[ALBSA-Info] Vlachs in Albania

[Agron Alibali]

 Albania is home to the second largest Aromanian
community in the Balkans. Aromanians in Albania
inhabit mostly the southern region of the country,
especially around Gjirokastër and Përmeti but
Aromanians could be found as far north as Elbasan in
central Albania (Winnifrith, Shattered Eagles 58-9).
Estimates for their number run around 100,000 people
with some researchers giving a high of 200,000. This
is also the only country where Aromanians amount to a
relatively significant percentage of the total
population, two percent.


The civil unrest in Albania from two years ago, and
the current influx of Albanian refugees from Kosovo
made it very hard to find any current information of
the Aromanian community. I was unable to find
information about mass-media in Aromanian which I know
existed prior to the installation of the Communist
government in 1945. I was able to find however, in a
long list of Albanian NGO's (Non-Governmental
Organization) numerous cultural Aromanian
organizations. 


Since the colapse of the Communist regime in Albanian
in the early 1990's there has been a resurgence of
Aromanian nationalism (for an indepth study please
visit The Albanian Aromanians' Awakening). This has
led in turn to the recognition of the Aromanian
community as one of the national minorities in the new
Albanian constitution. The community as a group has
benefitted from a series of political, economical, and
social factors, specific to Albania. The relative
isolation of the country and its lack of economic
development has kept many of the Aromanian villages
isolated and has allowed for a better preservation of
their language and culture. Also, even during
communism, the Albanian government did not follow on
the foot-steps of the Greek government with a policy
of ethnic homogenization. Furthermore, the healthy
state of the Aromanian community in Albania is due in
part to religious differences. Aromanians are in their
vast majority Orthodox, while Albanians, who form the
majority of the population, are for the most part
Muslims. This has led, however, to some complications
since the Greek government bases its claims of the
number of ethnic Greeks residing in Albania on
religious grounds rather then ethnic or linguistic.
Therefore, they claim that most of the 400,000
Orthodox in the country are ethnic Greeks (Winnifrith,
Shattered Eagles, 68). As Brailsford put it in 1906
when he was describing the region: "they (the
Aromanians) are not numerous in comparison with the
Macedonians, or even the Albanians. But without them
the Greeks would cut a sorry figure" (187). Some go as
far as saying that half of the Orthodox believers in
Albania are in fact Aromanians, but this might be an
exaggeration.


Although Aromanians have been promised education in
their native language this has yet to materialize. In
the past few years Albania has been in a disastrous
economic, social, and political state. Three years ago
when the pyramid skims collapsed, the government lost
control of the situation, and a state of anarchy ruled
the country. It was necessary for the UN Peace Keeping
Troop to intervene to restore legal order. To make
matter worst, just as the Albanian government was
reinstating its authority over much of the territory
of the country and the economy begun to show the first
signs of recovery, the conflict in Kosovo started.
This meant an overwhelming influx of Albanian
refugees, which in turn have created further delays in
any meaningful implementation of the legislation
regarding the education in minority languages,
including Aromanian.


Unlike ethnic Greeks who have the strong support of
the government in Athens, the Aromanians in Albania
have so far lacked a similar support from the
government in Bucharest. This, however, seems to be
changing as Romanian official have begun to shown an
increased interest in the situation of the Aromanian
community. The strongest evidence in this regard has
been the decision of the Romanian Government to sent
troops in Albania as part of the peace keeping
operation. The only condition put forward by Romania
for its participation was that the troops would be
deployed in the southern region of the country, in an
area with the largest concentration of Aromanians.

 
  

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