Page 49 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

in the planned conquest of the surrounding ag- lims in the region (see Table 1), they were driv-
ricultural land. The domestication of this new en out by the nationalist forces of Napoleon Ze-
territory involved a development project orches- rvas or, at the very least, left after learning of the
trated by the public authorities, for which pro- violences committed against their co-religionists
gress seemed to be the main driving force. If we in the towns of Filiatès and Paramithia (Mey-
take the example of Sagiada, the people return- er 2007; Péchoux 2002; Péchoux and Sivignon
ing from Corfu initially settled in huts, mostly 1989).
on the beach, with no running water, surround-
ed by livestock. The public authorities then or- Table 1. Albanian-speaking groups in Epirus in the 1940
ganized the stabilization of these low-lying ar- and 1951 Greek censuses
eas with the construction of houses and roads,
the arrival of water and electricity, and final- Orthodox Muslims TOTAL
ly the building of the Kalama dam in 1962. This 1940 No. % No. % 25 No. 49
49,632
32,712
65
16,890
kind of project was a clear statement of the need
ti to modernize by rationalizing land development 1951 22,207 98 487 2 22,736
and farming. All this was complemented by the
gradual opening of the region. These coastal are- Source: National Statistical Service of Greece
(1946; 1958)
ta related mainly to Corfu, from where seasonal munity violence that bloodied the region in the
as of the lower valley, which had previously been
Numerous sources attest to the inter-com-
workers came during the agricultural seasons,
were in a way linked to the mainland, but above
broadest sense, claiming many victims, especial-
di all to the rest of the country, by the construction ly between 1942 and 1945. Books published in tales from the greek-albanian borderland ...
of the dam, as the Kalama River had previously
Greece by witnesses, activists, improvised his-
been an impassable obstacle.
torians, and academics relate these events to a
But the interpretation given locally to
on the same version of the story. These Chams
these major transformations almost never re- greater or lesser extent. However, they all agree
here residents systematically refer to the resolution uniforms. They committed atrocities against
fers to the great modernization movement that
Muslims were said to have sided with the oc-
seized the plain after the war. Instead, today’s
cupying troops, going so far as to wear their
of a violent conflict that had plagued the re-
Christian populations in preparation for the at-
gion’s society since the inter-war period. The re-
tachment they wanted for Chameria (Çamëria/
distribution of land in the 1960s is presented as
Τσαμουριά), i.e. present-day Thesprotia, to Al-
a kind of restitution to the Greeks of the prop-
erty they had lost during the Ottoman peri-
draw up an exhaustive list of their victims. This
studiauniversitatis
is the case of Giorgos Sarra’s (2001) work, Mni-
od, and which had then been appropriated by banian territory. Some authors went so far as to
Muslim groups - here entirely Albanian-speak- mes tis tragikis periodou 1936–1945, which men-
ing - referred to locally as Turks (Τούρκοι), but tions for the eparchy of Igoumenitsa alone, more
also more regularly as Chams (Τσάμηδες), or than 80 murders perpetrated by Chams during
Albano-Chams (Αλβανοτσάμηδες) or Turko- this period. It provides the most detailed cir-
Chams (Τούρκοτσάμηδες) (Baltisiotis and Em- cumstances of these murders, based on accounts
birikos 2007). During the war, these Muslims gathered in the field. Without going into such
are said to have sided with the Italians and Ger- a detailed account, due to the fragility of the
mans to regain the dominant position that the sources on this subject, the historian Eleftheria
region’s attachment to Greece in 1913 was caus- Manta (2004, 137) describes in a monograph on
ing them to lose (Margaritis 2005; Manta 2004). this issue, based on Italian and especially Greek
Such a stance was fatal for them as, like all Mus- diplomatic archives, the uncertainties that gov-