Arbëreshë people

Arbëreshë

Albanians of Italy, Italo-Albanesi
Arbëreshë in traditional dress in Piana degli Albanesi (PA), 1902
Total population
(unknown)
Regions with significant populations
Italy	400,000
Languages
Arbëreshë, Italian
Religion
Christian: Italo-Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church, Arberesh Orthodox Church
Related ethnic groups
Albanians Albanian diaspora Arvanites

The Arbëreshë or Italo-Albanians are an ethnic and linguistic Albanian minority community living in southern Italy, mostly concentrated in scattered villages in the region of Calabria, but also with a few minor settlements in the regions of Apulia, Basilicata, Molise, and Sicily. They are the descendants of mostly Tosk Albanian refugees who fled Albania between the 15th and 18th centuries as a result of the Ottoman Empire's invasion of the Balkans.

They settled in Southern Italy between the 15th and 18th centuries in several waves of migration, following the death of the Albanian national hero George Kastrioti Skanderbeg and the gradual conquest of Albania and the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Turks. Their culture is determined by the main features that are found in language, religion, traditions, customs, art and gastronomy, still jealously preserved, with the awareness of belonging to a specific ethnic group. Over the centuries, the Arbëreshë have managed to maintain and develop their identities, thanks to their cultural value exercised mainly by the two religious communities of the Eastern Byzantine Rite, based in Calabria, the "College Corsini" (1732) and then "College Sant'Adriano" of San Benedetto Ullano in 1794, and Sicily in the "Seminary Italo-Albanian" of Palermo (1735) then transferred to Piana degli Albanesi in 1943.

Today, most of the fifty Arbëreshë communities are adherents to the Italo-Albanian Church, an Eastern Catholic church. They belong to two eparchies, the Lungro (for Arbëreshë in continental Italy), and Piana degli Albanesi (for Arbëreshë of Sicily). The Church is the most important organization for the maintenance of the characteristic religious, ethnic, linguistic, and traditional identity of the Arbëreshë community.