Vanishing Languages
When the last speakers go, they take with them their history and culture Editor’s Note: The following text originally appeared in the Feb/March 1997 issue of Civilization, the magazine of the Library of Congress, & is reprinted with the kind permission of the author. There’s a Welsh proverb I’ve known for as long as I can remember: “Cenedl ...
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Did You Know What Others Have to Say about Us?
The road to Voskopojë climbs through sparse groves of cedar, deforested by timber smugglers after the fall of the regime. The half-muffled Mercedes labors upward, swerving around the largest rocks in the roadway, pitching and yawing like an overloaded barge in the ruts. Then as we top a rise, a green valley bisected by a ...
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The Vlachs of Greece
In writing about the small but interesting groups of Vlachs or Aromanians1 in Greece it is almost impossible to avoid discussing similar communities in other parts of the Balkans. Their past history is almost identical, their present situation very different. Under the Byzantine and Ottoman empires there were obviously large numbers of Vlachs living in what ...
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The Unwritten Places
Editor’s note: We are delighted to offer these excerpts from Tim Salmon’s extraordinary new book, The Unwritten Places, a sensitive account of his travels with Greek and Vlach shepherds. We thank Tim Salmon and his publisher John Chapple for their kind permission to reprint these sections. The book is now available through the Society’s bookstore; see ...
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In the Realm of the Last Golden Fleece
A Review THE UNWRITTEN PLACES by Tim Salmon, Lycabettus Press, Athens (1995) Put aside for the moment Odysseus’ arduous journey, involving battles with the vengeful Neptune and optically challenged Cyclops; and ignore Jason and the Argonauts’ harrowing voyage in search of the Golden Fleece. Instead, devour immediately this wonderful book, which deserves a place of ...
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The Case of the Vlachs: Should a Small, Minority Ethnic Group in the Balkans Keep a Low Profile?
Authors’ Note: The following text is modified from a paper delivered on April 13, 1996, at the Eastern Bloc Scholars Conference, University of California at Davis. It does not reflect any changes in the situation in the Balkans since that time. The characterization of political forces and positions reflects our best analysis of that time; these ...
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Did You Know What Others Have to Say about Us?
Though they think nothing of roughing it themselves, they are appalled at the idea of somebody else doing so, especially an educated person from the city. AWe are hardened to it–sklira-goyiméni, they say. It is part of a shepherd’s life, but the idea of choosing hardship, and even more the idea that enduring hardship could ...
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St. Nicolas Basdanis the New Martyr
Editor’s Note: This article appeared on the World Wide Web at http://www.philo.demon.co.uk/nicolas.htm and is reprinted with the kind permission of its authors. Metsovo on the borders of Epiros and Thessaly was the birth place of St. Nicolas the New Martyr, often known as “St Nicolas the Vlach”. The Pindos Mountain range in Central Greece has ...
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The Vlachs of Macedonia
The number of Aromanians or Vlachs recorded in the 1994 Macedonian census was 8,467. I obtained this figure with some difficulty from B Hunter, The Statesman’s Year Book, London: Macmillan, 1996, p843. Other sources are confusing. Hugh Poulton in his excellent summary of the Vlachs of Macedonia points to a decline from 8,669 in 1953 to ...
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Attention All Members: Attack on Our Cultural & Spiritual Monuments in Albania
The Albanian newspaper Zeri I Popullit reported on August 28 that large parts of Voskopoja’s 18th-century Saint Michael Church had been destroyed by vandals. The culprits — reportedly Muslim pupils, possibly encouraged by their teachers — destroyed 23 frescoes, 15 of them completely. Police found inscriptions such as “Allah Is Great” on the walls. Three teen-agers were ...
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The Vanishing Nomads
In mid-spring, empty hillsides in the Greek-Albanian border region come alive to the sound of sheep and goat’s bells as the Vlachs, Europe’s last semi-nomadic pastoralists, bring their large flocks up from the plains. The returning Vlachs create a buzz of activity in their remote, isolated villages, which are largely uninhabited in the long winter. ...
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Did You Know What Others Have to Say about Us?
The Lippovans, about whom so little has been written and whose history it is next to impossible to discover, are to be found along the coast of the Dobrudja, that province of Roumania which touches the Black Sea. The Dobrudja was Turkish until the Treaty of Berlin, in 1878; and even in the southern part ...
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Some Recent Greek Views on Aromanian
I am rather proud to give this paper, since by so doing I am breaking my own quite respectable personal record in scholarly charlatanism. I thought that presenting yet another collection of controversial musings on Greek diglossia was hardly the way to honor Zbigniew Gołąb. Thus, although I know little about Aromanian, it seemed to ...
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A Newly Discovered Grammatical Form In The Aromanian Dialect of Beala De Sus
It is well known that the Aromanian language is of great antiquity in the Balkans and played an active role in the formation of the so-called Balkan linguistic league. The Balkan linguistic league, which is traditionally described as consisting of Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian, Romanian and the southern dialects of Serbian, is characterized by ...
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Community News
After this Newsletter was prepared, but before it went to press, we learned with sadness of the passing of three members of our community: Dr. Nicholas A. Sholler, Vasil L. Bellas, and John Ghnouly. May their souls rest in peace. Metsovo on the World Wide Web: We knew that American Vlachs have been surfing the ...
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What’s In a Name? The Greece – Macedonia Conflict
by Thomas W. Balamaci* When presented with the course requirement last fall of writing a term paper about a current diplomacy issue of international interest for my international relations class, I saw the opportunity for research about a hot and relevant conflict that also related to my dual Vlach-Greek heritage. Although this research had very ...
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Did You Know What Others Have to Say about Us?
Contemporary Greek folk music is related to both classical Greek and Byzantine church music. Certain folk dance types and their musical meters are directly related to classical ones, while certain modes and melodic characteristics, with their inherent ornamental techniques, are largely derived from Byzantine ecclesiastic music. In a description of Greek music and the numerous ...
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Zig Zags and Crossroads: Subsequent Field Research on the Vlachs of Albania, Summer 1995
The Road to Gjirokastėr I began my journey to Albania with two days in Anilion [Greece], my favourite and first Vlach village. The tunnel through the Katara pass is now completed, but the road to it is not finished. When the road is in place, Anilion will be a tourist trap, and in anticipation of ...
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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 transhumant lifestyle. Among their many other characteristics one must count an uncanny way of making those who study them question their most fundamental notions about ethnic groups and cultural survival. ...
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Did You Know What Others Have to Say about Us?
In the six months since my first visit to Tirana the city has acquired a bit of spit and polish…. But in some ways times are harder. Prices are rising constantly; telephone rates have skyrocketed since December…. TVSH is running the same advertisements as in winter, mostly for sweets, soft drinks and cat food… in ...
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