Ostrec
Ostrec (Macedonian Cyrillic: Острец; Albanian: Ostrec) is a village about 12 kilometers away from Bitola, Macedonia. According to the 2002 census, it has a total population of 229 [1] with 228 Albanians and 1 other.[2] Due to emigration in the 1960-1970s, a sizable diaspora from the village exists in the mainly Western Suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.[3] As well as a very large number have settled in Chicago, Florida and New York, U.S., with a smaller number in Toronto, Canada.
Those settlements took place generally after the Second World War starting in the 1950s, '60s, continuing through the '70s, '80s, and beyond, However a very large number of Albanians from Ostrec immigrated in the early 1900s to Turkish cities such as Izmir and Istanbul. The dialect spoken in Ostrec is the Geg dialect of the Albanian Language, almost the same as the Matjan and the Dibran dialect. Other places that people from Ostrec have settled are central Albania, Tirana and Kavaja as well as the Village of Kalush near Kavaja.
References
- ↑ http://makedonija.name/municipalities/bitola/ostrec
- ↑ Book 5 - Total population according to the Ethnic Affiliation, Mother Tongue and Religion, The State Statistical Office, Skopje, 2002, p. 70.
- ↑ "After World War II". Immigration Museum. Retrieved 30 November 2015. "Albanian migration in the wake of World War II is intimately connected with the turbulent political, social and economic conditions of the homelands: Albania, Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro. Following the war, the establishment of a Stalinist dictatorship in Albania and a centralised communist regime in former Yugoslavia had profound and deeply tragic consequences. A small number of refugees from Albania, and especially Albanians from the Prespa region in south-western Macedonia, were resettled in Australia. Sharing a common dialect – Toskë, one of the major southern Albanian dialects – and a long history of intermarriage and cultural exchange with Albanians from the Korçë region, they found a ready sense of community and solidarity with the early kurbetxhi in Victoria and elsewhere in Australia. With mass migration to Australia during the 1960s and 1970s, the Prespa Albanians and those from the nearby villages of Këshavë and Ostrec formed a large proportion of the Albanian community in Australia, numbering 5,401 in 1991. The majority of these mostly Muslim Albanians settled in Victoria, principally in Melbourne's industrial, working-class suburbs of Dandenong, Footscray, Yarraville, Altona, St Albans, Preston, Thomastown and Lalor."
Coordinates: 41°02′N 21°16′E / 41.033°N 21.267°E