The Balkan Vlachs: Born to Assimilate?

19.2 (Summer 1995) Nationalism in Eastern Europe

Balamaci
Nicholas S.
The Vlachs are a Romance-speaking Balkan population once characterized by a transhumant
lifestyle. Among their many other characteristics, one must count an uncanny way of making
those who study them question their most fundamental notions about ethnic groups and cultural
survival.
It all begins with their genesis: The Romans conquered Macedonia in the second century B.C.,
intermarrying with the indigenous Balkan peoples. The indigenous Balkan peoples. The Vlachs
are descendants of this union. Although their language is similar to Romanian, the Vlachs are
located at quite a distance from Romania in Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and the
former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The main distinguishing features of the Vlachs have long been their Romance language and their
transhumance, which involved migration between summer (highland) and winter (lowland)
pastures. Although today relatively few Vlachs are true transhumants, those who retain a Vlach
identity still tend to make summertime excursions to their mountain villages. Because there are
few books in Vlach and no standardized alphabet, Vlach culture has been fast losing ground to
modern advances in communications, from books and schools to satellites and MTV.
Parallel to these changes has been the hectic pace of Balkan state-building, including fast-track
efforts to assimilate minorities. Once wholly contained within the (Turkish) Ottoman Empire, early
in this century the Vlachs were divided among the modern Balkan states. At that time, their
population was estimated at 500,000; recent estimates cite less than half that number. Vlach
population figures are notoriously hard to substantiate; the most recent scholar to study the
Vlachs, Professor Tom Winnifrith of Warwick University in England, estimated in 1987 that there
were 30,000 Vlachs in Greece and 20,000 in Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Romania. (He
has since been allowed to travel throughout Albania and now estimates that the latter figure may
be five to ten times higher.) Communities of Vlachs also exist in Western Europe, North America,
and Australia, which together host several thousand Vlachs.
The situation seems pretty straightforward: Another ethnic and linguistic group is disappearing
under the indifferent juggernaut of modernity. Yet in the case of the Vlachs, the negative effects of
assimilation are not as clear cut. As it happens, they are themselves the product of a successful
assimilation.
One of the forerunners of modern Western civilization was the civilization of ancient Rome. Two
thousand years ago, the Balkan Peninsula south of the Danube may have been as diverse as it is
today; there were Thracians, Illyrians, Epirotes, Macedonians, Greeks, Scythians, and many
others. Though the memory of Rome has long been lost, those who were Romanized created a
new Balkan group that in most cases calls itself Rumani or Arumani (in English, Arumanians or
Aromanians). Outsiders, as usual, have dreamed up a host of other names: Vlachs,
Koutsovlachs, Tsintsars, Karagouni, Chobani, Vlasi, and Macedo-Romanians, to name just a few.
By all indications, once the Roman conquest was completed, the process of adopting the
Romans' language was fairly passive. Rather than force this on locals, the Romans built roads,
bridges, and other means of communication; they fostered industries and markets; and, perhaps
most importantly, over the centuries they opened up a vast new realm of opportunities in the army
and administration. The process of Romanization gave indigenous groups entre into a more
developed collective entity and civilization. Two thousands years later, another conquest is taking
place in the Balkan Peninsula, not at the tip of a sword, but at the touch of a TV remote control. It
is difficult to argue that assimilation is an evil that the Vlachs must avoid, when it was assimilation

that gave birth to the Vlachs in the first place.

The Vlachs make us question other cherished notions, such as that of "indigenous groups." One
can argue that the Vlachs represent indigenous groups." One can argue that the Vlachs represent
indigenous Balkan peoples who continued to survive in their ancestral lands-albeit speaking a
new language - after the Romans came. However, as far as we know, those groups were
themselves Indo-European invaders who only happened to settle in the Balkans many thousands
of years ago. In our search for the legitimacy conferred by the title "indigenous," where do we
draw the line?
Finally, even a cursory acquaintance with the Vlachs will make anyone wonder what constitutes
an ethnic group. Is it a common language, religion, culture, or some other such "barrier" to
outsiders? The Vlachs are known for the ease with which they assimilate. However, when they
are not actually assimilating, they are known for holding their Vlach identity in reserve, to be
displayed when favorable circumstances exist. It was in an article about the Vlachs that
anthropologist Muriel Dimen Schein decided to pose an old question in a very new way: "When is
an Ethnic Group?" (italics added by author)
The Vlachs thus present a fascinating case study of a traditional society adapting to modern life.
They provide a valuable contrast with many of the groups whose plight is usually presented on
these pages. But as much as they may differ on the particulars, the general outline of their history
is much the same: the modern world has not been friendly to their survival as an ethnic group.
A People without History?
Although the origin of the Vlachs is fairly straightforward, their trail is difficult to follow through the
historical record. The Romanization of the Balkan Peninsula began during the late stages of the
Roman Republic, and continued under the early Empire. Latin remained the language of officials
in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire until the sixth century A.D., when Greek came to
dominate. But in the more remote areas of the Balkan Peninsula, a new Romance language
developed. Today, two Balkan groups trace their ancestry to these Romance speakers: the
Romanians, to the north of the Danube River, and the Vlachs, to the south.
While there is a gap of several hundred years in the history of the Romanians, the Vlachs seem
to have existed in the southern Balkans (though not necessarily in the same precise locations)
since the Roman conquest. Here we enter the turbulent waters of Balkan history, which has
regularly been subordinated to present national imperatives. In this case, the Romanians and
Hungarians both covet Transylvania and have sought to legitimize their claims to it by asserting
historical priority in that region. Thus, the Hungarians theorize that the Romanians are really
Vlachs from the southern Balkans who migrated north of the Danube during the Middle Ages (i.e.,
after the Hungarians arrived). The Romanians respond by asserting that they are the
descendants of the indigenous Dacians north of the Danube who, though conquered and partially
assimilated by the Romans, have continued to exist in all current Romanian lands since antiquity.
Romanians see the Vlachs alternately as indigenous Thracians south of the Danube who were
Romanized (the Dacians were a Thracian tribe) and as Romanians from north of the Danube who
migrated south.
Ethnic Conflict, State-Building, and Assimilation
Like other ethnic groups, the Vlachs' consciousness and primary loyalty have long been linked to
their immediate environment - clan, village, mountain, valley - not to any national concept. Such
ideas were born in Western Europe in the early nineteenth century, and only since then have
Vlachs and others come to see themselves as part of a "nation." Whereas the Romanians
eventually went on to create their own nation-state in the nineteenth century, the Vlachs, due to
their proximity to Greek populations, have come more and more under the influence of Greek
culture. In fact, all Balkan groups during the Ottoman occupation were marked by the fluidity with

which they adopted aspects of each other's culture. This was especially true of Greek culture,
which not only predominated through the Orthodox Church but was also the language of trade
and commerce - so much so that to prosper as a merchant was to become "Greek." Once
nationalism became a force in European political life in the nineteenth century, however, this
relatively peaceful Balkan coexistence ended. As Ottoman strength in Europe faded, the various
Balkan national groups began to fight over the remaining Turkish lands in the peninsula.
A nationalist movement began among wealthy Vlach merchants in Vienna and Budapest at the
start of the nineteenth century. Thr rising Romanian state soon co-opted it, however, claiming the
Vlachs as long-lost kin and investing large sums in Romanian schools and churches for them.
While genuinely fraternal feelings certainly existed under the romantic form of early nationalism,
the Romanians also hoped to use the Vlachs as a bargaining chip in their territorial claims against
neighboring Balkan countries. This Romanian nationalist movement gave rise to the new ethnic
designation Macedoromni, "Macedo-Romanians," which meant to signify that the Vlachs were
simply Romanians who happened to come from Macedonia. But the Greek state opposed the
Romanian movement, and the Vlachs soon same to be divided into pro-Greek and pro-Romanian
factions. The bitterness between the two was not great until Greece, in conducting a guerrilla war
at the turn of this century against various armed groups of Slavic nationalists for possession of
Macedonia, made the unfortunate decision to use force against the unarmed pro-Romanian Vlach
nationalists.
Conflict erupted on the academic front as well. Greek nationalist scholars, seeking to prove Greek
historical priority and continuity in Macedonia from antiquity (i.e., before the arrival of the Slavs),
adopted the theory that the Vlachs were really "Vlachophone Hellenes," that is, Greeks by "race"
who had learned a Romance language. Though this thesis has never been supported outside of
Greece, it has enjoyed a remarkable staying power among both Greeks and Hellenized Vlachs.
Its effect on Vlach identity has been tremendous - if one is "biologically" Greek, and one's Latin
idiom merely an anomaly, then indeed why not abandon that idiom and return to one's true
"race?"
Modern nationalism divided the Vlachs in other ways. Once contained entirely within the Ottoman
Empire, the various Vlach territories were dismembered along with that Empire through most of
the 19th century in order to form or enlarge the modern Balkan nation-states. The Vlachs were by
no means passive in this process: when the cession of Thessaly from the Ottoman Empire to
Greece was proposed in 1881, a large number of Vlachs petitioned the Sultan in protest. The
petition cited their fears of assimilation by the expansive Greek state, as well as the fact that the
new border cut right across the main north-south migration route for transhumant Vlach
shepherds. But their protests went unheeled. By 1918, the Vlachs were effectively divided among
Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, and what was to become Yugoslavia. Mass migrations created
diaspora communities in America between 1900 and 1920, and in Romania between 1920 and
1940. Vigorous assimilation was the rule everywhere, and after the Second World War, it looked
as if the Vlachs' disappearance as an ethnic group was imminent.
Revival and Renewed Conflict
During the international "ethnic revival" of the 1980s, it seemed that the Vlachs' situation might
change. migr communities in America and Western Europe took new interest in their culture
and language and encouraged their compatriots in the Balkans to do the same. At the same time,
the Pan-Hellenic Union of Vlach Cultural Societies was founded in Greece as an umbrella
organization for the country's far-flung Vlach villages. In Yugoslavia, concessions were made to
Vlachs seeking to preserve their culture - books were published, records pressed, organizations
founded, and TV and radio broadcasts produced. An alternative to the destructive RomanianGreek dichotomy also emerged as a number of Vlachs in France, Germany, America and Greece
stepped forward for the first time to assert a Vlach identity.
But - perhaps is response to the revival of the 1980s - ethnic pride gave way to ethnic cleansing

in the 1990s, with great ramifications for cultural survival. For the Vlachs, the first blow came in
1991, when crisis between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia ratcheted up
nationalist sentiments on both sides of that border. The Vlachs of Greece had only timidly
asserted their ethnicity in the first place, since the Greek state claims it has no ethnic minorities
within its borders. The Macedonian problem made the assertion of any non-Greek identity almost
impossible.
Similar developments occurred on the other side of the border in the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia. Before the break-up of Yugoslavia, the Vlachs there were organized into several
associations. They are now recognized as a minority in the Constitution of the Macedonian
Republic, and they enjoy television and radio broadcasts in their language. The Macedonian
crisis, however, once again made them a pawn in a power struggle, with both Slavic
Macedonians and Greeks making claims on the Vlachs' loyalties. Slavic Macedonian ultra
nationalists, apparently fearing the consequences should they constitute less than an absolute
majority in that fragile, multiethnic republic, threatened to retaliate against Vlachs who classify
themselves as anything other than "Macedonian." Then neighboring Greece began to claim a
"Greek minority" of 250,000, and they included the Vlachs of the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia in that number. A new census has just been completed, in which the Vlachs confirmed
their penchant for hiding behind other identities - only 8,000 people said they were Vlach, though
local activists say the number is more like 80,000.
The second blow was delivered when relations between Greece and Albania deteriorated sharply
last year over the state of the Greek minority in Southern Albania. One of the more surprising
discoveries made by western visitors to Albania as it began to open up in the 1990s was the size
of the Vlach community there, Dr. Winnifrith, who has toured Southern Albania extensively in the
last 3 years, now places the number of Albanian Vlachs at up to 200,000 - a huge figure
considering that Winnifrith previously had estimated only about 50,000 Vlachs in the entire Balkan
Peninsula. When a new democratic government was elected in Albania in April, 1992, the Vlachs
there were allowed to organize an ethnic society. For a short while, it looked as if they might be
able to hold their own and avoid the fate of all other Vlach cultural preservation efforts over the
last two centuries.
But then the Greek-Albanian crisis erupted. The Greeks claim their minority numbers 400,000,
while the Albanians place it at 60,000 - neither side's figures are reliable. Greek nationalists tend
to count all the Orthodox Christians of Albania as "Greek," including Vlachs and Albanians. There
has been an active effort to bolster Greek claims by wooing the Vlachs, and in contrast to halfhearted Romanian attempts to do the same, the Greeks are meeting with a good measure of
success, for many reasons. First, the Vlachs see Greece as a powerful protector against the
Moslem majority of Albania. They also see that extraordinary economic opportunity are theirs for
the taking across the border in Greece, if only they declare themselves "Northern Epirotes" (the
Greek term for their minority in Albania). Finally, when speaking of impoverished descendants of
sheepherders, one must never underestimate the powerful attraction of the dignity conferred by
an imputed link with Socrates, Plato, and Homer. The result is that in Albania, too, the Vlachs are
playing into the hands of the economic, political, social, and diplomatic forces conspiring to
assimilate them.
These Balkan machinations are wreaking havoc in the three largest indigenous communities of
Vlachs - those in Greece, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Albania. Almost all
other Vlach communities are transplanted. In Bulgaria, there is no remaining community to speak
of, save a few villages in the Dobrogea, which Romania colonized with Vlachs when it held that
region briefly between the two world wars. And while a 1992 census found 28,088 Vlachs in
Romania proper, Vlachs there routinely cite figures in the hundreds of thousands. Whatever their
actual number, the community in Romania is committed to assimilation into Romanian society.
The Vlach Diaspora

Among Vlachs in the United States, interest shown in the overseas community has been
complicated by the political situations being played out there. Many of those old divisions are
reproduced intact in the USA, with the result that the American Vlach community usually keeps to
itself. The United States is the home of the oldest and largest Vlach organization in continuous
existence, the Society Farsarotul (founded 1903, 400 members today), which publishes a
newsletter twice a year that attempts to track the situation of the Vlachs throughout the world. The
main goal of the Society Farsarotul is to preserve the ethnic community in America by providing it
with an institution, a voice and a focal point for members, as well as a point of contact for
outsiders.
A few Vlachs also settled in Western Europe, and since the early 1980s, some of them have tried
to create a base from which to launch an international Vlach cultural revival, holding conferences
and appealing to the European Union for help. Led by a professor named Vasile Barba, who is
affiliated with the University of Freiburg, this group is known as the Union for Arumanian
Language and Culture (Uniunea tri Limba shi Cultura Aromana, or ULCA). Although the Union is
made up largely of Vlachs who come out of the old pro-Romanian movement, it broke with that
movement by advocating a Vlach (as opposed to a Romanian) identity. The ULCA also created
an alphabet for the Vlach language rather than use the Romanian or Greek alphabets, the
practice of Vlachs in those two nationalist movements.
But the ULCA has been strident in tone towards the pro-Greek Vlachs, who are the key to the
Vlachs' cultural survival. The most developed segment of the remaining Vlach population is in
Greece; the only remaining Vlach town, Metsovo, is located in Greece; the most appealing
nation-state for Vlachs to throw in their lot with has traditionally been Greece.
The Western European Vlachs have doomed their cultural preservation efforts to failure with their
anti-Greek rhetoric. And with them, the Vlachs may have lost their last chance at survival - their
last chance at survival as Vlachs - because the indigenous peoples who are today Vlachs
survived, in part, by assimilating, and are merely doing so again. Unless some kind of incentive is
developed to encourage Vlachs to remain Vlachs (such as funding schools to teach the language,
and newspapers to extend its currency and usefulness), it is reasonable to expect this ethnic
group to disappear within one or two generations. Their case reminds us that, while humankind is
perhaps diminished by the loss of an ethnic or linguistic group, the individual members of the
group themselves can sometimes gain.