Radojica
05-05-2011, 10:32 PM
Today I found that some of the most important poems, historians, politicians and actress from Serbian history are in fact Aromanians (or, as we call them in Serbia Cincari) so I decided to investigate something about them and share that with You.
Aromanians have been living in the Balkans for two thousand years. It has never had an independent state and has often been a minority in its states of residence. Throughout its history it has apparently maintained good neighbourly relations with the peoples alongside which it has lived and is still living. Despite a certain tendency to integrate (it has almost completely merged with the host population in the north-western Balkans), this people has managed to remain linguistically and culturally homogeneous. However, it does not constitute a "community" in the sense of an organised group, and it is only since the political upheavals of the last few years in virtually all the countries inhabited by Aromanians that local, regional and national cultural associations have emerged and a number of international contacts developed.
The Aromanians are a very exceptional, indeed unique historical, linguistic and cultural phenomenon. And yet this highly original culture is at risk and the Aromanian language is doomed to extinction unless the European institutions, especially the Council of Europe, come to its aid. In fact, it would be unthinkable to remain inert and watch such a rich language and culture disappear. In contrast to other minority groups, the Aromanians make no political demands; all they want is assistance in protecting their language and culture, which form part of the European cultural heritage.
Origins and history of the Aromanian people
The Macedo-Romanians and Vlachs, who are sometimes called Mavro-Vlachs, Kutzo-Vlachs or Tsintsars and who call themselves Aromanians, are related to the Romanians living on the left bank of the Danube. Their language, Macedo-Romanian, belongs to the Romanian branch of the Romance languages, as do Daco-Romanian (spoken in Romania), Megleno-Romanian (still spoken in a number of villages in the Gevgelija area on the border between "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and Greece) and Istro-Romanian (now virtually extinct). The earliest Aromanian text was found in Albania and dates from 1731, and therefore the documented history of the Aromanians begins only in the eighteenth century, even though there are several earlier historical references to the "Vlachs", a word which stems from the general name given by the earliest Slavs to peoples speaking Latin (or a Latinised language).
Opinions diverge on the origins of the Vlachs. It is, however, likely that they originated in the Roman colonisation of the Balkans, which began in the third century B.C. According to some historians the Aromanians are the descendants of Latinised Illyrian peoples and Roman legionaries who had settled in the Balkans following the conquest of Macedonia by Paulus-Emilius in 168 B.C. On the other hand, the Greeks consider them to be Latinised Greeks, the Bulgarians say that they descend from the Thracians, while the Romanians identify their origins in a branch of Romanised Dacians.
The fact that the Roman colonisation of Macedonia began earlier and lasted longer than that of Dacia would suggest that the Aromanians preceded the Romanians in Balkan history.
The Aromanians make their first appearance in history in the tenth century, when they were mostly spread over the mountain areas of the Balkan peninsula, from Istria to Greece and from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, though they broke down into two major groups: one along Mount Haemus and the other in northern Greece, Thessaly and southern Macedonia, but especially in the Pindus massif. According to their contemporaries, the Vlachs' main activity was pasturage, but they also engaged in trade, which explains their presence throughout the Balkans.
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. Historians, notably in Bulgaria, agree that the Vlach mountain-dwellers played a major role in the insurrection led by the brothers Theodore-Peter and John-Arsenius (probably of Bulgaro-Cuman origin) against Byzantium in 1186; this uprising led to the creation of the so-called "Second Kingdom of Bulgaria".
The Ottoman conquest in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries scarcely changed the Aromanians' situation, as they enjoyed some degree of religious and cultural autonomy within the Orthodox Christian millet.According to Pouqueville, Napoleon Bonaparte's Consul to Ali Pasha of Janina, the ruler of Epirus, the Vlachs enjoyed a special status and only paid a modest tribute to the Grand Sultan's mother. Other historians confirm that the Vlachs did indeed enjoy this privileged position. For instance, N. Malcolm points out that they were formally exempted from the law prohibiting non-Muslims from carrying weapons.
he Ottomans realised that the Vlachs' mobility and strong military tradition could be of use to them; they allowed them to maintain a national militia, whose members were called armatoles and their leaders capitani. By means of special fiscal measures and permission to pillage enemy territory, this militia was used to guard the border between the Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires. It is interesting to note that the Hapsburgs had the same idea and used the Vlachs who had been driven north by the advancing Ottomans against their brethren south of the border.
The Aromanians' Orthodox religion was one of the factors which assigned them a major role in the various wars and revolutions that culminated in the creation of the states which they now inhabit. The Greek patriotic association "Hetaeria" launched an uprising in 1821, and, after intervention by Russia, Britain and France, this led to the creation of the Greek state in 1830 and its independence in 1835.
Many illustrious names of Aromanian origin are to be found among the protagonists of the revolution and the outstanding figures in Greek culture and political life. Three examples are Baron George Sina, Marshal Constantin Smolensky, Patriarch Athenagoras and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Averoff. This is explained by the fact that many Aromanians were won over to Hellenic culture under the influence of the Greek school and church, because at the time the only nationality in Turkey entitled to maintain national schools, churches and cultural institutions were the Greeks. Taking advantage of the privileges granted to the Christians by the earliest Sultans, the Patriarchs of Constantinople _ all of whom were of Greek origin _ had become the ecclesiastical and civil leaders of all the Orthodox populations of the Empire. In fact, the Turks referred to all these peoples by the collective name of Rum, designating Christians (of the Eastern Roman Empire).
After independence, many Balkan countries adopted a policy of setting up national schools and granting independence to their churches. This trend was a token of their national emancipation and marked the development of the Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek and Serb societies during the second half of the nineteenth century.
The Macedo-Romanians experienced several movements of national reawakening from the eighteenth century onwards. This trend was centred in Moscopolis, the famous cultural centre of the Albanian Aromanians (now called Voskopoje). This liberation movement resumed in 1862 with the setting up of the first Macedo-Romanian school in Macedonia. At the same time, the Aromanian colony in Bucharest founded the Macedo-Romanian Intellectual Cultural Society, which worked to strengthen the movement among the other Aromanian communities in the Balkans.
Around this time Romania began to take a greater interest in the Aromanians' cause. Furthermore, the Turkish authorities were taking steps to promote the Aromanian national cultural movement. An order issued by the Vizier in 1878 gave Vlachs the right to be taught in their own language and afforded assistance and protection to their teachers. In 1888 the Macedo-Romanians obtained an imperial firman granting them the right to set up national churches. In 1908 Aromanian members were admitted to the Turkish Parliament.
The Berlin Treaty of 1878 also recognised the existence of the Macedo-Romanians as a separate nation, and placed them on the same level as the other nationalities in the Ottoman Empire. Under this treaty Thessaly and part of Epirus were annexed to Greece; the new borders thus split the Aromanian population of the Pindus in two. The Aromanians protested to the representatives of the great powers against this division, but in vain.
In the twentieth century, the regions inhabited by the Macedo-Romanians were again divided up among the various states in the region. Following the Balkan wars and the subsequent conflicts, sizeable groups of Aromanians were spread out around Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Turkey and Albania.
After the re-drawing of the borders between Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia under the Bucharest Peace Treaty of 1913, the Aromanians proposed incorporating their main groups _ in the Pindus mountains and the regions between Gramos and Bitola _ into the future state of Albania in the form of an autonomous province. Greece put forward the alternative of absorbing the Pindus region into their own territory, undertaking to safeguard its inhabitants' specific national identity. This proposal was accepted, but it did not settle the Macedo-Romanian question. The fact that the Macedo-Romanians were not recognised as a minority at the time prepared the ground for future problems and conflicts. In 1918, Macedo-Romanian schools in Serbia were closed. During the 1920s the same fate befell many schools in Greece, and in 1938 all the Macedo-Romanian schools in Albania were closed. Finally, the last remaining Aromanian schools in Greece were shut down between 1945 and 1948.
Between the two world wars, Romania negotiated the setting up of Romanian-language schools with the other countries hosting Aromanian populations. However, this policy, which was intended as positive support for the Aromanians, had two negative effects: firstly, the Aromanians began to suspect Romania of attempting to assimilate them, and secondly, it also prompted suspicion on the part of the Aromanians' countries of residence, which began to regard them as Romanians (ie foreigners) rather than Aromanians (and therefore nationals).
Aromanians have been living in the Balkans for two thousand years. It has never had an independent state and has often been a minority in its states of residence. Throughout its history it has apparently maintained good neighbourly relations with the peoples alongside which it has lived and is still living. Despite a certain tendency to integrate (it has almost completely merged with the host population in the north-western Balkans), this people has managed to remain linguistically and culturally homogeneous. However, it does not constitute a "community" in the sense of an organised group, and it is only since the political upheavals of the last few years in virtually all the countries inhabited by Aromanians that local, regional and national cultural associations have emerged and a number of international contacts developed.
The Aromanians are a very exceptional, indeed unique historical, linguistic and cultural phenomenon. And yet this highly original culture is at risk and the Aromanian language is doomed to extinction unless the European institutions, especially the Council of Europe, come to its aid. In fact, it would be unthinkable to remain inert and watch such a rich language and culture disappear. In contrast to other minority groups, the Aromanians make no political demands; all they want is assistance in protecting their language and culture, which form part of the European cultural heritage.
Origins and history of the Aromanian people
The Macedo-Romanians and Vlachs, who are sometimes called Mavro-Vlachs, Kutzo-Vlachs or Tsintsars and who call themselves Aromanians, are related to the Romanians living on the left bank of the Danube. Their language, Macedo-Romanian, belongs to the Romanian branch of the Romance languages, as do Daco-Romanian (spoken in Romania), Megleno-Romanian (still spoken in a number of villages in the Gevgelija area on the border between "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and Greece) and Istro-Romanian (now virtually extinct). The earliest Aromanian text was found in Albania and dates from 1731, and therefore the documented history of the Aromanians begins only in the eighteenth century, even though there are several earlier historical references to the "Vlachs", a word which stems from the general name given by the earliest Slavs to peoples speaking Latin (or a Latinised language).
Opinions diverge on the origins of the Vlachs. It is, however, likely that they originated in the Roman colonisation of the Balkans, which began in the third century B.C. According to some historians the Aromanians are the descendants of Latinised Illyrian peoples and Roman legionaries who had settled in the Balkans following the conquest of Macedonia by Paulus-Emilius in 168 B.C. On the other hand, the Greeks consider them to be Latinised Greeks, the Bulgarians say that they descend from the Thracians, while the Romanians identify their origins in a branch of Romanised Dacians.
The fact that the Roman colonisation of Macedonia began earlier and lasted longer than that of Dacia would suggest that the Aromanians preceded the Romanians in Balkan history.
The Aromanians make their first appearance in history in the tenth century, when they were mostly spread over the mountain areas of the Balkan peninsula, from Istria to Greece and from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, though they broke down into two major groups: one along Mount Haemus and the other in northern Greece, Thessaly and southern Macedonia, but especially in the Pindus massif. According to their contemporaries, the Vlachs' main activity was pasturage, but they also engaged in trade, which explains their presence throughout the Balkans.
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. Historians, notably in Bulgaria, agree that the Vlach mountain-dwellers played a major role in the insurrection led by the brothers Theodore-Peter and John-Arsenius (probably of Bulgaro-Cuman origin) against Byzantium in 1186; this uprising led to the creation of the so-called "Second Kingdom of Bulgaria".
The Ottoman conquest in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries scarcely changed the Aromanians' situation, as they enjoyed some degree of religious and cultural autonomy within the Orthodox Christian millet.According to Pouqueville, Napoleon Bonaparte's Consul to Ali Pasha of Janina, the ruler of Epirus, the Vlachs enjoyed a special status and only paid a modest tribute to the Grand Sultan's mother. Other historians confirm that the Vlachs did indeed enjoy this privileged position. For instance, N. Malcolm points out that they were formally exempted from the law prohibiting non-Muslims from carrying weapons.
he Ottomans realised that the Vlachs' mobility and strong military tradition could be of use to them; they allowed them to maintain a national militia, whose members were called armatoles and their leaders capitani. By means of special fiscal measures and permission to pillage enemy territory, this militia was used to guard the border between the Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires. It is interesting to note that the Hapsburgs had the same idea and used the Vlachs who had been driven north by the advancing Ottomans against their brethren south of the border.
The Aromanians' Orthodox religion was one of the factors which assigned them a major role in the various wars and revolutions that culminated in the creation of the states which they now inhabit. The Greek patriotic association "Hetaeria" launched an uprising in 1821, and, after intervention by Russia, Britain and France, this led to the creation of the Greek state in 1830 and its independence in 1835.
Many illustrious names of Aromanian origin are to be found among the protagonists of the revolution and the outstanding figures in Greek culture and political life. Three examples are Baron George Sina, Marshal Constantin Smolensky, Patriarch Athenagoras and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Averoff. This is explained by the fact that many Aromanians were won over to Hellenic culture under the influence of the Greek school and church, because at the time the only nationality in Turkey entitled to maintain national schools, churches and cultural institutions were the Greeks. Taking advantage of the privileges granted to the Christians by the earliest Sultans, the Patriarchs of Constantinople _ all of whom were of Greek origin _ had become the ecclesiastical and civil leaders of all the Orthodox populations of the Empire. In fact, the Turks referred to all these peoples by the collective name of Rum, designating Christians (of the Eastern Roman Empire).
After independence, many Balkan countries adopted a policy of setting up national schools and granting independence to their churches. This trend was a token of their national emancipation and marked the development of the Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek and Serb societies during the second half of the nineteenth century.
The Macedo-Romanians experienced several movements of national reawakening from the eighteenth century onwards. This trend was centred in Moscopolis, the famous cultural centre of the Albanian Aromanians (now called Voskopoje). This liberation movement resumed in 1862 with the setting up of the first Macedo-Romanian school in Macedonia. At the same time, the Aromanian colony in Bucharest founded the Macedo-Romanian Intellectual Cultural Society, which worked to strengthen the movement among the other Aromanian communities in the Balkans.
Around this time Romania began to take a greater interest in the Aromanians' cause. Furthermore, the Turkish authorities were taking steps to promote the Aromanian national cultural movement. An order issued by the Vizier in 1878 gave Vlachs the right to be taught in their own language and afforded assistance and protection to their teachers. In 1888 the Macedo-Romanians obtained an imperial firman granting them the right to set up national churches. In 1908 Aromanian members were admitted to the Turkish Parliament.
The Berlin Treaty of 1878 also recognised the existence of the Macedo-Romanians as a separate nation, and placed them on the same level as the other nationalities in the Ottoman Empire. Under this treaty Thessaly and part of Epirus were annexed to Greece; the new borders thus split the Aromanian population of the Pindus in two. The Aromanians protested to the representatives of the great powers against this division, but in vain.
In the twentieth century, the regions inhabited by the Macedo-Romanians were again divided up among the various states in the region. Following the Balkan wars and the subsequent conflicts, sizeable groups of Aromanians were spread out around Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Turkey and Albania.
After the re-drawing of the borders between Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia under the Bucharest Peace Treaty of 1913, the Aromanians proposed incorporating their main groups _ in the Pindus mountains and the regions between Gramos and Bitola _ into the future state of Albania in the form of an autonomous province. Greece put forward the alternative of absorbing the Pindus region into their own territory, undertaking to safeguard its inhabitants' specific national identity. This proposal was accepted, but it did not settle the Macedo-Romanian question. The fact that the Macedo-Romanians were not recognised as a minority at the time prepared the ground for future problems and conflicts. In 1918, Macedo-Romanian schools in Serbia were closed. During the 1920s the same fate befell many schools in Greece, and in 1938 all the Macedo-Romanian schools in Albania were closed. Finally, the last remaining Aromanian schools in Greece were shut down between 1945 and 1948.
Between the two world wars, Romania negotiated the setting up of Romanian-language schools with the other countries hosting Aromanian populations. However, this policy, which was intended as positive support for the Aromanians, had two negative effects: firstly, the Aromanians began to suspect Romania of attempting to assimilate them, and secondly, it also prompted suspicion on the part of the Aromanians' countries of residence, which began to regard them as Romanians (ie foreigners) rather than Aromanians (and therefore nationals).