From the Editor: Looking Back at Thirty Years of Publication
It’s hard to believe we’ve been publishing The Newsletter of The Society Farsarotul on and off for 30 years. We wrote then: “We hope that …
From the Editor: The End of an Illusion
Of all the Newsletters we have published in our 24 years, this issue may very well be the most important, because it contains 3 remarkable …
The Poetry of Traditional Languages
The Neapolitan linguist-historian Giambattista Vico said in 1744 in his New Science, “We find that the principle of [the] origins both of languages and of letters …
Vlach Women and Modernization: A Footnote to Progress
Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a paper that was written almost 20 years ago in graduate school and neither intended for publication nor …
The Balkan Vlachs: Born to Assimilate?
(Editor’s note: This article is reprinted from the Summer 1995 issue of Cultural Survival Quarterly.) The Vlachs are a Romance-speaking Balkan population once characterized by a …
The Vlachs in Albania A Travel Memoir and Oral History
My father left Albania in 1916, but even fifty years later he enjoyed telling me how difficult his journey to the United States had been. …
“Instant Modernization” in America
A prime concern of modern historians and social scientists has been the huge change in the qualities of human life between what are called “traditional” …
Cultural Forum: The Poetry of Traditional Language
Those of us who were raised in societies which still have many traditional elements — and that includes much of rural America as well as …
Putting the Record Straight: An Interview with Tom Winnifrith
Following are excerpts from an interview conducted with Dr. Tom Winnifrith on April 15, 1990, during his tour to study Vlach communities in Australia and …
Book Review: Paravulii, by Nicolae Batzaria
Paravulii, by Nicolae Batzaria. Editura Cartea Aromana, 1989. $18., paperback. We Aromanians have a very small body of literature, most of which appeared under the …
Cultural Forum: The Women of Nizhopoli
Our community represents a golden opportunity for oral history. Not only do we preserve some of the language and customs that have been lost in …
Cultural Forum: The Poet George Perdichi
George Perdichi was born in 1912 in the village of Perivoli and studied literature in Rumania. The fortunes of Hitler’s war brought him to America, …
Book Review: The Call of the Earth, by Evangelos Averoff-Tossizza
The Call of the Earth, a novel by Evangelos Averoff-Tossizza. Translated by Andre Michalopoulos. Published in 1981 by Caratzas Brothers, New Rochelle, NY. Hardcover, 305 …
Resurrecting Aromanian Culture
Whom are we kidding when we speak of preserving Aromanian culture for posterity? There are two ways to preserve a culture for the future: alive, in …
Brief Reviews
The Houses of Belgrade, a novel by Borislav Pekic. Translated by Bernard Johnson. Published in 1978 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York & London. Hardcover, …
Cultural Forum: History and Folk-songs
Though folk-songs are sometimes used as sources of historical information, they are not always reliable and should be balanced by some other historical information about …
Book Review: The Vlachs: The History of a Balkan People, by Tom J. Winnifrith.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Hardcover, 180 pages, $37.50. Whatever the merits and faults of this book, it could not have come at a …
Cultural Forum: A New Tone for Our Cultural Discussions
As we know from modern anthropological research, and as Beverlee Fatse Dacey illustrates in this issue, language is by no means the only component of …