Vraka


Vraka is a minor region in Shkodër County in northern Albania. The region includes settlements located on the shore of Lake Scutari, some 7 km north of the city of Shkodër. This ethnographic region is inhabited by Serb-Montenegrins, Podgoriçani and Albanians; it used to be mainly inhabited by Serb-Montenegrins. A small Serbo-Montenegrin community migrated and established itself in Vraka during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The majority of the Serbo-Montenegrin community came to Vraka, Albania from Montenegro during the interwar Zogist period following 1926 and later from 1938 until 1948. By the year 2010 most of the Orthodox families returned to Montenegro and Serbia. Today there are only few families living there.

Settlements

Early history

The toponym is Slavic.
More recently, Montenegrins and Serbs began migrating to Vraka in the late 17th century. According to Jovan Erdeljanović, in his book Stara Crna Gora, all descendants of Jovan Martinović, who has been mentioned since 1687, have emigrated to Vraka. From confirmed documents, one of the first families to inhabit the area of Vraka was in 1705 were the Đurčevići from the village of Momče in Kuči. A certain Jerko Đurčević was the only one from his clan in Vraka to convert to Islam. His descendants later became known as the Jerkovići, who are found in the village of Štoj, near Ulcinj.
According to Edith Durham the people of Vraka had fled from Bosnia and Montenegro, because of blood feud.

Modern history

Following the Great Eastern Crisis, from 1878 onward a small Muslim Montenegrin speaking community living in the region exists and are known as Podgoriçani, due to their origins from Podgorica in Montenegro.
In 1909, the Eparchy of Raška–Prizren had 15 protopresbyteriates, the last of which was Skadar, where the parish of Vraka contained 119 households with a church in Novi Borič dedicated to Assumption of the Holy Virgin, parish under Petar Mreković.
In 1918, beside the Serbian Orthodox in Scutari, there were communities in different neighbouring villages such as Vraka, Vramenica, Derigniat, etc., as well as several thousands of Slavic Muslims of Montenegrin and Bosnia-Herzegovina origin. In 1920, the following villages had Serbian majority or plurality: Brch, Basits, Vraka, Sterbets, Kadrum. Farming was the chief occupation of the villages.
Vraka is known for having been the place where poet Millosh Gjergj Nikolla became teacher on 23 April 1933, and it was in this period that he started to write prose sketches and verses. The village of Vraka was at the time entirely inhabited by Serb-Montenegrins. The Serb school in Vrake was destroyed in 1934.
A period of immigration existed between 1925 and 1934. This wave marked the migration of many Serb-Montenegrin families to Montenegro, Serbia proper and Kosovo, leaving their homes in Vraka behind. For example, Rrash-Kullaj was inhabited by Serbs–Montenegrins until World War II when the whole population emigrated to Yugoslavia.
As part of a campaign of state promoted atheism, Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha destroyed Serbian cemeteries and two Serb churches.
In 1990 most of the minority community of Vraka went to Montenegro. As the border opened up, many members of the community left between March-December 1991 for Montenegro and Vraka, Boriç and other nearby areas became severely depopulated. During that time with economic problems and tensions arising in areas of the former Yugoslavia, it made some 600 of them return home to Albania.
In 1992, the Morača-Rozafa Association was established.
During the Yugoslav Wars, there were incidents of violence against the Serb-Montenegrin minority in places like Boriç i Vogël and Boriç i Madh, where the Albanian government tried to forcibly take land from them. There were reports that the Albanian government also attempted to forcibly resettle Serb-Montenegrins and Podgoriçani from Boriç i Vogël, Boriç i Madh, Vraka and other places.
In March 1992, as part of state policy by Serbia and Montenegro to increase the numbers of Serbs in Kosovo, nearly 3,000 people from the Serb minority in Albania emigrated to the region after accepting a government offer for employment and housing in the area. Another wave came back due to the Kosovo War.
In the early twenty first century, the community lives largely on trade with Montenegro and communal relations with Albanian inhabitants are regarded as good by many of its members.

Demographics

The region serves as the centre of the Serb-Montenegrin minority in Albania. The estimations of the total number of Serb-Montenegrins in the area vary from 1,000 to over 2,000. The community has retained their language, culture and religion. The minority association of the community, the "Morača-Rozafa", represents the interests of this minority in Shkodër.
During the early 2010s linguists Klaus Steinke and Xhelal Ylli seeking to corroborate villages cited in past literature as being Slavic speaking carried out fieldwork in settlements of the area. Of the Shkodër area exists seven villages with a Slavophone population that speak a Montenegrin dialect.
The surnames were forcibly changed by the Albanian government, from Slavic into Albanian ones, as part of Albanianization. The changed surnames, in Serbo-Croatian transliteration, are indicated with
;Serb–Montenegrin families
;Podgoriçani families
;Albanian families