Population of Macedonia and Adjacent Areas

[Carlin]

- According to Stelian Brezeanu, among the toponyms attesting the presence of the Romanic element in the region, there are two that have an importance: Palaioblacoi and Stari Vlah. Palaioblacoi is attested in Thessaly (later Μεγάλη Βλαχία/Megali Vlahia) and the second toponym, Stari Vlah, is attested in the Medieval Serbia and in Herzegovina: “It was a region inside of the Kingdom of the Nemanids that attached the Kopaonik Mountains to the Romanija Mountains, around the city of Sarajevo. That region had as centre the Drina and the Lim rivers valley.”

Next to Stari Vlah it is Romanija. This area has the mountain still called Romanja. Therefore, the region of Stari Vlah belonged to a more extended area, intensively romanised at the end of the antiquity.Ştefan Stareţu writes that “it is clear that Stari Raska comes from Stari Vlaska, with a rothacism, and Raska from Vlaska (this is exemplified by the double name of Banat, as Vlaska or Raska)”. He also advances a hypothesis: “The Serbs and Vlachs are probably a single ethnic substance, constructed in the Balkan Peninsula as a unity in the 8th-14th century.”

- In the Middle Ages the Vlachs lived in most of the mountain areas in the western Balkans up to the Adriatic coast. In the Middle Ages, the territory between the rivers Lim and Drina in the west, and Raska and Studenica in the east, was called “Old Wallachia” (Stari Vlah), and the Orthodox Church province of the Rasca – “eparchy Old Wallachian”.

URL:
https://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2...in-serbia.html

[Carlin]

Study from the 1950's: Every Albanian family in Skopje has a migration background

URL:
https://history-from-macedonia.blogs...family-in.html

The Macedonian newspaper Nova Makedonija with an article about the research of Dr. Jovan Trifunoski, who conducted research in Skopje and the surrounding area in the early 1950s (described in the text as Skopsko Pole = Skopje Valley). He came to the conclusion that there is not a single Albanian family in the valley that does not have a migration background. In short, the Albanians once immigrated to Macedonia.

Trifunovski researched further and came to the conclusion that most Albanians even know where they came from, who their ancestors are who immigrated to Macedonia and even the migration routes, i.e. possible intermediate stops of the family before they finally reached Macedonia, could be reproduced by themselves.

See link above for full article.

Note: Text passages that speak of "today, now, ..." refer to the research years 1951-1953.

A few extracts:

- "The Albanian population of Skopsko Pole are divided into real Albanians and Albanized Roma. There are 183 houses of the first and 106 of the other. According to the places of immigration, the Albanian-speaking population in the Skopsko Pole belongs to two main streams of immigration: Northern Albanian and Kosovar."

- "And now, at the time when we were doing this research, the Albanian population is rapidly descending from the surrounding mountain areas, but also from the Kosovo Valley to the Skopsko Pole."

- "The Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims settled in several villages in the Skopje Valley in Singjelič, Idrizovo, Aračinovo, Butel and Belimbegovo (today's Ilinden) and slowly merged with the Albanians."

- "Who are the Maljoci?

According to Dr. Jovan Trifunoski, the albanized Roma in the villages of the Skopsko Pole are known by the common name Maljoci: “The elders of this population claim they came from the Kosovo Pole, Metohija, Gorna Morava and Drenica. It is not known where they lived before, but it appears that some of their families stayed in northern Albania and then came to the Kosovar Pole from there. The people of Maljoci have dark skin. The Maljoci mockingly call their compatriots, the real Roma, and try to make the difference between them as big as possible. The cemetery is separate and there are no marriages between them. "Trifunovski wrote."

[Carlin]

Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Volume 27, London, year 1843.

Pages 33 and 34:

- "The Wallachians are not confined to Wallachia; they inhabit Moldavia and parts of south-western Russia; they are very numerous in Transylvania and eastern Hungary; they form part of the population of the Bukowina, and they are very numerous in Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus. Their number has been estimated at three millions, but this estimate is rather low, and apparently does not comprehend the Wallachians of Macedonia and the adjacent countries, or the Kutzo-Wallachians, who form a very considerable part of the population in the countries mentioned above. As the Wallachian language is apparently derived from the Latin, it is generally supposed that the Wallachians are the descendants of the Roman colonists sent by Trajan into Dacia. But this is a mere hypothesis, and some well ascertained facts show that this opinion cannot be maintained."

- "In the beginning of the thirteenth century the inhabitants of Dacia were exterminated by the Mongols; and after the Mongols had withdrawn, numbers of foreign colonists, Bohemians, Moravians, Germans, and especially Wallachians, flocked, some to Transylvania, and others to the present countries of Moldavia and Wallachia, which thus received a new population. Sulzer states that the MS. chronicles of the Wallachians contain very good accounts of these migrations, which we also find mentioned in the Annals of Hungary and Transylvania, and it is always said that these Wallachians received certain lands to settle upon. It is in a document concerning a donation which King Bela IV of Hungary made to Knights of St. John, in 1247, that the names of some Wallachians first appear in the history of Hungary. These Wallachians were boyars, and lived in Transylvania."

- "... the inhabitants of Wallachia, Moldavia, and a great part of Transylvania and Hungary must be considered as descended from the Vlachi of Thrace, a Christian nation, belonging to the Greek church, and who used a kind of Roman language, as we still see from the Kutzo-Wallachians. That the Roman language was used in a considerable part of the Thracian peninsula is stated by the presbyter Diocleus in Stritter, who says that after the conquest of Macedonia by the Bulgarians, that is, in the twelfth century, these barbarians proceeded to the conquest of the 'Provincia Latinorum qui illo tempore Romani vocabantur, modo vero Morovlachi, hoc est Nigri Latini vocantur.'"

- "It cannot surprise us that the name of Blachi or Vlachi was given to these Romans before they emigrated to the north. From the seventh century, and even earlier, a great part of Thrace, Thessaly, Epirus and Greece was occupied by Slavonic nations..."

- "According to Thunman, one half of all the Wallachian words are Latin, and of the remaining half three-eighths are Greek, two-eighths Gothic, Slavonic, or Turkish, and three-eighths belong to a language which seems to be Albanian. The auxiliary verbs, the articles, the pronouns, the greater part of the prepositions, and the adverbs of place and time, as well as the numerals, the declensions, and the conjugations, are all Latin, and so is generally the groundwork of the language. The declension is thus: (1) Sing. Nom. kinele (the dog); Gen. a kinelui; Dat. kinelui; Acc. pe or pre kinele; Voc. kine; Ablat. de la kinele..."

[Liberator of Makedonija]

Originally Posted by Carlin15

Study from the 1950's: Every Albanian family in Skopje has a migration background

URL:
https://history-from-macedonia.blogs...family-in.html

The Macedonian newspaper Nova Makedonija with an article about the research of Dr. Jovan Trifunoski, who conducted research in Skopje and the surrounding area in the early 1950s (described in the text as Skopsko Pole = Skopje Valley). He came to the conclusion that there is not a single Albanian family in the valley that does not have a migration background. In short, the Albanians once immigrated to Macedonia.

Trifunovski researched further and came to the conclusion that most Albanians even know where they came from, who their ancestors are who immigrated to Macedonia and even the migration routes, i.e. possible intermediate stops of the family before they finally reached Macedonia, could be reproduced by themselves.

See link above for full article.

Note: Text passages that speak of "today, now, ..." refer to the research years 1951-1953.

A few extracts:

- "The Albanian population of Skopsko Pole are divided into real Albanians and Albanized Roma. There are 183 houses of the first and 106 of the other. According to the places of immigration, the Albanian-speaking population in the Skopsko Pole belongs to two main streams of immigration: Northern Albanian and Kosovar."

- "And now, at the time when we were doing this research, the Albanian population is rapidly descending from the surrounding mountain areas, but also from the Kosovo Valley to the Skopsko Pole."

- "The Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims settled in several villages in the Skopje Valley in Singjelič, Idrizovo, Aračinovo, Butel and Belimbegovo (today's Ilinden) and slowly merged with the Albanians."

- "Who are the Maljoci?

According to Dr. Jovan Trifunoski, the albanized Roma in the villages of the Skopsko Pole are known by the common name Maljoci: “The elders of this population claim they came from the Kosovo Pole, Metohija, Gorna Morava and Drenica. It is not known where they lived before, but it appears that some of their families stayed in northern Albania and then came to the Kosovar Pole from there. The people of Maljoci have dark skin. The Maljoci mockingly call their compatriots, the real Roma, and try to make the difference between them as big as possible. The cemetery is separate and there are no marriages between them. "Trifunovski wrote."

Trifunoski's research is invaluable. I wonder, was there any real Albanan presence in Macedonia prior to Ali Pasha of Janina's conquests?

[Carlin]

"Sirmium was captured by the Huns in 441 and remained for a century under barbarian rule. It changed hands a couple of times but is lost again to the Avars in 582. From a Novellae of Justinian (Novellae XI of April 14, 535) we learn that in the ancient times Sirmium held the administrative post of the province, where all civic and religious cases were dealt with. However, during Attila's time (after 441), due to devastation, the seat of the prefecture was moved to Thessalonica. Some people remained behind in Sirmium but others fled from the invaders to Thessalonica, including Apraemius, the prefect of Sirmium. We have here official documents attesting a movement of population (refugees) from Sirmium to Thessalonica, of unknown proportions."

-- Page 103, Memory, Identity, Typology: An Interdisciplinary Reconstruction of Vlach Ethnohistory, by Gheorghe Bogdan (BA, University of British Columbia, 1992).

[Carlin]

Originally Posted by Liberator of Makedonija

Trifunoski's research is invaluable. I wonder, was there any real Albanan presence in Macedonia prior to Ali Pasha of Janina's conquests?

There was, but it might be hard to determine exact numbers. Definitely less than prior to the times of Ali Pasha.

On a related note, I read a while back that Ziadin Sela's ancestors hail from Northern Albania (he is from Struga).

Have also read about Albanization of certain Muslim families in Struga, as well as "merging" of Macedonian Muslims with Albanians with Macedonian being abandoned by the Muslims and mixed families. Will try to find more info on this, but I also recall reading specifics about it in the past.

[Carlin]

The quote below comes from Vasil Kanchov. Translated using Google Translate:

"Arnaut devastations continued until 1832, when Rashid Pasha destroyed the Arnaut force near Shkodra. The Ohrid chronicler records two great devastations in these places. In 1805, Arnaut hordes captured the whole area of ​​Ohrid, and in 1821 this chronicler wrote: Until now, Arnaut newcomers from the Shkumba Valley have been sweeping away the Bulgarian population from the western parts of the Ohrid region. Dr. (Joseph) Mueller, who traveled to these places in 1837-38, testified that the village of Ferdovo (Fargovo) had a mixed population of Arnauts and Slavs, and the village of Kalishte was purely Slavic. Now Fargovo is a purely Arnaut village, and in Kalishte there is only 1 remaining Bulgarian house. The emigration of the Bulgarians continues to this day from the other two Bulgarian villages, Radozhda and Lin, and the time is not far off when the entire western shore of the lake will be Arnaut."

There are many Arnaut families in the towns of Struga and Ohrid, but all of them learn Turkish quickly."

http://macedonia.kroraina.com/vk/vk_1_b7.htm

[Liberator of Makedonija]

Originally Posted by Carlin15

The emigration of the Bulgarians continues to this day from the other two Bulgarian villages, Radozhda and Lin, and the time is not far off when the entire western shore of the lake will be Arnaut."
http://macedonia.kroraina.com/vk/vk_1_b7.htm

Well............

[Carlin]

Originally Posted by Liberator of Makedonija

Well............

From the same link/article from Vasil Kanchov.

Google Translate (mostly):

"The Arnaut element began to spread to Macedonia with greater force in the second half of the 18th century. At that time, independent Arnaut leaders rose up in Albania and invaded Macedonia. In the areas of Macedonia: in Skopje, Tetovo, Gostivar, Kichevo, Ohrid and other places, semi-dependent Pashas of Arnaut origin appeared. They encouraged Arnaut migrations to these places in order to have the support of loyal soldiers. Ali Pasha of Ioannina reached the greatest power of these Arnaut chiefs, who became stronger at the end of the 18th century in Ioannina. As an independent prince he conquered, apart from a large part of the Albanian lands, the western Macedonian lowlands and the lands of Arnaut domination reached Mount Pelister. From 1788 to 1820, his rule helped the Arnaut population to fortify itself in the Korcha region and capture the southern shore of Lake Ohrid, from where the rest of the "Bulgarian" population either fled or was killed off during the fighting."

[Carlin]

Sat 26 May 1906

Outrage in Macedonia

Eleven families murdered

A lawless band of two hundred persons murdered eleven Kutso and Wallachian families, numbering sixty of all ages, in the village of Gobena. Gobena is situated in Macedonia.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/864693?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/7718701