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Morlachs

Morlachs (in Serbian Morlaci [Mor-latsi] or Морлаци; in Greek: Μαυροβλάχοι, Mavrovlachi or Mauro-Vlachs, meaning "Black Vlachs"; in Latin sources: Nigri Latini) were a population of Vlach shepherds that lived in the Dinaric Alps (western Balkans in modern use), constantly migrating in search for better pastures for their sheep flocks. They were probably a blend of Romanized indigenous peoples and Roman colonists. In another version their name comes from "morski-Vlasi" or Sea Vlachs.

The adjective "black" is used here with the meaning of "northern", this metaphor probably deriving from the Turkic practice of naming cardinal directions after colours.

Reports from the mid-11th century tell how the Morlachs lived in the mountainous regions of Montenegro, Bosnia (Stara Vlaška), Herzegovina and on the Dalmatian coast. In the 14th century, some Morlachs moved northward and settled in present-day Croatia where later they would serve as frontier guardians in the Military Frontier between the Habsburg (Croatia) and the Ottoman (Bosnia) Empires, an area sometimes known as Morlachia. The continuous attempts by the feudal lords to reduce them to serfdom failed. It is not clear as yet exactly how the Morlachs survived, but the slower feudalization of the Western Balkans compared to the west of Europe seem to alleviate their decentralization from the feudal bonds. Greater freedom and easier mobility gave rise to the continuous running Slavic serfs whom they encountered, and eventually most Morlachs were linguistically assimilated by the local Slavs.

In the 15th century, a first group of Morlachs were imported to the Istrian Peninsula, and after the various devastations of the plague between 1500-1600 more were imported. In 1525, a group settled in the outskirts of Rovinj (Rovigno). Their descendants are today are sometimes erroneously confused with the Istro-Romanians who are "cici" and "vlahi", a distinctly different group from the Morlachs . With no more than a thousand speakers of Istro-Romanian believed to remain in Istria, the "istrorumeno" and/or "vlaški" (also nicknamed "ciribiri") language is now considered to be severely endangered and on the verge of extinction. Various independent efforts to salvage this unique language (a dialect of Romanian) are not unified and their success is doubtful. Another group reached the island of Krk around 1450 and settled in the villages of Dubašnica and Poljica, where until the 19th century the people spoke an Italic language called Vegliot.

In the 18th century, Alberto Fortis visited the Morlachs and found that they sang beautiful verses of epic poetry related to the Turkish occupation of Serbian Kosovo. They sang the verses along with the traditional single stringed instrument calle gusle [goo-slae]. This poetry was collected by the Scottish man-of-letters Lord Bute, who was close to King George III.

Away from Istria, the term Morlach remained to describe the people of Dalmatian Zagora and Lika. Since the Romanic Morlachs assimilated with the Slavs, and with no surviving paraphernalia to identify "pure" Morlachs from Slavicized ones or actual Slavs themselves, the name survived among people, producing a Slavic nation, specifically the Serbs. Essentially, the term is now a social description rather than an ethnic designation. This fluidity between the Vlach and Slavic identities may be due to the unrecognized fact the Slavs were amongst the tribes which were "Romanized" (what ever this term may contain) but who easily reverted to their Slavic language and identity when the Roman Empire collapsed [citation needed].

According to the 1991 Croatian census, 22 people declared themselves as Morlachs.