Vlachs

Political and Territorial Divisions.

I. The Bulgaro Vlach Empire.—Af ter the overthrow of the older Bulgarian tsardom by Basil "the Bulgar-slayer" (976-1025), the Vlach population of Thrace, Haemus and the Moesian lands passed once more under Byzantine dominion ; and in 1185 a heavy tax, levied in kind on the cattle of these warlike mountain shepherds, stirred the Vlachs to revolt against the emperor Isaac Angelus, and under the leadership of two brothers, Peter and Asen, to found a new Bulgaro-Vlachian empire, which ended with Kaliman II. in 1257. The dominions of these half-Slavonic half-Ruman emperors ex tended north of the Danube over a great deal of what is now Rumania, and it was during this period that the Vlach population north of the river seems to have been most largely reinforced. The 13th-century French traveller Rubruquis speaks of all the country between the Don and Danube as Asen's land or Blakia.

2. Great Walachia (Airy BXaxta).—It is from Anna nena, in the second half of the iith century, that we first hear of a Vlach settlement, the nucleus of which was the mountainous region of Thessaly. Benjamin of Tudela, in the succeeding cen tury, gives an interesting account of this Great Walachia, then completely independent. It embraced the southern and central ranges of Pindus, and extended over part of Macedonia, thus including the region in which the Roman settlers mentioned in the Acts of St. Demetrius had fixed their abode. After the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204, Great Walachia was included in the enlarged despotat of Epirus, but after passing under the yoke of the Serb emperor Dushan and other Serbian rulers in the 14th century, was finally conquered by the Turks in 1393. Many of their old privileges were accorded to the inhabitants, and their taxes were limited to an annual tribute.

3. Little Walachia (MtKpe. BXaxia) was a name applied by Byzantine writers to the Ruman settlements of Aetolia and Acar nania, and with it may be included "Upper Walachia," or 'Amo 13Xaxia. Its inhabitants are still represented by the Tzintzars of the Aspropotamo and the Karaguni (Black Capes) of Acarnania.

4. The Morlachs (Mavrovlachi) of the West.—These are already mentioned as Nigri Latini by the presbyter of Dioclea (c. 1150) in the old Dalmatian littoral and the mountains of Montenegro, Herzegovina and North Albania. Other colonies

extended through a great part of the old Serbian interior, where is a region still called Stara Vlagka 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. In the 14th cen tury the Mavrovlachi or Morlachs extended themselves towards the Croatian borders, and a large part of maritime Croatia and northern Dalmatia began to be known as Morlacchia. A Major Vlachia was formed about the triple frontier of Bosnia, Croatia and Dalmatia, and a "Little Walachia" as far north as Pohega. The Morlachs have now become Slavonized (see DALMATIA).

5. Cici of Istria.—The extreme Ruman offshoot to the north west is still represented by the Cici of the Val d'Arsa and adjoin ing Istrian districts. They represent a 15th-century Morlach colony from the isle of Veglia, and had formerly a wider extension to Trieste and the counties of Gradisca and Gorz. The Cici have almost entirely abandoned their native tongue, which is the last remaining representative of the old Morlach, and forms a con necting link between the Daco-Roman (or Rumanian) and the Illyro- or Macedo-Roman dialects.

6. Rumans of Transylvania and Hungary.

As already stated, a large part of the Hungarian plains were, at the coming of the Magyars in the 9th century, known as Pascua Romanorum. At a later period privileged Ruman communities existed at Fogaras, where was a Silva Vlachorum, at Marmaros, Deva, Hatzeg, Hun yad and Lugos, and in the Banat were seven Ruman districts. Two of the greatest figures in Hungarian history, the 15th-century rulers John Corvinus of Hunyad and his son King Matthias, were due to this element. For its later history see TRANSYLVANIA.

See J. L. PR, fiber die Abstammung der Rumdnen (Leipzig, 188o) A. D. Xenopol, Les Roumains an moyen age (Jassy, 1886) ; B. P. Hasdeu, "Stratii si Substratil: Genealogia poporelortl balcanice," in Annalele Academiei, ser. it, vol. 14 (Bucharest, 1893) ; D. Onciul, "Romanii in Dacia Traiana," etc., in Enciclopedia Romiina, vol. iii. (Bucharest, 1902) ; A. J. B. Wace and M. S. Thompson, The Nomads of the Balkans (a914).