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 pages, $11.95. Although this book is explicitly called a novel, it is said by its author to be based in part on real events, and to factually describe these events. ...
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Cultural Forum: Pompey’s Salad
or Roma locuta est, causa finita est (“Rome has spoken, case closed”) After attending two American “Congresses of Macedonian-Romanian Culture” at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, I would like to take this opportunity as a second-generation Aromanian to summarize my impressions and criticisms and also to propose some beneficial changes. First, my reasons for attending ...
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The Young Woman and Her Ghiume
This is a picture of my wife, Catherine, fetching water from the Aous River in December. In the background is the ancient arched bridge, The pride of Baieasa. In her right hand she is carrying the graceful metal pitcher known as ghiume, a beloved and indispensible utensil in the Vlach household. Associated with water fetching is ...
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Religion, Birth, and Death in Baieasa
Greek Orthodox was the religion of Baieasa. The sign of the cross is made with the right hand and with three fingers, first touching the forehead, then the stomach, then the right breast, and then the left. I believe that the people of our town were very religious—especially the women. The reason for this was ...
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Community News
The Society notes with sadness the passing of member George D. Kiosse. May his soul rest in peace. We note also some recent deaths of non-members which nevertheless touched many of us rather deeply, as these people were well-known and dear. In Woonsocket, Rhode Island: Maria Babiana and Nicola Shola. In Constantsa, Rumania: Vasilikia Balamaci ...
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Did You Know What Other People Have to Say about Us?
Like any other ethnic community, we tend to hear only one side of our story from within our own group. Yet, over the centuries, many people have become acquainted with the Aromanians and have had things to say about them, and even many of our own people have a view of who we are quite ...
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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 schools, factories, mass media, government, trade, science, literature, and art; and dead, in a history book or a hermetically-sealed museum display of old colorful costumes. When was the last time you ...
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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, 212 pages, $9.95. The bumbling protagonist of this witty novel is a once-wealthy old Aromanian gentleman and landlord in Belgrade, Arsenie Negovan. It is June 1968; Arsenie is 77 years ...
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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 the period they deal with. This poses a problem for us, in that we Aromanians do not have much of a written historical record in comparison with other peoples. We ...
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Community News
The Society notes with sadness the passing of long-time members Grigore Becea and Santa Gecca. May their souls rest in peace. We welcome with great pleasure the following new members: Mary Costulas Somerville, MA Manuela Culetsu The Bronx, NY Michael Babu Fairfield, CT Paul Daukas, Sr Rocky Hill, CT Elaine Osowski Bridgeport, CT Linda Balamaci ...
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The Panagire, as It Was Celebrated in Baiesa
The grand social event in Baieasa, as in all Vlach villages, was the panagire, on the day of the Assumption, celebrated beginning on August 15th of each year. This was a celebration involving much pomp and color that lasted several days and preparations for it began months ahead. The house was scrubbed clean, food and goodies ...
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A Note on the Contributors
(Due to a proofreading error our notes of acknowledgement to Beverlee Fatse Dacey and to Gus Moran were left out of the last issue. They appear below; our apologies for the delay.) h Beverlee Fatse Dacey (“Ethnic Values and Ethnic Identity”) is an anthropologist and perhaps the pioneer in our community in researching the facts of ...
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A Letter to the Editor & A Reply
A Letter to the Editor Living as an American of Macedonian descent for 52 years may not be considered by some as a scholarly approach for my response, but it is the source of my reactions and I would like to share my opinion with you. My parents may have been new to this country, ...
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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 better time: We Aromanians are on the verge of extinction yet we are hardly doing a thing to prevent our demise. Until very recently, even our own leaders have been ...
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Did You Know?
All Romance, Greek, Germanic (including English) and Slavic languages are descended from the same ancestral language, IndoªEuropean, which is thought to have been spoken between the Vistula and Elbe Rivers in Northeastern Europe 5,000 years ago. When the Turkish Sultan Mohammed captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire, he was assisted by a Vlach ...
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Our Diaspora in Transition: Some Views on Culture, Language, and Change
I have lived in the Vlach villages of Greece for each of the past 12 summers, a testimony to my love for our culture and language. Following as closely as possible the travels of Alan Wace and Maurice Thompson in The Nomads of the Balkans, I have visited and come to know over 80 Vlach villages ...
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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 a culture, nor even a necessary part of it. It is just one of many aspects of culture–an important one, no doubt–yet it is quite possible to have an Aromanian ...
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Community News
The Society notes with great sadness the passing of our dear member and benefactor Theodore Tonna in April of 1987. Mr. Tonna, originally from Bituli in what is now Yugoslavia, achieved great success as an industrialist in New England. Yet he never forgot his cultural heritage; in addition to being a prime supporter of the ...
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What’s In a Name?
We are known by an almost incredible number of names, and this has caused much confusion over the years. Most of these names were given to us by other people. Our own people have two ways of pronouncing our name for ourselves: Roughly half of them, especially in the northern regions, call themselves Rumani, while the other ...
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Did You Know?
The late Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras was an Aromanian who happily spoke the language at home. The number of Aromanians was estimated at the turn of the century to be from 350,000 to 600,000; current estimates for Greece and Yugoslavia give about 120,000 total, while figures for Albania and Bulgaria are not even available. Several ...
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