The "Greek Minority" in Albania are Orthodox Vlachs

[Carlin]

The "Greek Minority" in Albania are Orthodox Vlachs (and Albanians)

Note: The following comes from a Greek site.

URL:

http://www.sfeva.gr/80449DD4.en.aspx

Vlachophone Epirotans: pillars of Hellenism in N. Epirus

The Greeks of N. Epirus like other Greeks in other areas where they have settled since antiquity have maintained their national character tanding upon various cultural traits, particularly on the language. During the Roman Empire era the closeness between Romans and Greeks resulted in the creation of the Latin-origin dialect, used by a large part of the population to this date.

After the Roman imperium was consolidated in the Greek peninsula, the country was divided in regions, organized militarily as well as administratively. At a later stage, in strategic areas of Epirus and Thessaly inscription of male citizens was enforced. Those inscribed Greeks mainly from Epirus and at a lesser rate from Thessaly and Macedonia were, merely as officials of the Roman army, eventually influenced linguistically by the Romans. Latin language which compulsively was used in combination with Greek linguistic elements by the Greek frontiers-passages’ keepers led to forming the dialect spoken among the Vlachs even to this date.

However even our fellow citizen, Dr. Antonis Koltsidas, in his writings evoking A. Keramopoulos’ testimonies, supports the view that the close contact and communication between Greeks and Romans eventually generated a form of dialect spoken by the Vlachophone Greeks of Epirus. As a historian and a voluminous author, Mr A. Koltsidas, being a Vlach himself, testifies his personal experience of his long research effort, explaining that it was during the first years of the Roman domination that the formation of the Vlach dialect began. “Moreover, by conversing with elderly Vlachs I have been able to derive a great lot of data, especially linguistic, so that we would be able to observe the dialect’s evolution from its very first steps to the present”. In another page he adds: “The Vlachs have been and still are, since the instant of their solely linguistic but never racial differentiation, genuine, pure Greek brothers and descendants of Leonidas and of Alexander the Great.

During the whole Ottoman occupation period, the Latinophone populations maintained their national conscience intact. Moreover they contributed to our race’s national as well as cultural revival.


Letter by Vlachs to Sevastianos in 1992

Right Reverend,

By God’s will we, the much suffered Vlachs, Greek Epirotans living in N. Epirus, are now able to communicate with you and directly contact you as so far we have been listening to you on the quiet and timorously. We were contemptuously called “Mijitianis” as to be insulted. However we took it as a boast because we are fair Greeks. Our fathers and grandfathers have come from Mijitie (Kefalovryso), Metsovo and elsewhere.

“I was hanged upside down for 15 days” says Christos “because I was Greek, they were shouting that I was a spy for the Greeks”.

Just out of a single village, Antonis Potsis, 20 Vlachs were thrown in jail and other 15 were sent to exile while the whole village was constantly under surveillance. First they took all our holdings away from us and then they turned against ourselves. They scattered us around various Albanian villages so that we lose Greek language. They took us everything, however Christianity and the Greek conscience no, never did they manage to take away from us.

This is the first letter we, as a group, are addressing someone in Greek. And this one is you, the spiritual leader of N. Epirus. You, who is always next to us, our great father Right Reverend Sevastianos. There has been no one else to do what you have done for N. Epirus. We thank God for that. We congratulate you for your great hassle about all N. Epirotans including us, the pure Greek Vlachs and we gratefully kiss your hand.

Now we wish to request one more thing. We want to have churches, Greek schools, unhampered communication with our motherland Greece, our wish is what you contemplate. We wish that our homes in N. Epirus would not get ravaged. We desire also something more: To see and embrace you some day in our land.

Lintzouria 23/8/1992

The Congregation’s Committee

URL:

http://www.sfeva.gr/A781F1C0.en.aspx

[Carlin]

According to Psalidas, writing in 1825, Dropull was the only Greek-speaking part of that area.

The names of the villages of Dropull, however, are mostly alien to the Greek language.

[Amphipolis]

The "Greek Minority" in Albania are Orthodox Vlachs (and Albanians)

[Carlin]

Himara, Albania: the inhabitants are of Albanian origin.

[Carlin]

[Carlin]

"All the inhabitants of Korcha speak the most archaic Albanian language"

[Carlin]

The Chimariotes spoke only ALBANIAN and did not know Greek






URL:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=SGYGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=chimariotes&source=bl&ots=6MIfHRyIvC&sig=FrYq8jCEPmw7QfnsXjcXmZJZS3M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwifiNX1p-LfAhVI1IMKHXOlBUcQ6AEwBXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=chimariotes&f=false

[Carlin]

"The term Greci was religious, denoting Orthodox faith"

Excerpts from Balkan foreign legions in eighteenth-century Italy: The Reggimento Real Macedone and its successors

Nicholas C. Pappas, Stanford University

Nation and ideology essays in honor of Wayne S. Vucinich
Edited by Ivo Banac, John G. Ackerman, and Roman Szporluk
East European Monographs, Boulder
Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York 1981


- The area of Cheimarra (Himarë) provided the bulk of the manpower for the Reggimento Cimarrioto and a major component of the Reggimento Real Macedone. Like Mani, Montenegro, and Souli, Cheimarra was one of those Balkan regions whose inhabitants were able to maintain their self-rule by virtue of their tribal or clan organization, the inaccessibility of their mountainous homelands, their proximity to Venetian controlled areas, and the prowess of their arms.

- In the eighty odd years during which Naples employed light infantry from the Balkans, the troops of the regiment and its successors were known popularly under three names in addition to the aforementioned camiciotti: the seemingly national names of Greci, Albanesi, and Macedoni. These names did not, however, have their later ethnic connotations but were instead stylized terms that described the soldiers’ general origins or mode of fighting. The term Greci was religious, denoting Orthodox faith ... The term Albanesi was used because that nation had achieved fame for its style of fighting as mercenaries of the Ottoman Empire ... The third epithet, Macedoni, which was used in the title of the regiment, indicated not only inhabitants of the area of Macedonia (as understood in either ancient or modem terms) but also applied to all peoples living in the areas once under the sway of Alexander the Great. This usage in effect made virtually all of the Balkan peninsula, as well as the Near East, a potential recruiting ground for these troops.

- Recruitment among the South Slavs caused friction with the Venetian Republic. Venetian authorities maintained intelligence on the recruiting activities of agents and officers from Naples, not only among Venetian subjects in Dalmatia, but also among Montenegrins and other Turkish subjects. They attempted to restrict the Neapolitan recruitment activities in Dalmatia and Montenegro (along with Cheimarra) because these areas were also recruiting grounds for Venetian schiavoni, morlachi, and Cimarrioti troops. Recruitment of South Slavs for the Macedonian regiment continued nonetheless, particularly among Serbs from Montenegro, Bocca di Cattaro, and Paštrovići.

- In the 1760s, a dispute concerning the South Slavic troops arose between the Neapolitan general staff and the commander of the regiment, Georgios Choraphas. The polemic was over whether “Illyrians” (Slavs) could serve in the Reggimento Real Macedone along with “Greeks”.

- Cheimarra remained the chief source for the manpower needs of the regiment, over and above other regions, as is evidenced by the great number of officers from notable Cheimarriote families such as: Andrōutses, Dōules, Gkikas, Gkinēs, Kōstas, Lekas, Mēlios, Panos, Vlasēs, and Zachos, as well as other sources listed below. This participation was no doubt due to Cheimarra’s proximity to the Neapolitan state and to the special relations maintained between them over the years.

Last but not least:

- Since Cheimarra has been part of the disputed border region of Greece and Albania in this century, the question of the nationality of the Cheimarriotes has prompted much discussion. From a linguistic standpoint, the issue is not clear, but there is some trend toward the Greek language. William Leake observed in 1805 that the male population of Cheimarra spoke Greek as well as Albanian, while most women spoke only the latter language. This observation, if correct, would indicate that Hellenization had occurred either as a result of their mercenary service with Greek speakers or through the work of a school that had operated in Cheimarra since the seventeenth century.

- A number of scholars, however, maintain that Greek is the autochthonous language of the area, some claiming that the dialect spoken there is akin to the Greek of the southern Peloponnesus or to that of the Greek-speaking villages of Apulia in southern Italy. In an ethnological gazetteer of 1857, a Greek author claimed that both Greek and Albanian were spoken in all of the villages of Cheimarra. An Italian scholar, who visited the area at the turn of this century, observed that five of the seven villages were bilingual and commented that the population, although of “pure Albanian origin,” was of Greek sentiment.

- A German geographer and a British archeologist, who both visited Cheimarra in the interwar period, came to the conclusion that most of the area’s villages were Greek-speaking. Finally, a Soviet study of the Albanian language and its dialects published in 1968 reported that three of the seven villages, including the town of Cheimarra, were wholly Greek-speaking but “considered themselves Albanians.”

[Liberator of Makedonija]

"The term Greci was religious, denoting Orthodox faith"

Excerpts from Balkan foreign legions in eighteenth-century Italy: The Reggimento Real Macedone and its successors

Nicholas C. Pappas, Stanford University

Nation and ideology essays in honor of Wayne S. Vucinich
Edited by Ivo Banac, John G. Ackerman, and Roman Szporluk
East European Monographs, Boulder
Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York 1981


- The area of Cheimarra (Himarë) provided the bulk of the manpower for the Reggimento Cimarrioto and a major component of the Reggimento Real Macedone. Like Mani, Montenegro, and Souli, Cheimarra was one of those Balkan regions whose inhabitants were able to maintain their self-rule by virtue of their tribal or clan organization, the inaccessibility of their mountainous homelands, their proximity to Venetian controlled areas, and the prowess of their arms.

- In the eighty odd years during which Naples employed light infantry from the Balkans, the troops of the regiment and its successors were known popularly under three names in addition to the aforementioned camiciotti: the seemingly national names of Greci, Albanesi, and Macedoni. These names did not, however, have their later ethnic connotations but were instead stylized terms that described the soldiers’ general origins or mode of fighting. The term Greci was religious, denoting Orthodox faith ... The term Albanesi was used because that nation had achieved fame for its style of fighting as mercenaries of the Ottoman Empire ... The third epithet, Macedoni, which was used in the title of the regiment, indicated not only inhabitants of the area of Macedonia (as understood in either ancient or modem terms) but also applied to all peoples living in the areas once under the sway of Alexander the Great. This usage in effect made virtually all of the Balkan peninsula, as well as the Near East, a potential recruiting ground for these troops.

- Recruitment among the South Slavs caused friction with the Venetian Republic. Venetian authorities maintained intelligence on the recruiting activities of agents and officers from Naples, not only among Venetian subjects in Dalmatia, but also among Montenegrins and other Turkish subjects. They attempted to restrict the Neapolitan recruitment activities in Dalmatia and Montenegro (along with Cheimarra) because these areas were also recruiting grounds for Venetian schiavoni, morlachi, and Cimarrioti troops. Recruitment of South Slavs for the Macedonian regiment continued nonetheless, particularly among Serbs from Montenegro, Bocca di Cattaro, and Paštrovići.

- In the 1760s, a dispute concerning the South Slavic troops arose between the Neapolitan general staff and the commander of the regiment, Georgios Choraphas. The polemic was over whether “Illyrians” (Slavs) could serve in the Reggimento Real Macedone along with “Greeks”.

- Cheimarra remained the chief source for the manpower needs of the regiment, over and above other regions, as is evidenced by the great number of officers from notable Cheimarriote families such as: Andrōutses, Dōules, Gkikas, Gkinēs, Kōstas, Lekas, Mēlios, Panos, Vlasēs, and Zachos, as well as other sources listed below. This participation was no doubt due to Cheimarra’s proximity to the Neapolitan state and to the special relations maintained between them over the years.

Last but not least:

- Since Cheimarra has been part of the disputed border region of Greece and Albania in this century, the question of the nationality of the Cheimarriotes has prompted much discussion. From a linguistic standpoint, the issue is not clear, but there is some trend toward the Greek language. William Leake observed in 1805 that the male population of Cheimarra spoke Greek as well as Albanian, while most women spoke only the latter language. This observation, if correct, would indicate that Hellenization had occurred either as a result of their mercenary service with Greek speakers or through the work of a school that had operated in Cheimarra since the seventeenth century.

- A number of scholars, however, maintain that Greek is the autochthonous language of the area, some claiming that the dialect spoken there is akin to the Greek of the southern Peloponnesus or to that of the Greek-speaking villages of Apulia in southern Italy. In an ethnological gazetteer of 1857, a Greek author claimed that both Greek and Albanian were spoken in all of the villages of Cheimarra. An Italian scholar, who visited the area at the turn of this century, observed that five of the seven villages were bilingual and commented that the population, although of “pure Albanian origin,” was of Greek sentiment.

- A German geographer and a British archeologist, who both visited Cheimarra in the interwar period, came to the conclusion that most of the area’s villages were Greek-speaking. Finally, a Soviet study of the Albanian language and its dialects published in 1968 reported that three of the seven villages, including the town of Cheimarra, were wholly Greek-speaking but “considered themselves Albanians.”

Now that is facinating.

[Carlin]

Tom J. Winnifrith: "Dr. F. Duka of Tirana University informs me that Ottoman records suggest that in most of the early modern period there are plenty of Vlachs, but few Greeks, in the Drino area."

The History and Presence of the Vlachs in Albania:

http://vlahofonoi.blogspot.com/2011/02/blog-post_5321.html

Summary of relevant points/testimonies:

- Testimony of Victor Berard regarding the "Vlachs" in Elbasan, at the end of the 19th century: "The Vlach district of Elbasan ... marks a station on the large Vlach trade road from Pindus to Durres. These Vlachs have their own church, their own language and their own schools ... In both male and female schools, the teaching is in Greek ... Liturgy is in Greek... They themselves speak Vlachika in their district and Greek at the bazaar ... And they also send students to the University of Athens. They have Greek consciousness and say they are Greeks..."

- Professor of the University of Ioannina, Eleftheria Nikolaidou, in 1905: "The Vlach-speakers of Tirana are loyal to the Greek idea."

- The Albanian Vlachs are part of Greece, indivisible, indiscernible to such a degree that the French historian and journalist, war correspondent of the Parisian newspaper "Temps" during the Balkan wars, Rene Ruaux, crossing the Epirus from north to south states: "Indeed, I could not discern Greeks and Koutsovlachs."

Various (old) quotes from Tom J. Winnifrith.

0) "Many Albanian intellectuals, including the present ambassador to the United Kingdom, come from Tirana but are of Vlach origin. In comparison with other countries, there has perhaps been less movement in Albania from the villages into the towns, and less assimilation of minorities in these towns. I frequently encountered the phenomenon of both parents working, and the children learning a minority language at their grandmother's knee. It is therefore possible that I have underestimated the number of Vlachs and Greeks in urban centres, although such families do become assimilated fairly rapidly (as in the case of H.E. Pavli Qesku)."

1) " ... and also of course in towns like Tirana, although Greek and Vlach speech tends to die out in towns, and many of the so-called Greeks in Tirana and Elbasan are in fact Vlachs."

2) Drino = Dropoulli

-> There is a large pocket of Greek villages north of Vagalat stretching as far as Finiq, but to the east of these is the village of Pandejlemon, entirely Tsam, and to the west Sopik, which is Albanian. This pocket almost, but not quite, reaches the Greek villages of the Drino valley, as Muzine on the pass is Albanian-speaking, although the church is being restored with aid from Cyprus. The villages on both sides of the Drino are Greek as far as Delvican, just south of Gjirokastër, but between these villages and the area around Poliçan there are Albanians at Libohovo and Vlachs further north. This is the present position; it is very difficult indeed to find out what the position was a hundred or even fifty years ago. It is clear that in and just after the war a good deal of what is now called ethnic cleansing took place.

-> Information from Ottoman sources and English travellers suggest that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the valley of the Drino was still largely Albanian.

-> See Shattered Eagles p.102. Dr. F. Duka of Tirana University informs me that Ottoman records suggest that in most of the early modern period there are plenty of Vlachs, but few Greeks, in the Drino area.

Vjose and Drino basin map

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Fl%C3%BCsse_in_S%C3%BCdalbanien.png

3) "I have arrived in Butrint with a kind invitation from Professor Hodges of the British school at Rome who has started a new investigation of the site. He is a Byzantinist and is busy exploring territory south of the river Pavlles for Byzantine remains. I had previously without invitation visited in Greece a not particularly distinguished site conducted by a not particularly distinguished archaeologist, and had been greeted at the bus station looking lost by a nice man who had directed me on a different journey to the house of the archaeologist. I had expected the same treatment, or slightly better, in Butrint, a very distinguished site with few houses roundabout and where Professor Hodges, supported by such backers as Lord Rothschild, is a very distinguished name.

I was in for a disappointment. The policeman at Butrint did not seem very impressed by my letter of introduction, although eventually the name of Hodges seemed to ring some kind of bell. Unfortunately, I think it was the wrong kind of bell, and Hodges had been fatally confused with Hoxha, a well-known if not the best-known Albanian name. We were told that Professor Hoxha would return to Butrint at 1:30, because he was working in the fields near Vrine across the river.

Vrine is a village which I had marked as Vlach, and at 11:30 we cranked our way across the ferry to Vrine and interviewed one of the few Vlachs in the village, largely inhabited by Tsams, the Albanian Muslim minority expelled from Greece after the end of the Second World War. They seemed on the whole less friendly and courteous than other Albanians, but we did establish that the archeological party returned for lunch at about 2:00. We crossed the ferry again, and awaited the archaeologists. Eventually at about 2:15 some Albanian archaeologists -- some of whom might have been called Hoxha -- returned to inform us that Professor Hodges was in England, that his deputy was still out in the fields, and that we had wasted a lot of time. A return journey to Vrine across the ferry confirmed his information.

But not all the time was wasted. In waiting for one or another ferry we met a Vlach from Xarrë. There are five settlements south of the river Pavlle and north of the low line of hills which constitute the Greek-Albanian border before it turns northwards away from the coast: These are Muzine, apparently Albanian orthodox; Konispol, apparently entirely Tsam or Albanian Muslim; Shkalla, mainly Vlach with some Tsams; Vrine, mainly Tsam with a few Vlachs; and Xarrë a hodgepodge, which I visited in 1994, and in which I saw a brand new mosque in 1995. The man at Butrint was a Vlach from Xarrë. He was insistent that there were lots of Vlachs in Albania, although admitting that his family had only settled in Xarrë in 1957. He was contemptuous of Greeks, but drove off in a Land Rover which I had thought belonged to Lord Rothschild, although I expect he had acquired it in Greece."

[Carlin]

[Carlin]

A part of the Sarakatsani from Greece settled in Albania in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Cluj-Napoca's dialectologist Petru Neiescu met a group of these Sarakatsani in 1959 during an expedition to Albania, near Stepur. Conversing with them in Aromanian, he found out that they, being asked about their ethnicity, answered simply: we are sarakatsani (suntem saracaciani).

They had become farmers in the meantime, but they were aware of the fact that past generations (their ancestors) who had lived in Greece (and arrived from there to Albania) were pastoralists.

URL:

https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C4%83r%C4%83c%C4%83ciani

[Carlin]

1890 - Victor Bérard: Travels through Central Albania, between Turkey and Contemporary Hellenism

Durrës

- "Hellenism recruits its partisans from among the Orthodox Albanians and the Kutzovlachs. The town itself may be Italian, but the suburb is Greek. Greek is spoken in all the cafés here and the walls of shops are plastered in portraits of King George I and his minister, Mr Tricoupis. Under the plane trees, groups of drinkers in fustanellas sing melancholic Aegean songs with their guitars."

- "How strong traditions still are in Turkey! A Kutzovlach caravan arrived from Monastir [Bitola] after a seven-day journey. These Kutzovlachs (lame Vlachs) are a people of Latin origin that Pouqueville, towards the end of the last century, placed as coming from the two slopes of the Pindus Mountains, between Larissa and Janina. All business in southern Albania was in their hands at that time. From Voskopoja [Moschopolis] near Korça, Syrrakou, Kalarrytais, Mezzovo and Larissa, centres of the Anovlachs, they spread throughout the country, selling the products of their labour – hides, leather, silverwork, capes, felt hats and carpets, or the merchandise they received from their branch offices in Leghorn, Vienna and Amsterdam. Durrës was their natural port for contacts with Ancona, Dubrovnik [Ragusa] and Venice. Following the Greek Revolution, the Vlachs, who called themselves Greeks and who had fought for freedom with their money and blood, emigrated in great numbers to the new Kingdom of Greece and were scattered. The towns of the Pindus range thus lost their role and importance. The merchants of Voskopoja settled elsewhere, in the large Muslim cities of Salonica and Monastir. Nonetheless, a century later, although there is no more reason for it, Durrës remains a Kutzovlach port. Caravans from Monastir arrive here every Saturday."

Peqin

- "The kaza of Peqin, entirely Muslim, consists of about 3,000 inhabitants, of whom less than two hundred are Christian Vlachs. Aside from the sixty to eighty Ottoman families, these Muslims are very tolerant in their faith."

Elbasan

- "The town and its current inhabitants are divided into three neighbourhoods: three peoples who live side by side in three concentric rings. At the centre within the walls of the ancient fortress, i.e. in the castle (castro), were Albanian Christians – 150 to 200 families, being 750 to 800 individuals. Around the fortress there was a ring of Albanian Muslims – 500 to 600 houses, being 2,000 to 3,000 individuals. And outside this ring was another ring of 160 to 180 houses of Vlachs (i.e. about 800 additional Christians)."

- "The Christian community in Elbasan is a lost beacon of Hellenism in the north. All the Albanians understand Greek and almost all of them speak it. They have a Greek school for boys and a Greek school for girls. They call themselves Greeks, but there is no revolutionary Hellenism in them."

- "The Vlach quarter is right beside this verdant temple. The Vlach colony of Elbasan, like that of Peqin, is a hub on the Vlach trade route between the Pindus Mountains and Durrës. The Vlachs have their own church, their language and their schools. They live and marry amongst themselves. But their church was constructed in the same style as the Albanian church. Their clergy is Greek, and their liturgy is held in Greek. Even the flagstones in their cemetery are written mostly in Greek. In their two schools, for girls and boys, instruction is given in Greek. They themselves speak Vlach in their quarter but Greek or Albanian in the bazaar. They also send their students to the University of Athens. In short, they regard themselves as Greeks.

The same German apostle who received such a snub from the Albanians turned to the Vlachs and spoke to them of Greater Romania, of their Latin brothers, their Greek enemies, the oppression of their race and language, and of the tyranny of the Greek clergy. The Vlachs then seized him and took him off to the prefect as an agent of sedition. But this German had papers, documents that caused the prefect to release him immediately with humble excuses."

[Carlin]

- In the mufassal defter of 1520 an entire nahiye of Vlachs was registered (F. Duka [1991]).
- Vlachs were also mentioned in the villages of Vodhino and Luvinë [P. Xhufi (1994), p. 54].

URL:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/byzantine-and-modern-greek-studies/article/fourteenthcentury-albanian-migration-and-the-relative-autochthony-of-the-albanians-in-epeiros-the-case-of-gjirokaster/121FC63D62EA5A686B599DA934CB85C4

[Carlin]

Various quotes from:

https://journals.openedition.org/ejts/4444

- During the beginning of the 20th Century, the northwestern part of the Greek region of Epirus was mostly populated by an Albanian-speaking population, known under the ethnonyme “Chams” [Çamë, Çam (singular) in Albanian, Τσ(ι)άμηδες, Τσ(ι)άμης in Greek]. This group lived in a geographically wide area, expanding to the north of what is today the Preveza prefecture, the western part of which is known as Fanari [Frar in Albanian], covering the western part of what is today the prefecture of Thesprotia, and including a relatively small part of the region which today constitutes Albanian territory.

- The Albanian speaking area was quite compact and well marked by the local geography, as the Greek speaking communities were settled at the eastern mountainous areas. Chamouria and Prevezaniko were also symbolically distinguished as the land where the Arvanitēs lived.

- Although the langue-vehiculaire of the area was Albanian, a much higher status was attributed to the Greek language, even among the Muslims themselves. Thus, during the late Ottoman era, besides the official Ottoman Turkish, Greek functioned as a second, semi-official language, accepted by the Ottoman Administration. This characteristic can be followed partly from public documents of the era.

- The Albanian-speaking, Orthodox population did not share the national ideas of their Muslim neighbors and remained Greek-oriented, identifying themselves as Greeks. Consequently, following the annexation of the area by Greece they identified themselves with the Greek state and, concomitantly, with the Greek nation. But the fact that this Christian population was in close contact with Muslims, spoke the same language and was in geographical proximity to Albania proper was a source of constant anxiety for the Greek state. The state perception was that this partly monolingual Christian population, some of whom were ignorant of the Greek language, could easily be recruited to the ranks of Albanian nationalists. As a local writer puts it, the opening of Albanian language schools in 1909, and the consequent spreading of propaganda, constituted a “very dangerous” mixture for Christians living in the area. The same assessment had already been expressed on an official level by the Greek Consul at Yanina in 1912.

- Yet this situation was not a novelty. Prior to this period, Chamouria was already a nuisance both for the Greek state and the Christians of Epirus who identified themselves as Greeks. As the less ambitious Greek irredentists’ target in 1912 was to include all the areas up to a line including Korçë-Gjirokastër-Himarë within the frontiers of the expanded Greek state, the aim was to obscure the fact that the Christian, or even the Muslim population, didn’t speak Greek but Albanian. Concealing the existence of the Albanian language appeared as a concept as soon as the possibility of Greek expansion into Epirus appeared. Dimitrios Hassiotis, a historian and politician who supported Greek claims, writes in 1887 that in the whole of the Chamouria region, only in Paramythia do “some of the inhabitants understand the Albanian language for commercial reasons” (author’s emphasis). The initial distortion of facts was followed by an effort to account for the allegedly “occasional” use of Albanian. This “appeal to hope” is not only applied to the distortion of the linguistic reality of the area as perceived by non natives, but is extended to a wider spectrum of facts and evaluations. An example of the way this “appeal to hope” was accepted as reality is that Greek officers in the interwar period truly believe that Italy and “Albanian propaganda” are to blame for the reactions of the Muslims in Chamouria and not Greek policies implemented in the area.

- It is quite characteristic that it was in 1880, when the British Valentine Chirol visited the Christian “Albanian” village of Tourkopalouko (today Kypseli, at the northwest part of the Preveza prefecture), that his confidence for his Greek friends in Yanina “was first shaken”. He was surprised that no one in the village spoke or understood any other language than Albanian although his friends “had assured me that south [of the river] Kalamas there were no Albanian communities” (V. Chirol, “Twixt Greek and Turk, or Jottings during a journey through Thessaly, Macedonia and Epirus, in the Autumn of 1880”,Blackwood’s Edinbrurgh Magazine, n. 785, March 1881, p. 313).

- The fact that the Christian communities within the territory which was claimed by Greece from the mid 19th century until the year 1946, known after 1913 as Northern Epirus, spoke Albanian, Greek and Aromanian (Vlach), was dealt with by the adoption of two different policies by Greek state institutions. The first policy was to take measures to hide the language(s) the population spoke, as we have seen in the case of “Southern Epirus”. The second was to put forth the argument that the language used by the population had no relation to their national affiliation. To this effect the state provided striking examples of Albanian speaking individuals (from southern Greece or the Souliotēs) who were leading figures in the Greek state. As we will discuss below, under the prevalent ideology in Greece at the time every Orthodox Christian was considered Greek, and conversely after 1913, when the territory which from then onwards was called “Northern Epirus” in Greece was ceded to Albania, every Muslim of that area was considered Albanian.