Truths and Lies about Macedonia - Part 3
Australian Macedonian Advisory Council
July 15, 2009
It seems that after Mr. Stefov´s failed attempts to prove himself a direct descendant of Alexander the Great´s Macedonians, by usurping the name and the whole history of this Greek tribe that was responsible for the spread of the Greek civilization throughout the known ancient world, a new bright idea was born: The need to "prove" that modern Greeks are in fact neither Greeks nor have something to do with ancient Greeks. Stefov´s aim is quite obvious: If the Greeks are proven to be non-Greeks, then all their claims about their historical and ethnological rights on the name and the legacy of ancient Macedonia are null and void. Consequently, they have no more rights on this name than the people from the FYROM or anyone else for that matter! The Slav speaking people of FYROM whose vast majority self-identified (some still do today), either as Bulgarians or as Serbs 2-3 generations back are transformed to the "Macedonians" of nowadays.
Many questions are still not satisfactorily answered, such as: what magical way did all these non-Greek people managed to learn Greek or to copy many customs and traditions that can be directly traced back to classical Greek antiquity, although ancient Greeks were completely wiped out as Stefov claims. Falmerayer´s outdated 19th century theories that have been completely discredited so far by many reputable scholars and historians and today are in generally rejected as inaccurate by the international academical community. Stefov should know that we modern Greeks never promoted concepts like "racial purity", "100% pure ancient Greek bloodline" and other such neo-nazistic doctrines, nor the official Greek state brainwashes its citizens in order to believe they are nothing else than descendants of Plato and Pericles, as Stefov and Gandeto claim. Greeks never tried to establish our connection to the ancient past of the land where we dwell with manipulated genetic studies or absurd and ridiculous claims about the origin of the human races, as our northern neighbours often do. It is well known and widely accepted in our society and its educational system that some non-Hellenic ethnic groups that settled in our country during the medieval times, after so many centuries of cohabitation and contribution to the Greek struggle for liberation (1821-1828) are today fully integrated into the Greek society and indistinguishable from the rest of the Greeks. But on one hand is the penetration of some non-Greek ethnic groups in Greek soil and their assimilation and on the other is Stefov´s and Gandeto´s assertion about the total disappearance of the Greek ethnicity. The first is called historical truth; the second distortion of historical truth. George Finlay spent a significant part of his life in the Greece of the 19th century:
"The strength of the Greek race lay in the ancient seats of Greek liberty.In Peloponnesus,in continental Greece and in the Greek islands,they not only formed the majority of the population,but they still possessed some municipal authority…..Even in Southern Epirus and in the Chalcidice of Macedonia they formed the majority of the agricultural population."
"History of the Greek Revolution" by George Finlay,1861 page 11
http://books.google.com/books?id=KEUOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA11
Greece neither denies the existence of those ethnic groups, nor their influence on the formation of the modern Greek culture, which consists not exclusively of ancient Hellenic elements. A Greek history book from the second grade in high school (printed in 1984) clearly stated:
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn17/kostas68/vivlioGlykeiou.gif
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn17/kostas68/vivGlykcov.gif
"The New-Greek ethnicity incorporated over the centuries several rural tribes that gradually moved southwards, mainly by a peaceful way: Slavs (since 7th century), Albanians (prior to the 12th century) and Vlachs (Latin-speaking Greeks and non-Greeks). It also assimilated cultural elements, mainly linguistic, which were received from the aforementioned tribes and the Turks, the Franks and the Venetians as well, with whom it cohabited for many centuries". Furthermore, the following question must be asked: If the ancient Greeks vanished indeed without leaving any trace of their existence, then how is it that a lot of modern Greek customs and traditions trace their origin directly from classical Greek antiquity? And, what is even more significant, is how these very customs and traditions are to be found among the Greeks of Macedonia, as they were recorded in 1903 by George Frederick Abbott in his legendary "Macedonian Folklore"?
http://www.archive.org/stream/macedonianfolklo00abborich
Another distinguished foreign scholar who proved with his logographic researches the connection between ancient Greek culture and modern Greek folklore was John Cuthbert Lawson who published in 1910 "Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion:a study in survivals"
http://www.archive.org/stream/moderngreekfolkl00laws#page/n8/mode/1up
All the modern ethno-sociologists agree that people who belong to modern nations share rather a common historical and cultural continuity instead a mythical pure bloodline. This was expressed much more convincingly than anywhere else in "The customs and lore of modern Greece" by Rennel Rodd,1892.
Pages xiii-xiv
http://www.archive.org/stream/customsloreofmod00rodd#page/n16/mode/1up
"The many nations that have passed through this much-debated land have probably all contributed to enrich the store of custom and legend.As regards the popular tales current everywhere,of which every old wife can tell a great number,their principal student,von Hahn, has laid it down that quite as many of them bear strong analogy to the Germanic folkstory as betray evidence of Oriental infiltration,but that there remains a considerable mass which are easily recognizable as simple popularizations of the Hellenic mythology. Similarly with customs and superstitions while there are many which are common also to Western and Northern nations, the most universally prevailing, the most characteristic,as well as the most numerous,are those which preserve, often with but slight modification, an old Hellenic savour.The ubiquity of the Fates and the Nereids, the reappearance of the ferryman of Styx as the grim angel of death, are strong arguments, if a stronger one were needed than the survival of language, against those who have main¬tained the extermination of the original inhabitants; the more so when we remember that these survivals exist with comparative uniformity in numbers of different centres, between which the rugged mountains have opposed a continual barrier to mutual intercourse".
Pages 1-2:
http://www.archive.org/stream/customsloreofmod00rodd#page/n20/mode/1up
"Of the origin and development of the ancient Hellenic races it would be superfluous to speak,and it is quite beyond the scope of the present work to discuss all the arguments of the learned Fallmerayer who first advanced the theory that the old inhabitants of the mainland had been wholly replaced by Slavonic popu¬lations.His reasoning has since been confuted by many competent authorities,and the most illustrious of these, Professor Hopf, has finally pronounced that but few traces of Slavonic nationality can be detected in the Hellas of later times.
Probably no race is ever radically exterminated in the country where it has long been established;and the fact that the same language which was written and spoken by the ancient Greeks is still,with certain modi¬fications, the language of the country today affords the strongest argument in favour of the historical continuity of a people, whose extraordinary vitality has sufficed to Hellenize beyond recognition the remnants of the Slave element by which it was at one time in danger of being overwhelmed. Had the number of the invaders been sufficient to suppress or oust the former inhabitants,a Slavonic language, or at any rate a Greek dialect largely tinged with Slave, would prevail in Greece today.But later and more critical investigators than Fallmerayer have failed to discover that any considerable admixture of Slavonic forms has influenced the language of the modern Greeks".
Pages 5-6:
http://www.archive.org/stream/customsloreofmod00rodd#page/5/mode/1up
"At least, it may be asserted without fear of contradiction,that the Greeks of today form a nation of considerable homogeneity from the Ionian Islands to the shores of the Black Sea, speaking a common language,exhibiting to those that know them well a conspicuous resemblance in character to the Greeks of antiquity,and still revealing ample evidence of that obstinate nationality, which several times nearly extinguished in its hereditary seat,has nevertheless succeeded in reasserting itself, in overshadowing and absorbing the various elements which had threatened to overwhelm it. And not less remarkable than this uniformity of language and character is the similarity of custom, of lore, and of superstition, of all, in fact, that is most ancient and most national, in portions of the Hellenic kingdom the remotest from one another.The customs of the mainland, which has been represented as wholly re-peopled by Slaves,are closely analogous to those of the islands,which admittedly never were subjected to Slavonic influence, and they recur with but slight variation all over those portions of the Turkish empire where the Greek populations predominate.This uniformity of thought and tradition will frequently come to light in subsequent chapters."
Page 21:
http://www.archive.org/stream/customsloreofmod00rodd#page/21/mode/1up
"Those who are familiar with the present inhabitants,and with the life and story of antiquity, will hardly fail to subscribe to the opinion of Mr. Finlay,the historian of medieval and modern Greece, who,after tracing all its vicissitudes,has,like Professor Hopf,definitely decided in favour of this view, and emphatically states "No historical facts seem more evident than that the modern Greeks are a modification of the ancient Achaian, Dorian, Ionian,Aeolian,and Hellenic population".
The reliability of this last sentence is indeed confirmed by a man who was very familiar with modern Greeks, the Reverend Joseph Greene, a resident of Turkey for 51 years who mentioned in page 18 of "Leavening the Levant",1916:
"It is surprising that in spite of a large intermixture of blood the Greeks have kept their racial features and their national characteristics to so large an extend."
http://www.archive.org/stream/leaveninglevant00gree#page/18/mode/2up
And by The National geographic magazine of 1916 as well in page 295
http://books.google.com/books?id=8pR-AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA295
There are few parallels—indeed, at the moment, that recall all but one—to the striking racial phenomenon of Hellenic continuity throughout the vicissitudes of 2,000 years. Modern research has penetrated the dark byways of medieval Greek history, and we now know that the Greeks ,whatever their temporary fate, have preserved unbroken the thread of their national existence.
Stefov stated conceitedly that he managed to find 50 authors who claim that modern Greeks are not related to the ancient ones. There is no point in ´writing in circles´ by finding another 50 authors with the opposite view, these 3-4 are enough to prove that Stefov´s assertions about the "disappearance of the Greek race" are rejected by many impartial scholars and historians. Instead the challenge to Stefov is to find any serious and reputable historian who will relate the Slavic people of FYROM with the ancient Macedonians. How is it that the FYROM ancestors were undoubtedly considered as one in the same with the Bulgarians by the 99.99 % of all geographers, ethnologists, historians and linguists not that many years ago; till the decades of 1930-40? Were all these scientists so deluded, that they could not recognize the hidden "Macedonian" identity? Or maybe was it the fault of the ancestors of today´s FYROM, who were constantly demonstrating with their attitude in every instance their true ethnic character i.e. the Bulgarian one? Maybe like these below:
"The story of the great war" 1916 by Francis Joseph Reynolds, pages 233-234
http://www.archive.org/stream/storygreatwar04ruhlgoog#page/n291/mode/1up
Three days later the Serbian army was well on the road over the frontier toward the Bulgarian capital.Suddenly, at Slivnitza,a small town just over the frontier, the Bulgars burst down on them.At their head rushed a brigade of 3,000 Macedonian "brigands," natives of that territory that the Treaty of Berlin had cut off from Bulgaria.
Why did these "Macedonians" fight on behalf of Bulgaria in the Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885? The answer can be found in pages 221-222 of the same book, where the author speaks of the various ethnicities that dwelt in Macedonia during Ottoman time:
http://www.archive.org/stream/storygreatwar04ruhlgoog#page/n278/mode/1up
The consensus of opinion would indicate that along the sea-coast the Greeks predominate, and that they are also numerous in the large towns and cities. In the interior they are not found much north of Saloniki, and even in that city the majority of the population is Jewish. As traders, as the business elements in the cities, however, they are found even up in Varna and Bourgas in Bulgaria….
The Slavs, again, are subdivided into two families: Serbs and Bulgars. And here it is more difficult to distinguish the dividing line, for although there is a marked difference between the characteristics of the two peoples, both physical and temperamental, so nearly alike are their languages that speech forms no sure guide to distinguishing, especially in Macedonia, where dialects vary with a day's travel. The trend of popular feeling seems the only guide, during and after the Balkan wars, there are no Serbians in Macedonia, except close up to the old frontier that existed before 1912. Elsewhere the people are Bulgars. and have come to hate the Serbians with a hate that no Westerner can realize.
Even Yane Sandanski who is considered today in FYROM as a great "Macedonian" hero (although claimed-not surprisingly of course- by the Bulgarians as well) never did renounce his Bulgarian origin. In an interview to the Serbian newspaper "Politika" in 1908, after the amnesty that was given by the Ottoman government for all the partisans he stated:
Understandably, this amnesty, as far as you and Mr.Panica are concerned, is valid for Turkey only. You are not permitted into Bulgaria?
Sandanski stopped speaking, run his hand through his beard and answered.
I may not go to Bulgaria!
He remained silent for a while and after a little pause he added decisively:
But I don't need to. HERE IS MY BULGARIA!
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/7005/isfn4.jpg
(Разуме се,ово помиловање у колико се вас и Г. Панице тиче,важи само за Турску.Ви у Бугарску не смете?
Сандански заћута,провуче руку кроз браду па одговори.
У Бугарску не смем!
Заћута мало и после извезне паусе додаде одлучно:
Али ми и не треба.Овде је моја Бугарска!)
And some years later he assisted his Bulgarian brethren in the Balkan wars:
Page 254
http://www.archive.org/stream/storygreatwar04ruhlgoog#page/n311/mode/1up
And when the war did actually break out, Sandanski was leading some thousands of his Macedonian commitajis against the Turks In the Razlog district, which he conquered and turned over to the Bulgarian authorities when they came there to establish a civil government.
But Sandanski was not the only "Macedonian" who fought alongside his Bulgarian compatriots during the Balkan wars.There were thousands others and one of them was Khristo Matov,prominent member of VMRO,the Bulgaromacedonian revolutionary organization:
"The war correspondence of Leon Trotsky. The Balkan wars, 1912-13" by Leon Trotsky page 227
http://books.google.com/books?id=tEJmenVPZ-IC&pg=PA227
"Our internal Macedonian organization," began Khristo Malov, leader of one of the Macedonian revolutionary tendencies, "has been in existence continuously since 1893.
He continues in page 233 and his answer speaks volumes itself:
http://books.google.com/books?id=tEJmenVPZ-IC&pg=PA233
"What part are the partisans playing in this war?" "That is a question which, for obvious reasons, I can answer only in the most general terms. We operate alongside the Bulgarian army—not only in its interests, but under the command of its officers….
"What is it that we want to achieve—autonomy for Macedonia or union with Bulgaria? That is a perfectly natural question for you to ask. And if you had put it to me before the war I should have had no hesitation in answering it. Now, however, when we are fighting with Serbia and Greece as our allies, I must ask permission not to reply to that last question of yours.
And 30 years after, during the occupation of the Greek province of Macedonia by the allied German and Bulgarian troops in WW2,the so-called "Macedonians" showed explicitly their true ethnic affiliation, collaborating with the Bulgarian occupying forces against the Greek partisans:
"British reports on Greece 1943-1944" by John Melior Stevens, Christopher Montague Woodhouse, David John Wallace, Lars Bærentzen 1982,page 28
http://books.google.com/books?id=xBNlR8_NtI0C&pg=PA28
The most striking feature of Free Greece to-day is its safety. It is perfectly safe to move about alone and unarmed in practically all of Free Greece, except in north West Macedonia where Comitajis (Slavomacedonian irregular troops that collaborated with the Nazis and the Bulgarian occupying forces) wander about at night shooting up Antartes (Greek partisans).If there are any Axis troops in the neighbourhood, one is immediately informed. This is not the case in areas where the villages are not organised as in the zone of Bulgar villages in the Edessa-Kastoria-Florina triangle. There, as we know from bitter personal experience, one can blunder into a village full of Germans without villagers, working on the outskirts, bothering to warn one.
And the list goes on:
"The East end of Europe;The report of an unofficial mission to the European provinces of Turkey on the eve of the revolution" by Allen Upward 1908,page 26
http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n56/mode/1up
The Bulgarian propagandists found what they required in the word " Macedonia," a name with no more definite signification than Wessex or Languedoc. Unfortunately for themselves, the Greeks had been the first to make use of this name, with its classical associations, and to give it a wide extension to the north in the interests of Hellenic expansion. As usual, their exaggerated pretensions defeated themselves, and the Bulgars now hoist them with their own petard, by persuading Europe that Macedonia was a definite political entity, ike Wales or Switzerland.
page 27
http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n57/mode/1up
It was possibly with a view to some such result that Gladstone threw out the phrase "Macedonia for the Macedonians," a phrase which, be it said with all respect, could not have been used by any man of impartiality and intelligence who possessed a firsthand knowledge of the country. The Bulgarians were prompt to adopt it for use against the Turks, while keeping that of Macedonia for the Bulgars for use against the Greeks…
It is therefore no longer necessary to demonstrate the mythical character of the " Macedonian" nationality in the eyes of every element in the Macedonian population.
"The Earliest stage of language planning" by Joshua A. Fishman 1993,page 160
http://books.google.com/books?id=T-gHxC8J4PwC&pg=PA160
During the next period (about 1840-1870), two centers of Slavic literacy arose among the Orthodox Slavs of Macedonia and Bulgaria:one in southwestern Macedonia, the other in northeastern Bulgaria.The Slavs of Macedonia during this period continued to call their language Bulgarian, and at first they envisioned a literary language using their dialects or compromising among the various dialects of Bulgaria and Macedonia.
"Macedonia, a plea for the primitive" by A.Goff and Hugh Fawcett 1921,page 6
http://www.archive.org/stream/macedoniapleafor00goff#page/6/mode/1up
The reader will no doubt have concluded from the prefatory statements that there is no real Macedonian nationality and that the term is merely a convenient expression to describe the inhabitants…
Of the entire population, although there is a preponderance of Greeks, it is by no means overwhelming, and, in the city oi Salonika itself, the Jews are in a slight majority. Other nationalities which are well represented are Turk, Serb, Bulgar and Armenian.
"Nationality & the War" by Arnold Joseph Toynbee 1915,page 239
http://www.archive.org/stream/nationalitywar00toyngoog#page/n269/mode/1up
The Vardar rises on South-Slavonic soil, and Uskub, at the junction of its head-waters, is as truly a Serb city as Nish or Belgrade. Below Uskub, however, the whole basin of the river is occupied by a Bulgar population which extends as far Westward as the Albanian frontier. The nationality of this population is not in doubt: it is as Bulgar in sympathy as in dialect, and it regards the Serbian regime as a foreign domination…
Linguistically ,the Slav-Macedonians are as unmistakable Bulgarians as the Slavs of Sofia or Plevna, and the Bulgarian propaganda of the bat twenty years has roused in then a keen sense of national brotherhood with the speakers of their tongue who live beyond the Bulgarian frontier.
"Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year 1890" by D. Appleton,page 86
http://www.archive.org/stream/appletonsannu15newyuoft#page/86/mode/1up
The ethnographical constituents of the population of Macedonia, according to statistics collected through the French consular agencies and free from political bias, are as follow: Bulgars, 650,000; Greeks, 300,000; Arnauts or Albanian Mussulmans, 110,000; Bulgarian Mussulmans, 60,000; Ottoman Turks, 180,000; Greek Mussulmans, 15.000; Albanian Christians, 30,000; Jews, Wallachians, and gypsies, 80,000; Armenians, 10,000; European foreigners, 5.000. The claims of Serbia to Macedonia are based on the historical ground that at one time it formed part of the Serbian Empire, and on the fact that in language and customs the Macedonian Slavs approach more nearly to the Serbian than to the Bulgarian type. Ethnologists say there is only a small trace of Serbian blood in the Macedonians, and they themselves have from time immemorial called themselves Bulgarians, and have taken an active part in the ecclesiastical and educational struggle against Hellenism, and many of them in the Bulgarian contest for political independence.
And that´s the way all the Bulgarians of Macedonia were transformed to "Macedonians":
"Europe since 1945" by Bernard A. Cook 2001,pages 807-808
http://books.google.com/books?id=hafLHZgZtt4C&pg=PA807
Vardar Macedonia, the main portion of the geographical district "Macedonia," was annexed to Serbia in 1913, under the name South Serbia. There were rwo opposing Serbian theories concerning the amalgamation of Macedonia into Serbia. Serbian academic Jovan Cviich asserted that the Slavs in Macedonia were Serbs, not Bulgarians. The other approach was advanced by Serbian diplomat Stoyan Novakovich, who contented that the Bulgarians in Macedonia could not be made into Serbs; therefore they should be transformed into Macedonians.
Following Soviet dictator. Stalin's line of "divide et impera," or dividing larger nations into smaller ones, the organization for the world's communist parties set up by the Soviets, (the Comintern) declared in 1934 that the Macedonians, the Thracians, and the Dobrudjans constituted separate nations distinct from the Bulgarians…
Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. The Communist leaders, despite the absence of any Macedonian representatives at the assembly, declared the formation of the People's Republic of Macedonia as a part of Yugoslavia. This decision was confirmed on August 2, 1944, in the Prohor Pchinski Monastery, when a separate "Macedonian language" was decreed. The explanation was that such a language was needed in administration. Immediately after this meeting Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito established a commission to produce a written Macedonian language. The commission worked under the direct control of the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party. The language was manipulated in a way that could be characterized as Serbianizing the Bulgarian language, using, of course, as a basis the dialects that were characteristic of the district. All the literature of Macedonian writers, memoirs of Macedonian leaders, and important documents had to be translated from Bulgarian into the newly invented Macedonian…
Thus the historians of the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia started declaring that Macedonia as a whole was a Slavic country both in its historical tradition and in its ethnic composition. For this reason, they claimed, it had to be united and form a unified state. The other two parts, Aegean Macedonia and Pirin Macedonia, would have to be restored, i.e., to be united with Yugoslav Macedonia. The new policy really meant the denationalizing of the Macedonians (or the creation of a new Macedonian identity). After World War II many intellectuals who opposed the denationalization policy of Yugoslavia were persecuted and sent to prison. The first trials started May 28, 1945. In Skopje alone, eighteen trials were conducted against Bulgarians. Of the 226 accused, 22 were sentences to death, and the others to long years in prison. Similar trials took place elsewhere in Yugoslavia.
In September 1945 a Macedonian organization, the the Democratic Front "llinden 1903," sent a lengthy letter to the wartime Allied governments. After cataloguing the sufferings of Bulgarians in Macedonia, it stated that "Without Free Macedonia, there will not be peace in the Balkans." The group was accused by the Tito government of terrorist activities, and its leaders were sentenced by the Yugoslavs to long prison terms. Around the end of 1945 the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was reorganized and began an illegal struggle. In 1946 IMRO issued a Memorandum to the Great Powers, expressing again the sufferings of the Bulgarian population in Yugoslav Macedonia. The leaders were arrested but were defended by the Communist prime minister of Macedonia, Metody Andonov-Chento. Though a Communist, Chento also felt himself a Bulgarian. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison, and the delegation from the great powers—USSR, United States, France. Great Britain—was not allowed to meet him. Under the influence of IMRO many pro-Bulgarian organizations arose. Trial after trial followed in Macedonia. From 1944 to 1980 seven hundred political trials were conducted against intellectuals. Hundreds of death sentences were handed down and twenty three thousand individuals disappeared and are presumed to have been murdered. Another 120,000 spent time in prisons and concentration camps. Approximately 180.000 emigrated to Bulgaria, the United States, and other countries.
Written by Kapetan Doukas
info@macedonian.com.au
Macedonian Forums
Many questions are still not satisfactorily answered, such as: what magical way did all these non-Greek people managed to learn Greek or to copy many customs and traditions that can be directly traced back to classical Greek antiquity, although ancient Greeks were completely wiped out as Stefov claims. Falmerayer´s outdated 19th century theories that have been completely discredited so far by many reputable scholars and historians and today are in generally rejected as inaccurate by the international academical community. Stefov should know that we modern Greeks never promoted concepts like "racial purity", "100% pure ancient Greek bloodline" and other such neo-nazistic doctrines, nor the official Greek state brainwashes its citizens in order to believe they are nothing else than descendants of Plato and Pericles, as Stefov and Gandeto claim. Greeks never tried to establish our connection to the ancient past of the land where we dwell with manipulated genetic studies or absurd and ridiculous claims about the origin of the human races, as our northern neighbours often do. It is well known and widely accepted in our society and its educational system that some non-Hellenic ethnic groups that settled in our country during the medieval times, after so many centuries of cohabitation and contribution to the Greek struggle for liberation (1821-1828) are today fully integrated into the Greek society and indistinguishable from the rest of the Greeks. But on one hand is the penetration of some non-Greek ethnic groups in Greek soil and their assimilation and on the other is Stefov´s and Gandeto´s assertion about the total disappearance of the Greek ethnicity. The first is called historical truth; the second distortion of historical truth. George Finlay spent a significant part of his life in the Greece of the 19th century:
"The strength of the Greek race lay in the ancient seats of Greek liberty.In Peloponnesus,in continental Greece and in the Greek islands,they not only formed the majority of the population,but they still possessed some municipal authority…..Even in Southern Epirus and in the Chalcidice of Macedonia they formed the majority of the agricultural population."
"History of the Greek Revolution" by George Finlay,1861 page 11
http://books.google.com/books?id=KEUOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA11
Greece neither denies the existence of those ethnic groups, nor their influence on the formation of the modern Greek culture, which consists not exclusively of ancient Hellenic elements. A Greek history book from the second grade in high school (printed in 1984) clearly stated:
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn17/kostas68/vivlioGlykeiou.gif
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn17/kostas68/vivGlykcov.gif
"The New-Greek ethnicity incorporated over the centuries several rural tribes that gradually moved southwards, mainly by a peaceful way: Slavs (since 7th century), Albanians (prior to the 12th century) and Vlachs (Latin-speaking Greeks and non-Greeks). It also assimilated cultural elements, mainly linguistic, which were received from the aforementioned tribes and the Turks, the Franks and the Venetians as well, with whom it cohabited for many centuries". Furthermore, the following question must be asked: If the ancient Greeks vanished indeed without leaving any trace of their existence, then how is it that a lot of modern Greek customs and traditions trace their origin directly from classical Greek antiquity? And, what is even more significant, is how these very customs and traditions are to be found among the Greeks of Macedonia, as they were recorded in 1903 by George Frederick Abbott in his legendary "Macedonian Folklore"?
http://www.archive.org/stream/macedonianfolklo00abborich
Another distinguished foreign scholar who proved with his logographic researches the connection between ancient Greek culture and modern Greek folklore was John Cuthbert Lawson who published in 1910 "Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion:a study in survivals"
http://www.archive.org/stream/moderngreekfolkl00laws#page/n8/mode/1up
All the modern ethno-sociologists agree that people who belong to modern nations share rather a common historical and cultural continuity instead a mythical pure bloodline. This was expressed much more convincingly than anywhere else in "The customs and lore of modern Greece" by Rennel Rodd,1892.
Pages xiii-xiv
http://www.archive.org/stream/customsloreofmod00rodd#page/n16/mode/1up
"The many nations that have passed through this much-debated land have probably all contributed to enrich the store of custom and legend.As regards the popular tales current everywhere,of which every old wife can tell a great number,their principal student,von Hahn, has laid it down that quite as many of them bear strong analogy to the Germanic folkstory as betray evidence of Oriental infiltration,but that there remains a considerable mass which are easily recognizable as simple popularizations of the Hellenic mythology. Similarly with customs and superstitions while there are many which are common also to Western and Northern nations, the most universally prevailing, the most characteristic,as well as the most numerous,are those which preserve, often with but slight modification, an old Hellenic savour.The ubiquity of the Fates and the Nereids, the reappearance of the ferryman of Styx as the grim angel of death, are strong arguments, if a stronger one were needed than the survival of language, against those who have main¬tained the extermination of the original inhabitants; the more so when we remember that these survivals exist with comparative uniformity in numbers of different centres, between which the rugged mountains have opposed a continual barrier to mutual intercourse".
Pages 1-2:
http://www.archive.org/stream/customsloreofmod00rodd#page/n20/mode/1up
"Of the origin and development of the ancient Hellenic races it would be superfluous to speak,and it is quite beyond the scope of the present work to discuss all the arguments of the learned Fallmerayer who first advanced the theory that the old inhabitants of the mainland had been wholly replaced by Slavonic popu¬lations.His reasoning has since been confuted by many competent authorities,and the most illustrious of these, Professor Hopf, has finally pronounced that but few traces of Slavonic nationality can be detected in the Hellas of later times.
Probably no race is ever radically exterminated in the country where it has long been established;and the fact that the same language which was written and spoken by the ancient Greeks is still,with certain modi¬fications, the language of the country today affords the strongest argument in favour of the historical continuity of a people, whose extraordinary vitality has sufficed to Hellenize beyond recognition the remnants of the Slave element by which it was at one time in danger of being overwhelmed. Had the number of the invaders been sufficient to suppress or oust the former inhabitants,a Slavonic language, or at any rate a Greek dialect largely tinged with Slave, would prevail in Greece today.But later and more critical investigators than Fallmerayer have failed to discover that any considerable admixture of Slavonic forms has influenced the language of the modern Greeks".
Pages 5-6:
http://www.archive.org/stream/customsloreofmod00rodd#page/5/mode/1up
"At least, it may be asserted without fear of contradiction,that the Greeks of today form a nation of considerable homogeneity from the Ionian Islands to the shores of the Black Sea, speaking a common language,exhibiting to those that know them well a conspicuous resemblance in character to the Greeks of antiquity,and still revealing ample evidence of that obstinate nationality, which several times nearly extinguished in its hereditary seat,has nevertheless succeeded in reasserting itself, in overshadowing and absorbing the various elements which had threatened to overwhelm it. And not less remarkable than this uniformity of language and character is the similarity of custom, of lore, and of superstition, of all, in fact, that is most ancient and most national, in portions of the Hellenic kingdom the remotest from one another.The customs of the mainland, which has been represented as wholly re-peopled by Slaves,are closely analogous to those of the islands,which admittedly never were subjected to Slavonic influence, and they recur with but slight variation all over those portions of the Turkish empire where the Greek populations predominate.This uniformity of thought and tradition will frequently come to light in subsequent chapters."
Page 21:
http://www.archive.org/stream/customsloreofmod00rodd#page/21/mode/1up
"Those who are familiar with the present inhabitants,and with the life and story of antiquity, will hardly fail to subscribe to the opinion of Mr. Finlay,the historian of medieval and modern Greece, who,after tracing all its vicissitudes,has,like Professor Hopf,definitely decided in favour of this view, and emphatically states "No historical facts seem more evident than that the modern Greeks are a modification of the ancient Achaian, Dorian, Ionian,Aeolian,and Hellenic population".
The reliability of this last sentence is indeed confirmed by a man who was very familiar with modern Greeks, the Reverend Joseph Greene, a resident of Turkey for 51 years who mentioned in page 18 of "Leavening the Levant",1916:
"It is surprising that in spite of a large intermixture of blood the Greeks have kept their racial features and their national characteristics to so large an extend."
http://www.archive.org/stream/leaveninglevant00gree#page/18/mode/2up
And by The National geographic magazine of 1916 as well in page 295
http://books.google.com/books?id=8pR-AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA295
There are few parallels—indeed, at the moment, that recall all but one—to the striking racial phenomenon of Hellenic continuity throughout the vicissitudes of 2,000 years. Modern research has penetrated the dark byways of medieval Greek history, and we now know that the Greeks ,whatever their temporary fate, have preserved unbroken the thread of their national existence.
Stefov stated conceitedly that he managed to find 50 authors who claim that modern Greeks are not related to the ancient ones. There is no point in ´writing in circles´ by finding another 50 authors with the opposite view, these 3-4 are enough to prove that Stefov´s assertions about the "disappearance of the Greek race" are rejected by many impartial scholars and historians. Instead the challenge to Stefov is to find any serious and reputable historian who will relate the Slavic people of FYROM with the ancient Macedonians. How is it that the FYROM ancestors were undoubtedly considered as one in the same with the Bulgarians by the 99.99 % of all geographers, ethnologists, historians and linguists not that many years ago; till the decades of 1930-40? Were all these scientists so deluded, that they could not recognize the hidden "Macedonian" identity? Or maybe was it the fault of the ancestors of today´s FYROM, who were constantly demonstrating with their attitude in every instance their true ethnic character i.e. the Bulgarian one? Maybe like these below:
"The story of the great war" 1916 by Francis Joseph Reynolds, pages 233-234
http://www.archive.org/stream/storygreatwar04ruhlgoog#page/n291/mode/1up
Three days later the Serbian army was well on the road over the frontier toward the Bulgarian capital.Suddenly, at Slivnitza,a small town just over the frontier, the Bulgars burst down on them.At their head rushed a brigade of 3,000 Macedonian "brigands," natives of that territory that the Treaty of Berlin had cut off from Bulgaria.
Why did these "Macedonians" fight on behalf of Bulgaria in the Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885? The answer can be found in pages 221-222 of the same book, where the author speaks of the various ethnicities that dwelt in Macedonia during Ottoman time:
http://www.archive.org/stream/storygreatwar04ruhlgoog#page/n278/mode/1up
The consensus of opinion would indicate that along the sea-coast the Greeks predominate, and that they are also numerous in the large towns and cities. In the interior they are not found much north of Saloniki, and even in that city the majority of the population is Jewish. As traders, as the business elements in the cities, however, they are found even up in Varna and Bourgas in Bulgaria….
The Slavs, again, are subdivided into two families: Serbs and Bulgars. And here it is more difficult to distinguish the dividing line, for although there is a marked difference between the characteristics of the two peoples, both physical and temperamental, so nearly alike are their languages that speech forms no sure guide to distinguishing, especially in Macedonia, where dialects vary with a day's travel. The trend of popular feeling seems the only guide, during and after the Balkan wars, there are no Serbians in Macedonia, except close up to the old frontier that existed before 1912. Elsewhere the people are Bulgars. and have come to hate the Serbians with a hate that no Westerner can realize.
Even Yane Sandanski who is considered today in FYROM as a great "Macedonian" hero (although claimed-not surprisingly of course- by the Bulgarians as well) never did renounce his Bulgarian origin. In an interview to the Serbian newspaper "Politika" in 1908, after the amnesty that was given by the Ottoman government for all the partisans he stated:
Understandably, this amnesty, as far as you and Mr.Panica are concerned, is valid for Turkey only. You are not permitted into Bulgaria?
Sandanski stopped speaking, run his hand through his beard and answered.
I may not go to Bulgaria!
He remained silent for a while and after a little pause he added decisively:
But I don't need to. HERE IS MY BULGARIA!
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/7005/isfn4.jpg
(Разуме се,ово помиловање у колико се вас и Г. Панице тиче,важи само за Турску.Ви у Бугарску не смете?
Сандански заћута,провуче руку кроз браду па одговори.
У Бугарску не смем!
Заћута мало и после извезне паусе додаде одлучно:
Али ми и не треба.Овде је моја Бугарска!)
And some years later he assisted his Bulgarian brethren in the Balkan wars:
Page 254
http://www.archive.org/stream/storygreatwar04ruhlgoog#page/n311/mode/1up
And when the war did actually break out, Sandanski was leading some thousands of his Macedonian commitajis against the Turks In the Razlog district, which he conquered and turned over to the Bulgarian authorities when they came there to establish a civil government.
But Sandanski was not the only "Macedonian" who fought alongside his Bulgarian compatriots during the Balkan wars.There were thousands others and one of them was Khristo Matov,prominent member of VMRO,the Bulgaromacedonian revolutionary organization:
"The war correspondence of Leon Trotsky. The Balkan wars, 1912-13" by Leon Trotsky page 227
http://books.google.com/books?id=tEJmenVPZ-IC&pg=PA227
"Our internal Macedonian organization," began Khristo Malov, leader of one of the Macedonian revolutionary tendencies, "has been in existence continuously since 1893.
He continues in page 233 and his answer speaks volumes itself:
http://books.google.com/books?id=tEJmenVPZ-IC&pg=PA233
"What part are the partisans playing in this war?" "That is a question which, for obvious reasons, I can answer only in the most general terms. We operate alongside the Bulgarian army—not only in its interests, but under the command of its officers….
"What is it that we want to achieve—autonomy for Macedonia or union with Bulgaria? That is a perfectly natural question for you to ask. And if you had put it to me before the war I should have had no hesitation in answering it. Now, however, when we are fighting with Serbia and Greece as our allies, I must ask permission not to reply to that last question of yours.
And 30 years after, during the occupation of the Greek province of Macedonia by the allied German and Bulgarian troops in WW2,the so-called "Macedonians" showed explicitly their true ethnic affiliation, collaborating with the Bulgarian occupying forces against the Greek partisans:
"British reports on Greece 1943-1944" by John Melior Stevens, Christopher Montague Woodhouse, David John Wallace, Lars Bærentzen 1982,page 28
http://books.google.com/books?id=xBNlR8_NtI0C&pg=PA28
The most striking feature of Free Greece to-day is its safety. It is perfectly safe to move about alone and unarmed in practically all of Free Greece, except in north West Macedonia where Comitajis (Slavomacedonian irregular troops that collaborated with the Nazis and the Bulgarian occupying forces) wander about at night shooting up Antartes (Greek partisans).If there are any Axis troops in the neighbourhood, one is immediately informed. This is not the case in areas where the villages are not organised as in the zone of Bulgar villages in the Edessa-Kastoria-Florina triangle. There, as we know from bitter personal experience, one can blunder into a village full of Germans without villagers, working on the outskirts, bothering to warn one.
And the list goes on:
"The East end of Europe;The report of an unofficial mission to the European provinces of Turkey on the eve of the revolution" by Allen Upward 1908,page 26
http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n56/mode/1up
The Bulgarian propagandists found what they required in the word " Macedonia," a name with no more definite signification than Wessex or Languedoc. Unfortunately for themselves, the Greeks had been the first to make use of this name, with its classical associations, and to give it a wide extension to the north in the interests of Hellenic expansion. As usual, their exaggerated pretensions defeated themselves, and the Bulgars now hoist them with their own petard, by persuading Europe that Macedonia was a definite political entity, ike Wales or Switzerland.
page 27
http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n57/mode/1up
It was possibly with a view to some such result that Gladstone threw out the phrase "Macedonia for the Macedonians," a phrase which, be it said with all respect, could not have been used by any man of impartiality and intelligence who possessed a firsthand knowledge of the country. The Bulgarians were prompt to adopt it for use against the Turks, while keeping that of Macedonia for the Bulgars for use against the Greeks…
It is therefore no longer necessary to demonstrate the mythical character of the " Macedonian" nationality in the eyes of every element in the Macedonian population.
"The Earliest stage of language planning" by Joshua A. Fishman 1993,page 160
http://books.google.com/books?id=T-gHxC8J4PwC&pg=PA160
During the next period (about 1840-1870), two centers of Slavic literacy arose among the Orthodox Slavs of Macedonia and Bulgaria:one in southwestern Macedonia, the other in northeastern Bulgaria.The Slavs of Macedonia during this period continued to call their language Bulgarian, and at first they envisioned a literary language using their dialects or compromising among the various dialects of Bulgaria and Macedonia.
"Macedonia, a plea for the primitive" by A.Goff and Hugh Fawcett 1921,page 6
http://www.archive.org/stream/macedoniapleafor00goff#page/6/mode/1up
The reader will no doubt have concluded from the prefatory statements that there is no real Macedonian nationality and that the term is merely a convenient expression to describe the inhabitants…
Of the entire population, although there is a preponderance of Greeks, it is by no means overwhelming, and, in the city oi Salonika itself, the Jews are in a slight majority. Other nationalities which are well represented are Turk, Serb, Bulgar and Armenian.
"Nationality & the War" by Arnold Joseph Toynbee 1915,page 239
http://www.archive.org/stream/nationalitywar00toyngoog#page/n269/mode/1up
The Vardar rises on South-Slavonic soil, and Uskub, at the junction of its head-waters, is as truly a Serb city as Nish or Belgrade. Below Uskub, however, the whole basin of the river is occupied by a Bulgar population which extends as far Westward as the Albanian frontier. The nationality of this population is not in doubt: it is as Bulgar in sympathy as in dialect, and it regards the Serbian regime as a foreign domination…
Linguistically ,the Slav-Macedonians are as unmistakable Bulgarians as the Slavs of Sofia or Plevna, and the Bulgarian propaganda of the bat twenty years has roused in then a keen sense of national brotherhood with the speakers of their tongue who live beyond the Bulgarian frontier.
"Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year 1890" by D. Appleton,page 86
http://www.archive.org/stream/appletonsannu15newyuoft#page/86/mode/1up
The ethnographical constituents of the population of Macedonia, according to statistics collected through the French consular agencies and free from political bias, are as follow: Bulgars, 650,000; Greeks, 300,000; Arnauts or Albanian Mussulmans, 110,000; Bulgarian Mussulmans, 60,000; Ottoman Turks, 180,000; Greek Mussulmans, 15.000; Albanian Christians, 30,000; Jews, Wallachians, and gypsies, 80,000; Armenians, 10,000; European foreigners, 5.000. The claims of Serbia to Macedonia are based on the historical ground that at one time it formed part of the Serbian Empire, and on the fact that in language and customs the Macedonian Slavs approach more nearly to the Serbian than to the Bulgarian type. Ethnologists say there is only a small trace of Serbian blood in the Macedonians, and they themselves have from time immemorial called themselves Bulgarians, and have taken an active part in the ecclesiastical and educational struggle against Hellenism, and many of them in the Bulgarian contest for political independence.
And that´s the way all the Bulgarians of Macedonia were transformed to "Macedonians":
"Europe since 1945" by Bernard A. Cook 2001,pages 807-808
http://books.google.com/books?id=hafLHZgZtt4C&pg=PA807
Vardar Macedonia, the main portion of the geographical district "Macedonia," was annexed to Serbia in 1913, under the name South Serbia. There were rwo opposing Serbian theories concerning the amalgamation of Macedonia into Serbia. Serbian academic Jovan Cviich asserted that the Slavs in Macedonia were Serbs, not Bulgarians. The other approach was advanced by Serbian diplomat Stoyan Novakovich, who contented that the Bulgarians in Macedonia could not be made into Serbs; therefore they should be transformed into Macedonians.
Following Soviet dictator. Stalin's line of "divide et impera," or dividing larger nations into smaller ones, the organization for the world's communist parties set up by the Soviets, (the Comintern) declared in 1934 that the Macedonians, the Thracians, and the Dobrudjans constituted separate nations distinct from the Bulgarians…
Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. The Communist leaders, despite the absence of any Macedonian representatives at the assembly, declared the formation of the People's Republic of Macedonia as a part of Yugoslavia. This decision was confirmed on August 2, 1944, in the Prohor Pchinski Monastery, when a separate "Macedonian language" was decreed. The explanation was that such a language was needed in administration. Immediately after this meeting Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito established a commission to produce a written Macedonian language. The commission worked under the direct control of the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party. The language was manipulated in a way that could be characterized as Serbianizing the Bulgarian language, using, of course, as a basis the dialects that were characteristic of the district. All the literature of Macedonian writers, memoirs of Macedonian leaders, and important documents had to be translated from Bulgarian into the newly invented Macedonian…
Thus the historians of the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia started declaring that Macedonia as a whole was a Slavic country both in its historical tradition and in its ethnic composition. For this reason, they claimed, it had to be united and form a unified state. The other two parts, Aegean Macedonia and Pirin Macedonia, would have to be restored, i.e., to be united with Yugoslav Macedonia. The new policy really meant the denationalizing of the Macedonians (or the creation of a new Macedonian identity). After World War II many intellectuals who opposed the denationalization policy of Yugoslavia were persecuted and sent to prison. The first trials started May 28, 1945. In Skopje alone, eighteen trials were conducted against Bulgarians. Of the 226 accused, 22 were sentences to death, and the others to long years in prison. Similar trials took place elsewhere in Yugoslavia.
In September 1945 a Macedonian organization, the the Democratic Front "llinden 1903," sent a lengthy letter to the wartime Allied governments. After cataloguing the sufferings of Bulgarians in Macedonia, it stated that "Without Free Macedonia, there will not be peace in the Balkans." The group was accused by the Tito government of terrorist activities, and its leaders were sentenced by the Yugoslavs to long prison terms. Around the end of 1945 the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was reorganized and began an illegal struggle. In 1946 IMRO issued a Memorandum to the Great Powers, expressing again the sufferings of the Bulgarian population in Yugoslav Macedonia. The leaders were arrested but were defended by the Communist prime minister of Macedonia, Metody Andonov-Chento. Though a Communist, Chento also felt himself a Bulgarian. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison, and the delegation from the great powers—USSR, United States, France. Great Britain—was not allowed to meet him. Under the influence of IMRO many pro-Bulgarian organizations arose. Trial after trial followed in Macedonia. From 1944 to 1980 seven hundred political trials were conducted against intellectuals. Hundreds of death sentences were handed down and twenty three thousand individuals disappeared and are presumed to have been murdered. Another 120,000 spent time in prisons and concentration camps. Approximately 180.000 emigrated to Bulgaria, the United States, and other countries.
Written by Kapetan Doukas
info@macedonian.com.au
Macedonian Forums
Print
Email
