Vlach ( or ) is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: ''Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs'' or ''Ulahs''. Groups that have historically been called Vlachs include: modern-day Romanians or Daco-Romanians, Aromanians or Macedo-Romanians, Morlachs, Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians. Since the creation of the Romanian state, the term in English has mostly been used for those living outside Romania. The term ''Vlach'' is originally an exonym. All the Vlach groups used various words derived from ''romanus'' to refer to themselves: ''Români, Rumâni, Rumâri, Aromâni, Arumâni'' etc. (note: the Megleno-Romanians nowadays call themselves ''"Vlaşi"'', but historically called themselves ''"Rămâni"''; The Istro-Romanians also have adopted the names ''Vlaşi'', but still use ''Rumâni'' and ''Rumâri'' to refer to themselves).

The Vlachs are normally considered descendants of Romanised peoples such as the Thracians (incl. Dacians) and Illyrians.

The Vlach languages, also called the Eastern Romance languages, have a common origin from the Proto-Romanian language. Over the centuries, the Vlachs split into various Vlach groups (see Romania in the Dark Ages) and mixed with neighbouring populations: South Slavs, Greeks, Albanians, Bulgars, and others.

Almost all modern nations in Central and Southeastern Europe have native Vlach minorities: Hungary, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Greece and Bulgaria. In other countries, the native Vlach population have been completely assimilated by the Slavic population and therefore ceased to exist: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bosnia and Montenegro. Only in Romania and the Republic of Moldova does the Vlach (Dacoromanian or Romanian proper) population comprise an ethnic majority today.

Etymology

The word ''Vlach'' is ultimately of Germanic origin, from the word ''Walha'', "foreigner", "stranger", a name used by ancient Germanic peoples to refer to Romance-speaking and Celtic neighbours. As such, it shares its history with several ethnic names all across Europe, including the Welsh and Walloons. Slavic people initially used the name Vlachs when referring to Romanic people in general. Later on, the meaning became narrower or just different. For example, Italy is called ''Włochy'' in Polish, and ''Olaszország'' ("Olasz country") in Hungarian (the word "oláh" also exists in Hungarian, but describes only peoples from historical Moldova and Wallacha). The term Vlach can also be found in certain placenames where Roman descendants continued to live after the migrations of Germans and Slavs into new territories, for example Laško in Slovenia. In the Old English poem ''Widsith'', the Romans are referred to as ''Romwalas''.

Throughout history, the term "Vlach" has often been used for groups which were not ethnically Vlachs, and often pejoratively. For example, it might have been used for any shepherding community or as a reference to Christians by Muslims (Karadjaovalides). In the Croatian region of Dalmatia, Vlaj/Vlah (sing.) and Vlaji/Vlasi (plural) are the terms used by the inhabitants of coastal towns for the people who live inland, and is often intended to be pejorative, as in "barbarians who come from the mountains." In Greece, the word Βλάχος (Vláhos) is often used as a slur against any supposedly uncouth or uncultured person, but literally it means nothing more than ''countryperson'' and is often used as a synonym for ''Χωριάτης'' (Choriátis) which simply means ''villager''. Maniots, for example, used the word to refer to lowland-dwelling Greeks, and the Maniots of Cargèse used it to refer to native Corsicans.

Territories with Vlach population

Besides the separation of some groups (Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians) during the Age of Migration, many other Vlachs could be found all over the Balkans, as far north as Poland and as far west as the regions of Moravia (part of the modern Czech Republic), and the present-day Croatia where the Morlachs gradually disappeared, while the Catholic and Orthodox Vlachs took Croat and Serb national identity. They reached these regions in search of better pastures, and were called "''Wallachians''" ("''Vlasi; Valaši''") by the Slavic peoples.

Statal Entities:

Wallachia (Ungro-Wallachia or Wallachia Transalpina in administrative sources; Ţara Românească in Romanian Language) – between the Southern Carpathians and the Danube

Moldavia (Moldo-Wallachia, Maurovlachia – Black Wallachia, Moldovlachia or Ruso-Vlachia in Byzantine sources, Bogdan Iflak – Bogdan's Wallachia, or even Wallachia in Polish sources, and L`otra Wallachia – the other Wallachia – in native sources) – between the Carpathians and the Nistru river;

Transylvania (or Ardeal), ''Transylvanian vlachs'' mentioned in Middle Ages chronicles;

Wallachia and Bulgaria – between the Danube and the Balkan mountains;

Second Bulgarian Empire

Great Wallachia (''Μεγάλη Βλαχία'', Megáli vlahía) – in Thessaly

Principality of the Pindus

Regions:

Vlaşca – a former county of southern Wallachia (a name derived from the Serbian designation for Wallachia: ''Vlaška'');

Greater Wallachia (Muntenia) – east of the Olt river;

Lesser Wallachia (Oltenia) – west of the Olt river;

Cisalpine Wallachia/Walachia citeriore (also called Vulaska, Vlaska, Valachia, Vlaskozemski, Parvan vallachiam, etc.) – Banat;

Upper Wallachia ("''Άνω Βλαχία''", Áno Vlahía) – in southern Macedonia and Epirus;

*Moscopole;

Small Wallachia ("Μικρή Βλαχία", Mikrí vlahía) – in Aetolia, Acarnania, Dorida (Doris), Locrida (Locris);

Old Vallachia (Stara vlaška) – in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Stari Vlah (The old vlach) – in western Serbia;

White Wallachia – in Moesia;

Black Wallachia (''Morlachia'') – in Dalmatia;

Sirmium Wallachia – on the Sava river;

Fǎgǎraş and Haţeg (''Valahia transalpina'');

Maramureş;

Moravian Wallachia (''Valašsko'' in Czech language) – in the Beskid Mountains of the Czech republic.

People

The Eastern Romance languages, sometimes known as the Vlach languages, are a group of Romance languages that developed in Southeastern Europe from the local eastern variant of Vulgar Latin. There is no official data from Balkan countries such as Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and Serbia. The reasons for this also are not known. Daco-Romanians (Romanians proper) up to 33,500,000 (including Moldovans) , speaking the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), known by that name due to their location in the territory of ancient Dacia, who live in:

* Romania – 20 million

* Moldova – 3.5 million

* Ukraine – 459,000; in southern Bessarabia and northern Bukovina

* Serbia – 79,000

* Hungary – 15,000

Bulgaria – 10,500 persons counted as Vlachs and 1088 as Romanians, this figure may include Aromanians.

Aromanians (speaking the Aromanian language) up to 2,000,000, live in:

Greece – up to 700,000, mainly in the Pindus Mountains (Greece, like France, does not recognise any ethnic divisions, so there are no statistics kept and the Aromanians of Greece self-identify as Greeks and are accepted as such by the other Greeks. See Demographics of Greece)

Albania – up to 400,000 although it is disputed by one source which, among others, states that some of them have converted their Albanian Nationality to Greek Nationality.

* Romania – 100,000 - 250,000

* Macedonia – 80,000 - 120,000

Megleno-Romanians (speaking the Megleno-Romanian language), living in Greece and in Macedonia – 20,000.

Istro-Romanians (speaking the Istro-Romanian language) living in Croatia, with a population of 1,200, but with fewer than 200 acknowledged native speakers.

Morlachs – in the 1991 Croatian census 22 people declared themselves Morlachs.

Genetics

In 2006, Bosch ''et al.'' attempted to analyze whether Vlachs are the descendents of Latinized Dacians, Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks, or a combination of the above. No hypothesis could be proven due to the high degree of underlying genetic similarity possessed by all the tested Balkan groups. The linguistic and cultural differences among various Balkan groups were thus deemed to have not been strong enough to prevent significant gene flow among the above groups.

Culture

Many Vlachs were shepherds in the medieval times, driving their sheep through the mountains of Southeastern Europe. The Vlach shepherds reached as far as Southern Poland and Moravia in the North (by following the Carpathian range), Dinaric Alps in West, the Pindus mountains in South, and as far as the Caucasus Mountains in the east.

In many of these areas, the descendants of the Vlachs have lost their language, but their legacy still lives today in cultural influences: customs, folklore and the way of life of the mountain people, as well as in the place names of Romanian or Aromanian origin that are spread all across the region.

Another part of the Vlachs, especially those in the northern parts, in Romania and Moldova, were traditional farmers growing cereals. Linguists believe that the large vocabulary of Latin words related to agriculture shows that they have always been a farming Vlach population. Just like the language, the cultural links between the Northern Vlachs (Romanians) and Southern Vlachs (Aromanians) were broken by the 10th century, and since then, there were different cultural influences:

Romanian culture was influenced by neighbouring people such as Slavs and later on Hungarians, and developed itself to what it is today. The 19th century saw an important opening toward Western Europe and cultural ties with France.

Aromanian culture developed initially as a pastoral culture, later to be greatly influenced by the Byzantine Greek culture.

Religion

The religion of the Vlachs is predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but there are some regions where they are Catholics and Protestants (mainly in Transylvania) and a few are even Muslims (around 500 Megleno-Romanians from Greece who converted to Islam and have been living in Turkey since the 1923 exchange of populations). The Istro-Romanians are entirely Roman Catholics.

History

The first record of a Balkan Romanic presence in the Byzantine period can be found in the writings of Procopius, in the 5th century. The writings mention forts with names such as ''Skeptekasas'' (Seven Houses), ''Burgulatu'' (Broad City), ''Loupofantana'' (Wolf's Well) and ''Gemellomountes'' (Twin Mountains). A Byzantine chronicle of 586 about an incursion against the Avars in the eastern Balkans may contain one of the earliest references to Vlachs. The account states that when the baggage carried by a mule slipped, the muleteer shouted, ''"Torna, torna, fratre!"'' ("Return, return, brother!"). However the account might just be a recording of one of the last appearances of Vulgar Latin. The Emperor Justinian I, during whose reign Procopius was writing, was a native Latin speaker and lamented the loss of Latin speech to Greek in his realm. He tried to reestablish the position of the Latin language with the legal compendia he ordered compiled; soon he was frustrated because they proved linguistically inaccessible to judges and lawyers alike, and grudgingly had his ''Novellae'' reissued in Greek.

Blachernae, the suburb of Constantinople, was named after a certain Duke from Scythia named "Blachernos". His name may be linked with the name "Blachs" (Vlachs).

In the late 9th century, the Hungarians arrived in the Carpathian basin, where, according to the ''Gesta Hungarorum'' written around 1146 by the anonymous chancellor of King Bela III of Hungary, the province of Pannonia was inhabited by Slavs, Bulgars, Vlachs, and ''pastores Romanorum'' (''shepherds of the Romans'') (in original: ''sclauij, Bulgarij et Blachij, ac pastores romanorum''). In the 12–14th century they came under the Kingdom of Hungary, the Byzantine Empire and the Golden Horde.

In 1185, two noble brothers from Tarnovo named Peter and Asen (their ethnicity is still disputed, some historians claim they were Vlachs, while others put forward different origins) led a Bulgarian and Vlach rebellion against Byzantine Greek rule and declared Tsar Peter II (also known as Theodore Peter) as king of the reborn state. The following year, the Byzantines were forced to recognize Bulgaria's independence and the Second Bulgarian Empire was established. Peter styled himself ''"Tsar of the Bulgarians, Greeks, and Vlachs"'' (see ''Vlach-Bulgar Rebellion''), though the reference to Vlachs in the style fell out by the early 13th century.

''History of Aromanians

''History of Romania

See also

Thraco-Roman

List of Aromanians

List of Romanians

Lex Antiqua Valachorum

Supplex Libellus Valachorum

Further reading

Theodor Capidan, ''Aromânii, dialectul aromân. Studiul lingvistic'' ("Aromanians, Aromanian dialect, Linguistic Study"), Bucharest, 1932

Victor A. Friedman, "The Vlah Minority in Macedonia: Language, Identity, Dialectology, and Standardization" in ''Selected Papers in Slavic, Balkan, and Balkan Studies'', ed. Juhani Nuoluoto, ''et al.'' ''Slavica Helsingiensa'':21, Helsinki: University of Helsinki. 2001. 26-50. full text Though focussed on the Vlachs of Macedonia, has in-depth discussion of many topics, including the origins of the Vlachs, their status as a minority in various countries, their political use in various contexts, and so on.

Asterios I. Koukoudis, ''The Vlachs: Metropolis and Diaspora'', 2003, ISBN 960-7760-86-7

George Murnu, ''Istoria românilor din Pind, Vlahia Mare 980–1259'' ("History of the Romanians of the Pindus, Greater Vlachia, 980–1259"), Bucharest, 1913

Nikola Trifon, Les Aroumains, un peuple qui s'en va (Paris, 2005) ; Cincari, narod koji nestaje (Beograd, 2010)

External links

Vlachs in Greece

French Vlachs Association (in Vlach, EN and FR)

Studies on the Vlachs, by Asterios Koukoudis

Aromanian Vlachs: The Vanishing Tribes

Panhellenic Confederacy of Vlachs' Cultural Associations (in Greek)

Vlachs' in Greece (in Greek)

Consiliul A Tinirlor Armanj, Youth Aromanian community and their Projects (in Vlach, EN and RO)

Vlach in Serbia, Online Since 1999 (in Vlach, EN and RO)

The Vlach Connection and Further Reflections on Roman History

Footnotes

Category:Romance peoples Category:Eastern Romance people Category:Ethnic groups in Albania Category:Ethnic groups in Europe Category:Ethnic groups in Greece Category:Ethnic groups in Macedonia Category:Ethnic groups in Serbia Category:Ethnic groups in Romania Category:Ethnic groups in Croatia Category:Romanian minorities in Europe

an:Vlacos bs:Vlasi bg:Власи ca:Walaohians de:Walachen el:Βλάχοι es:Valacos fr:Valaques hr:Vlasi it:Valacchi he:ולאכים hu:Vlachok nl:Vlachen ja:ヴラフ人 pl:Wołosi ro:Vlahi ru:Валахи sk:Valasi (severné Karpaty) sl:Vlahi sr:Власи (Балкан) sv:Vlacher tr:Ulah

Karel Vlach (October 8, 1911 (Prague) – February 26, 1986 (Prague)) was a Czech dance orchestra conductor and arranger.

He founded his first orchestra in 1938. Many important composers, instrumentalists and arrangers of the Czech jazz scene gradually went through his band. In 1947-48 Vlach's orchestra cooperated with the ''V+W Theatre'' (former Osvobozené divadlo). He recorded prolifically with Supraphon and his output includes both light classical and orchestral as well as jazz and pop arrangements for big band with strings. He also arranged and conducted many Czech film scores from 1940 to 1980. He launched the singing careers of Czech artists Yvetta Simonová (whom he married) and Milan Chladil in 1958. He and his musical colleagues Dalibor Brazda and Gustav Brom also arranged and recorded many titles for British singer Gery Scott in the late 1950s, mostly from what is now termed the American Songbook series. Many of these titles are now collectors items.

Notes

References

Jaroslav Smolka: ''Malá encyklopedie hudby''. Prague: Editio Supraphon, 1983.

External links

Karel Vlach Czech filmography

Category:1911 births Category:1986 deaths Category:Jazz bandleaders Category:Czech people Category:Czech jazz musicians Category:People from Prague

cs:Karel Vlach