Vlachs created 2nd Bulgarian Empire

[Truth Bearer]

Vlach

Encyclopædia Britannica Article

also called Romanian , or Ruman member of a European people constituting the major element in the populations of Romania and Moldova, as well as smaller groups located throughout the Balkan Peninsula, south and west of the Danube River. Although their Slav neighbours gave them the name Volokh, from which the term Vlach is derived, the Vlachs call themselves Romani, Romeni, Rumeni, or Aromani.

The Vlachs emerged into history in the European Middle Ages, primarily in the region south of the Danube. They traditionally claim to be descendants of the ancient Romans who in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD occupied Dacia, a Roman province located in the regions of Transylvania and the Carpathian Mountains of modern Romania. Another theory suggests that their ancestors were a Thracian tribe, native to the Roman province of Dacia, which intermarried with the Roman colonists and assimilated their language and culture. After the Romans evacuated Dacia (AD 271), the area was subjected to a series of barbarian invasions. According to some scholars, the Romanized Dacians remained in the area, probably taking refuge in the Carpathian Mountains. They remained there for several centuries as shepherds and primitive farmers, until conditions settled and they returned to the plains.

The Romanized Dacian population may have moved south of the Danube when the Romans left Dacia. After the barbarian invasions subsided, the Vlachs, seen in this theory as a later group of immigrants, moved into the area from their Romanized homelands south of the Danube or elsewhere in the Balkans. This theory cites the major role the

Vlachs played in the formation and development of the Second

Bulgarian Empire (also known as the Empire of Vlachs and Bulgars;

founded 1184 Asen I & II)

as evidence that the centre of the Vlach population had shifted south of the Danube.

By the 13th century the Vlachs were reestablished in the lands north of the Danube, including Transylvania, where they constituted the bulk of the peasant population. From Transylvania they migrated to Walachia (“Land of the Vlachs”) and Moldavia, which became independent principalities in the 13th and 14th centuries and combined to form Romania at the end of the 19th century.

Other Vlachs migrated to other regions of the Balkan Peninsula. The Macedo-Vlachs, or Tzintzars, settled on the mountains of Thessaly. According to the 12th-century Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, they founded the independent state of Great Walachia, which covered the southern and central Pindus Mountain ranges and part of Macedonia. (After the establishment of the Latin Empire at Constantinople in 1204, Great Walachia was absorbed by the Greek Despotate of Epirus; later it was annexed by the Serbs, and in 1393 it fell to the Turks.) Another Vlach settlement, called Little Walachia, was located in Aetolia and Acarnania. In addition, Vlachs known as Morlachs, or Mavrovlachi, inhabited areas in the mountains of Montenegro, Hercegovina, and northern Albania as well as on the southern coast of Dalmatia, where they founded Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik). In the 14th century some Morlachs moved northward into Croatia. In the 15th century others, later called Cici, settled in the Istrian Peninsula.

[sutapanaki]

From the book

"100 Myths in the Bulgarian History" Vesselin Ignatov, Sofia 2007

The Ethnically Mixed Origin of the Restorers of the Bulgarian Statehood in 1186

It is strange but there is a problem with the nationality of the three Theodor brothers - tzar Peter IV, Assen and Kaloyan, the leaders of the movement for
the restoration of the Bulgarian statehood in 1186. It comes from them being
presented as Vlachs in series of sources and from the presence of the
anthroponym Assen amongst the Cumans. And for those reasons they have been
called Vlachs(Rumani), descendants of Bulgaro-Cumans or Russo-Cumans (review-
Petrov 1985).
There is plenty of arguments in the historic literature about
a change in the naming nomenclature after the inclusion of the Bulgarian
territory and population in Byzantium in the beginning of the 11 c. AD. All
subjects of the Empire are unconditionally called Romei independent of their
ethnic consciousness and specifics. The criterion for their designation was
geographical-after the name of the region or territory they inhabited. The
region between Danube, Black See, the Balkan mountains and river Timok was
called Moesia and later on Vlachia. The South and South-Western part of the
former Bulgarian kingdom were administered as the theme of Bulgaria. (Zlatarski
1984, Bozhilov 1985, others) According to the Byzantium chronologist Anna
Comnina (11c-12c AD) "Those who have nomadic life are commonly called Vlachs"
i.e. in her time the name Vlachs revealed not ethnicity but characterized way of
life according to the occupation - stock breeding. (Koledarov 1989) Because the
Bulgarian land produced game of that kind more than the others did - sheep, pigs,
buffalo and Bulgarians were to a greater extend stock breeders, especially the
population in the mountains, the inhabitants of present day North and North-East
Bulgaria gradually became known as Vlachs and the region as Vlachia, as synonym
for Moesia....For this reason the name Vlachs doesn't have and can not have
ethnic content. (Petrov 1985)
The knight Robert De Clari gives the only concrete
evidence about the status of the three brothers before they headed the
liberation movement. He wrote for the youngest of them: "Ioan was a servant of
the Emperor and took care of a horse farm (stables). When the Emperor wanted 60
or 100 horses that Ioan would deliver them and came to the Court every year."
(Primov 1947) This reveals the occupation of the brothers and probably their
father and forefathers - horse breeding which in the Middle Ages served mainly
the military sector. This explains why they were called by the others Vlachs and
they called themselves by this name too.
But as soon as the correspondence of
tsar Kaloyan (i.e. Ioan) with pope Inocent III started this name was abandoned. In the
inscription of his nephew, tsar Ioan Assen II from 1230 there is no mention about
the existence of Vlachs in the Bulgarian kingdom. During the liberation movement
and after its success, according to Feodor Uspenskii, not even once was the
question about the interests of the Vlachs been put forward and the restored state is
only and always called Bulgaria. Peter Petrov is right saying that everything in
the actions of the three brothers reminds of the old Bulgarian state tradition
(Petrov 1985), which would be unthinkable for people with non-Bulgarian origin.
It is accepted that all names in the family of the restorers of the Bulgarian
sovereignty were christian with the exception of Assen, Belgun and Boril (Petrov
1985). These anthroponyms are related to Cumanian ones and are declared as
markers of the mixed origin of the brothers. (Zlatarski 1984) However, names
similar to Assen appear long before the Cumans and it can be considered as
established that those are heritage from the proto-Bulgarians (Mutafchiev,
1973).... In the beginning of his rule tsar Kaloyan makes a treaty with the
Cumans backed by a marriage. In this respect the chronologist Georgi Achropolit
says that the Bulgarian ruler established family relations with them. Obviously,
prior to this Kaloyan's clan was not related to the nomadic people North of the
Danube, resp. the Cumans.
Tsar Kaloyan is defined as Bulgarian in many sources.
In his correspondence he proclaims himself as "ruler of Bulgarians and Vlachs",
"emperor of Bulgarians and Vlachs", "emperor of Bulgarians", "ruler and emperor
of all Bulgaria and Vlachia", "the tsar of all Bulgarians and Vlachs". He
asserted that he re-obtained the land which his grandfathers had lost. He
qualified the Bulgarian rulers Simeon I, Peter I and Samuil as "our old
emperors" and even "my grandfathers". He cited information about them in "our
books". His capital was Tarnovgrad - "the main town of whole Bulgaria". He wrote
his letters in Bulgarian after which they were translated in Greek or Latin.
Pope Inocent III adopted his terminology and called him "ruler of Bulgarians",
"tsar of Bulgarians and Vlachs". He said to the Hungarian king Imre II: "because
the Greeks were stronger, Bulgarians lost their royal dignity and were even
forced to be slaves under the heavy Constantinople yoke, up until recently when
two brothers Peter and Ioanitsa, coming from a clan of previous kings started
not so much to conquer as to return the lands of their fathers"; "they re-
obtained the biggest part of the country as per their forefathers right"; "we
plan, as our predecessors did to enthrone him as tsar not of a foreign land but of his
own" (Petrov, Gjuzelev 1978)....
The whole activity of the three brothers was
dedicated to the Bulgarian cause-liberation and unification of people and
territory included in the Bulgarian kingdom before the
conquest of Basil II, preserve the independence and integrity of the Bulgarian state.