Talk:Romanians of Serbia

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Contents

[edit] Romanians ≠ Vlachs

Actually, the Vlachs of Eastern Serbia are speaking Romanian, more exactly, the Oltenian variant ("graiul oltenesc"), the same as the one spoken accross the Danube in Oltenia (Western Wallachia). bogdan | Talk 12:49, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Bogdan, I know that Vlach and Moldovan languages are same as Romanian, but Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin languages are also same as Serbian, yet, they are officially recognized as separate languages. Vlach and Moldovan are also officially recognized as separate languages, and that is a reality, which should be noted here on Wikipedia. User:PANONIAN

Don't compare the situation of Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin with Romanian. The situations are different. Can you bring a source to prove that "vlach" is an officially recognized language? --Olahus 07:05, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Since it is listed in official census results, it is officially recognized. PANONIAN 22:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Serbia recognized that Vlachs are Romanians.--Brickoceanmonth 07:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Facts about Vlachs of Serbia

  • In Serbia everybody is free to declare what ever nationality he choose in census (or not to declare anything if he want).
  • Vlachs in Timočka Krajina declare themselves in census as ethnic Vlachs and declare their language as Vlach language
  • Vlachs in Timočka Krajina do not consider themselves Romanians. They think about themselves to be a distinct nation, different from both, Serbs and Romanians
  • Serbia recognize them as such, since that is what they want

There are 2 things which can say who is a nation and who is not:

  • 1.national consciousness
  • 2.census results

Vlachs in Serbia do not have Romanian, but Vlach national consciousness and they do not declare themselves as Romanians, but as Vlachs. No matter how Vlachs of Serbia and Moldovans are culturally and linguistically similar to Romanians, they simply are not Romanians. They are not Romanians because of same reason why Austrians are not Germans or why Montenegrins are not Serbs or why Americans are not English, etc. If somebody do not declare himself as Romanian in census, he is not Romanian. User:PANONIAN

Your argument that one is free to declare himself either Romanian or Vlach doesn't stand. The fact is that the "Vlachs" of the Timok Valley have been led to see themselves as Vlach, but that doesn't mean that they also do not see themselves as Romanian. You see, there is no such thing as a "Vlach" ethnic group. There are Romanians, Aromanians, Istro-Romanians and Megleno-Romanians. Because the Timok Valley Romanians are not Romanian nationals, they may not see themselves as belonging to the Romanian state. But, that doesn't mean they don't identify with the Romanian nation and speak exactly the same language as Romanians. According to sources like [1] they are considered Romanian. You've said they don't have Romanian national consciousness. How can you prove that? This source says "Many Vlachs consider themselves ethnically Romanian." In Serbia, however, the state calls them Vlachs, and for this they declare themselves "Vlach" on the census (because Serbs refer to them as Vlach and so they use Vlach when dealing with Serbian authorities. Vlach is an exonym, however). But actually asserting that Vlachs are an individual ethnic group is nonsense. Vlach is a general term for Eastern Romance peoples. I've showed you sources, credible ones, that refer to the Timok Valley "Vlachs" as Romanians. You haven't showed me any sources by them that show they are Vlachs. Serbian sources, like the census, don't count. Are there any actual sources by these "Vlachs" that say "We are Vlach. We are not Romanian"?
Read this source. It also claims that the Timok Valley Romanians feel unfairly treated because they are recognised only as a "Vlach ethnic group" rather than Romanian national minority. This is the feelings brought forward by their largest representative organisation, the Movement for Romanians-Vlachs. Here's an excerpt that shows that these "Vlachs", or at least their leaders, consider themselves ethnic Romanian and speaking the Romanian language:
As the meeting with Mr Cosic bore no fruit, on 18 May 1993 the Movement submitted to the Federal Ministry for Human Rights and National Minorities the Request for the Recognition of the National Minority Status to Vlachs-Rumanians in the Danube Valley, the Morava Valley, Homolje and Timok Region. The request specified that the Movement sought the "recognition of the status of the Rumanian national minority" for the Vlachs. The request was substantiated by the claim that Vlachs were in point of fact Rumanians and that the Banat Rumanians enjoyed the national minority status.
"We have traditional relations with the Banat Rumanians, speak the same language, belong to the same creed and it is a true wonder how they - the Rumanians in Banat - enjoy all the rights and we the Rumanians south of the Danube (so-called Vlachs) who are much more numerous than they and are separated only by the Danube have no national rights at present," the text of the Request says.
The Federal Government did not respond and the Movement applied to it once again on 29 January 1996. This time the Movement's requests were specified:
1. Recognition of the national minority status for the protection and promotion of our ethnic, cultural and linguistic identity;
2. Opportunity to use our mother (Rumanian) language in private and in public, in verbal and written communication;
3. Opportunity to be educated in our mother (Rumanian) language in elementary schools - to learn both Serbian and Rumanian languages (bilingual instruction) - in all places where members of our population live in larger numbers. We request in particular that the instruction encompasses education in our history and culture;
4. Opportunity to receive information in our language in written and audio-visual media;
5. Opportunity to have religious services in Rumanian in places inhabited by members of our people."
You've also blamed me for denying the existence of a Vlach language? Give me one source that states the linguistic existence of a "Vlach language"? I have seen no sources saying that linguistically there is a language called "Vlach" which is similar to Romanian. It is simply a construct. The only language sometimes known as Vlach, in areas like Greece, is Aromanian language. This is because in Greece (and Macedonia), the Aromanians are known as Vlachs. Ronline 06:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

"Your argument that one is free to declare himself either Romanian or Vlach doesn't stand. The fact is that the "Vlachs" of the Timok Valley have been led to see themselves as Vlach, but that doesn't mean that they also do not see themselves as Romanian."

First of all, we talk here about 21st century democratic Serbia, not about Stalinist Romania during the rule of Chaushesku. The census in Serbia simply do not "led" anybody what nationality to declare. There is one simple question in Serbian census: "What is your nationality or ethnicity?". Near the question is EMPTY LINE, where everybody can write what ever nationality he choose (even non-existing one) or to left the line blank. It is simply impossible that somebody manipulate with how people declare themselves in census. So, these Vlachs do not "have to choose" between Vlach and Romanian nationality, but they simply have to write their nationality on the empty line (I hope that you learned something about census in Serbia now). Fact is that these Vlachs write on that empty line that their nationality is Vlach, and not Romanian (And the one who did not declared himself as a Romanian is not Romanian). Second thing: I am well informed about Vlachs and I know that they consider themselves to be a distinct nation different from Romanians and Serbs, no matter that majority of them declare themselves in census as Serbs, and only minority declare themselves as Vlachs. They do not consider themselves Romanians, since the name Romanians is connected with the state of Romania and these Vlachs consider Serbia to be their native country. That is why they do not see themselves as Romanians, but as Vlachs.

"You see, there is no such thing as a "Vlach" ethnic group."

According to whom? Who are you to judge are Vlachs ethnic group or not? I know that some Romanians would like to assimilate Vlachs into Romanians, but that is really not good reason to claim that Vlachs do not exist.

"Because the Timok Valley Romanians are not Romanian nationals, they may not see themselves as belonging to the Romanian state. But, that doesn't mean they don't identify with the Romanian nation and speak exactly the same language as Romanians."

These Vlachs see Serbia (and not Romania) as their native country and that is why they do not consider themselves as Romanians, but as Vlachs, a native people of eastern Serbia. They speak the same language as Romanians, but that does not mean that they are Romanians. Croats, Bosniaks and Montenegrins also speak the same language as Serbs, but they are not Serbs.

"According to sources like [1] they are considered Romanian."

This source is ridiculous. It is a political petition signed by several deputies from who knows where (!), whom cannot possibly have a idea who or what Vlachs are.

"You've said they don't have Romanian national consciousness. How can you prove that?"

How can I prove? I simply read a lot, and I know how Vlachs think about themselves. For example, here is a Vlach web page:

Unfortunatelly, it is in Serbian, but it can show what Vlachs think about their nationality. Did you know that they claim that Romanians are descendants of Vlachs? Do you understand? They do not consider themselves as a subgroup of Romanians, but they consider Romanians as a subgroup of Vlachs. That is what they think about their nationality.

As for your source, which claim that "many Vlachs consider themselves ethnically Romanian", this source is titled "Political and Social Commentary", and it speak about building of some church, while Vlachs are mentioned only apropos, and the writer of the article obviously heard about Vlachs from some Romanian source, and did not try to check is his information correct or not.

"In Serbia, however, the state calls them Vlachs, and for this they declare themselves "Vlach" on the census (because Serbs refer to them as Vlach and so they use Vlach when dealing with Serbian authorities"

You want to say that Vlachs are stupid and that they do not know difference between names "Vlach" and "Romanian"? Please... They very well know who and what Romanians are and they simply do not consider themselves as part of Romanians.

"But actually asserting that Vlachs are an individual ethnic group is nonsense."

No. Nonsense is claim that they are not ethnic group.

"Vlach is a general term for Eastern Romance peoples"

Yes, but also the name for one ethnic group in eastern Serbia. The names of Slovaks and Slovenians are nothing else but the varieties of the name Slav. If Slovaks and Slovenians call themselves Slavs, why Vlachs of Serbia cannot to call themselves Vlachs?

"I've showed you sources, credible ones, that refer to the Timok Valley "Vlachs" as Romanians"

Credible ones? You mean a political pamphlets? Please...

"Serbian sources, like the census, don't count"

Of course it does count. Why census should not count? I see that you have this Stalinist way of thinking implemented by Chaushesku, but democratic Serbia of 21st century simply do not falsify its censuses.

"Read this source. It also claims that the Timok Valley Romanians feel unfairly treated because they are recognised only as a "Vlach ethnic group" rather than Romanian national minority"

I am not surprised that this Romanian source claim that, but Serbia only recognize those people in the manner in which they want to be recognized. Do you understand how stupid and illogical these nationalist Romanian claims sound? Why would Serbia grant rights to Romanians in Vojvodina and in the same time deny the rights of Romanians in Timok Valley? There is no answer of course, because people in Timok Valley are simply not Romanians.

"This is the feelings brought forward by their largest representative organisation, the Movement for Romanians-Vlachs. Here's an excerpt that shows that these "Vlachs", or at least their leaders, consider themselves ethnic Romanian and speaking the Romanian language"

These people are not a "Vlach leaders", but a minor political group, which have no wide support among Vlach community. The views of few individuals certainly do not represent the views of majority of the Vlachs in Serbia.

"You've also blamed me for denying the existence of a Vlach language? Give me one source that states the linguistic existence of a "Vlach language"? I have seen no sources saying that linguistically there is a language called "Vlach" which is similar to Romanian"

Ok, it is not similar but same as Romanian. I simply object to name "Romanian" here. Vlachs do not call their language "Romanian", but "Vlach".

Finally, stop deleting the article about Vlachs of Serbia. In the article about Romanians of Serbia, we can say that some Romanians consider Vlachs to be part of Romanians, but we should not delete article about Vlachs only because you do not like it. User:PANONIAN

[edit] Vlach language

Panonian, the point here is that it must be mentioned that in the census there is such thing as a Vlach language. I'm not saying we shouldn't mention that. "They are officially recognized as separate languages" --> Yes that should be mentioned. However, in truth they are the same, so it cannot be asserted that the "Timok Valley Vlachs" speak "Vlach". There is no such thing as Vlach! It is one thing to say that "The Vlachs of Serbia speak Vlach" and another one to say "Serbian authorities consider Timok Valley "Vlachs" to speak the Vlach language, even though the language they speak is identical to Romanian" or even "Many Vlachs say that they speak the Vlach language, but this language is identical to Romanian" What I'm saying is - as per the NPOV policy, it's not wrong to mention the word "Vlach". However, it shouldn't be stated as truth. Ronline 11:30, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Well said here --Brickoceanmonth 07:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I'll also add that Vlach is a blanket term for all Romanic people of the Balkans. A "Vlachian" ethnicity is just like a "Slavic" ethnicity, not accurate. Yugoslavia used to put in the "Vlach" ethnicity both Romanians of Serbia and Aromanians of Macedonia, but that makes just as much sense as putting in Romania into a "Slavic ethnicity" both Lippovan Russians of Danube Delta and Serbians of Banat. bogdan | Talk 12:25, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

"However, in truth they are the same, so it cannot be asserted that the "Timok Valley Vlachs" speak "Vlach"."

On the contrary, that is exactly what should be asserted. One Croat would never say that he speak Serbian language, as well as one Vlach would not say that he speak Romanian language. We can say that Vlach language is same as Romanian, but i only object that we use name "Romanian" here.

"and another one to say "Serbian authorities consider Timok Valley "Vlachs" to speak the Vlach language"

Here we go again. It is not what "Serbian authorities consider", but what these people declare in census by their free will. Is it so hard for you to understand how census is implemented in Serbia?

"I'll also add that Vlach is a blanket term for all Romanic people of the Balkans. A "Vlachian" ethnicity is just like a "Slavic" ethnicity, not accurate."

As I already said, Slovaks and Slovenians call themselves Slavs, so why Serbian Vlachs cannot call themselves Vlachs?

"Yugoslavia used to put in the "Vlach" ethnicity both Romanians of Serbia and Aromanians of Macedonia"

This is not correct. Aromanians in Serbia are officially recognized under name "Cincars", since this name is used for them in Serbia. Name Vlachs apply only to Vlach people from Timok Valley. User:PANONIAN

[edit] Manipulation with census results!!!

I just noticed a manipulation with census results in the article. Here is the problem:

The title say: "Romanians/Vlachs in eastern Serbia (according to different censuses)"

And here are results for 2002: "44,110 (39,953 Vlachs and 4,157 Romanians)"

This is a manipulation with census results, since it is not a population figure for "eastern Serbia", but for Central Serbia. It is very likely that all these Romanians actually live in Belgrade, and not in eastern Serbia. I am really surprised how far some people want to go in their attempt to prove that Vlachs consider themselves Romanians. User:PANONIAN

[edit] I am talking to wall or something?

Ronline, I explained the issue about Serbian census on your talk page, but you just returned these two sentences into article:

"the Serbian census provides an option for both Romanian and Vlach languages as mother tongues"

"The Council of Europe has criticised Serbia for artificially-separating Romanians and Vlachs in the census, including through the proclamation of a distinct Vlach ethnicity and language"

Did I just explained, that Serbian census do not "provide options", but only provide a EMPTY LINE, where you can write what ever nationality you want. I do not want to offend you, but if you return these two sentences again, I will start to believe that you are stupid or something like that or that you lie with purpose. As for Council of Europe, this is also not correct. The truth about this is only that few deputies signed a petition about this and proceeded it to the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe did not yet decide whether it will criticise Serbia or not! Inform yourself about something please. User:PANONIAN

Panonian, you have not given me any sources yet (except Serbian ones), so I can understand that your argument is propaganda. You blame me for imparting Romanian propaganda, but I have given you three neutral, non-Romanian, English-language sources that state that Vlachs of Serbia identify themselves as Romanians. I also have about four more Romanian sources, but I understand that you can say "these are propaganda" (even though they are by credible organisations such as BBC).
I have given you a Council of Europe source which states the artificial separation between Vlachs and Romanians. That is a credible source, signed by many deputies, some from Georgia, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, etc. They clearly state the artificial separation and discrimination faced by "Vlachs". I have also given you a US source by an American author that states "Many Vlachs consider themselves ethnically Romanian." and constantly talks about the Vlachs and Romanians as one group. I have also given you this source which talks about the desire of the Vlachs for recognition as a Romanian national minority rather than just an ethnic group. This is a source written by the Serbian-Romanians (or "Vlachs"). There is also a map here showing the distribution of "Roumains" (French for "Romanians") in the Timok Valley.
Your argument the census is not backed up by evidence, and even if I did believe you, it still doesn't prove that the Vlachs don't identify themselves as Romanians (i.e. don't have Romanian national consciousness). Because Serbs call them Vlachs, or course they are bound to identify themselves as Vlachs when we're talking about a blank line on a census. (I understood the blank line issue from the first time). But what if they had an option between Vlach and Romanian? Do you think they would still identify as "Vlachs"? Assimilation by Serbian authorities has played a significant role in their identification as Vlachs in Serbian public life. At the same time, the Serbian census has received quite a lot of negative criticism about manipulation, etc. (see [2] about the widely-varying numbers of Vlachs). You say it is "democratic" but I'm doubting that. So, I propose that we unify the pages under "Romanians of Serbia", and there we can have two sections, of for Vojvodina Romanians and one for Timok "Vlachs", where the situation is explained thoroughly.
Just to answer some of your quotes from above: "First of all, we talk here about 21st century democratic Serbia, not about Stalinist Romania during the rule of Chaushesku." - I really doubt the democracy in Serbia relating to ethnic groups when they don't have representatives in parliament, when they're not fully given their rights such as education, etc. I'm talking about central Serbia, not Vojvodina, where the rights are excellent. Ronline 23:01, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  • "Panonian, you have not given me any sources yet (except Serbian ones)"

What I give you is not Serbian, but Vlach source. The article is obviously writen by ethnic Vlach, so it represent the Vlach and not Serbian point of view. It is not only source I have about Vlachs, but it is the only one, which I found on Internet. You accusing me for propaganda, but my only intention was to write article about one small autochtonic nation, which live in eastern Serbia. I did not know in that time that I will have to argue about that article with adherents of "Romanian national greatness". It is obvious that only Romanians want to assimilate ethnic Vlachs. Serbian state do not have intention to assimilate its minorities, so, I really do not see any motive for "Serbian propaganda" about Vlachs. Every deed must have a motive, and a motive seems to be missing here. You may speak about Serbian propaganda in the case of Montenegrins, since some Serbs claim that Montenegrins are not a nation, but part of Serbs. You may speak about Bulgarian propaganda in the case of Macedonians, since some Bulgarians claim that Macedonians are not a nation, but part of Bulgarians. You may also speak about Romanian propaganda in the case of Moldovans and Serbian Vlachs, since some Romanians claim that these two are not a nations, but part of Romanians. You see, the propaganda always come from someone who claim that people who consider themselves a nation are not a nation, and it is not Serbian state who claim that Vlachs are not a nation, but Romanian nationalists.

  • "You blame me for imparting Romanian propaganda, but I have given you three neutral, non-Romanian, English-language sources that state that Vlachs of Serbia identify themselves as Romanians."

Your sources are not credible ones, no matter in which language are they writen. These sources are obviously not scientific, but political ones, so they represent only certain political views.

  • "I have given you a Council of Europe source which states the artificial separation between Vlachs and Romanians. That is a credible source, signed by many deputies, some from Georgia, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, etc"

That is exactly what I am saying. This sorce is a political petition signed by several deputies (I would not say many), and it represent only their political view, and nothing more. This petition will be probably rejected by the Council of Europe.

  • "I have also given you a US source by an American author that states "Many Vlachs consider themselves ethnically Romanian." and constantly talks about the Vlachs and Romanians as one group."

Ok, if you know that sky is blue, and if somebody write that sky is red, would you believe him? I certainly know much more about ethnic groups in Serbia, than some American pressman, whose intention was to write "Political and Social Commentary". Did he ever come to Serbia and ask Vlachs do they consider themselves a Romanians. No, he did not.

  • "I have also given you this source which talks about the desire of the Vlachs for recognition as a Romanian national minority rather than just an ethnic group."

Did you read what this source say at all? Here are some quotations for you:

Quote: The Serbian Vlachs have always been a subject of controversies - often with political background. Argument extended even to their origin and ethnic affiliation. According to some, Vlachs are Rumanians and according to others - Serbs, who simply happen to speak the "Walachian".

You can see here the "Serbian point of view" about Vlachs, and you will notice that I do not represent this view. You must understand that there are 3 points of view here, one is a Romanian, other is Serb, and third is Vlach. Some Romanians claim that Vlachs are part of Romanians, some Serbs claim that Vlachs are part of Serbs, while Vlachs claim that they are distinct nation. And I think that most representative is a opinion of members of Vlach nation.

More quotes for you from "your" web site: The "Vlach issue" gained political topicality once again when the Movement of Vlachs and Rumanians of Yugoslavia (subsequently the Movement of Rumanians-Vlachs in Yugoslavia) was founded in 1991. In 1993 it submitted a request for the recognition of the national minority status.

You can see that it is only one minor political party (the Movement of Vlachs and Rumanians of Yugoslavia), who ask the recognition of Vlachs as Romanians. There are hundreds of political parties in Serbia, which ask for many different things. The point is, this party do not have wide support among Vlach community.

  • "There is also a map here showing the distribution of "Roumains" (French for "Romanians") in the Timok Valley"

I can draw a same map, in which instead of name Roumains, there will be name Bulgarians, Russians, Croats or what ever I want to write there. Remember my statement about the sky. I can draw a picture with red sky if I want.

  • "Your argument the census is not backed up by evidence, and even if I did believe you, it still doesn't prove that the Vlachs don't identify themselves as Romanians (i.e. don't have Romanian national consciousness)."

The majority of Vlachs do not have Romanian national consciousness. I will not say that a small number of them do not have Romanian national consciousness, but we talking here about majority of Vlach population. You must understand that majority of Vlachs declare themselves as Serbs, while only minority declare themselves as Vlachs. Ok, here I will give you one quote to see what one Vlach think about Romanians, it is very interesting:

Quote: Kada su Vlaske drzave osvojile nezavisnost (od Turaka, Madjara, Rusa), one su trazile da im se latinsko poreklo prizna nazivom Romania. Rumuni so to ocigledno uspeli, ali su nazalost zaboravili da su prvo bili Vlasi.

Translation: When Vlach states (Wallachia and Moldavia) gained independence (from Turks, Hungarians, Russians), they asked that their Latin origin be recognized with name Romania. Romanians obviously gained this recognition, but unfortunatelly they forgot that they were Vlachs before they become Romanians.

You can clearly see that one Vlach do not consider his people part of Romanians, but consider Romanians part of Vlachs.

  • "Because Serbs call them Vlachs, or course they are bound to identify themselves as Vlachs when we're talking about a blank line on a census. (I understood the blank line issue from the first time). But what if they had an option between Vlach and Romanian? Do you think they would still identify as "Vlachs"?"

This argument does not stand. We do not talk about Middle Ages here, but about 21st century Europe. Do you really believe that in 21st century Europe you still have people who do not know how to declare themselves in census? The elementary education is obligatory in Serbia, and most of the people also have secondary education. Do you really believe that Vlachs do not know the difference between names Vlach and Romanian?

  • "Assimilation by Serbian authorities has played a significant role in their identification as Vlachs in Serbian public life."

Serbian authorities simply do not have intentions to assimilate its minorities, so this really do not stand too.

  • "At the same time, the Serbian census has received quite a lot of negative criticism about manipulation"

This is nonsense. I was the one who worked in statisticts when 2002 census was implemented. There simply were no any manipulations. Who ever criticized Serbian census is either stupid either lie with purpose.

  • "see [2] about the widely-varying numbers of Vlachs"

Well, it is not mistake in census, but Vlachs are the one who declare themselves different in various censuses. That is their right of course. The nationality is only a freedom of choice. You cannot deny this right of choice to the people.

  • "So, I propose that we unify the pages under "Romanians of Serbia", and there we can have two sections, of for Vojvodina Romanians and one for Timok "Vlachs", where the situation is explained thoroughly"

I do not agree. The view that Vlachs are Romanians is only Romanian point of view. If we unify the two articles into the article "Romanians of Serbia", the article would be only Romanian POV. I can ask you here what you think to unify the Vlach article with article about Serbs, since some Serbs claim that Vlachs are Serbs? It would be Serbian POV of course. The article about Vlachs should be based on the manner how Vlachs see themselves, and that is a distinct Vlach nation. In the article about Vlachs we can also write Romanian, Serbian and Vlach opinion about their nation, as well as in the article about Romanians of Serbia we can write these opinions as well. Remember that the purpose of Wikipedia is not to present point of views, but to write about these point of views in neutral manner. The view that Vlachs are Romanians is far from neutral. User:PANONIAN

[edit] Progress

OK. You said a very important statement above, "You accusing me for propaganda, but my only intention was to write article about one small autochtonic nation, which live in eastern Serbia." I will trust you on that one, and for that reason I think it's OK to leave the articles as they are - one at Vlachs of Serbia and one at Romanians of Serbia. I saw your contributions yesterday to various Southeastern European topics and I can see that you intentions are in good faith. However, I think it's really important that the topic is clarified in the articles. It needs to be said clearly (in some cases, it already is) that the Vlach language is identical to Romanian, and also that some Vlachs identify with Romanian national consciousness, since there is the Movement for Vlachs-Romanians which seeks to make the Vlachs recognised as a Romanian national minority. This must all be stated in the Vlachs of Serbia article. Additionally, the Serbian view that they are just Romanian-speaking Serbs can also be stated. In the Romanians of Serbia article, it must also be stated (it already is, as far as I know) that the Vlachs of Timok are sometimes considered to be Romanians, based on common culture and language, and that the language they speak is identical to Romanian but that Serbs consider them to speak Vlach, and that on the census they declared "Vlach language". It must also be stated that among some of these Vlachs there is a movement ("Movement for Vlachs-Romanians") to recognise them as Romanians. I think it's also important to state the controversy with the Romanian church in the Timok valley, in the Vlachs of Serbia article - that a church with Romanian-language services was shut down by the authorities, etc. Is the part about "Romanians, go home" true? If these people were considered "Vlach", why would Serbs write "Romanians" go home? Again, I'm just writing everything down now - a lot of these things might already be stated in the articles. I've also done a "see also" link between the two articles.

I'd just like to say that a lot of my suspicion was based on misunderstanding between a lot of nations in Southeastern Europe. Here in Romania, there has been a lot of media coverage about the rights of the Timok Romanians, or "Vlachs", and Serbia has been portrayed frequently as undemocratic, backward, etc. As a person living in Vojvodina, I supposed you have seen other ethnic groups doing that as well. Is this the case in Serbia too, concerning Romania? The reason I ask is because I work in the field of Romanian branding, and gauging opinions towards Romania is very important. I think we all need to understand each other a bit better, through openness! The other thing is - could you please add the Serbian name for "Romanians" in the Romanians of Serbia article? I have added "românii din Serbia" as the Romanian name. Thanks, Ronline 03:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

UPDATE: I've reworked Vlachs of Serbia and Romanians of Serbia. While maintaining them as separate articles, I've stated the numerous points of view, including Romanian, Serbian and Vlach. I've also stated the minority rights of each group, and the contrast between them. I hope the article is NPOV - if you feel anything is a bit tendentious or not neutral/fair, please say so. Ronline 03:34, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I like your last changes in Vlachs article. I added only some few minor changes there. We have decent article now I think. As for the Romanian church in Timok Valley, I read the article about this and seems that Romanian priest had confrontation with local authorities. It is very often in Serbia that local authorities abuse power and work against the law (Freedom of religion is guaranteed by law in Serbia). As, for the graphites, Serbian cities are full of various graphites, many of them with nationalistic messages. This really means nothing. In my city, Novi Sad, I saw the graphite, which said: "Death to Serbs, Croats, Muslims..." And interesting thing is that this graphite was on the wall for several years, until the wall was painted (In the second largest Serbian city nobody cared because the wall was scribed with "death to Serbs"). In other countries these graphites might be insulting and provocative, but in Serbia they are part of urban culture. Of course, I do not approve these nationalistic graphites, but in Novi Sad you will hard find a building with no graphites on the walls (most of them are not nationalistic, but still they are here). It is simply too expensive for the authorities to paint all walls in all Serbian cities. And if you ask me if these people were considered "Vlach", why would Serbs write "Romanians" go home, it is perhaps because the wall where this graphite was written belonged to institution with name "Romanian Cultural Association".

"Is this the case in Serbia too, concerning Romania?"

No, Serbian state propaganda is pointed mainly towards Kosovo and Montenegro, the Serbian media even do not speak any more about Bosnia and Croatia, thought during the Milosevic, these two countries were main subject in Serbian media. I hope that one day the economic development of the country would be a main subject. User:PANONIAN

In terms of the graffiti, I understand that it's apparent in Serbia, as it is to an extent in Romania, but in the case of the "Romanians go home" slogan, on the Romanian Cultural Association building, is this building located in the Timok Valley? If yes, then we should add in the article that "there is a Romanian Cultural Association" in this area, further highlighting that some Vlachs consider themselves as Romanians. As to the Church problem, I think it would be good to write about that. I don't know too much about it, so maybe you could write about it.
As to the economic development of a country being a main subject, it probably is already. I think in today's society, at least in Romania, perceptions about a country are formed by a mixture of democratic development (incl. minority rights) and economic development. I have been to Vojvodina once, quite recently, and was surprised that it was very similar to Romania. Novi Sad is very similar to Timişoara. Here in Romania there is quite a lot of rumour going on about how Serbia is economically-backward (some say that Serbia-Montenegro has a lower GDP per capita than Albania!), and politically even more so. This has been maybe because it hasn't been involved in EU enlargement so far, not even as a candidate, and hence it's profile is quite much affected by the 1990s war (which I agree is a very outdated way of looking at a country). In turn, countries like Hungary consider Romania to fit this description. As I said, we need to all understand each other better and become less stereotyped and more rational when looking at other countries.
Just a question out of personal interest - an EU resolution was passed recently on Vojvodina, criticising minority rights, especially those of Hungarians. It was surprising because I always thought that Vojvodina minority rights were some of the best in this part of Europe. And I've read in the Wikipedia article about a Hungarian Autonomous Region in northern Vojvodina - similar to what the Szeklers are demanding in Romania. It would be great to see both of these plans being implemented - if anything, Southeastern Europe has an obligation to exceed Western Europe in democratic development, and I'm confident that in the near future this will happen. Ronline 06:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

"but in the case of the "Romanians go home" slogan, on the Romanian Cultural Association building, is this building located in the Timok Valley?"

I really do not know, I founded this statement here:

You should ask the person who wrote this sentence there. It might be "Romanian Cultural Association", but it also might be "Vlach". Problem is that Vlachs are divided how they see themselves, some of them see themselves as Vlachs, some as Serbs and some as Romanians. It would be not surprising that it was a "Romanian Cultural Association" founded by "Vlachs", and that "Serbs" who write this graffiti were also "Vlachs". I am just assuming, but I really do not know anything about this event.

"As to the Church problem, I think it would be good to write about that. I don't know too much about it, so maybe you could write about it."

For the church problem, I read about this here:

The article claim that Romanian priest did not get the permission from local authorities to build a church. User:PANONIAN

Lemme jump in...
As I see it, a good deal of the problem comes from recent de-secularization of Serbia (as a part of agenda of rising Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) to an "official level"). Namely, the current law on religious minorities accepts only canonical religions, as defined by acceptance from vaseljenski sinod (Ecumenical Council). Trully, Orthodox church canons contain clauses of nonaggression among churches (i.e. the church attempting to build a sanctuary must obtain a permission from the local diocese first); however, the Serbian state accepted that clause as mandatory for itself, which is IMO against the principle of secular state. As result, uncannonic churches such as Montenegrin and Macedonian are not allowed to build sanctuaries in Serbia even though believers might want so. There is an ongoing attempt by "Montenegrin Orthodox Church" to build a church in Njegosevo near Vrbas; let's wait and see. A religion can be disapproved by the state if it deems that it propagates socially unacceptable values, but the current state of affairs is that it's disapproved if SPC deems it so for whatever reason (despite "transparency" being a fad word.)
Combine that with the fact that the Minister of faith is from Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) whose proverbial moto is "See no evil hear no evil" or "I'm not informed" and which has a silent agenda of "orthodoxianization", and you see the result from yourself. Duja 10:50, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quasi-merge

3/4 of this article turned into the story of Vlachs instead of focusing to "undisputed" (mostly Banat) Romanians, with Bonaparte and Zikica inserting opposing PoVs. I dislike {{cleanup}} tag, but I urge you to move the most of Vlach-related stuff to Vlachs of Serbia and settle the dispute, if it exists, there.

Note that I am not taking either position on Vlachs' identity, but since we already have two articles, let's keep the focus in this article on "pure" Romanians, and settle the issue of Vlachs in the other one. Duja 09:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

This was already discussed, and as a result of compromise it was agreed that this article is based on the Romanian POV, and "Vlachs of Serbia" article on the Vlach POV. There was oposite proposal that "Vlachs of Serbia" article be merged into this one, because from the Romanian point of view, Vlachs are Romanians. From the Vlach point of view, they are separate nation, thus let just keep both articles as they are and try to make them as much NPOV as we can. PANONIAN (talk) 18:36, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course, since the Vlach section in this article was recently expanded, I would agree that part of this section could be moved into "Vlachs of Serbia" article, but not entire section. PANONIAN (talk) 19:15, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly what I was suggesting, but I don't see you did it; In my opinion, at most one paragraph, noting the existence and dispute should be devoted to Vlachs of Serbia in this article, and the rest moved there. I don't have to compare the articles and do it now, but I'll try to put up my sleeves in the next few days. Duja 20:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

User:Danutz has created Official status of Romanian language in Vojvodina article, apparently as a pov-fork from this one; actually, it's not so bad fork, as it provides a lot of information and IMO should be merged here. Please discuss this on Talk:Official status of Romanian language in Vojvodina, where we're already having a pleasant debate. Duja► 14:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Merge per nomination. This is a POV fork. Dahn 08:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Donnot merge - What I've done was not a fork, it was just a neutral view, what you've done was totaly POV. Article refers just to the Romanian language, not to Romanians, and only to Romanian language in Vojvodina, and not at all to the language in other parts of Serbia. I guess we can have a separate article about the Romanian language in Vojvodina, as Romanian is official there and we also have other such articles. Duja, you also "forgot" to mention that the article was renamed... I poropose the article is finaly moved to Romanian-speaking communities of Vojvodina or Romanian-speaking areas of Vojvodina or even Romanian language in Vojvodina (with the other two redirecting here), and that this article is finaly included in the category Category:Romanian-speaking countries and territories. --Danutz 11:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
    ...and your last sentence is the whole point of the exercise: Heck, the article as you wrote it is not even a POV-fork; it's fairly good, and the only POV is your persistent pushing to include it in the category you created. I'm not even sure why the said category is so important to exist (heh, heh, imagine the little war on trying to add Croatia into Category:Serbian-speaking countries and territories <am I violating WP:BEANS here?> and vice versa), but I won't bother CfD-ing it. It all reminds me of lame edit war on inclusion or exclusion of Serbo-Croatian into Category:Languages of Croatia.
    And, as for the scope of the article, you still didn't explain why that article needs to be separated from this one, apart from "because I want so" (and the category thingo). Duja► 12:00, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Neutral - I do not see big difference if these two articles are merged or they exist separatelly. However, I strongly oppose any POV name of the article proposed by Danutz. It is obvious that his intention is to writte an article about non-existing geographical unit so that he can include that article into category "Romanian-speaking countries and regions". PANONIAN 13:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge - there is nothing wrong with any of the articles, and in fact the "Official status of Romanian language in Vojvodina" is very nice. However, merging them would make sure that everything about the Romanian minority in Serbia is in one place, which makes finding information easier. Ronline ✉ 14:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Donnot merge - as per Danutz. --Roamataa 05:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Donnot merge. The romanian language isn't spoken only in Vojvodina, but also in the eastern part of Central Serbia. The number of romanian-speakers form Central Serbia is even higher than in Vojvodina.--Olahus 08:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] @PANONIAN: Vlachs in Serbia are Romanians. Here are the proofs

  • A documentary in eastern Serbia. The population here explains that when they say in serbian "vlah" or "vlasi", they mean Rumanian. So, at least we know now what tis people mean when they say in serbian "vlah": they mean "rumanian". As you can see, these people are simple peasants, not politicians. They are not politically influenced.
  • see here. Bojan Aleksandrovic, a romanian (vlach) priest from Malajinica, near Negotin, explains that the vlachs in Serbia are romanians. So, a vlach explains what the vlachs are.

So, now we can say: ok, they are without any doubt romanians. But the country where they live doesn't recongnize them as this. But it is not so. In 2002, when the census in Jugoslavia took place, they were indeed notet separate from the romanians. That's the reason why they appear in the official datas in two separate columns. But, in November 2002, Serbia agreed to recognize the romanian identity of the vlachs. See here: Adevarul, 6. Nov. 2002.

As an example: the situation in Romania. On the 1992-census, 831 persons declared themselves as "szekely"(romanian: secui) and they were counted to the hungarians. 1,843 persons declared "saxons" (transylvanian saxons) (romanian: saşi) and they were counted to the germans. 6,292 persons declared "swabians" (banat swabians, and sathmar swabians) (romanian: şvabi) and they were counted to the germans.--Olahus 07:46, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but there are very big doubts that Vlachs are Romanians, Just see this: http://members3.boardhost.com/homolje/msg/1176454636.html The title on the forum is "Vlachs are not Romanians" - in another words there are many Vlachs who think that Vlachs are not Romanians and you have no right to ignore their opinions and to present only your own opinion and opinion of few individuals that do not represent entire Vlach community. Also, Serbia certainly did not "agreed to recognize the romanian identity of the vlachs" - it did agreed to "recognize the romanian identity of THOSE VLACHS WHO WANT IT TO BE RECOGNIZED", but certainly not of those Vlachs who do not want that. Regarding Szekely example, I would call it discrimination of Romanian state against Szekely people - it is something that should be changed and certainly not something that should be implemented in other countries. PANONIAN 22:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry PANONIAN, but I had to revert you. It doesn't matter my opinion or yours but the official one. Since Nov. 2002, Vlachs are recognized as Romanians by the Serbian Gov. I don't understand why to try to impose your POV here. --WallakTalk 05:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Man, I read about that in Serbian newspapers: only those Vlachs who want to be recognized as Romanians will be recognized as such, but those that want to be recognized as Vlachs would be still recognized as Vlachs. What exactly you do not understand here? PANONIAN 17:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Panonian, the title of the forum is "Vlachs are Romanians" and not "Vlachs are not Romanians", as you wote above. I have proven you with more serious sources that vlachs consider themselves to be romanians. What is your source? A forum ????? How can you proove that the postigs in this forum came from vlachs and not from serbs??? About the szekelys: no szekely is protesting against the romanians state in this case, so please keep your opinion for yourself. --Olahus 09:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
The first post in forum was titled with "Vlachs are Romanians" but answers to this post are titled with "Vlachs are not Romanians" (Vlasi nisu Rumuni). And I will told you again: SOME Vlachs consider themsekves Romanians and SOME OTHER does not - forum is very good place where you can see opinions of Vlachs who think that they are not Romanians, and by the way, it is not only source, Zoran Lilić (former president of Yugoslavia) who is Vlach by origin said this: "Vlachs are oldest Serbs". In another words, there are opposite opinions among Vlach population about question whether they are Vlachs, Serbs or Romanians and I do not understand your attempts to completelly ignore two of these three opinions and to present only one that you like. PANONIAN 17:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Here you have very good explanation about different opinions among Vlachs: http://arhiva.glas-javnosti.co.yu/arhiva/2002/11/25/srpski/T02112401.shtml Quote: "S druge strane, i među samim pripadnicima ove nacionalne manjine postoje duboke podele. Jedni smatraju da su Vlasi poseban entitet, drugi tvrde da su Vlaho-Rumuni, dok treći, pak, misle da je zemlja matica svih Vlaha Rumunija" (Translation: "On the other hand, there are deep divisions among members of this national minority about this question. Some of them think that Vlachs are distinct ethnic entity, some other think that they are Vlacho-Romanians, while some other think that homeland of all Vlachs is Romania"). Also: "Jedan od protivnika ideje da su Vlah i Rumun sinonimi je Slobodan Đurđević, predsednik Vlaške demokratske unije. On smatra da su Vlasi poseban entitet, a ne Rumuni" (translation: "One of those who is against idea that Vlachs and Romanians are same is Slobodan Đurđević, the president of Vlach Democratic Union. He claim that Vlachs are distinct entity, not Romanians"). Also: "On kaže da maternji jezik Vlaha nije rumunski, jer ga ovdašnje stanovništvo ne razume" (Translation: "He (Đurđević) claim that native language of the Vlachs is not Romanian because Vlach population do not understand Romanian", etc, etc. Do you need more sources? PANONIAN 17:51, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I doubt about the veridicity of what mr. Đurđević is saying. How should a vlach from eastern serbia not understand romanian, when his mother tongue is romanian? Besides, the organization of Đurđević is not representative for the vlachs in eastern Serbia (or, maybe he represents the "vlach" migrants from Bosnia :) ?). Here ist the homepage of the vlachs in Serbia: click here. Everything important you want to find out about this population you may find here. --Olahus 10:08, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I need the agreement signed by the Serbian Gov. that Vlachs are considered Romanians. That was signed in Nov. 2002. --WallakTalk 19:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
No, it is not what was signed - it would be violation of basic human rights in Serbia. I just showed to you that there are Vlachs who do not consider themselves Romanians and state of Serbia therefore does not consider them Romanians as well. The recognition of the state apply only to those Vlachs who want to be recognized as Romanians, so please stop talking about things that you do not understand. PANONIAN 19:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, that act exists. It was signed between the two Gov. It's not your opinion nor mine. You have to live with this: Vlachs are Romanians and are recognized as such by your Gov.--WallakTalk 19:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
That act certainly does not contain what you claim that it contain - if it contain what you say, please prove that and show us link to web page with that act so that we all can see what is written there. Also see this source: http://www.birn.eu.com/en/95/10/3718/?tpl=30&ST1=Text&ST_T1=Article&ST_AS1=1&ST_max=1 Quote: "The discussion soon left the realm of linguistic disagreements and revealed that the two groups stand poles apart. "I will never accept that I am a Romanian. I am a Vlach, end of story," said Sinisa Davidovic, from Neresnica." How you explain this view of one Vlach? PANONIAN 19:52, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Show me your official document from your Gov. not some personal beliefs which may or not be subjective to pressure. Show me the official link and please don't come with other sources which obviously are not reliable. --WallakTalk 19:58, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I do not see that you showed any official document or reliable source that would support your claims. However, see this: http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/research/rir/?action=record.viewrec&gotorec=440967 If document what you speak about was signed in 2002, then why in 2004, "Ethnic Romanians in Serbia are attempting to have the Serbian government recognize that the words "Vlachs" and "Romanians" refer to "the same ethnic background"" as this source claim? PANONIAN 20:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Also, please explain why this Romanian source say that "In Eastern Serbia Vlachs enjoy the status of an ethnic group": http://www.banatul.com/info/banat-history-romanians-in-serbia.shtml PANONIAN 20:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Very simple. Because, despite of the agreement from the 4. November 2002, Serbia has done NOTHING for those Romanians and they are still threated by the authorities like a separate ethnic group. The politic of serbization didn't end, though we can see little progresses in the last few years. See here:

http://assembly.coe.int//Mainf.asp?link=http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc05/edoc10533.htm#TopOfPage --Olahus 07:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

"Nice" treatement by the serbian nationalists. --Olahus 10:18, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

But as you can see there are Vlachs who want to be separate ethnic group: http://www.birn.eu.com/en/95/10/3718/?tpl=30&ST1=Text&ST_T1=Article&ST_AS1=1&ST_max=1 Why would Serbia violate their rights to choose their nationality by free choice? PANONIAN 00:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Too bad that the source isn't really objective. They present the situation from a point of view that matches with the serbian politic of ethnic separatism. The source presents first 2 persons who have an obviously antiromanians point of view, without trying to explain the reason for this position. The article speaks about "romanization" when this population is trying thar what thex didn't get since 1833. But what is about the serbization? They are serbized since 1833. Sorry, but the article is not objective. --Olahus 19:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Serbian government does not have "policy of ethnic separatism" - it just recognize all ethnic communities in Serbia that want to be recognized as such. And no matter if you like it or not, there are people who consider themselves only Vlachs and not Romanians and if you think that article is not objective because it allow to those people TO SPEAK, then you have serious problem with word "objectivity". PANONIAN 00:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The Serbian government do have a policy of ethnic separatism. This policy can be seen in the fact that the Romanians in eastern Serbia did never get scholls and religios services in the romanian language. Until the 19. th century the word "vlach", as an exony for all the romanians was used by all the european nations. Terms like "roumains", "Rumänen", "Rumanians" etc. spreaded mostly during the 19. th century. But the rumanians always called themselves "rumâni". See this map of Transylvania build by maps of the 16. century (mostly by the map of Johannes Honterus). The very strong romanian-populated regions in southern Transylvania (Mărginimea Sibiului and Ţara Făgăraşului) are called by the saxons "Blechischfeld" (it means: "Vlach field") and "Blechischdörfer" (it means: "Vlach villages"). As you can see, the word "Rumänen" istn't mentioned in the map. But it doesn't mean that the Romanians aren't mentioned.

Maybe ths map could also help you to understand the situation]. Over the ethnic romanian areal we can read "Walachians".

See also this ethnic map prior to the WW1. In eastern Serbia lived the Rumänen (Walachen).

See here eastern Serbia in 1914 !

The Vlachs in the eastern part of Central Serbia are Romanians like the 30.000 in Vojvodina, 10.000 in south-easthern Hungary or 40.000 in Transcarpatia (western Ukraine). All those territories never belonged to Romania, but the states where they live does recognize that they belong to the romanian minority. The major difference betrween those Romanians is that Serbia didn't offer (not even in the 19.th century) the right that they should get. The romanians in Vojvodina, south-western Hungary and Transcarpathia lived until 1918 in the Austro-Hngarian Empire, that did give to the vlachs the rights for a romanian minority. From this reason, the romanians in those territories uses the term "romanian" not just in their mother togue, but also in foreign languages (and as you can see, on the census, the romanians in vojvodina declare themselves "rumuni", while the romanians in Timok declare "vlasi". But both of them says in their mother tongue "noi suntem rumâni"). On the treaty of Trianon, Serbia assumed to respect the rights of the minorities in the new gained territories. From this reason, for the romanians in Vojvodina, the rights contined to be respected, while for the Romanians in Timok nothing has been changed. In 1918-1920 Romania had some "disputes" with Serbia because of the Timok valley and the Banat. If you unterstand french, this text might help you. This map was also presented on the Paris peace conference. It shows that as many serbs do live noth to the Danube in Banat, also many Romanians to live in the southern Danube (eastern Serbia). All those claims of Romania concerned Serbia very much and from now on, it started o policy on ethnic separatism in order to cut all the ties with the Romanian culture and identity. The iron courtain and the Ceausescu-regime in Romania helped sureley Serbia alot in this politic, but now, the iron courtain and Ceausescu are history. Now, the vlachs have the possibility to rebuild the ties with Romania and the romanian culture (to whom they always belonged) and the article that you presented complains that situation of normality !!!! Yes, dear neighbour, the article that you presented is not objective (and a scientific work isn't it anyhow).

I will show you many other sources:

I will cite you: "1866 zählte man 1.058.189 Serben, 127.545 Rumänen, 24.607 Zigeuner, 2589 Deutsche und 3256 andere." If you wish, I can traduce the text for you. But I think you understood it.

I will cite you: "Fast die ganze Bevölkerung, über 2 Mill, besteht aus Serben, außerdem gab es, nach der Zählung von 1895, 159.000 Rumänen und 46.000 Zigeuner."

  • The Datas of the census from 1921 in Serbia: click here. On the chapter "Rumänen" it is mentioned that in the original text, they are mentioned "Rumänen/Zinzaren" (Romanians/Zinzars). So, no trace about an separate vlach ethnic group in eastern Serbia. Only Romanians (in the eastern) and Aromanians (in the south, especially in Vardar-Macedonia that already belonged to Serbia since 1912).

Well, after this time, from reasons that I already mentioned in the text above, Serbia startet the policy of ethnic separatism against Romanians. Thought, in the rest of Europe, the opinion that eastern serbia is romanian-populated still remeined. Here is


But in the article presented by you, the most interesting is this here: "For economic and political reasons, links between Vlachs in eastern Serbia and neighbouring Romania were given little weight in either state before the fall of Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. But after Romania opened up to the world, Serbian Vlach youths began enrolling across the border in Romanian schools and a number of non-government organizations and parties were established, advocating closer links with Romania." In fact, it shows that the vlachs did't have until the fall of the iron courtain the possibility to keep contacts with the romanians from Romania and to find out what they really are. Now they do have it. So what is the problem when they claim to be what they really are: romanians. --Olahus 19:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

There are opposite opinions "what they really are" - they are what ever they want to be and you have no right to deny freedom of choice to them. PANONIAN 00:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The vlachs say: "Noi suntem rumâni". And all the romanians (Romania, Moldavia etc) are vlachs. Actually I am also a vlach. Do you have a reason to say that I'm wrong??? --Olahus 19:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

You do not understand the mening of this saying "Romanians are Vlachs" - this mean that Vlachs consider that Romanians are subgroup of Vlachs and Vlachs are not subgroup of Romanians (i.e. Romanians are Vlachs, but Vlachs are not Romanians). Also, we cannot have proof are you Vlach or not - for what I know you could be even user:Bonaparte. PANONIAN 00:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Vlachs are: Dacoromanians, Aromanians, Meglenoromanians and Istroromanians. The vlachs in eastern Serbia aren't Aromanians. The vlachs in eastern Serbia aren't Meglenoromanians. The vlachs in eastern Serbia aren't Istromanians. They are Dacoromanians.

And if you think I am user Bonaparte, you my ask an administrator to verify it. I have nothing against it. --Olahus 16:26, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, since user Wallak asked for official sites, I will show what official site of Serbian government say: http://www.srbija.sr.gov.yu/pages/article.php?id=37&q=vlasi Quote: "Ustavom Republike Srbije nacionalnim manjinama su zagarantovana prava po najvišim međunarodnim standardima. Na osnovu poslednjeg popisa iz 2002. godine Srbija ima 7.498.001 stanovnika (bez podataka sa Kosova i Metohije), što je činilo 92,3 odsto stanovništva nekadašnje državne zajednice Srbija i Crna Gora. Srbi čine 82,86 odsto stanovništva, Mađari 3,91 odsto, Bošnjaci 1,81, Romi 1,44, Jugosloveni 1,08, Hrvati 0,94, Crnogorci 0,92, Albanci 0,82, Slovaci 0,79, Vlasi 0,53, Rumuni 0,46, Makedonci 0,34, Bugari i Bunjevci po 0,27, Muslimani 0,26, Rusini 0,21, Slovenci i Ukrajinci po 0,07, Goranci 0,06, Nemci 0,05 i Rusi i Česi po 0,03 odsto." - in another words, the official web site is presenting percents of various ethnic groups that live in Serbia and you can see that Vlachs (Vlasi) and Romanians (Rumuni) are listed as two separate groups, i.e. it is clear that serbian government does not recognize all Vlachs as Romanians. PANONIAN 00:25, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The serbian government presents the results of the census from april 2002. The agreement is from november 2002. The agreement toook place not before, but after the census. --Olahus 19:30, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

But, did you noticed that Serbian government website use NOW census results from 2002 as valid? If such agreement exist then Serbian government website would modify these results, but it did not done such thing. And most important thing: census results were first time published in February 2003. PANONIAN 00:09, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opinion

I haven't carefully read the discussion above, but I don't understand why this is provoking such a strong controversy. In Serbia, like in other countries, people are free to declare whatever ethnicity they want on the census. The Vlachs of Serbia simply refers to those people who declared themselves "Vlach" rather than "Romanian". This is similar to the case of the Krashovani, who declared themselves "Krashovani" on the Romanian census even though some may argue that they are actually Croatians (or maybe Serbs). The point is that someone cannot be considered an ethnic Romanian unless one declares oneself an ethnic Romanian. Whether the Vlachs are treated badly by the authorities or exposed to "Serbisation" is a totally separate issue to this discussion. If there are sources, we can talk about discrimination in these articles. The case can even be made that the "Vlach" identity is a Serbian construct which these people have adopted due to pressure (as long as there are sources). We can even talk about the strong connection between these two ethnic groups, and how many Vlachs consider themselves Romanians. However, all of these things do not preclude the existence of two separate articles in order to distinguish between two groups that are subtly different. Ronline ✉ 14:39, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Vlachs from Serbia are now recognized by Serbian Gov. as being Romanians. Simply as that we should redirect the link toward Romanians of Serbia. If there are something to be add, all the cases can be explained in this article and can be expanded if necessary. WallakTalk 15:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
But even if what you claim is true and if all Vlachs are Romanians, they would be still an notable ethnographic subgroup of Romanians that deserve to have its own article. Why you want this article to be deleted? PANONIAN 00:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
As a side note, the claim is not true - all reliable sources, including the Romanian Foreign Ministry (which, I believe, was also quoted above) do not say that Serbia recognizes all Vlachs as Romanians. Also as a side note, this would be absurd in any democratic state (which should rely on how people define themselves). What Serbia does do is to recognize that Vlachs who consider themselves Romanians will be treated as such - it is those Vlachs who sent representatives to Romanian institutions in Serbia, and not Vlachs in general. One article also cited in the debate, the 2002 piece from Adevărul simply says one thing in the title and a completely different one in the body of text: if you contrast the two, you will note that it simply indicates what i have outlined here.
This was another diversion from our friend Bonaparte, whose mental processes lead him to lie through his skin - to what goal, it is anybody's guess. I think the discussion ends here, and I hope that any corrections regarding this will be made in all related articles. I have to note that, glancing through such related articles, I found several of them to be chaotic and polluted by POV. I do not have the energy, the time, or the interest to look into this, but, prima facie, I fully endorse Panonian in this respect - his edits here seem to be researched, coherent, and neutral. Alas, some Romanian contributors have not shown a willingness to detach themselves from slogans, and, in this case, manipulation. Dahn 00:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Panonian, if you say "Vlachs are ethnographic subgroup of Romanians", you are wrong. All the Romanians are vlachs. The ungureni (including the ungureni munteni) are a subgroup the Banat romanians. The ţărani and the bufani are a subgroup of the Oltenia romanians. That's a good reason why we cannot have an article about the "vlachs in Serbia". From ethnographic reasons, the ungureni are much closer to the romanians in Vojvodina, than to the ţărani and bufani. We can create separate articles: Ungureni, Ţărani and Bufani. --Olahus 20:36, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

As solid as opinions may be, they are still opinions. No matter how strong you feel about such tenets, they are not and should not be the stuff for articles - wikipedia strives to include all points of view and prioritize official data. The basic notion here is that Vlachs, like Moldovans, do not want to be considered Romanians. You may speculate about the reasons behind this reality, but it is still a reality. Dahn 00:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
You cannot deny separate ethnic or ethnographic identity of Serbian Vlachs - they have many unic features different from Romanians, for example: all of them have Serbian names and surnames, they celebrate "slava", they have unic music and folklore, etc, etc. All these characteristics make them unic and distinct. PANONIAN 23:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
This argument may be valid, but I'm not convinced that it is relevant. They could just as well have Romanian names, celebrate Romanian holidays, and create Romanian lore (whatever those concepts mean) - if they would not want to be considered Romanian, all that would not matter in the least. Just as well, they could celebrate "Slava" and have Slavic names and still consider themselves Romanian. One can cite, for example, ethnologists who say they are Romanian and ethnologists who say they are not (presuming that two sides exist), but that would still be a secondary detail to the article. Vlachs in Serbia simply exist because Vlachs in Serbia seem to want to exist. Dahn 00:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Panonnian, the vlachs in eastern Serbia have have Serbian names because of the policy of the serbian state from the 19. century. Namee like "Păun" were changed into "Paunović", "Iepure"-> "Iepurović", "Crăciun" -> "Kračiunović" etc. The serbian orthodox church (the only orthodox church accepted in Serbia on that time) allowed to baptise only children with serbian surnames. On the door of each church, a list of serbian surnames was nailed. The music and folklore of them is romanian. --Olahus 16:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise?

Can we agree about this compromise sentence: "Serbian authorities agreed to recognize the Romanian identity of those Vlachs who consider themselves Romanians."? Also, Wallak, if only this recognition is problem, why you reverted all my edits including list of Vlach villages that I added into article? PANONIAN 00:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

No, because it wouldn't be true. There is no specification in the agreement about what they consider to be.--Olahus 20:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Olahus, that is sophistry. Even the links cited by Bonaparte clearly indicate that this is the case. Dahn 00:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
But it is true - discrimination against those Vlach citizens of Serbia who do not consider themselves Romanians would be against the low in Serbia. "Agreement" that would regard all Vlachs as Romanians would be against Serbian law and therefore would be impossible. PANONIAN 00:02, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the compromise sentence, but I think the whole issue raised by Wallak totally misses the point. If a Vlach considers themselves Romanian, then they are no longer Vlach, they are Romanian. I don't see how the Serbian state can choose whether to recognise this or not, unless ethnicity is officially assigned to people at birth. The fundamental issue here is that ethnicity is something that is declared - it is an identity - rather than an assigned trait. Because Serbia, like other democratic countries, recognises the right of people to choose their own ethnic identity, it goes without saying that "Serbian authorities agreed to recognize the Romanian identity of those Vlachs who consider themselves Romanians". I don't see what the point of an "agreement" was in the first place; I thought it was obvious that this was already taking place.
The other issue here is whether a country can choose to "merge" ethnic groups or assign certain ethnic identities are subgroups of a larger ethnicity. Serbia could have chosen to classify all Vlachs as "Romanians", in the same way that all people who declare themselves "Gypsies" are classified as "Roma". As far as I know, the Serbian state has not done this (and neither would doing this be a good thing with regard to the right of choosing one's ethnic identity). Ronline ✉ 03:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Demography

http://www.romaniuitati.eu/content/view/13/27/ Numărul românilor (valahilor) din Serbia de răsărit conform rezultatelor recensământului din 2002 şi estimările organizaţiilor româneşti din Serbia legate de numărul acestora Unitatea administrativă (judeţ, respectiv raion) Populaţia totală 2002 "Vlahi" 2002 Români 2002 Vlahi şi români Limba maternă română şi "valahă" Numărul estimat (%) Judeţul Braničevo 200.503 14.083 887 14.970 (7,47%) 20.656 (10,3%) 76.300 (38,5%) Veliko Gradište (Grădiştea Mare) 20.659 354 117 471 (2,28%) 742 (3,59%) 3.800 (18,1%) Golubac (Golubăţ) 9.913 870 65 935 (9,43%) 1.280 (12,91%) 5.200 (52%) Žabari 13.034 342 107 449 (3,44%) 876 (6,72%) 2.000 (15,4%) Žagubica (Jagubiţa) 14.823 3.268 54 3.322 (22,41%) 4.013 (27,07%) 11.400 (76%) Kučevo 18.808 5.204 122 5.326 (28,32%) 7.100 (37,75%) 15.700 (82,6%) Malo Crniće 13.853 401 76 477 (3,44%) 962 (6,94%) 6.100 (43,8%) Petrovac (Petrovăţ) 34.511 3.535 251 3.786 (10,97%) 5.507 (15,96%) 18.200 (52,8%) Požarevac (Pojarevăţ) 74.902 109 95 204 (0,27%) 107 (0,23%) 13.900 (18,6%) Judeţul Bor 146.551 16.449 659 17.108 (11,67) 24.508 (16,72) 109.900 (74,99%) Bor 55.817 10.064 107 10.171 (18,22%) 10.673 (19,12%) 46.100 (82,2%) Kladovo (Cladova) 23.613 568 216 784 (3,32%) 1.540 (6,52%) 16.300 (74,1%) Majdanpek 23.703 2.817 67 2884 (12,17%) 3.815 (16,1) 18.600 (78,2%) Negotin 43.418 3.000 269 3.269 (7,53%) 8.480 (19,53%) 28.900 (65,8%) Judeţul Zaječar (Zăiceari) 137.561 7.155 309 7.454 (5,43%) 8.643 (6,28%) 27.100 (19,7%) Boljevac 15.849 4.162 83 4.245 (26,78%) 4.453 (28,1%) 10.200 (63,8%) Zaječar (Zăiceari) 65.969 2.981 221 3.202 (4,85%) 4.169 (6,32%) 16.100 (24,4%) Knjaževac 37.142 3 4 7 (-) 0 600 (1,62%) Sokobanja 18.571 9 1 10 (-) 0 200 (1,05%) Judeţul Pomoravlje 227.435 2.049 484 2.533 (1,11%) 3.070 (1,35%) 33.200 (14,6%) Despotovac (Despotovăţ) 25.611 427 38 465 (1,82%) 622 (2,43%) 16.600 (64,82%) Jagodina 70.894 30 230 260 (0,37%) 0 1.400 (1,97%) Paraćin 58.301 1 102 103 (0,18%) 0 700 (1,2%) Rekovac 13.551 0 1 1 (-) 0 0 Svilajnac 25.511 235 81 316 (1,24%) 404 (1,58%) 10.300 (40,37%) Ćuprija 33.567 1.356 32 1.388 (4,14%) 1.670 (4,98%) 4.200 (12,5%) Judeţul Podunavlje 226.589 44 89 133 - 8.800 (3,88%) Smederevo (Semendria) 109.809 9 23 37 (-) 0 4.800 (4,5%) Velika Plana 44.470 35 66 101 (-) 0 4.000 (9,1%) Judeţul Nišava Svrljig 17.284 1 2 3 (-) 0 400 (1,78%) Total Serbia răsăriteană 39.882 2.778 42.660 58.221 245.700 Belgrad 1.373.651 71 1.379 1450 1.436 Serbia centrală (total) 5.466.009 39.953 4.157 44.110 59.729 260.000 Voivodina 2.031992 101 30.419 30.520 (1,5%) 29.604 (1,46%) 35.000 Serbia (total) 7.498.001 40.054 34.576 74.630 (1%) 89.333 (1,19%) 300.000 (4%)

[edit] NPOV

What is going on here and at Vlach language in Central Serbia is absolutely ridiculous. Wikipedia is here to reflect reality rather than to push an agenda. I fully support the inclusion of a section in this article which details the connection between Vlachs and Romanians, and states the view (a view, not objective truth) that Vlachs and Romanians are actually the same ethnic group. However, stating blatantly that there are 70,000+ Romanians in Serbia disregards the census data, as well as the right of these people to choose their own ethnic identity. In the Serbian census, 34,576 people declared their ethnicity "Romanian". Thus, by any objective measure, there are only 34,576 Romanians in Serbia. Writing "70,473 (cens.) - 350,000 (est.)" is thus NPOV. Not to mention the misleading statement that "40,054 Romanians have been registered as Vlachs." "Have been registered" implies that ethnic identity is involuntarily assigned to people in Serbia. This is not the case. These people voluntarily declared their ethnicity as "Vlach" on the census. Ronline ✉ 07:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Census was made before the agreement.--Brickoceanmonth 07:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Ronline, please read my postings from yesterday on this discussion.--Olahus 07:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure which ones you are referring to, but in response to your statement that "all Romanians are Vlachs" - I agree. However, "Vlach" also has a narrower meaning in this case, referring to those Eastern Romance-speaking peoples who have not chosen a national identity such as "Romanian" or "Aromanian" but have rather chosen to remain (miscellaneous) Vlachs. I understand your assertion that the Serbian Vlachs are culturally, ethnically, linguistically Romanian. However, the fact that they declare themselves "Vlach" rather than Romanian means that, for the purposes of Wikipedia, they are not Romanians, but rather Vlachs. Everyone is entitled to choose their own ethnic identity. Ronline ✉ 08:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I mean this. Here you can read why some of the Romanians in Serbia do declare "rumuni" and other declare "vlasi". It's only a question of linguistic perception (built during the 19. century), why the 2 romanian comunities in Serbia have the same endonym, but different exonyms.

An other exemple: our cousins, the albanian people: they call themselves "Shqiptaret". But the rest of the world call them "Albanians". So was it with the Romanians during the history. We called ourselves "Rumâni", but the rest of the world called us "Vlachs". Starting with the 19. century, other people began to call us "Romanians". Until 1918/1920, the Romanians in Banat and the Romanians in Timok lived in 2 different countries: Hungary and Serbia. While the Romanians in Banat did have school education in their own langauge and teh possibility to change the exonym from "vlach" to "romanian", the Romanians in Serbia didn't obtain school education from the serbian state and so, the exonimic perception didn't change.

That's the reason why we cannot say that the vlachs in eastern Serbia aren't romanians. Their exonym "vlasi" is by far not a proove that thex aren't romanians or that they don't consider to be romanians. Moreover, the term "vlach" is also a synomine for "romanian". The recognization of the romanian identity of the vlachs by the serbian state is just an act of justice and normality that should be made even a long time ago. But, it is better to make it too late than never ("Mai bine mai târziu decât niciodată").

Of course, we can discuss obout the reasons why Serbia did that. Maybe it was just a desire to make justice, or maybe Serbia recognized the necessity to mantain verry good relationships with Romania in order to avoid disputes concerning the national minorities, because Romania could (and, indeed, it does) sustain Serbia in the question of Kosovo.--Olahus 08:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

--Olahus 08:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It's very true what you said. I agree totally.--Brickoceanmonth 08:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vlach language

Panonian, the point here is that it must be mentioned that in the census there is such thing as a Vlach language. I'm not saying we shouldn't mention that. "They are officially recognized as separate languages" --> Yes that should be mentioned. However, in truth they are the same, so it cannot be asserted that the "Timok Valley Vlachs" speak "Vlach". There is no such thing as Vlach! It is one thing to say that "The Vlachs of Serbia speak Vlach" and another one to say "Serbian authorities consider Timok Valley "Vlachs" to speak the Vlach language, even though the language they speak is identical to Romanian" or even "Many Vlachs say that they speak the Vlach language, but this language is identical to Romanian" What I'm saying is - as per the NPOV policy, it's not wrong to mention the word "Vlach". However, it shouldn't be stated as truth. Ronline 11:30, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

NOTE: User:Brickoceanmonth has inserted this comment I made back in 2005. I'm not sure what his purpose is. I admit that my view has changed on this matter as I have become more informed and have considered alternative viewpoints. Furthermore, I still agree that Vlach and Romanian are identical from a linguistic perspective, but this does not mean that Vlachs do not have the right to call themselves as they wish. Ronline ✉ 08:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
The point is that Vlach language does not exist (it's Romanian language named politically to divide Romanian community in Serbia).--Brickoceanmonth 08:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
http://www.romaniuitati.eu/content/view/34/45/ A fost inregistrat Consiliul National al Rumanilor din Serbia

Negotin, Timoc, Serbia/Romanian Global News

01 august 2007 Azi 01.08.2007 la sediul din Negotin al CNRS a sosit confirmarea inregistrarii Consiliului National al Rumanilor din Serbia (in limba sarba se utilizeaza sinonimul arhaic pentru roman,“vlasi”). Consiliul reprezinta comunitatea romaneasca din Timoc si are precizat in statutul sau utilizarea ca limba materna a limbii romane literare, transmite corespondentul Romanian Global News din Timoc.Necesitatea inregistrarii acestui consiliu a fost data de faptul ca romanii din Timoc (peste 250.000) au o situatie diferita de romanii din Voivodina (circa 35.000), iar obiectivele fiecareia dintre cele doua comunitati sunt diferite. Daca cei din Voivodina au avut si au scoli si biserici in limba proprie inca de pe timpul Imperiului Austro-ungar, romanii din Timoc de mai bine de 200 de ani sunt supusi unui intens si agresiv proces de asimilare care a lasat numeroase urme in mentalitatea si onomastica comunitatii si a facut ca in zona Timocului sa nu existe scoala si biserica romaneasca. Exceptia data de bisericuta de la Malainita ca si chinurile la care este supusa de autoritatile si biserica sarba, nu fac decat sa confirme politica antiromaneasca dusa in zona pana de curand. De aceea prioritatile celor doua consilii nationale romanesti difera: in Voivodina se tipareste beletristica in limba romana si se finanteaza teatre, iar in Timoc se va invata sa se scrie si sa se citeasca in romana literara (pentru ca de vorbit se vorbeste), sa se infiinteze muzee si mass-media in limba romana. Desigur necesitatea colaborarii sincere si oneste dintre cele doua consilii nationale romanesti nu poate fi pusa in discutie, cadrul acestei colaborari urmand a fi stabilit si respectat de cele doua parti. Izolarea la care a fost supusa comunitatea romaneasca din Timoc, intretinuta abil si de complicitati ale unor grupuri de interese de la Bucuresti, a fost sparta de interesul constant pe care Presedintele Basescu l-a aratat pentru zona. Dezinformarile la care demnitarii romani (oricum neinformati asupra complexitatii problematicii din Timoc) au fost supusi ani in sir de “baieti cu ochi albastri” interesati mai mult de afacerile cu sare facute impreuna cu fosti membri ai securitatii lui Milosevic decat de soarta celor aproape 300.000 de romani din Timoc, speram sa inceteze odata cu indepartarea din sistem a unora care au intretinut aceasta dezinformare. Prin recunoasterea noului consiliu national, Serbia face un pas inainte si speram sa nu fie singurul. Presedintele Tadici mai are o promisiune de respectat, o promisiune pe care partidul sau a facut-o atunci cand a avut nevoie de sprijinul Partiei Democrate a Rumanilor din Serbia ca sa castige alegerile parlamentare. Sprijinul i-a fost acordat, si in Timoc, Partidul Democrat a castigat. Acum romanii de acolo asteapta onorarea promisiunii si numirea unui prefect din partea PDRS la Bor. Deja acest lucru se intarzie destul de mult, iar semnele neonorarii promisiunii facute ar schimba radical politica PDRS fata de Partidul Democrat si cu singuranta ar avea urmari pe termen mediu si lung asupra viitoarelor alegeri si asupra viitorului zonei. Romanii au fost pacaliti de prea multe ori in 200 de ani ca sa mai creada de aici incolo in altcineva decat in ei isisi. Si atunci ar putea prelua modelul maghiar!

--Brickoceanmonth 08:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


This is my first post on Wikipedia, so I apologize if I'm entering my post in a wrong way. I will use the term Vlach just to distinguish between Romanians from Serbian and Romanians from Romania. Please do not conclude that these two are the same (please read further). My official name is Boban Spasić. I say "official" because all the Valachian family names are changed to be more like Serbian somewhere at the beginning of 20th century. The origin of my family name "Spasić" is my Valachian family name Ispas. The family names are changed by the royal government under Petar I Karadjordjevic, and not on voluntary basis. At the same time, all the Valachian churches are destroyed, and Valachian priests are dismissed. Serbian churches are built and no one could baptize his own child with a Valachian name, as the priests allowed just Serbian names.

As for the question "are the Valachians and Romanians the same?", we (Valachians) do not consider ourself to be the same nation with Romanians, although we share the same name (Rumîn in Valachian) and the same language (well, not exactly the same. I'll explain latter). We do not consider ourself being of Dacian origins, but mostly Thracian and Roman. Our version of the story about the language is that the language is born in Timoc Valley under Roman Empire (as a mixture of Vulgaro-Latin with local languages), and the language expand to Dacia after the Romans occupied Dacia.

After Ottomans occupied our (Valachian) territory, the language of Vlachs and language of Romanians evolved every one in its own way.

The brotherhood between Vlachs and Romanians is lost at the time of Ottoman occupation as nobody from Romanian rulers did care about the brothers on other side of the Danube. Now you know why one Vlach will newer accept he is Romanian (like being same kind of Romanian like Romanians from Romania).

After the Serbs got Eastern Serbia from Ottomans (~1850), the Vlachs were for the first time under Serbian rule. Well, northern and western parts of Valachian habitat was under Serbia before that, but the major part did not. Thats the time point where the mountains of Homolje was flooded with Romanian newcomers from Banat(we call them "Unguryeny"(pl.). This name is misused lately. You say Unguryan (sg.) for somebody that do not speak "proper" Valachian language). So, it is true that there is a big number of "real" Romanians in Serbia. Later, these Romanians got assimilated by native Valachians (but we still call them Unguryeny or Tzutzulyeny. Later name was originally used for Valachians of Celtic origins living in the region of Cuşe (Kučaj in Serbian))

Now, the period after WW2. There was some political point where the Yugoslav government (mostly non-Serbs at the given moment) wanted to have as less as possible Serbs on official census. There were organized groups who forced the Valachians to declare them self as Romanian on the next census (Pop-Suvyeyche and his followers). They were also supported by Romanian government. The effect of that action was contrary - the major part of the Valachians declared them self as Serbian or Yugoslav (Valachian was not given as option on census). That was a point without return for Valachians. Now you have Valachians who declare them self as Valachians, others as Serbs, others as Romanians etc. I remember the census from 1991 - I could not declare my self as Valachian, the girl taking the answers didn't want to write that. I could only declare my self Romanian, or other recognized minority, or as Serb.

As for todays differences between Romanian and Valachian languages - well, as far the Romanians laugh about my Romanian - I will not recognize our languages to be the same. Lets go back to more serious talk - there is a lot of differences. More than 5 centuries of independent evolution of these two languages did its own. One may consider Valachian as "Romanian from 5 centuries ago". Grammar is not the same, vocabulary is not the same etc. I wrote "Pop-Suvyeyche" a couple of sentences ago. You do not have "y" in Romanian. There is also no official Valachian alphabet, but I need a letter for to describe how I spell this name, and such letter does not exists in official Romanian. In official Romanian you also does not have any letter that I can use for Valachian ty, cy, py, dz etc.

Enough from me for this time. If you do not find this post useful - please delete. Boban rpul (talk) 19:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Welcome, Boban.
You say that the dialects spoken by the Vlachs of northeastern Serbia are different from Romanian. That's true if you consider only literary Romanian. However in Romania there are millions of people who speak the same dialects as in NE Serbia. While many Romanians tend to look down on dialects, those that are truly educated realize that dialects are part of their national heritage and treat them as something to be studied, valued and protected as a window into history.
You say that the Romanian alphabet cannot represent the sounds of Vlach dialects. That is less true than it seems, because the Romanian way of writing has some small deviations from the strict one-sound, one-letter rule. When it comes to dialectal sounds (for instance the softened ce, or the softened ge, or the softened n and l, all shared by the Romanian Banat and the NE Serbian Ungurean dialect, the convention was adopted to use approximate representations: şe, je, ni and li. Whether one uses one symbol or two or more symbols to represent a sound is entirely a matter of convention, and is subject to change, deliberate or spontaneous. There is plenty of literature published in Romania using the dialect of Banat, which is identical to that of the Ungureni in NE Serbia. The sound patterns of all other dialects, in Romania as well as Serbia, are even closer to literary language.
The major reason for the lack of complete mutual intelligibility between literary Romanian and the Vlach dialects in NE Serbia is the heavy importation of neologisms into Romanian that happened over the last century. Most Romanians today don't know to what extent this happened, and are surprised when the Vlachs of NE Serbia don't understand various abstract or sophisticated terms. The reason is that the Vlachs get their schooling in Serbian.C0gnate 07:09, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, C0gnate
I agree with you on most of the points you say, although there are a lot of differences in word construction between official Romanian grammar and Valachian. Second big difference is in religion. We are not speaking about official Orthodox Christianity, but about the practicing the pagan tradition between Vlachs, and the influence of pagan tradition to practicing the official Orthodox religion. I'll use well known Voodoo as an equivalence. Like you have practicing of pagan religion through Christianity in Voodoo, you also have a lot practicing of pagan pre-Christian religion masked through Christian religion by Vlachs. Well, that can't be counted as difference between Vlachs and Romanians, but I wrote it just like a interesting fact here, just to point out that the Valachian culture have an independent evolution from Romanian or Serbian culture.
As for the language, I (and a lot of others) wouldn't be happy if I need to learn modern Romanian, and to forget or put to background my language in the form it has now. Thats the fact that one would need to count with if he want to declare official Romanian as the language of Vlachs. I'm pretty competent to speak about the differences between official Romanian and Valachian, as I've learned Romanian because my grandmother is from Bucharest, and I can say that the difference is pretty big, although not so big that one could say that Valachian is not a form of Romanian. The main problem is that the current political parties and governments forces official Romanian as the language of Vlachs, and that isn't acceptable for us. It simply isn't reflecting our feelings about our national identity and language. If we was not a part of Romanian nation for such many centuries, why would we now accept that? We have survived (language etc.) for such a long time on our own, and one asks now to throw all that and take a language (that is strange to us) as our own. Do not get me wrong, but none from Bucharest would now accept Valachian language/dialect as official Romanian language, so do not expect that any Vlach would accept official Romanian as our language.
If one would like to take more into differences in grammar etc. I would be glad to discuss on that matter. If you have any online Romanian grammar with examples, I could use it as template to show you the differences. I have lost my notes about Valachian grammar (blame the bombing of Serbia in 1999) that I've collected for years, so I can't present anything here and now without having a grammar template as model for systematizing the presentation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boban rpul (talk • contribs) 11:24, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Greetings Boban, you make some excellent points.

I'd like to add that the pre-Christian religious beliefs among the Vlachs have much in common with what is historically known about other Balkan peoples, especially the Romanians. In both Romania and Serbia the combined effect of the central church and school has been to suppress such customs during the last century. The Vlachs as a culture managed to avoid this fate because of their relative isolation. They have been politically isolated from their linguistic and cultural cognates in Romania and linguistically isolated from the Serbian church, whose priests never bothered to learn the Vlach language and thus never understood the goings on of activities proscribed by the orthodox church.

The question of giving up one's own dialect in favor of the literary form is very difficult. I too am a native speaker of a dialectal form, and in some ways feel the literary language to be alien. The advantage of knowing it is that it gives access to an immense amount of literature (poetry, children's tales, novels, history books, newspapers, etc) as well as to the daily life of the country as a whole (TV, movies, theater). Large differences between the literary language and its local forms also exist in German, Spanish, Italian, French, English, etc. Even Serbian has local dialects that are significantly different grammatically and in vocabulary, for instance the Torlak dialect. Yet in Serbia, as elsewhere, elementary education in the literary tongue leads to its coexistence with the local form. This is very common throughout the world.

I am familiar with the grammar of the Vlach dialects. I can attest that it is the same, in most ways, as that of the dialects across the Danube in Romania, and that they both differ from literary Romanian. The differences in grammar do not affect mutual intelligibility nearly as much as the presence of neologisms in literary Romanian.

Poz. C0gnate 14:45, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vlach language

Your point? Views evolve over time, and I admit I was wrong back in 2005. The problem is that as Romanians we are constantly told by our politicians and the media that all Eastern Romance-speaking peoples are Romanians. The reality is more complex than that. Ronline ✉ 07:57, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure you speak Vlach language?--Brickoceanmonth 07:58, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I read over what I wrote in 2005 and I don't necessarily disagree with it now. I still agree that Vlach and Romanian are the same language, in the same way that Moldovan and Romanian are the same language from a linguistic perspective. This should definitely be stated in the article: that Vlach and Romanian are linguistically identical. However, it should also be stated that the Vlachs of Serbia call their language Vlach rather than Romanian. Simply providing a redirect to Romanian language is misleading. Ronline ✉ 07:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
You see :) However, people from Serbia want to express their Romanian ancestry, thus calling them Romanians of Serbia and not Vlachs of Serbia. They succeded since 1st of August, just 12 days ago this! --Brickoceanmonth 08:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It's POV to say that they aren't Romanians. Namely the Serbian Gov. POV, luckly they accepted to change it since 2002. Implementation of that agreement was done on 1st of August 2007! --Brickoceanmonth 08:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It's the same language, the same people. Period.--Brickoceanmonth 08:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
My argument is that everyone has the right to choose their own ethnic identity; we cannot attribute or assign people to a certain ethnicity. If a Hungarian from Romania wants to declare himself or herself "Romanian", they are free to do so, and they would be counted as "Romanian" on the census. It is the same issue here. There are 50,000 or so people in Serbia who choose to declare themselves "Vlachs". There are also around 5,000 people in Central Serbia who choose to declare themselves Romanian. And, there are some Eastern-Romance ancestry people who choose to declare themselves "Serbian". I don't see what the problem is. How can you call someone Romanian when that person does not consider themselves Romanian or declare their belonging to the Romanian ethnicity? This doesn't mean that the Vlachs and Romanians aren't the same people from a linguistic and "scientific" point of view. The case is similar to Valencian. Ronline ✉ 08:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
The agreement was signed in 4 Nov. 2002. [3] And the implementation was done only after 5 years! http://www.romaniuitati.eu/content/view/34/45/ at 1st of August 2007, 12 days ago! --Brickoceanmonth 08:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Everyone is free to choose their own ethnic identity. The problem was that Serbia didn't want to recognize that if they say Vlachs that means that they are Romanians. This took about 5 years..--Brickoceanmonth 08:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
But that argument doesn't make sense! If they think of themselves as Romanians, why didn't they declare "Romanian"? Why did they declare "Vlach"? Remember that some of them did declare Romanian. Ronline ✉ 08:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Because saying Vlach means automatically Romanian. That's why. It's the same as a Moldovan/Ardelean/Oltean etc..And they are not saying Vlaski but Rumuni. Only the serbs are calling them Vlaski.--Brickoceanmonth 08:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
That argument still doesn't make sense. You're arguing that these people "feel" Romanian, right? ("simt româneşte"). If so, then why didn't they declare that they were Romanians? The fact that they declared "Vlach" means that they were reticent to declare their Romanian ethnicity. In the census, you get just one choice of expressing which ethnicity (not "regional identity") fits you best. Evidently, those 40,054 people who declared "Vlach" thought that this was a better description of their ethnicity than "Romanian". Ronline ✉ 08:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh yeas it makes a lot of sense. Just tell me, did they care to be named Romanians or not? did they made all the things possible to make this happen? if they were not Romanians and other ethnicity why would they bother to make it happen? Tell me please. With good arguments. And please, don't praise the Milosevici regime till 2001 because we know it very well, that no compromise from Serbs could be done in those days, and Serbia was not a democratic country. What could you expect from Serbia of that time? Especially not the recognition that Vlachs are Romanians. and that they speak the same language: Romanian language.--Brickoceanmonth 08:27, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Just one thing about "Vlaski" - they actually did declare themselves "Vlaski". If they declared "Rumuni" they would've been counted as Romanians. My understanding of the problem is that there are some Vlachs who see themselves as Romanian, and maybe that number has increased since the census. But is this new council that has been created the official representative of the Vlachs of Serbia? Of all of them? Ronline ✉ 08:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, for all of them. Have you not read carefully the whole article? And don't you understand that the agreement was made after the census?? --Brickoceanmonth 08:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't know then. This is a complex case. I think we would need some official evidence. I'm not saying I don't trust what Romanian Global News is saying, but rather its choice of terminology. The council still calls itself "Vlach (Roumanian)". Why doesn't it call itself simply "Romanian" if they were the same identity? Ronline ✉ 08:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
You see. I demonstrated you we're right. Tell me if it's not the same identity when you say you're Transylvanian/Ardelean/Oltean etc..--Brickoceanmonth 08:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

How can you call someone Romanian when that person does not consider themselves Romanian or declare their belonging to the Romanian ethnicity? This doesn't mean that the Vlachs and Romanians aren't the same people from a linguistic and "scientific" point of view. The case is similar to Valencian.

Reply: Who said that they don't view themselves as Romanians? They fight for their case in order to be recognized as Romanians. They were viewed by the others "namely Serbians" as different from Romanians.--Brickoceanmonth 08:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the Serbs view them as being different from Romanians, but they also view themselves as being different. The fact that they declared "Vlach" shows this. If they viewed themselves primarily as Romanians, they would have declared "Romanian". It's a really simple issue. Ronline ✉ 08:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Tell me when a Ardelean/Oltean/moldovan says he's a Ardelean/...etc does not view himself as a Romanian. And don't forget that the agreement was made after the census. Only then Serbia recognized that Vlachs of Serbia are Romanians.--Brickoceanmonth 08:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
1) The census asked for "ethnicity" not for "regional identity". An "ardelean" might indeed view himself as Romanian also, but we have no right to make that decision for him. In fact, I have met people who say they are "Transylvanian" but are not even ethnic Romanians (often, they are mixed Romanians and Hungarians). The point is that we cannot think for other people, we can only report what they themselves declare.
2) I don't that recognising Vlachs as Romanians is up to the state of Serbia, but rather to the individual themselves. The individual has the choice to declare whatever they want in the census. Yes, the agreement was made after the census. But that doesn't mean that if 40,000 people declared themselves "Vlachs" today they should be assigned to a "Romanian" ethnicity even though they themselves declared something else than Romanian. Ronline ✉ 08:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, it might be history. I want to make it clear that I'm not coming here with a particular POV and I am open minded. My only fear is that the Romanian media, like the Serbian media, like all media outlets, is distorted, and thus we can't only represent that single point of view. Ronline ✉ 08:41, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I know that Ronline. I'm sure that at the next census in Serbia, more Romanians will appear. This Council has now all the conditions to develop everything that is good for the Romanian community to develop itself like all the rest of minorities from let's say Vojvodina in a democratic Serbia, which defends all the rights of the minorities and does not try to divide them artificially in different communities. Romanians of Serbia, if they are recognized will be the largest minority of new Serbia.--Brickoceanmonth 08:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
My only issue is that the council has not identified itself as "Romanian". It continues calling itself Vlach ("Vlaski"). Finally, remember that Wikipedia does not have a political motive. This is not about Romanians becoming the "largest minority of new Serbia"; we shouldn't be guided by that aim. Ronline ✉ 08:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Ronline, "Consiliul reprezinta comunitatea romaneasca din Timoc si are precizat in statutul sau utilizarea ca limba materna a limbii romane literare" What do you want more? It's say exactly that they speak Romanian and no Vlach language (which does not exist of course!). Look at the name in Romanian of the council: it's says Roumanian in the title! By doing this it's expressed the identity and wash any doubts that they view themselves as Romanians! (the title in Romanian is: Consiliului National al Rumanilor din Serbia in English is: National Council of Vlach (Roumanian) national minority)--Brickoceanmonth 08:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but note that it says "Roumanian" rather than "Romanian". "Rumâni" rather than "Români". Obviously, it was not a spelling mistake. Was it not an attempt to differentiate themselves from Romanians, even while adopting standard Romanian as the council's official language? (This is similar to what Moldova did - the Moldovan language was based on standard Romanian, but their declared ethnicity was different). If they identify as Romanians, why didn't they just write "români"? Ronline ✉ 08:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh come on that's really nonsense. Roumanian/Romanian/Rumania it's the same. Maybe that had bad translators, modern English is Romania but you know that before 1940 in Old English was Rumania. Look in Encylopedia Britannica. Anyway Olahus, just replied to you with a competent reply about "rumani".--Brickoceanmonth 08:58, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
The official Vlach term is indeed Rumâni, rather than Români. This is because that is how they call themselves in their own dialects. The Ungureni and the Bufani speak "rumâneşce", the Ţărani speak "rumâneşte". None speak "româneşte". Bear in mind that the form Român used in literary Romanian is a recent innovation. The evolution of the phonetics of Latin words into Romanian is such that in this and similar cases "u" rather than "o" is the inherited form.C0gnate 04:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Until the middle of the 19-th century, all the romanians called themselves "Rumâni", not "Români". Constantin C. Giurescu & Dinu C. Giurescu noted this in their work Istoria românilor din cele mai vechi timpuri până astăzi, 1975, page p.138. See also this hypotitical map of a romanian country from 1833, where the country is called "RUMANIA", not "ROMANIA". Walachia isn't called "Ţara Românească", but "Ţeara Rumânească" (written: Ţéara Rumânéască. Attention! the pronouncion of letter "é" is "ea" !!!) --Olahus (talk) 10:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vlach identification

There are many valid reasons why the Vlachs of Serbia are not considered to be Romanian in the standard sense. Much of the above discussion-quarrel is predicated on the presumed political implications of being a "Romanian", a "Serbian", or a "Vlach". For better or worse, most Vlachs of Serbia identify themselves in a civic sense as members of Serbian society. From day one they attend Serbian schools where they learn nothing of Vlach or Romanian language, literature, culture or history. They satisfy their military service obligation in Serbia. During their induction into the military they solemnly swear to protect Serbia and its institutions. When they are released from service they come back to jobs and other economic activities that are carried out in Serbian. The newspapers and books they read, the TV, radio, cinema (subtitles), religious services, etc are all in Serbian. The Vlach language, or more correctly the dialects are used only in the home or with people known to be Vlach.


The dialects spoken by the Vlachs of Serbia suffer from the consequences of the absence (for them) of a literary language. Although the fundamental vocabulary and grammar are Romanian, Vlach dialects are seriously deficient in general abstract terms as well as political, social, and technical concepts. When they need to express such thoughts (as of course they do constantly since they are no less educated than we are), the Vlachs liberally mix in words they learned in school/university, i.e., Serbian words. Most do not view literary Romanian as their literary tongue. Instead they believe their dialect has never been written nor can it be, as they have been told over the past century and a half.


The barriers to literary Romanian are manyfold. For most Vlach dialects there is a significant difference in pronunciation compared to literary Romanian (though not to Romanian dialects in adjacent regions across the Danube), which doubtless could be overcome by schooling, as is the case with the Romanians of Vojvodina. However the largest obstacle is the presence in modern Romanian of French, Italian, and other neologisms that were introduced after the Vlachs moved from what is now Romania to what is now Serbia. Since such neologisms form some 30% of modern Romanian, Vlachs frequently find it hard to understand. Only education using Romanian as the language of instruction can change this.


Serb intellectuals, government officials and church leaders have long played on the confusion between the historic meaning of the terms "Vlach", "Romance speaker", "Romanian", and the degraded occupational meaning of "shepherd". Frequently and sometimes purposefully a confusion is made between the Vlachs of NE Serbia, who only relatively recently moved south from what is now Romania, and the Vlachs mentioned in medieval times all over the territory of ex Yugoslavia. The latter were almost completely assimilated into Slavic speakers by the end of the 19th century. Because of a general lack of information and the systematic obscurantism practiced in the media, most people in Serbia do not identify the Vlachs of NE Serbia as anything other than Serbs whose backwardness is the reason for their funny speech and their quaint customs.


Political circumstances have also played a role. On the one hand the oppressive regimes and consequent poverty in Romania following WWII have encouraged a justified holier-than-thou attitude among many Serbians including Vlachs. On the other hand there has always been social, political and religious pressure in Serbia to conform in every way to the mainstream, including one's ethnicity. It's not all that much fun to live in Serbia and not be a Serb. Assimilation is the natural result of such pressure, as is emigration. We should keep in mind that since the late 1960's a large fraction (as much as one half) of the Vlachs of Serbia have emigrated to countries such as Switzerland, Austria, France, Germany, Australia, the US, etc.


As to the Wiki articles on the Vlachs of Serbia, it would be a mistake to simplify, confuse and conceal their present circumstances by calling them Romanian. C0gnate 22:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


There is a very interesting documentary on TVR (Romanian National TV) called "Romanii de Langa Noi" ("Romanians around Us[i.e. Romania]"). It usually plays Wednesdays and can also be seen on the web. The documentary is done from a Romanian perspective and is therefore biased – for example, the interviewer always encourages people to say they speak Romanian even though it is very clear that many of them have only basic knowledge of the language, especially the children. It’s also true that the only villages he frequents are Malainitza ( the only village with a Romanian church) and a few others, albeit the fact that he insists that 150 villages are 100% Romanian in North-East Serbia. However, whenever he asks the people “What are you” – they always answer “Romanians but Serbs call us Vlachs”.
In essence, we are speaking about a small number of people (even the most pro-Romanian numbers don’t sum up to more then 300.000), who are classified as, depending on one’s language, something other then Serb – i.e. Vlach/Romanian who clearly speak the Romanian language – note that Serbia acknowledged this so we must reflect that in this article. I think the best thing to do for the purpose of neutrality is to rewrite the article in such a fashion as to reconcile this reality. Dapiks 17:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Just to say something about "Serbia acknowledged this" issue: first of all modern democratic Serbia is not similar to former communist countries of eastern Europe and it does not have official stance about question which minorities or languages exist and which do not exist. In another words, Serbia acknowledge just one simple thing: the answers what people give in census about their ethnicity or language by their free will. Of course, census is purely used for statistical purposes and simple mention of one ethnic group in census results does not mean authomatical rights for this group - the rights for the group are provided after group ask such rights from the government and these rights would apply only to those who want to use them. Thus, the fact is that part of the Vlachs asked from the government to provide them education in Romanian language and government acknowledged that it will fulfil their wishes - the whole purpose or point of this is education in language for those who want it, but it cannot apply to those who do not want education in this language. Also, the fact that government provided education in Romanian language for its citizens that asked for it does not mean that government have any official view whether Romanian and Vlach are same language or different languages or whether Romanian language is a language of "all Vlachs". PANONIAN 20:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


Interesting discussion among the interested participants. However, the discussion is clearly political, not liguistical. No linguistical justification has been presented from any side to support por or contra claims. The only valid "supporting evidence", and I use intentionally the "" , is the input from Mr Spasic (claiming to be one of those Vlachs) and comparison with Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin "languages. The fact is they are all one language, but say that in any of the "states" and you will be presented with violent reactions, threats and possibly killed.

Such is the power of ignorance and politcised "languages", to achieve vague and usually conservative right-wing and highly ideological goals. If you decide either way, you will have to deal with Serbian and Croatian as well. They fall into the exactly same basket. The only way to make an educated categorisation is to leave politics out of this discussion, which is clearly impossible. Not a single person above is qualified to make such a decision, nor to scientifically categorise any of the languages. You are wasting your times and are making this "project" just another joke Wikipedia is increasingly becoming famous for. And rightly so. I see only to well that none of participants in the discussion has much knowledge, let alone formal qualifications in linguistic. None has been called upon and displayed in this discussion. Just as there's zero knowledge and scientific background in those who write articles on other ex-Jugoslav "languages". Just a bunch of politically motivated diletants. I could go into some details, but given the amount of political debate against the linguistical, it would be just a waste of my time. However, while you ponder your "eruditive" replies, spare a moment to consider Vlachs in Hrvatska as well. Where do they fit in all this nonsense? Nowhere. Such is the power of your politically charged views.

Typical Wikipedia. No substance, just a lot of useless posture hidden behind safe "usernames".

I suggest you all take up on knitting.

Dr. Damir Matulovic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.101.4.167 (talk) 06:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I think there is a consensus to merge it. Panel 2008 (talk) 06:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)