Vlachs

"Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Eastern Romance-speaking subgroups of Central and Eastern Europe.

As a contemporary term, in the English language, the Vlachs are the Balkan Romance-speaking peoples who live south of the Danube in what are now southern Albania, Bulgaria, northern Greece, North Macedonia, and eastern Serbia as native ethnic groups, such as the Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians and the Timok Romanians. The term also became a synonym in the Balkans for the social category of shepherds, and was also used for non-Romance-speaking peoples, in recent times in the western Balkans derogatively. The term is also used to refer to the ethnographic group of Moravian Vlachs who speak a Slavic language but originate from Romanians.

"Vlachs" were initially identified and described during the 11th century by George Kedrenos. According to one origin theory, modern Romanians, Moldovans and Aromanians originated from Dacians. According to some linguists and scholars, the Eastern Romance languages prove the survival of the Thraco-Romans in the lower Danube basin during the Migration Period and western Balkan populations known as "Vlachs" also have had Romanized Illyrian origins.

Nowadays, Eastern Romance-speaking communities are estimated at 26–30 million people worldwide (including the Romanian diaspora and Moldovan diaspora).

Etymology and names

The word ''Vlach''/''Wallachian'' (and other variants such as ''Vlah'', ''Valah'', ''Valach'', ''Voloh'', ''Blac'', ''oláh'', ''Vlas'', ''Ilac'', ''Ulah'', etc.) is etymologically derived from the ethnonym of a Celtic tribe, adopted into Proto- Germanic ''*Walhaz'', which meant "stranger", from ''*Wolkā-''Ringe, Don.
Inheritance versus lexical borrowing: a case with decisive sound-change evidence
" ''Language Log,'' January 2009. (Caesar's la, Volcae, Strabo and Ptolemy's gr , Ouolkai).}), and in Poland ''Włochy'' or in Hungary ''olasz'' became an exonym for Italians. The Slovenian term ''Lahi'' has also been used to designate Italians.

Historically, the term was used primarily for the Romanians. Testimonies from the 13th to 14th centuries show that, although in Europe (and beyond) they were called ''Vlachs'' or ''Wallachians'' (''oláh'' in Hungarian, ''Vláchoi'' (Βλάχοι) in Greek, ''Volóxi'' (Воло́хи) in Russian, ''Walachen'' in German, ''Valacchi'' in Italian, ''Valaques'' in French, ''Valacos'' in Spanish), the Romanians used for themselves the endonym "Rumân/Român", from the Latin "Romanus" (in memory of Rome). Vlachs are referred in late Byzantine documents as Bulgaro-Albano-Vlachs ("Bulgaralbanitoblahos"), or Serbo-Albano-Bulgaro-VlachsVia both Germanic and Latin, the term started to signify "stranger, foreigner" also in the Balkans, where it in its early form was used for Romance-speakers, but the term eventually took on the meaning of "shepherd, nomad". The Romance-speaking communities themselves, however, used the endonym "Romans". Term Vlach can denote various ethnic elements: ''"Slovak, Hungarian, Balkan, Transylvanian, Romanian, or even Albanian".'' According to historian Sima Ćirković, the name "Vlach" in medieval sources has the same rank as the name "Greek", "Serb" or "Latin".During the early history of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, there was a military class of Vlachs in Serbia and Ottoman Macedonia, made up of Christians who served as auxiliary forces and had the same rights as Muslims, but their origin is not entirely clear. Some Greeks used "vlachos" as a pejorative term. In Žumberak members of the Greek Catholic Church were called Vlachs, in Carniola residents of Žumberak in general were Vlachs. In Posavina and Bihać area Muslims called Vlachs as Christians (both Orthodox and Catholics) while Catholics under that name consider Orthodox Christians. For residents of the Dalmatian islands population of immigrants (either Croats or Serbs) were called as Vlachs. The name Vlach in Dalmatia also has negative connotations as "newcomer", "peasant", "ignorant" while in Istria the ethnonym Vlach is used to make a distinction between the native Croats and newly settled Istro-Romanian old catholic Vlachs and Slavic population which was coming in the 15th and 16th century.

Romanian scholars have suggested 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).

Nowadays, the term ''Vlachs'' (also known under other names, such as "Koutsovlachs", "Tsintsars", "Karagouni", "Chobani", "Vlasi", etc.) is used in scholarship for the Romance-speaking communities in the Balkans, especially those in Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. In Serbia the term ''Vlach'' (Serbian ''Vlah'', plural ''Vlasi'') is also used to refer to Romanian speakers, especially those living in eastern Serbia. Aromanians themselves use the endonym "Armãn" (plural "Armãni") or "Rãmãn" (plural "Rãmãni"), etymologically from "Romanus", meaning "Roman". Megleno-Romanians designate themselves with the Macedonian form ''Vla'' (plural ''Vlaš'') in their own language.

Medieval usage

The ''Hellenic chronicle'' could possibly qualify to the first testimony of Vlachs in Pannonia and Eastern Europe during the time of Attila.

6th century

What might be the earliest reference to the term “Vlach” comes from the 7th century Byzantine historiographer Theophylact Simocatta, who mentions Blachernae in connection with some historical data of the 6th century, during the reign of Byzantine emperor Maurice.

8th century

First precise data about Vlachs are in connection with the Vlachs of the Rynchos river; the original document containing the information is from the Konstamonitou monastery.

9th century

During the late 9th century the Hungarians invaded the Carpathian Basin, where the province of Pannonia was inhabited by the "Slavs clavi Bulgarians ulgariiand Vlachs lachii and the shepherds of the Romans astores Romanorum (''sclauij, Bulgarij et Blachij, ac pastores romanorum'' —according to the ''Gesta Hungarorum'', written around 1200 by the anonymous chancellor of King Béla III of Hungary.

10th century

Chroniclers John Skylitzes and George Kedrenos wrote that in 971, during battles between Romans (Byzantines) and Rus' people led by Sveinald ( Sviatoslav I), the dwellers of the north side of Danube came to Emperor John I Tzimiskes and they handed over their fortresses and the Emperor sent troops to guard the fortresses. During those times, Northern part of Danube were dwelled by sedentary Vlachs and tribes of nomad Pechenegs who lived in tents.

George Kedrenos mentioned about Vlachs in 976. The Vlachs were guides and guards of Roman (Byzantine) caravans in Balkans. Between Prespa and Kastoria they met and fought with a Bulgarian rebel named David. The Vlachs killed David in their first documented battle.

Mutahhar al-Maqdisi, "They say that in the Turkic neighbourhood there are the Khazars, Russians, Slavs, ''Waladj'', Alans, Greeks and many other peoples".

Ibn al-Nadīm published in 938 the work '' Kitāb al-Fihrist'' mentioning "Turks, Bulgars and Vlahs" (using ''Blagha'' for Vlachs)

11th century

Byzantine writer Kekaumenos, author of the '' Strategikon'' (1078), described a 1066 revolt against the emperor in Northern Greece led by Nicolitzas Delphinas and other Vlachs.

The names '' Blakumen'' or ''Blökumenn'' is mentioned in Nordic sagas dating between the 11th–13th centuries, 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''.

In the Bulgarian state of the 11th and 12th century, Vlachs live in large numbers, and they were equals to the Bulgarian population.

12th century

The Russian Primary Chronicle, written ca. 1113, wrote when the Volochi (Vlachs) attacked the Slavs of the Danube and settled among them and oppressed them, the Slavs departed and settled on the Vistula, under the name of Leshi. The Hungarians drove away the Vlachs and took the land and settled there.

Traveler 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.

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.

The uprising of brothers Asen and Peter was a revolt of Bulgarians and Vlachs living in the theme of Paristrion of the Byzantine Empire, caused by a tax increase. It began on 26 October 1185, the feast day of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki, and ended with the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire, also known in its early history as the Empire of Bulgarians and Vlachs.

13th century

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 of 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

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