Arbëreshë people

The Arbëreshë (aɾbəˈɾɛʃ; Arbëreshët e Italisë; Albanesi d'Italia), also known as Albanians of Italy or Italo-Albanians, are an Albanian ethnolinguistic group in Southern Italy, mostly concentrated in scattered villages in the region of Calabria and, to a lesser extent, in the regions of Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, Molise and Sicily. They are the descendants of Albanian refugees who fled Albania, and later some from Morea between the 14th and the 18th centuries following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. During the Middle Ages, the Arbëreshë settled in the Kingdom of Naples in several waves of migration, following the establishment of the Kingdom of Albania, the death of the Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu and the gradual conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottomans. Their culture is determined by the main features that are found in language, Byzantine Rite Catholic religion, traditional costume, customs, art and gastronomy, still zealously preserved, with the awareness of belonging to a specific sociolinguistic group. Over the centuries, the Arbëreshë have managed to maintain and develop their identities, thanks to their cultural value exercised mainly by the two religious communities of the Byzantine Rite based in Calabria, the Corsini College in 1732, then Sant'Adriano Italo-Albanian College of San Benedetto Ullano in 1794, and the Italo-Albanian Seminary of Palermo in 1735, which was then transferred to Piana degli Albanesi in 1945. Nowadays, most of the fifty Arbëreshë communities are adherents to the Italo-Albanian Church, an Eastern Catholic Church. They belong to two eparchies, the Lungro, for the Arbëreshë of Continental Italy, the Piana degli Albanesi, for the Arbëreshë of Sicily, and the Monastery of Grottaferrata, whose Basilian monks come largely from the Albanian settlements of Italy. The church is the most important organization for maintaining the characteristic religious, ethnic, linguistic and traditional identity of the Arbëreshë community.

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Related concepts (40)

Arbëreshë people

Albanian language

Albanian (endonym: shqipja ʃcipja or gjuha shqipe ˈɟuha ˈʃcipe) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that language family. It is the descendant of a Paleo-Balkan language. Albanian is the official language of Albania and Kosovo, and a co-official language in North Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as a recognized minority language of Italy, Croatia, Romania and Serbia. It is also spoken in Greece and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europe and Oceania.

Albanian cuisine

Albanian cuisine (kuzhina shqiptare kuˈʒina ʃcipˈtaɾɛ) is a representative of the cuisine of the Mediterranean. It is also an example of the Mediterranean diet based on the importance of olive oil, fruits, vegetables and fish. The cooking traditions of the Albanian people are diverse in consequence of the environmental factors that are more importantly suitable for the cultivation of nearly every kind of herbs, vegetables and fruits.