Fustanella
Fustanella is a traditional pleated skirt-like garment that is also referred to as a kilt worn by men of many nations in the Balkans. In modern times, the fustanella is part of Balkan folk dresses. In Greece, a short version of the fustanella is worn by ceremonial military units such as the Evzones, while in Albania it was worn by the Royal Guard in the interbellum era. Both Greece and Albania claim the fustanella as a national costume. Additionally Aromanians claim the fustanella as their ethnic costume.
Origins
Some scholars state that the fustanella was derived from a series of ancient Greek garments such as the chiton and the chitonium. Although the pleated skirt has been linked to an ancient statue located in the area around the Acropolis in Athens, there is no surviving ancient Greek clothing that can confirm this connection. However, a 5th-century BC relief statue was discovered in Vari Cave, Attica, by Charles Heald Weller of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens depicting a stonecutter, Archedemus the Nympholept, wearing a fustanella-like garment. The Roman toga may have also influenced the evolution of the fustanella based on statues of Roman emperors wearing knee-length pleated skirts. Folklorist Ioanna Papantoniou considers the Celtic kilt, as viewed by the Roman legions, to have served as a prototype. Sir Arthur Evans considered the fustanella of the female peasants living near the modern Bosnian-Montenegrin borders as a preserved Illyrian element among the local Slavic-speaking populations.In the Byzantine Empire, a pleated skirt known as the podea was worn. The wearer of the podea was either associated with a typical hero or an Akritic warrior and can be found in 12th-century finds attributed to Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. On Byzantine pottery sherds, warriors are shown bearing weapons and wearing the heavy pleated fustanella, including a mace-bearer clad in chain-mail.
In his Lexicon of Medieval Latin, Charles du Fresne suggests that fustanum originates from the Roman palla. Cotton fustana was among the belongings of Pope Urban V.
Evolution
Greece
shows that the fustanella was already in common use in Greek lands as early as the 12th century. Byzantine warriors, in particular the Akritai, wearing fustanella are depicted in contemporary Byzantine art. This is also confirmed by the Medieval Greek acritic songs of the 12th century. The full-pleated fustanella was worn from the Byzantine Akritic warriors originally as a military outfit and seems to have been reserved for persons of importance. It was frequently worn in conjunction with bows, swords, or battle-axes and frequently shown covered with a jointed corselet, or with a vest of chain mail.According to another view the fustanella is thought originally to have been a Tosk Albanian costume introduced into Greek territories during the Ottoman period. During the Ottoman period, the fustanella was also worn by the klephts and the armatoloi. Fustanella was a suitable garment for guerrilla mountain units, thus it was worn by the klephts of the Ottoman period for the same reason it was worn by the akritai warriors of the Byzantine era earlier. According to some scholars, it subsequently became part of the national dress of Greece as a consequence of the migration and settlement of Albanians in the region.
In the early 19th century, the costume's popularity rose among the Greek population. During this era of post-independence Greece, parts of Greek society such as townspeople shed their Turkish-style clothing and adopted the fustanella which symbolised solidarity with new Greek democracy. It became difficult thereafter to distinguish the fustanella as clothing worn by male Arvanites from clothing worn by wider parts of Greek society. According to Helen Angelomatis-Tsougarakis, its popularity in the Morea was attributed to the influence of the Arvanite community of Hydra and other Albanian-speaking settlements in the area. The Hydriotes however could not have played a significant role in its development since they did not wear the fustanella, but similar costumes to the other Greek islanders. In other regions of Greece the popularity of the fustanella was attributed to the elevation of Albanians as an Ottoman ruling class such as Ali Pasha, the semi-independent ruler of the Pashalik of Yanina. In those areas, its lightweight design and manageability in comparison to the clothing of the Greek upper classes of the era also made it fashionable amongst them in adopting the fustanella.
men in Western Macedonia, Greece, 1935.|alt=|left
The fustanella worn by the Roumeliotes was the version chosen as the national costume of Greece in the early 19th century. Of the Roumeliotes, the nomadic Greek speaking Sarakatsani pastoralists wore the fustanella. The Aromanians, a Latin speaking people who within Greece also wore the fustanella. During the reign of King Othon I, the fustanella was adopted by the king, the royal court and the military, while it became a service uniform imposed on government officials to wear even when abroad. In terms of geographical spread, the fustanella never became part of the clothing worn in the Aegean islands, whereas in Crete it was associated with the heroes of the Greek War of Independence in local theatrical productions and seldom as a government uniform. By the late 19th century, the popularity of the fustanella in Greece began to fade when Western-style clothing was introduced.
The fustanella film was a popular genre in the Greek cinema from 1930s to 1960s. This genre emphasized on depictions of rural Greece and was focused on the differences between rural and urban Greece. In general it offered an idealized depiction of the Greek village, where the fustanella was a typical image. In Greece today, the garment is seen a relic of a past era with which most members of the younger generations do not identify.
The Greek fustanella differs from the Albanian fustanella in that the former garment has a higher number of pleats. For example, the "Bridegroom's coat", worn throughout the districts of Attica and Boeotia, was a type of Greek fustanella unique for its 200 pleats; a bride would purchase it as a wedding gift for her groom. A fustanella is worn with a yileki, a mendani and a fermeli. The selachi with gold or silver embroidery, is worn around the waist over the fustanella, in which the armatoles and the klephts placed their arms.
During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the skirts hung below the knees and the hem of the garment was gathered together with garters while tucked into the boots to create a "bloused" effect. Later, during the Bavarian regency, the skirts were shortened to create a sort of billowy pantaloon that stopped above the knee; this garment was worn with hose, and either buskins or decorative clogs. This is the costume worn by the Evzones, light mountain troops of the Hellenic Army. Today it is still worn by the ceremonial Presidential Guard.
Albania
A 14th-century document listing a series of items including a fustanum, which were confiscated from a sailor at the port of the Drin River in the Skadar Lake region of Albania. During the Ottoman conquest of Albania in the late 15th century, Albanian Tosks who arrived in southern Italy wore the fustanella which distinguished them from Albanian Ghegs who wore tight breeches. In the 19th century, within the area of contemporary southern Albania and northern Greek Epirus, British traveler John Cam Hobhouse noticed that when traveling from the Greek-speaking area into the Albanian-speaking area, apart from different languages a change of clothing occurred. Those Albanian speakers wore the Kamisa shirt and kilt, while Greek speakers wore woolen brogues.in 1813. Venizelos Mansion, Athens.
Other British travelers within the region such as Lord Byron celebrated the Albanian costume and described it as "the most magnificent in the world, consisting of long, white kilt, gold-worked cloak, crimson velvet gold laced jacket and waist-coat, silver mounted pistols and daggers". In 1848–1849, British painter Edward Lear traveling within the area of contemporary Albania observed that the fustanella was for Albanians a characteristic national costume. While during the 19th century the use of the fustanella was worn over tight fitting tirq pants amongst male Albanian Ghegs by village groups of the Malësorë or highlanders of the Kelmend, Berisha, Shala and Hoti tribes. They reserved use of the fustanella for elites during important and formal occasions such as dispute resolutions, election of local tribal representatives and allegiance declarations. In the middle of the 19th century, Albanian guerilla fighters abandoned the Turkish pants and begun wearing a kilt similar to the fustanella of the Greek Evzones. During the 1920s, the fustanella began to go out of fashion among Tosks being replaced with Western style clothing made by local tailors.
Smoking, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1865.
The Albanian fustanella has around sixty pleats, or usually a moderate number. It is made of heavy home-woven linen cloth. Historically, the skirt was long enough to cover the whole thigh, leaving only the lower leg exposed. It was usually worn by wealthy Albanians who would also expose an ornamented yataghan on the side and a pair of pistols with long-chiseled silver handles in the belt. The general custom in Albania was to dip the white skirts in melted sheep-fat for the double purpose of making them waterproof and less visible at a distance. Usually, this was done by the men-at-arms the kundra, which are black shoes with a metal buckle, 2) the sholla, which are sandals with leather thongs tied around a few inches above the ankle, 3) the opinga, which is a soft leather shoe, with turned-up points, which, when intended for children, are surmounted with a pompon of black or red wool.
Among the Greek population in southern Albania, a sigouni, a sleeveless coat made of thick white wool, is worn over the fustanella in the regions of Dropull and Tepelenë. In 1914, the newly formed Greek armed forces of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus consisted of military units wearing Evzone uniforms.
Aromanians
The Aromanians are an Eastern Romance-speaking peoples who live south of the Danube in what are now Serbia, Albania, northern Greece, North Macedonia, and southwestern Bulgaria, this includes the Megleno-Romanians. In Aromanian rural areas, clothes differed from the dress of the city dwellers. The shape and the colour of a garment, the volume of the headgear, the shape of a jewel could indicate cultural affiliation and also could show the village people came from. Fustanella usage among Aromanians can be traced to at least the 15th century, with notable examples being seen in the Aromanian stećak of the Radimlja necropolis.North Macedonia
In North Macedonia, the fustanella was worn in the regions of Azot, Babuna, Gevgelija, the southern area of the South Morava, Ovče Pole, Lake Prespa, Skopska Blatija, and Tikveš. In that area, it is known as fustan, ajta, or toska. The use of the term toska could be attributed to the hypothesis that the costume was introduced to certain regions within Macedonia as a cultural borrowing from the Albanians of Toskëria.Bosnia and Herzegovina
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the fustanella was worn by Vlachs who were registered in medieval times in these lands. Some of their tombstones contains petroglyphs with their fustanella.Aromanians of Bosnia and Herzegovina were Serbianized and during time, some of them passed to Bogomilism and finally to Islam faith. Their tombstones were described by Marian Wenzel.