VLACHS. The Vlach (Wallach) or Ruman race constitutes a distinct division of the Latin family of peoples, widely dis seminated throughout south-eastern Europe, both north and south of the Danube, and extending sporadically from the Bug to the Adriatic. The total numbers of the Vlachs may be approximately estimated at from 9.000,00o to 1,000,000. Of these the vast majority reside in the kingdom of Rumania, as enlarged by the World War. South of the Danube, a now diminishing number are scattered over northern Greece under the name of Kutzo ("lame") Vlachs, Tzintzars or Aromani. In Serbia this element is prepon derant in the Timok valley, while in Istria it is represented by the Cici, at present largely Slavonized, as are now entirely the kindred Morlachs of Dalmatia. In Bulgaria Vlachs are found chiefly in the western Rhodopes.
A detailed account of the physical, mental and moral charac teristics of the Vlachs, their modern civilization and their his torical development, will be found under the headings RUMANIA and MACEDONIA. All divisions of the race, whether inhabitants of the kingdom of Rumania or not, prefer to style themselves Ro mani, Romeni, Rumeni or Aromani. The name "Vlach" (Slav V olokh or Woloch, Greek Vlachoi, Magyar Oloh, Turkish I filok), which is now used by the Rumans themselves, represents a Slavonic adaptation of a generic term applied by the Teutonic races to all Roman provincials during the 4th and 5th centuries.
The Vlachs claim to be a Latin race in the same sense as the Spaniards or Provencals—Latin by language and culture, and, in a smaller degree, by descent. This claim is generally accepted by ethnologists. The language of the Vlachs is Latin in structure and to a great extent in vocabulary ; their features and stature would not render them conspicuous as foreigners in south Italy; and that their ancestors were Roman provincials is attested not only by the names "Vlach" and "Ruman" but also by popular and literary tradition. In their customs and folk-lore both Latin and Slavonic traditions assert themselves. Of their Roman tra ditions the Trajan saga, the celebration of the Latin festivals of the Rosalia and Kalendae, the belief in the striga (witch), the names of the months and days of the week, may be taken typical examples. Some Roman words connected with the Chris tian religion, like biserica (basilica)=a church, botez=baptizo, duminica=Sunday, preot (presbyter) =priest, point to a continu ous tradition of the Illyrian church, though most of their ecclesi astical terms, like their liturgy and alphabet, were derived from the Slavonic. In most that concerns political organization the Slavonic element is also preponderant, though there are words like zmparat=imperator, and domn=dominus, which point to the old stock. Many words relating to kinship are also Latin, some,
like vitrig (vitricus) =father-in-law, being alone preserved by this branch of the Romance family.
The centre of gravity of the Vlach race is at present unques tionably north of the Danube in the almost circular territory be tween the Danube, Theiss and Dniester ; and corresponds roughly with the Roman province of Dacia, formed by Trajan in A.D. 106. From this circumstance the popular idea has arisen that the race itself represents the descendants of the Romanized population of Trajan's Dacia, which was assumed to have maintained an un broken existence in Walachia, Transylvania and the neighbouring provinces, under the dominion of a succession of invaders. The Vlachs of Pindus, and the southern region generally, were re garded as later immigrants from the lands north of the Danube. In 1871, E. R. Roesler published at Leipzig his Romiinische Studien, in which he absolutely denied the claim of the Rumanian Vlachs to be regarded as autochthonous Dacians. He laid stress on the statements of Vopiscus and others as implying the total withdrawal of the Roman provincials from Trajan's Dacia by Aurelian, in A.D. 272, and on the non-mention by historians of a Latin population in the lands on the left bank of the lower Dan ube, during their successive occupation by Goths, Huns, Gepidae, Avars, Slays, Bulgars and other barbarian races. He found the first trace of a Ruman settlement north of the Danube in a Transylvanian diploma of 1222. His conclusions had to a great extent been already anticipated by F. J. Sulzer in his Geschichte des Transalpimschen Daciens, published at Vienna in 1781, and at a still earlier date by the Dalmatian historian Lucius of Trail in his work De Regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae (Amsterdam, 1666). They found a determined opponent in Dr. J. Jung, of Innsbruck, who upheld the continuity of the Roman provincial stock in Trajan's Dacia, disputing from historic analogies the total with drawal of the provincials by Aurelian ; and the reaction against Roesler was carried still farther by J. L. Pie, Prof. A. D. Xenopol of Jassy, B. P. Hasdeu, D. Onciul and many other Rumanian writers, who maintain that, while their own race north of the Danube represents the original Daco-Roman population of this region, the Vlachs of Greece are similarly descended from the Moeso-Roman and Illyro-Roman inhabitants of the provinces lying south of the river. On this theory the entire Vlach race occupies almost precisely the same territories to-day as in the 3rd century.