DALMATIAN MORLACHS/VLACHS – BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNIZATION AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Sorin ȘIPOŞ Universitatea din Oradea (România)

Abstract

In medieval sources, the Romanian population on the coast of Dalmatia and in the Istria Peninsula is known as Istro-Romanians in Romanian historiography, but documents of the time also record it as Morlachs. The archives in France still contain unpublished documentary sources about the Romanians in the north of the Danube and in the Balkan Peninsula. The reports are written either by French officers, or by people in the elite of the nations subjected by Napoleon. This is the case of the memoir drafted in 1806 by Colonel Antoine Zulatti on the reform and regulation of Dalmatian Morlachs. His memoir constitutes an epic on the realities of the Morlach society at the stage of losing its linguistic identity, but very conservative in terms of its customs, traditions and holidays. Keywords: Morlachs, Vlachs, Colonel Zulatti, Dalmatia, tradition, modernization.