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VLACHS
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VLACHS . The Vlach (Vlakh, Wallach) or Ruman See also:race constitutes a distinct See also:division of the Latin See also:family of peoples, n-strma- widely disseminated throughout See also:south-eastern See also:Europe, t%os both See also:north and south of the See also:Danube, and extending the Vlach sporadically from the See also:Russian See also:river See also:Bug to the rACe. Adriatic. The See also:total See also:numbers of the Vlachs may be estimated at ao,000,000 or ii,000,000. North of the Danube, 5,400,000 dwell in See also:Rumania; 1,250,000 are settled in Transylvania, where they constitute a large See also:majority of the See also:population; and a still greater number are to be found in the See also:Banat and other Hungarian districts See also:west and north of Transylvania. See also:Close upon 1,000,000 inhabit See also:Bessarabia and the adjoining parts of South See also:Russia, and about 230,000 are in the See also:Austrian See also:province of See also:Bukovina.' South of the Danube, about 500,000 are scattered over See also:northern See also:Greece and See also:European See also:Turkey, under the name of Kutzo-Vlachs, Tzintzars or Aromani. • In See also:Servia this See also:element is preponderant in the Timok valley, while in See also:Istria it is represented by the Cici, at See also:present largely Slavonized, as are now entirely the kindred Morlachs of See also:Dalmatia. Since, however, it is quite impossible to obtain exact See also:statistics over so wide an See also:area, and in countries where politics and racial feeling are so closely connected, the figures given above can only be regarded as approximately accurate; and some writers See also:place the total of the Vlachs as See also:low as 9,000,000. It is See also:note-worthy that the Rumans north of the Danube continually gain ground at the expense of their neighbours; and even the See also:long successful See also:Greek propaganda among the Kutzo-Vlachs were checked after IS6o by the labours of Apostolu Margaritis and other nationalists. A detailed See also:account of the See also:physical, See also:mental and moral characteristics of the Vlachs, their See also:modern See also:civilization and their See also:historical development, will be found under the headings RUMANIA and See also:MACEDONIA. All divisions of the race prefer to See also:style themselves Romani, Romeni, Rumeni or Aromani; and it is from the native See also:pronunciation of this name that we have the See also:equivalent expression Ruman, a word which must by no means be confined to that See also:part of the Vlach race inhabiting the present See also:kingdom of Rumania. The name " Vlachs," applied to the Rumans by their neighbours but never adopted by themselves, appears under many It, name. allied forms, the Slays saying Volokh or Woloch, the Greeks Vlachoi, the See also:Magyars Ol6h, and the See also:Turks, at a later date, Ijiok. In its origin identical with the See also:English Wealh or Welsh, it represents a See also:Slavonic See also:adaptation of a generic See also:term applied by the See also:Teutonic races to all See also:Roman provincials during the 4th and 5th centuries. The Slays, at least in their See also:principal extent, first knew the Roman See also:empire through a Teutonic See also:medium, and adopted their term Volokh from the Ostro-See also:Gothic equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon Wealh. It thus finds its analogies in the See also:German name for See also:Italy—Welschland (Wdlischland), in the See also:Walloons of the Low Countries and the Wallgau of See also:Tirol. An See also:early instance of its application to the Roman population of the Eastern empire is found (c. 550-boo) in the Traveller's See also:Song, where, in a passage which in all See also:probability connects itself with the early See also:trade-route between the Baltic See also:staple of See also:Wollin and See also:Byzantium, the gleeman speaks of See also:Caesar's See also:realm as Walaric, " Welshry." In See also:verse 14o he speaks of the See also:Rum-walas, and it is to be observed that Rum is one of the words by which the Vlachs of eastern Europe still know themselves.
The Vlachs claim to be a Latin race in the same sense as
the Spaniards or Provencals—Latin by See also:language and culture,
Its Gann and, in a smaller degree, by descent. Despite the
See also:character. long predominance of Greek, Slavonic and See also:Turkish
See also:influence, there is no valid objection to this claim,
which is now generally accepted by competent ethnologists.
The language of the Vlachs is Latin in structure and to a See also:great
extent in vocabulary; their features and stature would not
render them conspicuous as foreigners in south Italy; and that
their ancestors were Roman provincials is attested not only
by the names " Vlach " and "Ruman " but also by popular and See also:literary tradition. In their customs and folk-See also:lore both Latin and Slavonic traditions assert themselves. Of their Roman traditions the See also:Trajan See also:saga, the celebration of the Latin festivals of the Rosalia and Kalendae, the belief in the striga (See also:witch), the names of the months and days of the See also:week, may be taken as typical examples. Some Roman words connected with the See also:Christian See also:religion, like biserica (See also:basilica) = a See also: Many words See also:relating to kinship are also Latin, some, like vitrig (vitricus) = See also:father-in-See also:law, being alone preserved by this See also:branch of the See also:Romance family. But if the Latin descent of the Vlachs may be regarded as proven, it is far less easy to determine their place of origin and to trace their early migrations. The centre of gravity of the Vlach or Ruman race is at present unquestionably north of the Danube in the almost circular territory between the Danube, See also:Theiss and See also:Dniester; it, and corresponds roughly with the Roman province orl2lna. of See also:Dacia, formed by Trajan in A.D. See also:loo. From this See also:home. circumstance the popular See also:idea has arisen that the race itself represents the descendants of the Romanized population of Trajan's Dada, which was assumed to have maintained an unbroken existence in See also:Walachia, Transylvania and the See also:neighbour provinces, beneath the dominion of a See also:succession of invaders. The Vlachs of See also:Pindus, and the See also:southern region generally, were, on this See also:hypothesis, to be regarded as later immigrants from the lands north of the Danube. Ins 871, E. R. Roesler published at See also:Leipzig, in a collective See also:form, a See also:series of essays entitled Romdnische Studien, in which he absolutely denied the claim of the Rumanian and Transylvanian Vlachs to be regarded as autochthonous Dacians. He laid stress on the statements of Vopiscus and others as implying the total withdrawal of the Roman provincials from Trajan's Dada by See also:Aurelian, in A.D. 272, and on the non-mention by historians of a Latin population in the lands on the See also:left See also:bank of the See also:lower Danube, during their successive occupation by Goths, See also:Huns, Gepidae, See also:Avars, Slays, Bulgars and other See also:barbarian races. He found the first trace of a Ruman See also:settlement north of the' Danube in a Transylvanian diploma of 1222. Roesler's thesis has been generally regarded as an entirely new departure in See also:critical ethnography. As a See also:matter of fact, his conclusions had to a great extent been already anticipated by F. J. Sulzer in his Geschichte See also:des Transalpinischen Daciens, published at See also:Vienna in 1781, and at a still earlier date by the Dalmatian historian G. Lucio (See also:Lucius of Trail) in his See also:work De Regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae, See also:Amsterdam, 1666. The theory of the later See also:immigration of the Rumans into their present abodes north of the Danube, as stated in its most extreme form by Roesler, commanded wide See also:acceptance, and in See also:Hungary it was politically utilized as a plea for refusing parity of treatment to a race of comparatively See also:recent intruders. In Rumania itself Roesler's views were resented as an attack on Ruman See also:nationality. Outside Rumania they found a determined opponent in Dr J. See also:Jung, of See also:Innsbruck, who upheld the continuity of the Roman provincial stock in Trajan's Dacia, disputing from historic analogies the total withdrawal of the provincials by Aurelian; and the reaction against Roesler was carried still farther by J. L. Pic, See also:Professor A. D. Xenopol of See also:Jassy, B. P. See also:Hasdeu, D. Onciul and many other Rumanian writers, who maintain that, while their own race north of the Danube represents the See also:original Daco-Roman population of this region, the Vlachs of Turkey and Greece are similarly descended from the Moeso-Roman and Illyro-Roman inhabitants of the provinces lying south of the river. On this theory the entire Vlach race occupies almost precisely the same territories to-See also:day as in the 3rd See also:century. On the whole it may be said that the truth lies between the two extremes. Roesler is no doubt so far right that after 272, and throughout the early See also:middle ages, the bulk of the Ruman See also:people See also:lay south of the Danube. Pi6's view that the population of the Roman provinces of See also:Moesia and See also:Illyria were Hellenized rather than Romanized, and that it is to Trajan's Dacia alone that we must look for the Roman source of the Vlach race, conflicts with what we know of the Latinizing of the See also:Balkan lands from See also:inscriptions, martyrologies, See also:Procopius's See also:list of Justinian's Illyrian fortresses and other See also:sources. This Roman element south of the Danube had further received a great increase at the expense of Trajan's colonial See also:foundation to the north when Aurelian established his New Dacia on the Moesian See also:side of the river. On the other See also:hand, the See also:analogy supplied by the withdrawal of the Roman provincials from Riparian See also:Noricum tells against the See also:assumption that the See also:official withdrawal of the Roman colonists of Trajan's Dacia by Aurelian entailed the entire evacuation of the Carpathian regions by their Latin-speaking inhabitants. As on the upper Danube the continuity of the Roman population is attested by the Vici Romanisci of early See also:medieval diplomas and by other traces of a Romanic race still represented by the Ladines of the Tirol, so it is reasonable to suppose a Latin-speaking population continued to exist in the formerly thickly colonized area embracing the present Transylvania and Little Walachia, with adjoining Carpathian regions. Even as See also:late as Justinian's See also:time (483-565), the official connexion with the old Dacian province was not wholly lost, as is shown by the erection or restoration of certain fortified posts on the left bank of the lower Danube. We may therefore assume that the Latin race of eastern Europe never wholly lost See also:touch of its former trans-Danubian Early strongholds. It was, however, on any showing greatly migra- diminished there. The open See also:country, the broad plains aims. of what is now the Rumanian kingdom, and the Banat of Hungary were in barbarian occupation. The centre of gravity of the Roman or Romance element of Illyricum had now shifted south of the Danube. By the 6th century a large part of See also:Thrace, Macedonia and even of See also:Epirus had become Latin-speaking. What had occurred in Trajan's Dacia in the 3rd century was consummated in the 6th and 7th throughout the greater part of the South-Illyrian provinces, and the Slavonic and Avar conquests severed the official connexion with eastern See also:Rome. The Roman element was uprooted from its fixed seats, and swept hither and thither by the barbarian See also:flood. Nomadism became an essential of See also:independent existence, while large masses of homeless provincials were dragged as captives in the See also:train of their conquerors, to be distributed in servile colonies. They were thus in many cases transported by barbarian chiefs—Slav, Avar and Bulgarian—to trans-Danubian and Pannonian regions. In the Acts of St See also:Demetrius of Thessalonica (d. A.D. 306) we find an account of such a Roman See also:colony, which, having been carried away from South-Illyrian cities by the Avar khagan (See also:prince), and settled by him in the Sirmian See also:district beyond the See also:Save, revolted after seventy years of captivity, made their way once more across the Balkan passes, and finally settled as an independent community in the country inland from See also:Salonica. Others, no doubt, thus transported northwards never returned. The earliest Hungarian historians who describe the Magyar invasion of the 5th century speak of the old in-habitants of the country as See also:Romans, and of the country they occupied as Pascua Romanorum; and the Russian See also:Nestor, See also:writing about moo, makes the same invaders fight against Slays and Vlachs in the Carpathian. Mountains. So far from the first mention of the Vlachs north of the Danube occurring only in 1222, as Roesler asserts, it appears from a passage of Nicetas of Chonae that they were to be found already in 1164 as far afield as the See also:borders of See also:Galicia; and the date of a passage in the See also:Nibelungenlied, which mentions the Vlachs, under their See also:leader Rimunc, in association with the Poles, cannot well be later than 1200. Nevertheless, throughout the early middle ages the bulk ofthe Ruman population lay south of the Danube. It was in the Balkan lands that the Ruman race and language took their characteristic See also:mould. It is here that this new Illyrian Romance first rises into historic prominence. Already in the 6th century, as we learn from the place-names, such as Sceptecasas, Burgualtu, Clisura, &c., given by Procopius, the Ruman language was assuming, so far as its Latin elements were concerned, its typical form. In the somewhat later See also:campaigns of Cornmentiolus (587) and See also:Priscus, against the Avars and Slays, we find the Latin-speaking soldiery of the Eastern See also:emperor making use of such Romance expressions as lorna (See also:rate! (turn, See also:brother!), or sculca (out of See also:bed) applied to a See also:watch (cf. Ruman a se culca= See also:Italian coricarsi+ex-(s-) privative). Next we find this warlike Ruman population largely incorporated in the Bulgarian kingdom, and, if we are to See also:judge from the names Paganus and Sabinus, already supplying it with rulers in the 8th century. The blending and close contact during this See also:period of the surviving Latin population with the Slavonic settlers of the See also:peninsula impregnated the language with its large Slavonic ingredient. The presence of an important Latin element in Albanian, the frequent occurrence of Albanian words in Rumanian, and the remarkable retention by both See also:languages of a suffix See also:article, may perhaps imply that both alike took their characteristic shapes in the same region. The fact that these peculiarities are See also:common to the Rumans north of the Danube, whose language differs dialectically from that of their southern See also:brothers, shows that it was this southern branch that throughout the early periods of Ruman See also:history was exercising a dominating influence. Migrations, violent trans-See also:plantation, the intercourse which was kept up between the most outlying members of the race, in its very origin nomadic, at a later period actual colonization and the political influence of the Bulgaro-Vlachian empire, no doubt contributed. to propagate these southern linguistic acquisitions throughout that northern area to which the Ruman race was destined almost imperceptibly to shift its centre of gravity. Byzantium, which had ceased to be Roman, and had become Romanic, renewed its acquaintance with the descendants of the Latin provincials of Illyricum through a Slavonic medium, and applied to them the name of Vlach, which the Slav himself had borrowed from the Goth. The first mention of Vlachs in a See also:Byzantine source is about the See also:year 976, when Cedrenus (ii. 439) relates the See also:murder of the Bulgarian See also:tsar See also:Samuel's brother " by certain Vlach wayfarers," at a spot called the See also:Fair Oaks, between Castoria and Prespa. From this period onwards the Ruman inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula are constantly mentioned by this name, and we find a series of political organizations and territorial divisions connected with the name of Vlachia. A See also:short synopsis may be given of the most important of these, outside the limits of Rumania itself. 1. The Bulgaro-Vlach Empire.—After the overthrow of, the older Bulgarian tsardom by See also:Basil Bulgaroktonos (976-1025), the Vlach population of Thrace, Haemus and the Moesian lands passed once more under Byzantine dominion; and in 1185 a heavy tax, levied in See also:kind on the See also:cattle of these telritoria! warlike See also:mountain shepherds, stirred the Vlachs to revolt dmslons. against the emperor See also:Isaac See also:Angelus, and under the leaden See also:ship of two brothers, See also:Peter and Asen, to found a new Bulgaro-Vlachian empire, which ended with Kalin:an II. in I257. The dominions of these See also:half-Slavonic half-Ruman emperors extended north of the Danube over a great See also:deal of what is now Rumania, and it was during this period that the Vlach population north of the river seems to have been most largely reinforced. The 13th-century See also:French traveller See also:Rubruquis speaks of all the country between See also:Don and Danube as Asen's See also:land or Blakia. 2. Great Walachia (Meyaaq Baaxta).—It is from See also:Anna Comnena, in the second half of the nth century, that we first hear of a Vlach settlement, the See also:nucleus of which was the mountainous region of See also:Thessaly. See also:Benjamin of See also:Tudela, in the succeeding century, gives an interesting account of this Great Walachia, then completely independent. It embraced the southern and central ranges of Pindus, and extended over part of Macedonia, thus including the regiop in which the Roman settlers mentioned in the Acts of St Demetrius had fixed their See also:abode. After the Latin See also:conquest of See also:Constantinople in I2o4, Great Walachia was included in the enlarged despotate of Epirus, but it soon reappears as an independent principality under its old name, which, after passing under the yoke of the Serb emperor Dushan, was finally conquered by the Turks in 1393. Many of their old privileges were accorded to the in-habitants, and their taxes were limited to an See also:annual See also:tribute. Since this period the Megalovlachites have been largely Hellenized, but they are still represented by the flourishing Tzintzar settlements of Pindus and its neighbourhood (see MACEDONIA). 3. Little Walachia(Mocph BXaxla)was a name applied by Byzantine writers to the Ruman settlements of See also:Aetolia and See also:Acarnania, and with it may be included " Upper Walachia," or Avc,$Xaxa. Its inhabitants are still represented by the Tzintzars of the Aspropotamo and the Karaguni (Blacjk Capes) of Acarnania. 4. The Morlachs (Mavrovlachi) of the West.—These are already mentioned as Nigri See also:Latini by the presbyter of Dioclea (c. 1150) in the old Dalmatian littoral and the mountains of what is now See also:Montenegro, Herzegovina and North See also:Albania. Other colonies ex-tended through a great part of the old Servian interior, where is a region still called Stara Vlaska or " Old Walachia." The great commercial staple of the See also:east Adriatic shores, the See also:republic of See also:Ragusa, seems in its origin to have been a Ruman settlement, and many Vlach traces survived in its later See also:dialect. See also:Philippus de Diversis, who described the See also:city as it existed in 1440, says that " the various See also:officers of the republic do not make use either of Slav or Italian, with which they converse with strangers, but a certain other dialect only partially intelligible to us Latins," and cites words with strong Ruman See also:affinities. In the mountains above Ragusa a number of Vlach tribes are mentioned in the archives of that city, and the original relationship of the Ragusans and the nomadic Alpine representatives of the Roman provincials, who preserved a traditional knowledge of the old lines of communication throughout the peninsula, explains the extraordinary development of the Ragusan See also:commerce. In the 14th century the Mavrovlachi or Morlachs extended themselves towards the Croatian borders, and a large part of maritime Croatia and northern Dalmatia began to be known as Morlacchia. A See also:Major Vlachia was formed about the triple frontier of Bosnia, Croatia and Dalmatia, and a " Little Walachia " as far north as Poiega. The Morlachs have now become Slavonized (see DALMATIA). 5. Cici of Istria.—The extreme Ruman offshoot to the north-west is still represented by the Cici of the Val d'Arsa and adjoining Istrian districts. They represent a 15th-century Morlach colony from the Isles of See also:Veglia, and had formerly a wider See also:extension to See also:Trieste and the counties of See also:Gradisca and See also:Gorz. The Cici have almost entirely abandoned their native See also:tongue, which is the last remaining representative of the old Morlach, and forms a connecting See also:link between the Daco-Roman (or Rumanian) and the Illyro- or See also:Macedo-Roman dialects. 6. Rumans of Transylvania and Hungary.—As already stated, a large part of the Hungarian plains were, at the coming of the Magyars in the 9th century, known as Pascua Romanorum. At a later period privileged Ruman communities existed at Fogaras, where was a See also:Silva. Vlachorum, at Marmaros, See also:Deva, Hatzeg, Hunyad and See also:Lugos, and in the Banat were seven Ruman districts. Two of the greatest figures in Hungarian history, the 15th-century rulers See also: 14 (See also:Bucharest, 1893) ; D. Onciul, " Romanii in Dacia Traiana," &c., in Enciclopedia Romdna, vol. iii. (Bucharest, 1902). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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