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Vlachs of Serbia

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Vlachs of Serbia
Regions with significant populations
Serbia:
40,000
Bulgaria:
10,000
Languages
Vlach (Romanian)
Religion
Predominantly Eastern Orthodox.

Vlachs (Vlach/Romanian: Rumâni, Serbian: Власи or Vlasi) are an ethnic group of Serbia, culturally and linguistically cognate to Romanians. There are opposite views whether Vlachs should be regarded as Romanians or as members of distinctive Vlach nationality. Serbian authorities agreed to recognize the Romanian identity of those Vlachs who consider themselves Romanians (See also: Romanians of Serbia).

Vlachs mostly live in eastern Serbia, mainly in Timočka Krajina region (roughly corresponding to Bor and Zaječar districts), but also in Braničevo and Pomoravlje districts. Some Vlachs also live around Vidin in Bulgaria. Also a small Vlach population exists in Smederevo and Velika Plana (Podunavlje District), and in the municipalities of Aleksinac and Kruševac (Rasina District), as well as in the South Banat District in Vojvodina.

Religion and language

Most Vlachs are Eastern Orthodox Christians by faith and they speak the Vlach (Romanian) language. The language spoken by one major group of Vlachs is similar to the Oltenian dialect spoken in Romania while that of the other major group is similar to the Romanian dialect of Banat.

The Serbian Vlachs belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church. However, by the canon of Orthodox church, no other local Orthodox church is allowed to operate within its territory. The relative isolation of the Vlachs has permitted the survival of various pre-Christian religious rites that are frowned upon by the Orthodox Church. Vlach magic rituals are well known across Serbia. Like the Serbs, Vlachs celebrate the 'slava', though its meaning is chtonic (related to the house and farmland) rather than familial.

Although the Vlachs of the Timočka Krajina are culturally and linguistically cognate to Romanians, their history since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century has significantly affected their political and cultural orientation towards the Serbian state and church.

Subgroups

Vlachs are divided into many groups, each speaking their own variant:

Of these, the Ungureni of Homolje are related to the Romanians of Banat and Transylvania, since Ungureni (compare with the word "Hungarians") is a term used by the Romanians of Wallachia to describe their kin who once lived in provinces formerly part of the Kingdom of Hungary. The connection is evident in the similarities of dialectal phonology and folk music motifs as well as in sayings such as "Ducă-se pe Mureş" (May the Mureş take it away), a reference to the Transylvanian river.

The Ţărani of the Bor, Negotin and Zaječar regions are closer to Oltenia (Lesser Walachia) in their speech and music. The Ţăran saying "Nu dau un leu pe el" (He's not worth even a leu) can possibly show their Romanian origin since the leu is a Romanian monetary unit. However, it can also show a possible trade connections between Ţărani and the Romanian population that lives just across the Danube.

There has been considerable intermixing between the Ungureni and Ţărani so that a dialect has evolved sharing peculiarities of both regions.

The Bufani are immigrants from Lesser Walachia (Oltenia).

There is also a population of vlachophone (Vlach speaking) Roma centered around the village of Lukovo, as well as a few Aromanian families who live in Knjaževac, but they form a tiny migrant group.

Origins

Some of the Vlachs of East Serbia were settled there from regions north of the Danube by the Habsburgs at the beginning of the 18th century. The origins of these Vlachs are indicated by their own self-designations: Ungurjani (Ungureani), i.e. those who came from Hungary (that is, Banat and Transylvania). The Carani (Ţărani) are either an autochthonic Vlach population of the region (their name means "people of the country" or "countrymen"), or they came from Wallachia (in Romanian: Ţara Românească - "Romanian State").

The area roughly defined by the Morava, the Danube and the Timok rivers where most of the Vlachs live became part of modern Serbia starting from 1804. Prior to that, the land was part of the Ottoman Empire (Pashaluk of Vidin and Pashaluk of Smederevo) and Habsburg Empire (Governorate of Serbia).

The second wave of Vlachs from present-day Romania came at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1835 feudalism was fully abolished in the Principality of Serbia and a large number of individuals and smaller groups from Wallachia came there to enjoy the status of free peasants.

Thus the idea that all Vlachs of Serbia are descendants of the original Romanized population of the Balkans that never moved from this region is incorrect. However, it is likely that some of them can trace their ancient roots to this region. The present geographic location of the Vlachs is near the medieval Bulgaro-Vlach empire of the Asens, suggesting their continuity in the area. In addition a Vlach population in the regions around Braničevo (near the ancient Roman city of Viminacium) is attested by 15th century Ottoman defters (tax records). The modern Vlachs occupy the same area where in antiquity the Romans had a strong presence for many centuries: Viminacium and Felix Romuliana. In addition, the Vlachs from the area around Vidin in Bulgaria, with whom the Vlachs of Timok form a continuous group, separated only by the Danube by the Romanians, are natives to the area, not being the result of recent colonization or emigration.

Population

Area inhabited by Vlachs in 2004 according to Romanian organizations

In the 2002 census 40,054 people in Serbia declared themselves ethnic Vlachs, and 54,818 people declared themselves speakers of the Vlach language. The Vlachs of Serbia are recognized as an autochthonous ethnic group, separate to the Romanians of Serbia, which number 34,576 according to the 2002 census. On the census, the Vlachs declared themselves either as Serbs or Vlachs. Therefore, the "real" number of the people of Vlach origin could be much greater than the number of recorded Vlachs, both due to mixed marriages with Serbs and also Serbian national feeling among some full-blooded Vlachs.

Historical population (according to different censuses)

The following numbers reflect on the possible number of Vlachs in the censuses:

  • 1816: 97,215 Romanians/Vlachs (10% of Serbia's population. Note that Serbia was several times smaller than today in 1816.)
  • 1859: 122,593 Romanians/Vlachs
  • 1884: 149,713 Romanians/Vlachs
  • 1890: 143,684 Romanians/Vlachs
  • 1895: 159,510 Romanians/Vlachs
  • 1921: 142,773 Vlach-speakers in Central Serbia
  • 1931: 57,000 Romanian/Vlach/Cincar speakers were recorded in Eastern Serbia (52,635 in the Morava Banovina and the rest in southern parts of Danube Banovina south of the Danube)
  • 1953: 198,793 Vlach-speakers in central Serbia (169,670 declared as Serbs, 29,000 as Vlachs)
  • 1961: 1,330 Vlachs
  • 1981: 135,000 people declared Vlach as their mother language (population figure given for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia)
  • 1991: 71,536 Vlach-speakers in Serbia (of those 53,721 Serbs, 16,539 Vlachs, 42 Romanians; out of the 17,807 declared Vlachs, 677 Serbocroat-speakers)
  • 2002: 40,054 declared Vlachs, 54,818 people declared Vlach as their mother language (population figures given for entire Serbia) or 39,953 declared Vlachs, 54,726 people declared Vlach as their mother language (population figures given for Central Serbia only)

The Vlach population is concentrated mostly in the region limited by Morava River (west), Danube River (north) and Timok River (south-east).

By some Vlach organizations, in Eastern Serbia live around 250,000 people of Vlach origin, although the results of censuses can't prove that.

Number of Vlachs in Serbia by municipality

Official numbers of declared Vlachs (2002 census):

Settlements inhabited by Vlachs

Settlements in Central Serbia with a Vlach majority or plurality are (2002 census data):

Vlachs also live in other places with majority Serb or mixed Serb/Vlach population, such as the Zaječar, Negotin, Bor, Kladovo, Majdanpek, Požarevac, Smederevo, Velika Plana, Jabukovac, etc.

Vlach identity

The term "Vlach" is the English transcription of the Serbian term used to describe this group (Vlasi), while "Roumanians" or "Romanians" is the English transcription of its Romanian counterpart (român/rumân).

Despite their recognition as a separate ethnic group by the Serbian government, Vlachs are cognate to Romanians in the cultural and linguistic sense. Some Romanians, as well as international linguists and anthropologists, consider Serbia's Vlachs to be a subgroup of Romanians. Additionally, the Movement of Romanians-Vlachs in Serbia, which represents some Vlachs, has called for the recognition of the Vlachs as a Romanian national minority, giving them similar rights to the Romanians of Vojvodina. However most Vlachs of Eastern Serbia opt either for the Vlach, or Serb identity rather than the Romanian one.

Romania has given modest financial support to the Vlachs for the preservation of their culture and language, since at present the Vlachs' language is not recognized officially in any localities where they form a majority, there is no education in their mother tongue and there is no media or education funded by the Serbian state. Also there are no church services in Vlach. Until very recently in the regions populated by Vlachs church policy opposed the giving of non-Serbian baptismal names.

Family names of Vlachs either are or sound Serbian because from the late 19th century up to the 1918 there was an edict that all citizens of Serbia should have last names ending in -ić, the base of the name usually coming from the then father's name: Nikolić, Marković, Radulović. There are a few notable exceptions where the Vlach / Romanian origin is evident, as in Jepurović (from iepure, meaning rabbit), Florić (from floare, meaning flower) or Stangačilović (from stângaci, meaning left-handed).

On the other hand, some Vlachs consider themselves to be simply Serbs that speak the Vlach language. In fact ethnic research has found that among the Serb-speaking population of Eastern Serbia, some are Slavicized Vlachs and some Vlach-speakers were formerly Slavs (such as in the village of Šljivar near Zaječar and the village of Slatina near Bor, where Serbs had been assimilated as Vlachs for centuries) or even Roma (such as in Lukovo). Most Vlachs do not see themselves as ethnic Romanians, because, while culturally and linguistically cognate to Romanians, they have lived in Serbia for generations and hence do not identify with the Romanian state, but rather see themselves as a distinct Eastern Romance people.

Many of those Vlachs who see themselves as Serbs were historically hard-line Serbian nationalists, and many fought as volunteers on the Serbian side in the wars in Krajina and Bosnia, together with Serbs from those regions whom they saw as religious and ethnic brethren. One of the reasons why Vlachs consider Serbs to be their ethnic brethren is because many Serbs have Vlach origin. The Serbian Orthodox Church has played a large role in this. In addition, during the Ottoman rule, Serbs migrated from the valleys to the mountains where they mixed with the Vlach population; thus, many present-day Serbs and Vlachs have both Slavic and Vlach blood.

It must be noted that Vlach is commonly used as a historical umbrella term for all Latin peoples in Southeastern Europe, including Romanians. In more recent usage, it is a synonym for Latin peoples south of the Danube, hence excluding Romanians. The old meaning is the origin for the modern Vlach ethnic identity, since Vlachs see themselves as descendants of those ancient Vlach peoples, and rather see Romanians as a subgroup of the Vlachs than Vlachs as a subgroup of Romanians. From the Vlach point of view, Romanians are those Vlachs who created their state of Romania and succeeded in gaining world acceptance for their own name for themselves, rather than the exonym term Vlach. In their own language Vlachs never use the term Vlach, but Rumân. They call their language română, but sometimes also rumâneşce/româneşte.

In some notes of the government of Serbia, officials recognise that "certainly members of this population have similar characteristics with Romanians, and the language and folklore ride to their Romanian origin. The representants of the Vlach minority sustain their Romanian origin. "

Famous Vlachs

Possibly the best known Vlach from eastern Serbia is Zoran Lilić, who was the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1993 and 1997.

See also

References

  1. ^ Template:Sr icon Template:PDFlink, p. 2 and Template:PDFlink, p. 12
  2. Template:Ro icon V. Arion; Vasile Pârvan; G. Vâlsan; Pericle Papahagi; G. Bogdan-Duică. România şi popoarele balcanice (1913). Tipografia Românească. Bucureşti, p. 22
  3. Template:Sr icon Ranko Bugarski, Jezici, Beograd, 1996.
  4. Ziua.net
  5. Interview with Predrag Balašević, president of the Romanian/Vlach Democratic Party of Serbia: "We all know that we call ourselves in Romanian Romanians and in Serbian Vlachs."
  6. Website of the Federaţia Rumânilor din Serbie
  7. All about Romanians in Timoc, published 31 May 2005

External links

Ethnic groups in Serbia
Serbs (Vojvodina, Kosovo)
Larger ethnic minorities
Smaller ethnic minorities
See also
Demographic history of Serbia
Ethnic groups in Bulgaria
according to 2011 census data
Categories: