These mysterious Arnauts

Greek and Arnaut

IN Ottoman Empire Arnauts called all Christians who were in the service in the Turkish army. Often in modern Russian literature there is a confusion of the names of Arnauts and Albanians.

In pre -revolutionary historical literature and documents of the era of Catherine II and Paul I Gthe river army is often called “Albanian”A Greeks – Albanians, What is incorrect in relation to their ethnic origin.

(Greek. Αρβανίτες, tour. Arnavutlar – Dosl. “Albanians”) is the sub -ethnic group of the Albanians, who stood out from the population of Central Albania and Epirus between 1300-1600 during the so -called Balkan migrations caused by invasions of the crusaders, the weakening of the Byzantine Empire and the invasion of the Turks. Their dialect represented a mixture of Albanian, Greek, Latin, Slavic and Turkish languages. They used Greek writing. In the Ottoman state there was no strict separation by ethnicity. If you are a Muslim, it means a Turk. If a Christian means Greek. However, in a simple and harmonious system of religious ideology of the state, a weak ethnic component slipped. Albantsev considered it more than their own than, say, the Slavs. The Turks also called the Albanians Christian Arnauts.

Arnauts called the Greeks who were in their service in the fleet and the army, the authorities of Venice and the Nevolitan kingdom.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Arnauts made up a significant part of the population (up to 10%) of the then small kingdom of Greece. Unlike the main Albanian area, Arnauts, who moved within the borders of historical Greece (Attica, Beotia, Peloponnese and some Greek Islands) during the years of Byzantine empire, were subjected to aculture and partial Hellenization, and therefore they remained faithful to Orthodoxy after the invasion of the Turks.

The Arnauts also have a well -owned Greek language, although it was not for most of them to their relatives until the middle of the 19th century. Currently, the indigenous Arnauts, especially in the area of ​​the Greek capital of Athena, are fully expense and became part of the Greek people, which was facilitated by the assimilation policy of the Greek state.

The main stream of Albanian immigration in Greece fell between the XII and XV centuries. The reasons for the relocation of Albanians from the territory of historical Albania (mainly from the southeast of the country) could also be the relative overpopulation of the country. Albania itself was not affected by wars after 1204, unlike the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. Moreover, the country became part of the medieval Greek state of the epir despotate and thus it became part of the Greek-Orthodox resistance to the crusaders. At this time, the Greeks of Epirus and the Albanians who have accepted Orthodoxy become especially close in cultural plan. Nevertheless, most of the Albanian immigrants were primarily searched for by the opportunity to improve their financial situation, having received large land allotments in Greece ruined by wars, and therefore they partly performed the role of mercenaries and military settlers in the armies of various states: actually Greek state formations, such as epir despotate, The Seaso despotate, the restored Byzantium, and others – the Latin Empire of the Crusades, the Venetian Republic, the Great Vlahia, the Ottoman Empire, etc.

Arnaut – Officer 1857 (Jean -Leon Gerome)

In part, the immigration of the Albanians, like later the Turks, was provoked by the Greek or “Latin” governors, striving in a short time to restore the economy ruined by war and epidemics of regions through Albanian immigration.

Between 1350 and 1418, about 81 200 Albanian mercenaries and their families moved to the territory of modern Greece. The Albanian immigrants were also recruited by the Aragon kings who captured the Athenian Duchy, the Venetians (the Duchy of Archipelago), and then the Turks (Ottoman Empire), the main concern of which was the settlement of the empty islands of Evebey, Andros and others.

The fate of Arnautov was different. If in Greece Arnauts were gradually assimilated, then in Serbia a conflict was brewing between the Serbian population and culturally excellent Arnauts, who perceived the Turkish-Islamic values ​​and managed not only to Islamize, but also to albanize some of the conquered Slavic and close in the ethnogenesis and culture of the Romanesque population of the Balkans (Kosovo, Western Macedonia). Currently, they have practically lost self -determination as an ethnic community, because either merged with the Albanian ethnic group or were expelled.

Greeks-Arnauts in the service of Russia

Arnauts In Russia. This name is at the end of the XVIII – beginning of the 19th centuries. It was assigned to the Orthodox Greeks and representatives of other Balkan peoples, who were moving from the Turkish empire to the lands conquered by the Russian Empire during the Russian-Turkish wars of the second half of the XVIII century. (Sometimes in pre -revolutionary Russia Arnauts called all immigrants from the Balkan Peninsula). In my memory, the Greeks of Russia, in their majority, used self -name Romeos, less often Ellinas or Pontios up to the middle of the twentieth century, when the meaning of the word Romeos Stopped using. The Russian Greeks called Arnauts the descendants of people who were in the military service of the Russian Empire. Arnauts themselves used a self -name Ellinas And extremely rarely – Alvananos. In Soviet times, Arnauts (literally a few families), signed by the Albanians, were not deported, unlike the Greeks expelled from the Black Sea coast. (Deportation of the Greeks of the USSR )

Greeks of the Border Service of Novorossia

Under the terms of the Kyuchuk-Kainargi peace treaty of 1775, a Russian protectorate was recognized as all Christians living within the Turkish Empire. That is, Russia formally took the responsibilities of protecting a large number of Turkish subjects of Orthodox Christians. They were allowed to move to newly acquired Russian lands. In 1775, Arnauts – volunteers from the Valahs, Bulgarians, Serbs, Moldavians, Albanians, who were in one or another quality during the war were in military service with the Russian government, were settled along the border lands. The largest number of those joined the Russian troops during the Danube campaign. They founded the settlements of Novogrigoryevskoye, Arnautovka, Scarzhinka, Troitskoye (modern Ascension district of Odessa). The immigrants are allowed to settle compactly in Novorossia, they were presented for use by state lands, subject to military service of all male persons.

As part of the Russian army, Arnaut regiments were created, which were used to protect Novorossiysk lands and other territories conquered from Turkey. In the Russo-Turkish war of 1806-1812 Three equestrian Arnautian regiments participated.

Some researchers are inclined to believe that only the migrants-Greeks were called Arnauts who settled in Balaklava near Sevastopol and in Arnautka near Odessa. The same settlers are associated with the spread of one of the most popular varieties of spring wheat in the South Ukrainian region ─ Arnauts, well acclimatized in this climatic zone.

In addition to the Zaporizhzhya and Slobodsky Cossacks in Ukraine, there was a Bug Cossack army, arranged in the image and likeness of Donskoy. The Bug Cossack army was located on the lands of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, on the South Bug River, with a center in the village of Sokola (ancient Zaporizhzhya Palak), now the city of Voznesensk, Nikolaev region. Bugs initially consisted of three regiments: Donskoy, Zaporizhzhya and Arnaaut. The Donets and Cossacks were natural Cossacks, the Arnauts were attributed Cossacks. In the Arnautsky regiment there were Serbs, Moldavians, Bulgarians and Orthodox Albanians who fled to the Russian Empire from the Turks. Bugs showed themselves well in Turkish campaigns during the assaults of Ochakov, Ishmael and were awarded by A.V. Suvorov.

It should be noted that the Crimean Tatars until the 30s of the twentieth century called the Greeks Arnauts.

The magazine “Around the World” for 1865 wrote about part of the inhabitants of Southern Italy: “Another kind of people are Arnauts or Albanians living in the Abrutsky mountains, Calabria and basilicata, partly near the sea coast, and partly in the harsh mountains.

They come from the Greeks, the 6th century from Muslims. They are distinguished by a strong physique, pleasant facial features, large fiery dark eyes, yellow -skinned skin and black with very curly hair. The men have long abandoned their folk costume, but the women kept it partly. Albanians speak in the new Greek language, but with an admixture of many words from other adverbs. They belong to the Greek Church and have their priests of the White clergy. The Arnauts are of special neatness and dexterity from the Italians. For the most part, they are engaged in agriculture or multiple of different goods. About 15,000 Arnauts live in the Abrutsky mountains, extremely useful for the country, because they cultivate unfriendly rocks and populate deserts.

I want to note that the bright representative of this nation was actor Marcello Mastroianni, who always emphasized his Greek roots.

“Big Arnautskaya. At one time, the grandmaster Efim Geller, composer Oscar Feltzman, studied at this street in this street. In the building on Bolshaya Arnautskaya, 2a began the famous Odessa KVN. In the mid-70s, here and at the school, the then disgraced then Vladimir Vysotsky performed … “.

Arnauts came to the territory of today Ukraine in the XV -XVII centuries, fleeing the numerous disasters caused by wars. At first, they settled only in Budzhak (the territory in the south of Moldova and the south-west of the Odessa region), later-in the current Zaporizhzhya region. Some of them settled in Odessa, where in the reign of Catherine II, houses were built for Arnauts – the first in the Arnauta Sloboda. The violent disposition of immigrants and their guests (Arnauts used their homes as inns) was often reflected in the criminal chronicle.

Regarding self -name in Turkey, this word means “Albanians”mercenaries. Word “Arnaut” In Serbia and Croatia, it was used in the meaning “Evil”, “evil”, “murderous”. According to researchers, one Serbian family received the surname Arnaautovich from the ancestor-killer with a nickname “Arnautin”.

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