Vlachs of Serbia - Identity

Identity

The term Vlach is the English transcription of the Serbian term for this group (Vlasi), while Roumanians or Romanians is the English transcription of its Romanian counterpart (român/rumân).

Despite their recognition as a separate ethnic group by the Serbian government, Vlachs are cognate to Romanians in the cultural and linguistic sense. Some Romanians, as well as international linguists and anthropologists, consider Serbia's Vlachs to be a subgroup of Romanians. Additionally, the Movement of Romanians-Vlachs in Serbia, which represents some Vlachs, has called for the recognition of the Vlachs as a Romanian national minority, giving them similar rights to the Romanians of Vojvodina. However, on the last census results most Vlachs of Eastern Serbia opted rather for the Serbian exonym vlasi (=Vlachs) than rumuni (=Romanians). As a result of serbianization, most Vlachs declare themselves as "Serbs" on the census during Communist Yugoslavia, though the number of those who preferred to declare Vlachs or Romanians strongly increased from 1991 (16,539 declared vlasi and 42 declared rumuni) to 2001 (39,953 declared vlasi and 4,157 declared rumuni)

Romania has given modest financial support to the Vlachs for the preservation of their culture and language, since at present the Vlachs' language is not recognized officially in any localities where they form a majority, there is no education in their mother tongue and there is no media or education funded by the Serbian state. Also there are no church services in Vlach. Until very recently in the regions populated by Vlachs the official policy of the Serbian Orthodox church opposed the giving of non-Serbian baptismal names.

On the other hand, some Vlachs consider themselves to be simply Serbs that speak the Vlach language.

Vlach is commonly used as a historical umbrella term for all Latin peoples in Southeastern Europe (Romanians proper or Daco-Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians). After the foundation of the Romanian state in the 19th century, the Romanians living in the Romanian Old Kingdom and in Austria-Hungary have only seldom been called "Vlachs" by the foreigners, while the use of the exonym "Romanians" was encouraged even by officials and the Romanian population ceased to use the exonym "Vlach" for their own designation. Only in the Serbian and Bulgarian Kingdom, where the officials didn't encourage the population to use the modern exonym "Romanian", the old designation "Vlach" was kept, but the term "Romanian" was used in statistical reports (but only up to the Interwar period, when they changed even here the designation "Romanian" into "Vlach"). From this reason, the Romanians of Vojvodina (hence those who lived in Austria-Hungary), prefer to use today the modern exonym "Romanian", while those of Central Serbia still use the ancient exonym "Vlach". However, both groups use the endonym "Romanians", calling their language "Romanian" (română or rumână).

In some notes of the government of Serbia, officials recognise that "certainly members of this population have similar characteristics with Romanians, and the language and folklore ride to their Romanian origin". The representatives of the Vlach minority sustain their Romanian origin.