Cham Albanians or Chams (also spelled Çam Albanians or Çams; ; ), are a subgroup of Albanians who originally resided in a region along the coast of the Ionian Sea in southwestern Albania and northwestern Greece, an area known among Albanians as Chameria. The Chams have their own particular cultural identity within Albanian subgroups. A number of Chams contributed to the Albanian national identity and played an important role in starting the renaissance of the Albanian culture in the 19th century. The Chams speak their own dialect of the Albanian language, the Cham Albanian dialect, which is a Southern Tosk Albanian dialect and one of the two most conservative ones, the other being Arvanitika.
During the late 1930s Chams suffered from intimidation and persecution under the dictatorship of General Metaxas. Following the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939, the Chams became a prominent propaganda tool for the Italians and irredentist elements among them became more vocal. As a result, on the eve of the Greco-Italian War, Greek authorities deported the adult male Cham population to internment camps. After the occupation of Greece, parts of the Muslim Cham population collaborated with Italian and German forces.Russell King, Nicola Mai, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, The New Albanian Migration, Sussex Academic Press, 2005, , p. 67.M. Mazower (ed.), After The War Was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation and State in Greece, 1943–1960, Princeton University Press, 1960, , p. 25. "During World War II, the majority of Chams sided with the Axis forces..." This fueled resentment among the local Greek population and in the aftermath of World War II, the entire Muslim Cham population were forcefully expelled to Albania.
Most Chams settled in Albania, while others formed émigré communities in Turkey and the United States, and today their descendants continue to live in these countries. Since the fall of Communism in Albania, Chams in Albania have campaigned for right of return to Greece and restoration of confiscated properties. According to Laurie Hart, the remaining Orthodox Cham communities in Epirus are nowadays assimilated and entirely identify with the Greek nation. On the other hand, Bugajski includes the Orthodox among Cham Albanians. In Albania, the Cham dialect and other traditions have been preserved, while in Greece linguistic rights and Orthodox Cham heritage have been suppressed in public space and been subject to assimilation policies. As such, the use of Albanian has been relegated to private space within the household. "Whereas in Albania and the diaspora Cham communities have managed to preserve their dialect, traditions and folk songs, in Greece itself those Orthodox Chams, now numbering around 40,000, who were allowed to remain in Greece, have suffered from assimilation and the public suppression of their Albanian heritage and language. As a result, Albanian is only spoken privately in the home."
Name
Etymology and definition The word Cham, like that of the region Chameria, is generally traced to the Greek hydronym Thyamis (Greek: Θύαμις; Albanian: Kalamas), which is also the name of the river that runs through the ancient region of Epirus. According to this view, the term Cham entered Albanian through a now-extinct Slavic dialect spoken in Epirus during the Middle Ages. That dialect's form of the name is not attested in writing but has since been reconstructed as *čamь or *čama, from the older Slavic term, *tjama. The linguist Eqrem Çabej, however, argues that Cham descends directly from Thyamis, without any Slavic intermediary.Vladimir Orel, Albanian Etymological Dictionary, s.v. "çam" (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 49–50. A folk etymology attributes the term to the Turkish word cami (Greek: tzami) which literally means 'mosque-goer, mosque attendee' and presumably was the name used by Orthodox Christians for the descendants of Muslim converts. However, this is unlikely since the word's broader ethnographic and dialectal sense encompasses the entire Albanian-speaking population of the Thesprotia and Preveza regional units of Greek Epirus, both the Muslim and Christian populations.
Chams account for the greatest part of the erstwhile substantial Albanian minority in the wider area of the Epirus region; outside Chameria proper, there are only two Albanian-speaking villages further northeast (near Konitsa in Ioannina regional unit), whose inhabitants belong to a different Albanian subgroup, that of the Labs. Today, in the Greek context the use of the term has become largely associated with the former Muslim minority.
Ethnic appellations Cham Albanians are known primarily by the Albanian form of the name Chams (Çam or Çamë) and the Greek name Tsamides (Τσάμηδες). It can be found in English sources also as a hybrid form of both names, Tsams. Prior to 1944, Greek sources often referred to Chams as Albanophones (Greek: Αλβανόφωνοι) or simply Albanians of Epirus.
In Greece, Muslim Chams were referred to by a number of names by different authors. They were called Albanochams (Αλβανοτσάμηδες, Alvanotsamides), and Turkalbanians (Τουρκαλβανοί, Tourkalvanoi) or Turkochams (Τουρκοτσάμηδες, Tourkotsamides). From the middle of the nineteenth century however, the term Turk and from the late nineteenth century onwards, derivative terms such as Turkalvanoi have been used as a pejorative term, phrase and or expression for Muslim Albanian populations by non-Muslim Balkan Peoples.Karpat, Kemal H. (2001). The politicization of Islam: reconstructing identity, state, faith, and community in the late Ottoman state. Oxford University Press. p. 342. "After 1856, and especially after 1878, the terms Turk and Muslim became practically synonymous in the Balkans. An Albanian who did not know one word of Turkish thus was given the ethnic name of Turk and accepted it, no matter how much he might have preferred to distance himself from the ethnic Turks."Megalommatis, M. Cosmas (1994). Turkish-Greek Relations and the Balkans: A Historian's Evaluation of Today's Problems. Cyprus Foundation. p. 28. "Muslim Albanians have been called "Turkalvanoi" in Greek, and this is pejorative."Tzanelli, Rodanthi (2008). Nation-building and identity in Europe: The dialogics of reciprocity. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 62. "Consequently, at the beginning of the 1880s the Greek press openly incited anti-Albanian hatred, associating the Albanian irredentists with Turkish anti-Greek propaganda, and baptizing them Vlachs and 'Turkalbanian brigands' (Aión. 10 and 14 July 1880; Palingenesía, 3 April 1881)."Nikolopoulou, Kalliopi (2013). Tragically Speaking: On the Use and Abuse of Theory for Life. University of Nebraska Press. p. 299. "Instead of the term "Muslim Albanians", nationalist Greek histories use the more known, but pejorative, term "Turkalbanians".Millas, Iraklis (2006). "Tourkokratia: History and the image of Turks in Greek literature." South European Society & Politics. 11. (1): 50. "The 'timeless' existence of the Other (and the interrelation of the Self with this Other) is secured by the name used to define him or her. Greeks often name as 'Turks' various states and groups—such as the Seljuks, the Ottomans, even the Albanians (Turkalvanoi)".Mentzel, Peter (2000). "Introduction: Identity, confessionalism, and nationalism." Nationalities Papers. 28. (1): 8. "The attitude of non-Muslim Balkan peoples was similar. In most of the Balkans, Muslims were "Turks" regardless of their ethno-linguistic background. This attitude changed significantly, but not completely, over time." Amongst the wider Greek-speaking population until the interwar period, the term Arvanitis (plural: Arvanites) was used to describe an Albanian speaker regardless of their religious affiliations. In Epirus today, the term Arvanitis is still used for an Albanian speaker regardless of their citizenship and religion.. "Until the Interwar period Arvanitis (plural Arvanitēs) was the term used by Greek speakers to describe an Albanian speaker regardless of his/hers religious background. In official language of that time the term Alvanos was used instead. The term Arvanitis coined for an Albanian speaker independently of religion and citizenship survives until today in Epirus (see Lambros Baltsiotis and Léonidas Embirikos, "De la formation d’un ethnonyme. Le terme Arvanitis et son evolution dans l’État hellénique", in G. Grivaud-S. Petmezas (eds.), Byzantina et Moderna, Alexandreia, Athens, 2006, pp. 417–448.
At the same time, the Albanian speaking population in Thesprotia, who is very rarely characterized as Christian Chams, is often referred by Greeks as Arvanites (Αρβανίτες), which primarily refers to the Albanophone Greeks of southern Greece but is commonly used as for all Albanian-speaking Greek citizens. The local Greek population also calls them Graeco-Chams (Ελληνοτσάμηδες, Elinotsamides), while Muslim Albanians sometimes designate them as Kaur, which means "infidel" and refers to their religion. This term was used by Muslim Albanians for the non-Muslims during the Ottoman Empire. The term shqiptar ("he/she who speaks clearly"), the Albanian ethnic endonym which came to prevail after the 18th century, was being used by Christian Albanian-speakers in the region as well, but today is used mostly as a means to differentiate themselves from other groups in the region (Greeks, Vlachs). Greek-speakers use the term "skipetaros" (shqiptar) to refer pejoratively to Orthodox Albanian-speakers in Thesprotia.
Some Aromanians living the region also use a regional self appellation Tsamuréńi for themselves derived from the words Chameria and Cham.Koukoudis, Asterios (2003). The Vlachs: Metropolis and Diaspora. Zitros. p. 271. "However, there are groups of Arvanitovlachs, both in Albania and in Greece, who refuse to be defined as Farsariots, preferring other names, often toponymical too. These include.... Tsamoureni (Tsamuréńi) (from the area of Çamëria, mainly in Thesprotia)."
Chams in Turkey are known by the name Arnauts (Arnavutlar), which applies to all ethnic Albanians in Turkey.
Distribution Cham communities now mostly exist in Albania, the United States and Turkey, as a result of their expulsion from their homeland, Chameria in Greece after World War II. A minority still lives in this region.
Chameria
Chameria is the name applied by the Albanians to the region formerly inhabited by the Chams, along the Ionian coast from Konispol to the north to the Acheron valley south. This area corresponds to a few villages in the southern part of the Saranda district in Albania (the municipalities of Konispol, Xarrë and Markat) and to the regional units of Thesprotia and Preveza in Greece. This area is part of the larger region of Epirus.
Much of the region is mountainous. Valley farmlands are located the central, southern and the western part of Thesprotia, while the terrain of the Preveza regional unit is mostly hilly. There are two rivers in the region: the Thyamis and Acheron.
The main settlements in which Chams originally resided were: Paramythia, Filiates, Igoumenitsa, Parapotamos, Syvota, Sagiada, Perdika, and Margariti. Preveza and Ioannina also had significant Cham Albanian communities. The Orthodox Chams originally resided in Fanari, Louros and Thesprotiko.