The Vlachs of Serbia

The Vlachs of Serbia (endonym: Rumâni, Serbian: Vlasi) are an ethnic minority of Serbia, culturally and linguistically related to 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.


As Romance-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 Bulgaro-Vlach empire of the Assens, who were themselves 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).


The Vlach language spoken by the Vlachs is made out of dialects similar to the Romanian dialects from the adjunct regions of Romania: one major group of Vlachs speaks the Oltenian dialect, while that of the other major group speaks a dialect similar to the Romanian dialect of Banat. Vlachs are divided into many groups, each speaking their own variant:
* the Ţărani (Serbian: Carani)
* the Ungureni or Ungureani (Serbian: Ungurjani)
* Ungureni Munteni (Serbian: Ungurjani-Munćani), meaning: "the Ungureni from the mountains"
* Bufani - immigrants from Lesser Walachia (Oltenia)


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. 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.

The Aromanians

The Aromanians (Macedo-Romanians or Macedo-Rumans; in Aromanian they call themselves Armãnji, Armin, Rrãmãnji, Arumâni, Armâni, or Vlaçi; Romanian: Aromâni) are a people living throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Romania (Dobruja). They are the second most populous group of Vlachs, behind modern-day Romanians (Vlachs was a term used in the Medieval Balkans, as an exonym for all the Romanic people of the region, but nowadays, it is commonly used only for the Aromanians and Meglenites, the Romanians being named Vlachs only in historical context). They speak the Aromanian language, a Romance language typically classed as distinct from Romanian proper, or Daco-Romanian, which has many slightly varying dialects of its own. Due to the common language foundations, dating from the times of Latin language, historians believe that the language link with Romanian was interrupted between the 7th and 9th centuries.


Nominated according to the geographic area, Aromanians are grouped into several "branches": "Pindians" (Aromanian "Pindenji" concentrated in and around the Pindus Mountains of Northern and Central Greece, Western region of Macedonia, and Southern Albania) "Gramustians" (Aromanian "Yrãmushcianji" from Gramos Mountains, an isolated area in the westernmost region of the Greek province of Macedonia near the borders with Epirus), "Muzachiars" (Aromanian "Muzachirenji" from Muzachia) "Farsherots" (Aromanian "Fãrsherotii" from Pharsala, concentrated in Epirus), "Moscopolitans" (Aromanian "Moscopoleanji" from the City of Moscopole; once an important urban center of the Balkans).


In Greece, Aromanians are not regarded as an ethnic minority, since they do not proclaim a non-Hellenic national identity, instead being considered Latin-speaking Greeks. Their origins are disputed. The Romanian hypothesis contends that Aromanians came to northern Greece from the Danube region; the opposing Greco-Aromanian theory is that they descend from the Romanised, local Greek population. Other theories on the possible origins of Greco-Aromanians describe them as:
* The descendants of Roman colonizers and soldiers, who would receive agricultural lands as payments for their services,
* A branch of Daco-Romanian,
* Descendants of ancient Thracians or Illyrians,
* Latinised Greeks as mercenary soldiers of the Roman legions.

It is however clear that until the 7th - 9th century, Romanians and Aromanians spoke the same eastern variant of Vulgar Latin, often known as Proto-Romanian.


In the Middle Ages, Aromanians created semi-autonomous states on the territory of modern Greece, such as Great Wallachia, Small Wallachia and Upper Wallachia. Benjamin of Tudela, a Spanish Jew who travelled through south-eastern Europe and the Middle East between 1159 and 1173, alludes to the Vlachs in The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela. He claimed that they enjoyed some measure of independence on their Valachian mountain tops. Aromanians played an important role in the independence wars of various Balkan countries: Bulgaria, Albania and Greece, against the Ottoman Empire. But also in 1905 the Aromanians were acknowledged as a separate nation (millet) of the Ottoman Empire, allowing them to have their own schools and liturgy in their own Aromanian language. This happened during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid the Second, when the Aromanians even got their own representatives in the Great Porte. The day of the signing of the so-called Aromanian Iradeo or Turkish Irade, 23 of May is celebrated as the National Day of the Aromanians from the whole world and is celebrated as an official holiday in Macedonia. In 1941, after the Nazi occupation of Greece, some Aromanian nationalists created an autonomous Vlach state under Fascist Italian control: the Principality of Pindus and Voivodship of Macedonia. After the fall of Communism, the Aromanian nation formed its own cultural and political societies in the Balkans and started its new national re-awakening.


Aromanian Flag
In Greece, Aromanians are not regarded as an ethnic but as a linguistic -albeit unrecognized officially- minority, since most of them express an ethnic Greek identity. Generally, the use of the minority languages has been discouraged, although recently, there have been efforts from the Greek presidency to preserve endangered languages (including Aromanian). It is difficult to estimate the exact number of Aromanians, as no Greek census has recorded mother tongue statistics since 1951. Estimates on the number of Aromanians in Greece range between 40,000 to 200,000.

The second largest Aromanian community lives in Albania, counting between 100,000 and 200,000 people. There are currently timid attempts to establish education in their native language in the town of Divjaka. The Aromanians, under the name "Vlachs", are a recognised national minority in the Albanian constitution.


Spread of Aromanians in Albania:
* (Red) Aromanians are the exclusive population in the settelement
* (Yellow) Aromanians form a majority or a substantial minority in the settlement

According to official government figures, there are 8,467 Aromanians in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, even though other sources estimate their numbers as high as 20,000 or even more than 100.000 according to their associations' and other estimates. The Aromanians are recognized as an ethnic minority, and are hence represented in parliament and enjoy ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious rights and the right to education in their language.


Spread of Aromanians in the Republic of Macedonia:
* (Green) Localities where Aromanians are an officially recognized minority group
* (Blue) Other localities with an Aromanian population
* (Yellow) Areas where Megleno-Romanians are concentrated

Since the Middle Ages, due to the Turkish occupation and the destruction of their cities, such as Moscopole, many Aromanians fled their homeland in the Balkans to settle the Romanian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, which had a similar language and a certain degree of autonomy from the Turks. These immigrant Aromanians were assimilated into the Romanian population. In 1860, the Romanian government opened almost 100 schools in Greece and the Ottoman territories of Macedonia and Albania in an attempt to inculcate a sense of modern Romanian national identity in a population which historically identified with the Byzantine tradition. In 1925, 47 years after Dobruja was incorporated into Romania, the Romanian King gave the Aromanians land to settle in this region, which resulted in a significant migration of Aromanians into Romania. There are currently between 25,000 and 50,000 Aromanians in Romania, most of which are concentrated in Dobruja. Due to their cultural closeness to ethnic Romanians, most of them do not consider themselves to be a distinct ethnic minority but rather a "cultural minority".

The Megleno-Romanians

The Megleno-Romanians or Meglen Vlachs or Moglenite Vlachs (Megleno-Romanian: Vlashi; Greek: Vlachomoglenítes; Romanian: Meglenoromâni, Megleniţi, or Vlaşi) are a small Eastern Romance people, currently inhabiting seven villages in the Moglena region spanning the Pella and Kilkis prefectures of Central Macedonia, Greece, and one village, Huma, across the border in the Republic of Macedonia. This people live in an area of approximately 300 sq. km in size. They speak a Romance language most often called by linguists Megleno-Romanian or Meglenitic in English, and Vlachomoglenítika or simply Moglenítika in Greek. The people themselves call their language Vlaheshte, but the Megleno-Romanian diaspora in Romania also uses the term Megleno-Română. Unlike the Aromanian Vlachs, the other Romance speaking population in the same historic region, the Meglen Vlachs are traditionally sedentary agriculturalists, and not traditionally transhumants.


Historians Ovid Densusianu and C. Jirecek considered that Megleno-Romanians descend from a mixture of Romanians with Pecenegs, settled in Moglen by the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in 1091. They argued this based in part on the Asian-like facial appearance (more prominent cheek bones) of Meglen Vlachs. By contrast, Gustav Weigand and George Murnu believed that Megleno-Romanians are descendants of the Romanian-Bulgarian Empire that retreated to Moglen. Pericle Papahagi argued another version, that Megleno-Romanians are descendants of a group of Romanians who were incorrectly called Vlachs. Theodor Capidan, studying the resemblance of the Megleno-Romanian language with Romanian and other languages, concluded that Megleno-Romanians must have spent some time in the Rhodope Mountains before moving on to Moglen (due to similar elements with the language of the Bulgarians in the Rhodopes).

From the medieval and modern periods, it is known that Moglen Vlachs had an administration of their own. Each village was led by a captain. Their economic and social center was the town of Nânta. After the incursions of the Pomaks of Moglen against the Ottomans, the latter started a persecution campaign against villages in the area, including those of the Moglen Vlachs. Most of the villages were put under the administration of an Ottoman bei, who exploited them to the extreme in exchange for their security. The village of Osani, however, resisted much longer before being subdued by the Ottomans, because its captain was more skilled militarily.


Most Meglen Vlachs are Orthodox Christians, but the population of the village of Nânti (Nótia), which in 1900 had a population of 3,660, of which 3,500 Megleno-Romanians, in the Upper Karadjova Plain converted to Islam in the 17th or 18th century. It is the only case among Eastern Romance populations with an entire community converting to Islam. The entire population of this village was forcefully expelled to Turkey in 1923, as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, where they mostly settled in Kırklareli and Şarköy, and became known as Karadjovalides after the Turkish name of Moglen.

In 1926, about 450 families of Megleno-Romanians of Greece moved to Romania, and settled in Southern Dobruja (Cadrilater), a region which became Romanian in 1913. They originated from the villages of Osani, Liumnita, Cupa, Lundzini, Birislav, Livezi, and were settled in villages around the city of Durostor such as Cocina, Cazimir, Capaclia, Bazarghian, Aidodu, Tatar Admagea, Uzungi Ozman, Strebarna Viskioi, Cadichioi, Haschioi. After Bulgaria re-acquired Southern Dobruja from Romania in 1940, the Megleno-Romanians moved to other regions of Romania, many of them to the village of Cerna in Tulcea County, in northern Dobruja. 270 families of Megleno-Romanians and 158 families of Aromanians settled in this village in 1940. Between 1940 and 1948, the Aromanian families moved to other localities of Dobruja. Another wave of Megleno-Romanians emigrated to Romania and to other countries during World War II and the Greek Civil War, due to the heavy fighting carried out in the Moglená region. As of 1996, in all Romania there were about 820 families that claimed Megleno-Romanian origin.


However, their small overall number led to the fact that after 1950 mixed marriages with Romanians were more often, unlike the Aromanians who by the nature of their traditional occupations have developed a special psychology, gaining weight in the Romanian society and preserving their people (very few mixed marriages with Romanians occuring). However, due to the hardships this small community has passed through, Megleno-Romanians in Romania remain very united, with a very sharp national sentiment. During their weddings, they use the Romanian tricolor as a furgliţa (wedding flag), and very rarely the traditional white-red colors. This illustrates the fact that despite their distinct (albeit also East Romanic) language, identity-wise, Megleno-Romanians in Romania identify themselves as Romanians. According to one observer, they consider themselves "more Romanian than the Romanians". (From Wikipedia)

The Istro-Romanians

The Istro-Romanians (ethnonym: Vlaşi, also proper: Rumâri and Rumêri; called Ćiribiri / Ćići by the local Slavic population and Istrian Vlachs by linguists) are an ethnic group living in northeastern Istria, Croatia with an ethnic population of 1,200, but with 170 acknowledged speakers of the Istro-Romanian language in 1998, including 27 children. While the majority of Istro-Romanians have been scattered around the world, the language is listed as seriously endangered in the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages. The Istro-Romanians are not recognized as a national minority by the Croatian Constitution.


The first historical record of Romanians in the Istrian region is purported to date back to 940 A.D. when scholarly Roman Emperor Constantine VII recorded in De Administrando Imperio that there were Romance-language speakers in this area who called themselves Romans but who did not come from Rome. This newly uncovered reference is consistent with what has been repeatedly stated by native Romanians over the years on what they learned in their schools about the origins of the elusive Istro-Romanians - more specifically, that they were mercenary soldiers who were imported with their families directly from Transylvania to Istria by the Romans legions.


The first certain mention of Romanians in Istria comes from 1329 where a Serbian chronicle mentions that a Vlach population was living in Istria, naming a Vlach called Pasculus, but another document from the second half of the 12th century preserves the name of a leader in Istria called Radul, a name that could also be Romanian. There also have been recent findings to suggest that the Istro-Romanian people (more probably Vlachs in general) were already present in certain regions of nearby Friuli going back to the 1200s.


Insofar as Romanian linguists are concerned, the opinions are divided. Some modern linguists and historians believe that the Istro-Romanians migrated on their own volition directly from Transylvania to their present region of Istria between 600 and 1,000 years ago, while other Romanian linguists are more skeptical and would like to see Istro-Romanians as the native tribe of that region (Istria and Northern Dalmatia) in a possible filiation with the mysterious Black Romanians - the Morovlachi or Morlaci, a very distinct group that settled in great numbers in Dalmatia. [Silviu Dragomir: Originea coloniilor romane din Istria (The Origins of the Romanian colonies of Istria) and Vlahii şi Morlacii, 1924 (The Vlachs and the Morlachs)].


The Istro-Romanians inhabit the Northeastern corner of the Istrian Peninsula in two relatively isolated pockets. North of the Cicarija Mountain is the lone village of Žejani, inhabited today by some 140 people, where Istro-Romanian has been best preserved. Further South, on the western slopes of Monte Maggiore, is a cluster of Istro-Romanian villages and hamlets, surrounding the shores of now drained Lake Cepic. The language is spoken in Šušnjevica (Şuşńieviţe, Susńieviţa, Istro-Romanian: Suseni), Nova Vas (Noselo, Istro-Romanian: Sat Nou), Jasenovik (Istro-Romanian: Sucodru, meaning "Underwoods"), Kostrčani (Slavicization from Istro-Romanian: Costârceân), Letaj (Slavicization from Istro-Romanian: Letai), Brdo (Slavicization from Istro-Romanian: Bârdo). The past fifty years have witnessed a large migration from inlands to the larger coastal towns, as Rijeka (Fiume), Opatija (Abbazia), Pula (Pola), Pazin (Pisino).



Internet infos compilation, including The Istro-Romanians in Croatia, Istro-Romanian Community Worldwide, Wikipedia

Mangalia Mosque

Mangalia Mosque is the oldest mosque in Romania, being built in 1575 by Esmahan, the daughter of Ottoman sultan Selim II. Located in Mangalia, Constanţa County, it serves a community of 800 Muslim families, most of them of Turkish and Tatar ethnicity.


The seaside town of Mangalia is home to an important landmark left behind by Ottoman rule over the region, to wit the Esmahan Sultan Mosque, built in 1575. Esma Han, daughter of Sultan Selim II and wife of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, was very fond of the region, and decreed that a mosque be built where Mangalia lies today. That place of worship was officially inaugurated in 1590, and is today surrounded by a 300 year-old cemetery among can be identified architectural fragments from buildings from ancient Greek colony of Callatis. Turkish dignitaries were buried here, and tombstones bear inscriptions in Old Arabic.


The mosque is a veritable museum. It was built in the Moorish style, using carved stone and bricks from an old Roman tomb. It differs from other Muslim places of worship in Dobruja (Dobrogea) in that the front entrance is surrounded by a veranda. The building stands 12 meters tall, and has 85 cm thick walls. It is relatively small by the usual mosque standards.


Mangalia Mosque is a historical monument. In the 1990s, local authorities renovated the building and surrounded it with a tall fence. The mosque was again renovated in 2008, with financial aid from a generous donation of 1 million euros made by a Turkish businessman. The roof was replaced, and the minaret was consolidated. The interior walls and the fountain in the yard were renovated. Its waters are once again used in the sacred ritual of washing the dead. The oldest mosque in Romania is once again a welcoming venue for believers and tourists alike.

Turks in Romania

The Turks (Romanian: Turci) are an ethnic minority in Romania, numbering 32,596 people according to the 2002 census and hence making up 0.2% of the total population. The majority of Turks live in the historical region of Northern Dobruja (Turkish: Dobruca), particularly in Constanţa County, where they number 24,246 and make up 3.4% of the population, Tulcea County with 3,334 (1.3%) and Bucharest with 2,473 (0.1%). As an officially-recognised ethnic minority, Turks have one seat reserved for them in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies.


As the entire Balkan Peninsula become an integral part of the emerging Ottoman Empire (a process which concluded with the fall of Constantinople to Sultan Mehmed II in 1453), Wallachia became engaged in frequent confrontations and, in the final years of Mircea the Elder's reign, became an Ottoman subject. In the two Danubian Principalities, Ottoman suzerainty had an overall reduced impact on the local population, and the impact of Islam was itself much reduced. Wallachia and Moldavia enjoyed a large degree of autonomy, and their history was punctuated by episodes of revolt and momentary independence. After 1417, when Ottoman domination over Wallachia first became effective, the towns of Turnu and Giurgiu were annexed as kazas, a rule enforced until the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829 (the status was briefly extended to Brăila in 1542). Alongside Dobruja, a part of present-day Romania under direct Ottoman rule in 1551-1718 was the Eyalet of Temeşvar (the Banat region of western Romania), which extended as far as Arad (1551-1699) and Oradea (1661-1699). The few thousand Muslims settled there were, however, driven out by Habsburg conquest. The presence of Muslims in the two Danubian Principalities was also attested, centering on Turkish traders and small communities of Muslim Roma. It is also attested that, during later Phanariote rules and the frequent Russo-Turkish Wars, Ottoman troops were stationed on Wallachia's territory.


Islam in Romania is followed by only 0.3 percent of population, but has 700 years of tradition in Northern Dobruja, a region on the Black Sea coast which was part of the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries (ca. 1420-1878). According to tradition, Islam was first established locally around Sufi leader Sari Saltik during the Byzantine epoch. The Islamic presence in Northern Dobruja was expanded by Ottoman overseeing and successive immigration, but has been in steady decline since the late 19th century. After Northern Dobruja became part of Romania following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the community preserved its self-determining status. This changed during the communist regime, when Romanian Muslims were subject to a measure of supervision by the state, but the group again emancipated itself after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Its interests are represented by the Muftiyat (Muftiyatul Cultului Musulman din România), which was created as the reunion of two separate such institutions. The Islamic religion is one of the 16 rites awarded state recognition.

Tatars in Romania

Tatars (Romanian: Tătari) were present on the territory of today's Romania since the 13th century. According to the 2002 census, 24,000 people declared their nationality as Tatar, most of them being Crimean Tatars living in Constanţa County. They are the main factor of Islam in Romania.


The Tatars first reached the mouths of the Danube in the mid-13th century at the height of power of the Golden Horde. In 1241, under the leadership of Kadan, the Tatars crossed the Danube, conquering and devastating the region. The region was probably not under the direct rule of the Horde, but rather, a vassal of the Bakhchisaray Khan. It is known from Arab sources that at the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century that descendants of the Nogai Horde settled in Isaccea. Another Arab scholar, Ibn Battuta, who passed through the region in 1330-1331, talks about Baba Saltuk (Babadag) as the southernmost town of the Tatars. The Golden Horde began to lose its influence after the wars of 1352-1359 and at the time, a Tatar warlord, Demetrius is noted defending the cities of the Mouths of the Danube. Toward the end of the 16th century, about 30,000 Nogai Tatars from the Budjak were brought to Dobruja. Nogai Tatars consider themselves as descended of the people of the Golden Horde and they take their name from Nogai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan.


Crimean Tatars were brought to Dobruja by the Ottomans following the increasing power of the Russians in the region and its annexation of Crimea in 1783. After the Russian annexation of Crimea in 1783, Crimean Tatars began emigrating to the Ottoman coastal provinces of Dobruja (today divided between Romania and Bulgaria). However, after the independence of Romania in 1877-1878, between 80,000 and 100,000 Crimean Tatars moved to Anatolia, a migration which continued afterward. As such, the number of Tatars in Northern Dobruja decreased from 21% in 1880 to 5.6% in 1912. In 2002, they formed 2.4% of the population of this region. The Nogai component of the Tatar population are not separately enumerated in Romanian censuses. Most have emigrated to Turkey but it is estimated that a few thousand Nogais still live in Dobruja, notably in the town of Mihail Kogălniceanu (Karamurat) and villages of Lumina (Kocali), Valea Dacilor (Hendekkarakuyusu) and Cobadin (Kubadin).


Between 1947-1957 Tatar schools began operating in Romania and in 1955 a special alphabet was created for the Tatar community. In 1990 the Democratic Union of Muslim Tatar-Turks was established. Currently Romania respects the minority rights of Tatars and does not follow any policy of Romanianization.