The Gorani (, ) or Goranci (, ), are a Slavic ethnic group inhabiting the Gora region, the triangle between Kosovo, Albania, and North Macedonia. They number an estimated 20,000 people and speak a transitional South Slavic dialect called Goranski. The vast majority of the Gorani people adhere to Sunni Islam. which literally means "our people, our ones".

In Macedonian sources, the Gorani are sometimes grouped together with Torbeši.

In the Albanian language, they are known as Goranët and sometimes by other exonyms, such as Bullgarët ("Bulgarians"), Torbesh

History

Contemporary period

The Gora municipality and Opoja region remained separated during the Milošević period.

In 2007, the Kosovo 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.

In 2013, Safet Kuši, a Gorani political leader of the Unique Gorani Party expressed a desire for Gora (the former municipality which still has a Gorani majority) to join the Association of Serb Municipalities.

In 2018, 423 Bulgarian Gorani activists from Kosovo filed a petition in the country's parliament demanding their official recognition as a separate minority. In 2023, in a speech to the European Parliament, Bulgarian MEP Stanislav Stoyanov referred to the Parliament of Kosovo's the five-year delay in hearing the petition as "very concerning" and called on the institution to grant Kosovo Gorani Bulgarian minority rights as in Albania, condemning the practice to count them as a separate ethnic group or as Bosniaks.

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.

Apart from the multiethnic town of Dragash, the Gorani people of Kosovo continue to live in villages primarily inhabited by their community and relations with Albanians remain tense.

Demographics

thumb|Ethnic map of Kosovo in 1991 (former municipality of [[Gora (region)|Gora marked in blue)]]

According to data from the 2024 Kosovo census, the number of Gorani in Kosovo stands ar 9,140. In 1998, it was estimated that they numbered at least 50,000. Albanians, Macedonians, Bosniaks, Muslim Bulgarians, Turks, or just as Muslims.

According to Macedonian sources the Goranis are considered Muslim Macedonians and there are around 84,000 Goranis worldwide and 15,000 Gorani in Gora, Kosovo with 13,000 of them having Macedonian citizenship. In turn, Bulgaria considers the Slavic-speaking Muslims in both Gora and the adjacent Sredačka župa to be Muslim Bulgarians.

According to data from the 2023 Albanian census, the first one where a Bulgarian minority was officially recognised by the Albanian government, a total of 2,174 people self-identified as Bulgarians in the Kukës County. At the same time, the population of the two Gorani-inhabited administrative units of Zapod and Shishtavec stood at 3,671, in 9 Gorani and 5 Albanian villages.

In Kosovo, there are 18

Culture

Religion

thumb|right|200x200px|Mosque in Restelica

In the 18th century, a wave of Islamization began in Gora. The Ottoman abolition of the 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. 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.

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.

Gorani are Sunni Muslims and many practice Sufism, in particular the Halveti and Bektashi Sufi orders are widespread.

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.

<gallery mode="packed">

File:Момче од Гора во народна носија.jpg|Gorani boy in folk costume

File:Veshje Tradicionale Struka e bardh Dhe Dimijat ..JPG|Gorani girls in folk costume

File:Veshje tradicionale.JPG|Elderly Gorani woman in traditional clothing

File:Festa e Patates Shishtavec.JPG|Young Gorani dancing at village festival

</gallery>

Language

thumb|right|150px|Geographical distribution of the [[Torlakian dialect (Gora region in dark orange)]]

The Gorani people speak a local South Slavic dialect known as "Našinski" spoken in Southern Serbia, Western Bulgaria and part of North Macedonia. The Slavic dialect of the Gorani community is known as Gorançe by Albanians. Within the Gorani community there is a recognition of their dialects being closer to the Macedonian language than to Serbian. The Gorani have been used as a lever of Bulgarian irredentism, on the premise that if the Gora dialect is Bulgarian, then all Macedonian dialects are Bulgarian. Illustrating the Bulgarian interest is the first Gorani–Albanian dictionary (with 43,000 words and phrases) published in 2007 by Albanian-Gorani scholar Nazif Dokle, sponsored and printed by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Within scholarship, the Goran dialects previously classified as belonging to Serbian have been reassigned to Macedonian in the 21st century.

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.

According to the 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. Some linguists, including Vidoeski, Brozovic and Ivic, identify the Slavic-dialect of the Gora region as Macedonian. There are assertions that Macedonian is spoken in 50 to 75 villages in the Gora region (Albania and Kosovo). According to some unverified sources, in 2003 the Kosovo government acquired Macedonian language and grammar books for Gorani schools.

In 2008 the first issue of a Macedonian-language newspaper, Гороцвет (Gorocvet) was published.

::Verno libe

:Gledaj me gledaj libe, abe verno libe,

:nagledaj mi se dur ti som ovde.

:Utre ke odim abe verno libe dalek-dalek

:na pusti Gurbet.

:Racaj poracaj libe šo da ti kupim.

:Ti da mi kupiš

:abe gledaniku cerna šamija, ja da ga nosim

:abe gledaniku i da ga želam.

:Racaj poracaj abe verno

:libe šo da ti pratim

:Ti da mi pratiš abe

:gledaniku šarena knjiga

:Ja da ga pujem abe

gledaniku i da ga želam

Organizations

thumb|right|200px|[[United Gorani Party (UGP)]]

Gorani people have several political, cultural and other organizations.

In 2000, the Civic Initiative of Gora (CIG) was founded, with headquarters in Dragaš, and it registered in 2002 as an ethnic political party. It participated in elections on various levels, independently or within wider coalitions. CIG won the Gorani reserved seat in the Transitional Assembly of Kosovo in three consecutive electoral cycles (2001, 2004, 2007), and that seat was held by Rustem Ibiši (2001-2004), Vezira Emruš (2004-2007), and Murselj Haljilji (2007-2010). In 2010, CIG also won the Gorani reserved seat in the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, and it was again held by Murselj Haljilji (2011-2014).

In 2014, the United Gorani Party (UGP) was also formed, headed by Adem Hodža. Within Coalition for Gora, UGP won the Gorani reserved seat in the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, and that seat was held by Adem Hodža (2014-2017), who was also reelected (2017-2019).

The Belgrade based Civic Initiative of Gorani, a political party headed by Orhan Dragaš, represents Gorani people in Serbia.

Notable people

  • Edin Bajrami, President of the Association of the Gorani in Macedonia
  • Almen Abdi, Swiss footballer, from Prizren
  • Zufer Avdija, Israeli-Serbian former basketball player and coach, born in Pristina
  • Deni Avdija, Israeli basketball player, son of Zufer
  • Harun Hasani, Serbian cultural figure and politician
  • Deni Hočko, Montenegrin footballer, Gorani parentage
  • Adem Hodža, Kosovan politician, from Restelica
  • Veldin Hodža, Kosovan footballer, from Restelica
  • Zeli Ismail, English footballer, from Kukës
  • Sascha Jusufi, German footballer, son of Fahrudin Jusufi
  • Danel Sinani, Serbian-born Luxembourg footballer, from Dragash
  • Dejvid Sinani, Serbian-born Luxembourg footballer, brother of Danel
  • Miralem Sulejmani, Serbian footballer, Gorani father
  • Ibro Vait, Serbian academic and politician

See also

  • Torbeši
  • Pomaks

References

Sources

;Books

;Journals

;Symposia

  • Oberling, "Gurān", Encyclopædia Iranica, at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/guran