Page 43 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

Tales from the Greek-Albanian Borderland:
Memory of Violence and Displacement in Western Epirus
Zgodbe z grško-albanskega obmejnega območja:
spomin na nasilje in razseljenost v zahodnem Epiru

Pierre Sintès
TELEMMe, Aix-Marseille-Université - CNRS, France
pierre.sintes@univ-amu.fr

43
Abstract:
ti The border between Greece and Albania has a chequered history. Its establishment in 1913 ceded to Al-

bania a territory conquered by Greece during the Balkan wars and left outside Albania a large part of
the territories claimed by Albanian nationalists since the League of Prizren in 1878. This is the case of a
ta bania, where the historical turmoil has not been without effect on its population, massively affected
small region of Greece, that is presented in this text, called Thesprotia in Greece and Chameria in Al-

by the powerful polarization movements resulting from the application of national discourses on the
field. Throughout this period and until now, the heterogenous groups that formed the border society
di ities, and their discourses of belonging were gradually reshaped by these changes. What is more, these
had to position themselves according to political turbulences, sometimes despite other long-term real-

transformations have had important consequences for the presence of several communities whose fate
has been turned on end by the new realities of this contested border, like the Chams, a large Albani-
here in the aftermath of the Second World War in circumstances that are still debated. In the last decades,
an-speaking community, which disappeared from the Western section of the Greek-Albanian border
the reactivation of cross-border relations following the fall of the Albanian communist regime, and the
intense migration of Albanian workers to Greece, has questioned their memory within local society, in
sometimes surprising ways.
Keywords: Albania, Greece, border, landscape, memory

Izvleček:
studiauniversitatis
Meja med Grčijo in Albanijo ima pestro zgodovino. Z njeno vzpostavitvijo leta 1913 je bilo Albaniji do-
deljeno ozemlje, ki ga je Grčija osvojila med balkanskimi vojnami, zunaj Albanije pa je ostal velik del
ozemelj, ki so jih albanski nacionalisti zahtevali od Prizrenske lige leta 1878. Tak primer je tudi v tem be-
sedilu predstavljena majhna grška regija, ki se v Grčiji imenuje Thesprotia, v Albaniji pa Čamerija, kjer
zgodovinski pretresi niso ostali brez vpliva na prebivalstvo. Izjemno so ga prizadela močna polarizacij-
ska gibanja kot posledica uporabe nacionalnih diskurzov. Vse do danes so se heterogene skupine, ki so
tvorile obmejno družbo, morale pozicionirati v skladu s političnimi turbulencami, včasih kljub drugim
dolgoročnim realnostim, njihovi diskurzi pripadnosti pa so se zaradi teh sprememb postopoma preobli-
kovali. Še več, te spremembe so imele pomembne posledice za prisotnost več skupnosti, katerih usoda se
je zaradi novih razmer na sporni meji obrnila na glavo, npr. Čamov, velike albansko govoreče skupnosti,
ki je po drugi svetovni vojni izginila z zahodnega dela grško-albanske meje v okoliščinah, o katerih se še
vedno razpravlja. Ponovna oživitev čezmejnih odnosov po padcu albanskega komunističnega režima in
https://doi.org/10.26493/2350-5443.11(2)43-65 © author/authors