Architetture e idiomi. Diversità e coesione nelle minoranze grecaniche tra spazio, assenza e memoria / Architecture and idioms. Diversity and cohesion in the Greek minorities between space, absence and memory

The "Greece of Calabria" includes a large territory placed between the low Ionian and the foothills of the Aspromonte.In the villages that fill the valley of Amendolea and the fringes to the east of the Ionian coast there is an ellenofona minoritythat, for centuries, is united by the same language and a common Greek-Byzantine origin.The grecanic linguistic matrix, which until the last century has been a strong elementof identitarian belonging, today is extremely marginal.The geographical location in inaccessible areas has allowed for centuries the preservation of an old idiomthat today seems to give in to the contemporary cultural and linguistic conformity.The architectures and the urban spaces that accept these communities do not have different characteristics from other towns in Calabria,but the folk traditions, the language and the typical customs interpret the spaces in a unique and identitarian way.It is the content of the places, rather than the places themselves, to define their identity.To survey, to understand and to interpret the past is the first step of the valorization.To preserve, in the case of the linguistic minorities, means to raise and to spread a heritage that, after centuriesof belonging to the territories, will to cede, today, to a dangerous and alienating cultural erosion.