Southern Albania, Northern Epirus: Survey of a Disputed Ethnological Boundary
This paper is based on several short visits to Albania between 1992 and 1995. It is, I hope, an objective and accurate account, but makes no pretense at giving a full or final picture. A full picture could only be presented if every village in the area were visited, no light undertaking in view of ...
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From the Editor
It’s been almost 3 years since the euphoric discovery that the Aromanian community in Albania had somehow survived communism and was organizing to preserve itself. At the time, scholars were estimating our population in the Balkans at around 50,000 and declining fast; here was a forgotten pocket of Vlachs claiming to be some 250,000 strong! ...
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Exclusive to the Society: Excerpts from Shattered Eagles – Balkan Fragments
Preface This book has been written at odd moments in the last four years. Some chapters have been developed from lectures I gave during these years. Some recount Balkan adventures squeezed in between writing these lectures and carrying out the normal duties of an English university lecturer. We hear much of the onerous nature of ...
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Community News
The Society is pleased to welcome two new members: Chris Gatz of New South Wales, Australia (he is featured in an article in this issue about the Aromanians down under) — Mr. Gatz was born in the Farsarot village of Kefalovrison (Megidia), in the province of Epirus, Greece; and Christy M. Kara of Omaha, Nebraska, who recently discovered his ...
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Did You Know… What Other People Have to Say about Us?
The major Greek migration to Rhode Island began in the 1890s… According to extant records, Greek migration to Providence began in 1898. The period from 1898 to 1902 brought John Coufoudakis, Costas Costakos, Dr. Haralambie Cicma, Theordore Kanelos, and Dr. George Aloucos to the capital city… The distinction of being the state’s first Greek settler, ...
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The Vlachs in Bosnia
Editor’s Note: The turmoil in the Balkan Peninsula in recent years has led some of the world’s sharpest minds to focus on the history of that tragic region. Their discoveries are of interest to all who are concerned with the Balkans, including the Vlachs, as the following excerpt shows. Although there are many recorded cases ...
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From the Editor — The Failure of the Ethnic-State
Not long ago I attended a lecture about Woodrow Wilson and his support of the right of ethnic groups to have their own states — a principle that falls into greater disrepute with each new atrocity committed in its name. At the lecture’s end, a bow-tied professor with an elegant accent arose and said, “Yes, ...
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Letter from Albania
Editor’s Introduction: Two issues ago we published Helen Winnifrith’s absorbing account of her journey to Albania with her husband Tom. We now publish Prof. Tom Winnifrith’s description of his follow-up visit to Albania. Prof. Winnifrith is the editor and contributing writer for the recently published Perspectives on Albania (St. Martin’s Press, 1993) and is currently working on a ...
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Do You Know What Others Have to Say about Us?
Each stall-holder has something special to tempt the difficult customers. Some tsouknides (nettles) that are boiled and given to those with upset stomachs; roka (rocket) or Vlach herb and mixes of horta (wild greens) called moschucite for using in pies. A man with a wheelbarrow of giant and baby leeks and spring onions, blocks the road, anxious to sell as quickly as possible. ...
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A Report on the Aromani in Romania
AUTHOR’S PREFACE This study was conducted over 18 months ago and the following report submitted to the Society Farsarotul General Assembly in November 1992. Very little has changed for the Aromani in Romania since that time. Romania is in economic and political turmoil with tremendous inflation, unemployment and a self-promoting leadership. The Romanians and Aromani continue their struggle to ...
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From the Editor
After a spurt of activity during the 1980s, the Vlach cultural revival has stalled. The reasons are not hard to find. Greek nationalism was brought to a fever pitch by the breakup of Yugoslavia and attempted creation of a republic named Macedonia, and now over the question of “Northern Epirus” (southern Albania, long claimed by ...
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An Interview with Dr. Hristo N. Colakovski
CORRESPONDENT’S PREFACE: This piece developed in the first three months of 1993. Because of mutual busy schedules, I incorporated Hristo’s written responses to my initial questionnaire with an 11 March 93 interview. Since I also drew upon discussions held with Dr. Colakovski since he first arrived in the United States four years ago, I asked ...
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The Vlachs in Albania A Travel Memoir and Oral History
My father left Albania in 1916, but even fifty years later he enjoyed telling me how difficult his journey to the United States had been. By this he meant not the seaward leg of the voyage, as other immigrants might, but the route on land. “Balkan” is Turkish for mountain, and it is notoriously difficult ...
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Election Week in Albania 1992
In March of this year I spent a week in Albania. The experience was so overpowering that I started writing this account the day after I returned, while it was all fresh in my mind. I have never spent such an extraordinary week before and probably never shall again. It was partly like another planet, ...
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From the Editor
There are two great global revolutions underway — and both have the potential to affect our people and our position in the world. One is a revolution in thought, while the other is a very physical and very violent revolution. The revolution in thought The issue of human rights has joined the goal of peace ...
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Did You Know What Other People Have to Say about Us?
Did You Know… What Other People Have to Say about Us? “In the north and west [of Greece] you still find descendants of shepherd clans, like the Sarakatsans and the Vlachs, who have preserved a separate and distinctive identity to this day. The Vlachs are particularly interesting because their language, in contrast to all the ...
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Cultural Forum: The Poetry of Traditional Language
Those of us who were raised in societies which still have many traditional elements — and that includes much of rural America as well as the Balkans — have a unique insight into the changing nature of language. We know that everyday language is losing its poetry because we can compare our speech with that ...
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Did You Know What Other People Have to Say about Us?
“After a long circuitous ascent just before the Katara Pass (`the Damned’), the only motor-crossing of central Pindos, Metsovo appears to the southeast. It is a singular Greek village, justly famed for its stunning location, its popular architecture and handicrafts, and its inhabitants, who still dress in their traditional clothes. Many of the Metsovites are ...
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Did You Know What Other People Have to Say about Us?
“Vovousa lies right on the Aous River, whose milky green waters are spanned by a high-arched fourteenth-century bridge. On either side wooded ridges rise steeply to the skyline. Just downstream a stretch of riverbank meadow makes an idyllic camping site (turn left off the road onto the old path just past the Vovousa roadsign). That ...
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Book Review: Brigands with A Cause: Brigandage and Irredentism in Modern Greece, 1821-1912 by John S. Koliopoulos
Brigands with a cause: Brigandage and Irredentism in Modern Greece, 1821-1912 by John S. Koliopoulos (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), $69. Here is a fascinating and important scholarly work by a Professor of Modern History at the University of Thessaloniki Greece. Articulately written, meticulously documented, and refreshingly impartial, this book scrutinizes the often overlooked role ...
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