of Greek-speaking, Vlach-speaking and Albanian-speaking people, thus sowing and nurturing hatred and enmity, so that by this means it can attract the last two categories…” (A.Y.E., 1901, aak, no. 127, Consulate of Vlora to Consulate General of Ioannina, Vlora, 30 June 1901)
In fact, the Christian Orthodox are fellow nationals of the Greeks according to the Greek consul. However, their division into Greeks, Vlachs and Albanians is a reality. Now, as we said, indeed ‘becoming a Muslim’ was once (wrongly) synonymous with ‘turning into a Turk’, just as ‘Greek’ (and ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’) was synonymous with Christian Orthodox. Here, however, it is obvious that the Greek consul does not use in his letter the term Greek in the sense of Christian, but means that the Albanians and Vlachs are of Greek origin. This or something similar is what the Consul means, thus wanting to show that the Greeks had the right to annex the Albanian territories. Of course, just as Austria did propaganda for its own purposes, Greece also did – and still does – propaganda, but that is not what the Greek Consul says.

Let us also look at the report of the Consul of Gjirokastra, P. Karytsinos, to the Embassy of Constantinople, regarding the Ottoman census in the sanjak of Gjirokastra. The Ottoman authorities relieved a certain Anagnostis Muzinas from his duty as a census taker, because he insisted that the Albanian Christian Orthodox residents of a village be registered simply as Christians, belonging to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and not as Albanian Christians. Muzinas, in other words, wanted the origin of the residents of the village not to be registered. The Greek consul, serving the policy of his government (the aim of which was the assimilation and Hellenization of the Albanian Orthodox), criticizes the act of the Ottoman authorities in relieving Muzinas. According to the Consul:

“…the Reader Muzin, replaced by another, because, during the first days of the census, he insisted that the inhabitants of the Albanian-speaking village of Muzin, of the Delvino kaza, be registered, according to their identification, ‘Rum – Patriarchal’ and not ‘Rum – Arnaut – Patriarchal’” and below the Greek Consul says “the entire Christian element of the Sandzak of Gjirokastër is and remains unified and indivisible, they constitute one and only one ethnicity, the Greek one.” (A.Y.E., 1905, issue 15, no. 129, Consulate of Gjirokastra to Embassy of Constantinople, Gjirokastra, 15 December 1905)

Greekification and Hellenization of Albanians of Epirus and Chamëria

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