| Total population | |
|---|---|
| ≈ 90,000-100,000 [1] [2] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Tirana, Durrës, Elbasan, Fier, Shkodër, Vlorë, Sarandë, Laç, Berat, Gjirokastër and Korça | |
| Languages | |
| Balkan Romani, Vlax Romani, Albanian | |
| Religion | |
| Islam, Eastern Orthodoxy |
Albania houses a large population of Romani, who are part of the larger Romani diaspora.
Ethnic Albanians have historically used various different names to refer to Romani people, most of them today being considered offensive, including:
Among the Romani, ethnic Albanians, in addition to being ‘’gadjo’’, may be referred to as “whites”. [4] "White hand" may also be used by them to refer to Albanians as well as non-Roma minorities such as Greeks, Aromanians and Slavs. [5] [6]
The Romani people originate from Northern India, [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] presumably from the northwestern Indian states Rajasthan [11] [12] and Punjab. [11]
The linguistic evidence has indisputably shown that roots of Romani language lie in India: the language has grammatical characteristics of Indian languages and shares with them a big part of the basic lexicon, for example, body parts and daily routines. [13]
More exactly, Romani shares the basic lexicon with Hindi and Punjabi. It shares many phonetic features with Marwari, while its grammar is closest to Bengali. [14]
Genetic findings in 2012 suggest the Romani originated in northwestern India and migrated as a group. [8] [9] [15] According to a genetic study in 2012, the ancestors of present scheduled tribes and scheduled caste populations of northern India, traditionally referred to collectively as the Ḍoma, are the likely ancestral populations of the modern European Roma. [16]
In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, the Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India. The conference ended with a recommendation to the Government of India to recognize the Roma community spread across 30 countries as a part of the Indian diaspora. [17]
The oldest attestation of Romani people in Albania is from 1635, and they may have been present since the 12th and 13th centuries. [18]
The Ottoman era saw the conversion of most Roma populations in Albania as well as the surrounding territories to Islam. Ottoman rule set up a millet system by which the right of Christians to practice their religion was legally protected, but they were given second class citizenship with higher taxes, inability to bear witness against Muslims, inability to bear arms or have horses, restrictions on church building, forbidden from proselytizing, and various other restrictions, factors which ultimately induced conversions to Islam. Additionally, responding to seasonal rebellions, there were episodes where regional governors in Albanian territories coerced conversions, [19] [20] despite such compulsion being traditionally prohibited by Islamic and Ottoman law. For these reasons, the majority of Roma in Albania and most neighboring regions converted to Islam, [21] as did much of the surrounding Albanian and Slavic populations with the exception of certain regions.
Under certain Ottoman rulers, Muslim Roma were considered to not be proper Muslims because of certain ritual differences, and they were taxed and discriminated against in similar ways to Christians. Under Mehmed IV, a tax was placed on dead Roma that would continue to be paid until enough had been gathered from living Roma to replace their supposed dues, while other rulers made attempts to “reeducate” Roma. [3] [22] There were also cases where the presence of Roma was forbidden in mosques or cemeteries. [3] [23]
In the late Ottoman Empire, Aromanians, Albanians and Roma shared an "oppressed" position of being socioeconomically disadvantaged minority populations inhabiting a crumbling state. [24] In this way, the Ottoman era has been considered one of relative "equality" for the Roma and gadjo populations in Albania, with the two populations typically living peacefully in harmony, with Roma camps typically being located on the outskirts of Albanian cities. [25]
In the late 19th and early 20th century, many Roma, mostly Muslims, fled areas that were newly independent from the Ottomans, where as Muslims they were identified as "Ottoman collaborators". Roma came to Albania especially from Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia. [3] Roma also fled to Albania from Romania where they had recently been enslaved, to settle in Albania and other territories still under Ottoman control. [26]
Even after Albania itself achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire, the Roma had a better situation than in Yugoslavia, [27] but they were still treated with contempt, [3] with large socioeconomic gaps between Roma and Albanians, segregated neighborhoods, and "practically no intermarriages between Roma and non-Roma" [28]
Unlike in many Eastern European countries, and similarly to Jews in Albania, Roma were not harshly persecuted and/or sent to death camps in Albania during the Second World War. [3] For most of the duration of the war, Albania was under the control of an Italian puppet regime. Roma did participate in the war, with many fighting in the Albanian military, and Roma in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo were typically supportive of the Italians and the Albanian authorities. [29] However, although left mostly untouched by both the Italians and by Albanian nationalists, the Roma were persecuted during the brief German occupation of Albania in 1943, although the shortness of the German presence limited the damage they were able to wreak upon the Roma population. [30]
Enver Hoxha imposed a harsh Stalinist regime upon Albania, attempting to homogenize the population by repressing religious and cultural differences. [3] Although as a minority the Roma were supposedly accorded benefits and protections, in reality this was not always the case, and in 1960, Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu tried to ban Roma from entering Albanian towns. [31]
Despite inequalities and suppression during the communist era, the collapse of communism brought more misfortune to Roma, as they were the first to be heavily unemployed and rapidly fell to the bottom of society; as a result many Roma today are nostalgic for the days of communism. [3]
In the late 1990s, Roma began temporarily migrating to Greece where they found more employment opportunities, beginning a recurrent pattern of seasonal Roma migration to Greece from Albania. [32]
According to Robert Elsie, the Romani number between 60,000 and 100,000 people. [33] A 1994 estimation put the number at 95,000 Roma in Albania. [34] The ERRC estimates 120,000 Roma in Albania. [35] The most recent 2011 census counted 8301 Romani in Albania [36] but it has been accused of drastically undercounting the number of Romani in the country, [37] drawing criticism from the Council of Europe. [38]
Roma people live all over the country, but some of the biggest communities can be found around the capital, Tirana, the villages of Fier, as well as the cities of Berat and Gjirokaster, and around the town of Korça. [39]
The poverty rate among Roma in Albania is particularly high (78%) when compared to the Albanian poverty rate (22%). [40]
Contrary to the expectations of many foreigners, investigations have found that discrimination against Roma in Albania is typically subtle rather than overt, and Roma typically do not face any open discrimination. [41] In some cases, relations between Roma on one hand and the Albanian majority and other "gadjo" groups on the other are often quite cordial in the rural, traditional and "non-profit life" [3] and both the majority of the Albanian intelligentsia and the working class are said to typically have positive views of Roma, who rarely if ever are cast as an "ethnic enemy". On the other hand, "gadjos" may be reluctant to accept Roma as equals in the urban and "profit-making life". [42] [3] However, Roma may suffer from the refusal to recognize the distinctness of their identity and traditions [43] [44] while Roma complain that although Albanians do not openly express derision, they may view Roma as poor, dirty, stupid, noisy and involved in theft, and as a result they are widely but tacitly discriminated against in the job market. [3]
During the communist period, Roma of Gjirokastra, Korça, Tirana and Berati worked in handcraft enterprises. However, eventually demand for their products declined, and the enterprises were mostly shut down as Albania transitioned away from communism. [45]
In 2007, it was written by a Roma organization that about 90% of Roma are unemployed, 40% of Roma have bad living conditions, 20% don't have the resources necessary to buy medicine, 40% of Roma families ask their kids to work rather than complete education to fulfill primary familial needs, and that the literacy rate of Roma has fallen since the end of communism, and is now 47.6%, with more women illiterate than men, with all these problems being attributed to a "bustle for racism". [46]
On the other hand, currently there is no schooling for Roma in their native language. [47]
Roma culture is distinguishable from the culture of the ethnic Albanian majority, as well as those of other minorities such as Aromanians and Greeks, in a number of ways.
An important distinction is made between the Roma individual and the gadjo, a non-Roma, with a Roma necessarily being someone of Roma blood and/or someone who consistently demonstrates membership in and solidarity with the Roma people—in this way, although in the Carpathian Mountains the definition of Roma is strictly based on blood, in Albania and surrounding Balkan areas, a child of gadjo blood who was raised in a Roma family and in Roma culture and demonstrates consistent solidarity with the Roma is viewed as a proper Rom individual, whereas a Roma who has abandoned their roots is not, while the identification of "half-breed Roma" as either Roma or gadjo is done solely based on their adherence to Roma values. [48] [49]
Gender relations are patriarchal, as is also true among Albanians, but patriarchal values have been described as much stricter among the Roma than among ethnic Albanians, although this could be because of recent cultural change among the ethnic Albanian population. Sexual mores among the Roma have similarly been described as much more "puritan" than among Albanians. [50]
Roma public life has been described as very communal, with most things considered to be belonging to the community rather than the individual. [51] [52]
Roma social order revolves around the ‘’fis’’, a borrowed Albanian word that in the Roma context refers to a “tribe” based on close familial kinship. [53]
It has long been taboo for Roma to marry non-Roma, and indeed the large majority of Roma prefer to marry their group rather than with the other major Roma people. Roma marriages were in fact typically done within the same fis, although some members of the youngest generation are now disregarding this custom. [54]
The virginity of the female before marriage is considered to be of utmost importance, and a marriage may be called off if it is discovered that the female is not in fact a virgin. Partly for this reason, girls are typically married young, between the ages of 13 and 15, while males are married between the ages of 16 and 18. Although the desires of the teenage spouses are rarely taken into account, if a son says he is in love with a particular Roma girl, his feelings may be considered, although the same is rarely true for girls. An unmarried woman who has reached 20 is often thought to be doomed to be left at home unmarried. Matchmaking for marriages is typically carried out without the consent of the two spouses, and orchestrated by a matchmaker who is experienced in matchmaking. When wishing to make a proposal on behalf of his son, a father customarily goes to the house of the desired wife, and states “we have come to seek a piece of bread”. Weddings, meanwhile, typically consist of feasts, dancing and music, and take place on Saturday or Sunday. They are often not recognized because the spouses are typically below the Albanian legal age of marriage. Roma rarely if ever have religious leaders preside over weddings. [55]
The majority of Roma in Albania are cultural Muslims, having converted during the Ottoman era. A minority of Roma are Christians belonging to the Albanian Orthodox Church. [3]
The feast of Saint George, celebrated on the sixth of May, is an occasion of paramount importance for Muslim and Christian Roma alike, and Saint George is seen as the symbol of the Roma people. [56]
The traditional dress of Roma is starkly different from that of Albanians, and is perceived by Roma as a major symbol of their identity and their differentiation from ethnic Albanians. Roma women typically wearing blouses with printed flowers and embroidered gold threads. At weddings and other traditional events, women wear dressed decorated with gold threads and roses, older men wear dark red suits, and younger men wear flower-printed shirts. [57]
Handcrafts have also long been an important part of the economic culture of Roma, with 15% of Roma being involved in their production as of 2005. Handcraft production used to be a major part of the Roma economy, but with the collapse of communism, many Roma handcraft enterprises also floundered, and conditions of dire poverty created situation where it was difficult for Roma to pass down their traditional handcraft making customs. [58]
Roma folkdances and music are considered an important part of Roma culture and another distinguishing factor. The majority of Roma neighborhoods have individuals who are professional musicians present. Roma musicians acknowledge in particular notable Turkish and Greek influences on their music, with Greek pop music more recently being very influential due to the regular immigration to Greece, so much so that it is accused of “eroding Roma culture” in some quarters. [59]
Although traditional Roma folktales had long been passed down through the generations, today this custom is eroding as only a minority of Roma remember the folktales. In attempt to stem this cultural loss, publications have been made of the local Roma folklore, but they are made in Albanian, not in the Romani language. [60]
The Dom are descendants of the Dom caste with origins in the Indian subcontinent which through ancient migrations are found scattered across the Middle East and North Africa, the Eastern Anatolia Region, and parts of the Balkans and Hungary. The traditional language of the Dom is Domari, an endangered Indo-Aryan language, thereby making the Dom an Indo-Aryan ethnic group.
The Ashkali, otherwise known as Hashkali and/or Balkan Egyptians, are Albanian-speaking Muslim ethnic cultural minorities, which mainly inhabit Kosovo and southern Serbia, as well as Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. Prior to the Kosovo War of 1999, the Balkan Egyptians or Ashkali people registered themselves as Albanians. While some Ashkali speak Romani language, Egyptians usually do not. The two groups are not clearly delineated. On the other hand, they differ linguistically and culturally from the Roma, even though they have often been grouped together under the acronym RAE.
Islam arrived in Albania mainly during the Ottoman period when the majority of Albanians over time converted to Islam under Ottoman rule. Following the Albanian National Awakening (Rilindja) tenets and the deemphasizing of religion during the 20th century, the democratic, monarchic, and later the communist governments followed a systematic dereligionization of the Albanian nation and national culture. Due to this policy, Islam, as with all other faiths in the country, underwent radical changes. Decades of state atheism, which ended in 1991, brought a decline in the religious practice of all traditions. The post-communist period and the lifting of legal and other government restrictions on religion allowed Islam to revive through institutions that generated new infrastructure, literature, educational facilities, international transnational links and other social activities. According to a 2011 census, 56.7% of Albania's population adheres to Islam, making it the largest religion in the country. For contemporary Muslims in Albania, Muslim religious practices tend to be minimal. The remaining population belongs either to Christianity, which is the second largest religion in the country practiced by 16.99% of the population, or are irreligious.
Florina is a town and municipality in the mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. Its motto is, 'Where Greece begins'.
Bilisht is a town and a former municipality in Korçë County, south-eastern Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision and the seat of the municipality Devoll. It was the seat of the former Devoll District. The population at the 2011 census was 6,250. The town is 9 km from the border with Greece at Kapshticë. The closest Greek village across the border is Krystallopigi in the Florina regional unit. Bilisht is at 890 meters above sea level and has a continental climate with cool summers and cold winters. It serves as an economic centre for the local agriculture, mining, food and textile industries. The football club is Bilisht Sporti.
The Romani in Spain, generally known by the endonym Calé, or the exonym gitanos, belong to the Iberian Romani subgroup known as Calé, with smaller populations in Portugal and in Southern France. Their sense of identity and cohesion stems from their shared value system, expressed among gitanos as las leyes gitanas.
The Romani people are a distinct ethnic and cultural group of peoples living all across the globe, who share a family of languages and sometimes a traditional nomadic mode of life. Though their exact origins are unclear, central India is a notable point of origin. Their language shares a common origin with, and is similar to, modern-day Gujarati and Rajasthani, borrowing loan words from other languages as they migrated from India. In Europe, even though their culture has been victimized by other cultures, they have still found a way to maintain their heritage and society. Indian elements in Romani culture are almost non-existent, with the exception of their language. Romani culture focuses heavily on family. The Roma traditionally live according to relatively strict moral codes. The ethnic culture of the Romani people who live in central, eastern and southeastern European countries developed through a long, complex process of continuous active interaction with the culture of their surrounding European population.
Albanisation, Albanianisation (UK), Albanization, or Albanianization (US) is the spread of Albanian culture, people, and language, either by integration or assimilation. Diverse peoples were affected by Albanisation including peoples with different ethnic origins, such as Turks, Serbs, Croats, Circassians, Bosniaks, Greeks, Aromanians, Ashkali and Balkan Egyptians, Romani, Gorani, and Macedonians from all the regions of the Balkans.
Romani people in Bulgaria constitute Europe's densest Roma minority. The Romani people in Bulgaria may speak Bulgarian, Turkish or Romani, depending on the region.
Anti-Romani sentiment is a form of bigotry which consists of hostility, prejudice, discrimination, racism and xenophobia which is specifically directed at Romani people. Non-Romani itinerant groups in Europe such as the Yenish, Irish and Highland Travellers are frequently given the name "gypsy" and as a result, they are frequently confused with the Romani people. As a result, sentiments which were originally directed at the Romani people are also directed at other traveler groups and they are frequently referred to as "antigypsy" sentiments.
In Romani culture, a gadjo (masculine) or gadji (feminine) is a person who has no Romanipen. This usually corresponds to not being an ethnic Romani, but it can also be an ethnic Romani who does not live within Romani culture. It is often used by Romanies to address or denote outsider neighbors living within or very near their community.
The Romani people have several distinct populations, the largest being the Roma and the Calé, who reached Anatolia and the Balkans in the early 12th century, from a migration out of the Indian subcontinent beginning about 1st century – 2nd century AD. They settled in the areas of present-day Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Hungary, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia, by order of volume, and Spain. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and, in the nineteenth and later centuries, to the Americas. The Roma population in the United States is estimated at more than one million.
Romani people in Hungary are Hungarian citizens of Romani descent. According to the 2011 census, they comprise 3.18% of the total population, which alone makes them the largest minority in the country, although various estimations have put the number of Romani people as high as 8.8% of the total population. They are sometimes referred as Hungarian Gypsies, but that is sometimes considered to be a racial slur.
Romani people in Kosovo are part of the wider Romani people community, the biggest minority group in Europe. Kosovo Roma speak the Balkan Romani language in most cases, but also the languages that surround them, such as Serbian and Albanian. In 2011 there were 36,694 Romani, Ashkali and Balkan Egyptians living in Kosovo. However, the minorities are unrelated to each other and were only put together based on appearance.
Muslim Romani people are people who are ethnically Roma and profess Islam. There are many different Roma groups and subgroups that predominantly practice Islam, as well as individual Romani people from other subethnic groups who have accepted Islam. Xoraxane Roma in Balkan Romani language, are non-Vlax Romani people, who adopted Sunni Islam of the Hanafi madhhab at the time of the Ottoman Empire. Some of them are Derviş of Sufism belief, and the biggest Tariqa of Jerrahi is located at the largest Arlije and Gurbeti Muslim Roma settlement in Europe in Šuto Orizari, locally called Shutka in North Macedonia have their own Romani Imam and the Muslim Roma in Šuto Orizari use the Quran in Balkan Romani language. Many Romanlar in Turkey, are members of the Hindiler Tekkesi a Qadiriyya-Tariqa, founded in 1738 by the Indian Muslim Sheykh Seyfullah Efendi El Hindi in Selamsız. Roma Muslims in Turkey and the Balkans are mostly cultural Muslims or nominal Muslims.
The Romani people in Turkey or Turks of Romani background are Turkish citizens and the biggest subgroup of the Turkish Roma. They are Sunni Muslims mostly of Sufi orientation, who speak Turkish as their first language, in their own accent, and have adopted Turkish culture. Many have denied their Romani background over the centuries in order to establish a Turkish identity, to become more accepted by the host population. They identify themselves as Turks of Oghuz ancestry. More specifically, some have claimed to be members of the Yörüks, Amuca, Gajal or Tahtacı.
The Romani people, also known as the Roma, qualify as an ethnic minority group in Poland of Indo-Aryan origins. The Council of Europe regards the endonym "Roma" more appropriate when referencing the people, and "Romani" when referencing cultural characteristics. The term Cyganie is considered an exonym in Poland.
The Islamization of Albania occurred as a result of the Ottoman conquest of the region beginning in 1385. The Ottomans through their administration and military brought Islam to Albania through various policies and tax incentives, trade networks and transnational religious links. In the first few centuries of Ottoman rule, the spread of Islam in Albania was slow and mainly intensified during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries due in part to greater Ottoman societal and military integration, geo-political factors and collapse of church structures. It was one of the most significant developments in Albanian history as Albanians in Albania went from being a largely Christian population to one that is mainly Sunni Muslim, while retaining significant ethnic Albanian Christian minorities in certain regions. The resulting situation where Sunni Islam was the largest faith in the Albanian ethnolinguistic area, but other faiths were also present in a regional patchwork, played a major influence in shaping the political development of Albania in the late Ottoman period. Apart from religious changes, conversion to Islam also brought about other social and cultural transformations that have shaped and influenced Albanians and Albanian culture.
Islam in Albania (1913–1944) was characterised by an increasing secularisation of Albanian society which had begun with Albanian Independence in 1912 carrying on influences from the Albanian National Awakening. During the interwar period, new local Muslim institutions such as the Muslim Community of Albania arose that severed ties with the Ottoman Caliphate and placed a focus on localising Islam in Albania. The Albanian state also played a significant role in that process through state interference and pressuring the uptake of reforms by those institutions and wider Muslim society. Measures that were adopted were banning the veil and others which were interpreted as modernising Albania. These events caused tensions within parts of Muslim society between conservatives and those who viewed themselves as progressives which caused discussions and reflections about the future role of Islam in Albania and Albanian identity. The interwar era also saw Sufi Islam expand in Albania with various orders gaining new adherents with the largest, the Bektashi Order moving its world headquarters to Albania.
The oldest settled group are the Kovači (Blacksmiths), a subgroup of the Arlije, who have lived there since the Middle Ages and who converted to Islam during the Ottoman period, they do not speak Balkan Romani, but rather Montenegrin language or Albanian language, they live especially in the towns of Bar, Montenegro and Ulcinj. They do not want to be called Roma and distance themselves from other Roma groups. They have no roma traditions. They call themselves only as Muslims.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)Roma Rajastan Penjab.
Zatímco romská lexika je bližší hindštině, marvárštině, pandžábštině atd., v gramatické sféře nacházíme mnoho shod s východoindickým jazykem, s bengálštinou.
