Macedonians in Albania
[10] Past Helsinki reports stated, "Albania recognizes [...] a Macedonian minority, but only in the Southern regions.
[12] Albanian Slavs are targeted by "Bulgarian cross-border nationalism" and, as an EU member, Bulgaria offers more benefits to this minority than Macedonia does.
According to Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 Edition, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Slavs constituted the majority of the population in Macedonia.
[18] On the other hand, in 1934 the Comintern gave its support to the idea that the Macedonian Slavs constituted a separate nationality.
[20] The former Prime Minister Aleksander Meksi openly admitted the presence of ethnic Bulgarians near the Lake Prespa in 1993.
[21] After the fall of communism, in 1998, many Macedonians from Mala Prespa and Golo Brdo illegally crossed to the Republic of Macedonia.
[26] Its presence is supported by field researchers from Bulgaria, but is disputed by ethnic Macedonian activists there.
[27][28] According to Edmond Temelko, former mayor of the Pustec Municipality, "[...] Bulgaria uses heavy economic situation of Macedonians in Albania to offer them Bulgarian citizenship, passports and employment opportunity".
[32][33] Despite high levels of emigration the official number of people registering as Macedonians in Albania has more than doubled over the last 60 years, according to Albanian census data.
[35][36] Some believed the Albanian government had stated that it would jail anyone who did not participate in the census of 2011 or refused to declare their ethnicity.
[39] Some, however, have moved to larger cities like Tirana, where roughly 500 ethnic Macedonians live as of the 2011 census.
[40] Macedonians are only officially recognised as a minority population in Municipality of Pustec, on the shores of Lake Prespa.
[42] In the 2010s, only one elderly women remains in Boboshticë who is a speaker of the village local Macedonian dialect called Kajnas (of us).
He noted that the Albanian population numerically dominated in all the aforementioned villages, with the exception of Trebisht.
[47][46] Stëblevë administrative unit: Steblevë (Macedonian: Стеблево/Steblevo or Стебљево/Stebljevo) is inhabited solely by a Slavic speaking population that contains Torbeši.
[49][50] Until the 1990s the local Orthodox Macedonian minority, who have since largely migrated, used to live in some villages alongside the Gollobordas of whom in the 2010s number some roughly 3,000 people.
[53] In Herebel only 6 Orthodox Slavic speaking families made up of 3 larger households of around 20 individuals each remain.
[52] In Kërçisht i Epërm the village contains 200 inhabitants and 45 households, of which 6 are Orthodox families with a total of 17 individuals.
[52] On the eve of the collapse of communism in 1991, Kërçisht i Epërm had 110 households with 27 belonging to the Orthodox community.
[52] Use of the Macedonian language in Kërçisht i Epërm is limited and facing extinction, due to usage being confined to the family.
[53] Linguists Steinke and Ylli also noted that unlike the Gollobordë region, the villages of the Maqellarë administrative unit area do not have any Muslim Slavic speaking inhabitants, and the village of Katund i Vogël no longer has any Slavic Christians left and is inhabited only by Albanians.
[38] Sources from the Republic of Macedonia claim the Gorani people to be a subgroup of ethnic Macedonians.
There are eight-year schools at the two biggest villages of the commune, Pustec and Goricë e Madhe, where 20 percent of the texts are held at the mother tongue language.
[58] The relationship between the Prespa region in Albania and the Prespa-Pelagonia Diocese of the Macedonian Orthodox Church has been re-established since the 1990s.
In 1995, Metropolitan Peter reconsecrated the Church of Saint George in Glloboçen, with funds for its re-construction coming from the Republic of Macedonia, Canada, and Switzerland.
