Negovan, forgotten Albanians in Greece

This is the deformed frame upon which the Albanian existence is being colored. The neighbors search their history in our land, while the Albanian authorities have always hesitated to collect their remaining parts outside the official borders.

Negovani, the village where many Albanians from Kolonja settled one century and a half ago, is one of the pieces of this forgotten mosaic in Greece. The trip from Tirana to the birthplace of Papa Kristo Negovani, or the place where Petro Nini Luarasi served as a teacher, should last only a few hours. But these predictions fell to pieces in the border with Greece, with the Greek authorities stopping the Top Channel filming crew, together with the two scholars that were accompanying us, Perikli and Elida Jorgoni. According to them, for shooting a story in Greece, more specifically, at the Negovan village, today called Flamborio, there is a special permission that should be granted to us, so special that the officers don’t even know where we should get it.

“You need permission from the Greek Ministry of Information. There you can get complete information and then you can continue with your schedule”, says one of the officers.

“You need permission from the Greek Embassy. You can go to Flamborio and look whatever you want, but without interviews and you have to leave the camera here”, another one adds.

After waiting for seven hours, we were obliged to leave the camera in Albania and continue our trip with an amateur camera, as the only way for continuing our report.

After traveling for 50 km, we saw the entrance of Negovan, a calm village with small alleys and stone houses, with less than 500 residents.

Most of them are of Albanian origin, and this can be easily understood by their language. But only some of them accept to show themselves on camera, the others seem to fear the reaction of the Greek authorities and residents.

“This village was Albanian, but everyone denies it. One of them was saying one day “I am ‘arvanit’, not ‘arvanos’. What’s the difference? Isn’t it the same?” another resident says.

The village doesn’t have any sign related to the patriot Papa Kristo Negovani. His house, where he taught the Albanian language to more than 100 people, has been demolished.
The school in the center of the town, where he and Petro Nini Luarasi used to teach, today has nothing to do with the Albanian language. The only language taught there is Greek. The residents have preserved the language through generations inside the houses, because after the murder of Papa Kristo, no one dared to open an Albanian school in this area.

Not far from the center of Negovani village lives the niece of Papa Kristo, Olga. A few minutes are enough for understanding that even here they live with fear, a fear that makes the direct descendants of the great patriot deny the fact that he was Albanian.

TCH – What nationality had Papa Kristo?

Resident – He was Greek.

A painful reality, based on oblivion and the distress of denying the family roots and its real identity.

“I couldn’t know my mother and grandfather”, says the niece of Papa Kristo.

TCH – You feel you are Greek or Albanian?

“Greek”, says the niece.

We walk away and a few minutes later we see the village’s church. This is where Papa Kristo found the courage to teach Albanian, until he was slaughtered with knives and axes, together with his brother, on the same dark night of 12 February 1905.

With a low voice and without appearing in front of the camera, some young boys lead us at the house of one of the residents, Jorgo Sinica, born and raised in this village, the only one who doesn’t hide and says the things with loud voice.

“The problem is that fear is still present. It is politics. If you say that you are Albanian, they will not hire you anywhere, hence they don’t say it”, Sinica says.

Memories preserved in notebooks, photos and old papers.

“I heard the word “buke” (Albanian for bread) from my mother and my nanny. The word “somi” (Greek for bread) I learned at schools”, Sinica declares.

The reeve of the village blocks our way with his car and asks us the permission for filming with an amateur camera in Negovan. Everything is cleared after 30 minutes and the crew is allowed to leave.

The cemeteries are just outside the village. We stop, in our efforts for finding the last trace of papa Kristo. The Albanians in this place have been forced to deny themselves, their past and origin, as the only means for surviving in this land that their ancestors bought around 1840.

Different to what happens in Albania, where there is no kind of discrimination against the Greek minority, which has nevertheless been used by Greek circles as a pretext for justifying the extreme nationalism and continuous expansionist requests. Convinced that they have what to hide, the Greeks are cautious to create other barriers for the Albanian journalists, not only in the land of the Albanian Chameria, but also in other areas with residents of Albanian origin.

We leave Negovan, the village where Albanians are afraid to declare their origin. They fear to say that they are Albanians, descendant of Papa Kristo Negovani, the great patriot that today doesn’t have his name on the grave.

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