The Aromanians are an Eastern-Romance speaking ethnic group native to the southern Balkans. Their origins are debated but they are generally considered to be the descendants of the Romanized native populations who developed a distinct language sometime no later than the 10th century. They have historically been referred with the term "Vlachs", with their name in the languages of most of the countries they live in being a word related to this term.
During the medieval times, they had managed to set up their own autonomous region, Great Vlachia, though it never developed into an independent state. They have been traditionally associated with a transhumance lifestyle travelling in the mountainous regions of the Balkans. During the Ottoman period, they started to engage in trading and craftsmanship and started concentrating in urban centers, with the most notable one being Moscopole, which was a major center of Aromanian culture until its destruction in the 18th century.
Many Aromanians have been assimilated into more prominent ethnic groups and they have played significant roles in the history of their respective countries, most notably in Greece, which has the largest Aromanian population of any country. Two attempts for Aromanian independence were made there in the 20th century, the Samarina Republic during WWI and the Principality of Pindus during WWII, though both of them got little support by the local population.
Origins
Aromanians were identified as Vlachs in medieval times. Vlachs, also Wallachian (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in the Balkans and north of the Danube. The Vlach peoples from the south Balkans have generally been identified as the indigenous populations with Thracian & Illyrian (Thraco-Illyrian) and Greco-Roman (Hellenic) and true Roman empire origins. Many Vlachs settled into the less-accessible mountainous areas of Greece and other areas in the Balkans because of the barbarian (Germanic, Avar and Bulgar) invasions and immigrations of the 5th-7th centuries. They can be found all over the Balkan Peninsula. Aromanians can be found in Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and the Republic of North Macedonia, while Romanians in Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia and Hungary. Their occupations were mostly trading, live-stock breeding, shepherding and craftsmanship. According to language studies Aromanian was spoken (and still is) in the southern region of Balkan peninsula (Dardania, Epirus, Macedonia, Thrace), and no later than the 10th century separated from the larger area where Common Romanian presumably was spoken.
History
Byzantine period
In 980 emperor Basil II conferred the dominion over the Vlachs of Thessaly on one Nikulitsa.
As Kekaumenos records, a first revolt against imperial rule occurred in 1066 under the lead of Nikoulitzas Delphinas, nephew of the 10th century Vlach leader, but it was not until after the collapse of the Empire in the Fourth Crusade that the Vlachs would set up their own, autonomous, principality – "Great Vlachia".D. Seward and S. Mountgarret – Byzantium: A Journey and a Guide; Harrap, London 1985 (p.183 etc.): Metsovo is the Greek capital of this shepherd race. After the Empire's temporary collapse in 1204 the Vlachs even set up their own kingdom of Great Wallachia
Benjamin of Tudela, a Spanish Jew who visited Thessaly in 1173, describes the Vlachs as living in the mountains and coming down from them to attack the Greeks. In relation with the Byzantine Empire, he adds: "no Emperor can conquer them".Libro de Viages de Benjamin de Tudela.
Ivanko was a Vlach leader of a small autonomous land and he is the one who killed Ivan Asen I, the ruler of Vlach-Bulgarian state. Ivanko established an autonomous land between the Maritza and Struma rivers, and towards the shores of the Aegean Sea, favouring the settlement of the Vlachs in these areas.John V. A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century, University of Michigan Press, 1994 p. 31.
Niketas Choniates wrote about a Vlach called Dobromir Chrysus who established an autonomous polity in the upper region of Vardar river and Moglena.Octavian Ciobanu: The Role of the Vlachs in the Bogomils’ Expansion in the Balkans page 15
The chronicles of Nicetas Choniates, Benjamin of Tudela,Libro de Viages de Benjamin de Tudela, Volume VIII, p. 63. Geoffroy de Villehardouin, Henry of Valenciennes, Robert de Clari, and other sources account for the existence of this state, comprising Thessaly, as opposed to other two "Wallachias", "Little Wallachia" in Acarnania and Aetolia, and an "Upper Wallachia" in Epirus. This coincides with the period of the first Vlach state entities across the Balkan Peninsula: Great Wallachia, Wallachia and Moldavia. After the conquest of Thessaly by the medieval state of Epirus in the 1210s, the Vlachs/Aromanians became the elite troops of the Epirote army against the Latin Crusaders as well as against the armies of Nicaea, a rival state to Byzantium.Brendan Osswald. The Ethnic Composition of Medieval Epirus. S.G.Ellis; L.Klusakova. Imagining frontiers, contesting identities, Pisa University Press, 2007, p.129 978-88-8492-466-7.
Ottoman period During the Ottoman period, Aromanian culture and economic power became more evident, as Vlachs concentrated in major urban centers. For example, the city of Moscopole at that time was one of the largest cities of the Balkans, having a population of 60,000 (for comparison, at that time Athens was a village inhabited by 8,000 people). Moscopole had its own printing house and academies, flowing water and sewerage network. They enjoyed some degree of religious and cultural autonomy within the Greek Orthodox Millet (a Turkish term for a legally protected ethnic and religious minority groups). They enjoyed a special status, being formally exempted from the law prohibiting non-Muslims from carrying weapons,N. Malcolm: "Bosnia: A Short History, p. 66." only having to pay a modest tribute to the Ottomans. In 1778 however, Moscopole was nearly razed to the ground by the troops of Ali Pasha. This episode and the Orthodox religion of the Vlachs were the factors which caused a violent and energetic struggle against the Ottomans, assigning to the Vlachs a major role in the various wars and revolutions against Ottoman rule that culminated in the creation of the states which they now inhabit: Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece.
People of Aromanian origin were to be found among the protagonists of early Greek political life, as they found opportunities to establish themselves in this new state. This is explained by the fact that many Aromanians, who, as mentioned, belonged to the Greek Orthodox Millet, adopted the Greek language under the influence of the Greek schools and churches, the only ones entitled by the Ottomans to function and to by maintained by the Ecumenical Patriarchs of Constantinople. Thus, in Ottoman eyes, they were practically equated with Greeks. For instance, the future Patriarch Athenagoras, born in Ottoman Epirus, was considered a Greek by descent. But some Vlachs wanted to preserve their language, customs and culture, and as might be expected there was a strong reaction against this policy of Hellenization. Sir Charles Eliot clearly states his work "Turkey in Europe" that "...The Bulgarians, Serbs and Vlachs have millets of their own and do not cooperate in the Hellenic cause" and that "we hear of Vlach bands who are said to contend (fight against) Greeks in the region of Karaferia (Veria)".Sir Charles Eliot: “Turkey in Europe”, London 1908, re-printed: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd - London 1965, pp.370-379; There was also pressure on Aromanians to become linguistically assimilated, which can be traced back to the 18th century, when assimilation efforts were encouraged by the Greek missionary Cosmas of Aetolia (1714–1779) who taught that Aromanians should speak Greek because as he said "it's the language of our Church" and established over 100 Greek schools in northern and western Greece. The offensive of the clergy against the use of Aromanian was by no means limited to religious issues but was a tool devised in order to convince the non-Greek speakers to abandon what they regarded as a "worthless" idiom and adopt the superior Greek speech: "There we are Metsovian brothers, together with those who are fooling themselves with this sordid and vile Aromanian language... forgive me for calling it a language", "repulsive speech with a disgusting diction".Neofytos Doukas, "Logos peri katastaseos skholeion"Thede Kahl, Ethnizität und räumliche Verteilung der Aromunen in Südeuropa. Münster, 1999
Awakening of the Aromanian identity, and Romanian sponsorship Their arrival there coincided with the spreading in Europe of the ideals of the French Revolution: nationhood, equality, mother tongue and human rights. In Habsburg-occupied Transylvania, they would connect with the latinophile Romanian intelligentsia, as part of what was known as the Transylvanian School. These intellectuals promoted the ideas which would spark the period known as the National awakening of Romania, which, after a century's time ceased to be under de jure Ottoman rule. It is in these times that Aromanian personalities became prominent, such as Gheorghe Constantin Roja, the author of "Untersuchungen uber die Romanier oder sogenannten Wlachen, welche jenseits der Donau wohnen" ("Researches upon the Romanians or the so-called Vlachs, who live beyond the Danube"; Pesth, 1808). The first attempt to create a literary language for those described as "Macedo-Romanians" was Roja's "Maiestria ghiovasirii romanesti cu litere latinesti, care sant literele Romanilor ceale vechi"(Buda, 1809). Another Aromanian emigrant was Mihail G. Boiagi. In 1813, he would publish in Vienna the book Γραμματική Ρωμαϊκή ήτοι Μακεδονοβλαχική/Romanische oder Macedonowlachische Sprachlehre ("Romance or Macedono-Vlach Grammar"). In the foreword to his work, Boiagi wrote: "Even if the Vlachs would claim, say, Hottentot origin, even in that case they ought to have the right and duty to cultivate themselves in their mother tongue, as the most appropriate way to fulfill their creed". The Metsovo-born Dimitrie Cozacovici would publish in 1865 in Bucharest the "Gramatica Romaneasca tra Romanilii dit drepta Dunarelei lucrata de D. Athanasescu, si typarita cu spesele D.D. Cosacovici, Roman din Metsova, spre an inaugura prima scoala Romana din Macedonia" ("Romanian Grammar to serve the Romanians South of the Danube worked by D. Athanasescu and printed from the donations of D.D. Cozacovici, Romanian of Metsovo, in order to inaugurate the first Romanian school of Macedonia").
A century later, almost 100 Romanian schools were opened in the Ottoman territories of Macedonia and Albania, starting as early as 1860. It is noted that this initiative was proposed by the Aromanian Diaspora living in Bucharest. The first nucleus of the Vlach schooling in Macedonia and Pindus was to be established in 1860 and its initiators were a group of Aromanians then living in Bucharest: D.D. Cozacovici (native of Metsovo), Zisu Sideri, Iordache Goga (native of Klissoura) and others. Together they initiated the Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society, under the endorsement of the then Romanian ruling class. The Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society had as its members (together with its Aromanian founding core represented by D.D. Cozacovici, Sideri, Goga, Grandea etc.) also the acting Prime and Foreign Ministers, as well as the Head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and the elite of the Romanian political class: Mihail Kogălniceanu, Ion Ghica, Constantin Rosetti, etc.