|
Post by todhrimencuri on Apr 25, 2009 3:55:37 GMT -5
Why it is perhaps of some noted interest to me: Flambouro lies in the central part of Florina Prefecture, as part of the Perasma municipality. The original indigenous name for the village of Flambouro is Negovani and means "cold water" (known for its pure mineral water source) The village's year round population is estimated at 250 people, but in the summer it grows to nearly 400. In the surrounding area many other villages can be found, including Aetos, Skopia, Kato Idroussa, and Ano Idroussa.
The original village was established in the 1840's by villagers (mostly masons and other tradesmen) who came from Plikati and other villages from Mastorohoria (a region around Mt. Gramos) in Epirus. The villagers were known as Arvanites and they settled in an area of West Macedonia that was almost exclusively populated by indigenous (endopi) Macedonians. There are now three villages in the area that were exclusively settled by Arvanites. They are Drosopigi, Flambouro, and Lechovo. In 1842, leading families from Plikati, Epirus purchased the land and forest after negotiating with Osman Ismael Pasha, the Bey from Florina. The village inhabited many families. The total population at 1900 had reached 1,880. (lo, note the gypsy on the left)
|
|
|
Post by todhrimencuri on Apr 27, 2009 12:19:40 GMT -5
Btw, the national custome, the one with the fustanella, is identical to the Cham one.
|
|
|
Post by Kastorianos on Apr 27, 2009 13:15:38 GMT -5
And what do you want to know now? Those are the arvanitophones of Florina region. Lechowo ist the best known arvanite village of Macedonia.
And as for your question if they are Chams. Its possible. We have in Kastoria some descendants of Arvanites...its not that they know it..they had been assimilated long ago...but their names are a sign...I believe this region of Konitsa (where Plikati lies as well) was mixed consisting of Cham and Tosk Albanians.
I know two last names of Kastorian people that could suggest that....Toskos...and Tsamisis.
|
|
|
Post by todhrimencuri on Apr 27, 2009 22:59:49 GMT -5
Interesting. So Plikati apparently had a population problem in the 1840's. That about the time my ancestors entered Albania. So the whole story about fleeing from the Sultan's Bektashi persecution might be... although that also happened around this time...
|
|
|
Post by todhrimencuri on Apr 27, 2009 23:05:13 GMT -5
What would you say about the look of these people. Certainly they dont look like Albs... most, but still...
|
|
|
Post by Kastorianos on Apr 28, 2009 2:20:57 GMT -5
No difference to other Floriniotes. What they lack is the alpine type...judging from these pics. The woman in the middle of the first pic looks slavic...albanian (while I guess thats rather a native balkan-appearance)...whatever..also the granny in the sixth looks slavic in my opinion....but no superalb-faces. Your father doesnt look alb either after all...I find he fits well to these people.
|
|
|
Post by tsompanos on Apr 28, 2009 12:36:01 GMT -5
there is a flambouro in serres too i dont know their history though but i think they are dopioi
heres a dance though
|
|
|
Post by todhrimencuri on Apr 28, 2009 15:59:34 GMT -5
The style is quite common, but still, its similar to this: apparently near the Macedonian-Alb border (since the Slavic guys on the otherside of the river say its Macedonia)
and closer to this, Alb from the Ilirida (Im not sure, but I think maybe close to Monastir):
Ignore the first BS before the video, I yelled at the guy so that he can just put the video clip next time without the ideological crap...
|
|
Patrinos
Amicus
Peloponnesos uber alles
Posts: 4,763
|
Post by Patrinos on Apr 30, 2009 15:13:46 GMT -5
Was Plikati a vlach or arvanitiko village? Aravantinos, Papahagi and Weigand say that were Vlachs.
What are you ore alvanovlache Melty? Or more correct ellinotourkarvanitovlache.
|
|
|
Post by todhrimencuri on Apr 30, 2009 18:28:55 GMT -5
Alvanos...
|
|
|
Post by Kastorianos on Apr 30, 2009 19:32:53 GMT -5
kai to leei me perifaneia... ;D
|
|
|
Post by todhrimencuri on May 2, 2009 15:53:33 GMT -5
^^ Yea yea. Look, Im not interested in these areas, I just want to get a better sense over my ancestors, its an important thing for Balkan people especially. I dont particularly find any interest in seeing these areas and Im sure they wouldnt appreciate a tourkoalvanos descendant.
|
|
|
Post by Kastorianos on May 2, 2009 16:49:04 GMT -5
Look Melty, its ok to look for your ancestors...and to be openminded regarding your origins. But thats one side...this has to do with what you are (you cant change it).
On the other hand there is your identity which you pretty much you can choose yourself. So your ancestors can be a greco-turko-albano mix for example and you still can easily say you are Albanian because thats what you feel like.
What I want to say is...that Im worrying a bit about you (its not that I really care I just didnt find a better word than "worry") ...because I have the impression that you are now about 22 years old and you seem to still havent found your identity....you are calling yourself a tourkalvano now...sth you didnt do some years ago. Apparently you are still looking for what you are...or should be...
It has probably to do with the fact that you are albanian....you guys are religiously mixed...so that you have to do an additional search...a search of the identity within the (albanian) identity.
I understand that you want to give a clear profile of yourself.....but dont be too rash with your actual conclusion (and I dont mean just this "tourkalvanos" herebut your whole appearance the last time) and folly with the Turks and of course corresponding hatred towards the Greeks...
Personally I could never feel the hatred you express here for the Greeks...if I had a Greek grandmother...you must be mentally and emotionally an animal to be like that....I dont say that in order to insult you.... its just a clinical conclusion of mine...thus I totally mean it.
In a few words I want to say that I hope that you dont mean what you say about the Greeks and the Turks the whole time..................and I want to thank you at that for the short deflection from my term paper...which pretty much goes on my nerves atm... ;D
|
|
|
Post by todhrimencuri on May 2, 2009 17:13:46 GMT -5
Im using Turkoalvanos because you people understand it better. You guys have created these discourses in your heads which i will not fight anymore. If you guys want to keep using it, fine, Ill embrace it. As should every other Alb, and accept whatever derogatory meaning that comes with it. You cannot change perceptions. In America, one thing that pissed off white people more than anythign else was when Black people took the word "n**g**r" and made it positive. They felt like their word was stolen from them.
These mixture cards dont really have anything to do with it. I hate discussing my self over internet forum, but I guess Ive known people here long enough. Religiously mixed isnt the right word as neither of my parents are religious, even more problematic when only one member was actually Christian (grandmother), albeit she has had a profound effect on my family's current religious stance (which Im rather bothered with, since I would rather stick to the Muslim side). In more recent days my mother has become a bit more since the death of her own mother, the Greek one... but its an illusionary faith, 45 years of atheism cant be thrown away that fast, it sticks with you. Alb Christians, and to an extent, I think, Greek-Alb Christians, are not like regular Greek Christians.
Im really not confused, the reason why I have this big "Turkophilia" in this forum is because there are many here who want to attack them purposelessly. Albanians can be delusional, especially the diaspora, who live in their stupid nationalist tales, particularly commi invented ones, which i once shared. Albanians on this forum, and in Albanian.com, even more pathetic, want to be European... badly, and often this is problematic. How can we like Turks if we are European, how can we be culturally close to them? Any Alb who meets a Turk will immediately feel at home with them and the openness they show towards us, suddenly the people here go on attacks against them purposely. Thats why, otherwise its far more moderate, I simply want to keep these kids angry and annoyed at the reality they try to hide.
As for the Greeks, like I said elsewhere, if Albanians had expelled the Greek minority from Albania as revenge for the Chams, I would have no bad feelings toward Greece. But I see a hypocrisy in my country and it influences my thoughts.
PS: Im doin a paper aswell.
|
|
|
Post by Kastorianos on May 2, 2009 18:21:38 GMT -5
I find your tourkophilia seems pretty artificial.... I also find that you act in this forum much too much out of defiance...you are pretty sensitive...look at yourself (in this forum) from "on high"...what are you? Meltdown is just a single reaction to the Greeks, the Greek state and everything which has to do with them. You are not self-sufficient.....its actually a shattering picture to see yourself defined by your sympathy or hatred towards someone else. I dont believe that the Greeks are that bad to and for you. Very many of what negative things you think of them are the result of propaganda and slander coming especially from albanians of the diaspora (for example the usa), which you got to read once...and which influenced you a lot in a very lasting way....one example is shpata...he was simply a bad person...embittered and dissatisfied...."kakos anthropos". You never know why people are talking with so much hate in the internet....perhaps they do it just because they have nothing better to do...or because they have private problems and this is kind of a deflection to them....I dont know.... But to other people of a forum...that are younger...and unexperienced...the words of such people can be perceived like an elucidation.....but that doesnt make them objectively correct. Not for a long time yet...
And as for the Turks...you misinterpreted the way they I guess...Turks are generally like that...and not only to Albanians. I know what you mean....but thats their nature. And they are to everyone like that also to Greeks.
And as for the Greeks of Albania...I dont have any opinion on that...I dont see why there should have been-like in the case of the Chams- a justified reason for expelling them as well.
The irony and simulatenously the absurdity of your demand- like that of your whole attitude to Greeks- is that if it had come true...you would never be born. It confirms pretty well the all in all self-destructive way you appear in this forum...
And...you said pretty often that you dont care for the Cham-issue...nevertheless just now you say it is the (only!) reason for your immens antipathy for the Greek people. I have to tell you that you very often dont know what you say...and I wonder if anything you say can be taken seriously.
|
|
|
Post by todhrimencuri on May 2, 2009 19:44:35 GMT -5
The internet is a channel for others to real their frustrations, especially youths. On it everything becomes faceless and annonymous and we feel more confident, freed from social constraints of physical communication and so we say things we might not feel. So we feel the freedom to express angst, annoyance at something. Look at many of those Albs who live and Greece and have come here. In Greece they feel marginalized, low and probably have suffered a lot of discrimination. Their position in that society makes them nobodies, so in the internet they find a channel to vent that frustration and anger that they have built up.
Actually, the majority of my negative perception of Greeks did not come from anything online. It came from going to Albania for the first time. When I heard many stories from people in Sarande and from local family who have been there about how they were treated... and then, how I was treated from my first trip to Corfu when I was literally shoved by an officer as I was stepping to board the ship... or when crossing to greece on bus near Florina, a cop spit on my cousins foot and threatened to beat him because he complained about how the bus was stopped to be checked. It was the rediscovery of my Albanian identity that actually launched it. And in more recent days, it was actually meeting up and becoming friends with Turkish people and seeing the communication between Albs and Turks in college that made me realize how close the two people actually are, contrary to what internet heroes here say.
And Im not concerned about my own family's side, some may have been of Greek origin, but by the 40's, all were very much assimilated into Albanian life, many moved to Tirana and became doctors there. Their names may hint one way, but their own self-definition defined something else.
|
|
|
Post by Kastorianos on May 3, 2009 4:41:01 GMT -5
To be honest I dont know if what you are describing about the Greeks is true...its pretty well possible that you are exaggerating...just in order to invent a reason so that a third party will be able to understand your attitude...
besides being shoved by someone or when someone spits on your shoe...thats no reason to hate a whole people. Really now....I cant read such malakies. Not from an american student.
Dont tell me you are not concerned about your greek side......you descend from a doctor-family but you make conclusions like a peasant and tsompanos...
|
|
|
Post by todhrimencuri on May 3, 2009 14:12:40 GMT -5
I dont hate, Ive made that clear a long time ago, I believe Albania's interests are to look away from your state and people and these encounters confirm it. Its not a few encounter, its the general feeling of hostility an Alb has felt while traveling there. Its near nigh universal.
|
|