Cited:
“At present, the indigenous Arnauts, especially in the area of the Greek capital of Athens, are completely Hellenized and have become part of the Greek people, which was facilitated by the assimilation policy of the Greek state.”
In the 19th century, many neighborhoods in and around Athens — including parts of what is now the historic center and suburbs — were predominantly Arvanite. Travelers’ accounts from the early 1800s frequently described Athens itself as having a strong Albanian character before and during the early years of Greek independence.
The Process of Hellenization
The integration and eventual assimilation of the Arvanites into modern Greek identity occurred gradually but was accelerated after the creation of the independent Greek state in the 1830s. Key factors included:
Shared Religion: As Orthodox Christians, Arvanites aligned with the Greek national church, which played a central role in nation-building.
Participation in the Greek War of Independence (1821): Arvanites fought prominently on the Greek side, which strengthened their identification with the emerging Greek nation.
State Policies: The new Greek kingdom pursued aggressive linguistic and cultural Hellenization. Education was conducted exclusively in Greek, and Arvanitika (the Tosk Albanian dialect spoken by Arvanites) was discouraged in schools and public life. Over time, it came to be viewed as a “peasant language.”
Urbanization and Intermarriage: Mass migration to Athens and other cities in the 20th century, combined with mixed marriages, led to rapid language shift. By the late 20th century, Arvanitika was in steep decline, spoken mostly by the elderly in rural pockets.
The case of the Arvanites around Athens is one of the more complete examples of this process in the Balkans. A population that was once visibly Albanian-speaking in the Greek capital has largely disappeared as a distinct group, becoming assimilated of the Greek ethnos due to violence and oppression.
Source
Дерибасовская шутит. Юмор одесских улиц. Ривка Апостол-Рабинович. 2017
