23 Facts About Sarakatsani

Sarakatsani are an ethnic Greek population subgroup who were traditionally transhumant shepherds, native to Greece, with a smaller presence in neighbouring Bulgaria, southern Albania, and North Macedonia.

Sarakatsani'storically centred on the Pindus mountains and other mountain ranges in continental Greece, most Sarakatsani have abandoned the transhumant way of life and have been urbanised.

Many of the 19th century descriptions of the Sarakatsani do not differentiate them from the other great shepherd people of the Balkans, the Aromanians a Romance-speaking population.

The Sarakatsani have been referred to as Roumeliotes or Moraites, names based on where they lived.

Otto, the first king of modern Greece, was well known to be a great admirer of the Sarakatsani, and is said to have fathered an illegitimate child early in his reign with a woman from a Sarakatsani clan named Tangas.

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Sarakatsani found no traces of foreign elements in the Sarakatsani dialect and no traces of sedentism in their material culture.

Sarakatsani visited the Sarakatsani of Epirus and mentioned other groups with no fixed villages in several other parts of Greece as well.

Georgakas and Kavadias believe that the Sarakatsani are either descendants of ancient nomads who inhabited the mountain regions of Greece in the pre-classical times, or they are descended from sedentary Greek peasants forced to leave their original settlements around the 14th century who became nomadic shepherds.

Angeliki Hatzimihali, a Greek folklorist who spent a lifetime among the Sarakatsani, emphasises the prototypical elements of Greek culture that she found in the pastoral way of life, social organisation and art forms of the Sarakatsani.

English historian and anthropologist John K Campbell arrives at the conclusion that the Sarakatsani must have always lived in—more or less—the same conditions and areas as they were found in his days of research in the mid-1950s.

The Aromanians are usually bilingual in Greek and Aromanian, while the Sarakatsani communities have always spoken only Greek and have known no other language.

Sarakatsani asserts that the increasing pressure on the limited areas available for winter grazing in the coastal plains has resulted in disputes between the two groups on the use of the pastures.

The Sarakatsani differ from the Aromanians in that they dower their daughters, assign a lower position to women and adhere to an even stricter patriarchal structure.

Today, almost all Sarakatsani have abandoned their nomadic way of life and assimilated to mainstream modern Greek life, but there have been efforts to preserve their cultural heritage.

Sarakatsani are Greek Orthodox Christians and affiliated with the Church of Greece.

Sarakatsani traditionally have spent the summer months in the mountains and returned to the lower plains in the winter.

However, according to a theory, the Sarakatsani were not always nomads, but only turned to harsh nomadic mountain life to escape Ottoman rule.

The Sarakatsani were found in several mountainous regions of continental Greece, with some groups of northern Greece moving to neighbouring countries in the summer, since border crossings between Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia were relatively unobstructed until the middle of the 20th century.

Traditional Sarakatsani settlements were located on or near grazing lands both during summers and winters.

Since the late 1930s, national requirements for the registration of citizens have led most of the Sarakatsani to adopt as legal residence the villages associated with summer grazing lands, and many have since built permanent houses in such villages.

Until the mid-20th century, the Sarakatsani were scattered in many parts of Greece, with those of the northern Greek regions moving frequently for the summer months to neighbouring countries, such as Albania, southern Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and East Thrace in Turkey.

The vast majority of the Sarakatsani have abandoned the nomadic way of life and live permanently in their villages, while many members of the younger generation have moved to the principal Greek cities.

An alternative Bulgarian theory claims that the Sarakatsani are descendants of Hellenized Thracians who, because of their isolation in the mountains, were not Slavicised.