by Adriano Xhafaj. Translation Petrit Latifi

Arvanite Population, Document No. 127, part of Adriano Xhafas work on the Albanian Arvanite heritage of Greece. In this publication from 1832, we can read:

“Of the population of Greece and Macedonia, taking one province with another, the Greeks were formerly supposed to form about a third, two-thirds being Albanians and Turks. In some parts of the Morea, especially Messenia and Elis, the Moslem, prior to the revolution, outnumbered the Christians; in Thessaly and Epirus, they slightly preponderated; in Attica and Bœotia, the Christians were supposed to be 10 in 11; and in Crete, out of 280,000, 130,000 were Greeks. In the smaller islands, the Turks were few.”

Xhafaj:

“In fact, the Neo Hellenic state has begun work, which initially began as a state of Orthodox Christians with the scientific name Greek Christians and ended at the expense of the Arvanites and only at the expense of the Arvanites as a Hellenic state that is not only not grateful to its Arvanite creators (at that time Greece had Albanians for the Arvanites), but is not allowing the Arvanites to speak their language, before the Hellenic in Greece.”

Reference

1834. Josiah Conder. “A dictionary of geography, ancient and modern”.