“My village, an Arberesh village”

TIRANA, Jan. 22 – “My village, an Arberesh village.” This is how Luis de Rosa has named his exhibition featuring the Arberesh village of Ururi in southern Albania where Albanians settled in the 15th century during Skanderbeg’s reign. The exhibition which is being displayed in the Nikolet Vasia public art gallery in the coastal city of Durres features the history of Ururi village through pictures collected and taken by the 65-year-old Arberesh researcher who has moved to Durres in recent years.
Speaking to reporters about Ururi, Luis de Rose proudly notes that the Arberesh village is home to renowned politicians such as Mario Tanasi.
Settled in southern Italy since the late 15th century, the Albanian Arberesh community moved to southern Italy after Skenderbeg’s death in 1468 following the reestablishment of the Ottoman rule which continued until the early 20th century.
According to the Minority Rights Group International, the ethnic Albanian community, known as the Arb쳥sh, live in 49 mountain towns and villages from the Abruzzi Appenines to the south of Italy and Sicily.
The main Albanian migration to Italy came from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries as the Ottomans pushed them west, although some Albanians had already settled there from the thirteenth century. From the seventeenth century, Albanians in Molise and Puglia were forced to give up their Orthodox faith in the wave of religious repression aimed at eradicating the Orthodox faith in southern Italy.