Vlachs' origins BLAXOI !!!!
A number of theories and opinions have been expounded regarding the Vlachs' origins and ancestry. Unfortunately, many of them reflect a romantic and rather desperate quest for a glorious past and illustrious forebears; and they are closely tied up with political agendas and Balkan outpourings of nationalism, particularly Romanian aspirations and the Greek counter-arguments. The subject of this study isn't the distant ancestry of the Vlachs; because whatever their ancestry is, it doesn't seem to have played any particular part in their more recent evolution. The fundamental subject of this study is the Vlachs themselves, and it focuses on who the Vlachs are, not what they are. Apart from the indisputable fact of the Vlachs' existence, my main objective is to show how the Vlach-speaking populations have lived with and integrated with their Greek-speaking and non-Greek-speaking fellow-travellers, and also to illustrate their very important contribution to the shaping of Romiosyni and the creation of modern Greece and the modern Greek identity. In these pages it becomes clear that it is the Vlachs' recent history (17th-20th centuries) that has been most important and played the biggest part in determining their identity. I've written this study in such a way that it can serve as a kind of reference book, in which readers may seek discrete information about the specific population group, the village, or the settlement that interests them. So a certain amount of overlapping and repetition is inevitable.
The stereotypical concepts about the Vlachs are full of myths and fictions, most of which have grown out of the chequered history of the Vlachs themselves. It's my intention to demolish a number of these, the most baseless of which is that the Vlachs are a small, marginal group of traditional, uncultured, nomadic stockbreeders. However similar they may seem, there's a clear distinction between vlahos with a small v (used simply to mean a 'shepherd' in modern Greek) and Vlahos with a capital v. Certainly, the various Vlach groups have included smaller groups directly connected with various forms of stockbreeding, connections which go back to the deep Middle Ages. But the presence of Vlach farmers, merchants, craftsmen, and professionals is far from negligible. When the Vlach population groups began gradually to make their presence felt in the Balkans in the early seventeenth century, they appeared not only as nomadic shepherds, but also as itinerant traders, merchants, craftsmen, professionals, and retailers, and also as very capable fighters in the form of armatoles and klefts. Earlier studies overlooked the decisive nature of the Vlach population groups' social and economic development, though it attracted the interest of foreign travellers as early as the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Ultimately, the Vlachs' origins as 'urban' merchants and craftsmen seem to go back just as far as their roots as nomadic or transhumant stockbreeders. In fact, their urban class is as old as, or older than, that of many other Balkan groups.
A great deal of fiction also permeates the Vlachs' nomenclature. We mustn't overlook the fact that the vast majority of the Vlachs, both within and beyond the borders of Greece, refer to themselves as Armîn, pl. ArmÎni (Aroumanians), a term which has the same root as Romios pl. Romii, which is what the Greek-speaking populations called themselves until the term Ellinas pl. Ellines (Greeks or Hellenes) reasserted itself. All the other names that are applied to the Vlachs were given to them by their various neighbours. Even the name 'Vlachs' was originally given to them by the Germanic-speaking invaders in the Balkans, who used it of the various Latin-speaking populations generally. The Slavonic-speakers took it over from the Germanic-speakers, and it was eventually adopted by the Byzantines and later by the Ottomans. Terms such as Koutsovlach, Bourdzovlach, Karavlach, Gog, Çoban, and Činčar carry pejorative overtones and are offensive to the Vlachs, though Činčar has in fact acquired nuances of class and distinction, particularly in the more northerly parts of the Balkans. Significantly, Spyridon Vlahos, Archbishop of Athens, commented to Alexandros Svolos: 'Anyone who uses the term Koutsovlach is himself a koutso-writer' (koutsos = 'lame, limping'). In this study I've opted to use the term 'Vlach' rather than 'Aroumanian' or 'Armîn', because this is how the Vlachs refer to themselves nowadays when speaking Greek. Furthermore, 'Vlach' is used and understood in the other Balkan languages, whereas 'Aroumanian' is almost unknown outside specialist and, of course, Vlach circles.
I must also explain some other terms used in this study, such as Grekos (pl. Greki; fem. Greka, pl. Grekes). To a Vlach-speaker, the Greki are all the Christians whose mother tongue is one of the Greek dialects that have been spoken in the Balkans down the ages. In many cases, however, the term 'Grekos' has carried political overtones and been used of individuals, groups, or whole populations who, although their mother tongue wasn't Greek, were supporters, in the nineteenth to twentieth century, of the 'Hellenic idea', the sense of belonging to the Greek, or at least the modern Greek, nation. The term 'Grecoman' is an extension of those political ideas. It essentially meant a non-Greek-speaking but fanatical supporter of the 'Hellenic idea', and was used as a term of abuse by the rival factions. The term 'Romaniser' was equally pejorative, and was applied to people who were allegedly blind followers of Romanian propaganda. As for the compound Ellinovlachos (Greek-Vlach), it clearly carries both cultural and political overtones. Although Ellinovlachos and Grekovlachos were used from the early nineteenth century onwards, before the various propaganda and nationalist movements exploded onto the Balkan scene, nowadays it seems otiose to define the Vlachs as 'Greek' in this way. I shall never forget what I heard from the simple people who gave the wisest, clearest answers to my questions, drawn from their own profound experience. Barba-Kostas Ziogas in Perithori near Kato Nevrokopi was one, and he told me: 'Look, lad, the Greki aren't more Greek than we are. We may be Vlachs, they may be Greki, but all together we make up the Greeks.'
The Vlachs always had clear names for the other inhabitants of the Balkans. In accordance with the same political perception based on experience, they referred to all the Balkan Moslems as 'Turks'; though they did distinguish certain non-Turkish-speaking groups among the Moslems, such as the Albanian-speaking Tourkalvani or Arnauts, the Slavonic-speaking Pomaks and Karagovalis, the Greek-speaking Valaades, and the Moslem Vlach-speaking inhabitants of Notia in Moglena. Regarding their Slavonic-speaking Orthodox Christian neighbours, they recognised the existence of Bulgarians and Serbs, but also that of the Slavonic-speaking 'Grecomans'. The Vlach inhabitants of Kruševo in FYROM still use the term Vîrgari (Bulgarians) of their fellow townsfolk who are descended from Slavonic-speaking families. The Vlachs call the Albanian-speaking Orthodox Christians Arbinesi, and it was under this name that the ancestors of the modern Albanians first appeared in the Middle Ages.
There's a mistaken view that the Sarakatsani are linguistically Hellenised Vlachs. It was first presented and cultivated by pro-Romanian writers, but is difficult to support with documentation. It also looks like an attempt (one of many) to strengthen the artful impression that the Vlach populations were much greater than they really were. In the end, the Sarakatsani are simply Greek-speaking fully nomadic groups of stockbreeders who are also known as vlahi with a small v. This is further supported by the fact that the Vlachs themselves regard them as Greki, and that the Sarakatsani refuse to define themselves as Vlachs with a capital v. After all, there have been nomadic and semi-nomadic stockbreeding populations of other linguistic groups in the Balkans besides the Vlach-speakers for at least the past three centuries (18th-20th), because nomadism and transhumance have never been the exclusive prerogative of Vlach-speakers. Nor must we forget that most of the Vlachs' linguistic assimilation has taken place not in the mountains, where they have, after all, dominated, but in agricultural villages on the plains and in the vicinity of large and small economic, urban, and administrative centres.
As for the artificial terms 'Macedono-Vlachs' and 'Macedo-Romanians', which have been applied to the Vlachs, not only are they unsuccessful political neologisms, they're also unfair to the Vlachs. For Vlachs have always existed way beyond the geographical limits of Macedonia, most notably in Thessaly, Epiros, and Albania. This study makes it clear that the present diaspora of people of Vlach origin throughout the Balkan countries is the result of comparatively recent population shifts. While 'Vlach populations' are presented as milling about over the length and breadth of the central Balkans in the Middle Ages and the Byzantine period, the consolidation of Ottoman rule coincided with a rearrangement of these mediaeval 'Vlach' population groups and their villages and settlements. Until 1769, which was the date of the first collapse of Moschopolis and marked the start of some major exoduses and diasporas, the only surviving Vlach populations were in the south-west Balkans, along the Greek peninsula. Prior to that, the older and mediaeval 'Vlach populations', who lived to the north and east of a notional line running from Durrës, across Mount Pelister, and through Moglena to Thessaloniki, seem to have been assimilated and disappeared. The older and mediaeval 'Vlach populations', whoever they were, in Thrace, Bulgaria, Serbia, Kosovo, northern Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and as far as Dubrovnik (Ragusa) on the Dalmatian coast had already died out. One typical example of this process is the disappearance of the mediaeval 'Vlach populations' of the Asanid dynasty, who had lived in what is now Bulgaria, probably based in the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina).
It should be noted here that, on the basis of linguistic criteria, the Morlachs (Maurovlachs), a Latin-speaking group on the coast and in the immediate hinterland of Dalmatia who disappeared a century ago, must be regarded as a different entity from the Aroumanian Vlachs. And two more Latin-speaking groups which still survive south of the Danube are also separate from the Vlachs. The first, the Čiči or Čiribiri, are located in Istria in Croatia, are very small, and are in the process of dying out. The second, the Vlaši, Tsareni, or Timoceni are located mainly in the wider area of the River Timok in eastern Serbia and appear to be Romanians. Be all this as it may, there were at one time large concentrations of Vlach groups and settlements south of the aforementioned notional line. After 1769, however, this spatial distribution of the Vlachs was broken up, and constant comings and goings carried them down to the Rodopi and the Balkan Mountains, and also to various towns in modern Bulgaria. They inundated almost the entire geographical area of Macedonia, settling both in the mountains and in the towns, and going as far as towns in Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia. Crossing the Danube and the Sava, they set up colonies in the Habsburg Empire and the Danubian Principalities. They also spread southward, down to Attica. Major Vlach centres, such as Kruševo in FYROM and Serres in Eastern Macedonia, are the result of this late and somewhat overlooked Vlach diaspora.
However, since there can be no diaspora without a point of departure, it seems reasonable to look for the original Vlach centres. There can be no doubt that from at least the Middle Ages until shortly after the mid-eighteenth century, the Vlach centres were concentrated along the Pindos range and its offshoots. The oldest and most densely inhabited Vlach villages survive today only on the flanks of the Pindos, from Pelister to Dzoumerka and Koziakas. The Vlach villages in the areas of Aspropotamos, Vlahodzoumerko, Metsovo, Grevena, Vlahozagoro, Konitsa, Grammos, Western Macedonia, Moschopolis, Dangëlli, and Kolonjë were the Vlach centres until around 1769. The Vlach villages on Mount Olympos belong with these centres, despite the distance which separates them from the Pindos. The Moglena Vlachs too must be regarded as an original group, even though some scholars believe them to be of different provenance and despite the differences between them and the rest of the Vlachs. The people of Vlach origin who now live in Eastern Macedonia, Bulgaria, most of FYROM, Kosovo, and Serbia know that their ancestors came from one or other of these ancestral centres. Even the people of Vlach origin who now live in Romania, and particularly those in Dobrudja, are known to have arrived there en masse mainly in the period between the wars.
The point of scrutinising the Vlach diaspora is to offer an alternative approach to the Vlachs' very identity. A study of the Vlachs is not a study of an absolutely distinct linguistic group moving about in space and time, but the actual history of the gradual linguistic Latinisation and de-Latinisation of the southern Balkans, with all its local mutations and in direct connection with environmental adaptation and the cultural division of labour. Population shifts and diaspora have been constant features of the Vlachs' history, possibly as significant as their Latinate speech. We should regard as their primary shift, or rather displacement, their ascent into the mountains when the Slavs arrived and settled. Once there, they took advantage of the geography, their somewhat unusual relations with the central authority, and the abundant resources available at that particular time, and emerged vigorously onto the stage of history as pillars of the commercial, industrial, and military establishment in the Balkans. These were two complementary aspects of the initially pastoral orientation of their highland communities which put the Vlachs at the top of the traditional social pyramid in the Ottoman-ruled Balkans. The economic, social, and cultural system of the tselingato or stockbreeding clan, together with the commercial and light industrial orientation and the varied economy of the Vlachs' mountain communities were the seedbed in which strong traditional values, ideas, and perceptions were cultivated. A long line of heroic traditional warriors, powerful leaders and local notables, political figures and successful itinerant traders, merchants and craftsmen, capitalists and national benefactors, literary figures and spiritual leaders were born in the Vlachs' highland communities and tselingata. Although in some cases, movement and diaspora led to assimilation, more often than not the Vlachs' mobility strengthened them and helped them to survive as a distinct ethno-cultural or ethno-linguistic group, because their movement was accompanied by changes which made the most of the political, economic, and social circumstances. Their association with the highlands should not be perceived as indicating a hermetically sealed remote society. Far from it, the centuries-old evolution of their ancestral centres in the mountains seems to have given the Vlachs the best opportunities to distinguish themselves. In the end, it was the economic and social evolution of the various Vlach groups and not their linguistic identity or their provenance that determined their relations with their neighbours, particularly the rest of the Greeks.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Vlach villages fell into two fundamental, but not clearly distinct categories, on the basis of their economy: 1) villages with an economy based largely on stockbreeding; and 2) villages with an economy based largely on commerce and craft-trades. Although the pastoral populations seem to have constituted the Vlachs' rootstock for many generations, in modern times, at least since the mid-seventeenth century, large groups of Vlachs have earned their living as settled or itinerant traders, merchants, craftsmen, professionals, and farmers too. Most of the Vlach villages were inhabited all the year round, and the transhumant summer residents were the exception rather than the rule. As for the fully nomadic Vlach populations, like most of the Arvanitovlachs and the Grammoustian Vlachs, they were very much a minority in comparison with the Vlach villages and settlements with a permanent population of 'urban' merchants and craftsmen. Although the nomadic and semi-nomadic Vlachs rather looked down on agriculture, it was a supplementary economic activity. Farming was the cornerstone of the Moglena Vlachs' economy. In the final analysis, the Vlach settlements sustained a genuinely mixed economy. One might be based on animal husbandry with some craft-trades, another on commerce and craft-trade with some agriculture and stockbreeding; but almost everywhere livestock was reared and its products used at least at a domestic level. The comparative autonomy of their highland communities, their mixed economy, direct access to raw materials, commercial knowledge and craft-trade skills, the accumulation of capital, the inevitable seasonal movement with the flocks and herds, and their long eventful journeys with the caravans brought the surplus Vlach population into the towns and led to the development of a third category of Vlach settlements, the very dynamic colonies in the urban, administrative, and economic centres. The Vlachs' genius as merchants and craftsmen that was born in the mountains served them even more effectively in the dozens of colonies that grew up in almost all the towns in mainland Greece and the most important of the larger villages on the plains and in the foothills. In an age when the Balkans knew no borders, the restless Vlachs constituted a very significant - though in terms of their population disproportionate - part of the basis for the development of the bourgeoisie in a host of Greek Orthodox communities, not only in the territory of what is now the Greek state, but also in the neighbouring Balkan countries. These colonies seem to have played a very decisive role in more recent Vlach developments.
In the nineteenth century, both the Vlach villages with a commercial, light industrial, and 'urban' economic basis and those that were more directly involved in various forms of stockbreeding were large prosperous communities, at least in comparison with the neighbouring villages and estates dwelt in and worked by the smallholders and tenant farmers of other linguistic groups. And wherever the Vlachs cohabited with other groups, they usually held high positions in the local economic, social, and cultural class system. There were exceptions, of course, such as the Vlach villages in Moglena and the hut settlements of the exclusively nomadic Vlach stockbreeders. The interest of many researchers has focused on the pastoral Vlachs, and they have rather neglected the equally numerous, but settled, merchants and craftsmen. One of the direct effects of this has been to reinforce the stereotypical misperceptions about the Vlachs. The examples of Vlach communities. in and around such Central and Eastern Macedonian towns as Katerini, Servia, Veria, Naoussa, Edessa, Aridaia, Gevgelija, Serres, Iraklia, Alistrati, Nevrokop (Goce Delcev), Prossotsani, Drama, Hryssoupoli, and especially Thessaloniki come as a great surprise to most people and show how little they know about who the Vlachs really are.
When one examines the Vlachs' shifting demographic situation, it becomes clear that after the Balkan Wars (1912-13) the vast majority of the Vlachs (two-thirds according to Weigand) became Greek citizens, in addition to their existing identity as integral members of Romiosyni, the modern Greek nation. In 1912-13, of the 160,000 or so Vlachs whom Weigand estimated to be living in the Balkans at the end of the nineteenth century, 102,330 were in Greece, 30,830 in what is now FYROM, 13,465 in Albania, and about 10,000 in Bulgaria, Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia. However, Weigand's demographic records are by no means complete or absolutely correct, like others from the same period (such as the statistics provided by the Oecumenical Patriarchate). A completely different and certainly exaggerated picture is presented by the demographic reports and population figures drawn up by pro-Romanian writers (such as Margaritis and Rubin, and Boga), in which the deliberately inflated numbers conflict sharply with both the Slav (Bulgarian and Serbian) and the official Ottoman-Turkish statistics. So if we compare the disparate demographic reports and bear in mind certain unknown or little-known statistical data, it's not hard to arrive at the firm conclusion that the Vlachs numbered at least 200,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century, and probably no more than 220,000.
Anittas Registered User
Posts: 9
(11/6/03 8:18 pm) Reply
Re: Vlachs' origins BLAXOI !!!!
You fail to mention many important things:
1. Romanians are also called Vlachs, or better say, we used to be called Vlachs, because we are. The province of Wallachia is still called Wallachia - or Muntenia.
2. The Vlachs lived from todays Romania, to Northern Greece and some parts of Serbia. When the Slavs invaded the Balkans, many of these groups were seperated from eachother, and slowly built their own identity. They all called eachother Romanians or Vlachs.
3. There are four types of Vlachs: Daco-Romana (modern Romania), Istro-Romania (Croatia), Aromania (Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania) and Meglelo-Romanians (Greece).
Please allow me to clarify a few things about these groups of people.
The Istro-Romanians left Transylvania around year 1000 because of unknown reasons, but most likely hostile invasions, and settled in todays Croatia and near that region.
They recognize Romania as the mother country, and Romania supports them. They are now only 500-1500 left and their language is in dangeour.
When it comes to Aromanians, they are either called Macedon-Vlahs or Greek-Vlachs to specify what nationality they consider them selves to belong to.
Some Aromanians consider them selves to be brothers of the Romanians.
Megleno-Romanians are for the most part a mystery, but some of them recognize Romania as the mother country.
Now, about Romania her self. Romania has no intentions to deliver propaganda and convert these people to anything. I do not represent Romania, but based on Romania's official statements and actions, I can fully consider my statements to be accurate.
Romania did open schools in Northern Greece in the beginning of the 1900's. Greece is offeded when we say we want to continue doing so. Greece gets the impression that we try to convert these people to be Romanians and destabilize the region. This is a shame, since Romanian people and Greeks have had very close relationships since Byzantine went into the regions. Our intentions are not hostile.
We do have interests, but only cultural interests. Those interests are not a threat to Greece. Those Aroumanians living in Macedonia get the choice to go to Romanian cultural opened places.
I believe people should have democratical choices, including all Vlachs, but Greece won't recognize any ethnical minorities in her land, except religious ones. I feel that is unfair.
If a group of people consider them selves to be Turks or Vlachs, then they should have the right to do so. They should have the right to speak in their native language, and hold cultural meetings.
Even though Romania is slightly annoyed by the Greek standpoint on this issue, the relationships remain close.
I believe in the theory that these four groups of Vlachs belonged to the same ethnical and cultural group of people. The Aromanians for instance were seperated from the Daco-Romanians when the Bulgars settled south of the Danube. That was around 700-800 AD.
I have no problem at all that these Vlachs consider them selves to be Greeks. It's only natural and they made a good choice, but I don't think it's fair not to give credit to their original herritage and not to give them choices that some of them demand from you.
canaris Moderator
Posts: 893
(11/6/03 9:25 pm) Reply
egw den to nomizo
pws i vlaxi einai katheaftou ellines.Fisika simera tha sou poun pws einai..kai den pirazi alla i katagogi tws einai apa allou.
Epirote Registered User
Posts: 17
(6/6/05 2:31 am) Reply
Re: Vlach people
I have some Vlach origin.
I have no problem saying about my Vlach blood , while people more Vlach than me, hesitate to say it.
About the Vlach origin.
Romanians
Dacia was the most Romanized, most Latinized area in the Balkans.
Latin language and culture was purposely very aggressive in that area after the Daco-Romans war.
People from Italy settled in Dacia in great numbers.
Soon the old Dacian and the Roman culture created the new Nation.
Romania.
Even then names says it all.
Dacia became Romania (Little Rome).
Vlach
As we know Roman Empire had regional armies to guard the borders and maintain the Peace within.
Roman Armies when they where located in different parts of the empire used to move with their families.
And after they finished their service they preferred to stay in the land they served.
To some soldier, land was given for their military service.
Soon they mixed with local people such as Illyrian ,Thracean , Dacian and Hellenic.
They have lot of Illyrian, Thracean, Dacian and Hellenic elements in every aspect of their culture.
And the Vlach people were created.
Edited by: Epirote at: 6/6/05 2:35 am
.....
Hahaha hej Epirote you half breed doneky-face, my hypothesis about you are proven with every passing minute, this doesn't mean that i dislike Vlachs, i dislike the ones that put Albs down, especially greek-wannabes.
My grandfather had many vlach friends in Greece, they were very loyal friends to him, but my grandfather was ALBANIAN ETHNIC.
Rhezus Moderator
Posts: 1395
(3/24/06 10:59 am) Reply
Re: Vlachs' origins BLAXOI !!!!"A number of theories and opinions have been expounded regarding the Vlachs' origins and ancestry".
Same people, which in the antiquity were described by Herodotus as Thracians. They outnumbered more than 200 separate tribes, known as Traus, Medi, Odrisian, Gettian, Dacian etc. etc. Vlach is just a newer/later name of same stock of ppl. - nothing really new.
Re: Vlachs' origins BLAXOI !!!!
There are more than 1,500,000-2,000,000 vlachs in Southeastern Europe.
Minov Registered User
Posts: 1
(4/8/06 3:49 pm) Reply
Re: Vlachs' origins BLAXOI !!!!
Rhezus, the theory of ethnogenesis doesn't allow you to conect tribes in antique with people from 20th-21st century.
There may be something of those people still floating around in the genome of modern Vlachs, but the theory from above does not allow you to use the sign "=" when you talk about people living in different mileniums.
Anyway, i'm also Vlach, now living in Skopje , Macedonia but my grandparents came from Greece. It's my first post and i'd like to congratulate you for this debate you opened about Vlachs !!
Re: Vlachs' origins BLAXOI !!!!
The name Vlach from Slavonic Language comes from Valach from German Language and was the name for Romanians in past. During the time the word Vlach gained other meanings, but its original meaning is Romanian.
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