The legal - political situation of Macedo-Romanians (VLACHS) from Albania

• Author: Ioan Stan
• Position: Ph.D., Lecturer of International Law 'Agora' University, Oradea
• Pages: 135-138

THE LEGAL – POLITICAL SITUATION OF MACEDO-ROMANIANS

(VLACHS) FROM ALBANIA

Lecturer Dr. Ioan Stan

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Abstract

This article contains an analysis of the status of the minority of Vlachs from Albania, as

well as the rights and liberties resulted from this quality. If during the totalitarian regime these

rights were totally ignored, after the instauration of democracy, in Albania, just as in all south-

eastern European countries, the conditions necessary for the continuation of acknowledgment

intercessions regarding the recognition of Macedo-Romanians as a distinctive ethnic minority

were created. It appears that significant progress was made in this country to this end and that

among these minorities there are still issues regarding their own identity.

Key words: national minority, identity, democracy, recognition, human rights.

Introduction

The current paper presents the juridical-political situation of Macedo-Romanians

(Vlachs) from Albania after the democratic regime came out in this country.

After the Second World War, most Balkan states (Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania,

Romania and Greece) were subjected to significant political changes as totalitarian regimes came

to power and gave a great stroke to the affirmation of Macedo-Romanians (Vlachs) as a

distinctive national minorit y. Ever since 1940, Romanian schools from these countries, funded

by the Romanian state, were closed, their buildings sold and the teachers were fired. For that

matter, the policy of the Romanian state (after the instauration of the popular democratic regime)

was that of total abandonment of Macedo-Romanians. Their coryphaei, left without any support,

were condemned to many years of silence in their respective countries, and the fight for the

affirmation of a distinctive ethnic group was only maintained through the journalistic activities

of some Macedo-Romanian intellectuals settled in the Occident.

After almost half a century, due to the restoration of democratic regimes in the above

mentioned Balkan states, the conditions necessary for the continuation of acknowledgment

intercessions regarding the recognition of Macedo-Romanians as a distinctive ethnic minority

were created again, including in Albania.

Macedo-Romanians from Albania are a part of the southern branch of eastern Romance,

different from the northern-Danube (Dacian) branch due to the interposition of migrating Slavic

populations during the second half of the first millennium, as the location in two distinctive areas

indicates as well:

- The first group, of the Farseroti lineage (a tribe of shepherds) is established on the plain

of Thessaly and the mountain area of the central Albanian Mountains, around the city of

Korce, up until Macedonia and Greece. Here, not very far from Korce, stand the

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Ph.D., Lecturer o f Internatio nal Law „A gora” Univer sity, Oradea