1) «In the last year of the 15th century, and the opening years of the 16th, when the Morea was again the battlefield of the Turks and Venetians, the occupants of the plain of Argos and portions of Attica were practically exterminated, and Albanian colonists began to reoccupy the lands.»
(«The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece», by Rennell Rodd, 1892, page 17.)
2) «The Vlachs, on the contrary, descendents of the Romanized people of the Balkan peninsula, live in considerable numbers in the mountains of northern and central Greece.»
(«The Scottish Geographical Magazine», volume XIII, 1897, page 370.)
3) «The Albanians of Hydra and Spetsae, many of whom could not even speak Greek, regarded themselves as Greek because their allegiance was with the Orthodox Church.»
(«That Greece Might Still be Free», by William St. Clair, page 9.)
4) «Greek statesman said Albanian was not a language – it had no literature, not even an alphabet – it is a mere patois, and would die out in a generation, and the children of the Albanian soldiers and sailors would all be good Greeks.»
(«The Catholic Presbyterian an International Journal Ecclesiastical and Religious», vol. II, July – December 1879, edited by Professor W. G. Blaikie D.D., L.L.D., F.R.S.E., page 319).
5) «Yet so much of the Sclavonian element had been infused into the latter that the modern Greeks are found to differ widely from their remote ancestors.»
(«Foreign Quarterly Review», Vol. XXVI, 1841, page 73)
6) «…since the Greeks are a composite people among whom the descendents of the veritable Greek of old are in a great minority. The majority are of Albanian and Suliote blood, races which even the Romans found untamable.»
(«In Greek Waters: a Story of the Grecian War of Independence (1821-1827)», By G.A. Henty, 1893, page 40)
7) «Old Corinth passed through its various stages, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Turkish. After the War of Independence it was again Greek, and, being a considerable town, was suggested as the capital of the new Kingdom of Greece. The earthquake of 1858 leveled it to the ground with the exception of about a dozen houses. A mere handful of the old inhabitants remained on the site. But fertile fields and running water made it attractive; and outsiders gradually came in. At present, it is an untidy poverty-stricken village of about 1,000 inhabitants, mostly of Albanian Blood.»
(«The Encyclopedia Britannica» Eleventh edition, Vol. VII, 1910, page 148)
8) «The notion of a ´Greek´ identity in the modern sense is itself in large part the creation of the movement towards statehood. It was not until the nineteenth century that the term came to describe a homogenous ethnic group in the modern sense. Instead, the people of the Peloponnesos, including Argolida, made up an intricate mosaic of ethnicities and languages.»
(«Blood and Oranges Immigrant Labour and European Markets in Rural Greece», by Christopher M. Lawrence, page 12)
9) «In reality however, just before the Greek war of independence, most Greeks still referred to themselves as Romans. Vlachavas, the priest rebel leader who rose against the Ottomans, declared, ´A Romneos I was born a Romneos I will die.»
(«Bloodlines from the Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism», by Vamik Volkan, page 121.)
10) «It should be stressed, however, that the Greeks as an ethnic community during this period [1840´s] included many Grecophone or Hellenized Vlachs, Serbs or Orthodox Albanians.»
(«Greece and the Balkans Identities, Perceptions and Cultural Encounters since the Enlightenment», edited by Dimitris Tziovas, page 6.)
11) «…so, in the Middle Ages, these Albanian mountaineers have brought both war like spirit, bright costume, and beauty of person, to refresh the Hellenic race. There are still, even in Attica, districts where Albanian is the common language; there are Albanian names famous in Greek annals, especially in the great war of independence (1821-1831) and even among the sailors of Hydra, so famed for their commercial enterprise and their deeds of war, the chief families were Albanian in origin.»
(«Greek Pictures drawn with pen and pencil» by J. P. Mahaffy, M.A. D.D., 1890, pages 20 and 21.)
12) «In 1358 the Albanians overran Epirus, Acarnania and Anatolia and established two principalities under their leaders…Naupactas fell into their control in 1378…
Other Albanians and Vlachs invaded the Catalan principality of Boeotia and Attica, and a great many Albanians settled there as peasant-farmers in 1368 and later….
The penetration of the Greek mainland which we have described occurred during the hundred or more years after 1325.»
(«Migrations and Invasions in Greece and Adjacent Areas», by Nicholas G. L. Hammond, page 59.)
13) «There is the case of Karamanlides, a predominantly Turkish-speaking Christian Orthodox people, who were forced to go to Greece although they did not necessarily identify ´ethnically´ with the Greeks. At the time of the exchange they numbered as many as 400,000.»
(«Mediating the Nation News, Audiences and the Politics of Identity», Mirca Madianou, page 31.)
14)
A) We noted in the previous chapter that, with the help of a troop of Albanians, he subjected his rebel leaders, that his personal bodyguards consisted of Albanians and that the rule of fortresses from Monemvasia to Mistra was also conferred upon warrior of this nation.
B) The Albanians were on the lookout for land, war and booty. Anyone who is sufficiently informed about the Morea, the diversity of its population, its customs and habits, its language and houses, will know that the inhabitants of the onetime states of Corinth, Argos, Epidaurus, Hermione, Sicyon and all of the mountain region of Phlius right to Patras are still primarily inhabited by Albanians, who, in some few regions have exchanged their mother tongue for modern Greek and in the repeatedly ravaged cities of Corinth and Argos have mixed with the Greek-speaking inhabitants.
C) Phrantzes asserts: “Half of Peloponnese land was actually occupied by the Albanians at that time and they attempted to get the other half, too, both by force of arms and by negotiation with Sultan Mehmed II.”
D) Unfortunately for the friends of ancient Greek cause, gentle folk they may be, though not particularly astute, the inhabitants of the Academy of Plato and of all of Attica, of Boeotia, Megara, Corinth, Argolis, Hydra, Spetzia, Phlius and the interior of the Morea, have preserved the customs, language and clothing of their native land to the present day.
15) The London Quarterly Review, published in April 1895 and July 1895: "The Wallachians (Vlachs) ... are numerous in the Peloponnesus."
16) David George Hogarth (page 153, "The Nearer East"):
"Boeotia, with Euboea, is largely in the hands of Toskh Albanians; Thessaly in those of Vlachs and Anatolians, introduced from Konia about the tenth century; and Macedonia, north of Vistritza, in those of a blend of Slav with Bulgar mixed further with Vlach and Anatolian elements."
