Chapter 6
ALBANIAN VILLAGES THAT HAVE LOST THEIR
IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS
Not all the villages that were founded by the Albanians have retained their cultural characteristics. There are some whose origin is known to have been. Albanian but which now retain only slight traces of their past heritage. For both physical and cultural reasons, the people have become integrated with the Italians of the area in which they live.
The largest group of villages whose people have become integrated with the Italians is located in the “compartment” of Apulia. In this region there are 15 villages that were settled during the second migration period.
“Compartment” of Apulia
Scaglione lists ten villages (actually there are 15) in the “compartment” of Apulia that were founded by the Albanians during the second migration period.40 In his list he indicates that their religious faith is Roman Catholic and their language Albanian. During 1957 I visited the towns of San Marzano di San Giuseppe and San Giorgio sotto Taranto, with two Italo-Albanians from San Demetrio Corone. Prior to the actual visit they had said that they were not certain whether the inhabitants of these villages still spoke Albanian. Upon arrival in San Marzano di Giuseppe we found no one that spoke Albanian. Only mere remnants of the language had survived, e.g., the use of the Albanian words for bread, salt, shoes, house, et cetera. A similar situation was noted in San Giorgio sotto Taranto. The inhabitants we spoke with stated that Albanian was no longer the language of the home in any of the ten villages located in the lowlands surrounding the Gulf of Taranto.
Physical Description of Taranto Area
The physiography of the Taranto area has played an important role in the disappearance of the Albanian language and customs in the area. The land that surrounds the Gulf of Taranto is a broad and relatively flat coastal plain extending some ten miles into the interior before it encounters the southern extension of the Apennines. The rock formations in this region are sedimentary limestones of recent geologic origin. 41 This region escaped the tectonic upheavals which formed the Apennines, and the landscape appears to be rolling plain. Clusters of villages are noted, but the villages are not found on the tops of mountains or
40scaglione, op. cit. , p. 79.
41″L’ItaIia Fisica,” Conosci L’ltalia, Vol. I., (Milano, Touring Club Italiano
on steep slopes. They are easily accessible by good motor roads, and are often situated at the crossroads, reminiscent of Midwestern towns in the United States. This region has not physically isolated the population as have the regions of Calabria and Lucania.
The recorded elevations of the villages indicate the low local relief of this region. The village of Roccaforzato has an elevation of about 473 feet, the highest of any of the 15 villages. Foggiano has the lowest—53 feet. The elevation of Foggiano is unusual because it is located in a basin that surrounds the city of Taranto. The other villages have elevations between 200 and 400 feet. There is a marked difference between these elevations and those of Calabria and Lucania, where the elevations range from 900 to 2,500 feet.
The difference is enhanced by comparison of the local relief of both regions. The Calabria-Lucania area is marked by rugged relief that consists of high mountains, teep valley walls, and few or no plains. The area around the Gulf of Taranto is decidedly a coastal plain, which does not present any physical barrier. The area is crisscrossed by main motor roads and railroads that have been con- structed through the plains without any decided curves or hairpin turns. Several of the former Albanian villages lie on hese main routes of communication. The ease of communication has facilitated trade in this area, and this in turn has hastened the loss of ethnic identification within the villages.
The 15 Albanian villages are located between two large cities, Taranto and Lecce. Taranto has a population of over 100,000, and Lecce has a population of nearly 50,000. Five of the Albanian settlements are located about 15 miles to the east of Taranto; another five are located about 15 miles southwest of Lecce.This proximity to large cities, plus the ease of communication, has had a decided effect in attracting the small Albanian group to Italian-speaking centers. The accessibility of these cities enabled the people in the surrounding villages to visit them either weekly or monthly instead of only annually, as is done in Calabria and Lucania. The frequent intermingling with the Italians and the obvious necessity to speak their language in order to carry on trade brought a decline in the use of Albanian. The Lucanian-Calabrian villages also have to use Italian, but their remoteness has allowed Albanian speech to survive.
The above illustration concerns one area where a nucleus of Albanian villages did not retain their ethnic identity. There are other Albanian villages outside the”compartment” of Calabria, Lucania, and the island of Sicily where the retention of their ethnic identity is doubtful. These other villages are in the “compartments” of Abruzzi and Campania, in remote regions of their respective provinces. Like the villages in the Taranto area, they are classified as Albanian-speaking villages, but a visit to these villages would be necessary in order to determine whether they actually do speak Albanian, and whether they identify themselves as Albanians or Italians.