HISTORICAL SNAPSHOTS

If a line is drawn running through Albania, Macedonia and Thrace on to Constantinople, the structure of the indigenous Balkan population splits as follows: south of this line there are mainly Greeks, while north of it one finds the Illyrians, Thracians and Dacians. Traditionally scholars have seen the Dacians as the ancestors of the modern Romanians and Vlachs and the Illyrians as the proto-Albanians (some linguists, however, have brought serious arguments supporting a Dacian-Moesian origin of the Albanians). As an result of numerous invasions (the most significant one being that of the Slavs) many of these indigeneous were killed, others fled to walled cities, to the islands, or withdrew to the mountains or other remote places, reappearing later as Vlachs or Albanians who begin to turn up in written sources in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The relation between Vlachs and Slavs exposes a kind of law of history: conquerors occupy easily exploitable resources, rebels withdraw to to seemingly less hospitable lands where they can still preserve their freedom. These roles were played by the romanized Dacians (plainsmen) and the un-romanized Carps (mountaineers), while after the Slavic invasions, the Romanized plainsmen were forced into the mountains and the Slavs occupied the plains. Centuries after, following the Ottoman conquest, many Slav peasants abandoned the plains to join the Vlach folk of the mountains, and the plains came into the possession of the Turks.

Evidence on the Latin-speakers North of the Danube is provided by the anonymous chancellor of King Bela, to the effect that the Hungarian settlers on the plains of the Tisza and Danube rivers (by the end of the 9-th century) found there "Slavi, Bulgarii, et Blachi ac pastores Romanorum " .

Archaeologial research on cemeteries of early medieval rural settlements in Transylvania (the best known example is that of Bratei, near Medias) points to the development of a new people, Latinic, but with customs and traditions inherited in equal measure from the Dacians and the Romans.

The Eastern Romance continued to evolve until, at the Slavic Invasion (about 600 AD) the Daco-Roman dialect began to separate from the three dialects spoken south of the Danube, Macedo-Romanian, Istro-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian. It is believed that the four dialects became fully distinct during the 9-th and 10-th centuries.

One of Greece's first and best prime ministers was John Kolettis, a Vlach who dressed like a Turk and had been court physician to Ali Pasha.

In 1797, the first primer of Vlach was published, in Greek characters, by Constantin Oukontas, a priest originating from Moschopolis. In 1813, M.J. Bojadischi published a Vlach grammar, 22 years before the first Bulgarian grammar. The book contains dialogues taking place between a visiting Pole and a Viennese Vlach - as if Vlach had become a Central European lingua franca ... Actually, the beginning of the nineteenth century witnessed a significant emergence of the Vlach consciousness: it was mostly related to Moschopolis , a city which hosted many rich Vlach merchants, very likely to be educated men.

An significant moment is related to the activity of Apostol Margarit, a Vlach teacher who tried to teach his pupils in their own language. In 1864 the first Romanian school started near Monastir. Margarit set up schools in Avdhella (1867) and Grevena (1869).

Today, the 'official' Greek (nationalist) position on the Aromanian minority is that the Vlachs are generally Greeks who happen to speak a Latin dialect. There is not enough evidence favoring this claim. For more details on Aromanians and their historians one may see the book of Tom Winnifrith , "The Vlachs: The History of a Balkan People" (New York, St.Martin's Press, 1987).

source - The Little Vlach Corner