Page 60 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

The most explicit monument on the identity of Igoumenitsa, are reputed in the region to speak
the murderers is the one in the village of Kastri, an Albanian-speaking dialect, called arvanitika
which mentions “murdered by Alvano-Cham” or alvanika, depending on the context, as well
(δολοφονηθέντων από Αλβανοτσάμηδες). It is per- as being Orthodox - which means that they are
haps interesting to note that the two cases men- sometimes referred to as Greeks (Έλληνες), while
tioned here, which are the two most explicit des- others refer to them by their skin colour: black
ignations of the ethnic identity of the murderers, (μαύροι) or gypsies (γύφτοι), giving them an eth-
were found in villages where there are many nonym that speaks volumes about their sup-
Orthodox Albanian speakers, confirming that posed origins (Egypt, according to some). The
these monuments are part of a desire to “invisibi- current inhabitants of Asprokklisi, on the for-
lize” the linguistic difference or, at the very least, mer lands of the village of Liopsi (the ruins of
an exit-strategy to separate and distinguish these which can be seen from the road leading to the
60 Orthodox Albanian-speaking groups still liv- Mavromati border post), are divided into three
ing in Thesprotia from the “Chams”, understood distinct groups: Gréki, who came from a village
here as Muslims hostile to Hellenism. Howev- called Asprokklisi in the mountains of Mourga- ti
studia universitatis hereditati, letnik 11 (2023), številka 2 / volume 11 (2023), number 2
er, the term “Cham” was sometimes presented to na and are thought to have been displaced dur-
me in more unexpected ways, going well beyond ing the civil war; Aromanian Vlachs, who used
the simple designation of the Albanian-speak- to winter on the land they rented from the Agas
ing Muslims. In private, a Sagiadini tells me of Liopsi; and Sarakatsani, whose transhumance ta
that he is “Cham” to designate his regional be- lands were located quite far from coastal Thes-
longing “to Thesprotia, which is a recent name protia (Grevena and central Thessaly) but whom
for a region that everyone here knows by its oth- the Greek state had decided to settle in the re-
er name ... Chamouria [Τσαμουριά] of course!” gion. The issues of land redistribution, the re-
This terminology, that cannot be used in all cir- composing and repopulation of villages, there- di
cumstances, has proved to be accepted at times fore provide an opportunity to express a kind of
as an autonym by all the inhabitants of the re- hierarchy between different groups that made
gion. These inflections around place names and up the society of these border areas. Neverthe-
linguistic, religious, and regional affiliations are less, other dividing lines run more discreetly
of great interest. They mark the places, engram- through it, such as those activated during the
ming them with a paradoxical mechanism that civil war between the nationalists and the com-
highlights the distortions between the plural re- munists, even if we noticed during our inter- here
ality of border society and the discourses con- views that they were adapted to the already ex-
structed by nation-states on the past and space. isting compositions by opposing sedentary and
This is how today, and on various occasions, transhumant, villages in the hills and villages in
the inhabitants of Thesprotia sometimes make the plains, and so on.
their differences heard once again, for example
when it comes to establishing the legitimacy of Conclusion: Towards a (Re)Fragmentation
each having been allocated land on the plain in of Border Society?
the 1950s and 1960s. On this occasion, the Sa- These few examples from the Greek-Alba-
giadini can point to their ancient presence and nian border illustrate the extent to which the
their complete loyalty to the canons of Hellen- population of this small border region continues
ism: orthodoxy and Hellenophony, which is why to be crisscrossed by lines of tension demarcat-
they are referred to by the other inhabitants as ing different categories of inhabitants. This real- studiauniversitatis
Gréki. The inhabitants of Smerto or Kestrini, ity has recently been put to the test by the mass
descendants of the tenant farmers who some- migration of Albanian citizens to Greece, which
times came from Agios Vlasios or Kastri near has undoubtedly helped to update the different