The Gorani ([ɡɔ̌rani], Cyrillic: Горани) or Goranci ([ɡɔrǎːntsi], Cyrillic: Горанци), 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.
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👉 Gorani people in the context of Slavs
The Slavs or Slavic people are a major ethnic group in Europe. They speak Slavic languages and preserve Slavic culture. There are 13 Slavic countries in Europe, which include: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria; the Slavs comprise a population of around 300 million people. There are three different Slavic ethnic groups: the West Slavs, the East Slavs, and the South Slavs; the Poles, Silesians, Kashubians, Sorbs, Czechs, and Slovaks are West Slavs; Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Rusyns are East Slavs; while Slovenes, Resians, Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs, Montenegrins, Torlakians, the Gorani, the Torbeši, Macedonians, and Bulgarians are South Slavs. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and Northern Asia, though there is a large Slavic minority scattered across the Baltic states and Central Asia, and a substantial Slavic diaspora in the Americas, Western Europe, and Northern Europe.
Early Slavs lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from the 5th to the 10th century AD), and came to control large parts of Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe between the sixth and seventh centuries. Beginning in the 7th century, they were gradually Christianized. By the 12th century, they formed the core population of a number of medieval Christian states: East Slavs in the Kievan Rus', South Slavs in the Bulgarian Empire, the Principality of Serbia, the Duchy of Croatia and the Banate of Bosnia, and West Slavs in the Principality of Nitra, Great Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, and the Kingdom of Poland.
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Gorani people in the context of Muslims (ethnic group)
Muslims (Serbo-Croatian Latin and Slovene: Muslimani, Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic and Macedonian: Муслимани) are an ethnoreligious group of Serbo-Croatian-speaking Muslims, inhabiting mostly the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The term Muslims became widely used for the Serbo-Croatian-speaking Muslims in the early 1900s. It gained official recognition in the 1910 census. The 1971 amendment to the Constitution of Yugoslavia also recognised them as a distinct nationality. It grouped several distinct South Slavic communities of Islamic ethnocultural tradition. Before 1993, a vast majority of present-day Bosniaks self-identified as ethnic Muslims, along with some smaller groups of different ethnicities, such as Gorani and Torbeši. This designation did not include non-Slavic Yugoslav Muslims, such as Albanians, Turks and some Romani people.
Gorani people in the context of Gora (region)
Gora (Cyrillic: Гора; Albanian: Gorë) is a geographical region in southern Kosovo and northeastern Albania, primarily inhabited by the Gorani people. Due to geopolitical circumstances, some of the local Gorani people have over time also self declared themselves as Albanians, Macedonians, Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Turks and Muslims by ethnicity.
Gorani inhabited settlements in Albania and Kosovo are synonymous with the geographical outline of Gora as a region. Between 1992 and 1999, the Gora region in Kosovo was designated as a municipality, and its population was 17,574 people according to the 1991 census. Today in Kosovo, the region is part of Dragash municipality that includes the Albanian inhabited Opoja region. In Albania, the Gora region is located in Kukës County and parts of it are subdivided in the Shishtavec and Zapod territorial units. Nearby, two Gorani settlements geographically located in the Polog region of North Macedonia are ethnographically and linguistically associated with the Gora region.
Gorani people in the context of Gora dialect
The Gorani or Goranski, also Našinski ("Our language") language, is a regiolectal variety of South Slavic spoken by the Gorani people in the border area between Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Albania. It is part of the Torlakian dialect group, which is transitional between Eastern and Western South Slavic languages.
Gorani people in the context of Islam in Kosovo
Islam in Kosovo has a long-standing tradition dating back to the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. Before the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the entire Balkan region had been Christianized by both the Western and Eastern Roman Empire. From 1389 until 1912, Kosovo was officially governed by the Muslim Ottoman Empire and a high level of Islamization occurred among Catholic and Orthodox Albanians, mainly due to Sufi orders and socio-political opportunism. Both Christian and Muslim Albanians intermarried and some lived as "Laramans", also known as Crypto-Christians. During the time period after World War II, Kosovo was ruled by secular socialist authorities in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). During that period, Kosovars became increasingly secularized. After the end of the communist period, religion had a revival in Kosovo. Today, 95.6% of Kosovo's population are Sunni Muslims, most of whom are ethnic Albanians. There are also non-Albanian speaking Muslims, who define themselves as Bosniaks, Gorani and Turks.
Islam in Kosovo is predominantly Hanafi Sunni, the most widespread tradition in the Balkans. Additionally, Kosovo has Sufi orders, particularly the Bektashi order, which blends elements of Shia and Sufi traditions. Other Sufi brotherhoods, such as the Halveti and Kadiri orders, also exist. According to a 2012 study by the Pew Research Center, 58% of muslims in Kosovo are non-denominational Muslims, which is practicing Islam without strict adherence to a particular sect or school of thought.