Vlachs

Etymology

The word "Vlach" is of Germanic origin, an early loanword into Proto-Slavic from Germanic *Walhaz ("foreigner" or "stranger") and used by ancient Germanic peoples for their Romance-speaking and (Romanized) Celtic neighbours. *Walhaz was evidently borrowed from the name of a Celtic tribe, known to the Romans as Volcae in the writings of Julius Caesar and to the Greeks as Ouólkai in texts by Strabo and Ptolemy. Vlach is thus of the same origin as European ethnic names including the Welsh and Walloons.

The word passed to the Slavs and from them to other peoples, such as the Hungarians (oláh referring to the Romanians and olasz referring to the Italians) and Byzantines (Βλάχοι, Vláhi"), and was used for all Latin people from the Balkans. The Polish word for "Italian" (Włoch, plural Włosi) has the same origin, as does the Slovenian, vaguely-derogatory lah.

The Italian-speaking region south of the South Tyrol, now Trentino in Italy, was known as Welschtirol in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In Western Balkans Vlah, and plural Vlasi, was used exclusively to population of Orthodox adherence, namely Serbs: in Croatia ("Vlaj", plural "Vlaji") when referring to inhabitants of Dalmatian Hinterland, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina ("Vlah", plural "Vlasi") when referring to highlanders and shepherds (often, in earlier times, regardless of religious adherence even) of Dinarides area; later, depending on context, it also became a derogatory term used to label ethnic Serbs.

Nonetheless, some scholars consider that the term "Vlach" appeared for the first time in the Eastern Roman Empire and was subsequently spread to the Germanic- and then Slavic-speaking worlds through the Norsemen (possibly by Varangians), who were in trade and military contact with Byzantium during the early Middle Ages (see also Blakumen).

History

The first record of a medieval Romance language in the Balkans dates to the early Byzantine period, with Procopius (500–565) mentioning forts with names such as Skeptekasas (Seven Houses), Burgulatu (Broad City), Loupofantana (Wolf's Well) and Gemellomountes (Twin Mountains). A 586 Byzantine chronicle of an incursion against the Avars in the eastern Balkans may have one of the earliest references to Vlachs. In the account, when baggage carried by a mule slipped the muleteer shouted: "Torna, torna, fratre!" ("Return, return, brother!"). Byzantine historians used the Germanic Vlachs for Latin speakers, particularly Romanians.

The name "Blökumenn" is mentioned in a Nordic saga with respect to events that took place in either 1018 or 1019 somewhere at the northwestern part of the Black Sea and believed by some to be related to the Vlachs. Traveller Benjamin of Tudela (1130–1173) of the Kingdom of Navarre was one of the first writers to use the word Vlachs for a Romance-speaking population. According to 10th century Arab chronicler Mutahhar al-Maqdisi, "They say that in the Turkic neighbourhood there are the Khazars, Russians, Slavs, Waladj, Alans, Greeks and many other peoples." Byzantine writer Kekaumenos, author of the Strategikon (1078), described a 1066 Roman (Vlach) revolt in northern Greece.

During the late 9th century the Hungarians invaded the Pannonian basin, where the province of Pannonia was inhabited—according to the Gesta Hungarorum, written around 1200 by the anonymous chancellor of King Bela III of Hungary—by the "Slavs [Sclavi], Bulgarians [Bulgarii] and Vlachs [Blachii], and the shepherds of the Romans [pastores Romanorum]" (sclauij, Bulgarij et Blachij, ac pastores romanorum in the original). Between the 12th and 14th centuries they were ruled by the Kingdom of Hungary, the Byzantine Empire, and the Golden Horde.

In chapter XIV of the Alexiad, Anna Komnene identifies Vlachs from the Balkans with the Dacians, describing their region around Haemus Mons: "On either side of its slopes dwell many very wealthy tribes, the Dacians and the Thracians on the northern side, and on the southern, more Thracians and the Macedonians". Byzantine historian John Kinnamos described Leon Vatatzes' military expedition along the northern Danube, where Vatatzes mentioned the participation of Vlachs in battles with the Magyars (Hungarians) in 1166. In the 13th century, the Asen royal family (who was of Vlach origin) were the founders and rulers of the Vlach-Bulgarian kingdom.

In 1213 an army of Romans (Vlachs), Transylvanian Saxons, and Pechenegs, led by Ioachim of Sibiu, attacked the Bulgars and Cumans from Vidin. After this, all Hungarian battles in the Carpathian region were supported by Romance-speaking soldiers from Transylvania. At the end of the 13th century, during the reign of Ladislaus the Cuman, Simon de Kéza wrote about the Blacki people and placed them in Pannonia with the Huns. Archaeological discoveries indicate that Transylvania was gradually settled by the Magyars, and the last region defended by the Vlachs and Pechenegs (until 1200) was between the Olt River and the Carpathians.

Shortly after the fall of the Olt region, a church was built at the Cârța Monastery and Catholic German-speaking settlers from Rhineland and Mosel Valley (known as Transylvanian Saxons) began to settle in the Orthodox region. In the Diploma Andreanum issued by King Andrew II of Hungary in 1224, "silva blacorum et bissenorum" was given to the settlers. The Orthodox Vlachs spread further northward along the Carpathians to Poland, Slovakia, and Moravia and were granted autonomy under Ius Vlachonicum (Walachian law).

In 1285 Ladislaus the Cuman fought the Tatars and Cumans, arriving with his troops at the Moldova River. A town, Baia (near the said river), was documented in 1300 as settled by the Transylvanian Saxons (see also Foundation of Moldavia). In 1290 Ladislaus the Cuman was assassinated; the new Hungarian king allegedly drove voivode Radu Negru and his people across the Carpathians, where they formed Wallachia along with its first capital Câmpulung (see also Foundation of Wallachia).

Eastern Romance peoples

The Eastern Romance peoples refers to the Eastern Romance-speaking peoples, primarily the nations of Romanians and Moldovans, who are both Daco-Romance-speaking (descending from Vulgar Latin, adopted in Dacia by a process of Romanization during early centuries AD). These two peoples had before Soviet rule been regarded part of one and the same, Romanian people. During the Migration Period, the etymon romanus (romăn, rumăn) crystallized as the Eastern Romance peoples were surrounded by foreign, pagan, peoples, the term having long meant "Christians". Soviet historiography maintains that the Moldovans received an ethnic individuality in the late Middle Ages through contacts with Slavs. Other Eastern Romance-speaking communities, which are not Daco-Romance-speaking, traditionally exist in Greece, Albania and Macedonia (the Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians), and Croatia (the Istro-Romanians).

Demographics

Speakers of these languages are, by country:

Toponymy

In addition to the ethnic groups of Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, and Istro-Romanians which emerged during the Migration Period, other Vlachs could be found as far north as Poland, as far west as Moravia and Dalmatia. In search of better pasture, they were called Vlasi or Valaši by the Slavs.

States mentioned in medieval chronicles were:

Regions and places are:

Shepherd culture

Due to the association of Vlachs and sheep-herding, since the Middle Ages their ethnonym has come to mean "shepherd" in some Balkan and Central European languages. During the Middle Ages, many Vlachs were shepherds who drove their flocks through the mountains of southeastern Europe. Vlach shepherds reached as far north as southern Poland (Podhale) and the eastern Czech Republic (Moravia) by following the Carpathians, the Dinaric Alps in the west, the Pindus Mountains in the south and the Caucasus Mountains in the east. Vlachs have been called "the perfect Balkan citizens" because they are "able to preserve their culture without resorting to war or politics, violence or dishonesty."