Moravian Wallachia is a mountainous region located in the easternmost part of Moravia, Czech Republic, near the Slovakian border. The name Wallachia was formerly applied to all the highlands of Moravia and neighboring Silesia, although in the nineteenth century a smaller area came to defined as ethno-cultural Moravian Wallachia. The traditional dialect (rarely heard these days) represents a mixture of elements from Czech and Slovak, and has a distinct lexicon of Romanian and Balkan origin relating to the pastoral economy of the highlands. The name comes from the exonym of the Romanian shepherds migrants (see Vlachs), who advanced along the Carpathians range between the 15th and 17th centuries.
| The term "Vlach" is an exonym. Vlachs (also called Wallachians, Wlachs, Wallachs, Olahs or Ulahs) is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (Romanians). The word Valach is of Germanic origin, and was taken by Slavic people as Vlach and sharing this origin with the words Welsh and Walloons in other parts of Europe. Vlachs descend from the Romanised Thracians and Illyrians), the indigenous populations of the Balkans, and Roman colonist (from various provinces of the Roman Empire). |  |
Almost all modern nations in Central and Southeastern Europe, either South Slavic, West Slavic or other, have Vlach populations, either native (in the case of Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Ukraine) or a later addition (Greece, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia), or both (Serbia, Ukraine, Hungary). The first record of a Balkan Romanic presence in the Byzantine period can be found in the writings of Procopius, in the 5th Century. A Byzantine chronicle of 586 about an incursion against the Avars in the eastern Balkans may contain one of the earliest references to Vlachs. Blachernae, the suburb of Constantinople, was named after a Scythian named Duke Blachernos. His name may be linked with the name "Blachs" (Vlachs). In the 10th Century, the Hungarians arrived in the Pannonian plain, and, according to the Gesta Hungarorum written by an anonymous chancellor of King Bela III of Hungary, the plain was inhabited by Slavs, Bulgars, Vlachs and pastores Romanurum (Roman shepherds). However, the chronicle was written around 1146.
Vlachs is found everywhere along the western Carpathian Mountains is that the traditional Romanian culture remained the same despite the evolution in language, especially the traditions regarding sheepherding and rural architecture, essentially identical along the entire belt of the Carpathian Mountains from Moravia to Romania and then along the adjacent mountains into Serbia and Bulgaria. Since they appeared, well into the late Middle Ages, the Vlachs continued to have a separated political life than that of the rest of the population. On their way they gradually lost their original language with the exception of some Romanian words they use in their Czech and Slovak dialect, but they preserved more of their culture (especially folklore, songs and costumes) and economic customs, namely sheep breeding. An example of this is the use of the so called Lex Antiqua Valachorum (the "Wallachian Law"). The first widespread reference to Vlachs occurred during the Thirty Years' War, when these privileges were in danger of being abolished. The Peace of Augsburg (1555) confirmed the result of the 1526 Diet of Speyer and ended the violence between the Lutherans and the Catholics in Germany.
| Vlach warfare against the Habsburgs consisted of raids, including those against Malenovice, Zlin, and Valasske Mezirici. Due to this politics, in 1632 the Catholic Church and the Habsburg Empire took coercive measures. Vlach attacks on Vsetín occurred in late 1623. Wallenstein stated that the Vlachs fought as a “Horde” and Vlach forces were victorious against the Habsburgs during the initial years of the war. During portions of these initial years as well, Vlachs were joined by Protestant Hungarians, and by 1621 all of Moravia east of the Morava River was controlled by Vlachs. Hungarian forces, however, were defeated by the Habsburgs at Olomouc in late 1621 and withdrew from Moravia in 1622. Vlach forces were subsequently subdued in 1623, accompanied by a series of public executions. Renewed Vlach attacks on Vsetín occurred in late 1623. A second peace between Hungary and the Habsburgs was signed in 1624. |  |
The Hungarians, now aided by the Ottomans, reentered the War, and fighting occurred as far west as Brno. However, the Vlachs did not join their former allies, the Hungarians because the Turks were an older enemy of the Vlachs, from as early as the 14th and 15th century, when the first Ottoman attacks took place against Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, their original homes. A second peace between Hungary and the Habsburgs was signed in 1624. The Habsburgs seized this opportunity to attack the Vlachs in March 1624 in the mountains west of Vsetín, but the Vlachs prevailed in what was described as a slaughter of Habsburg forces. Vlachs captured Lukov in 1626, and joined by Danes, who had entered the war against the Habsburg, also captured Hranice in 1626. Vlachs captured Lukov in 1626, and joined by Danes, who had entered the war against the Habsburg, also captured Hranice in 1626.
In 1627, Wallenstein’s counter-attack forced the withdrawal of the Danish army from Moravia, and sent the Vlachs into retreat. By 1630, Vlachs controlled only their Carpathian strongholds. The final Vlach uprising occurred in 1640 when the Swedes invaded Moravia to do battle with the Habsburgs. Combined Vlach-Swede forces won back portions of Moravia, but then the Swedes withdrew in 1643 to concentrate on a war with Denmark. Until 1641 Moravia's capital was the centrally-located Olomouc, but after its capture by the Swedes it moved to the larger city of Brno which resisted the invaders successfully. The bishopric of Olomouc was founded in 1063, and raised to the rank of an archbishopric in 1777. Largely because of its ecclesiastical links to Austria, Salzburg in particular, the city had a German influence since the Middle Ages.