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[ Vlachophiles: texts, travelogues..] |
[ More Vlach vignettes ..] |
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In the Pindus Mountains, in their stone villages and hut hamlets, one can even today encounter the relics of a resilient ethnicity: the Aromanian Vlachs: "who speak one of the most interesting surviving form of late provincial Latin, mutually comprehensible with Romanian" [1]. If the Greek establishment, conceals the existence, claims and culture of the Aromanians [2], hastily ascribing them to the ill-defined if not dubious doctrine of a de rigueur "Hellenism", then maybe the Aromanians themselves helped -(sur)rendering generously their identity- validate this sort of attachment: they, throughout their apocryphal past, would furtively leave scene, submerge, merge with other borderland people, become sort of ethereal quasi-mythical presence, only to re-enter all of a sudden, at later stages of history, spectacularly, with their archaic-Romance language, poise and attire unharmed.. "We had been fortunate to see our Vlach shepherd outside Prizren, although they roam all over the Balkans. They are as common and elusive as wolves. The only other one we saw was tending his sheep up by the source of the river Crni Drim -the "Black Devil"- on the Albanian border, in the back of beyond. He wore a tall shapeless cap of black felt and a long brown homespun cloak. It is hard to imagine a more archaic figure, no doubt a sight well known to Byzantines"[3] Once arrived in Metzovo (or "Aminciu"), in the heartland of Vlachdom, Seward and Mountgarret did not hesitate to point out the peculiar identity and the antiquated Romanian language of the native Aromani; "Metsovo was the only place in Greece where we saw a distinctive folk costume. The men wore homespun and the women velvet dresses with cuffs flaring from elbow, embroidered waistcoats and aprons. During lunch at a pavement cafe we suddenly heard a language which to Desmond (who had spent part of his childhood in Bucharest) sounded very like Romanian. We realized it must be Vlach, a tongue believed to be descendant of the Latin spoken by the Roman colonists of Dacia in what is now Romania. (According to Edward Lear, in his Journal of a Landscape Painter in Albania, when writing about the Vlachs at Metsovo: Many of the men emigrate as labourers, artisans etc. to Germany, Hungary, Russia, etc., and return only in summer to their families. They retain their language. Metsovo is the Greek capital of this shepherd race. They were well known to the Byzantines, who regarded them as an unmitigated nuisance. After the Empire's temporary collapse in 1204 the Vlachs even set up their own kingdom of Great Wallachia?[4] Impersonators, travesty of nationhood, faux belligerents, who boycotted their history calmly contemplating their own extinction finally cornered in a cul-de-sac of the history? Or masters of disguise who shrewdly disappear in the shadow of the main-stream history, not visible to the uninitiated, only to later flaunt off, taunt puzzled travellers, or court naive nation-hosts. It may be this versatility if not chameleonism, this apparent hide-and-seek game of a fickle people, which incorporate paradoxically more serious an aim: preserving patterns of own distinctiveness and ultimately staging own strategies of survival.. It may be this "quality", this buoyancy that attracted so many intrigued Western scholars and travellers to the Vlach lands. Old Etonians, sybarites of the obsolete school, cortege of charmingly upright aesthetes, they all seem to have fallen for the errant Vlach tribus. Beyond their anecdotic value, their descriptions have the merit to confirm the very identity of the Aromanians: the one minted upon their Romance dialect and specific cultural niche. When he visited Greece in 1947, Osbert Lancaster ritualistically ascended to the same Metsovo. His account, emphasizing the non-Greekness of the Vlachs comes as no surprise: "Although Metsovo, with its gigantic plane tree in the middle of the little square, its stone paved streets and abundant gardens, is typical of many a village in Epirus, in respect of its inhabitants it is unique. The Vlachs, to which race this people belong, are nomads, claiming with some degree of probability descent from the Roman colonists of the Danube valley. In former times they were far more numerous than to-day, occupying the larger part of Thrace and Macedonia and establishing in the twelfth century a Bulgaro-Vlach empire in Thessaly which survived in practical independence until the coming of the Turk. Although for the most part herdsmen, horse-breeder and shepherds following their beasts from pasture to pasture and living in temporary encampments of round wattle huts, the existence of urban settlements, of which Metsovo is the most considerable, would seem to afford evidence that, their nomadism is not natural but acquired. In general they are fairer in complexion and more industrious in their habits than the Greeks whom they affect to despise? [5]
Osbert Lancaster is very clear and his remarks deserve attention. Far from showing the kind of unreservedly devoted subservience to the Greeks that is usually ascribed to them, the Vlachs of Metsovo appear as a rather aware, independent-minded and outspoken people, defiantly politically-incorrect and quite guarding their distinctiveness even if at the expense of the others. Thus we might risk and say the unsayable: could it be that the "Hellenism" of the Vlachs is just a scarily simplistic way of categorizing a people viewed not by the honest standards of their own distinctiveness but rather as an amorphous appendix of dominant culture? It is usually used by those unimaginative apparatchik historians as a panacea and as an spurious replacement for the real cultural and linguistic identity of the Vlachs..The term "Vlah" is also used in Greece as a "pejorative or highly generalized term, in an attempt to belittle and confuse the issue, for the uninitiated, of the existence within Greece of an important ethnic minority whose native language is Latin and not Greek" [6]. While indefatigably trumpeted through media -to serve the blurred political agenda of those right wing nasty -if not crypto Nazi- governments, from Metaxa and Gen. Papagos to the dotty Colonels of the 1967 coup- the "Hellenism" has maybe less to do than it is usually assumed with a community who effectively is part of Greece only from 1913, and who voted with their feet by emigrated en-masse (to Romania in 1923 and 1926, and elsewhere after the second world war) [7]. If many honest Greeks still genuinely believe there are no native ethnic minorities in Greece, maybe they are not to be blamed after all: they are just casualties of a bizarre and still in place ethnocentric-fantasist version of history, generously delivered by the state and clergy controlled educational establishment: from the primary school benches up to the amphitheatres of universities. "The Vlachs, this very interesting people are not Greek at all but a race of nomads, who come down from the Balkan lands in the winter with their flock and pass the cold months in Greece. They are shepherd by business, and their tribal name has become a sort of synonym for an ancient profession. Generally they are a people as kindly as they are picturesque, patriarchally hospitable and good sportsmen, as many an English Consul knows, and by no means ill favoured [8]. Frank too is Robert Carver, and his honestly blunt description of his entering Moschopole has slight hints of a disappointment that cannot be concealed. The grand expectations are not always matched by the concrete experience on the ground. The utopian projection into the mundane of a ?with naïveté- expected grandeur often collapses in the muddled streets: Moschopole seems to have become an emaciated conurbation, a shrunken skeleton of what once was the second largest city after Constantinople itself. ?I had expected a grand ruin, a sort of dilapidated Antioch or Salonica. Now, Voskopja was a tiny village. The few people in the broken street, some as blond as Austrians, gazed at us with lack of interest. These were Orthodox Vlachs, settled shepherds.?[9] Yet the talk is not always about ?pillaged cities, sad broken stones? and unfulfilled destinies. The joyous observation of a people seen as much alive as real as opposed to some kind of moribund oddity is quite often the norm. To the -always increasing- list of Brits who experienced Vlachs, and then wrote about them in alluring terms, should be added Rebecca West, herself an iconoclast character (albeit one of Sloane extraction) who, in 1937 ventured deep into the Macedonian vilayets, and to whom we owe another Vlach vignette: "He -writes Rebecca West- showed us also, a superb being, like a Cosack in a ballet, who went strutting by in a wide-skirted coat made from the wool of a brown sheep. This, he told us, was a wealthy Tsintsar (or Vlach), a true nomad, who moved with his herd between summer and winter pastures and hoarded all his wealth, according to the classic nomadic fashion, in the form of necklaces and bracelets worn by his women-folk"[9] "I was struck by the original manner in which our mountain friends progressed through the country; sometimes they kept with us, but more usually some of them went on one side of the road and some on the other, like men beating for the game, only that they made no noise…They were curious wild animals, as slim as active as cats: their waists were not much more than a foot and a half in circumference, and they appeared to be able to jump over everything. Their white dress or fustanellas gave them much the appearance of a party of young ladies who had escaped from a ballet or opera, and were running wild among the rocks. The thin moccasins of raw hide which they wore enabled them to run or walk without making the slightest noise. In fact they were agreeable, honest enough, and we got on amazingly well together" [10] ?Colonialist?s fantasy? of what the natives get up when allowed to mix freely with those toffs of Albion coming in their way or dignifying account putting the ?natives? on an equal footing? We incline to believe the case is the latter. The British travellers and their observation are all dignifying descriptions empowering the Vlachs with a renewed ?and so much needed- sense of identity. Even if, there is ?now and then- as in Curzon?s case, a hint of ?noble savage? about those described. If not rarely -as the critic Hywel Williams once observed- ?like all such exercises of the colonial mind the object is to demean and control through flattery?, then one is inclined to prefer such harmless flattery to other ?more aggressive- means of ?controlling? unruly ?subjects?. At least, unlike the Greek historian, to whom the words ?Vlach? and ?Greek? have to be ?as a rule- glued one to another, the British travellers do not bother to churn through the sieve of such patriotic debris. ?Vlach? is not re-shaped in fraction of seconds in..?Greek? as if the narrative of a minority cannot possibly exist unless it becomes a quaint and folksy peripheral province of a dominant discourse. * * * * (1) John Nandris - The Enduring Identity, Social Being, and Material Culture of South-East European Latinity" (In Journal of the American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences 19, 1994; 74-111 California) Dr. John Nandris FSA Institute of Archaeology University College London (6) John Nandris - "The Aromani" (In "World Archaeology" 17/1985, p. 261) (8) W.A. Wigram D.D. - Hellenic Travel, Faber and Faber Ltd., London 1947 (pp.109-11) (9) Robert Carver ? ?The Accursed Mountains ? Journeys in Albania? (Murray, 1998) p.35 (10) Rebecca West - The Black Lamb and the Grey Falcon - Macmillan, London, 1944, Vol.2, p.26 (11) Hon. Robert Curzon - "Visit to Monasteries in the Levant", London, 1849 (in Robert Eisner - "Travelers to an Antique Land. The History and Literature of Travel in Greece" - Ann Arbor - The University of Michigan Press 1993, p. 142) |
Virginia Woolf - Visiting the Wallachians of Euboea Les Farserots: leur langue et origine Robert Liddell: Vlach Logbook through Boeotia & Metsovo Tim Salmon: A Shepherd's Tale of Samarina on BBC Radio4 The Wallachian Benefactors of Meteora An insight into the fragile ethnicities of Istria: Greece: a "Pandora's box of eccentricities" Edward Lear: Journal of a landscape painter in Greece Braudel, Pouqeville: More Wallachian pot-pourries Tattoos and Taboos: Anti-heroes and cult figures: the cases of Saint Kosmas and Apostol Margarit ?New kids on the block?: Young Greek historians? new approach on the Vlach issue The ?Whites? and the ?Purples? of Metsovo. Notes on the Vlach vestments from a historical perspective The Vlachs in the archives of Ragusa Etaireia Blaxikou Politismou Athina: Deltio Typou 2004 (in Greek and Aromanian) From Valona to Polis: Vlachs along Via Egnatia Balkan Borderlands and endless paths Dobrudja: Tales of exile, exodus and colonization Claudio Magris' "Kutzo-Vlachs" of Bucharest Oi Blaxoi tis Elladhas kai i Parexigimeni Istoria tous Traces of Imperial Rome at Metsovo: Octavia's Palace & Ottoman Grand Viziers Palaiovlachoi and Stari Vlah: Medieval Balkan Toponymy Die unbekannten Europäer: Fotoresise zu der Aromunen, Sepharden etc. Via Egnatia: La malediction des Balkans (et les valaques de Bitola) Comemorarea lui Apostol Margarit de Academia Romana La question des Macedo-Roumains ou des Koutzo-Valaques a Versailles Maverick Vlach habitats: Avdela, Turia, Ameru, Aminciu Οι Βλάχοι και τα πατριωτικά ελληνικά ονÏŒματα Quelle place pour les aroumains d?Albanie? The Realm of the Nomads: Coming across the Vlachs of Greece in the 1950?s A Kafkaesque Vlach Trial in Athens 2001 Objects of desire: Wrangling over the Vlachs in Athens and Bucharest during the Belle epoque Carte ethnographique de la Macedoine d'apres Dr. Cvijic Tache Papahagi: Imagini de etnografie aromana din Grecia From Vlaho-Clisura to London?s Belgravia: A Romanian Diplomat?s Vlach roots Doliani ? A Vlach phalanx in the foothills of Mount Vermion * * * George Padioti - Cantici Farserotesti: Sample below an excerpt of a collection of archaic lyrics, texts of the "Rramani" or "Farseroti" Vlachs of Albania and Northern Greece. * * * * *
CANTIC DIT MIZUCHIE
Stasa s-baga plandzile -Alea Stasa, Stasanie Ti-ai tu chept spuni-ni ania? |
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From Bronte Sisters to the Vlach Brotherhood |
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I sometimes wonder what made Tom Winnifrith leave the chintzy universe of the Bronte Sisters and commute to the harsh, tangly and unrewarding Balkan Vlach topic… When Winnifrith discovers them in 1975, the Vlachs of Greece were at the end of a traumatizing and torturous process of identity erasure. Roughly one year before, in 1974, with the Colonels? Junta still in power in Athens, Vlach speakers still risked imprisonment for casually chatting in their language. The context was grim not only for vulnerable ethnical minorities but for any liberal minded person: thousands, including women, were tortured and elementary if frivolous liberties like wearing long hair or mini-skirt were liable to puritanical punishment [2]. Expressing another identity than the official Greek one was a quite serious offence. As human rights experts on Greece point out in their report : ?The Vlachs - Current situation of the community and language": ?The Vlach languages in Greece have never been included in the educational curriculum. On the contrary, their use has been strongly discouraged at schools and in the army, through physical punishment (!), humiliation, or, in recent years simple incitation of Vlach users. Such attitudes have led many Vlach parents to discourage their children from learning their mother tongue so to avoid similar discrimination and suffering? [3] If for many outsiders, Vlachs were a jolly novelty if not an exotic commodity; the Vlachs of Greece themselves gradually became a fatigued and confused community as a result of decades of deprivation of elementary linguistic and cultural rights. As George Padioti, an Aromanian Vlach author (born and living all his life in Greece) writes, in February of 1952 the last Aromanian churches were being closed by the then Greek government, amongst them the Church of Gramaticuva (Anno Grammatikon) whose fate was to be sealed off without consulting the parishioners. As to this issue Mr. Padioti writes unequivocally: "February 1952, the Aromanian Church 'Biserica ramana Santu Dumitru', burned by German troopers in spring 1944. The priest Costa Bacou officiating the last allowed liturgy in Aromanian language. Afterwards, he was not permitted anymore because he refused to forcibly officiate the divine service in Greek language" [4]. Such statements have to be given credit as their author ?in this case George Padioti- is a native and a connoisseur, as someone who as a Vlach, has at first hand knowledge of his own kinsmen. Not surprisingly, the ban of the vernacular in the churches frequented by Vlachs was not something worth noticing by those philhellenes addicted to seeing Greece as a kind of Shangri-la, and instantly dismiss any form of criticism of her as ?blasphemy? or ?calumny? of what -too naively is labelled as the ?cradle of the civilization?. Not few of these display the typical syndrome of the false visionary deprived of the own failing dream. No matter how hollow are the dreams of an ancient Greece miraculously reincarnated ?as if embalmed- unscathed in Modern Greece (allegedly still populated by nymphs and Centauri) the utopian projection of the image of a country (no matter how much this disappoints today) will always and stubbornly be preferred to the reality on the ground. It is no wonder thus, that it became a custom of many writers on Vlach (let alone Greek) issues to mention little on such taboo data (which comes into contradiction with the alleged widespread hellenophilia of the Vlachs), as, for example, the saga of the Romanian schools and churches opened to serve their Vlach kinsmen (which stretched uninterruptedly for a period of almost 90 years) or view them as a marginal phenomenon. Winnifrith goes so far that even, describes these fundamental institutions as "unfavoured by Vlachs" as if trying to justify their closure by the Greek authorities [5]. That this was far from being the case it is clearly shown by Alexandru Rubin, an author (one of the many) who compiles a most en detail list of these schools, their location, number of pupils and teacher in his book ?Les Roumains de Macedoine?, published in 1913 in the aftermath of the second Balkan War. Unfortunately, this superbly printed book, available to the reader at the British Library, remains to this day, 90 years after being published, with its pages uncut. It is thus no wonder thus that otherwise such competent researchers as Winnifrith (a scholar who deserves full respect) seem not to be fully aware of the amplitude and most serious character of the Romanian schooling venture and history in what is today Greece. It is a question the English researcher ?quite competent otherwise- does not properly address. At their peak, just before the Balkan wars, there were 6 secondary school of Lycee type, and 113 primary schools, all of them teaching exclusively in Romanian. One of the first Romanian schools was active as soon as 1867 in Avdhela of Pindus (as a result of its staunch pro-Romanian stance, on October 27th 1905 the village was burned and raised to the ground by andartes marauders) [6]. The teachers of these schools were all local Vlachs (with the odd exception of a Turkish or French professor) and so were the school inspectors, headed for a while by the Avdela native Apostol Margarit. Contrary to the general opinion, the schools were well attended by pupils of most diverse social and ethnic backgrounds (many names of Sephardim Jewish girls of Monastir, whose mother Judeo-Spanish tongue (as a neo-Latin idiom) stood close to Romanian, were on the lists of pupils) and the curriculum extremely complex. Lately, even Greek researchers such as Vlassidis, to their merit, came to realize the seriousness of the Romanian presence in what is today Greece (see text Vlassidis). But it would be superfluous to quote here all the distinguished names who graduated these schools, not few of them becoming in Romania proper influential politicians and government ministers (the likes of Iuliu Valaori or C. Papanace) or professors at universities or members of the Academy [7]. As late as 1940's, at Ioanina and Salonica, likes of Aureliu Ciufecu (a university professor currently the president of the Macedo-Romanian Congress in United States) or Mr. Padioti himself (today Secretary of the Society for Aromanian-Vlach Language and Culture, Athens) were among the graduates..One of the most prominent Aromanian writer Nushi Tulliu, described as the "greatest Aromanian writer of lyric poetry", attended and then headed Romanian schools in pre-war Greece. Should he have not attended classes in mother tongue, it is unlikely Tulliu would have become a valuable Aromanian writer; most surely he would have become a converted neo-Greek language speaker parmi les autres..as it happened to generations of young Aromanians in the monolithic one-language schooling of the post-war decades..Here is a sample of his biography, relevant for not so a distant past, unexposed to the generations of today, as condensed in a preface of the editor when re-editing his work: ?N. Tulliu was born in 1872 in Avdhela-Greece and attended the Romanian elementary school in Clisura (Klissoura) - Greece and the Romanian High school in Bitolia (today in FYR of Macedonia) Upon graduation, he taught for a year at the Romanian secondary school in Ioannina-Greece. All these towns were, at that time under the Ottoman rule. Wishing to further his education, Nushi Tulliu went to Romania and in 1899 he secured his degree in letters from the University of Bucharest. Back to his home country, he taught again for several years at the Romanian schools in Epirus and Thesalia. Not ready to settle yet, he returned to Romania and worked for a while as a journalist. After spending several years in Germany, he finally settled in Macedonia as a teacher and a school inspector at the local Romanian schools. He died in 1941, and did not see the closing of the last Romanian schools from Macedonia (some were closed two decades before) that occurred immediately after the end of the second world war. During all his life, he wrote and published Aromanian poetry and novels in the literary reviews as 'Ecoul Macedoniei' ?[8] But the first nucleus of the Romanian schooling in Macedonia and Pindus was to be established in 1860 and its initiators were a group of Aromanians by then living in Bucharest: D.D. Cozacovici (himself a native of Metsovo), Zisu Sideri, Iordache Goga (a native of Vlacho-Klissoura) and others.Together they initiated the "Society for Macedo-Romanian Culture", under the endorsement of the then Romanian ruling class [9]. The first task was to create a corpus of Aromanian teachers, who were to be recruited amongst the youngsters of Pindus. Simultaneously, a series of Aromanian grammar books -sponsored by Cozacovici- were being printed to serve the new schools [10]. In fact, the maverick figure of D.D. Cosacovici -a generous and tireless benefactor- is relevant enough to emphasize the pro-Aromanian dedication of someone who, born in Metsovo, is rather typical of the -too often ignored- not always necessarily Hellenic habits and inclinations of the people of Metsovo. To those who have an intimate knowledge of the history of Metsovo, this might not come as a surprise as John Nandris points out: "Aminciu (Metsovo) was certainly in existence in the 14th century, and was destroyed, twice in one year, 1854 by both Greeks and Turks" [11].. Those seduced by the theories describing Metsovo as resolutely pro-Greek if not a "hotbed of Hellenism" should think twice and take maybe into account the concrete case histories of such natives of Metsovo as D.D. Cozacovici -officer and veteran of the Romanian army- fleeing a besieged home in the murky period around 1850's when the place was sacked by the Greeks. Again, one does not need to delve too far in the recent past in order to realize that the much trumpeted ?love affair? between Greeks and Vlachs was often the more complex sorry story of pillaging, mutual mistrust and backstabbing. In Greece (as elsewhere in the Balkans) only convenient stretches of history are resurrected and preserved: the only narratives that get official validation are those that do not come into contradiction with the ?imagined? history. Yet for the average Greek, for ?man from the street?, the Vlachs cannot possibly be accommodated with ease within the exclusive boundaries of the ?Hellenic? psyche and ethnic domain, which is supossed to contain only the unadulterated Greeks themselves. For the average Greek they remain an oddity, a fringe people that are regarded with caution at best. Maybe this explains the complex of certain Vlach who feel the constant urge to ?prove? their ?patriotism? sometimes even completely discarding his own language so to pass as the ?real thing?. When Tim Salmon visited the Vlahuhori the in the 1980? he was mildly repelled to hear Vassili, a Greek taxi-driver who drove him from Grevena up to the Vlach village of Samarina, confessing his deep dislike of the Vlachs. The confession is interesting because its spontaneous character lets the reader find out how the Greeks perceive their Vlach neighbours in reality. Like in London or elsewhere, where the ?cabbie? is an accurate scale of the intensity of the political pulse of the place, the Greek taxi driver offers a sample of popular prejudice which is nevertheless immensely valuable not least because of its sheer sincerity, uncensored bluntness: ?In the morning we left promptly as arranged. The taxi-driver was in more amenable mood, although I still had to listen to a litany of anti-Vlach calumnies and townee's scaremongering about how fearsome life in the mountains is: how the Samariniotes are all liars and how in the war they were traitors, showing the Italian invaders the way, until our boys stopped them at Stavrós — completely overlooking the fact that they had served in the army like all other Greek citizens? And here lies the paradox. The ?historical truth? and its accompanying discourse, is in Greece, a split, deeply fractured concept. At one level, there is the ethnic truth? or the officially sanctioned version of the history, quite an artificial concept according to which, apriori, since ?there are no other native ethnicities in Greece than the Greeks themselves? Vlachs are automatically a segment of the Hellenism. Quod era demostrandum! On the other level, the very same ?historical truth? becomes something utterly different when freely interpreted by the ?man from the street?, according to his/her real experience on the ground and freely collected data. That the two levels of perceiving the Vlachs clash, is quite obvious. But even within the official ?state-controlled? historical truth, fractures can appear and the Vlachs can suddenly become, from heroes, convenient villains, useful scapegoats. Valuable because, never in short supply, they can be, remorselessly, hypocritically ditched by the establishment instantly. As David Brewer brilliantly pointed out in an essay published by the History Today: ?In his 1961 book The Dilessi Murders Romilly Jenkins told the story of the murder of three English aristocrats and an Italian nobleman near Athens in 1870, and the international repercussions which followed. A chapter was devoted to the concept of `ethnic truth'. According to this, wrote Jenkins, `the modern Greek was at once the spiritual heir of all the splendid intellectual endowments of the classical age, and the political heir of all the vast pretensions, both religious and imperial, of Byzantium'. From the first he derived his genius and culture, from the second his natural right and fitness to resume empire over all the nations of the eastern Mediterranean; and `from both his evident superiority, in intellect and capacity, over the members of any other race'. It followed that his conduct was above reproach, and his country a paragon of order and enlightenment. But, Jenkins went on, this ideal picture bore no relation to the actual Greece of 1870, a country economically weak and impotent in foreign affairs, its inhabitants doubtfully descended from the ancient Greeks, its countryside infested with brigands, and its politicians corrupt.In the furore over the Dilessi murders the Greeks denied all responsibility and argued, when the facts were clearly otherwise, that the travellers had rashly brought the tragedy on themselves and that the brigands involved were not Greeks but as Vlachs from the north. The `ethnic truth' of the Greeks was completely opposed to the facts as perceived by the rest of the world. Yet `ethnic truth' won. Of those accused of complicity in the murders, minor figures, mostly Vlachs, were condemned, while major figures, mostly Greeks, were cleared.? Most of the policies applied by the Greek state to the Vlachs can be described as typical ?carrot & stick? policies. Encouraged on one side by the establishment to identify themselves with the ?Hellenism? (whatever this ersatz ideology may mean), or in other words to give up their identity and language in exchange for becoming part of what they are told is a ?superior? culture and thus having free access to the ?carrot? (though as we saw many Greeks still regards the Vlachs as undeserving and cunning crypto-Trojan horses, converts ready to revert to their own ways as soon as the winds of the history blow from other side), they, on the other side, will ?if with discretion- be shown the stick as soon as they dare to claim the slightest linguistic right to be provided for themselves. And since, as Mark Dragoumis recently pointed out -not without a strong hint of bitter irony- that ?Greeks can never do evil?they are always heroic and good? the villain?s vacant place is fulfilled by those whose Greekness (term which is an adjective in Greece meaning ?good and brave?) is suspicious at a closer examination. The Vlachs, we saw, always fitted this dramatic role, though they are, more recently, more and more replaced as scapegoats by the ?true? alien, the Albanian immigrant ?never in short supply- and who is the ultimate scapegoat in Greece ?in the eyes of both politicians, media and public for all the imaginable evils that take place. It is no use of pretending that there is not around a long tradition ?deeply rooted both among scholars and populist politicians alike- of dishing the dirt in the faces of those who are either voiceless, vulnerable or are perceived as an insignificant entity. Sometimes even history can be rewritten, reinterpreted and accommodated in an elastic way: accurately telling the truth is of less importance than risking to antagonizing those who are perceived as more prestigious acquaintances. At a stroke of a pen, even the deeds of the Vlachs back in the obscure Middle Ages, can become a precious asset ?when sufficiently distorted- in order to absolve of guilt the more prestigious Greek. It is amazing that this practice is still a current one to this very day, but then, this is not an unheard of or an inconvenient way of ?writing? biased history. In his recent book ?The Fourth Crusaders? (Pearson Longman London, 2003, p.144), Michael Angold, who is probably the most prestigious scholar of Byzantine studies alive, does not hesitate to nervously point the finger at the Vlachs whom he more or less accuses of gruesome murders. It makes no difference that Angold has no proof whatsoever that Vlachs were actually the authors of these murders: he just insinuates it (using such an ambiguous expression as it may have been). Yet the word has been spread: once again, the Dilessi-inspired calumny is a stereotype well alive and in still in place in 2004. To be sure of his result, Angold bestows upon them the appellative ferocious as if wanting to convince the readers that his presumption is for sure a true one. For what else can you expect from ferocious people but committing gruesome murders! Writes Angold in conjuction with an episode of Byzantine history dated around 1230 just after the Byzantine Empire was sacked by the ?Latin? Franks Crusaders in 1204: Modern historians have always portrayed Michael Doukas as a doughty champion of the Greek independence but there are no signs that Doukas entertained imperial ambitions. He did not attempt to create a Byzantine Empire in exile. It is true that his followers systematically murdered Latin priests who fell in their hands. This culminated in the crucifixion of Ame Pofey, constable of (Frankish) ?Romania? along with his chaplain. The Latins blamed Michael, but it may have been more a question of him being unable to control his followers which included ferocious Vlach and Albanian tribesmen It would be unfair and would amount as prejudice to accuse such a prestigious historian as is Michel Angold of simply having a lazy mind. This is not the case. Yet Angold is inelegantly careless when it comes to Vlachs and falls prey to gross stereotyping. Sometimes the bored historian has to cut corners himself. It could be that he is simply uninterested in such unfashionable (and unrewarding) topics as are the Vlachs, and after all who can blame him? And then it is never too advisable to antagonize one's Greek fellow scholars of the realm of academia just for the sake of being accurate or honest. But happily there is always a 'compensatory effect', so to speak, in the field of academia: for every historian that fails or half-fails there can be found another one who brilliantly succeeds. In the very years in which Angold came out with the above mentioned book, another British historian, Robin Harris, published a substantial tome having as subject the history of the Ragusan republic, titled simply 'Dubrovnik'. Having meticulously checked out the notoriously -full of surprises- Ragusan archives, Harris found a series of extremely important documents and diplomas attesting the very early mediaeval history of the Vlachs of that Adriatic port, trading outpost and ultimately city-state. These Ragusan diplomas whose inedite content render obsolete the first mentioning of the Vlach in the year 972 AD are another proof that when it comes to Vlachs, the researcher?s bag will eventually fill up with delightful surprises if the pursuer is simply bright and keeps his mind open.
The Byzantine chronicler and daughter of the Emperor Ana Comnena mentions at 1200 a Vlach city in Thessaly (Greece of today), as laying between Kissavon and Trikala, and entered by her father the Emperor while fighting the Normands of Bohemund who were laying claim to what is today Greece. Another Byzantine historian, Kekaumenos mentions a revolt of Vlachs of Thessaly in 1066, and their ruler Verivoi..Around 1173, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, traveling through Thessaly, is mentioning the "nimble as deer" mountaineer Vlachs, and the way they were plundering those Greeks of the plains [12]. Niketas Honiatis describes a "Great Wallachia" comprising Thesaly, as opposed to other two "Wallachias" quoted by Frantzes: "Little Wallachia" in Acarnania and Aetolia, and an "Upper Wallachia" in Epirus. The existence of these free entities is confirmed by the Western chronicles Geoffroy de Villehardouin, Henri de Valenciennes, Robert de Clary, and by those who wrote about the rebellion of a stem of the Vlachs of the Hemus (Chalhidiki) Peninsula, 1196 A.D. The chronicler of the Ottoman Sultans, Chalcondilas, is mentioning later the Vlachs in filiations with the North Danubian Wallachians. The Morlachs (or Mavro-vlachi) of the west are already mentioned as Nigri Latini by the presbyter of Dioclea (c. 1150) in the old Dalmatian littoral and the mountains of what is now Montenegro, Herzegovina and North Albania. Other colonies extended through a great part of the old Servian interior, where is a region still called Stara Vlaska or Old Walachia. The great commercial staple of the east Adriatic shores, the republic of Ragusa, seems in its origin to have been a Ruman settlement, and many Vlach traces survived in its later dialect. Philippus de Diversis, who described the city as it existed in 1440, says that the various officers of the republic do not make use either of Slav or Italian, with which they converse with strangers, but a certain other dialect only partially intelligible to us Latins, and cites words with strong Ruman affinities. In the mountains above Ragusa a number of Vlach tribes are mentioned in the archives of that city, and the original relationship of the Ragusans and the nomadic Alpine representatives of the Roman provincials, who preserved a traditional knowledge of the old lines of communication throughout the peninsula, explains the extraordinary development of the Ragusan commerce Centuries later, when Europe was at the zenith of the age of baroque, somehow oddly unsynchronized with the rest of the Continent, a stem of the Vlachs, the "Gramosteni", were moulding patterns of an own urbanite culture. Their original homeland was mount Gramos, a northern spur of the Pindus chain. Around 1650-1700, Mount Gramos sheltered one of the largest Vlach urban centres, Gramostea, a town whose inhabitants excelled in trades and handicrafts. Surrounded by eighteen massifs, as in a truly grandiose baroque setting, Gramostea was entered by Mount Scara, the main gate of this town carved into the shape of an immense amphitheatre. Today, nothing is left of the once prosperous and burgeoning centre of 40.000 inhabitants, all of them Vlachs. The few shabby "modern" buildings, the usual standard boxes of concrete which are landmark of rural Greece can only set a sad contrast background and emphasize the majestic ruins of the once glittering but remote past. And a puzzling question as to the sad demise of Gramostea and Moschopolis has to be asked. Why their burghers were not able to defend their very urban homes? A possible answer should not ignore the fact that these two towns were largely frail post or late-Byzantine structures, as said above, little synchronized with the rest of Europe despite of Moschopolis' strong commercial ties with the outside world (and especially with Vienna). It shows that an urban creation -endorsed only by its commercial functions and occasionally by paltry cultural enterprises cannot be sustainable in time. Moschopolis and Gramostea were a sort of artificial-utopian conurbations devoid of any military or political strength thus unavoidably prone to disintegration. The loss of Gramostea was decidedly a traumatic moment in the erratic history of the Vlachs… Dwarfed and divided (but were they ever united and homogenous?) they suffered a process, which could be described as "re-pastoralization" and returned to pastoral pursuits founding new villages (Livadz - Veria, or Beala di Supra on the shores of the lake Ohrid). Others, having already a taste for commerce, banking and intellectual pursuits (being in Sir Charles Eliot's own words "men of substance") and accustomed to an urban life of Gramostea by no means unsophisticated, moved up north ?via Serbia- in the Hapsburg Empire, especially in capital cities as Vienna and -what what still known as- Buda-Pesth. Thousands of Aromanians took the way up north to Mittel-European towns. It is a most important shift of attitudes. The former nation of shepherds was coaching by then its own intelligentsia. Their arrival up north in Austria and Hungary coincided with the post-French revolution resuscitated fashion for nationhood, equality, mother tongues and ?human rights?, so, once on the unambiguously European Habsburg territory, they will spectacularly connect themselves to the already burgeoning and latinophile Romanian intelligentsia of Transylvania. A new breed of Vlach professional-mecenas, such as Gheorghe Roja (a Vlach born in Bitola, Macedonia and joining as a child his uncle in Timisoara, today in Romania) are relevant for this trend. Rosa, who will later become a doctor of the Pesth University's Hospital, is the author of a book written in German "Untersuchungen uber die Romanier oder sogenannten Wlachen, welche jenseits der Donau wohnen" ("Researches upon the Romanians or the so-called Vlachs who live beyond the Danube") - Pesth, 1808 followed by the classical "Maiestria ghiovasirii romanesti cu litere latinesti, care sant literele Romanilor ceale vechi" - Buda, 1809 - which is an attempt to forge a literary language for those described as ?Macedo-Romanians?. It is written with Latin letters and Rosa himself uses the Latinised nomme de plume of of "Valachus Moscopolitanus". Another Vlach émigré, Mihail G. Boiagi published in 1813 in Vienna "Gramatica romana sau macedo-romana" (Romanian or Macedo-Romanian grammar) This is the vibrant, reactionary but prolific post-Napoleonic Vienna of a Franz Schubert (who himself had a Greek mistress), a cosmopolitan city that contained a sizeable ?Greek? colony, which, at closer inspection showed clear differentiations. Many of these ?Greeks? would reveal ?at a closer inspection- at least another shadow identity which, as in the case of the above mentioned Boiagi, was a Vlach one. That Boiagi?s Vlach identity by far won over his Greekness is showed by his own words of the foreword to his Macedo-Romanian Grammar?: "Even if the Vlachs would claim, say Hotenton origin ?writes Boiagi- even in that case they ought to have the right and duty to cultivate themselves in their mother tongue, as the most appropriate way to fulfill their creed". The quite radical ideas of Boiagi, at a time when the idea of using one's mother tongue (other than Greek) or writing in own language was assaulted ?back in the Balkans- by an overactive legion of Greek monks, missionaries or plain nationalistic priests- sometimes blackmailing the unruly with the excommunication- are of an acute -if sad- actuality. The offensive of the clergy against the use of Aromanian is another chapter, and itself ought to be the dealt with extensively. Their proselytizing was by no means limited to religious issues but was a tool devised in order to convince the vernacular speakers to abandon what they regarded as a "worthless" idiom and adopt the superior neo-Greek speech..One of these influential -if malignant- figures disguised in teacher was a Phanariote, Neofit Douka, who in an appeal addressed to the Vlachs of Metsovo, was echoing the already in place racialist trend of a retarded linguistic intolerance. A sample of Neofit Douka at the best of his spite speaks for itself: "There we are Metsovian brothers, together with those who are fooling themselves with this sordid and vile Aromanain language, forgive me for calling it a language". Douka's incitement had little effect though since one and a half century later Vlach language was still alive and well in Metsovo. According to another teaching of Douka, the Vlach "was not the heir of another speech" (i.e. Latin), but a "repulsive speech with a disgusting diction" [13]. It is no surprise that with such a rich history of complexes of superiority, the Aromanian is prohibited even today from official use in Greece 2003. ?Throughout the nineteenth century? -as John Nandris points out in a study- ?North of Janina and west of Metsovo, strenuous efforts involving social victimization were made (with a great deal of success) to force Romance-speaking Vlachs to become ashamed of their language and convert them to speak neo-Greek..One of the most strenuous advocates of this racialism has since been sanctified as Saint Kosmas of Aetolia? Ironically, it was a priest, Andrei Saguna, later becoming a Bishop of the Orthodox Romanians of Transylvania and a Baron of the Austria-Hungary, who played an essential role in the efforts of forging a Romanian combative identity…What makes the figure of Saguna appealing is his Vlach origin, perfectly compatible, after all, with that of the Romanians of Transylvania, whose first political manifesto, signed a century before (1794) and presented to the Habsburg Emperor was titled "Supplex libellus Valachorum"(14).. Throughout the 19th century the Balkan Peninsula (as much of the rest of Europe) entered the uncharted waters of the various murky nationalisms. The Vlachs, those whose ways of life sophisticatedly combined sedentarism (and the taste for solid villages and massive stone cottages) with the horizon-widening transhumance (later diversified to transport of goods and business travels) were to fall themselves prey to the temptation of nation-building. Most of the times a justified enterprise, nation-building can occasionally become a racialist and excluding phenomenon. It often contained (as in the case of the newly created Kingdom of the Hellenes) too high a dose of re-invention: a farcical claim of racial superiority with the occasional cruel twist and the afferent emptily pompous rhetoric [15]. Many of the non-Greek peoples who willingly participated to this nation-building struggle were Arvanites and Vlachs. As Robert Liddell pointed out in his book about Morea, some of the Arvanite heroes of the Greek Revolution, such as the Admiral Koundouriotis, did not even speak passable Greek, and weren't bother to learn it throughout their lives Ere the blighting Ottoman rule was firmly established in Macedonia and Albania, the Vlachs of Moschopolis, controlling the great Zygos road, prosecuted a most lucrative commerce; and they have given to both Turkish and Greek armies their most reliable fighters and to liberated Hellas its best element of stability and progress. But the time of writing the book, in 1905, the assessment of the Vlach populace was rather confused and their depiction is contradictory: Writes Hogarth again: ?The mountaineers of Grammos and Pindus, ranging from near Goritza even to Agrapha district of Aetolia and the lateral chin of Oeta, distinguish themselves in common as Vlachs or Wallachs from the Toskhs, with whom, however, they admit at least a cousinship (…)Though racially solid and of similar type and character, the Vlachs of the north are distinguished from the Vlachs of the south by their particular designation, their speech, and to some extent their political sympathies. The Massaret or Ruman Vlachs of Grammos speak a Latin idiom, and have always tendencies towards pan-Latinism; the "Lame" (Koutzo) Vlachs of Pindus are now at any rate, all Orthodox and Hellenist. The truth is, that the two sections are of one stock, but have different histories. The one appeared in the hills some time before the eleventh century; the other was still spread over the Thessalian plain, part of which was known as Anovlachia, as late, at any rate, as the middle of the twelfth century, when Benjamin de Tudela found even Lamia as a Vlach town. There can be no doubt that both section of the mountain Vlachs represent whilom dwellers of the plain, the one set pressed up from Macedonia, where a remnant still survives west of Beroea, the other at a later period from Thessaly, by the influx of Slav and Turk..?[17] Hogarth called the Vlachs of Pindus "at any rate, now Orthodox and Hellenist" but this description has to be handled carefully. Orthodoxy was -and is- not a religious creed originating or confined only to Greece or Greeks, while its boundaries are stretching far beyond that country. Any attempt to mix, confuse or identify Orthodoxy with Hellenism is as simplifying a cover up as one can assume. While the Hellenism was meant to revive, after a pause of almost two millennia the glory and the fortunes of the Ancient Hellenes (who far from being Orthodox were a polytheist lot) and project them on the Modern Christian Greeks, hence lavished by association with all the glory of their presumptive forefathers, it also served as a sort of trivial umbrella for gathering resources, channelling energies in order to create a homogenous country out of an existing hybrid and multi-ethnic one: the Kingdom of Hellenes: paradoxically ruled initially not by Greek themselves but by a Bavarian Royal junta to be followed after several decades by a Danish dynasty. When few years ago, the well known British art historian Brian Sewell described the Vlachs, in an article published by the London Evening Standard as "possibly the oldest people in the Balkans" [19], his remarks caused an avalanche of responses and outraged complaints from those readers who vociferously complained that others were actually the "oldest people" in the town, and the so-called Vlachs were (so the story goes) in fact, Greeks. This ridiculous contest in order to grab the oldest of the credentials might seem meaningless but one should not ignore that down in the volatile Balkan, these matters are taken painfully serious. Roughly during the same time, the President of Greece, Costas Stephanopoluos, officially touring Vlach villages in Pindus (known in the national hagiography as "the backbone of Greece") felt obliged to repeat to a local Vlach audience the obsolete clichés about "the Vlachs this inseparable patriotic segment of the Hellenism". Yet somehow surprisingly, the President also urged the villagers to "let their children speak the local dialect", the "vlachika" [20]. This unexpected magnanimity coming from the President himself was instantly taken seriously by Vlach language activists of Greece (such as the more assertive Vlach Syllogon of Veria) who now quote at every occasion this casual endorsement coming from such a high official (in the same manner as they were once invoking the firmans of the Sultan of Constantinople who once bestowed upon Vlachs various special statuses). This last encouraging signs have yet to get the blessing of the legislators who are not in a hurry to debate such taboo issues as language of the minorities. There is a huge gap between the occasional hiccups of the casual political discourse and the seriousness of passing a legislation desperately needed in order to make Vlach language accepted and locally taught -even if as a non-compulsory discipline- in schools. This is not an easy task given the general inhibitions in Greece, a country where cultural issues are often confused with the political and even military ones. As Panayote Elias Dimitras (one of the most subtle analyst of the Greek issues) wrote a while ago: ?Greek society and the vast majority of Greek intellectuals have yet to come to terms with the fact that Greece is not a homogenous society; that one can be a Greek citizen but have a non-Greek ethnonational identity..(..)For almost all Greeks, Greek citizens can freely enjoy their cultural diversity as long as they have strong Greek ethnonational identity and seek no minority status. This is how hundred of thousands of Albanian-speaking Arvanites and Aromanian-speaking Vlachs have been "successfully" incorporated in (i.e. assimilated by) modern Greek national culture: they have been showing a strong, even extreme, degree of attachment to Greek nationalism, in exchange for which they have been allowed to keep their oral but never written or taught, ethnolinguistic "sensitivities". It requires a very sustained effort for the few "multiculturalist of Greece, which include even some government ministers, to dispel this ugly image of Greek "national" policy that can be summarized in a choice between assimilation or discrimination? [21] There is no longer a coherent ?strategy of survival? -if there was any- or a precise definition as to what it means to be a Vlach in Greece in the 21st century. Some commentators even suggested that the term 'post-Vlach' would capture more accurately what has become the distorted identity of an already fading peripheral ethnolinguistic minority, and should be used instead. The Grecized Vlachs of today -they argue- simply mutants hit by a self-inflicted amnesia, hosted by a Greek nation-state intolerant to the core, should really not be entitled at all to call themselves 'Vlachs'. At least not at this stage of their assimilation anymore. In Greece today, Vlach survives as harmless folklore, as ethno-kitsch, as bucolic escapism. Or as cans of condensed milk ?ubiquitously named Gala Blaxas- to be found on the shelves of the supermarkets. Who said we ignore our Vlach milkmaids and their culture? Some Greeks of the today, especially the young ones, suddenly 'remember' or are finally being told in half-secrecy by their elderly kin of their true origins and instantly develop an interest in the Vlach identity which they then freely interpret in order to suit their twisted new identity. In many cases it is too late to learn the extremely elaborate Vlach language, the ultimate protective tag: that would take an effort too much, a task impossible to fulfil by now. What they?ve since retrieved are only shards: histories adapted, ingredients half remembered. The great banquet that stretched from infancy to dotage across seasons, centuries, wide open spaces, back to the Roman legionnaires, was broken up for good. It is neither the first nor will it be the last case of such type of ethno linguistic extinction known in the history. Where are today the Alans, the Cumans, the Livonians, the Normans or the Visigoths all but in the history textbooks or as a pile of bones scattered in a vault, dust whirling up in the desert? At best such extinct people 'survive' as an assimilated overflow: the aristocracy or the upper-classes of Britain or Sicily who claim Norman descent, that of Spain, still bearing the hallmark of the fair Visigoth from whom the Moors wrestled away the Visigothic Iberia. What really is sad to the extreme is the cynical grin with which the Greek establishment carefully presides upon this ongoing drama not bothering to lift a finger or to invest a single drachma (or more recently euro) to help slow down the haemorrhage if not stop it altogether. Instead, tricky formulas are coined on the spot, deliberately confusing and ultimately hailing the ugly assimilation as a fait accomplit, as something that has to be patriotically applauded. 'All of us are Vlach' exclaims now and then in his or her enthusiasm another Vlach aficionado, another new-born Greek Vlach. This is meant to flatter the Vlachs, but should really be translated by the suffocating 'all Vlachs are Greek'. Eat-as-much-as-you like: indeed, Vlach caters for all. Buy one, get one free: there's always apparently plenty on the menu yet populist slogans or yet another session of popular dances-cum-Greek flag waving do not fill the belly of a dying breed who needs real stuff not fancy words when it comes to fight for survival. The Vlachs? 'beef-tea', the ultimate dripping, would be media, books and classes in their language, something that the Greek state will never, despite the almost desperate call for it of the Vlach themselves, ever allow. That would amount to dismantling the fictitious idea, upon which are built the foundations of Modern Greece, that Greeks are a homogenous nation and the only autochthonous of that country. In order to reinforce time and again this folly, all the non-Greek native idioms have to be ignored, sacrificed, erased. The 'arvanitika' all but disappeared while 'vlachika' calmly expects its turn. Jolly good then, we told you, there're only Greeks in Hellas anyway, can you hear something else? Oh, those recently arrived immigrants, but we can kick them out at a whim, their permits of residence are anyway, never in order. As about 'native minorities' excuse me? there never was such a thing, how dare you?
Yet a time comes when the old routes change direction: the Vlachs' mule-trains are now Express trains piercing nervously the same Balkan passes. The human-cargoes loading the trains are the same too: the passengers, though now a passive constituency cannot conceal scraps of their former self. The old patterns of restless behaviour are still there. Languages might be lost and new one acquired but the tribal identity emerges as uncontrollable as a spring stream when the snows are melting. It was said above that Vlachs are masters of mimicry, champions of thespian dissimulation. This may not be true after all. They, like any petrified clan, are not capable of being anything but what they are: just out there to perpetuate the rigid ways of their ancestors. In fact, nothing had changed. We too, as anyone else, can just peep through the hole and watch the spectacle. When in 1981 Philip Glazerbrook was jumping aboard a train to Athens in Belgrade Railway Station, he fortunately recorded the scene, a timeless vignette that for ever defies the modernity: ?At last the Akropolis Express rumbled in under the dirty roofarch, and I sprang aboard (..)The train wasn't at all like yesterdays. Though crowded, it was a crowd in a different way. For interest, I walked its full way (..) In a succession of coaches Greek peasants were stacked in layers on their shelves in the darkness, or were crouched over food and cooking over stoves on the floor, tatters of clothes screening babies, a gabble of Greek spilling out on the corridor. Notes (1) Tom Winnifrith - The Vlachs - Duckworth Press, London; 1992. Prior to his Vlach research, Winnifrith was known as an assiduous biographer of The Bronte Family: "The Brontes and their background: romance and real (1975)" and "Charlotte and Emily Bronte: Literary Lives (1989)".."The Vlachs" was researched and written sometime in the mid 1980's when the Cold War was at its height and Greece still the darling of the West not to be criticized. Thus, perhaps wisely, Winifrith refrained from politicising the Vlach issue. His second book "Shattered Eagles. Balkan Fragments", was published by the time when Cold War was already over, so Winnifrith is here less timid: he even attempts to criticize the non-recognition (except as a "patriotic segment of the Hellenism") of the Vlachs and their language by the Greek establishment. He unfortunately relapses to a ?what some would consider a pro-Greek stance in a text about the Vlach village of Kefalovrissi (Megidei or Midzidei), written for the Buletin of the Farserotul Society in 1999, where he alludes critically to the Vlach nationalists. At that time, the trial of the architect Sotir Bletsas, president of the Vlach Society of Athens was in full swing but many scholars on Vlach issues had no ears or eyes for such trivial issues. Bletsas was later to be convicted to imprisonment by the Greek judges for carrying a map where Vlach speaking areas were shown. Still, it is the Vlach "nationalists" (benign victims of the excesses of a penal system that has little changed since the time of Metaxa) who are targets of the ironical hint of Winnifrith. If one believes that philhellenism -through its powerful associations- is a long extinct 19th century romantic addiction one should not ignore the fact that even today, this obsolete doctrine which claims Greeks are en masse, superior (culturally or otherwise) to other nations and thus ought to be given a special treatment still mesmerizes and haunts many otherwise honest scholars hence handicapping from the start their research. Usually, the greatest fear of such scholars is not to offend a peevish Greece (which usually results in them being banned from entering that country - as it was the case of Richard Campbell). So they avoid sensitive subjects and, as a measure of precaution, will, not rarely associate themselves to the Greek nationalistic rhetoric, even at the expense of their object of research. Bashing Vlach "nationalists" (by whom they mean anyone who mention the existence of the Vlach language and distinctive identity) became an at-hand favourite mantra of such scholars. Yet Winnifrith himself never found himself in the easiest of the postures and our criticism of him should really end here. Researching such sensitive subject as the Vlach issue, far from rendering him immune from overall criticism, made him uncomfortably vulnerable. A more rigid segment of the Vlach of diaspora ?quite of naturally anti-Greek disposition- would snub what they perceived as some of Winnifrith?s pro-Greek views. On the other side the Greek establishment itself was always wary and rather not at ease at all with the Warwick scholar?s incessant interest on sensitive issue of Greek ?national? interest. It is not a coincidence that his books on Vlachs are not to this day translated into Greek which is a loss for the reader given the author?s truly valuable track-record. One would have expected from a former Eton headmaster to be an armchair scholar per excellence. Yet it has to be said that Winnifrith is impeccably researching his books on the ground by trekking even into the remotest Vlach village of Albania, country not noted for the securest of the environments. As Robert Carver?s portrait of Winnifrith (disguised under the delightful nomme de guerre of Dr. Cider) reveals: ?Dr. Cider was a noted expert on the Vlachs and their language, one of the few Englishmen who had detailed practical knowledge of Southern Albania through which he often walked on foot during the summer months from Vlach village to Vlach village in search of errant or simply changing phonemes like some scholar gypsy of yore?. And if Dr. Cider became today a cult figure both among the humble Vlach shepherds of Pindus and among the scholars of high repute, he is a figure whose charisma and expertise cannot for sure be willingly ignored. (2) see "Le Monde" Tuesday, 29th of June 1999, pag.29: Article signed by Didier Kuntz: "Georges Papadopoulos - La regne de la torture" - Obituary of Colonel Papadopoulos, masterminder of the mentioned policies. (3) Greek Monitor of Human and Minority Rights vol I. No 3 December 1995 (4) George Ap. Padioti - Cantitii Farserotesti - Tragoudia Farsarioton Arvanitovlahon - Published by Etairas Aromanikou (Vlahikou) Politizmou, Athens: Genaris 1991 pag. 71. Padioti's foreword (in fact a clear statement of intentions) to the above mentioned collection of Vlach song lyrics, is quite important given the author's unambiguous rejection of the 'Greeknes' of the Vlachs. Padioti views his own people as scions of the conquering Roman legions stationed in Pindus who intermingled with the non-Greek indigenous population of the Balkan Peninsula highlands. This is, in fact, how today leading scholars in medieval history, such as John V.A Fine Jr. view the Vlachs too. Yet such a complex issue as the ethno-genesis of an ethnic group should be handled with care. It is an undeniable fact that the Vlachs were endogamous and cultivated with jealously -if not outright tribalism- a certain autarchy which 'preserved' them so to speak. On the other side, they, like anyone else, were exposed to outside influences: they absorbed others and, in their turn, had been absorbed. When trying to decipher the origins Vlachs, it is important to have in mind, as Kathleen Wilson recently reminded us (when quoted by David A. Bell) that 'national identities are always multiple, contested, contradictory and mutable, not to mention radicalised and gendered'. In this respect Helen Abadzi is very much right when she speaks about Vlachs being 'different things at different phases of their history'. This 'proteic' nature can be detected at the level of the choice of names Vlachs made use of along the time. In the early Middle Ages, Vlachs are mentioned under such names as Berivoi, Taron, Tato, Assan etc. In the 18th and early 19th centuries they will give themselves such forenames of choice (with a Judaic hint of Old Testament in the Byzantine tradition) as Ioachim, Moise, Emanuil, Samuil, Iacov, Isaac, Rafila, Elisaveta, Zacharia (a certain Zacharia 'a Vlach priest of Chimara' is encountered by Edward Lear in 1848), Samson etc. This was followed by the dubious fashion of replicating names of Ancient Greek deities (or 'wise men') such as Pericles, Aphroditi, Telemachus, Achileas etc. This coexisted with the more rational option for Latinate names such as Aurelius, Tiberius, Valerius, Cezar, Iulius, Elvira, Tacit, Aurelia some of them such as Tulliu surviving as surname to this in places as Avdela. Finally, today, most of the Vlachs will go for the safe option of bland Greek names, as undifferentiated as possible (Niko, Yorgo, Vasili, Iani etc.) in order, perhaps, to avoid being instantly traced as conspicuous Vlachs. Obviously, one can endlessly speculate on such concepts as a ?conspicuous? ethnicity, one that is openly displaying its specificity, or, on the contrary, an ?invisible? ethnicity, one which is discretely locking itself in . To quote the Serbian art-historian Jelena Vesic: ?In the Balkans? history, the Vlach people have become 'invisible' in the academic and public discourse due to their politically non-aggressive position, their ability to quietly exist beside other, more dominant, ethnic groups, and their tradition of economic migration for much of the year. In this way, they have developed specific methods of preserving their cultural identity, including absorbing elements from their host cultures?. The Serbian art-critic uses the term of Vlach ?garden? as a metaphor (though the gardens themselves exist as a concrete enclosures), for the ultimatr survival. ?These gardens ?writes Desic- have significant meaning in the cultural identity of the Vlach. They are a visual pastiche of imagery seen in other, ?Western,? societies, but translated into the Vlachs? own cultural codes. The gardens exist around largely uninhabited mansions, since their owners are away during most of the year. These gardens can be seen as a culture written in space, testimonials that their absent inhabitants are still present. In addition, for an ethnic group with no written language, this visual representation has become the dominant model to ?speak,? not only to their own people, but also to their broader cultural surroundings? (5) Tom Winnifrith - The Vlachs of Greece - Buletin of Farserotul Society (6) For the number of the Romanian schools see Th. Capidan - op.cit. pp.41-45. For the ground raising of Avdhela by irregular ruffians crossing the border from Greece, trying thus to punish the village for its pro-Romanian stance see Constantin Papanace - A Memorandum to the United Nations in favour of the Macedo-Romanians, 1955. The destruction of Avdela was recorded in the collective memory of the Vlachs with the saying: "Andartsali arsira Avdela tu 1905" The sacking of Avdhlea prompted anti-Greek demonstrations in Bucharest in the autumn of 1905. As the entry for Greece of the 1911 edition of Britannica points out: ?In May 1901 a meeting took place at Abbazia, (Istria) under the auspices of the Austro-Hungarian government, between King George (of Greece) and King Charles of Rumania with a view to the conclusion of a Graeco-Rumanian understanding directed against the growth of Slavonic, and especially Bulgarian, influence in Macedonia.? .but ?in the autumn of 1905 anti-Greek demonstrations in Rumania led to a rupture of relations with that country?
(8) Tache Papahagi - "Aromanian Anthology", 1926 and N. Tulliu - Poems/Puizii - Edited by Tiberius Cunia,Syracuse, N.Y. 1989. (9) "Societatea Culturala Macedo-Romana" ("The Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society"), had as its members (together with its Aromanian founding core represented by D.D. Cozacovici, Sideri, Goga, Grandea etc.) also the acting Prime and Foreign Ministers, as well as the Head of the Romanian Orthodox Church: Kogalniceanu, Ghica, Rosetti, the elite of the Romanian political class..The interest of the newly formed Romanian state towards the distant and scattered Vlach brethren was a purely idealistic and nostalgic one..There was not -at that time at least- hidden political agenda.. One could easily justify the fascination of the yet raw Romanian intelligentsia with their Aromanian "alter ego" counterparts.. Yet, time and again, like a recurrent obsession, many a Greek historian, feel obliged anytime when mentioning the Vlachs to violently reprimand what they call roumaniki propaganta, the Romanian "propaganda" by which they mean the above mentioned (and lasting for almost one century sponsoring of churches and schools for the Vlachs of Macedonia, Epirus and parts of Albania). Sometimes, in order to curry favor with hard-line nationalist Greek politicians or see their books pass through the maze of censorship, otherwise honest authors (see Asterios Koukoudis' book), would dedicate chapters of their studies to explain what they think was the rejection of the Vlachs of the Romanian schools in favour of the Greek ones. Indeed, many Grecized Vlachs, aka Katsaoni or Grekomani would send the their children to Greek schools thus opting for giving up for good their Vlach identity. (10) An Orthodox clergyman, Friar Avrechie of Avdela, former resident of Athos Mountain was dispatched in the Pindus with the explicit mission to recruit promising Aromanian youngsters who were offered scholarships in Bucharest and teaching facilities were created at "Sfintii Apostoli" Monastery in Bucharest..Avrechie brought initially with him ten young Aromanians of Pindus, who were to be followed next years by others. Most of these students returned after graduation to teach at the Romanian schools in Macedonia while others settled in Romania..It was this sort of action that prompted D.G. Hogarth to write in 1906 about the "Vlachs of Veria to whom Latinism was preached "..Strangely, Greece became in the second half of the 19th century a playground of the clash between "Latinism" and "Hellenism" as if the clocks were suddenly turned back to the late antiquity. Symbolically, in the 1990's, when a revival af the Aromanian issue was conspicuous, the "Sfintii Apostoli" site was choosen to host yearly seminars and meetings on Aromanian topic, better known as "Colocviile de la Sfintii Apostoli".. The Metsovo born D.D. Cozacovici paid for the printing costs of the 1862 edition of the "Macedo-Romanian Grammar" written by I.C. Massimu. Three years later he sponsors another grammar book, whose long title mentions his financial support: "Gramatica Romaneasca tra Romanilii dit drepta Dunarelei lucrata de D. Athanasescu, si typarita cu spesele D.D. Cosacovici, Roman din Metsova, spre a inaugura prima scoala Romana din Macedonia, Bucuresti 1865" ("Romanian Grammar to serve the South of the Danube Romanians worked by Dimitrie Athanasescu and printed from the donations of D.D. Cozacovici, Romanian of Metsovo in order to inaugurate the first Romanian school of Macedonia" 1865). Eventually, he becomes an author himself, and writes together with V.A. Urechia a history book for the same newly opened schools. (11) John Nandris - "The Aromani" (in Ethnoarchaeology - World Archaeology Volume 17 No.2 Oct.1985, pp. 260-1). The author adds: "By the 18th century the Aromani of the Epirus and Albania had created a nucleus of substantial urbanisation at Moschopolje to the south of Lake Ohrid, but this was destroyed twice by Ali Pasha, and never recovered. The highland sites of the Aromani are highly organized, stone-built and architecturally among the most accomplished settlements in Greece (12) This is authenticated by Benjamin of Tudela, a Jew who visited Thessaly in 1173, during the course of his travel from Spain to Jerusalem. Travelling in Greece, he defines the land of the Vlachs as beginning at Lamia, and describes them as living in the mountains like the chamoisses and coming down from them to attack the Greeks. He visited Constantinople, during the reign of Manuel Comnenus (1143-1180 AD), and writes of the Emperor's special sympathy for the Vlachs because of his origins from that people (Noul Album Macedo-Roman, vol. II, 339)
(14) One of the oldest and most dazzling church of Transylvania (at Densus) -built of blocks of stones still bearing Roman epigraphs and bizarre petrified lions on the roof- is called in an 18th century Austrian document as "Templum Valachicum Antiquum" (Click here to see the image) (15) See Philip Mansel's massive - "Constantinople - City of the World Desire", Murray, London 1995, p. 299. Mansel examines the complex phenomenon of the Modern Greek nationalism, giving a sample of mid 19th century Greek complex of superiority. We read: "..In Athens Georges Mavrocordato, future minister of foreign affairs wrote verging on megalomania: 'The conquering race is on the road to ruin; the Greek race is superior to all others.." (p.299). This attitude was to subside throughout the most of the 19th and 20th centuries and is further examined by John Reed -not without a strong hint of sarcasm- in his "The Last Balkan War" when the Greek newspapers of the time were bluntly naming such neighbours as Bulgaria, Turkey and even Austria-Hungary as "barbarians" as opposed to the Greek themselves who were supposed to be the "civilisers of Europe". This dangerously simplistic view is somehow -if in disguise- surviving to this day. A synopsis of the mainstream Greek press for 1999 reveals the degree of the flirting with vilifying the neighbouring countries: Albania and Albanians are demonised to such an extent that it barely deserves to be mentioned: it became a casual phenomenon; Bulgaria is for the Greek press a third world country whose roads are pot-holed on which stolen Mercedeses roll, while Romania is famous in Greece -according to the Greek large circulation Eleftheros Typos- for its "Romanian burglar"(see "The image of the neighbour in the Greek Press"). It is -sadly- this sort of highly inaccurate and disrespectful viewing of her neighbours that is used by the Greek press, on a systematic basis in order, perhaps, to boost the country's ego and overcome her status of European Union's laggard, lingering at the bottom of the EU statistics by comparing itself favourably to its infinitely less EU funded neighbours. A recent ?Letter from Romania? ?a blunt collection of sneering to everything Romanian, wrapped into the malign package of what is intended to be ?ironically condescending journalism? (in reality a sad sample of retarded Greek way of observing different types of realities than their own) and written by the peevish Kathimerini columnist and part-time film critic Spyros Payiatakis is no exception to the never ending Greek media?s addiction to misportraying countries which it views as ?inferior?. Of course, there is not really dearth of similar texts about Greece that can instantly cure Mr. Payatakis? parochial complex of superiority . We are convinced that after having a look at Paul Theroux?s views on Greece and the Greeks (see Paul Theroux?s - Pillars of Hercules) Mr. Payiatakis will have a sudden revelation of the state of the nation in his own backyard and find useful to concentrate rather on more stringent Greek domestic issues. A ?Letter from Athens? (with its stray-dogs, salepi vendors pushing carts, squalid makeshift streets and peddlers selling combs directly on the pavement in the city centre) will conjure up a reality quite similar to that of Bucharest. After all, both cities share the same heritage, though Bucharest itself, it must be said, was never ruled for centuries ?unlike Athens and the Greece of the tsifliks- by Pashas, nor had the Ottoman Crescent had really been ever hoisted up in Wallachia?s capital. But the depiction of Romania in the Greek press as an irremediably doomed and unattractive country is -not surprisingly- linked to the fact that to this day, a segment of the native Vlach inhabitants of Greece still have strong pro-Romanian feelings and identify themselves -ethnically- with that country. This appears to be the case of the more remote villages of Pindus, where, sheltered somehow from contact with the dominant Greek culture, the older generation of the Vlachs remain faithful to the old ways. As Dr. Thede Kahl points out in a well balanced study just published in the Ethnologica Balkanica ("The Ethnicity of Aromanians after 1990: the Identity of a Minority that Behaves like a Majority" 6/2002, p.154): .."There are still pro-Romanian Aromanians in Greece, especially in villages in which strong Romanian communities were once accepted by the Greek authorities, above all in Avdhela, Perivoli, Samarina, Vovusa, Krania, Edessa, Veria and surrounding areas, as well in a few villages in the district of Kastoria and Ioannina. On a whole, they are a minute and dwindling number of Aromanians.." (16) Robert Liddell - "The Morea" - Johnatan Cape, London, 1958 (17) D.J. Hogarth - "The Nearer East", Henry Frowne, Edinburgh & London 1911. Hogarth was the Director of the British School in Athens, a man of influence who nevertheless saw himself mired-not rarely into the uncomfortable position of having not to offend his Greek hosts. He was also supposed to convincingly play the partial role of philhellene, often in contradiction to his neutral stance as a geographer, anthropologist and ultimately man of science. Just before the Balkan Wars, the Vlach were a sensitive issue for Athens so Hogarth had to be careful when assessing them. That is why he wrongly splits the Vlachs of what is today Greece into two divergent camps modelled on a ?north versus south? axis : those of ?Gramos? and Veria and those of ?Pindus?, each camp supposedly having different allegiances: one camp is ?pan-Latinist? while the other one ?Hellenist?. Of course the reality on the ground at that time was more complex: as it is to this very day. Simplifying or just labelling might be a convenient method to teach history ?with a veneer of patriotism indeed- at the primary school, but not when it comes to deciphering more complex patterns of identity and allegiance of an ethnic group. It is a fact to this day that most of the Greeks, having been taught already at the primary school that ?Vlach are Greeks?, find it difficult later in life to accommodate themselves to different stances, to different viewing of the Vlachs, all which come into contradiction to what they honestly believe is an ultimate and eternal ?ethnic truth?. This is mostly the case of those Greeks who live outside Greece, and who thus are more fortunate and exposed to written material and sources that spring from competently neutral sources. Not rarely, accessing this sources come to them complete with the shock to realize that the so-called Greek ?ethnic truth?, of whose supremacy they were so convinced, is not after all eternal. Symptomatic in this respect is the reaction of Dr.Christos D. Katsetos, an American Greek (see his text ?The political side of the Kutzo-Vlach affair revisited?) who recently realized with horror that the prestigious Library of Congress in Washington D.C. considers the Vlach of Greece as a ?Romanian minority?. Obviously there is nothing wrong with that (after all, the doyen of Greek studies, Emeritus Oxford Professor Richard Clogg thinks Vlachs ?speak a form of Romanian? too) unless you don?t come from Greece where such statements amount to sheer anathema. Those who cling to the delusion that the ?Vlach are Greeks? hail -as a rule- from within the boundaries of the Greek state and were exposed, during the essential stages of their education to sources controlled and made available by the Greek establishment exclusively. There is little else that is offered to them other than what the Greek establishment wants them to know. Strangely, even when books written by impartial foreign authors are translated in Greek (though these are rare instances), the translated text is ?backed? (on the very page on which the translated text is reproduced) by ?critical? footnotes written by ?trusted? Greek scholars who often ?demolish? the original thesis of the very authors they present to the Greek reader. Thus, when the Greek edition of Wace and Thomson?s ?The Nomads of the Balkans? was finally published by an obscure publishing house in Trikala, half of the book consisted of a succession of critical, vituperative footnotes rejecting Wace and Thomson?s ideas and findings. Again, when Thede Kahl translated G. Weigand?s Die Aromunen into Greek, under the auspices of a Salonica based publishing house, the editors entrusted (without the prior knowledge of Kahl) the senior Greek scholar Achileas Lazarou to write a ?critical? foreword. The foreword proved to be in fact a harsh rebuttal of Weigand?s own findings and a plea for a distorted pro-Greek viewing of the Vlachs, something that was alien to Weigand in the first place. A polemic between Kahl and Lazarou ensued in the pages of the Elopia monthly, publication which, for obvious reason distanced itself from Kahl while embracing Lazarou as the ?beholder of the truth? to be trusted by the reader. (18) Osbert Lancaster ? ?Classical Landscape with Figures?, London 1947 (reprinted 1975), p.43 On the Vlach endowments see John Nandris' study on Vlachs - "The Thracian Inheritance" (Journal of Archaeology 7/1981). John Nandris is one of the researchers who successfully applied the methods of ethnoarchaeology when observing the Vlachs. A refined -if discreet- author, Nandris still owes us readers a real book about Vlachs which -in what we are concerned- is eagerly awaited. [19] The London Evening Standard, 14 Nov 1998 [20] Costa Stephanopoulos' original quote in Greek is "mathete sta paidia sas ti vlahiki dialekto"(in H EREYNA - "I Ereyna Trikalon" Trikala; November 8th 1998)..Yet the Greek state did not invest a single drachma over the decades in Vlach language classes, manuals let alone printed media or radio broadcasts..On the contrary, the Nea Demokratia, (party to which Stephanopoulos belonged) endorsed its MP for Serres, Mr.Haitidis, in his prosecution and indictment of the Aroumanian architect Sotiris Bletsas..So Greece's centre-right wing Presdident's endorsement of the Vlach "dialect" has to be regarded, to say the least, with a dose of circumspection if not outright scepticism. [22] Philip Glazerbrook - "Journey to Kars": Viking, London 1985 Ramani Farseroti of Albania circa 1910. The wives of the celnici had elaborated headdresses, like some sort of Renaissance princesses of Ruritania, which were worn deliberately in an oblique (non-straight) fashion, as a distinctive sign of their "upper caste" status. |
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