History
The Roman Empire and its Latin language strongly influenced some of the ancient tribes of the Balkans. Factors in this process included the construction of the Via Egnatia (146-120 BC) and the founding of Roman colonies with military fortifications and garrisons. The Latinised peoples that originated from this region of the Roman Empire eventually retired into the vastness and security of the mountainous terrain and became specialized in nomadic pastoralism and animal husbandry.
In the Middle Ages, Aromanians created semi-autonomous states on the territory of modern Greece, such as Great Wallachia, Small Wallachia and Upper Wallachia. Benjamin of Tudela, a Spanish Jew who travelled through south-eastern Europe and the Middle East between 1159 and 1173, alludes to the Vlachs in The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela. He claimed that they enjoyed some measure of independence on their Valachian mountain tops.
Aromanians played an important role in the independence wars of various Balkan countries: Bulgaria, Albania and Greece, against the Ottoman Empire. But also in 1905 the Aromanians were acknowledged as a separate nation (millet) of the Ottoman Empire, allowing them to have their own schools and liturgy in their own Aromanian language. This happened during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid the Second, when the Aromanians even got their own representatives in the Great Porte. The day of the signing of the so-called Aromanian Iradeo or Turkish Irade, 23 of May is celebrated as the National Day of the Aromanians from the whole world and is celebrated as a holiday for the Aromanian citizens in the Republic of Macedonia.
In 1941, after the Nazi occupation of Greece, some Aromanian nationalists created an autonomous Vlach state under Fascist Italian control: the Principality of Pindus and Voivodship of Macedonia.
After the fall of Communism (i.e. Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria) in 1989, the Aromanian nation formed its own cultural and political societies in the Balkans and started its new national re-awakening.
Read more about this topic: Aromanian People
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