LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

The Social Being of the Aromâni... 263
In such ways comparative ethnoarchaeology derives behavioural
indications for cultural antecedents. Although we can get some hint of what
the culture of Athens and the Greek ethnos in general owes to the Vlahs, it
has not been possible here to do any sort of justice to the equal significant
debt which Classical Greek Antiquity owed to their thracian forbears in
the north. A fundamental re-evaluation of that relationship is long overdue.
So we are left with a picture of a people fully attuned to the landscape
in which they move and have their unobtrusive social being; with a claim
to be among the first true europeans. they contributed more than most
to the prosperity and culture of their political hosts, as men of culture
and enterprise, patrons and social benefactors. they respected their
erstwhile nationality, and did not engage in revolutionary politics unless
to seek freedom from the ottomans. there have been repeated politicallymotivated
attempts to minimize their numbers, and to denigrate and delegitimize
their culture. Some Balkan countries even claim improbably not
to have any such minorities. however, less is more. Attempts to obscure
the existence and minimize the numbers of the Aromâni only serve to make
their contribution to european culture seem the more remarkable. It ought
not to be necessary to have to redeem the balance.
89.
Costas tahikas, dragoman of Samarina
Armi’nlu tu munţ easte ca amarea arihǎtipsitǎ.
the Aromân among the mountains is like a tranquil ocean. 49
49 pApAhAGI, tache, Dicţionarul Dialectului Aromîn (editura Academiei, 1963) :