Pakica etno-kulturore vllehe në vitet 1912-1920
The ethno-cultural minority of vlachs during 1912-1920

Summary/Abstract: The Vlachs are one of the ethno-cultural minorities that are distinguished for the warm relations with the Albanian populations and comprise an excellent historical model of the harmonic coexistence. Feeling that their identity was better protected in the frame of the Albanian state the Vlachs demanded in the London Conference that the territories inhabited by them to be included in this new state. In this manner they intended to be rescued from the harsh assimilating Greek and Serbian policies. This demand was also supported by the Romanian government. The Greek government demanded that the Aromanians of Pindus to be included in the Greek state by promising that Greece would give the guarantees for the conservation of their ethnic identity. The same promise was made by Serbia for the Vlachs of Macedonia. However, these commitments were never maintained from these two states. The armed bands entered in south Albania and massacred some of the leaders of the Vlach community. Another alternative demand of the Vlachs was the creation of an Albanian- Macedonian state within which they hoped to ensure an independent life. In difference from the Balkanic state that pursued violent assimilating policies toward the Vlachs, in Albania there were not demonstrated such policies. Nevertheless, in the Congress of Trieste between the Albanian and the Vlachs delegates there were some polemiques because the Vlachs presented some maximalist demands for territorial autonomy within the Albanian state like the one the Czechs had in Austria-Hungary. This demand was contested by the Albanian delegates, which emphasised that the Vlachs of Albania did not comprise compact bodies in order to form cantons. However, these were isolated appearances and the relations remained friendly. Thus also in the Peace Conference of Versailles in 1919, the Vlachs again demanded as an alternative solution their joining with the Albanian state. Also in Albanian press with the exception of any isolated case, almost the whole of it has echoed the friendship with the Vlachs by describing them often as brothers or as comrades in arms for the independence with Albanians.

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