1. Binder, David Vlachs, A Peaceful Balkan People. Mediterranean Quarterly. 2004 (Binder 2004, 15)

2. Bogdan, Gheorghe Memory, Identity, Typology: An Interdisciplinary Reconstruction of Vlach Ethnohistory, University of British Columbia, 2011 (Bogdan 2011, 23, 24, 131)

3. Winnifrith, T. J. The Vlachs: The History of a Balkan People. Duckworth, London 1995 (Winnifrith 1995, 69)

4. Parry, Ken (2009). Christianity: Religions of the World. Infobase Publishing. (Parry 2009, 139)

5. Heather, Peter (2005). The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. (Heather 2005, 428–9)

6. Chastagnol, André (2002). Nobility, from Romans to Gregory the Great. In Levillain, Philippe (ed.). The Papacy: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. London: Routledge. (Chastagnol 2002, 1044–7)
   
   

7. Shedlock, Robert John, The Iconoclastic Edict of the Emperor Leo III, 726 A.D. Masters Theses 1911 [1968].

8. Treadgold, Warren (1997). A History of the Byzantine State and Society. University of Stanford Press. (Treadgold 1997, 354–5)

9. Leake, William Martin, Travels in Northern Greece, Cambridge University Press, 1835 [2010]

10. Abadzi, Helen, The Vlachs of Greece and Their Misunderstood History, Thessalonikeon Polis, 2004 (Abadzi 2004, 7, 8, 15)

11. Trut, Lyudmila Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment, American Scientist, 1999

Kahl, Thede, The Ethnicity of Aromanians after 1990: the Identity of a Minority that Behaves like a Majority, Ethnologia Balkanica, 2002

Browning, Robert, Medieval and Modern Greek. Cambridge University Press 1983

Marcato, Gianna (2008). L'Italia dei dialetti: atti del convegno, Sappada/Plodn (Belluno), Unipress 2007

Weinraub, Bernard, Campaign Trail; Tapping Another Ethnic Group, New York Times, Oct. 17, 1988

SECOND REPORT SUBMITTED BY "THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA"

PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 25, PARAGRAPH 1 OF THE FRAMEWORK CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF NATIONAL MINORITIES, REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Skopje, 2006

Wace, Alan, Thompson, Maurice, Nomads of the Balkans: An Account of Life and Customs Among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus, Methuen & Co. Ltd., London 1914

Condensed History

The word Vlach is an exonym that has traditionally been used to describe the Latin-speaking population of what is now Albania, Greece and North Macedonia (Bogdan 2011, 24). This word comes from Proto-Germanic “Walhaz”, and initially meant “stranger, foreigner” and quickly came to be adapted as a term for Roman colonists, and consequently Latin speakers, throughout Europe. The word survives through the Welsh in the British Isles who grew out of the fusion of Celtic and Latin speaking population after the Roman Empire withdrew from Britain in 410 CE. The Walloons of northeastern France, Belgium and the Netherlands carry the root word as well, and grew out of the same phenomenon, a Latin speaking community after the Roman Empire withdrew from the region. The Welsch (referred to as Romansh in English) of Switzerland carry the same word, and descend from the same phenomenon. The Wallachs of Romania carry the same word, and again descend from the same phenomenon (Bogdan 2011, 23, 24). Worth noting that the Polish word for an Italian to this day is Wloch. The Vlachs, or Armãnji meaning “Roman citizen”, as they still call themselves, are yet another example. This word is rendered as Aromanian in English (Bogdan 2011, 24).

The Roman Empire started colonizing the eastern side of the Adriatic as early as 168 BCE with the start of the Macedonian Wars, waged against the native Illyrian and Greek population, and in earnest after the defeat of the locals which led to Macedonia becoming a Roman province in 146 BCE (Binder 2004, 15). Latin speakers from all over the Roman Empire including the Italian Peninsula were brought in, while locals became Latinized through military conscription, voluntary service, trade advantages etc. The Aromanians, Vlachs, Latin-Greeks as they are now referred to as in official Greek political discourse, descend from these people (Binder 2004, 15).

Theirs is a unique situation, in that the Roman Empire did not withdraw from their historic territory, however, after the administration of the Roman Empire from the Italian Peninsula dissolved, the Vlachs were tremendously disadvantaged by the neighboring populations, who saw them (rightly so, in some ways) as a constant reminder of Roman colonization. The Roman Empire’s capital transferred to what is now Istanbul by Constantine the Great in 330 CE, and gradually the favored language came to be Greek instead of Latin (Winnifrith 1995, 69). The most accurate term for this phenomenon once actualized it can be argued is the Hellenic Roman Empire, and then colonies of Latin-speaking descendants of Roman soldiers were left without political representation or administration in conjunction with imperial power.

Western historians typically give a date of 476 CE for the fall of the Roman Empire, however, as mentioned previously the capital had been transferred to Byzantium, renamed Nova Roma, New Rome, and then Constantinople, Constantine’s city in 330 CE (Parry 2009, 139). Odoacer, an Ostrogoth who traced to what is now Southern Ukraine and Romania, deposed and exiled the 11 year old who was overseeing the city of Rome at the time, and asked the Roman Emperor Zeno for his recognition as the overseer of the region west of the Adriatic, which Zeno granted (Heather 2005, 428–9). The senate from Rome stayed intact, much if not all of the political regime remained unaltered, and the capital administration of the Empire’s holdings west of the Adriatic continued to shift between Milan and especially Ravenna in addition to Rome as it had been doing for the last 150 years (Chastagnol 2002, 1044–7).

It is not until 731 CE, that the connection with Rome was finally severed for the Latin speaking population in what is now Albania, Greece and North Macedonia. It was at this time that the Patriarchate of Constantinople (forebears of what is now the Orthodox church) took over the religious representation and servicing of the region from the Patriarchate of Rome (forebears of what is now the Catholic church) (Treadgold 1997, 354–5). Here a new identity begins to emerge, as the church and its services, which amounted to the main form of political and state representation back then, were in Greek. This split was over the use of images and statues of important church figures, which the Patriarchate of Constantinople was against, while the Roman Papacy maintained “idol worship”.

Slavic peoples crossed the Danube in the mid 600s, and started colonizing the region south of the Danube which they now overwhelmingly represent. This led to the Vlachs concentrating further south, around the Gramos and Pindus Mountains into Thessaly Greece, and adopting the foothills of mountains as their homes (Abadzi 2004, 8). They initially favored isolation of a kind, and records of their existence for the next 400 years are scarce. However, this region came to be called Great Vlachia during this time, so it can be assumed they were numerable, and in fact, it can be seen that they were in the majority in this region during this time (Bogdan 2011, 131). Many historians have argued much of the region between the Black Sea and the Adriatic was Latinized just as Gaul (France) and Hispania (Spain) had been due to Rome (Abadzi 2004, 7).

This fusion of life in the foothills, Greek Orthodox religio-political representation, a preference for an isolation of a kind, and descent from Roman colonists come to define their sense of cohesive unity. Like most people in the region, they came to rely on animal husbandry instead of farming for their caloric needs. Sheep provide the wool for their clothing, a useful trading resource, and the bulk of their food in the form of meat and dairy. The Vlachs rely on this particular resource heavily enough that in the propaganda of the surrounding countries they are often dismissed as simple shepherds, however this is certainly heavy handed oversimplification. They were typically craftsmen (i.e. barrel-making, carpentry), fishermen, merchants, and guides (even for the armies of the Hellenic Roman Empire) during this period, in addition to their historic pastoral association (Winnifrith 1995, 36–7).

Although dismissed as pastoral nomads in much of the propaganda of the surrounding countries and in much of the pseudo-academic fetishization of many western historians (who were often taking the “loudest voices” at face value, generally nationalists from the surrounding countries), they had long term dwellings built like much of Europe out of stone, wood and plaster, which they lived in exclusively for the winter and part of the seasonal transition, and then led their flocks to pasture in the summer, which is when the surrounding population would largely be able to notice them (Leake 1835 [2010], 300). These pastures were typically handed down from generation to generation of families, and led to a kind of seasonal pseudo-migration between grassland and home for much of the population until the advent of the World Wars (Abadzi 2004, 11, 22).

When the Roman Empire finally falls at the hands of the Ottomans in 1453 once Constantinople is captured, the situation changes immensely. As Latin speakers, the Vlachs are not thought of fondly, and were equated with the Crusading armies of what is now France and Italy, who were fellow Latin speakers. After some time passes, their usefulness as regional guides and their sense of discipline and personal responsibility is coerced by the Ottomans, who recognized these qualities while noting they did not have the political power of the Greek speaking population. The Vlachs were offered tax incentives (a lower rate), dismissal from the “devshirme” system where the Ottomans would kidnap and steal healthy young men especially from the Christian population to serve as soldiers in their armies, and the allowance (and requirement in many cases) to bear arms. The Vlachs were the only Christian group in the entire region allowed to be armed by the Ottomans (Bogdan 2011, 58–9). As one can imagine, this led their neighbors to feel a particular way about them, which is why this is crucial information to understand, as the rhetoric surrounding their history is largely written by the neighboring countries, and the readily available material online about their history reflects this fact.

The Vlachs during the Ottoman era tended to become merchants, as well as border guards and guides as part of the Ottoman military (Bogdan 2011, 47–8). Once they had started to acquire some wealth and build cities such as Moscopole in Albania, and Metsovo in Greece, the Ottomans banned them from military service, and barred them from carrying weapons. The Ottomans then fueled ethnic tension between them and the Albanians who had started converting en masse to Islam in the early 17th century, which led to raids and pillaging of Vlach towns. For a number of reasons, the Greeks did not appreciate their existence either (Bogdan 2011, 27, 50).

This led to the phenomenon of the Vlachs adopting a Greek identity, and the majority ended up becoming fully Hellenized after the Greek Revolution of 1821. Since by this time they had been in the Orthodox church for over a thousand years, their language had absorbed many Greek loanwords, and many of their names (especially in conjunction with recognition in the church) were Greek, and the status of “Christian” and “Greek Orthodox” were synonymous, while those who were interacting with the neighboring populations as merchants and soldiers were typically at least bilingual, Greek being the prestige language in the region, it became the norm to see yourself as a Greek, at least from a political sense. After Greek independence, which many Vlachs had been dear supporters of, the official government policy was hellenization, at times even encompassing the banning of teaching of the Vlach language, banning of independent schools, forced naming conventions etc (Abadzi 2004, 15).

Within the last 25 years, Sotiris Bletsas was arrested, charged, and sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2001, merely for raising awareness that a Latin language has historically been spoken in a giant chunk of Hellenic territory (Kahl 2002, 154–5). While there is a corollary in Italy due to the numerous Greek colonies of the Italian Peninsula, especially prior to the Roman Empire, which survives as a linguistic phenomenon as Griko/Greko, namely in Salento and Calabria the heel and toe respectively of the Italian Peninsula (Browning 1983, 131–2), official Greek policy in many ways because of the history of the greater region has been not to acknowledge minorities of any non-Greek speaking population, and force them through political means to hellenize. The Griko people of southern Italy were only officially recognized by the Italian state as an ethnic and linguistic minority in 1999 (Marcato 2007, 299).

Probably the most well known person of Aromanian descent is Michael Dukakis, the former governor of Massachusetts and Democratic party nominee for President in 1988. He lost the popular vote by about 7 million count to George H.W. Bush, otherwise he would likely have been U.S. President when the Soviet Union collapsed. Michael Dukakis’ mother was born to Aromanian parents from Vrysochori, 23 miles north and east of Ioannina, Greece (Weinraub 1988). Of course, this fact was not well known because Dukakis emphasized his vaguely Greek heritage, and the Aromanians had already been exceedingly hellenized by 1988.

This gives some context for the historic and current political context of the Vlachs, Armãnji, Aromanians as the endonym is rendered in English. Though they are found at significant numbers especially in Albania, Greece and North Macedonia, the only country to grant them official minority status and political representation is North Macedonia (Skopje 2006, 18). One day, perhaps the Armãnji, the “Vlachs”, “Latin-Greeks” as they are alluded as in official Greek political discourse, will achieve recognized political minority status in Greece as the Griko, the “Italiote Greeks” are in Italy.