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Vlachs of Serbia

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Vlachs (Romanians) of Serbia
Rumâni din Sârbie
Regions with significant populations
Central Serbia
Languages
Vlach (Romanian)
Religion
Predominantly Eastern Orthodox.

The Vlachs of Serbia (endonym: Rumâni, Serbian: Власи or Vlasi) are an ethnic minority of Serbia, culturally and linguistically an ethnic subgroup of Romanians.

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. 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.

Identity

Romanians (Vlachs) from the village Zdrelo in 1868

The name they identify with Rumâni din Sârbie in fact means Romanians from Serbia. The Romanian(Vlach) community consider Romania as their home country. Although they are ethnographically and linguistically related to the Romanians, within the Vlach community there are divergences on whether they belong or not to the Romanian nation and whether their minority should be amalgamated with the Romanian minority in Vojvodina.

In a Romanian-Yugoslav agreement from the November 4, 2002, the Yugoslav authorities agreed to recognize the Romanian identity of the Vlach population in Central Serbia, but the agreement wasn't applied. In April 2005, many deputies from the Council of Europe protested against Serbia's treatment of this population. In March 2007, the Vlach (Romanian) organizations announced the intention to put on trial the Serbian state. In August 2007, they have been officially recognized as a national minority, and their language was recognized to be the Romanian.

Origins of Vlachs/Romanians of Northeast Serbia

The origins of the Vlachs/Romanians of northeast Serbia are not well known to most Vlachs, principally because nothing is taught about the subject in Serbian schools. As Roman-speakers, the Vlachs can relate to the Roman ruins (forts, roads, palaces, graves, baths, aqueducts, mines, half-buried cities etc.) that are scattered in NE Serbia, as indeed they are throughout the entire Balkan Peninsula. Following Roman withdrawal from Dacia in the third century, much of what is now Serbia and Bulgaria was renamed Dacia Aureliana (later Dacia ripensis), and an undetermined number of Romanized Dacians was settled there. Strong Roman presence in the region persisted through the end of Justinian's reign in the 6th century.

The Vlach region of NE Serbia was part of the 12th–13th century Second Bulgarian empire (called in Romania Vlacho-Bulgarian), whose first rulers, the Asens, are sometimes considered Vlach.. The chroniclers of the crusaders describe meeting with Vlachs in the 12th and 13th century in various parts of what is now Serbia. Serbian documents from the 13th and 14th century mention Vlachs, including Tsar Dushan's famous prohibition of intermarriage between Serbs and Vlachs. Fourteenth and fifteenth century Romanian (Valachian) rulers built churches in NE Serbia. Fifteenth century Turkish tax records (defters) list Vlachs in the region of Branicevo in NE Serbia, near the ancient Roman municipium and colonia of Viminacium. The 16th–17th century warlord Baba Novac (Starina Novak), who served as Michael the Brave's general, was born in NE Serbia. Thus the modern descendants of all these people can be held to originate south of the Danube.

Starting in the early 18th century NE Serbia was settled by Romanians (then known by their international exonym as Vlachs) from Banat, parts of Transylvania, and Oltenia (Lesser Walachia). These are the Ungureni (Ungurjani), Munteni (Munćani) and Bufeni (Bufani). Today about three quarters of the Vlach population speak the Ungurean subdialect. In the 19th century other groups of Romanians, originating in Oltenia (Lesser Wallachia), also settled south of the Danube. These are the Ţărani (Carani), who form some 25% of the modern population. The very name Ţărani indicates their origin in Ţara Româneasca, i.e., "The Romanian Land," Wallachia and Oltenia. It should be noted that from the 15th through the 18th centuries large numbers of Serbs also migrated across the Danube, but in the opposite direction. Significant migration ended with the establishment of the kingdoms of Serbia and Rumania, respectively, in the second half of the 19th century.

The lack of detailed census records and the linguistic effects of the Ungureni and Ţărani on the entire Vlach population make it difficult to determine what fraction of the present Vlachs can trace their origins directly to the ancient south-of-the-Danube Vlachs. The Vlachs of NE Serbia form a contiguous linguistic, cultural and historic group with the Vlachs in the region of Vidin in Bulgaria, as well as the Romanians of Banat and Oltenia (Lesser Wallachia).

Some authors consider that the majority of Vlachs/Romanians in Timocka Krajina are descendants of Romanians that migrated from Hungary in the 18th and 19th century.

Language

The language spoken by the Vlachs consists of two distinct Romanian subdialects of Romanian dialects spoken in the neighboring regions of Romania: one major group of Vlachs speaks the subdialect spoken in the Mehedinţi county in western Oltenia, while that of the other major group speaks a subdialect similar to the Romanian subdialect spoken in the neighboring region of Banat.

The Romanian language is not in use in local administration, not even in places where more the members of the minority represent more than 15% of the population. (according to Serbian law, the use of the language in local administration is allowed in places where the minority has a percentage higher than 15%).

  • The Romanian vocabulary in Central Serbia. Researches made by Gustav Weigand:
  • The Romanian linguistic areal The Romanian linguistic areal
  • The extension of the Banatian dialect in Central Serbia The extension of the Banatian dialect in Central Serbia

Religion

Most Vlachs(Romanians) of Eastern Serbia are Orthodox Christians and they used to belong the Serbian Orthodox Church since the XIX century until 24.03.2009 when Serbia recognized the authority of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Valea Timocului and the confessional rights of the Vlachs(Romanians)..

The 2006 Serbian law on religious organizations does not recognized the Romanian Orthodox Church as a traditional church, as it received permission from the Serbian Church to operate only within Vojvodina, but not in the Timočka Krajina.. At Malajnica, a Vlach priest belonging to the Romanian Orthodox Church met deliberately raised administrative barriers in his attempt to build a church. Other Romanian Orthodox churches are planned or under construction in Jasikovo, Cuprija, Bigrenica and Samarinovac. Additionally, a Romanian Orthodox monastery is under construction in Malajnica. The Romanian Orthodox churches in Eastern Central Serbia are subordinated to the Protopresbyteriat Dacia Ripensis with its seat in Negotin. The protopresbyteriat is subordinated to the Romanian Orthodox diocese Dacia Felix with its seat in Vršac.

The relative isolation of the Vlachs has permitted the survival of various pre-Christian religious customs and beliefs that are frowned upon by the Orthodox Church. Vlach magic rituals are well known across Serbia. Like other Balkan peoples, notably the Serbs, the Vlachs celebrate the praznic (slava), though its meaning is chtonic (related to the house and farmland) rather than familial. The customs of the Vlachs (Romanians) are very similar to those from Southern Romania (Walachia).

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 Ţărani have the saying "Nu dau un leu pe el" (He's not worth even a leu). The reference to "leu" (lion) as currency most likely goes back to the 17th century when the Dutch-issued daalder (leeuwendaalder) bearing the image of a lion was in circulation in the Romanian principalities and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire whose own currency was habitually being debased by the government. In the Romanian principalities, as well as in Bulgaria, the leeuwendaalder (in Romanian and Bulgarian leu and lev, respectively) came to symbolize a strong currency. Indeed on gaining independence in the 19th century both countries adopted this name for their new currencies. Since newly independent Serbia named its currency (the dinar) after the Roman denarius, the reference to the leu among the Ţărani is an indication of their connection to, if not origin in, what is now Romania.


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.

Ethnic map of the Balkans from 1861, by Guillaume Lejean
Ethnic map of the Balkans prior to the First Balkan War, by Paul Vidal de la Blache.
Map of Balkans with regions inhabited by Vlachs highlighted

Dushan’s prohibition of a land-bound serf (i.e., Serb man) from marrying a then Vlach(today Romanian) woman testifies to the desire of the agriculturalists to ease their oppression by returning to the relatively freer life led by the Vlachs(Romanian).

Population

File:Romanian settlements in Central Serbia.jpg
Settlements inhabited by Romanians (Vlachs) before WW1
Area inhabited by Vlachs (Romanians) 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 a minority, like the Romanians of Serbia, which number 34,576 according to the 2002 census. On the census, the Vlachs declared themselves either as Serbs, Vlachs or Romanians. 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 Vlachs.

Historical population

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

  • 1816: 97,215 Romanians (10% of Serbia's population.)
  • 1856: 104,343 Romanians
  • 1859: 122,593 Romanians
  • 1866: 127,545 Romanians (10,5% of Serbia's population)
  • 1884: 149,713 Romanians
  • 1890: 143,684 Romanians
  • 1895: 159,000 Romanians (6,4% of Serbia's population)
  • 1921: 159,549 Romanian-speakers in Serbia (Vojvodina is not included)
  • 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; out of the 17,807 declared Vlachs, 677 Serbo-Croat-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 (Romanian) population of Central Serbia is concentrated mostly in the region limited by Morava River (west), Danube River (north) and Timok River (south-east). See also: List of settlements in Serbia inhabited by Vlachs.

By some Romanian and Western European organizations, in eastern Serbia live around 250,000 - 400,000people of Romanian(vlach) origin.

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, on the last census resulty most Vlachs (Romanians) of Eastern Serbia opted rather for the Serbian exonym vlasi (=Vlachs) than "rumuni" (=Romanians). As a result of serbianization, most Vlachs declare themselves as "Serbs" on the census during Communist Yugoslavia, though the number of those who preferred to delcare Vlachs or Romanians strongly increased from 1991 (16,539 declared Vlachs and 42 declared Romanians) to 2001 (39,953 declared Vlachs and 4,157 declared Romanians)

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 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).

Vlach is commonly used as a historical umbrella term for all Latin peoples in Southeastern Europe (Romanians proper or Dacoromanians, Aromanians, Meglenoromanians, Istroromanians). After the foundation of the Romanian state in the 19th century, the Romanians living in the Romanian Old Kingdom and in Austria-Hungary have only seldom been called "Vlachs" by the foreigners, while the use of the newly created exonym "Romanians" was encouraged even by officials and the Romanian population ceased to use the exonym "Vlach" for their own designation. Only in the Serbian and Bulgarian Kingdom, where the officials didn't encourage the population to use the modern exonym "Romanian", the old designation "Vlach" was kept and the term "Romanian" was used only in statistical reports (but only up to the Interwar period, when they changed even here the designation "Romanian" into "Vlach"). From this reason, the Romanians of Vojvodina (hence those who lived in Austria-Hungary), prefer to use today the modern exonym "Romanian", while those of Central Serbia still use the ancient exonym "Vlach". However, both groups use the endonym "Romanians", calling their language "Romanian" (română or rumână).

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

  • Bojan Aleksandrovic (Boian Alexandrovici), the priest who in 2004 successfully defied the authorities to build the first Romanian Orthodox Church in eastern Serbia in the last two centuries .
  • Branko Olar, originating from the village Slatina near Bor, was one of the best known singer of Romanian folklore from Eastern Serbia.
  • Nikola Pašić (Serbian Cyrillic: Никола П. Пашић, at the time also spelled Pashitch or Pachitch), (1845 - 1926) . Pašić was born in the eastern Serbian town of Zaječar in a Vlach (but, Aromanian, not Dacoromanian) family. His relatives lived all over Timoc Valley, in Serbia and Bulgaria and during his political career, the relatives from Bulgarian Timok, gave him sanctuary, when his political enemies banned him from Serbia. He inherited the Serbian name Pašić from his Serbian stepfather. Mayor of Belgrade (1890–91 and 1897) several times prime minister of Serbia (1891–92, 1904–05, 1906–08, 1909–11, 1912–18) and prime minister of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (future Yugoslavia, 1918, 1921–24, 1924–26) he was an important politician in the Balkans, who, together with his counterparts like Eleftherios Venizelos in Greece or Ionel Brătianu in Romania, managed to strengthen their small, national states against strong foreign influences, most notably those of Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Russia. Fellow politicians nick-named him "The Father of Yugoslavia".

See also

References

  1. http://www.cnmnr.org.rs/ko%20su%20vlasi.html
  2. ^ "The situation of national minorities in Vojvodina and of the Romanian ethnic minority in Serbia", at the Council of Europe, 14 February 2008
  3. Adevărul, 6 Noiembrie 2002: Prin acordul privind minoritatile, semnat, luni, la Belgrad, de catre presedintii Ion Iliescu si Voislav Kostunita, statul iugoslav recunoaste dreptul apartenentei la minoritatea romaneasca din Iugoslavia al celor aproape 120.000 de vlahi (cifra neoficiala), care traiesc in Valea Timocului, in Serbia de Rasarit.
  4. Curierul Naţional, 25 ianuarie 2003: Chiar si acordul dintre presedintii Ion Iliescu si Voislav Kostunita, semnat la sfarsitul anului trecut, nu este respectat, in ceea ce priveste minoritatile, deoarece locuitorii din Valea Timocului, numiti vlahi, nu sunt recunoscuti ca minoritari, ci doar „grup etnic“.
  5. Parliamentary Assembly, 28 April 2005: Deeply concerned over the cultural situation of the so-called “Vlach” Romanians dwelling in 154 ethnic Romanian localities 48 localities of mixed ethnic make-up between the Danube, Timok and Morava Rivers who since 1833 have been unable to enjoy ethnic rights in schools and churches
  6. Gardianul, 21 March 2007: Romanii timoceni din Serbia dau in judecata Guvernul de la Belgrad
  7. România Liberă, 16 August 2007: Romanii din Valea Timocului, cunoscuti drept vlahi, au obtinut recunoasterea statutului de minoritate nationala. Decizia guvernului de la Belgrad inseamna, printre altele, ca limba romana ar putea fi predata in premiera in scolile din Serbia unde romanii timoceni sunt majoritari, transmite BBC, preluat de Rompres.
  8. "Viminacium"
  9. Template:Sr icon "Felix Romuliana"
  10. Alaric Watson, Aurelian and the Third Century, Routlege, 1999.
  11. William Rosen, Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe, Viking Adult, 2007.
  12. Wolff, Robert Lee Wolff, The Second Bulgarian Empire: Its Origin and History to 1204, SpeculumVolume 24, Issue 2 , 1949.
  13. ^ Template:Hr iconZef Mirdita, Vlasi u historiografiji, Hrvatski institut za povijest, Zagreb 2004.
  14. ^ Noel Malcolm, Kosovo, A short History, University Press, NY, 1999.
  15. Template:De icon Felix Kanitz, Serbien, Leipzig, 1868.
  16. Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A short History, University Press, NY, 1994.
  17. Template:Sr icon , Starina Novak
  18. Template:Sr icon Kosta Jovanovic, Negotinska Krajina i Kljuc, Belgrade, 1940
  19. Aspects of the Balkans: continuity and change. Contributions to the International Balkan Conference held at UCLA, October 23–28, 1969
  20. http://www.ziuadevest.ro/actualitate/5863-biserica-roman-din-timoc-a-fost-recunoscut-de-ctre-curtea-suprem-de-justiie-a-serbiei.html
  21. "Biserica românească din Malainiţa ameninţată din nou", BBC Romanian, 16 September 2005
  22. http://www.ziarullumina.ro/articole;940;1;24534;0;Obiceiuri-de-inmormantare-la-romanii-din-Timoc.html
  23. Radovan Tomasevic, Srpsko Naslede, Istorijske Sveske, 6, 1998. (in Serbian)
  24. ^ Template:Sr icon Template:PDFlink, p. 2 and Template:PDFlink, p. 12
  25. Template:Ro icon V. Arion; Vasile Pârvan; G. Vâlsan; Pericle Papahagi; G. Bogdan-Duică. România şi popoarele balcanice (1913). Tipografia Românească. Bucureşti, p. 22
  26. Guillaume Lejean, Ethnographie de la Turquie d'Europe, Gotha. Justus Perthes 1861
  27. Geographisches Handbuch zu Andrees Handatlas (Leipzig und Bielefeld, 1882): 1866 zählte man 1.058.189 Serben, 127.545 Rumänen, 24.607 Zigeuner, 2589 Deutsche und 3256 andere.
  28. Geographisches Handbuch zu Andrees Handatlas 1902: Fast die ganze Bevölkerung, über 2 Mill, besteht aus Serben, außerdem gab es, nach der Zählung von 1895, 159.000 Rumänen und 46.000 Zigeuner
  29. Official results of the 1921 census from Serbia
  30. Template:Sr icon Ranko Bugarski, Jezici, Beograd, 1996.
  31. Gardianul, 27 Mar 2007
  32. Deutsche Welle, 23.4.2003
  33. Ziua.net
  34. 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."
  35. Website of the Federaţia Rumânilor din Serbie
  36. Viorel Dolha, Totul despre românii din Timoc (All about Romanians in Timoc)
  37. "SERBIA: Romanian priest to pay for official destruction of his church"
  38. Template:Ro [http://www.rgnpress.ro/Politic/Haiducul-credintei-din-Valea-Timocului-Boian-Alexandrovici-decorat-de-presedintele-Basescu.html "Haiducul credintei din Valea Timocului, Boian Alexandrovici, decorat de presedintele Basescu"]

External links

Ethnic groups in Serbia
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See also
Demographic history of Serbia
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