Touring the Vlach Villages of Greece

[Dna8]

I feel like a dickhead now

[mustasiipi]

Vlachs in Serbia feel annoyed when Romania or Romanians try to tell them that they are Romanians, not Vlachs..

90% + of Romance speakers in Serbia feel themselves to be Serbian Vlachs.. not Romanians..

I'm just saying, those who want to identify as Romanians, should do as they please and not be afraid.

[Dna8]

I'm just saying, those who want to identify as Romanians, should do as they please and not be afraid.

Of course, I agree.

[The Great Uniter]

I think the word Dna8 was looking for is transhumance=the action or practice of moving livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle, typically to lowlands in winter and highlands in summer.

That works too.

[The Great Uniter]

My grandmother was speaking South Aromanian specifically one of the Pindian dialects. Probably. The dialects merged since the Northerners imigrated to South.

[Daco Celtic]

Cool thread. I'm proud to be Vlach because Vlach is where it's at. Ignore all haters.

[Mingle]

Romanians from Serbia, Valea Timocului, referred to only as Vlachs, not recognized as Romanians. The second biggest minority in Serbia, after Hungarians. There are 154 villages inhabited purely by Romanians in Valea Timocului.

Serb authorities took measures to erase their identity, especially since 1833, afraid that they would not be loyal to the Serbian state otherwise (although Timoc Romanians have always fought beside Serbs in wars).

They are not allowed to call themselves Romanian, not allowed to speak Romanian, or study it at school, not allowed to have Romanian churches, nor baptize their children with Romanian names since 1899, when Romanian names were Slavicized by force. They can’t have press or publications in Romanian. They have to say that their mother tongue is Serbian. The lady at 15:30 says her teacher beat her whenever she talked in Romanian. (Compare this to Szekelys in Romania who won’t even speak Romanian). They can’t hold funeral cermonies in Romanian.

Trying to preserve their identity they are accused of ”stirring a war” in the community. The priest in the video got an order from a Serbian bishop to demolish the church building, various threats, and he was defrocked (caterisit). Only the Court of Starsbourg was able to stop them.
Romanians in Vojvodina (Banat)are however allowed to use Romanian officially.

Second video\

About the same things are said. At 5:02 the man is Romanian, but his wife won’t let him say it. His name was changed from Ciulin to Ciulinovici. She says Vlach and Romanian are not the same thing, not the same language, when the reporter asks her “how come we understand each other perfectly?”. Kind of reminds me of Moldova, where Voronin said Moldovan is a distinct language, not the same language as Romanian...Um, yes it is the same language with local accent, slang and regionalisms, but still the same language.

Next Slobodan Marcovici (changed from Marcu) says he identifies proudly as Romanian. The confusion was created deliberately to serve political interests. Man at 6:25 says “If they recognized Romanians they would have to get a place in the Serbian government, just like Hungarians do in the Romanian government.” On the other hand the Serbian community in Romania is fully recognized and enjoys basic rights.

Of course, authorities in Bucharest haven’t done much for these people. Now they have gained some rights because Serbia wants to join the EU, and needs support from Romania.

Normally we have a saying that Serbs are our best friends/neighbours. I hope it is still true.

From what I've heard, most Vlachs in Timok/Eastern Serbia are descendants of migrants that arrived to Serbia before the Romanian nation building process happened so don't identify as ethnic Romanian but just as generic Vlach whereas those in Voivodina identify as Romanian because it was only recently annexed to Serbia (early 20th century), after Romania became a unified independent country.

The percentage of Serbian citizens that identify as 'Vlach' is 0.5% whereas the percentage of Serbian citizens that identify as 'Romanian' is 0.4%. Hardly a big difference. Vlachs in Serbia are free to identify as either Vlach or Romanian, but there are historical reasons for why some identify as Vlach instead of Romanian. If the Serbian state was hard pressed on suppressing the Romanian identity, then 0.4% of Serbian citizens wouldn't identify as Romanian.

[Dna8]

^agreed as regards Romance speakers in Vojvodina and those in central Serbia, and their self-view

[Papastratosels26]

Map of Vlach villages in Epirus

[tzich]

Good day! I saw that you wrote Fyteia Imathia (Tsornovo). Where did Fyteia/Tsornovo come from regarding this video? According to the Ioannis Tsiamitros the person that has the video on Youtube, Tsornovo is not a vlah-village and never was. He is very knowledgeable about the vlahs in the area and is one himself.