Tirana today hosted the Arberesh Day, an event bringing together Albanian nationals from all over the world, prominent representatives of Italy’s Arberesh community, researchers and historians in a series of activities ahead of the Third Diaspora Summit.
Various panels focusing on a range of issues took place earlier on the day, serving as the meeting point for the participants to discuss the pan-Albanian contribution to areas like education, health, business, arts and culture. The Arberesh community in particular continue to contribute to developments in our country with the same commitment they contribute to the development of the country where they live and work, constantly devoting to stronger Albanian-Italian traditional ties.
The panels like “Learning Arbëresh language as a complex process, institutional roles”; “Religion and Reason, Arberesh Men and Women: Postmodern Era Challenges of Traditions, Identities and Convictions”; “History, art, culture and traditions of the historical Diaspora”; “Cultural Itinerary and Great Year” – became the subject of discussions with prominent Arberesh personalities, researchers and academics, who represented the Arberesh community that have faithfully preserved the rich customs, language, costumes, holidays, traditions, rites and beliefs of their ancestors over the centuries.
Today’s events went on with a gala dinner when Golden Eagle medals were awarded. Prime Minister Edi Rama, the President of the Republic Bajram Begaj, the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Igli Hasani, and many distinguished personalities from politics, culture, arts and the academia attended the event.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Dear friends and guests, Dear brothers and sisters from Arbëria,
Welcome. Ju haristis! – Hello, welcome, thank you in Arbëresh language!
Apart from being a special pleasure, it is a privilege to address in Skanderbeg’s language the closest descendants great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of Skanderbeg today, on Arbëresh Day, an exclusive part of this Third Diaspora Summit, which brings Albania and the Albanians together.
In the turn of 1466, Gjergj Kastriot, together with a retinue of knights, travelled to the Italian soil for the last time.
Chroniclers recount that upon landing in Ancona in the turn of the year, Gjergj Kastrioti, Dominus Albanie”, “Athleta Christi”, held a prayer for Arbëria in Saint Michael the Archangel church.
He spent Christmas in Rome together with Pope Paul II, who offered him to stay in the luxurious apartments of St. Mark’s Basilica, but he chose to stay with a friend of Arbersh, right where the building of the Presidency of Italy is located today.
While in office, I have been visiting many countries and various attractive, impressive and beautiful cultures around the world, but the emotional overwhelm I have experienced during visit to southern Italy’s Arberesh community is preserved on a special shelf of memory, like those old books of wonderful miniatures and I hold indelible impressions of the small square of the town we landed in, the indelible sight of the Arberesh kids dancing and singing to welcome us, and the town’s elders on the balconies looking at us, the Arber Church where senior clergymen extended us their welcome and the passion and care about the language they expressed at all meetings.
And it was exactly that visit to Arberesh communities when the idea about this special Arberesh Day was conceived for the first time in 111 years of the Albanian state’s existence. Arbëria and the Arberesh are not just a presence to complete a folklore panorama; they are not invited as a décor of this summit with their clothing, but they are attending through a representation of their own and of course also through this shared effort to lay a stone on a path we must move along together. It was there where the idea about an institutional handshaking idea was born, not to bid farewell or to say goodbye to each other, but instead build a process, moving forward hand in hand in view of a more structured and systematic support that the Albanian state should provide to this treasure of our history that has preserved the passion and legacy inherited from generation to generation over the centuries, although Arberesh communities are fully integrated into the big Italian community, the best things provided to them as part of that community hasn’t deprived them of the passion and strength of that oath and promise that is now being challenged not because of the Arberesh’s negligence, but by the storms of demographic nature that have affected everyone, also bringing about unimaginable novelties for the children, the novelties that are increasing becoming a matter for concern all over the world for learning and for the elevation of the language of the country where we live and no longer of languages like that of Arbëresh, which is one of the rare things in the world.
We are pretty aware of the fact that Albanian language itself is under threat from the inadequacy, distortions, deprivation from its incredible profoundness and many other reasons. Imagine how difficult it is for the Arbëresh community and it is for this reason that we have decided to launch this process that started off with the signing ceremony between the Mayor of Tirana and mayors of Arbëresh municipalities, which will continue with establishment of sister city relationships of all our municipalities with all Arbëresh municipalities. The government will draft a special programme for the municipalities to deliver on the establishing the sister-city relationships to turn them into a bridge of a continued communication between the Arberesh community and Albania.
The idea about an Arberesh Museum in Albania was conceived on that day too. We lack such a museum currently, while the Arberesh community has fanatically preserved incredible relics and representatives of that community very much wish that a Museum of Arberesh is built in Albania and we have already picked a site to house it… and where else but the Skanderbeg’s castle. In addition to the museum a plethora of other ideas are waiting to materialize this relation at various human levels. We have held a first wine day, taking some of our wine producers to Arbëri, and we will also build a calendar for this to establish relations between the wine producers because, after all, it is all Albanian wines that are produced here, and from our Arberesh producers in Italy.
The programme will include exchange visits, with children from the Arberesh community to visit Albania and Albanian families and vice-versa in order to build a new layer of relations between children so that they can get to know one another and learn more about our shared history.
There was once an Arberesh man called Jeronim De Rada who through his work entitled “the Arber Flag” asked everyone “What Albania needs? And it was him also to answer what Albania needs, saying “Albania needs unity and democracy.”
Inspired by him, Ernest Koliqi further elaborated by writing that through De Rada’s poetry and postulates, Italy’s Arbëresh community accomplished that mysterious act of human and national reward when in a season of storms, waves of terror pounded the shores of the homeland and exiled to a foreign land.
It is of tremendous importance that we also look deeper into this treasure at the work and legacy of outstanding professors, including two of them who were awarded Golden Eagle medals today, but it is not the only two as they are many more, because it is an extraordinary contribution at another academic, scientific level, for which Albania has also established the Center of Arberesh Studies and Publications, part of our national strategy on the Diaspora.
When asked to describe himself, a famous Prime Minister of Italy, Francesco Crispi, a friend of Garibaldi, a friend of Manzini and Bismarck, an Arberesh born near the Hora of Arberesh, said of himself: “The peak of Etna, undisturbed under the snow blanket, but that boils from the lava of a centuries-old matter.” I believe that no one can describe the people of Arbëresh more and more beautifully than that.
And for us, that centuries-old lava of matter on that top of Etna is very precious, and while listening to my speech, I hope that the Arbëresh attending this event have not whispered their famous expression ” S’jan arra sa trokullnjen”, which means “Not all of what you are saying is true.”
Thank you very much!
