Can the Vlachs Write Their Own History

8/8/2019 Can the Vlachs Write Their Own History

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C an the V lachs W riteT he ir O w n H istory?by N IC H O L A S S . B A L A M A C I

A distinction betw een "tradit ional" and "m odern " societies'is extremely usefu l, thoug h i t has certainly been sub ject to som em isuse . Perhaps the w ors t misuse is w hen W este rners simplyassum e tha t the i r soc ie ty i s "m ode rn" (or "developed") andbetter off while others are more or less "traditional" and,im plici t ly or explicit ly, wo rse off . A com m on co rollary to thisargum ent i s tha t there ex is t s a ser ies of s teps , w hich can bediscovere d thro ug h the a ppl icat ion o f s t r ic t socia l-sc ient i f icm ethod, tha t a ll soc ie t ies m ust pass throu gh in o rder to sur-vive in today 's w orld as if there w ere one future, or one pathto i t , for a l12This brand of m odernizat ion theo ry has not fared w el l inthe postwa r per iod, w hich has seen the sel f-asser t ion of no n-W estern societies (w ith their own patterns of developm ent) andt he emergence o f a inentalitg of plural ism in the W est . Som estill argue that the W est is better beca use it developed the verynotions of pluralism an d of ob jective s tandards for m easur ingw hat i s goo d, wh i le non -W estern societies tend to asser t thatw hat is their ow n is best , thereby leaving n o roo m for pluralisticw ays of thoughts B ut this argum ent defeats i tself: The d evelop-m ent of the idea that no one cul ture is necessar i ly super ior toany other proves that W estern culture is superior to al l others.C learly the W est deserves cre dit for i ts various innovations, in-cluding plura l is t ic w ays of tho ug ht , bu t the po int is prec iselyNICHOLAS S. BALAMACI i s fin i s h in g h i s P h .D. in mo d e r n E u r o p e a nhistory at Rutgers University. A former Mellon Fellow, he is ac o n t r i bu t in g e d i t o r o f The Greek American.

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that other cultures deserve som e credit, too. 'W hile the particularexcel lence of W estern socie ty m ay very wel l be the system ofrational inqu iry that has led to, for exam ple, advance d, successfuleconom ies and system s of go vernment, the particular excellenceof non-W estern societies, wh ich often dem onstrate a limited abilityto harm the natural environm ent and a 'healthy respect for thingsspiritual, is that they have not led to su ch W estern ills as m assiveenvironm ental pollution and the possibili ty of nuclear a nnihila-t ion. C ultures can learn "exce llences" from one ano ther; the oneth ing tha t we now fee l w e m ust avoid and w e a re indeed in-debted to the W est for th i s par ticula r b it of w isdom is tha tany cul ture th ink i tsel f so supe rior as to seek to dom inate theothers , put ting an end to w hat d ivers ity s t il l rem ains a f te r ahalf-millennium of W estern hegem ony.A nother cr i t ique of the tradit ional/mo dern d istinction seesit as a typical dichotom ous division of rea lity betw een an idealizedpast and a less-than-ideal present. 4 Yet the hum an tendency toideal ize the past doe s not by i tself nega te the value of dist in-guishing tw o different types of society. And criticism s of m oder-nizat ion theo ry as s im plis t ic and d ichotom ous can b est be an-sw ered by noting that the theory does n ot necessari ly postulatethat there are only two types of hum an soc iety, "tradit ional" and"m ode rn"; ra ther , i t s imply seeks to d escribe a transition fromone type to ano ther w ithout e xcluding the possibili ty o f , say, athird type (such as a pre-Ne olithic hunting and g athering society,for exam ple) .

Thus w hile som e of the ear l ier view s of m odernization arediscredited, the co ncept rem ains; mod ernization is seen not as anabsolute series of stages throug h w hich a given society must pass,nor even as "good " or "bad," but ra ther as "a tendency or se t oftendencies," as the historian John Gil lis puts i t. Gill is go es o nto ex plain,{T]rad it ion and m odern i ty a re no t tw o c om ple te lydifferent condi tions . Elem ents of m oderni ty for ex-am ple , the recog ni t ion o f m eri t over bi r th existedto som e degree in preindustr ia l socie ty. B y the sam etoken, the t radi tional factor of ad vantage from bir this still powe rful in m ost m odern so cieties, despite every

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t im e w ith w hich th is essay i s m os t concerned; M ircea El iadedescribes the "tw o distinct orientations" of time in hum an societyas "the one traditiona l, . .. that of cyclical t im e, regen erating it-self ad inf initum ; the other m odern, that of f inite t im e." 'Since these d evelopm ents f irst occurred in the W est, thereis a tenden cy to cal l this process "W esternizat ion." That termimpl ies tha t w hen a soc ie ty und ergoes m oderniza tion i t is for-saking local culture in favor of w holesale adoption o f W esternEuro pean an d A m erican cultural form s. I t is s t il l far f rom cer-t a in , how ever, tha t a m oderniz ing n on-W este rn cul ture m ustlose i tse l f in the process (one thinks of the S oviet Union andJapan); thus the term "W esternizat ion" w i ll be avoided here .A t the sam e t im e , there i s no d oub t tha t t radi tiona l soc ie tiesthroughout the w orld have not system atically m odernized beforecon tac t w ith the W es t ; they d id no t p roduce , say , a m odernhis tor ical ideal port raying c han ge o ver t im e in an object ivem anner before the ir exposure to W estern educat ion and aca-dem ic values. This idea l of objectivity is indee d som ething newunde r the sun; in fact, the degree to wh ich even Western societies,long con vinced of their own su periority, approach that ideal w ithconsistency is questionable even today.

The V lachs are a t radi t ional socie ty of the B alkan penin-sula . O nce con tained en tirely w ithin the O ttom an em pire, theyw ere divided as that empire was dismem bered to form or enlargethe m odern B alkan nation-states. B y 19 18, the Vlachs w ere ef-fectively spli t betw een Gree ce, Bu lgaria, Albania, and w hat w asto becom e Yugo slavia. M ass migrations created additional com -m uni tie s in A m er ica be tw een 19 00-20 and in Rom ania be-tween 1920-40.For reason s that const itute the b asis of this essay, mu chpaper and ink have been w asted on the que st ion of the or iginof the Vlachs. Perhaps the sim plest way to approach an answ eris by analogy to the A m ericans of today; in antiquity, the Rom anlan g u ag e (L a t in ) an d c u l tu r e s u p p lan ted m o s t o f t h e o th e rlanguages and cultures of Europe save those of peoples who haddeveloped their ow n literature (the Greeks) or were no t subduedby the Rom ans ( the B asques) or had a segm ent of their popula-12OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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t ions loca ted outs ide the Rom an Em pire (Germ ans , Gae l ic -speaking C elts). Since there is no w ay of know ing the l ineage ofthe Roma nized populat ions there we re Greeks in what is nowM arseil les , German s in Spain and I ta ly , Syr ians in the Rom anarm y they are know n to us simply by the languag e they cur-rently speak, whether C atalan, Italian, Provencal, French, Rhaeto-Rom ance, Spanish, or Rom anian. (A short-l ived European pre-occu pat ion w ith "racia l or igins" ended w ith the cataclysm i thelped cause W orld W ar II and one hardly hears the te rmused any longer.)T h e V lach s a r e t h u s t h e B a lkan p o p u la t io n s t h a t w er eRom anized, a long w ith individuals la ter assim ila ted to V lachlanguage and culture (as Slays, Greeks, and even som e Gy psieshave been ). In other w ords, the Vlachs do n ot date to classicaltimes, but are a "new" people; there simply was no suchth ing as a V lach before the Rom an conq ues t . W hich popula-tions existed in the Balkans at the time of the conquest?A ccording to the bes t inform at ion w e have , the m ain groupsw ere I l lyr ians, Thracians, and G reeks, the last group includ ingthe M acedon ians . " N or th o f the Danub e w ere the Dac ians .Som e m em bers o f each group were ce r ta in ly Rom anized . TheA lbanians m ay be the descendants of the I l lyr ians , as they as-ser t . The Thrac ians , Dacians , and M aced onians disappeared,ass im i la ted by Rom ans and Greeks (and, of course , a fte r thesixth century A.D., by S lays). In B yzan tium , Greek civilizationw as fused to tha t of the Rom ans , wi th C hr i st ian i ty be ing thecatalyst; af ter a br ief period during w hich i t gave way to L atinin off ic ial c ircles, the Greek langua ge cam e to dom inate againin the sixth century A.D., except in the m ore rem ote areas of theB alkan peninsula, w here a new Rom ance language w as spoken.I t is surm ised, on the ba sis of l ing uis t ic evidenc e, that theseEastern Rom ance speakers w ere in touch w ith the I talian penin-sula until the sixth-century Slavic invasions severed thisconnection."

Thoug h both Rom ance-speakers and Greek-speakers w ereknown by the same designation at this time"Romans"-i t seem s that the Rom ance-speakers ne vertheless differentiatedthem selves from the Greek-speaking "Rom ans"; i t rem ains un-certain whether Greek-speakers considered these Eastern Romance-Can the Vlachs Write Their Own History?3


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Europe an his tory , has regular ly bee n subordinated to presentnational im peratives; in this case, the Roma nians and H unga riansboth covet Transy lvania and ha ve sought to legitim ate their claim sto i t by a sser t ing h istor ical pr ior i ty in that reg ion. Thu s theH ungarians theorize that the Rom anians are real ly V lachs fromthe southern Balkans w ho m igrated north of the Danube du ringthe Middle Ages, i.e., after the Hungarians got there. TheRom anians respond by asser t ing tha t they are the descenda ntsof the autochthonous Dacians w ho, though conq uered and partiallyassim ilated by the Ro m ans, have continued to ex ist in al l cur-rent Rom anian lands s ince a nt iqui ty ; the Ro m anians see theVlachs of the southern Ba lkans al ternately as autoch thonou sThracians who w ere Rom anized (the Dacians w ere a Thrac iantribe) and as Roma nians from north of the Danube w ho m igratedsouth."L ike a l l other e thnic grou ps on the cont inent , the V lachs 'consciousness and prim ary loyalty h ave long been l inked to theirimm ediate environm ent village, mou ntain, valley, clan and notto any na t ional idea ; such ideas were bo rn in W estern Eu ropein the early nineteenth century, and on ly since then h ave Vlachsand others com e to see them selves as par t of a "nat ion." (There lig ious h i s tory of the Vlachs ha s not even begu n to be ad -dressed by serious sch olars.) Wh ereas the Rom anians eventuallyw ent on to crea te the ir ow n nat ion-sta te in the nine teenth cen-tury , the V lachs have, s ince at leas t the seventeen th century,com e m ore and m ore under the in fluence o f Greek cu l tu re ,especially throug h the vehicle of Greek O rthodox y, due to theirproxim ity to Greek populations. In fact, all B alkan groups duringthe O ttoman o ccupation w ere m arked by their relatively peacefulcoex istence and the f lu idi ty w i th w hich they adopted aspec tsof eac h o ther ' cul ture (especia l ly G reek cul ture , wh ich pre-dom inated th rough the C hurch). Once na t ional ism becam e aforce in Europe an political life in the nineteenth cen tury, how -ever, th is peaceful B alkan co exis tence en ded, and as O t tom ans t rength in Europe faded, the var ious B alkan nat iona l groupsfought over the rema ining O ttom an lands in the peninsula.A Vlach na tiona l movem ent began amon g w ea lthy Vlachm erchants in Vienna and B udapest at the s tart of the nineteenthcen tury , ' bu t the r i sing Rom anian s ta te soon took the l ead ,Can the V lachs W rite Their Ow n History ?5


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cla im ing the V lachs as long-lost k in an d investing large sum sin Romanian schools and ch urches for the Vlachs. While genuinelyfraternal feelings ce rtainly existed unde r the bene volent, naiveform of early nat ional ism , the Rom anians also hoped to use theVlach s as a barga ining chip in thei r terr itor ia l c la im s aga ins tB ulgar ia ." This Rom anian nat ional is t mo vem ent gave r i se tothe new e thn ic des igna t ion M acedorom ani, w h ic h m e a n t tosignify that the Vlachs were simply Rom anians wh o happenedto com e f rom M acedonia . The new designat ion w as adopted a tthe ex pense o f two impo r tant fac ts , how ever : f ir s t, tha t (as-sum ing the Rom anians have been no r th of the Danube s inceantiquity, as they asser t) the two branches of Ea stern Rom ancepopulat ion h ad be en virtual ly separated for som e tw elve cen-tur ies (i.e., since the S lavic invasions) and ha d evolved ratherdifferently du ring that tim e; and seco nd, that wh ile Vlach s arecertainly found in M acedonia, they also inhabit the neighboringregions of Epiros, Thessa ly, and Th race.The recent ly formed Greek s ta te opposed th is Rom aniannational m ovemen t, and the V lachs soon cam e to be divided intopro-Greek and pro-Rom anian factions. The bitterness betweenthe two w as not great unti l Greece, in conducting a gu erril la w ara t the tu rn o f th is cen tu ry ag a ins t var ious a rm ed g roups o fSlavic na t ional is ts for possess ion of M acedonia , m ade the un-f o r tu n a t e d e c i sio n to u s e f o r ce ag a in s t th e u n a r m ed V lachnat iona l is t s, too ." C onf l ic t e rupted on the acad em ic f ront asw ell: Greek nat ional is t scholars , seeking to prove G reek h is-torical priority and continuity in M acedo nia from antiquity (i.e.,befo re the Slays g ot there), adopted the theory "that the Vlachsw ere Vlachophon e H ellenes, that is to say racially Greeks wh ohad lea rn t Vlach ."" Thou gh th i s thes i s has never found su p-port outside of Greec e, it has enjoyed a rem arkable staying poweram ong b oth Greeks and H el lenized Vlachs , and i t is impor tantfor i ts effects on V lach identi ty. If one is "biologically" Greekanyw ay, and one's La t in idiom m erely an anom aly, then indeedw hy not aban don that id iom and return to one 's true "race" ?It is upon this skeletal sketchunencumbered by theRom anians ' des i re to have bee n in Transy lvania before theH ungar ians, untain ted by the Greeks' need to c la im m em bersof the ir "race" in M acedonia f rom t im e im m em oria l that the16O U R N A L O F T H E H E L LE N IC D IA SP O R A


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other facts of Vlach history may be hung. Just what that his-tory and those facts are has not yet been attempted (much lessrealized) outside of a handful of rather remarkable workswhich, not coincidentally, have had no particular axe to grindconcerning the Vlachs: the writings of Gustav Weigand, pub-lished in Germany in the 18905; the Englishmen Alan Wace andM a u r ic e T h o m p s o n 's 1 9 1 4 c la s s ic , The Nomads of the Balkans;and the 1987 book by Tom Winnifrith, also an Englishman, en-titled The Vlachs: The History of a Balkan People?' Part icularlyimportant is Winnifrith's comprehensive critique of Greek,Romanian, and other local scholars who have purported to studythe Vlachs impartially but who in reality have subordinated theVlachs to their own narrow nationalistic concerns. This critiquehas cleansed the slate of Vlach history and rid it of the ac-c u m u la te d d e b r i s o f 200 years o f na t iona l is t in f igh t ing almo s t a l lof it at the expense of the Vlachs. Winnifrith's historiographicalcritique is the signal for a fresh start in Vlach history, a startprovided by the remainder of his own book.But Winnifrith's book is short, far from comprehensive, andsuffers from a weak theoretical structure. If local scholars havebeen ruled out due to their nationalist concerns, to whom canwe turn for the definitive history of the Vlachs? Winnifrith'scritique of Balkan national scholars would seem to leave uswith two main alternative sources: impartial Western scholars,motivated by a sense of curiosity and wonder, or the Vlachsthemselves, motivated by an interest in and affection for theirethnic background. Western scholars have already shown thatthey can produce reliable works on the Vlachsbut those worksare few and far between, and there is not much interest in theVlachs, though they are clearly on the verge of extinction. Onthe other hand, the Vlachs themselves have a natural interestin the subjectbut can the Vlachs write their own history?

Vlach society never modernizedas a society, that is, formany Vlachs assimilated into societies that were modernizing.But in doing so, they had for all intents and purposes to giveup their identity as Vlachs: no modern schools, literature, orpolitical entities were created by or for the Vlachs (the ap-Can the Vlachs Write Their Own History?7


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proach of both Romanians and Greeks was generally thatthei rs w as the l iterary languag e of the V lachs, so ra ther thanm odernizing Vlach language and literature, Roma nian and G reekschools taught the Vlachs Rom anian or Greek langua ge andl iterature). W ithou t schools, Vlach n ever developed w ords forthe m yriad innovations of m odernity, from autom obiles to presi-d e n t s; su c h t e r m s a s d o e x is t a r e b o r ro w e d f r o m m o r e d e -veloped lang uag es such as En glish, Turkish, Greek, A lbanian,or one of the S lavic l anguages . No m odern V lach cu l tu re hasbeen created.H ere in l ie s the e s sence o f the p rob lem , fo r V lachs w hohave chosen to rem ain involved w ith their culture have by andlarge continued to w ork within the conceptual framew ork of anextremely traditional cultureeven w hen the intellectuals am ongt hem im pose on tha t cu l tu re the nom enc la tu re and fo rm s o fm odernityrather than seek to create a m odern pan-Vlach iden-tity complete with literature, criticism, representative in-s t itu t ions , e tc . O ne o f the ram ifica tions of th is pheno m eno n(and th e thesis of this pape r) is that a t radi t ional m entalite i sim ported into such non tradi tional ac t ivit ies as the w ri ting ofhis tory, w i th resul ts as dam aging to the t radi tional society a sthey are to the ideals of the mo dern h istorical profession.What is a "traditional m entalite"? B et te r ye t , w i th theben efit of W olf 's cr i ticism , w hat is the tradit ion al m entalite ofthe V lachs? I w ou ld like to o f fe r th ree c r it e r ia , one tha t isch aracter is t ic o f t rad i tional socie t ies in g en eral , on e that i stypical of pastoral-nomad ic groups such as the Vlachs, and o nethat is particularly assoc iated w ith V lach traditional society an dis critical to any attem pt to understand that society.The f i rst of these cr ite r ia and w hat C laude L evi-Straussdescribes as "[t]he ch aracteristic feature of the savage m ind" 22is what w e m ight call t im elessness. The Vlachs, like m any others,w ere a "people without history," a t tuned m ostly to the rhythm sof biology an d nature before co m ing into contact w ith anthropo-centr ic W estern societ ies. Even af ter centuries of con tact withthe W est, how ever, the Vlach tradit ional m entaliti survives, an din th i s the V lach exper ience i s com parab le to tha t o f o thertraditional societies. In fact, the antipathetic relationship betwe enthe tradit iona l m entalit and m odern histor icism is brough t out18O U R N AL O F T H E H E L LE N IC D IA SP O R A


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most clearly by Calvin Martin, a historian whose essays on thehistoriography of the American Indians stand as a landmark foral l sch olars interested in the su rvival of tradi t ional w ay s of think-ing in seemingly modern times and places. Martin asserts that

despite our profusion of monographs we have intruth largely missed the North American Indians' ex-per ience an d m ean ing o f i t. We h ave m issed the i r "t im e"as they construed and sought to live it. Instead ... wemake them into a "people of history": assign them ourterms and conception of living in time and space, ourcom m it men t to chang ing rea l it y and chang ing hum an i tyover the ages 23

In contrast to the anthropological (human-oriented) outlook ofa "people of history," American Indians have the biological(nature-oriented) outlook of a "people of myth." 24 Accordingto Eliade, the only "history" mythic people have is sacred his-t o ry , wh i chis a "history" that can be repeated indefinitely, in thesense tha t the m yths se rve as m ode ls fo r ce rem onies tha tperiodically reactualize the tremendous events that oc-curred at the beginning of time. The myths preserveand transmit the paradigms, the exemplary models,for a l l t he respons ib le ac t iv it ies in w hich m en e nga ge 2s

Moreover, "such an ideology makes it impossible that what wetoday call 'historical consciousness' should develop ."28 If some-thing exists now, it must always have existed. "The man ofarchaic cultures tolerates 'history' with difficulty and attemptsperiod ical ly to ab ol i sh i t." 27The second criterion of the Vlach traditional tnentalite isa preoccupation with genealogy, the tracing of real or fictitious

bloodlines through the branches of biological descent. The his-torian John A. Armstrong contrasts the territorial sense of iden-tity that arose in Western Europe during the Middle A g e s(and led to the development of stable frontiers aroundthe various territories) with the nonterritorial ethnic identity ofCan the V lachs W rite T heir Ow n H istory ?9


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pastora l nom ads charac ter iz ing such areas as the M iddle East ;for the la tter , "[b]y far the m ost im portant m echa nism is theextraordinary dominance of the genealogical principle." 28 This"concern for f inding ancestors has b een car r ied to lengths tha tappear absurd to an objective observer," such as w hen "A lbanianre fugees in the N egev and non -Sem i tic Som al is a like c la imdescent f rom M ohamm ed himself ." 2 M oreover,

B ecause such claim s are neither provable nor disprova-ble, the force of their presen tation, includ ing skil l inenlisting learned autho rities, the superficial plausibilityof the oral t radit ions, and the real pow er of the claim-ants are dec isive. .. . I t is ob viou s that w hat is at stakehere i s a set of my ths , am ong the m ost potent s truc-tures tha t have ever influe nc ed ide nti ty. .. . [I]t is no treal blood relationships but conviction im pelled by anintense desire to iden tify w ith a more prestigious grou pthat determines the identi ty m yth. 3

O f pastora l no m adic origin them selves, the V lachs, too, re lyheavily on gene alogy a s the ordering principle of their identity.The third and final criterion of the Vlach traditionalm entaliti I w ill c i te for the purposes o f this paper is an at trac-t ion to the freedom , mo bili ty, and inconspicuousness o f a m oun-ta in l ifes tyle; the Vlachs have do ne m uch a s they pleased fo rthe las t two m i llennia s im ply by s taying o ut of the no t ice ofother peoples. As C harles Eliot noted in 19 08, "Their vil lagesare ne arly alway s placed in the h ighest and least visible spots . ..[an] obvious advantage as a m eans of e luding the Tu rkish tax-collectors." 31 O ne w ay these characterist ics show up in the pres-ent is in the strong im pulse to cam ouflage V lach identity w ithinthe context of a stronger , m ore prest igious, or mo re successfulgroup. Such a phenom enon, of course , w ould be mo st m arkedin the m odern period o f com peting n ational identit ies and states;the old em pires did no t aggressively seek conver ts and in facttended to insulate the governing classes from the governed, keep-ing the two c ultures apart. This cham eleon-like charac teristic ofthe Vlachs has be en ci ted of ten in the las t century. W ace an dThom pson obse rved that the Vlachs "are essentially a m oun tain20OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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people and a s soon as they be g in to se t t le perm ane n t ly in thepla ins . .. [ they ] rap id ly bec om e m erged w i th the su r round ingraces ."" The tw o B r it ish scholars , w ho t raveled through Vlachvil lages in Greek regions during the period of Rom anian-Greekfriction over the V lachs, noticed pe culiar behavior even in Vlachvillages:

Thus on one occasion w e overheard the school childrenbeing o rdered to t a lk on ly Greek as long as w e w erepresent ; in ano ther vil lage w e w ere assured spoke on lyGreek, Vlach proved to be the common tongue....O nce in the ear ly days w hen our know ledge o f Vlachw as sm al l w e arr ived a t a Vlach vi llage wh ich had jus treun i ted af ter a w inter in the p la ins . A l l a rou nd w ereta lking V lach; we w ere w elcomed kindly by the school-m aster who spoke to us in Greek. "W e only ta lk Vlachw hen w e f i rs t meet aga in a f te r the winte r" w ere a lm osthis f irs t w ords . I t w as not unt i l a m onth la ter that w eheard another w ord of Greek ."

So no tew or thy d id W ace and Thom pson f ind th is phenom enont h a t th ey ch o s e t o en d th e ir t o m e o n th e V lach s o n th is n o t e :" [T]he i r num bers have been s tead ily , bu t s low ly d im in ish ing ,and the y them selves have he lped th is by the i r lack of na t iona lfeel ing , their d ispers ion and their pow er of se l f -ef facem ent ."B arely a de cad e ea r l ier , in 19 05, the B ri ti sh socia li s t andjournalist Hen ry No el Brailsford had w ritten,There i s no race in a l l the B a lkans so m yste r ious an dso individual as the V lachs . They she l ter them selvesin the Greek C hurch , adopt Gree k culture as a disguise,and se rve the H el len ic idea . I t i s ra re to m eet a m anam o n g th em w h o d o es n o t speak G reek m o re o r le s sf luent ly and w ell, but a t hom e the nat ional Lat in idiompersis ts , and the i r ca l lings , the i r habi t s , the i r w ays ofth inking m ake them a na t iona l ity apar t . .. . The y l iveapar t, ra re ly in termarrying w i th S lays , upheld by som et rad it ion of an ancient super iori ty w hich teaches themto despise the n ew er races . If they are a t im id people

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they a re a l so s ingula r ly tenac ious . A fam ily m ay b esca t te red be tw een Roumania and T hessa ly , but theynever cease to be Vlachs."W hile he acknow ledged tha t wi th some Vlachs Hel lenism w asa gen uine passion, B railsford w as qu ick to ad d,

W ith the m ass of the Vlachs, how ever, this loyalty toGreece w as a m ore ca lcula t ing an d in teres ted a t tach-m ent. This sparse and furt ive race is of necessi ty op-portunist . I t seeks to m erge and conceal i tself in som elarger organisat ion from the sam e t im id and unob tru-s ive inst inct w hich cau ses i t to b ui ld i ts v il lage s onthe m ounta ins . So long as G reece he ld an undisputedprim acy am ong the C hr is t ian peoples of the B a lkanPeninsu la it wa s obviously the interest of the Vlachs toshel ter unde r the G reek nam e. .. . B ut the rece nt m is-fo r tunes o f Greece have th row n som e doub t on thew isdom of th is conn ect ion.. .. The s tronge r force hasan at t ract ion for the V lach m ind. 'M odern scholars , too, have n ot iced th is charac ter is t ic ofthe V lachs, which is operative not only in G reek regions but inA lbanian and Slavic areas as w ell. The C roatian-Am erican soci-ologist Vatro M urvar noted,The V lachs prefer red to use the n am es of people [Sc .nations) with who m they wished to becom e assimilated.They w ere anx ious to achieve this assimilation quicklybecause "they w ere asham ed of the associations attachedto thei r ow n nam es. They therefo re preferred to cal lthemselves Greeks or Serbs." They identified themselvesw ith the Serbs , a lthough they had nothing in com m onw ith them but the rel igion."

M urvar in fact devoted h is ent i re doctora l disserta t ion to a t-tem pt ing to prove the e xis tence of a Vlach el ite cal ling i tsel fSerbian b ut s t il l operat ing w ithin the co ntext of V lach cul ture22OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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even as i t controlled the new Serbian state and today con tinuesto dom inate in Yu goslavia.A n am bivalent attitude tow ard national identity is not uniqueto the Vlachs; it may even be com m on am ong w ha t we m igh tcall the w orld 's "sm aller" cultures. In h is book o n n ationalism ,Geilner notes thatin m any c ases , i t i s f a r f rom c lear how a g iven in-dividual is to be assigned to his "cultural back-grou nd ." . . . L ife-style, occu pation, lang ua ge, r i tualpractice, may fail to be cong ruent. A fam ily's econom icand political survival m ay h inge, precisely, on the ad roitm anipulation an d m aintenance of these am biguities, onkeeping o ptions and conn ections open. I ts mem bers m aynot ha ve the slightest interest in, or taste for, the una m -biguous, categ orical self-charac terization suc h as is nowassociated w ith a putat ive na tion, aspir ing to internalhom ogenei ty an d exte rna l au tonom y. In a t radit iona lm ilieu an idea l of a single overriding a nd cultural iden-tity m akes little sense .

Prec ise ly ho w the Vlachs have m anipula ted the var ious am -bigui t ies inhe rent in thei r s ituat ion is the su bject of a n im -por tan t e s say by M ur ie l Dim en S che in en t it led "W hen I s anEthnic Group ? Ecology and C lass Structure in N orthern Greece.""C oncentrating on the region of Epiros, Schein contrasts the V lachs(w hom she ca l ls 'by thei r self-des ignat ion "A roum ani") w i ththe Sara katsans (a Gree k pastoral nom adic group) in orde r todem onstrate that "under con ditions of com petit ion for strategicresources, e thnic identity can be used as a m eans of o rganizingadaptation to natural and social environm ents; ethnic differenc esw ill then be expressed and reco gnized, and ethnici ty beco m es abasis for differential succe ss." 'Sche in begins by recogn izing the ubiquitous V lach customw e have been d iscussing: "Like the Aroum ani who inhabit otherB alkan countries, those in Greece have adopted the m ajor customsof their host country, so that today, in a town or city, theA roum ani can be dis tinguished from the other rural Epirotesonly when they speak Roum anian [sc. Vlachl." 4 2 In the courseCan the V lachs W rite Their Ow n History ?3


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of their competition for the limited pastures of Epiros, Vlachsand Sarakatsans have "made use of ethnic identification as away to allocate and secure pasture."' Political and ecologicalfactors interacting with ethnicity led to Sarakatsan success, theirlower classes becoming specialized as stock-breeders while theirupper classes, as well as both upper and lower classes of theVlachs, were forced to become generalized into numerous pro-fessionsan advantage if the ecosystem changes (as it did inthis century) ." Yet Sarakatsan upper classes tend to lose theirSarakatsan identity, becoming for all intents and purposes Greekwhen they leave their villages; this does not always happen withthe Vlachs, giving the Vlach upper and lower classes thepotential advantage of a common bond of ethnicity. In pastcenturies the Vlachs retained their language and identity dueto specific economic and legal advantages given them by theOttoman Turks.

But Roumanian [Vlach) is still learned today in thevillages, not because of any one particular reason, butbecause identification as Aroumani continues to conferadvan tages in d iverse con tex ts . A roum anian e thn ic iden-t it y c o n d e n se s m u l tipl e e x pe r ie n c e s a n d m e a n in g s n o n -Greekness , eco log ica l and ec onom ic ma rg ina li ty , un iquecontrol of muleteering, and dominance of the cheesetradeand thus has great but non-specific potentialu ses. . . . This is not to say that all Aroumani have al-w ays m a i n ta i ned t he ir g roup m em bersh ip . Emi gran t s doso w hen i t i s to the i r ad vantage : thus , po l it ic i ans c l ear lyfind it useful, as do cheese and stock merchants whouse i t to m ain ta in conne c t ions w i th A roum ani shepherds .At the other end of the hierarchy, villagers in the re-mote mountains also continue to use their identity as am a jo r me a n s o f f i n d in g a w a y in to c o m m e rc ia l a n d po li t-ical networks. On the other hand, those who settle inplains villages, or become businessmen in non-relatedindustries find it less beneficial to identify themselvesas A roum ani and consequent ly cease to speak Roum anian[Vlach]."



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In short , e thnicity i s a m ore f lu id conc ept than i t is commonlyheld to be, and ethnic identi ty is of ten asser ted w hen d oing socon fers som e polit ical or econom ic advantage. Schein 's thesisgoes a long w ay tow ard expla ining the paradox of the Vlachs 'assert ion o f a non -Vlach e thn ic iden t ity to outs iders even asthey tenaciously retain a Vlach ethnic identity am ong themselves(save w hen they se t tle in low land a reas and a re gen u ine lyassimilated).A s s ta ted ear l ie r , in the ab sence of a m odern V lach cu l -tu re , Vlachs who have w ished to m odern ize have done so byassimila ting into other cul tures that were m odernizing. Thosew ho h ave retained a Vlach ethnic identity have often continuedto w ork w ithin the conceptual framew ork of an extrem ely t radi-t ion al cul ture to be V lach, in other w ords, is necessari ly tobe "tradi tional" to that degree and virtually no one has soughtto create a com prehensive m odern V lach identity. At best , Vlachintel lectuals have m erely im posed the nom enclature and formsof m ode rn ity on t rad i t iona l V lach cu l tu re , and a s a r esu l t atraditional Inentalita is imported into such non traditional activi-t ies as the w r it ing o f h is tory , w hich w e now ant ic ipa te w i lllead to asser t ions that the c urrent s ituat ion o f the V lachs hasalways existed (t im elessness) and that the Vlachs h ave a directbiological link to prestigious anc estors (preocc upation w ith gene-alogy); furtherm ore, the cho ice of which an cestors to assert w illbe related to the advantages con ferred by the resultant ethnicity(usually ei ther Greek, Serbian, or Rom anian outw ardly, with aVlach ide ntity held in reserve for possible ingroup use ). L et usnow conclude th is s tudy by exa m ining a few exam ples of howthese o rgan izing principles of the t radi t ion al Vlach m entalitehave acted to shape and circum scribe the V lachs' w rit ing o f theirow n history.

* * *C onsidering ho w consistently scholarship has been sub or-

dinated to political im peratives in the B alkans, i t is no surprisetha t the tw o m ain schoo ls of thoug ht am ong the V lachs con-cern ing the i r ow n h i s to ry shou ld para l le l qu i te c lose ly theVlach s ' poli tical a lignm ents. In other w ords, there is a L atinistschoo l (es sen t ia l ly a n ew incarna t ion o f the o ld Rom anianCan the V lachs W rite Their Ow n History ?5


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scho ol), assert ing the kinship and non -Hel lenic racia l or iginof the Vlachs and Ro m anians , and a H el lenis t school , m ain-ta ining the kinship and H ellenic racial or igin of the Vlachs an dGreeks. The traditional nature o f the debate is evident from thefact that it has never ceased to center on this question of"racial" origins.The L a t in i s t school is now represented by Vas i le B arbaof Fre iburg , w hose Uniunea tra Limbs shi Cultura Aromana(Union for Arum anian Lan guage a nd C ul ture) is sues a quar-terly periodical , Zborlu a Nostru (Our Word) as well assom e occ asional publications, including a softcover collect ionentitled Latin South of the Danube Today." ULC A has a lsoheld tw o internat ional "cong resses" thus far , a t the Un iversityof M annheim in 1985 and the Un ivers ity of Fre iburg in 19 88;the participants have been few and overw helm ingly of the L atinistschoo l them se lves . The m ant le o f the H el len i s t s choo l hasrecently been taken by the linguist A chilleas L azarou of A thenswith his major work Arumanian and Its Links to Greek. 47L azarou has a l so w r it ten a r ti c le s con cern ing the V lachs fo rvarious periodicals, mo st recently his con troversial "H istory ofVlach Popular Song s." 48The radical nature of the last-m entioned ar t ic le m akes i t anatural s tar t ing po int for us , as a very s tark exam ple of h ow apheno m enon sh arpens on e's ability to pick out more sub tle ver-s ions . For m ore than a century now , a s ingle fa llacy genera tedby an over-enthusiastic Greek nationalist researcher has skew edthe s tudy of V lach folklore in Greec e . In 1880, A ravandinosw rote that the V lachs,

though they do not use the Greek language a t hom e,never the less com pose [sic!) their songs in it. Thereader w ill f ind m any suc h song s in the present selec-t ion, m ost ly gathered in M etsovo, Grevena, and M a-lakasiV lach districts in part, certainly, but wh ere onea lmo st never hears a V lach song. In the i r dances , a tw eddings, saint 's day festivit ies, or at hom e w hen the irw om en sing lullabies to their babies or keen dirges overthe dead, they a lways s ing in Greek, even thoug h oc-casionally some of them , in their ignora nce of the Greek

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Romanians for the first time since the end of World War II,w hen a new Rom anian government chose to d iscontinue suppor tof school s and churches for these V lachs . To be sure , th is w asnot the f i rs t co l lect ion o f Vlach song s ever publ ished; severaleditions have appeared in Romania in the last dozen yearsalone.51 B ut Papazis i-Papatheodo rou 's book w as the f ir s t Vlachef fo r t to b reak the G reek pos twar co nsensus no t to asser t anyno n-H el len ic e thn ic iden t ity in tha t coun t ry , and a s such theboo k achieved a certain notoriety.Lazarou's article was an effort at a direct scholarly re-sponse w hich, tho ugh i t spoke in the id iom of the Greek po l it -ical and academ ic establishment , would com e from a person w how as h im s e l f V lach . P iqu ed b y th e appea ran ce o f a c o l lec t io nof V la c h f o lk songs , wh ic h w e r e no t e ve n sup p ose d to e x i s t,Lazarou's tactic was simply to resurrect and reassert theAravandinos fallacy of a century ago, only with more of asc ho la r ly a p p a r a tus th i s time . Bu t one n e e d n o t be a s c ho la rto know that Aravandinos requires m ore than footnotes; indeedas m ost Vlachs know w hether they 've had one year of edu ca t ionor twen ty-one the Vlachs have a s izable bod y of fo lk songs inVlach tha t have com e dow n over the cen tu ries, and to th is daynew songs are created in V lach alm ost daily by people w ho speakVlach as their prim ary languag e.

Lazarou's thesis is this: that the Vlachs sing their folksongs in Greek, and that any fo lk song s they have in Vlach arethe (ar t if ic ia l , by im plicat ion) creat ions and res idue of the pro-Rom anian nat ional ist movem ent am ong the V lachs (wh ich lastedf ro m ro u g h ly 1860 to 19 45) . The e videnc e aga ins t th is rad icalposition is vast and, with the exception of the collection byM arcu ci ted ear l ier , em inent ly re l iab le . (M arcu apparen t ly rea-sone d that Greek son gs referr ing to the V lachs or their villagesm u s t o n ce h av e b een s u n g in V lach ; t h o u g h th e re is n o c l ea rev idence tha t such an assum pt ion i s w arran ted , M arcu never-the less seem s to have gone ahea d and t rans la ted som e o f thesesongs "ba ck" into V lach this, if anything, is the "sm oking gun"L azaro u seeks .) The o ther co l lect ions c i ted abo ve are largelyre liab le , as is the sam pling in W ace an d Thom pson, who a re infact explici t abo ut cer tain types of Vlach son gs:



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There are tw o m en in the v illage [of S am ar ina] whocontinually com pose new ones w hich they s ing at fes-t ivals . They do this not for gain, but for am usem ent;and ne i ther of the tw o song w riters can b e said to havehad m uch e duca t ion. This song w rit ing is not due tothe Roum anian propaganda, for every now and againsome one else w ill make up a topical and personal song,and w e have heard m ule teers s inging them . '

N um erous recordings exis t of Vlach fo lk songs ; though m anyw ere m ade in Romania, most of the recent issues have come o utof G reece ( those tha t have not inc lude co l lec t ions c om pi ledby the Uni ted N at ions and by the French N at ional Ce nter fo rScientif ic Research). In the cou rse of m y ow n travels in Thes-saly, M acedon ia, and E pirus, I have heard dozen s of songs andlocated and purchased several cassettes featuring V lach songs,m ost o r them f rom V lach v i ll ages tha t had l i tt le o r no c on-tact with the pro-Rom anian m ovem ent (for instance, M etsovo,Gardiki, M igidei); new c assettes, as one m ight im agine, are beingproduced constantly.Even V lachs transplanted to A m erica have con t inued tocom pose and s ing songs in the ir ow n language, on a lmos t anysubjectfrom factory work to the m oral deficiencies of the nexttown to major events within the comm unity. O f course, these arenot lim ited to songs recorded o n paper, disk, or cassette; the greatm ajority of Vlach songs , now as ever , goes unrecorded . A s Iw as grow ing up in the United States, I heard perhaps hund redsof songs, not one of which w as ever recorded." Does this m eanthat they did not exis t? M oreover, because ou r com m unity herei s , l ike the V lach vil lages o f Gree ce, loca ted w ithin the co n-f ines of a signif icantly m ore advanced culture (i.e., one w ith along, established l iterature, with schoo ls, w ith a vocabulary thathas kept up w ith the tim es), at a point w hen cultural interactionw as unavoidable V lachs in A m erica na tura lly began to lea rnand s ing A m er ican popula r songs even V lachs w ho h a rd lyknew any En glish. The same thing occu rred in Greece a genera-t ion o r m ore ear l ier , muc h to the del ight of A ravandinos. Thenum ber of these non-Vlach songs h as obviously increased overt h e y ea r s , t o th e p o in t w h er e m o s t m em b er s o f th e cu r r en tCan the V lachs W rite Their Ow n History ?9


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generation here again, like m ost mem bers of the current genera-t ion in Greece know a lmost no songs in Vlach, but plenty in thesecond language.Which brings us to another fallacy propagated byL azarou in h is eagerness to m ake V lachs in to H e l lenes : there legat ion o f Vlach to a "se con d langu age ." W hi le i t i s truet h a t in 19 9 1 ve ry f ew V lach s m an ag e to g e t a lo n g w ith o u tknow ing a t leas t one o ther langu age bes ides the ir ow n, m ostVlachs know of elderly persons wh o to this day speak no otherlanguage bu t Vlach. There is abundan t evidence that f luency inGreek has com e to m ost Vlachs only lately; as recently as 1861,

for exa m ple, Spiridhon S okolis, a Greek do ctor visiting M etsovo--the m ost ardently pro-Greek of all Vlach vil lages found thatw ith only a few except ions none of the wom en or theboy s up to the ag e of ten knew Greek a t a l l, so tha tM r. So kolis had to em ploy an in te rpre te r . The m en,how ever, could speak Greek freely as it w as an essentiallanguage for com merce."What has happened here is that Lazarou has taken avery recent s ta te of affai rs and rem oved the t im e factor f romi t; " if Vlachs speak Greek no w and s ing songs in i t, they m ustalways have done so ." In o ther wo rds : W hat ex is ts now m us talways have existed. Tim elessness.Timelessness and the assertion that the Vlachs are the direct

biological descendan ts of prest igious an cestors are in fact theconcepts tha t an imate L azarou 's m ajor w ork , Arumanian andIts Links to Greek. Thou gh i t proposes to exam ine the or iginof the lang uag e spoken by the Vlachs of G reek regions , th isbook actual ly a t tem pts to asser t that the V lachs are biologicalGreeks whose Greek language becam e Latinized after the Rom anconqu est of Greece." This assertion c learly places L azarou w ith-in both the Vlach t radit ion of t racing a pres t ig ious biologicalancestry and the discredited European tradit ion that view s his-tory in term s of racia l or biological con t inui ty . I t is as im pos-sible to prove purity of anc estry for the V lachs as i t is for theFrench o r the Greeks , a fact readi ly recog nized by L azarou 'scol leagu e M . H atzopoulos . In a br ief but im portant essay en-30O U R N A L O F T H E H E L LE N IC D IA SP O R A


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t it led "Photice: C olonie Rom aine en Thesprotie e t les Destinesde la L at ini t Epirote ,"" H atzopoulos con cede s the fut i li ty o fLa zarou's biological approach to the V lachs and suggests insteadtha t w e a t tem pt to desc r ibe and t race w ha t happened to theL atin colonies w e do know ex isted. One need no t share Ha tzo-poulos's faith in linguistic and inscription ary evidenc e in orderto agree tha t th is approach is more prom ising by far than w hatH atzopoulos term s the "false problem" of "racial" or igins."Racial" or igins also preoccu py the L atinist school led byB arba . In th is case , how ever , the ch ie f con cern i s to p rovethe puri ty of the n on-H el lenic anc est ry of the Vlachs; w i thinthat constraint, there is room for som e flexibility, as show n in thefollow ing statement:

The A rum anians have been in the areas known todayas M acedonia, Thessaly, Epirus, and A lbania for m anythousands of years . For tw o thousand years a lone theA rumanians have been known b y th is nam e and havespoken the Latin language brought by the Rom ans afterRom e w as able to conquer these regions . For m anythousands of years before tha t the anc es to r s o f theA rumanians were known b y the names of the regionsinhabited by the groups to which they belonged:A grionians, Dorians, Dardanians, H edon ians, M ace-don ians, Pelasgians, Sitronians, etc. How ever, they w ereall the sam e, for they we re part of the m ost num erouspeople then know n in Europe, the Thracian s. A ll groupsof Thracians spoke a single langu age, Thracian, whichhas not come down to us in written form, but weknow w ell today that i t w as a different langu age fromthe s ing le wr i t ten langu age o f tha t t im e, the G reekof Greek tow ns loca ted on the coas t in the a rea o fthe Peloponnese."

I t is no a ccident , how ever , that the m ost prestigious an cestorsof th is lo t , the Rom ans and M acedonians , a re m ent ioned m ostof ten in ULC A publ ica t ions both in w ord and in im age, fo ra Rom an co in with C aesar 's portrai t is the logo o n every issueof Zborlu a Nostru, w hile the cover of Latin South of the DanubeCan the Vlachs Write Their Own History?1


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T o d a y car r ies bo th the sam e co in an d a por tra it o f A lexanderthe Great . M oreover , i t i s a sad rem ark upon the ULC A 's des-pera te f l igh t f rom any sor t o f Greek a nces t ry tha t i t has leddirectly to several groups that modern W estern scholarship agreesw ere Greek, m ost notably the M acedonians! 'The extent of UL C A 's concern w ith proving the pur i ty ofthe V lachs ' non-H ellenic anc estry is eviden t through out i ts li t-erature. Great pains are taken to eliminate even a drop ofGreek blood:

In 146 B.C. Greece, too, w as conquered by the Rom ans,w ho m ade i t a Rom an province. But since the Greekshad a l anguage tha t w as w r it ten and w as r espec tedby the Rom ans, they kept their langu age even a fter theRom an conq ues t. The Greeks were no t Rom anized .B ut all of those in the B alkan Peninsula who d id notspeak Greek the M acedonians took the Lat in lan-guage ."N ot only m ust Greek blood be avoided, but tha t of barbar ians ,too:

After the division of the Roman Empire into twoparts one w i th i ts capi ta l in Rom e and the other inB yzant ium M acedonia s tayed w ith the B yzant ines([A .D.) 395). For some 200 years, the ancestors of theM acedo-Romanians protected them selves we ll from thebarbarians w ho occasiona lly crossed the Danube to loot.In 447 groups of barbar ic H uns reached the P indus .N evertheless, a ll barbarian g roups lef t the A rum anianregions just the way they had co m e like a storm. "Watercom es and goes , bu t s tones rem ain ." The barbar ianscam e and w ent , but the A rumanians rem ained!"

Thus c loses the ci rcle of Vlach h istory for both scho ols , H el-lenist and L atinist alike; indeed, the on ly difference betw een thetwo seem s to be that one arose within the framew ork of a societythat confers advantages o n those asser ting H ellenic or igins, the32O U R N A L O F T H E H E L LE N IC D IA SP O R A


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other in one that confers advantages on those with non-HellenicLatin origins."This is a carousel in which some of the horses are black,

others white, but all have the same overarching concern: to getback to where they began. Can the Vlachs write their ownhistory? "Historical consciousness" commences precisely at thepoint where such carousel figures tear free of their mooringsand take flight into a future they create for themselves. Thepossibility of a modern Vlach-authored history can begin onlywhen the Vlachs have abandoned the safe, circular track oftheir traditional ways of thought.

NOTES1As Ferdinand TOnnies's "community" versus "society," described inGemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, t rans . C harles P. Lo om is (Londo n: Routledge &Kegan Paul L td ., 1955); Em i le Durkheim 's "organic" versus "m echanica l" so l i-

dari ty , The Division of Labor in Society, trans. Geo rg e S imp so n (New Yo rk :The Free P ress , 19 6 4); Robert Park 's "primary" versus "secon dary" relat ions, inhis introduction to Max Weber's The City, translated and edited by DonM art indale and G ert rud Neuw ir th (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press , 1958).2As W. W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-CommunistManifesto (Cam b r id g e : C am b r id g e Un iv ersi ty P ress , 196 1), A co n temp o raryvers ion of th i s We s tern theology i s the recen t essay "The End o f His tory" byFrancis Fukuyam a in The National Interest 16 (Summer 1989) .8This a rgum ent is used by A l lan B loom inThe Closing of the AmericanMind (New York : S im on and Sch us ter, 1987 ) .4A detailed and useful criticism of modernization theory that cites thisargum ent is Dean C. Tipps, "M odernizat ion Theory an d the Com parat ive Studyof S ocieties: A C ritical Perspective," Comparative Studies in Society and History15 (197 3), 19 9 -226. See especially p. 207.5John R. Gil l is , The Development of European Society, 1770-1870 (Lanham,M I): Universi ty Press of Am erica, 1983 ), p. xv.8 lmm anue l Wal le r s te in , "The Inequal i t ies of Core and P er iphery ," in The

Capitalist World-Economy: Essays (Cam bridge: Camb ridge University Press, 197 9),pp. 1-36. "The development of underdevelopment" is the theory of AndraGunde r Frank; see the ar t ic le o f the same nam e in Monthly Review 1 8 (1 9 6 6 ) ,pp. 17-31.?Eric R. Wo lf , Europe and the People without History (Berkeley: Universityof C al i fornia Press , 1982) , pp. 11-13.8Gillis, pp. xi-xii; S. N. Eisenstadt, Tradition, Change, and Modernity(New York : John W iley & Sons , 197 3), pp . 23-25.8 M i rcea E l i ade , Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return,t rans . Wil lard R. Trask (N ew Yo rk: Harper and Row , 19 59) , p . 112. See a lso

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E . P . T h o m p so n , "T i m e , W o r k- D i sc ip l in e , a n d In d u st r i a l C a p i t a l i sm ," Past andPresent 38 (1967), pp. 56-97; Henri Lefebvre, whose work is cited inT h o m p s o n ' s a r t ic l e , u s e s t h e t e r m s " c y c l ic a l " a n d " l in e a r " t o d e s c r i b e t h e s e t w ot ime-orientat ions .12 T h o u g h th e r e i s m uc h c o n t r o v e r s y o ve r w h e t h e r t h e M a c e d o n i a n s w e r e aG r e e k t r i b e o r n o t , t h e r e i s n o d o u b t t h a t t h e i r l e a d e r s a d o p te d H e l le n i c c u l t ur eand language and disseminated it not only to their own people but to much oft h e k n o w n w o r l d du r in g t h e H e l le n i s t ic p e r i o d .11A n d r e D u N a y , T he Ear l y Histor y o f the Ru m anian Language (Lake Bluff,IL: T h e Jupiter Pre ss) , pp. 33-41.12The main evidence for this is the survival of ethnic designations: theV l a c h s , w h o c a l l th e m s e l ve s R u m a n i or A r u m a n i , to this day know the Greeksby the unusual word the Romans chose to call them in antiquity, G r a e c u s (p1.Graec i ) , which in Vlach is rendered Grecu (pl. Gretsi). [Note: Since there iss t i ll n o s t a n d a r d i z e d A r u m a n i a n a l p h a b e t , fo r t h e p u r po s e s o f t h i s p a p e r I h a v e

followed British writers in utilizing a modified English alphabet.) There is noc o r r e s p o n d i n g e vi de n c e o f t h e G r e e k s c a ll in g t h e V l a c h s s o m e t h i n g o t h e r t h a n" R o m a n s " b e fo r e G r e e k s a d o pt e d th e n e w t e r m Vlacbo i .13 T he Com pac t Ed i t ion o f the O xford Engli sh Dict ionary , July 1987 edi t ion ,p. 3648. OHG=Old High German, MHG=Middle High German, OE-OldE n gl i s h ( An gl o - S a xon ) .14 C o m p a c t O E D , p. 3740.15 J o h n A . A r m s t r o n g , Nat ions Before Nat ional ism ( C h a p e l H i ll : U n i ve r s i t yof North Carolina Press, 1982), p. 5.12 F o r t h e R o m a n i a n p o s i ti o n , see Andrei Otetea, ed., The History of the

R om anian Peop le (Buch ar est : Sc ien t i f ic Publ ish ing H ouse , 1970) , pp. 9-159, an dNicolae Stoicescu, Continuitatea Romanilor: Privire Istoriografica 'sonar]Problemei , Dovez i le Cont inui ta t i i (Bucurest i : Editura St i int i fi ca s i En cidopedica ,1980), passim; fo r t h e H u n g a r ia n s id e , se e D u N a y , Early History of the R u m anianLanguage . N o t e t h a t b o t h R o m a n i a n t h e o r i e s c it e d te n d t o m a k e t h e V l a c h s t h esame as the Romanians, whereas the more widely accepted theorythat theVlachs are descended from Romans and Romanized Illyrian, Thracians, andM a c e d o n i a n s a n d o t h e r G r e e k s , w i t h a n a d m i x t ur e o f S la y s , Gy p s i e s , a n d o t h e r s d o e s n o t .171Ceith Hitchins, Orthodoxy and Nationality: Andrein Saguna and theR u m anians o f T ransy l van i a , 1846-1873 ( C a m b ri d ge: H a rv a rd Un i v ers i t y P res s ,1977), pp. 11-14.1 8R . W . S e t o n - W a t s o n , A H i st o r y o f t h e R o u m a n ia n s (f r o m R o m a n T im e sto the Completion of Unity) ( C a m b r i d ge : C a m b r i d g e U n i ve r s i t y P r e ss , 1934 ;rpt . Arch on Bo oks, 1963) , pp. 382-385.12 T h e b e s t a n d m o s t i m p a r t i a l s o u r c e o n t h e R o m a n i a n - G r e e k s t r ug gl e o v e rt h e V l a c h s i s A la n J . B . W a c e a n d M . S . T h o m p s o n , T he Nomad s o f the Balkans :An Account of Life and Customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (NewYork: Dutton, 1914), passim.20W a c e a n d T h o m ps o n , Nom ad s o f the Balkans , p . 7 .210 f W e i ga n d ' s m a n y w o r k s o n t h e V l a c h s , t h e b e s t -k n o w n i s Die Arom u nen .

Ethnographisch-philologisch-historische Untersuchungen caber dat Volk dersogenanten M akedo-Rom anen od er Z inzaren, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1985). For Waceand Thompson, see n. 19 above; for Winnifrith, see Tom J. Winnifrith, T heV l achs : T he H is t o r y o f a Ba lk an Peop l e (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987).22Claude Levi-Strauss , The Savage Mind ( C h i c a g o : U n i v e r s i t y o f C h i c a g oPress, 1966 and 1968), pp. 262-263.

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23Calvin Martin, "An Introduction Aboard the Pidle," in Calvin Martin,ed., T he Am er ic an Ind i an and t he Prob l em o f H i st o r y (New Y o r k : O x f o r d Un i -vers ity Press , 19 87 ) , pp . 15-16 ."Calvin Martin, "Epilogue: Time and the American Indian," in Martin,T he Am er ican Ind ian and t he Prob lem of His tor y , p. 195.25Eliade , C o s m o s a n d H is t o r y , p . viii.26Eliade , Cosm os a nd Hi st o r y , p. viii .27Eliade , Cosm os a nd Hi st o r y , p . 36 .28Armst rong , Nat ions Before Nat ional ism , p . 42 ." A r m s t r o n g , Nat ions Before Na t iona l ism, p. 43 ." A r m s t r o n g , Nat ions Before Na t iona l ism, pp. 43-44 .3 1Sir Charles Eliot, Turkey in Europe (London, 1908), p. 371.32Ernes t Ge l lner , Nat ions and Nat ional ism ( Ithaca and L ondo n: Co rne l l Uni -versity Press, 1983), pp. 8-18. A notable exception would seem to have beenRom e, which even tua l ly open ed up i t s c it izenship to a l l w ho res ided w i th in the

empire and generally offered greater social mobility than most traditional em-piresafter all, the Vlachs arose from Romans and Romanized indigenouspopula t ions . There w ere a l so notor ious ins t ances of forced convers ion to I s l amunder the O t tom ans . Never the less, mo s t o f the ass imi la tion tha t occur red w i th inthe old empires could probably be termed "accidental" and not the result ofa n y f o r c e d c a m p a ig n . G e l ln e r cites t he Rom an exam ple on pp . 1 2 8-1 2 9 .33W a c e a n d T h o m p s o n , Nom ad s o f t he Ba l k ans , p. 2."Wace and Thompson, Nom ad s o f t he Ba l k ans , pp. 9-10.35W a c e a n d T h o m p s o n , Nom ad s o f t he Ba l k ans , p . 27 3 .36 H. N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future (London:

Methuen & Co., 1906; rpt. New York: Arno Press and T h e N ew Y o r k T im e s,1 9 7 1 ), pp. 1 75-1 76 ."Brailsford, Macedonia , p. 185.asVa t ro M urva r , "T he B a l kan V l achs : A T y po l og ica l S t udy , " unpub l ishedPh.D. disser ta tion, Univers ity of W isconsin, 1956 , pp. 41-42. M urvar here quo testhe classic text on Vlach "infiltration" of Serbia, 0 Cincarima (Conce rning theTsin t sars) by D. Popovic (B eograd , 1927 ) . "Ts in tsa r" is one of m any d e roga torye thnic des ignat ion for the Vlach s by the i r ne ighbors ; as M urvar h in t s , even theword "Vlach" is derogatoryit carries the connotation of uncouth shepherd,unc ivil ized h i llbi lly , or bu m pkin."Gellner, Nat i ons and Na t i ona lism , pp. 12-13.40Ethnology 14 (1975), pp. 83-97.41Schein, "When Is an Ethnic Group?" p. 83."Schein, 'When Is an Ethnic Group?" p. 84. I would add the qualifica-tion "To the untrained observer" to this sentence, for, as implied in an earlierquote from Brailsford, there are other characteristics besides language that setVlachs apar t f rom Greeks .43Schein, "When Is an Ethnic Group?" p. 90."Schein, "When Is an Ethnic Group?" p. 87."Schein, "When Is an Ethnic Group?" p. 93.46P u b l is h e d in a b i l in g u a l G e r m a n -A r u m a n ia n t e x t in 19 8 2 b y C a te rin a a n dVasile Barba, editors, as Das S fidd onau la tein Heu t e /La t ina Su d d u nareana Az? ;though no publisher is listed, it seems from both the poor quality of the textand f rom cer ta in ev idence in i ts con ten ts tha t th is book m ay have been p roducedin Romania ."Published in Greek as 1-1 'Apc ov ouv oa) Kai . a t ME T & T f ic T lar iv tx ii cXxgoac atirilc, fa' Ex800ri ('A61Iva, 1986), and in French translation (by

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M a r i e -H e l e n e B l a n c h a u d ) , as L'Aroumain et ses raPPorts avec le Grec ( T h e s -sa l o n i k i: I n s t i t u t e f o r Ba l ka n St u di e s , 1986 ).43Published in Greek as " . 1 u to p i a T O O 6 7t 6t X t ko u brit.tanKo0 tpayou-81.4)0," 'HITELpG3TIKO It1Ep0X6y1.0 C 1 civi l /viva, 'Eta t pE [cc liTraporrucOv

Mactiov, 1988), pp. 339-392.4210 . A ra v a n d i n os , Collection of Folksongs of Epirus ( At h en s : Pe t ros P er r i s ,1880), p. vii, as cited in Michael Herzfeld, O u rs Once M ore: Folk lore , Ideology ,and the Making of Modern Greece (New York: Pella Publishing Co., 1986),pp. 73-74; the brac keted exclam at ion i s H er zfe ld's .wadi Clanatipi -rk1ra0Eobeapou, Tdc TpayoaLa TC ;517 BXeCVAWATIVOT1.0 xt Eitc5vui. tritticrti ('A0t)va, 'Ex86act; Gutenberg, 1985).51See, for example, George Marcu, Folclor Muzical Aroman (Bucuresti:Editura Muzicala, 1977), and Nicolae Gh. Caraiani and Nicolae Saramandu,F o k lo r A r o m a n G r a m o s t ea n (Bucuresti: Editura Minerva, 1982). In addition,most studies of the Vlachs that touch on folklore record at least a handful ofs on gs ; t h i s b i bl iogra p h y i s l a rge .52W a c e a n d T h o m ps o n , Nomads of the Balkans, p. 285.53See my article "The Women of Nizhopoli," in The Newsletter of theSocie ty Farsaro tu l 3:2 (August 1989), p. 20. Though the majority of the singingi n A m e r ic a h a s b e e n p e r fo r m e d i n t h e p o l y ph o n i c s ty l e o f th e V l a c h s w h o c o m efrom what is now Albania, there were many in the solo and choral styles oft h e V l a c h s f r o m Gr e e k r e gi o n s .54W a c e a n d T h o m p s o n , N o m a d s o f t h e B a lk a n s , p. 184.55" T h e A r u m a n ia n s a r e p ur e G r e e k s , a s m u c h a s G r e e k s fr o m o t h e r r e g i o n s ,a n d ... w ere b il in gu a l , or e v en s p ok e a n o t h er l a n gu a ge b eca u s e o f th e v ic i s s i t ud es

which befell their nation." Lazarou, L ' A r o u m a i n , p. 103; 1-1 'Apcallouvue),a. 158.58Balkan Stu d ies 21:1 (1980) , pp. 97-105. La zaro u's boo k w as f irs t publi she din 1976.52U n s i g n e d a r t i c l e " St r a a u s i l li " (T h e A n c e s t o r s ) , i n B a r b a a n d B a r b a , Latina,p. 46.53W h o w e r e a t t h e l e a s t r a th e r t h o r o u gh l y H e l le n i ze d by t h e R o m a n p e r i o d ,a n d a t m o s t a G r e e k t r i be ; fo r t h e l a t t e r v i e w , s e e , f o r e x a m p l e , J . R . H a m i l t o n ,Al exand er t he Gr ea t (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982), p. 23.T h e r e i s a va s t l it e r a t u r e o n t h i s s u bje c t .59"Straaus i l l i ," in Ba rba an d Barba, Lat ina , pp. 50-52.80"Straaus i l l i ," in Ba rba an d Barba, Lat ina , p. 54.51M a n y i f n o t m o s t o f th o s e a c t i ve i n U L C A w e r e e d uc a t e d in R o m a n i a .

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Can the Vlachs Write Their Own History