during the mid-fourteenth century, a document of serbian tsar stefan dušan refers to property of st clement church in ohrid with the settlement recorded under the name "frugovi vlasi", which later possibly broke up into two villages identified as being modern mali vlaj and nearby frangovo. local traditions in the struga area refer to the residents of mali vlaj as originating from rëmenj, albania arriving in the late eighteenth century. modern mali vlaj is without an aromanian population though the aromanian inhabitants of nearby gorna belica and dolna belica remember that once the village was populated by aromanians.