Vlachs of Serbia

Vlachs (Vlach/Romanian: Rumâni, Serbian: Власи or Vlasi) are an ethnic group of Serbia, culturally and linguistically cognate to Romanians.
They mostly live in eastern Serbia, mainly in Timočka Krajina region (roughly corresponding to Bor and Zaječar districts), but also in Braničevo and Pomoravlje districts. Some Vlachs also live around Vidin in Bulgaria. Also a small Vlach population exists in Smederevo and Velika Plana (Podunavlje District), and in the municipalities of Aleksinac and Kruševac (Rasina District), as well as in the South Banat District in Vojvodina.
Religion and language
Most Vlachs are Eastern Orthodox Christians by faith and they speak the Vlach (Romanian) language. The language spoken by one major group of Vlachs is similar to the Oltenian dialect spoken in Romania while that of the other major group is similar to the Romanian dialect of Banat.
The Serbian Vlachs belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church. However, by the canon of Orthodox church, no other local Orthodox church is allowed to operate within its territory. The relative isolation of the Vlachs has permitted the survival of various pre-Christian religious rites that are frowned upon by the Orthodox Church. Like the Serbs, Vlachs celebrate the 'slava', though its meaning is chtonic (related to the house and farmland) rather than familial.
Although the Vlachs of the Timočka Krajina are culturally and linguistically cognate to Romanians, their history since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century has significantly affected their political and cultural orientation towards the Serbian state and church.
Subgroups
Vlachs are divided into four different groups, each speaking their own distinct dialects:
the Carani (Ţărani)
the Ungurjani (Ungureani / "Ungureni")
Ungurjani-Munćani (Ungureani-Munceani / "Ungureni-Munteni")
Bufani.
Of these, the Ungurjani or 'Ungureni' of Homolje are related to the Romanians of Banat and Transylvania, since 'Ungureni' (compare with the word "Hungarians") is a term used by the Romanians of Wallachia to describe their kin who once lived in provinces formerly part of the Kingdom of Hungary. The connection is evident in the similarities of dialectal phonology and folk music motifs as well as in sayings such as "Ducă-se pe Mureş" (May the Mureş take it away), a reference to the Transylvanian river.
The Ţărani (Carani) of the Bor, Negotin and Zaječar regions are closer to the Olteni in their speech and music. The Ţăran saying 'Nu dau un leu pe el' (He's not worth even a leu) can possibly show their Romanian origin since the leu is a Romanian monetary unit. However, it can also show a possible trade connections between Carani and the Romanian population that lives just across the Danube.
There has been considerable intermixing between the Ungureni and Ţărani so that a dialect has evolved sharing peculiarities of both regions.
There is also a group of Vlachophone Roma centered around the village of Lukovo, as well as a few Aromanian families who live in Knjaževac, but they form a tiny migrant group.
Origins
Some of the Vlachs of East Serbia were settled there from regions north of the Danube by the Hapsburgs at the beginning of the 18th century. The origins of these Vlachs are indicated by their own self-designations: Ungurjani (Ungureani), i.e., those who came from Hungary (that is, Banat and Transylvania). The Carani (Ţărani) are either an autochthonic Vlach population of the region (their name means "people of the country" or "countrymen"), or they came from Wallachia (in Romanian, Ţara Românească - "Romanian State").
The area roughly defined by the Morava, the Danube and the Timok rivers where most of the Vlachs live became part of modern Serbia starting from 1830. Prior to that, the land was part of the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire (Pashalic of Vidin and Pashalic of Smederevo).
The second wave of Vlachs from present-day Romania came at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1835 feudalism was fully abolished in the Principality of Serbia and a large number of individuals and smaller groups from Wallachia came there to enjoy the status of free peasants.
Thus the idea that all Vlachs of Serbia are descendants of the original Romanized population of the Balkans that never moved from this region is incorrect. However, it is likely that some of them can trace their ancient roots to this region. The present geographic location of the Vlachs is near the medieval Bulgaro-Vlach empire of the Asens, suggesting their continuity in the area. In addition a Vlach population in the regions around Branicevo (near the ancient Roman city of Viminacium) is attested by 15th century Ottoman defters (tax records). The modern Vlachs occupy the same area where in antiquity the Romans had a strong presence for many centuries: Viminacium and Felix Romuliana. In addition, the Vlachs from the area around Vidin in Bulgaria, with whom the Vlachs of Timok form a continuous group, separated only by the Danube by the Romanians, are natives to the area, not being the result of recent colonization or emigration.
Vlach identity
The term "Vlach" is the English transcription of the Serbian term used to describe this group (Vlasi), while "Romanians" is the English transcription of its Romanian counterpart (român/rumân).
Despite their recognition as a separate ethnic group by the Serbian government, Vlachs are cognate to Romanians in the cultural and linguistic sense. Some Romanians, as well as international linguists and anthropologists, consider Serbia's Vlachs to be a subgroup of Romanians. Additionally, the Movement of Romanians-Vlachs in Serbia, which represents some Vlachs, has called for the recognition of the Vlachs as a Romanian national minority, giving them similar rights to the Romanians of Vojvodina. However most Vlachs of Eastern Serbia opt either for the Vlach, or Serb identity rather than the Romanian one.
Romania has given modest financial support to the Vlachs for the preservation of their culture and language, since at present the Vlachs' language is not recognized officially in any localities where they form a majority, there is no education in their mother tongue and there is no media or education funded by the Serbian state. Also there are no church services in Vlach and the giving of baptismal Vlach names is not permitted.
Family names of Vlachs are Serbian, or sound Serbian because of the late 19th century edict that all citizens of Serbia have last names ending in -ić, the base of the name usually coming from the then father's name: Nikolić, Marković, Radulović. There are a few notable exceptions where the Vlach / Romanian origin is evident, as in Jepurović (from iepure, meaning rabbit), Florić (from floare, meaning flower) or Stangačilović (from stângaci, meaning left-handed).
On the other hand, some Vlachs consider themselves to be simply Serbs that speak the Vlach language. In fact ethnic research has found that among the Serb-speaking population of Eastern Serbia, some are Slavicized Vlachs and some Vlach-speakers were formerly Slavs (such as in the village of Šljivar) or even Roma (such as in Lukovo). Most Vlachs do not see themselves as ethnic Romanians, because, while culturally and linguistically cognate to Romanians, they have lived in Serbia for generations and hence do not identify with the Romanian state, but rather see themselves as a distinct Eastern Romance people.
Many of those Vlachs who see themselves as Serbs were historically hard-line Serbian nationalists, and many fought as volunteers on the Serbian side in the wars in Krajina and Bosnia, together with Serbs from those regions whom they saw as religious and ethnic brethren. One of the reasons why Vlachs consider Serbs to be their ethnic brethren is because many Serbs have Vlach origin. The Serbian Orthodox Church has played a large role in this. In addition, during the Ottoman rule, Serbs migrated from the valleys to the mountains where they mixed with the Vlach population; thus, many present-day Serbs have both Slavic and Vlach blood.
It must be noted that Vlach is commonly used as a historical umbrella term for all Latin peoples in Southeastern Europe, including Romanians. In more recent usage, it is a synonym for Latin peoples south of the Danube, hence excluding Romanians. The old meaning is the origin for the modern Vlach ethnic identity, since Vlachs see themselves as descendants of those ancient Vlach peoples, and rather see Romanians as a subgroup of the Vlachs than Vlachs as a subgroup of Romanians. From the Vlach point of view, Romanians are those Vlachs who created their state of Romania and succeeded in gaining world acceptance for their own name for themselves, rather than the exonym term Vlach. In their own language Vlachs never use the term Vlach, but Rumân. They call their language română, but sometimes also rumâneşce/româneşte.
In some notes of the government of Serbia, officials recognise that "certainly members of this population have similar characteristics with Romanians, and the language and folklore ride to their Romanian origin. The representants of the Vlach minority sustain their Romanian origin."
Vlach is a Slavic-derived term from the Germanic word Valah/Valach used to designate the Romance speaking peoples of South-Eastern Europe: Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians.
While historically, it was used to refer to all Latin people of the Balkans, nowadays, this term is only rarely used to refer the Romanians, but rather to refer to the other Romanic peoples, living outside Romania.
Origins of the word
The Slavic term in turn derives from Germanic: it originates with *Walha by which the early Germanic tribes called their Celtic neighbours, possibly derived from the name of the tribe which was known to the Romans as Volcae (in the writings of Julius Caesar) and to the Greeks as Ouólkai (Strabo and Ptolemy), see also Welsh.
As the Celts of Gaul were Romanized, the word changed its meaning to "Romanic people", as it is still kept in the name of the Walloons of Belgium and in the German exonyms:
Welsche, often used in the German speaking part of Switzerland to refer to the people of the French-speaking Romandy,
Walsche, often used in the German speaking part of Italy to refer to Italians,
Walsche, used in Switzerland and South Tyrol for various Rhaeto-Romanic peoples, and
in numerous placenames (but also Walnuss (Walnut)), for instance Walensee and Walenstadt, as well as Welschbern and Walschtirol (now almost always Verona and Trentino), and especially Walachen/Walachei (Wallachians/Wallachia).
The word in other languages
From the Slavs, it was passed on to other peoples, such as the Hungarians ("Oláh", referring to Romanians; "Vlachok" referring to Vlachs, generally) and Byzantines/Greeks ("Βλάχοί", "Vlachoi") and was used for all Latin people of the Balkans. It also acquired a second meaning: "shepherd", after the occupation of many Vlachs of Greece and Serbia. In Albania, the opposite occurred: çoban "shepherd" comes to mean "Vlach". In German the word "vlach" was a pejorative name for an Orthodox Christian, a Serbian immigrant.
A name used for the Southern Vlachs of Greece is "Kutsovlach" (literally "limping Vlach"; possibly a reference to the way they spoke Greek), however the Aromanians consider it quite offensive. Another name used to refer to the Aromanians (mainly in the Slavic countries: Serbia and Bulgaria) is "tsintsar", which is derived from the way the Aromanians say the word 'five': "tsintsi".
Another Balkanic ethnicity is the Morlachs or Mavrovalachi (Greek for "black Vlachs"), living in the Dinaric Alps.
Usage as autonym
The term was originally an exonym, as the Vlachs used various words derived from romanus to refer to themselves (români, rumâni, rumâri, aromâni, arumâni, armâni etc), but there are some exceptions:
the Aromanians of Greece, often use "Βλάχοι" (Vlachoi) rather than "Αρμάνοι" (Armanoi) in Greek-language contexts.
the Megleno-Romanians are the only people who use exclusively the word Vlach (Vlashi) for auto-designation. The loss of the name derived from Romanus most likely concluded in the early 19th century.
the Romanian minority of Serbia living in Timok Valley (but not those of the Banat, see Romanians of Serbia), although speaking the standard Romanian dialect, are still referred as "Vlachs". In the Yugoslavian census figures, the Aromanians of Macedonia and the Romanians of Serbia were both classified as "Vlachs".