Albanisation (or Albanization, Albanianisation, Albanianization) is a term used to describe a linguistic or cultural assimilation to the Albanian language and Albanian culture.
Contents |
The term is used in reference to Kosovo.[1] [2] During censuses in the former Yugoslavia, many Roma were registered as Albanian, as they identified with Muslim Albanian culture as opposed to the Christian Serbian culture.[3] The term is also applied to the Torbashis, a Muslim Slavic minority in the Republic of Macedonia, and the Gorani people in southern Kosovo, who often have Albanised surnames.[4]
The term Arnauti or Arnautaši was coined by ethnographers for "Albanized Serbs"; Serbs who had converted to Islam and went through a process of Albanisation.[5][6]
In the 19th century, writer Branislav Nušić recorded that the Serb poturice (converts to Islam) of Orahovac began speaking Albanian and marrying Albanian women. Hadzi-Vasiljevic visited Orahovac in World War I, he could not distinguish Orthodox from Islamicized and Albanized Serbs. They spoke Serbian, wore the same costumes but claimed Serbian, Albanian or Turk ethnicity. The Albanian starosedeoci (native) were Slavophone; spoke Serbian. In the 1921 census the majority of Muslim Albanians were Serbian speaking (naš govor, Our language).[6] - - Marshall Tito further de-Serbianized the Kosovo region when the Yugoslav League of Communists invited 300,000[7] Albanians from Albania to settle in Kosovo and forbid[8] the Serbs that fled during the World War II to return to their homes in Kosovo.[7]
At the end of the 19th century, writer Branislav Nušić recorded that the Serb poturice (converts to Islam) of Orahovac began talking Albanian and marrying Albanian women.[6]
When Dr Jovan Hadži Vasiljević (l. 1866-1948) visited Orahovac in World War I, he could not distinguish Orthodox from Islamicized and Albanized Serbs.[6] They spoke Serbian, wore the same costumes, but claimed Serbian, Albanian or Turk ethnicity.[6] The Albanian starosedeoci (old urban families) were Slavophone; they did not speak Albanian but a Slavic dialect (naš govor, Our language) at home.[6]
In the 1921 census the majority of Muslim Albanians of Orahovac were registered under the category "Serbs and Croats".[6]
Mark Krasniqi, the Kosovo Albanian ethnographer, recalled in 1957:[6] "During my own research, some of them told me that their tongue is similar to Macedonian rather than Serbian (it is clear that they want to dissociate themselves from everything Serbian[6]). It is likely they are the last remnants of what is now known in Serbian sources as 'Arnautaši', Islamicised and half-way Albanianised Slavs."[6]
Riza Memedovski, chairman of a Muslim organisation for Macedonian Muslims in the Republic of Macedonia, accused the majority Albanian political party, the Party for Democratic Prosperity, of trying to assimilate people and create an "... Albanisation of western Macedonia."[1]
During the dictatorship of King Zogu and the communist regime, the government encouraged Albanisation of the Greeks of Southern Albania (the territory was also called "Northern Epirus", especially among the Greeks).[9]
"Minority status was limited to those who lived in 99 villages in the southern border areas, thereby excluding important concentrations of Greek settlement in Vlora (perhaps 8,000 people in 1994) and in adjoining areas along the coast, ancestral Greek towns such as Himara, and ethnic Greeks living elsewhere throughout the country. Mixed villages outside this designated zone, even those with a clear majority of ethnic Greeks, were not considered minority areas and therefore were denied any Greek language cultural or educational provisions. In addition, many Greeks were forcibly removed from the minority zones to other parts of the country as a product of communist population policy, an important and constant element of which was to preempt ethnic sources of political dissent. Greek place-names were changed to Albanian names, while use of the Greek language, prohibited everywhere outside the minority zones, was prohibited for many official purposes within them as well."[9]
In 1967 the Albanian Party of Labour began the campaign of eradicating organised religion. Their forces damaged or destroyed many churches and mosques during this period; they banned many Greek-language books because of their religious themes or orientation. Yet, it is often impossible to distinguish between the government's ideological and ethno-cultural motivations for repression. Nonetheless, relationships between Albanian ethnics and Greek ethnics remained very good. The last defense minister of the communist regime was Simon Stefani, part of the Greek minority. Albania’s anti-religion campaign was merely one element in Hoxha's broader “Ideological and Cultural Revolution” begun in 1966. He had outlined its main features at the PLA’s Fourth Congress in 1961. "Under communism, pupils were taught only Albanian history and culture, even in Greek-language classes at the primary level."[9] The Bulgarians in Albania were also gradually Albanised.[10]