The Vlachs were never considered a minority within Greece and were always seen as part of the Greek nation. Vlachs first appear in historical records in the 11th century and according to T. J. Winnifrith, they were already viewed as Greeks by that time [1], while their first clear mention as an indigenous Greek people comes from the 13th century by Georgios Pachymeris [2]. Even Aromanians that migrated to Bosnia and Serbia in the 17th and 18th centuries were viewed and registered as Greeks or Graeco-Vlachs [3]. It is crystal clear that Greeks never forcibly assimilated and oppressed Aromanians as today's minority-obsessed people claim.
Questioning the Greekness of the Aromanians is exclusively a creation of Romanian propaganda. After 1860, Romanian scouts started spreading their propaganda in Epirus and Macedonia with the most famous being Bolintineanu [4]. The Romanian state paid and trained teachers for Macedonia and appointed Apostol Mărgărit as a supervisor of the Romanian propaganda schools in Macedonia [4]. Contemporary travellers such as Amadori Virgili reported that Romanian propaganda was based on bribery; salaries to teachers who have no schools and subsidies to those who send their children to Romanian high schools [5]. This was also confirmed by H. Brailsford (known for his anti-Greek sentiments): «The Roumanians are not so quite inured to blood as the Greeks and
Bulgarians, and they have always conducted their propaganda by the clean and benevolent method of bribery» [6].
Eventually, Romanian state propaganda with the help of the Great Powers (mainly Austria-Hungary) managed to convince the Ottoman authorities to recognise a separate Vlach ethno-religious entity, known as "Ullah Millet" and detach Vlachs from the "Rum Millet" ("Roman/Greek Nation") [4]. This development of course angered the Greek Vlachs who, despite the bribes of the Romanian state, remained loyal to Hellenism and protested in 1907 against their recognition as a separate nation [7]. Their attachment to Greek identity and rejection of Romanian propaganda was also observed by a well-paid by the Romanian state pro-Romanian German linguist Gustav Weigand who reported that most of the Aromanians were hostile to the pro-Romanian movement [8]. Here is what an Aromanian, Apostolos Hatzigogas, who was wrongly accused of being pro-Romanian declared:
«I am not a Romanian nor do I have Romanian interests, as many fanatical Greeks maintain; nor have I separated myself from Greeks in anything… Why do all now call us Vlach and Koutsovlach, go away from here, we don't want you at our church, we don't send priests to your house , and many other things against us. Are we not today's Vlachs those Greeks who suffered so many horrors for this poor country and religion?» [9].
Even though Romanian propaganda basically failed, the Romanian state proceeded to present the Aromanians as "Macedonian brothers" of the Romanians, often styling them as "Macedo-Romanians"/"Macedonian Romanians" [10]. Of course, the Romanian state never actually cared about the Aromanians on an emotional level; it only planned to use them for its expansionist purposes. When in 1918 Romania annexed southern Dobrogea, ethnic Romanians constituted only 2.3% of the region's population [11], and the Romanian government needed to stabilise the region. Romanians promised 50,000 drachmas and 100 stremmata of land to Aromanians who were willing to immigrate to Dobrogea [12]. Thus, economically poor families decided to leave their lands. In some Greek regions like Veroia, Romanian propagandists exploited the economic competition of Greeks and Vlachs, and 30-35% of the Veroia Vlachs left. The immigration was encouraged by people who organized the journeys and benefited from the sale of estates [13]. All of these promises were proven to be fake, since Aromanians did not get 50,000 drachmas, just land that often did not have water. The conditions in the new lands were inhumane for the new colonists and suffered from deadly diseases [14]. Many of them tried to return to Greece, but they had lost their citizenship and their estates had changed hands [15]. This was the treatment of the Aromanians by the Romanian state, whom it presented as an oppressed minority by the Greeks it promised to save. Such people hypocritically give Greeks lectures on how to respect their "minorities".
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Sources/References:
[1] T. J. Winnifrith, The Vlachs, p. 108
[2] De Michaele et Andronico palaeologis libri tredecim, Vol. 1, p.83
[3] Milenko Filipović, Цинцари у Босни, p.74
[4] Ethnologia Balkanica, 2002, p. 148
[5] Giovanni Amadori Virgili, La Questiona Rumeliota, 1908, vol.1, p.110
[6] H. N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and their Future
[7] The events were reported by the Newspaper "Ecclesiastical Truth" in 1907 published in Constantinople
[8] Ethnologia Balkanica, 2002, p. 149
[9] Helen Abadzi, The Vlachs of Greece and their Misunderstood History, 2004, p.16
[10] Ethnologia Balkanica, 2002, p. 149
[12] Mircea Suciu, Uitat si Ignorat Cadrilaterul. Dosarele Istoriei, VII, 1 (65), p. 45
[13] Helen Abadzi, The Vlachs of Greece and their Misunderstood History, 2004, p. 19
[14] Maria Bedivan,Pe Urmele unui Colonist Aromân. Editura Semne. Bucharest. 2003, p. 41-443
[15] Helen Abadzi, The Vlachs of Greece and their Misunderstood History, 2004, p. 20
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