#arvanites

To commence this paper it is important to conceptualize what an Arvanite is. What makes an Arvanite an Arvanite? Secondly and equally important is what is an Albanian. Are Arvanites Albanians? Are Albanians Arvanites? The definitions of who they are, in this paper is for the most part, their definition of themselves. It is not a definition based on academic historical accounts or biological based genealogies of how the people are but how they seem themselves. This understanding of who they are is not without confusion as there are many tropes of Greekness and Albanianess. Having potentially non-Greek speaking origins Arvanites feel, puts them under suspicion of not being Greek. Arvanites see themselves as Greeks. Greekness is defined as have a long-standing legacy tied back to Ancient Greece. In addition, they see Greekness quintessentially defined as being Orthodox Christian. The Greek model of nationhood professes there is a continuity where Greek culture permeates through time and the people of Greece (Gogofis included) are the care-takers of this legacy. Of course there are several problems with this model of Greekness as it ignores the influences of varied empires and migratory peoples who have cohabitated in Greece proper over the thousands of years. The Arvanites are one of those peoples. As a result being Arvanite is a public secret. They have had to rationalize their own existence with in the sometime conflicting Greek National model. They see themselves as speaking the oldest ‘Greek’ dialect, the dialect of the proto-Dorians. Thus, they have a claim to the Greek legacy. But with the arrival of Albanian immigrants their Greekness is again contested, if not so much by others but by themselves. When I asked about who the Arvanites were and what they have to do with the place they live, one informant answered me by saying he wasn’t sure if it really had anything to do with ‘us’ [the people of Gogofis]. I asked several Arvanites who are the Albanians? I was given several answers. One common response was that they are, Touki, Turks, or Turkish Albanians, Turko-Alvani, Thus, to differentiate themselves from Albanians, they use the religious millet system set up by the Ottoman Empire to differentiate themselves and the Albanians. Albanians are Muslim and Turkish while Arvanites are Christian and therefore Greek.  I had brought an American Student with me to the field. He had been living in Kosovo so knew Albanian but did not know Greek. One of my Arvanite informants told him in Greek, I am not Albanian. As I explained to him that my friend did not know Greek he told me to tell him that he was Christian and that only the grandparent’s generation knew the language. This is a typical response to outsiders. The fact of the matter is that the old Arvanite knew Albanian but was presenting himself as a Christian and a Greek. This response may have been different before the mass migration of Albanians to Greece in the last decade. In fact in writings from as late as the 50’s and 60’s the Arvanite villages were described as alvanophono horia, or Albanian speaking villages. Koumaris, a physical anthropologist in 1948 for the University of Athens suggested that the modern Greeks are a Mediterranean type which is a mixture of Ancient Greek and Albanian origin. Today such suggestions would be completely politically incorrect. Albanians are seen as uneducated, poor barbaric peoples, a new invasion of thieves. Immigration and crime are referred to in the media when fthora (erosion) infers Albanians. Thus, being associated with being Albania is not good. As a result Arvanites have had to publicly disassociated themselves with Albanians or hide the ‘Albanian’ origins. The Arvanites of Gogfis define Greekness as described above. They are Christian Orthodox. Thus, they have chosen to the idea that they are of the first Doric tribe as discussed by Biris (1984) or as Proto-Greeks or Pelasgi who first came down from what is now Albania. Thus they can claim to be Greek as they tie themselves to the matrix of Greek ancestors.

Καλησπέρα σας. Έχω μία ερώτηση, γιατί μου έχει κολλήσει:

When did the term "arvanite" start showing up, when did we start being called that?