Aromanian Ethnicity in the Accounts of British Travelers through the Balkans (approx. 1800–1860)

Abstract

Abstract Nineteenth-century western-European travel literature constitutes a potentially rich historical source, which has, to date, been insufficiently exploited from the perspective of Aromanian studies. In exploring several British travelogues from the first half of the nineteenth century, the author sets out to identify specific Aromanian self-images containing essential markers of the Balkan Aromanians’ ethnicity, as it presented itself on the eve of its morphing into a mere aspect of Romanian or Greek nationality. Several important topoi of the Aromanian ethnic identity come to light; the idea of the ethnic community’s Roman origins, the endonyms being used, the social practice of endogamy, and the circulated stories of potential Aromanian folk-hero figures in the making (pending possible incorporation into the Aromanian collective memory) all function as identity markers, articulating the ethnic boundary that ensures the internal coherence of the Aromanian ethnic community and sets it apart from other ethnic groups.