The Arbëreshë: Italy’s Albanian Diaspora

By Jenny Frost

For centuries, Italy’s location has given the country a distinct and varied cultural identity. Historically, Venice served as a melting pot of cultures – you need only think of Shakespeare’s Othello for an example of this. Over the years, various Italian states have changed hands numerous times; when Nice was ceded to France in 1860, for example, inhabitants of the region were split between feeling French and feeling Italian. The north-eastern city of Trieste belonged to Slovenia until 1920 at the disintegration of Austria-Hungary, and the Slovenian heritage remains evident throughout the city. In Val d’Aosta, French remains an official language, and in Trentino-Alto-Adige (Südtirol) 62% of the population speak German as a first language. However, there is one community which differs from others: the Arbëreshë community are descended from immigrants from Albania, and their presence in Italy has, for the last 600 years, shaped Italy’s culture and international relations.

How the Arbëreshë came to be

The first evidence of an Albanian community in Italy comes from the 1400s. During the previous three centuries, the Arbëreshë community had moved in small waves of migration into Greece, but the invasion of the Balkans by the Ottomans during the fifteenth century forced groups to move into Italy. After a revolt in Naples in 1448, which the Albanian nobility helped to suppress, King Alfonso V of Naples granted the Albanian migrants land and protected status near Catanzaro, the capital of present-day Calabria in southern Italy. Since then, the community has expanded throughout the south of Italy and Sicily.

Detail from the Memorial Wall of the National Skanderbeg Museum in Krujë: Albanian military commander Skanderbeg leads the rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. There are monuments and streets across Italy and Albania named after him. Credit: https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/skanderbeg-man-our-times

The Arbëreshë community has made its presence in Italy felt for centuries. Arbëreshë people were members of the Risorgimento, who helped bring about the unification of Italy in 1861. In addition, one of Italy’s most famous political figures was Arbëreshë: Antonio Gramsci, who helped to found the Communist Party of Italy, eventually becoming one of its first leaders and was subsequently imprisoned under the Fascist regime. It was during this time that he wrote his Prison Notebooks, which came to be known as a highly significant contribution to twentieth-century political thought, and which discuss ideas about cultural hegemony, Italian nationalism and civil society within the context of Marxism. 

Large waves of migration from Italy to the Americas at the beginning of the twentieth century placed the Albanian community in Italy under threat of depopulation for the first time since the mid-fifteenth century – around half of Arbëreshë communities were depopulated between 1900 and 1940. However, since the end of the communist regime in Albania in 1990, Italy has seen a renewed influx into Arbëreshë towns and villages.

In 1997, however, Italy decided to impose controls on the Adriatic Sea which separates Bari in Southern Italy from Durrës, Albania’s largest port city. This means that many of the Albanian immigrants who came to Italy after that date do not have a legal status; in 1998, almost half of Albanian immigrants in Italy were estimated to be undocumented. However, during the Albanian Civil War in 1997, Italy led the multinational Operation Alba, a peacekeeping presence sent to Albania with the intention of helping restore order and provide aid to the Albanian people. Following this, the Italian government also provided housing for Kosovan nationals during the Kosovo War in 1998-9. However, this only lasted until 20th July 1999, at which point Kosovan migrants were no longer classed as refugees, and boats were even turned away from Bari port.

Piana degli Albanesi, 2008. Credit: Orazio Vasta, https://www.albanianews.it/cultura/albstyle/826-piana-degli-albanesi-dal-1488-una-comunita-albanese-nel-cuore-della-sicilia.

The Arbërëshe community today

The Arbëreshë community is now well-established in Italy and has its own unique culture which combines elements of Albanian and Italian traditions. There are 100,000 Arbëreshë people living in Italy, among a total population of more than 440,000 Albanian immigrants. While Albanian immigrants travelling to Italy in the modern day tend to settle in the large cities of the north, the established Arbërëshe community has tended to remain dotted across hundreds of villages in the south of the country. Today, the largest Arbëreshë communities are found in Lungro (Calabria) and Piana degli Albanesi (Sicily). Piana degli Albanesi in particular has a huge amount of cultural heritage to explore; from the local museum, which showcases Arbëreshë culture and history, to the Italo-Albanian church, and from the bilingual road-signs to the Albanian flags seen hanging from many windows, the distinct cultural identity of this area is hard to miss.

Arbëreshë people in traditional dress in the town of Firmo, Calabria. Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB_costume_(Firmo)05.jpg.

It may be argued that the Arbëreshë community is anomalous in its success in retaining a strong cultural identity while also integrating into the country of their diaspora; for this reason, writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini described them as “un miracolo antropologico” (an anthropological miracle). Arbëreshë cuisine is an excellent example of this mix of cultures; it is generally a combination of Italian and Albanian ingredients and traditions. For example, the dish Strangujët is a type of Gnocchi topped with lënk, an Albanian tomato sauce. There is also an Arbëreshë literary tradition that can be traced back to the 1600s, and writers such as Domenico Bellizzi (pseudonym Vorea Ujko) and Carmine Abate keep this tradition alive. Institutes for the study of Albanian literature and language have been established at the Universities of Palermo and Calabria in 1931 and 1973 respectively; these not only exist to promote the study of Albanian culture in an Italian context, but also to facilitate physical and cultural exchanges for teachers and students between the two countries.

Arbëresh (or Arbërisht) is the language spoken by the Arbëreshë community in Italy, descending from a medieval Tosk variety and containing influences from Italian. However, the language is now considered endangered; there are estimated to be fewer than 80,000 remaining native speakers worldwide. This can be put down to multiple factors: while some schools and universities in Rome and Southern Italy do teach the Albanian language, the version taught is standard Albanian rather than Arbëresh. Additionally, young people are often reluctant to use Arbëresh, preferring to use Standard Italian or Italo-Romance dialects, and because forms of Arbëresh can differ between communities, standard Albanian can sometimes be used as a lingua franca.

Thanks to the presence of such a large Albanian community in Italy, relations between Albania and Italy have been largely friendly and positive. As well as the aforementioned Institutes for Albanian Studies, numerous Albanian cultural associations exist throughout Italy. There is also an Albanian branch of the Catholic Church in Italy, which exists in full communion with the Pope and sometimes uses the Albanian language in liturgy. In Albania, the Italian culture is similarly present. In 2018, the Dante Alighieri society opened a Dante Centre in Tirana, the first Dante centre to open outside of Italy, and the society then went on to establish an Italian language school and library in the city. Italian is also the most studied language in Albania after English, with nearly 30% of the population under the age of 65 able to speak the language and 60% of students choosing it in school.

Credit: Luigi di Maio (Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs) on Twitter, https://twitter.com/luigidimaio/status/1252285746846879747

The COVID-19 pandemic hit Italy hard in March 2020, and Albania was one of the first countries to step in and help. On 28th March, Albania sent 30 of their own doctors and nurses to Italy to support them in their fight against the coronavirus, despite also having their own cases of the pandemic to manage. Albania has a heavily underfunded and understaffed health system, with just 1.2 doctors for every 1,000 people, compared to Italy’s 4.1 doctors to 1,000 people. Despite all this, Albanian prime minister Edi Rama defended the decision in a demonstration of solidarity, saying, “Today we are all Italian. Italy will win this battle.”

I’d like to end with a poem by one of the best-known Arbëreshë writers, who captures a moment in time in a typical Arbëreshë village in Southern Italy.

Arbëresh moment by Vorea Ujko

I love the Byzantine bell tower,

Against the azure sky

That pierces straight into our souls

As evening turns to violet

And the girl of my dreams

Chats on the doorstep,

With lowered head.

In my solitary reverie

There appear before me

Scenes of my childhood

And the tragic face of Garantine.

From the distant shades

Comes Constantine's steed a-galloping

On its funereal course.

And an Arbëresh echo

Pierces the air and transfixes my heart,

Rising aloft like a mystery

On its weightless wings,

Seizing the ivy on the wall,

Seizing the silence,

Seizing my blood.

Find out more about the culture and heritage of the Arbëreshë at the website of Piana degli Albanesi: https://www.visitpiana.com/