Romanians from Serbia in Denmark

villages. As most visits to Serbia have taken place outside the prime holiday
season, interviews with youngerpeople, with a few exceptions, were carried
out in Denmark as part of Club meetings. Key persons—such as theSerbian
priest in Denmark, the head of the local Diaspora Office in Serbia, etc—
were also interviewed. The interviews focused on personal migration stories
and on how the transnationallives that stretch between Serbia and Denmark
are organised, especially by those first-generation migrants whohave been
brought up with the values and norms of the ‘old’ Yugoslavia and who
participate on a more or less regular basis in the activities of the Serbian
clubs; it only includes the perceptions and practices of the second
generation when they add to the perspective of their parents. Furthermore,
most respondents were found among the great majority who take part in
most important club activities, such as the celebrations; the studydoes not
include the perceptions of those who no longer feel a need to maintain their
links with the Vlachmigrant community in Denmark in this way.
Living Dual Lives: Transnational Strategies and Obligations
Until the 1990s—when the break-up of Yugoslavia and the outflows of
refugees changed the ethnic pattern of immigrants from the former
Yugoslavia—the Vlachs, a small minority group from eastern Serbia, were
among thelargest diaspora communities in Denmark.
From the diaspora’s start in the late 1960s, Vlach migration strategies had
been characterised by chain migration, with the arriving migrants being
under strong pressure to facilitate and help the successive migrationof close
family relatives and more-distant kin. The close-knit social relations of the
Vlach minority encouraged a particular pattern in which settlement was
concentrated in four provincial towns all located within a radius of 100
kilometres of Copenhagen. After 40 years of settlement, this pattern
remains more or less the same, as few of the younger generation have
chosen to move far from their families.
In contrast to many other groups, the Vlachs mostly migrated as couples.
Once established, these couples wouldoften be joined by their parents, with
whom they would share an apartment and living expenses, to increase
savings as much as possible. This was a reflection of a particular Vlach
family tradition in which up to fourgenerations would live under the same