Arbëresh Tradition and the Poetry of Mario Bellizzi

Among the significant minority languages of the South of Italy are the Arbëresh dialects spoken by the descendants of Southern Tosk-speaking Albanians [1] who settled in the Kingdom of Naples in various waves of migration prompted by the westward expansion of the Ottoman Empire and the death of the famous knight and prince George Castriota Skanderbeg (whose noble descendants are still found in Italy and Spain). Along with waves of Greeks and Serbo-Croats, the Albanians were welcomed by the monarchy and the nobility and were granted land for safe haven. In turn they contributed in military service and settlement and repopulation projects. With notable communities in Sicily, Calabria, Campania, Basilicata, Puglia, Abruzzo and Molise, local nuances of dialect and culture evolved and in areas of Sicily and Calabria many Arbëresh were still practicing Orthodox Christianity late into the 19th century heading into the 20th century, while today most are members of the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church. There are about 100,000 Arbëresh in Italy and about 400,000 abroad, as many followed the large Southern Italian migrations of the last century. In the United States there are significant Arbëresh settlements in New York and California. In places such as Calabria, many villages are trilingual, speaking archaic Tosk based dialects, Calabrian dialects, and the standard Italian taught in the school system. With the pressures of homogenization of mass culture many minority language towns and areas are unfortunately losing their centuries old unique ways. In the last twenty years a counterpoint resurgence of traditional Arbëresh and Greek minority culture has brought this patrimony to the world.

It is interesting to note that there has long existed a profound dialogue between and among diaspora Albanians over the last centuries, rich in atavistic memories of a lost fatherland. Interestingly many firsts in Albanian literature took place in the South of Italy thanks to Arbëresh writers and Arbëresh intellectuals gathered in Naples around the Greek church and the Neapolitan literary salons of the 18th century. In the 19th century a first resurgence of Arbëresh culture arose in Calabria through the efforts of proud locals such as the lawyer Anselmo Lorecchio (1843-1924) who began efforts to publish works in the local language and to also reconnect meaningfully with Albania. Lorecchio was born in the town of Pallagorio (in the modern province of Crotone) and founded the La Nazione Albanese magazine in 1897. He published numerous books and articles championing the culture and Albanian independence in the Balkans. Lorecchio worked with the Italian government and various politicians and intellectuals such as Girolamo De Rada to foster Albanian independence (when it was still ruled by the Ottomans) and to show the possibilities of how and expanding Italian presence and dominance in the Mediterranean might work to advance Albanian freedom and diaspora unity as the newly unified Italy exerted its dominance in the Balkans. Lorecchio was indeed acknowledged and thanked for his efforts by the emergent Albanian leadership when Albania gained independence in 1912 and in 1921 as it received wider diplomatic recognition.

The first known work of Arbëresh literature was by the Sicilian archpriest Luca Matranga(1567-1619)’s E mbsuama e krështerë (Christian Doctrine), a type of basic catechism. In the 18th century Giulio Variboba (1724–1788, also known as Jul Variboba), was regarded by many Albanians as the first poet in all of Albanian literature. Variboba was born in San Giorgio Albanese (Mbuzati) and educated in the Corsini Seminary in San Benedetto Ullano, and after disputes with a local priest he went into a voluntary sort of exile in Rome in 1761 and there published in 1762 lyric poem Ghiella e Shën Mëriis Virghiër (The life of the Virgin Mary). This poem is written entirely in the local dialect of San Giorgio and consists of over 4700 lines. Also in the 18th century Nicola Chetta (1741–1803) from Contessa Entellina, Sicily, was a noted poet who wrote both in Albanian and Greek and is credited with composing the first Albanian sonnet in 1777. Chetta was a poet, lexicographer, linguist, historian, and theologian who was trained at the Greek Orthodox seminary in Palermo, and later became its rector. The most prominent of Arbëresh writers and the major figure of the Albanian nationalist movement in 19th-century Italy was Girolamo de Rada (1814-1903). De Rada was the son of a priest of the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church in Macchia Albanese, province of Cosenza. He attended the college in his native San Demetrio Corone and in 1834, he studied law at the University of Naples, but his main interests were folklore and literature. In Naples in 1836 De Rada published the first edition of his famous Albanian-language poem, the "Canti di Milosao", under the title Poesie albanesi del secolo XV. Canti di Milosao, figlio del despota di Scutari. His second work, Canti storici albanesi di Serafina Thopia, moglie del principe Nicola Ducagino, Naples 1839, was seized by the authorities because of De Rada's alleged affiliation with conspiratorial Risorgimento groups. This latter work was republished under the title Canti di Serafina Thopia, principessa di Zadrina nel secolo XV, Naples 1843 and in later years in yet a third version as Specchio di umano transito, vita di Serafina Thopia, Principessa di Ducagino, Naples 1897. In 1848 De Rada founded the newspaper L'Albanese d'Italia which included articles in Albanian and Italian. This bilingual "political, moral and literary journal" with a final circulation of 3,200 copies is considered the first Albanian-language periodical ever published anywhere.

De Rada is considered the forerunner of the Romantic movement Albanian literature, celebrating the national awakening among Albanians in Italy and in the Balkans. Like Lorecchio, his journalistic, literary and political activities showcased the Arbëresh minority in Italy and were key in paving the way for an Albanian national literature.

Mario Bellizzi, a worthy heir to his predecessors in Calabria, was born in San Basile, province of Cosenza, and has published widely in Italy and Albania. Bellizzi is steeped in the classical heritage of the South and the Mediterranean and has masterfully internalized his mother tongue. Following in the footsteps of Lorecchio and De Rada, he is a 21st century bridge to Albania from Calabria. His works include, Chi siamo, Perec 1997 and Bukura morea, Castrovillari, 2003, and his 2008 Good bye, Shin Vasil. The following poems are taken from his bilingual collection, Pasiqyri e Hjea - Lo specchio e l’ombra: Poesie fuori luogo dai Balcani al Mediterraneo, Edizioni Prometeo, Castrovillari (CS), 2018.

Forza e onore ai nostri cari compatrioti arbëreshët!

Jug

Era e djegur
fshinte qiellin
retë.
Burimet e shpirtit të
jugut janë të thata.
Bota – një ngjyrë
e para e piksur.
Dherat – një rrahallë
Është vështirë për mua
plis deltine
të mos dëshëroj një pikë ujë.

South

The burnt wind
was sweeping the sky,
the clouds.
The founts of the soul of the South
are dried up.
The land – a color
the first created.
The fields – a wheezing.
It is difficult for me
clod of clay
to not wish for a drop of water.

Jugu Dhe Fytyrat e Ngjarjeve

Gjithëçka sfaret
por si hardhël
Jugu theket në diell
mbi shtyllat të Tempujve(t) prej guri
të shtrira për tokë.
Jugu rri.
Përgjon dhe rrudh supet për kufijtë
ç’duan të vendosin(jn) në Mesdhe.
Ndërkohë po hipen ca njerëz e zdripen
si grerëza lëvizin
stafidhjosen katundet …
Jugu si fëmijë buzëqesh i porsalindur
qan me sytë e të varfërit
furishëm nëm si nënat.
Jugu tundet vetëm
ndose ka nxe e nge!
Nga ana tjetër, Tragjedia i rrjedh në dejtë,
dhe Filozofia e rëndë i këput(in) kurrizin
kur ec(in) në arkeologjinë e përgjumur
të fushave(t) sot me dredhëza, sparta e gorrica!
Në diellin e xhullandave(t)
mendimet, ëndrrat, asgjësimet në luftë,
umenjtë me lot
Jugu për çudi i than
si fiqë ndër ruganjet.
Për të lëvizur, për heqjen e samarit
Jugu i moçëm pret vetëm një shenjë.
Në këtë rastë do të jetë hëna ç’erret
a një sqep i zi çë nxien diellin?
Vallë baruti çë përcëllon trëndafilat?
Mbase … anijet e mirënjohura në rrethin e qiellit?
Këtu çdogjë është e ngatërruar.
Si thoshte Euripide
Po ndryshojnë fytyrat e ngjarjeve,
baras zgjidhjet e Hyjnive
kujt më s’u kishim besë;
ç’ti pret nuk kalon
ndërsa perëndia gjen çdoherë
shteg për të bëhet deti kos.
Të tjerët s’e dinë se shikimi i Jugut
ka mundësi të djegë pëlhurë e Argali.
Tërbimi plot zbrazëti e zagush
njësh me thumbin e zeskut
bënë lëkundje në gjeografi
hutime midis popujve(t).
Këtë thonë Rrasat e Armonisë.

The South and the Shape of Events

While Reality crumbles
the South is placid in the sun
like the lizards
on the columns of the stone Temples
nestled on the ground.
Majestic, it contemplates.
Watches and shrugs its shoulders
to those who wish to fence the Mediterranean.
… The peoples continue to brim in the chaos
by the same token as hornets
the lands wither …
The South smiles like a newborn
weeps with the eyes of the poor
and hurls nemeses with the vehemence of mothers.
It acts alone
in the time of idleness and if it has a sudden desire!
On the other hand Tragedy flows in its veins
and the weight of Philosophy breaks its back
while it strolls along the sleepy archeology
of the plains now cultivated with strawberries, broom and pear trees!
In the sun on the terraces
as if they were figs
strangely the South sets out to dry
thoughts, dreams, lost battles,
torrents of tears
inside woven baskets of brambles.
The archaic South awaits a sign to react
to throw off the yoke.
This time will it be a lunar eclipse
or a veil of darkness before the sun?
Will it be the Sirocco that burns the roses?
Perhaps the usual ships on the horizon?
Here nothing is certain.
As Euripide said
Many are the shapes of events,
and just as many are the resolutions of the gods
against all our expectations;
what one believed in does not come true
and a god always finds the path to the impossible.
The others don’t know that the gaze of the South
is capable of incinerating the weaving of the spinning wheel.
Its anger imbued with emptiness and heat
together with the bite of the gadfly
provokes earthquakes in geography
confusion among peoples.
Thus it is written in the Tables of Harmony.

~ Translations and historical information by Cav. Charles Sant’Elia

Note:
[1] In the South of Italy the language and culture were historically often referred to as Gheg or Ghegghju by Albanian speakers and their neighbors, despite the fact that most Albanian spoken in Southern Italy is derived from southern Tosk dialects which preserve their archaic pre-Ottoman forms, not the northern Gheg dialects of Albania. The term ghegghju, having taken on a derogatory tone in areas of Calabria, is now often avoided, and Arbëresh is generally used to accurately refer to the language and people.)