Where Gh. Zbuchea shows the persistent struggle for national survival of the Romanians from the South of the Danube

It may be noticed nowadays that, at a greater or at a lesser extent, at all cardinal points, closer or farther, Romania is a country surrounded by Romanians. Consequently, a history of Romanians ought to be mentioned rather than of a history of Romania.

Around Romania present borders live Romanians that were and still are autochthonous in those places, therefore people of the place/earth. Among these we place those at the right of the Danube, present in a grater or smaller number towards south, in Bulgaria, Grecia, Albania and in all the countries appeared as a result of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavian Federation, from Vardar Valley to Istric Peninsula and close to Triest. Our co-nationals living in these places are generally known nowadays under different names given either by the majority of the populations amongst whom they live, or deriving from the name and characteristics of the idioms they spoke and speak.

In the area at the south of the Danube, Romanians were and are autochthonous. Since the Middle Ages and then, in modern times, appeared the idea and then the scientific theory according to which they were the descendants of the oriental Roman world and in this way they were and are a part of the Romanian people, whose area of ethnic origin and life was much greater than that of the present national state borders.  An important part of the scientists: historians, linguists, ethnographers (except some in the Balkan countries, due easy understandable reasons, and recently some Macedo-Romanians from the area or Diaspora) argued and still argue that Macedo-Romanians, also known in the Balkan area as Vlachs, a foreign term initiated and used by the Slavs, Byzantines, Turks etc, were and are a branch of the Romanian people, and the idiom they use is a dialect of the Romanian language.

The existence of the Balkan Romanianism at the south of the Danube had a series of specific characteristics at different levels. Included but not assimilated into the Slav or Greek masse of the respective areas, these Romanians were not able to create their own State life, which in historic perspective had important negative consequences. At the beginning of Modern time, the descendants of oriental Roman world were scattered in bigger or smaller groups in the entire Balkan area, scattering in even more groups. The most numerous and the most active of all were the Macedo-Romanians, having as main living area the historic Macedonia, Albania, Epir, Thesalia and the Pind mountains. From earlier times, more and more Macedo-Romanians left, willingly or not, towards other Balkan areas, in Bulgaria, Croatia, Istria etc., as well as farther, towards Near East to the north-pontic shores, the plain of middle Danube, Venice and Farther towards West, creating their communities overseas, from America to Australia.

In the period of Turkocracy,  the Balkan Romanians century- old, traditional way of life continued. In most of the areas, especially in the central-south areas and particularly in that of the Macedo-Romanians, it kept its patriarchal character, mainly pastoral, without lacking involvement in the urban society realities in the context of the changes of the Balkan world. The grazing was until last century a stable and sound dimension of the Romanian life, favored amongst others by the conditions provided by the mainly mountainous geographic environment, as well as by the lack of state frontiers that could prevent the traveling in the area.

A part of the Balkan Romanians embraced the trade of arms. Their role as a military factor may be followed along centuries from Byzantines and Turks to imperialists and modern Greeks. Thus they made up the components of some very diversified military realities, becoming voinuci, pronoiari, armatoli, uskoci etc. The products of their economy were famous and looked for, such as swords, yataghans, daggers then clasps, jewelry or church objects. Since the XII century, the objects made by the Balkan Romanians became famous and looked for far from their original place, first at Constantinople or Venice and then from Egypt to France or Russia. The diversification of their craftwork as well as their involvement in commercial activities led to their involvement in the lives of the existing towns and market towns as Bitolia, Ianina, Arta, Castoria, Ohrida. This also led to the transformation of villages into small towns and towns as Moscopole, Calareti, Siracu, Gramostea, Clisura, Crusova, Metova etc. Among these urban centers, the most famous in the XVIII century was Moscopole.

Starting with last century, in the south-eastern European area, the political realities changed gradually, according to the decline and the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire (then of the Habsburgic Empire). As a result of the national actions states as Serbia, Greece, Muntenegru appeared, which included into their territories Romanian population. On the occurrence of the Balkan wars between 1912-1913, the Ottoman dominance practically disappeared in the South-Eastern Europe and the Macedo-Romanians were included mainly within the frontiers of states like Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and Serbia (Yugoslavia after 1918).  Simultaneously with the appearance of the new states realities, this part of Europe entered, quite late, a process of modernization which was felt at all levels of life including that of Romanians. Since the beginning of the century, the grazing, due to moving of the flocks, an important Romanian occupation, suffered a series of blows that practically led to its disappearance. The artificially established frontiers due to different interests and occult agreements, broke the essential link between the grazing places in summer and the Macedo-Romanians living places in winter, that were now in different states.

More and more Macedo-Romanians abandoned their home villages from obvious reasons, leaving for urban places and settling among people of other nationalities. It was this gradual restriction of the rural communities until complete disappearance that constituted one of the most important and at the same time one of the most tragic existential alteration in Balkan Romanians life at national level. The settling in the urban environment destroyed traditional realities and relationships, contributed to the deepening of the alienation phenomenon and consequently to the loss of national identity. The latter was also influenced by the de-nationalization and assimilation policy promoted by the states in the area with all the means they held and still hold. The school, the army, the administration, the church were factors that contributed in the area to de-Romaniazation. The media (newspapers, radio, television) has contributed in a great extent to the same direction of assimilation.

It is obvious that such realities as those mentioned, as well as others that threatened the very existence of the Balkan Romanianism, could not let indifferent neither the Romanian population from the Balkan area nor the Romanian society and the political elite from north of the Danube. Towards the end of Alexandru Ioan Cuza reign, the second national revival of the Balkan Romanians had begun, action which continued until the first decades of the XX century. In those years, Romanians from the south of the Danube acted together with those from north of the Danube, either in their native places or inside the Romanian state which they called then and later ‘our country’. From the beginning more objective were aimed at regarding the school, the church, the politics. More decades in a row the idea expressed by Dimitrie Bolintineanu remained valid: ‘It is not out idea of uniting with them, because we are far from them. It is not our idea to help them to proceed uprisings. Our thinking is that this people must have the conscience of their nationality; what we think these Romanians must do is to sacredly keep their language and customs, whatever fate has in store for them.’

Within this context, after 1900, the process of creation of a Romanian school system has continued and developed. Thus, before the First World War started, in the Romanian area there were 118 primary schools as well as 4 secondary schools. All of these had been mainly created in the time of turcocracy, being financed as to view to buildings, endowments, teachers salaries, by the Romanian Government and by the Romanian communities from their native places. By official commitments signed on the occasion of the Pace Conference in Bucharest in August 1913, the Greek Government, the Serb Government and the Bulgarian Government undertook to allow the operation in the future of the Romanian school network.

The first World War, following the Balkan wars, stroke violently the Romanian school network in the Balkan area, which entered a process of decline and finally disappeared. Thus, in Serbia and then in inter-war Yugoslavia , the education in the mother tongue of the Macedo-Romanians was inexistent (there was only a school-network in the Serbian Banat for the Romanians living there but not for the Macedo-Romanians or Timocians). In the inter-war Albania 3 -7 schools operated intermittently, having in fact a juridical regime of tolerance. In Bulgaria only 1 primary school operated at Djumaia in Macedonia to which a Romanian was added in Sofia, obviously not enough for the great number of the Romanians living in the area between Carpathians and Danube. As a paradox, in the Greek area some Romanian schools operated, but in decreasing number, the last being closed only at the end of the Second World War, due to the conditions provided by the Cold War and the conflicts between the communist authorities from Bucharest and the royal ones from Athens. The existence of  Romanian education within the Greek State was, no doubt, a reality which could have had benefic effects for the hundreds of Macedo-Romanians living under Athenian authority. But a juridical regulation appeared which produced a lot of negative consequences for Macedo-Romanians. Thus, the graduation papers of the Romanian schools, including those of baccalaureate graduates of the secondary schools in Salonic, had no validity for the Greek authorities that considered the graduates illiterate. This generated a double reality. More and more Romanians attended the Greek schools in which they were told that the Vlachs were in fact Greeks and had nothing in common with the Romanians. As a result, the number of Greek supporters increased and became overwhelming and sometimes unanimous.

Another negative consequence was an increasing number of the Romanian schools graduates, mainly the most capable elements, attended the Romanian University education and graduated magna cum laude, settling themselves in the Great Romania, far from the places they had been born in.  Consequently, the Balkan Romanians were deprived of a cultural and political elite that had to have an important role in stopping the phenomenon of alienation. In fact this process of leaving away of the Macedo-Romanians was not in the least new because their life had been constantly subjected to strikes that sent them away. After the fall of Moscopole, the Macedo-Romanian Diaspora went mainly towards the Central Europe: Vienna, Budapest, the Romanian Countries. After 1900 the Macedo-Romanian Diaspora comprises larger areas. In the last decade of the last century, in different parts of USA from Detroit to Saint Louis, there are mentioned Macedo-Romanians as well as Istro-Romanians that considered themselves brothers with Those from Transylvania, Bucovina, Basarabia or the Old Kingdom. In the first decades of the XX century, in the USA and Canada there were not less than 27 societies of Macedo-Romanians (with or without other Romanians) as charities, cultural societies, clerical societies. The oldest of them, which still exists, is Societatea Farserotul, established in 1903. After that the Macedo-Romanians  spread themselves in different western countries as France, England, Germany and on other continents with important communities in Australia and even New Zeeland.

It is obvious that an analysis of the Romanian presence in Balkans and particularly of the Macedo-Romanians presence in Balkans at the beginning of the XX century has to start on one hand with the statistic situation and geographical distribution of the latinofone elements there, and on the other hand with the image, thus the perception of the ethnical belonging of themselves or of others about a complete different reality from other nations that made up the mixed mosaic of peoples and languages within the area in the south-east of Europe. The speakers of Latin idioms in different aspects either dialectal or regional or even local at the level of rural communities had been called along centuries different names by those among they lived.

Statistically, before the First World War, for Macedonia, the number of Romanians was placed by the Greeks between 12,000 and 600,000, by the Bulgarians and Serbs between a few thousands and over 100,000. At the beginning of the XIX century Pouqueville thought that in the Greek area lived 74,000 Romanians. Ubicini thought the number of the Romanians in Turkey to be of 400,000 in 1853 and after 6 years E. Poujade raised their number at 800,000, figure mentioned also by E. Picot in 1874. in 1895 G. Weigan thought that in the Balkans lived 373,000 Romanians, respectively 163,000 in Turkey and Greece, 150,000 in Serbia, 60,000 in Bulgaria.

Romanians also has different figures. In 1919 the Delegation of the Balkan Romanians led by G. Murnu, stated in Paris that in the area of historic Macedonia lived approximately 480,000 Romanians to which other 120,000 of co-nationals added scattered in other areas of the 4 states. In the inter-war period, different statistics of the Balkan states mentioned Romanians often in a smaller number the reality. For example, the Greece official census in 1928 enlisted a number of 19,703 Romanians and the Bulgarian census in 1934 – 16,405 Romanians.  At the official Yugoslavian census in 1921, 229,398 Romanians were registered, respectively 74,090 Romanians in the Serbian Banat, 10,550 in Macedonia and 141,279 in Craina (later these disappeared completely from statistics, according to the old idea, which is still accepted, that the Vlachs from Timoc are not Romanians but Serbians). The authorities from Bucharest or some people in the county involved in Balkan matter as Victor Papacostea, V. Stoica, G. Murnu considered that in the Balkan area lived between 300.000 and 1.000.000 Macedo-Romanians, more thousands of Istro-Romanians and Megleno-Romanians, 500,000 Timocians etc.

The statistic situation after the Second World War is also very complex. In the official statistic of Macedonia, less than 10,000 Vlachs are mentioned, thus Macedo-Romanians. Almost the same is the situation in the last Bulgarian official statistic which registers 7,650 Vlachs and 5,159 Macedo-Romanians. Some recent opinions mention approx. 1,5 million Macedo-Romanians worldwide and a close number of Timocians. Obviously such statistic data cannot be controlled.

Regarding the problem of the ethnical belonging some other aspects ought to be mentioned. Some representatives of nationalist ideologies in Balkans denied, when they admitting the romanity of the Vlachs, their blood relationship, respectively the unity with their brothers from the north of the Danube. It has been tried first in the Ottoman circles (Young Turks), then in the Balkan circles, to accredit the idea that there are two different Roman peoples, Romanians and Macedo-Romanians, respectively speakers of two different neo-Latin languages. Under complex historic circumstances, such an idea was accepted also by a number of Macedo-Romanians living in their native places or in Diaspora.  To support this idea it  is often claimed the resolution 1333 adopted by the European Parliament in 1997 on the basis of the report submitted by the Catalan MP De Puech. We emphasize that both in the report and in the resolution  only one cultural-linguistic minority is clearly mentioned.

In the XX century the great mass of Macedo-Romanians, and mainly their peaks, the intellectuals have considered themselves an integral part of the Romanian people, namely the southern component of it. They also considered that they spoke a dialect of Romanian language which they used frequently together with was and is the literary language. From this point of view, in the XX century a tradition continued which had started since the First Revival with Ucuta, Roja, Boiagi and continued with all the representatives of the Second National Revival with C. Belimave, G. Murnu, N. Batzaria, T. Capidan, Papahagi family and others. All of them continued to assert the older theory of nation and language unity, situation which is true for all the Macedo-Romanians living in the present Romanian State.

We should not ignore other realities of conception and action of some Macedo-Romanians living in their native places or abroad. Thus, a lot of the Greek personalities in different fields had Vlach origins as Rigas Velestinis, G.Averov, M.Tosita, I. Coleti, S.Sina, S. Lambros and more others. A superficial inventory of the famous people in Serbian history, of Macedo-Romanian origin, mentions not less than 112 scholars from different fields, 64 writers and artists, 35 politicians out of whom 8 chiefs of governments, 56 important business men etc. Closely is the situation in Bulgaria, Romania and even Albania.

The changes appeared in the area due to the end of the Second World War have not contributed to the improvement of the situation, on the contrary. The instauration of the communist totalitarian regimes and of the Iron Curtain as a symbo lof the Cold War had its role.

The communist regimes from Tirana or Sofia never recognized these autochthonous Romanians as a minority which had to enjoy rights and guarantees according to international standards. The same stood the situation in Yugoslavia, where the Vlachs appeared from time to time in statistics. \n Această adresă de e-mail este protejată de spamboţi; aveţi nevoie de activarea JavaScript-ului pentru a o vizualiza -->