TIRANA — Throughout most of their modern history, Albanians have confused Armenians with Jews, and vice-versa. This is hardly surprising, since the two minorities have had so much in common.
Adding to the confusion is the term “Caucasian Albania” — the name for an ancient state located in the Caucasus, mostly in what is now Azerbaijan. It thrived between the second century B.C. and the eighth century A.D., but has no connection, geographically or otherwise, with modern Albania.
Beginning in the late 1800s, both Armenians and Jews came to this small Balkan country on the Adriatic Sea to escape persecution. Both ethnicities put high priorities on education, producing physicians, dentists and intellectuals far out of proportion to their numbers. And throughout the long dark years of communism, both groups struggled with isolation and assimilation.
In early 1991, with the Marxist regime crumbling, nearly all of Albania’s Jews fled to Israel. That left the country’s 300 or so Armenians as Albania’s tiniest — and perhaps least-known — minority.
Since then, with Albanians free to leave for the first time in half a century, the community has dwindled to perhaps 100 souls. So says Etrit Adami, a music professor and prominent Armenian-Albanian who also runs a web development and freelance design company on the side.
Adami traces his Armenian roots to his maternal great-grandfather, Mikal Truja, who was living in Edirne, Turkey, with his Armenian wife, Takui Ohanessian.
