The Arbëresh Center of Studies and Publications commemorates today the celebration of the foundation of the Arbëresh town, “Hora e Arbëreshëve” /Piana degli Albanesi/. This municipality, located in Sicily, was founded on 30 August of 1488, by a group of Albanians leaving their lands. Many of the first members of this community were from the Himara area, as the Albanian News Agency informs.

The celebration tradition took an official form in 2017. This year it is honored as a cultural event of special importance for Arbëresh communities, in the continuation and strengthening the roots, tradition, history, language and identity of the Arbërs /Albanians/.

This year’s artistic and cultural activities started two days before, on August 28.

Hora e Arbëreshëvet, with 6,427 inhabitants, is one of the largest communities of historical Albanian communities in Italy,  and one of the most important center and the most populous of the Arbëresh of Sicily, where the seat of the bishop of the Italian-Albanian Byzantine Rite  Catholic Church in Sicily, the Eparchy (The main church) is located.

Hora e Arbëreshëve is located at the foot of a high mountain, 24 km from Palermo. It has preserved many ethnic elements of its Albanian culture, its cultural peculiarities, including language, religion, traditional clothes, customs, music and folklore.

The residents are descendants of Albanian families, including nobles ones, settled mostly in Southern Italy after the Ottoman conquest of Albania. Hora e Arbëreshe identity is quite strong. In fact Arbëresh language is spoken by the whole community and is used in newspapers, schools and radio.

The municipality uses the Albanian and Italian languages ​​in official bilingual documents for its residents, based on the existing law for the protection of ethnic and linguistic minorities in Italy.

/a.p./