The “Arber’s spirit in centuries” exhibition brought a series of paintings, and drawings featuring the Arberesh life, such as traditional costumes, and their customs
TIRANA, May 8 – An exhibition and an anthology dedicated to the Albanian Arberesh community settled in southern Italy since the late 15th century has opened at the National Museum of History in Tirana. Held as part of events commemorating Albania’s 100 anniversary of independence, the “Arber’s spirit in centuries” exhibition brought a series of paintings, and drawings featuring the Arberesh life, such as traditional costumes, and their customs.
An anthology by Fotaq Andrea “The Arberesh of Italy 1413-2007” was also promoted at the event.
“The anthology through the writings of different French authors, carefully collected and presented by researcher Fotaq Andrea is meaningful evidence of the history and spirit of Arberesh people,” said Culture Minister Aldo Bumci.
The anthology contains 75 French authors and sources bringing a wide range of the Arberesh world and the historical, ethnographic, linguistic and artistic background that accompanied their settlement to Italy.
Italian historians have often elaborated on the contribution to Italy’s unification of the Arberesh community, Albanians who moved to southern Italy after Skenderbeg’s death in 1468 following the reestablishment of the Ottoman rule which continued until the early 20th century.
According to the Minority Rights Group International, the ethnic Albanian community in Italy, known as the Arb쳥sh, live in 49 mountain towns and villages from the Abruzzi Appenines to the south of Italy and Sicily. The communities are dispersed among seven regions (Abruzzi, Molise, Puglia, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily) and nine provinces (Pescara, Campobasso, Avellino, Foggia, Taranto, Potenza, Cosenza, Catanzaro and Palermo). Hundreds of thousands of Albanian migrants have joined them after the early 90s.
The ethnic Albanian (Arb쳥sh) dialects of Italy bear little resemblance to the standard language or dialects of Albania, as they have been cut off from the main language for around 500 years. Members of the Arb쳥sh community are mostly Byzantine Catholics and Latin Rite Catholics.
The main Albanian migration to Italy came from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries as the Ottomans pushed them west, although some Albanians had already settled there from the thirteenth century.
