The
ethnonymGoranci, meaning "highlanders", is derived from the Slavic toponym gora, which means "hill, mountain".[13][14] Another
autonym of this people is Našinci,[15] which literally means "our people, our ones".
In the
Albanian language, they are known as Goranët[16] and sometimes by other
exonyms, such as Bullgarët ("Bulgarians"),[17]Torbesh[13] ("bag carriers") and Poturë ("
turkified", from po-tur, literally not Turk but, "turkified", used for Islamized Slavs).[18]
In Kosovo, the Gorani number 10,265 inhabitants,[2] which is drastically lower than before the
Kosovo War. In 1998, it was estimated that their total population number was at least 50,000.[23]
Settlements
In Albania, there are nine [13] Gorani-inhabited villages:
Zapod, Pakisht, Orçikël, Kosharisht, Cernalevë, Orgjost, Oreshkë, Borje and
Shishtavec.[24][25]
Following 1999, Dragash has a mixed population of Gorani, who live in the lower neighbourhood, and Albanians in the upper neighbourhood constituting the majority of inhabitants.[27]
The Gora municipality and Opoja region remained separated during the Milošević period.[27] After the war, the Gorani-majority Gora municipality was merged with the Albanian inhabited
Opoja region to form the municipality of
Dragash by the
United Nations Mission (UNMIK) and the new administrative unit has an Albanian majority.[27][13][32]
In 2007 the Kosovar provisional institutions opened a school in Gora to teach the Bosnian language, which sparked minor consternation amongst the Gorani population. Many Gorani refuse to send their children to school due to societal prejudices, and threats of assimilation to Bosniaks or Albanians. Consequently, Gorani organized education per Serbia's curriculum.
Gorani activists in Serbia's proper stated they want
Gora (a former municipality) to join the
Association of Serb Municipalities, causing added pressure on the Gorani Community in Kosovo.[33]
In 2018 Bulgarian activists among Gorani have filed a petition in the country's parliament demanding their official recognition as a separate minority.[34]
Most Gorani state that the unstable situation and economic issues drive them to leave Kosovo. There is also some mention of threats and discrimination by
ethnic Albanians.[35]
Apart from the multiethnic town of Dragash, the Gorani of Kosovo continue to live in villages primarily inhabited by their community and relations with Albanians remain tense.[27] Mixed marriage between both communities do not occur with the exception of a few Gorani families that have migrated to
Prizren.[27]
Culture
Religion
In the 18th century, a wave of
Islamization began in Gora.[12] The Ottoman abolition of the
Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid and
Serbian Patriarchate of Peć in 1766/1767 is thought to have prompted the Islamization of Gora as was the trend of many Balkan communities.[36] The last Christian Gorani, Božana, died in the 19th century – she has received a cult, signifying the Gorani's Christian heritage, collected by Russian consuls Anastasiev and Yastrebov in the second half of the 19th century.[12]
Traditions
The Gorani are known for being "the best confectioners and bakers" in former Yugoslavia.[37]
The Slavs of Gora were Christianized after 864 when
Bulgaria adopted Christianity. The Ottomans conquered the region in the 14th century, which started the process of
Islamization of the Gorani and neighbouring Albanians. However, the Gorani still tangentially observe some
Orthodox Christian traditions, such as
Slavas and
Đurđevdan, and like
Serbs they know their
Onomastik or saint's days.
Traditional Gorani folk music includes a two-beat dance called "
oro" ('circle'), which is a circle dance focused on the foot movements: it always starts on the right foot and moves in an anti-clockwise direction. The Oro is usually accompanied by instruments such as
curlje,
kaval,
čiftelija or
tapan, and singing is used less frequently in the dances than in those of the Albanians and Serbs.
The "national" sport of Pelivona is a form of oil wrestling popular among Gorani with regular tournaments being held in the outdoors to the accompaniment of
curlje and
tapan with associated ritualized hand gestures and dances, with origins in the
Middle East through the
Ottoman Empire's conquest of the Balkans.
Another popular drink is
Turkish coffee which is drunk in small cups accompanied by a glass of water.
Tasseography is popular among all Gorani using the residue of Turkish coffee.
Gorani boy in folk costume
Gorani girls in folk costume
Elderly Gorani woman in traditional clothing
Young Gorani dancing at village festival
Language
The Gorani people speak South Slavic, a local dialect known as "
Našinski"[24] or "
Goranski", which is part of a wider
Torlakian dialect,[38] spoken in Southern
Serbia, Western Bulgaria and part of
North Macedonia. The Slavic dialect of the Gorani community is known as Gorançe by Albanians.[24] Within the Gorani community there is a recognition of their dialects being closer to the Macedonian language, than to Serbian.[39] The Torlakian dialect is a transitional dialect of
Serbian and
Bulgarian whilst also sharing features with
Macedonian. The Gorani speech is classified as an Old-Shtokavian dialect of Serbian, the
Prizren-Timok dialect.
Bulgarian linguists classify the Gorani dialect as part of a
Bulgarian dialectal area.[40] Despite not bordering Bulgaria and being an Islamic nation, the Gorani are a target of
Bulgarian irredentism on the belief that if the Gora dialect is Bulgarian, then all Macedonian dialects are Bulgarian.[41] Illustrating the Bulgarian interest is the first Gorani–
Albanian dictionary (with 43,000 words and phrases) in 2007 by Albanian-Gorani scholar Nazif Dokle, sponsored and printed by the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.[42] In this dictionary, Dokle defined the language as related to "the Bulgarian dialects spoken in the northwest"
North Macedonia.[42][43][44]
Within scholarship, the Goran dialects previously classified as belonging to Serbian have been reassigned to Macedonian in the 21st century.[39]
Gorani speech has numerous loan words, being greatly influenced by
Turkish and
Arabic due to the influence of Islam, as well as
Albanian areally. It is similar to the
Bosnian language because of the numerous Turkish loanwords. Gorani speak Serbo-Croatian in school.[14]
According to the last 1991 Yugoslav census, 54.8% of the inhabitants of the Gora municipality said that they spoke the Gorani language, while the remainder had called it Serbian.[45] Some linguists, including Vidoeski, Brozovic and Ivic, identify the Slavic-dialect of the Gora region as
Macedonian.[46] There are assertions that Macedonian is spoken in 50 to 75 villages in the Gora region (Albania and Kosovo).[47] According to some unverified sources in 2003 the Kosovo government acquired Macedonian language and grammar books for Gorani school.[48]
In 2008 the first issue of a Macedonian language newspaper, Гороцвет (Gorocvet) was published.[49]
^"Program političke stranke GIG". Do Nato intervencije na Srbiju, 24.03.1999.godine, u Gori je živelo oko 18.000 Goranaca. U Srbiji i bivšim jugoslovenskim republikama nalazi se oko 40.000 Goranaca, a značajan broj Goranaca živi i radi u zemljama Evropske unije i u drugim zemljama. Po našim procenama ukupan broj Goranaca, u Gori i u rasejanju iznosi oko 60.000.
^
abcSteinke, Klaus; Ylli, Xhelal (2010).
Die slavischen Minderheiten in Albanien (SMA). 3. Gora. Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner. p. 11.
ISBN978-3-86688-112-9. "In den 17 Dörfern des Kosovo wird Našinski/Goranče gesprochen, und sie gehören zu einer Gemeinde mit dem Verwaltungszentrum in Dragaš. Die 19 Dörfer in Albanien sind hingegen auf drei Gemeinden des Bezirks Kukës aufgeteilt, und zwar auf Shishtavec, Zapod und Topojan. Slavophone findet man freilich nur in den ersten beiden Gemeinden. Zur Gemeinde Shishtavec gehören sieben Dörfer und in den folgenden vier wird Našinski/Goranče gesprochen: Shishtavec (Šištaec/Šišteec), Borja (Borje), Cërnaleva (Cărnolevo/Cărneleve) und Oreshka (Orešek). Zur Gemeinde Zapod gehören ebenfalls sieben Dörfer, und in den folgenden fünf wird Našinski/Goranče gesprochen: Orgjost (Orgosta), Kosharisht (Košarišta), Pakisht (Pakiša/Pakišča) Zapod (Zapod) und Orçikla (Orčikl’e/Očikl’e)’. In der Gemeinde Topojan gibt es inzwischen keine slavophone Bevölkerung mehr. Die Einwohner selbst bezeichnen sich gewöhnlich als Goranen ‘Einwohner von Gora oder Našinci Unsrige, und ihre Sprache wird von ihnen als Našinski und von den Albanern als Gorançe bezeichnet."
^Гласник Српског географског друштва (1947).
Volumes 27-30. Srpsko geografsko društvo. p. 107. "Данашњи становници Урвича и Јеловјана на супротној, полошкој страни Шар-Планине, пореклом су Горани. Много су више утицале на исељавање Горана политичке промене, настале после 1912 године. Тада се скоро четвртина становништва иселила у Турску, за коју су се преко вере и дуге управе били интимно везали. Још једна миграција јаче је захватила Горане, али не у нашој земљи, него оне који су остали у границама Арбаније."
^Vidoeski, Božidar (1998).
Dijalektite na makedonskiot jazik. Vol. 1. Makedonska akademija na naukite i umetnostite. pp. 309, 315.
ISBN9789989649509. Во западна Македонија исламизирано македонско население живее во неколку географски региони на македонско-албанската пограничје:... во Полог (Јеловјане, Урвич)." "Автентичниот горански говор добро го чуваат и жителите во муслиманските оази Урвич и Јеловјане во Тетовско иако тие подолго време живеат во друго дијалектно окружување.
^Rexhepi, Besnik; Mustafa, Behxhet; Hajdari, Avni; Rushidi-Rexhepi, Jehona; Quave, Cassandra L.; Pieroni, Andrea (2014). "Cross-cultural ethnobotany of the Sharr Mountains (northwestern Macedonia)". In Pieroni, Andrea; Quave, Cassandra L. (eds.).
Ethnobotany and Biocultural Diversities in the Balkans. Springer. p. 70.
ISBN9781493914920.
^Browne, Wayles (2002): Serbo-Croat. In: Bernard Comrie, Greville G. Corbett (eds.), The Slavonic Languages. London: Taylor & Francis.
[2]. p. 383
^
abFriedman, Victor (2006). "Albania/Albanien". In Ammon, Ulrich (ed.).
Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, Volume 3. Walter de Gruyte. p. 1879.
ISBN9783110184181. "The Gorans, who are also Muslim, have a separate identity. The Goran dialects used to be classed with Serbian, but have more recently been assigned to Macedonian, and Gorans themselves recognize that their dialects are closer to Macedonian than to Serbian."
^
abDokle, Nazif. Reçnik Goransko (Nashinski) - Albanski, Sofia 2007, Peçatnica Naukini akademiji "Prof. Marin Drinov", s. 5, 11, 19 (Nazif Dokle. Goranian (Nashinski) - Albanian Dictionary, Sofia 2007, Published by Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, p. 5, 11, 19)
^Raymond Detrez, Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria; Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014,
ISBN1442241802, p. 225.
^Vasil Belo, Nazif Dokle – a Devoted Local Erudite of Gora, Albania, Bulgariaca, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 2020, Issue 41, pp. 71-74, Language: Bulgarian.
Antonijević, Dragoslav (1995), "Identitet Goranaca", Međunarodna konferencija Položaj manjina u Saveznoj Republici Jugoslaviji, zbornik radova, Belgrade: SANU
External links
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