Çamen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Çamëria region within Albania and Greece

As Camen , German occasionally Tschamen ( Albanian  Camet ; Greek Τσάμηδες Tsámides ) are Albanians from the coastal region of Epirus (Tschameria, Albanian: Çamëria ), respectively.

history

middle Ages

The Çamen settlement area encompassed large parts of Epirus on both sides of today's border between Albania and Greece since the Middle Ages . In many areas they lived alongside Greeks and Aromanians . Turkish settlers started arriving in the 15th century . Part of the Camen took under the Ottoman rule to Islam , while others the Orthodox faith retained. The Çamëria is the southernmost part of the closed Albanian language area.

19th and 20th centuries

1940 war zone around Epirus , (Albanian also Çamëria )
Igoumenitsa , Epirus , Greece near Albania
View from Corfu to Konispol , Epirus in Albania near Greece

In the 19th and 20th centuries a large number of Çamen settled in what is now Turkey . The Çamen became an ethnic minority in the new Greek nation-state when the border was drawn in 1913, half Muslim and half Christian Orthodox . The Muslim part of the Çamen was officially excluded from the Greek-Turkish population exchange after the First World War , while the Turks still living in Epirus had to leave. However, the Muslim Çamen were discriminated against in the interwar period. A part of the Çamen collaborated with the Italian and German occupation forces during the Second World War and participated in the Albanian civil administration set up by the Italians. Greek troops under Napoleon Zervas took this as an opportunity to collectively expel a large part of the remaining Albanians to Albania in 1944, with many civilian casualties. The number of displaced persons in 1944 is given by the Society for Threatened Peoples as 20,000.

Some Çamen were with the communist partisans during the war and had to flee the country after their defeat in the Greek civil war .

Immediately after the Second World War, the çamian emigrants tried to organize their own interest group in Albania. This committee of the anti-fascist Çamen in exile was dissolved and banned by the ruling communists in 1947.

In Albania, long-established Çamen still live mainly in the area between Konispol and Saranda , descendants of the displaced persons from the Second World War are scattered all over the country, but mainly settled in southern Albania, Tirana and Durrës . The Çamen and their Party for Justice, Integration and Unity won a seat in the Albanian parliamentary elections in June 2009.

Little is known about the Çamen Orthodox denominations that remained in Epirus. There are no official figures on the strength of this ethnic group. They are not recognized as an ethnic minority by the Greek state. In the Greek language they call themselves, like other Greeks of Albanian origin than Arvanites . Today most of the Arvanites live in southern Greece, but also on some Aegean islands and the Peloponnese, in what is now the border triangle in Thrace and Epirus. The Çamen are to be distinguished from the Arvanites, who have an Albanian national consciousness and are mostly Muslim - the Arvanites are part of the Orthodox Christianity. They do not see themselves as a minority, not least because of their participation in the Greek Revolution. The çami dialect can still be heard today in Igoumenitsa , Filiates and the surrounding villages.

literature

See also

Web links

Commons : Çamen  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Frank Meyer Bloody Edelweiss: The 1st Mountain Division in World War II . Ch. Links Verlag, 2008. ISBN 9783861534471 ( Online )
  2. ^ Petition from the displaced Çamen to the UN Human Rights Commission. ( Memento of October 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved October 11, 2012