Truth and lies about Macedonia - Part 4
Australian Macedonian Advisory Council
July 24, 2009
Truths and lies about Macedonia-part 4
"In a lengthy overview about Macedonian-Balkan politics and history, written by Capetan Doukas, (who in my opinion deserves the attention of Mr. Papoulias), aside from the expected attacks on the writers for bringing the "inconvenient truth" to the forefront, we find some half truths, some conclusions which cannot withstand minor scrutiny and plenty of misconceptions used in the services of propaganda and falsehood."
This is an excerpt of Mr. Gandeto´s last article which reminds me an old Greek proverb: "Φωνάζει ο κλέφτης για να φοβηθεί ο νοικοκύρης", which can be translated in English as: "The thief shouts so that the householder will be scared".
I don´t imply of course that Mr.Gandeto is a thief, but my intention merely is to expose him committing these very "crimes" of which he is accusing me. Mr. Gandeto and all of his fellow FYROM propagandists know very well that the only "inconvenient truths" are those concerning the real ethnic origin of the so-called "Macedonians" of FYROM type.They also know that their "Macedonistic myth" is a giant standing on feet of clay whose stability can be supported only by blatant lies and serious distortions of historical truth, or using his own words,"half truths, conclusions which cannot withstand minor scrutiny and plenty of misconceptions used in the services of propaganda and falsehood".
One of the most typical examples of such a blatant distortion of historical truth, is the case of the brothers Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov, born in Struga (a town of today´s FYROM) in 1810 and 1830 respectively, who edited in 1861 a collection of folk songs under the title "Bulgarski narodni pesni" (Bulgarian folk songs),gathered from regions that belong today either to FYROM (like Prelep,Bitola,Ochrid,Resen,Struga e.t.c) or to Bulgaria (Sophia and Panagyurishte) and whose usual protagonists are celebrated Bulgarian historical figures of medieval times,like the Tsar Ivan Schishman. The front cover of the original edition clearly states "Bulgarski narodni pesni"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/11/Bulgarian_Folk_Songs.jpg/382px-Bulgarian_Folk_Songs.jpg
While there is also the testimony of the "American Presbyterian review" edited in 1864 by Henry B. Smith and J.M. Sherwood which mentions the original title of the Miladinovs book as "Bulgarski narodni pesni" in page 259
http://books.google.com/books?id=D4tJAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA259
Nevertheless,despite the striking evidence of the Bulgarian self-identification of the Miladinov brothers,FYROMacedonian propagandists insist they were "ethnic Macedonians" and refer to their collection as "Macedonian folk songs"!
"Macedonia:warlords and rebels in the Balkans" by John Phillips,2004 page 41:
http://books.google.com/books?id=SB1OrH8iZtcC&pg=PA41
"The Yugoslav policy of ethnogenesis in Macedonia was carefully hidden.The Macedonian national museum did not display original works by figures such as the Miladinov brothers in the vanguard of Slav consciousness in the mid nineteenth century, who it was argued were Macedonian not Bulgarian, though in some of their writings they said they were Bulgarians.Appropriately edited versions in the new language were promoted to boost the line."
However it wouldn´t be fair to accuse personally Mr.Gandeto as being responsible for this "misconception". Instead, I can accuse him for spreading deliberately historical inaccuracies and lies that can easily be refuted, like this one:
"Note: The newly coined nomenclature "Macedonian" for a Greek fellow, is a very recent evolutionary creation with a clear intent to blur the line of distinction between the real ethnic Macedonians living in Greece (who, as per the Greek government´s claim, do not exist) and the invented ones—the Christians who were transplanted from Asia Minor in the late 1920s and became (through a potent Greek metamorphosis), "Macedonians" directly descended from the Ancient Macedonians."
We, the Greeks of Macedonia, Mr.Gandeto are not a recently invention as you wishfully think and as the case with FYROM. We were living in this area for centuries, way before your Slav ancestors stepped for first time foot in Macedonia. And we didn´t start to use the name "Macedonians" for our regional name 2 decades ago as you falsely assert.
Fortunatelly enough, Mr. Gandeto, "scripta manent", as the ancient Romans said, and there are a lot of "scripta" that believe your claims:
You can find an appeal of some Greek students from Macedonia in page 87 of
"The East end of Europe;The report of an unofficial mission to the European provinces of Turkey on the eve of the revolution" 1908 by Allen Upward.
It starts as follows:
http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n123/mode/1up
"SIR,Before you have the honour of standing Greek students of the National University from all over Macedonia…"
And they sign as Macedonian students:
http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n125/mode/1up
In your journey throughout our country you will come across legions of industrial, scientific, and commercial Greeks,as also of Greek agriculturists, peasants, and labourers.Almost everywhere you will find on your way Greek philanthropic and educational establishments and churches,as also Greek antiquities.Wherever you go you will meet before you people with Greek hearts and with Greek ideas." We are confident that a strict,careful,and impartial investigation cannot but convince you of the fact that the real aspirations of the majority of the Macedonian people nave been for some reason or other waived aside and purposely overlooked,their most ardent desire being that for GREEK FREEDOM.
"ATHENS, 5th— 18th November, 1907.
" The President of " The Society of Macedonian Students, EUMENES OLYMPIADES, from Castoria."
The Committee
A. HERACLIOTIS, Monastir. ALEX. AXIOU, Croussovo.
K. DEMETRIADES, Monastir. KLEITOS GOURAS, Scopia.GEORGE NICOLAIDES, Melenikon. PH. GEORGIADES, Ano. Djoumaya. LUCIEN ANASTASIADES, Serres. CONST. PETRINOS, Korytza. ANTIPATROS LAZARIDES, Nevrocop. CONST. PERDIKAS, Salonica. NICOLAS SMANOPOULOS, Cavalla
Another proof of Macedonian Greeks using the regional name "Macedonians" is from an article of the Greek literary magazine "Nea Pandora" dating from January 15,1858.It refers to the Hellenic School of Thessaloniki and the speech of his principal. Some translated excerpts.Notice,Mr.Gandeto,how many times the regional name "Macedonians" is used:
page 453 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA453
"We learn this today, from the below speech, given during the last exams by the known to us principal of the Thessalonian school K.Nikoklis. This school is organized like our Hellenic schools. There is taught furthermore history, especially the history of Macedonia and not unjustifiably. Because Macedonia, feeling first of all the need for the unification of the whole Greece, attached carefully her pieces and brought glorious the name of the Greek race in the edges of Asia…The Macedonians proved themselves always earnest friends of education. Prior to the liberation struggle they had schools,men educated and authors as well. Today, in the most specialized university, in the rest of the other faculties and the government of free Greece they offer their mental contribution."
page 454 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA454
"... in the same day is celebrated officially the mental progress of the young Macedonians..."
"...every Macedonian must always have in his mind..."
"...it's possible, Macedonian friends, to become happy in the future, using your own instances..."
"… what needs this once glorious city, so that it doesn´t look worst than its bright past and can be classified in the future amongst Athens, Smyrna, Constantinople."
"...Alexander, the great king of the Greeks…"
page 455 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA455
"Only our schools are common for everybody, because there are studying south and north Macedonians, Thessalians, Thracians, Bulgarians, Albanians..."
"Only the education, philomath Macedonians...
Page 456 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA456
"You will also be happy, old metropolis of the Macedonians..."
"Your citizens like tall palm trees will blow from now on the fruits of the love of education and the love of beauty, fruits that will contribute to the progress of the youth and to the mature reception of the newest Greek civilization."
page 457 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA457
"If it's sure, dear Thessalonians, that we expect from there our enlightenment and the civilization, where the seat of the enlightenment and the cradle of the Greek nationality is, if it's true that glorious Athens is walking and today as in the ancient times with gigantic steps to become the school not only of Greece but of the entire Greek nation in the East and in the West, who will not consider the studies in Athens of four beloved to me pupils, four good and wealthy offsprings of the homeland, Hariton, Lysandros, Markos and Leonidas, as a good omen for a more auspicious future for the schools of Macedonia?"
page 459 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA459
"The pupils are taught history of Macedonia, from the period of the successors of Alexander I till the destruction of the Macedonian state".
page 461 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA461
"Don't show yourselves unworthy of the expectations of your homeland and of the bright past of our Macedonian ancestors."
I really would like to see evidence of a Slavic school in Skopje teaching ancient Macedonian history in 1858.Am i asking too much Mr. Gandeto?
In Panagiotes Soutzos´ "Panagiotou Soutsou ta hapanta" 1851 page 103 is to be found a theatrical work where the author urges those Greeks who were still under the Ottoman yoke to uprise as follows:
http://books.google.com/books?id=UoUTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA103
"Eις τα όπλα Ηπειρώται!Εις τα όπλα Μακεδόνες!Εις τα όπλα Θεσσαλοί!Εις τας θείας υμών χώρας τρείς επέρασαν αιώνες Δούλοι και σιωπηλοί. (To arms, Epirotes! To arms, Macedonians! To arms, Thessalians! Three centuries already passed in your sacred lands, slave and silent.)
Furthermore, see how the well known Greek scholar Adamantios Korais, addressed to the uprised Greeks in his "Salpisma polemistērion,dialogos dyo Graikōn" 1821,page 13
http://books.google.com/books?id=x8IGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA13
"Epirotans, remember the achievements of your ancestors....Thessalians and Macedonians, remember that your ancestors totally defeated Darius, who was incomparably more terrible king than the present unmanly and effeminate tyrant of Greece. Peloponnesians and the rest of the Greeks, don't forget the trophies that your ancestors erected thank to their victories against the barbarians. And especially you, the Maniates, bethink that you are blood of the Spartans. All of you together, who are glorified under the bright name of the Hellenes...."
Another usual "misconception" held by Mr.Gandeto and many other FYROM is that their ancestors were considered by all the other people as Bulgarians exclusively due to religious reasons, because they were adherents of the Exarchate, the Bulgarian Church that was established in 1870.They became adherents of the Bulgarian Church because its liturgy "was conducted in a language that they could at least understand" as Mr.Gandeto claims. That´s indeed a very "convenient misconception", a frequently invoked argument by them which however "cannot withstand minor scrutinity". Because, Mr.Gandeto, your ancestors were considered as Bulgarians way before the Bulgarian Exarchate was established in 1870.Let´s the facts talk:
"Nationalities of Europe" vol. II by R.G. Latham,1863,pages 106-107
http://books.google.com/books?id=LyeF22ddaEQC&pg=PA106
"Mixed Districts.—Macedonia.—The Greek and Bulgarian Districts-—The Macedonian Koniarids.—The Yuruks.
"Another Greek district is in the parts about Verria (Berrhea), Niausta, and Vodhena; where, though in contact with Bulgarians and Turks, the Greeks are in so decided a majority as to give a definite Greek character to the districts. Niausta, indeed, was one of the towns which notably suffered for the part it took in the Revolution. Between the Greeks, however, and the sea, the country is Bulgarian ; and in some of the villages of the frontier there is both a mixture of blood and an interchange of characteristics….Of the northern and north-western third of Macedonia, of the hills and valleys of the Strymon and the Axius, the details are pre-eminently obscure. That there are both Servian and Bulgarian, both Albanian and Valachian elements, here, is certain."
"Handbook for travelers in Greece" 1854 by John Murray page 430
http://books.google.com/books?id=lrhOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA430
"The Turks resident in Monastir are for the most part either military or officials. Greeks and Bulgarians form the majority of the inhabitants. There are a few Albanians, and a considerable number of Jews. The peasantry in the northern districts of Macedonia are chiefly of Bulgarian race and language, though they belong to the Greek Church."
"Handbook for travelers in Turkey" 1854 by John Murray page 430
http://books.google.com/books?id=bLgNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA129
"It is to be observed that the Christian Slavonians in Thrace and Macedonia, to the South of the Balkan, generally speak the Bulgarian dialect, and are called Bulgarians."
"The Modern Traveler" 1830 by Josiah Conder vol.14 page 277
http://www.archive.org/stream/moderntraveller14condiala#page/277/mode/1up
"The most southern districts in which the Bulgarian is spoken, according to Colonel Leake, are, on the western side of Macedonia, some villages in the vicinity of Koritza ;and, on the eastern side, the hills bordering the great plains of Thessalonica, Pella, and Edessa. From this latter district, as their southern boundary, the Christians who speak the Bulgarian dialect extend, with scarcely any interruption, through all the northern part of Macedonia Proper, the interior of Thrace, and the whole of Moesia to the Danube."
"Travels in European Turkey" 1850 by Edmond Spencer, Volume II page 28
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZyW6UveKZyMC&pg=PA28
"The population of Uskioub, consisting of Arnouts, Jews, Armenians, Zinzars, Greeks, Bulgarians and Servians, amounts to upwards of twelve thousand"
"The Baptist Missionary magazine" vol. XIX,1839 Page 164:
http://books.google.com/books?id=k09Ij3Lnyu4C&pg=PA164
"Jenidge-Vodhena-Mount Bermius
In this part of the country is found the Bulgarian, as well as the Greek Christian...Our host was a Greek—his wife a Bulgarian. "
Page 166:
http://books.google.com/books?id=k09Ij3Lnyu4C&pg=PA166
"The tract south of the Balkan and east of the Pindus, including the ancient Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, is called Roumelia. The people are Turks and Greeks, and speak their respective languages. In the north and north-western parts of this territory are also many Bulgarians. West of the Pindus and south of Herzegovina is Albania, and the language of the country is Greek and Albanian."
"The Missionary Herald,containing the proceeding of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions" 1852 page 79
http://books.google.com/books?id=-cAPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA79
"They arrived at Doiran….It has a population of about seven thousand Turks and Bulgarians, with 300 Jews. A large Lancasterian school is taught, the pupils being Bulgarians…We waited till eleven o´clock, hoping that some of the Greeks and Bulgarians would buy our books…Several Bulgarians and Jews greeted with joy works in their own languages…"
Page 80: http://books.google.com/books?id=-cAPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA80
"We sold, however, among the Bulgarians, ten New Testaments…A number of Bulgarians assembled at the khan…We were happy to learn that here the Bulgarian is taught in the schools".
Page 81: http://books.google.com/books?id=-cAPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA81
"We improved the first leisure to visit the Bulgarian school (in Skopje)….He seemed to be pleased with our inquiries in respect to the Bulgarian people and literature….in his school-room we noticed a caricature he had made of the Bulgarian people and its oppresors. The Bulgarian people were represented as a blindfolded woman…Next day our friends proceeded to Palanca, a long narrow town in a beautiful valley, in which the Bulgarians have a church, a school e.t.c….we sold thirteen New Testaments in Bulgarian and one in Greek".
If you prefer accounts written in French, here you are: "Voyage militaire dans l'empire Ottoman" 1829 by Felix De Beaujour, page 207
http://books.google.com/books?id=iksCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA207
"Quelques-uns des villages, que l'on rencontre sur la route d'Istip à Keuperli et de Keuperli à Uscup, sont habites par des chrétiens Bulgares, dont l'activité et la propreté contrastent avec la paresse et la saleté des autres chrétiens."(Some of the villages, which are on the road from Istip to Keuperli and Keuperli to Uscup are inhabited by Christian Bulgarians)
"Recueil d'itineraires dans la Turquie d'Europe.Details geographiques,topographiques et statistiques sur cet empire" 1854 by Ami Boué,page 211
http://books.google.com/books?id=w6MFAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA211
Ouskjoub a au moins 10,000 âmes,sa population est éminem¬ment Bulgare,mais il y a aussi assez de Serbes et de Zinzares.(Ouskjoub with a population at least of 10.000 people, which is eminently Bulgarian, but there are also enough Serbs and Zinzares.)
"Albanesische studien" 1854 by Dr.Johan Georg von Hahn,page 16
http://books.google.com/books?id=IPIGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA16
"Eine ausnahme bildet das gebiet des Sees von Ochrida,welches von Bulgaren mit Wlachen untermischt bewohnt wird und wo sich keine Albanese finden sollen" (An exception is the territory of the lake of Ohrid, which is populated by Bulgarians mixed with Vlachs and where aren't any Albanians).
Page 34 http://books.google.com/books?id=IPIGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA34
"Auch in den östlich von Ochrida liegenden Monastir und dessen umgegend finden sich viele Wlachen.Der verfasser hörte sogar behaupten das es um Ochrida und Monastir mehr Wlachen als Bulgaren gebe". (There are also many Vlachs in the eastern of Ohrid located Monastir and its vicinity.The author heard also claims that in Monastir and in Ohrid are more Vlachs than Bulgarians.)
If you want the opinion of prominent geographers of that time:
"Turkey and its resources" 1833 by David Urquhart pages 272-273
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZppNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA272
Here is a record of all the ethnicities that dwelled in the soil of European Turkey and guess who is absent! There are mentioned "Osmanlis (Turkish race and language, all Mussulmans),Greeks (Hellenic race and language, all Christians),Albanians(Skipertar race and language, two-third Mussulmans) Slavonic race and dialects (one-third Mussulmans,-Bosniacs,Tulemans,Pomacs);two-thirds Christians of the Greek church (Servians, Bulgarians);of the Latin (Mirdites Croatians) occupying the tract to the north of 41°,Vlachi,(Greek church),other races—Gypsies, Jews, Armenians and Franks."Ethnic Macedonians" are nowhere mentioned.
"L´empire de Turquie" 1860 by Xavier Heuschling, page 58.Here is a record of all the people of European Turkey: "Bulgares, Serbes,Bosniaques,Herzégovinens,autres branches Slaves,Valaques et Moldo-Valaques,Albanais,Ottomans d'origine asiatique, Grecs, Arméniens,Juifs,Zingares (Bohémiens),Tatares" but not any "ethnic Macedonians".
http://books.google.com/books?id=x_MOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA58
"De Bow´s review" 1854 by J.D. De Bow page 117.Another record of the ethnicities of European Turkey and "ethnic Macedonians" again absent
http://www.archive.org/stream/debowsreview18projgoog#page/n127/mode/1up
"The population, as contradistinguished, is made up of the Wallach, the Greek, and the Slavonic, which comprises the Bulgarian, the Serbian, the Bosniak and the Croatian elements; lastly, the Mussulman, who is greatly in the minority"
I am all ears Mr.Gandeto, how is it that all these authors failed to notice the existence of any "Macedonian ethnicity". I am also very curious to hear who were those Bulgarians in Macedonia, mentioned by all these authors? You wonder whether they actually were the ancestors of the indigenous Greeks of Macedonia or of the Vlachs, the Albanians, the Serbs, the Jews and the Turks. No, they obviously were not what you assert because all the aforementioned ethnicities were recorded with they proper names. Thus, most likely seems they were the ancestors of the only modern ethnicity whose presence in Macedonia of 19th century was never recorded back then. Have you any clue what was that ethnicity Mr.Gandeto?
As for your question: When you state that "99.99% of all geographers, ethnologists, historians and linguists" agree with your stipulation that FYROM ancestors were undoubtedly "considered as one and the same with the Bulgarians", how do you know that for a fact? Did you take a poll yourself of these world´s scholars and have the tabulated results in hand? Did you find these "specific" numbers recorded by another reputable agency?
Leaving aside the wordplay, Mr.Gandeto, i didn´t take such a poll but i can find a plenty of reputable scholars who share the same view with me. Now it´s your turn to find any scholars who believe that your "Macedonian ethnicity" existed in 19th century:
"The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World" Loring M. Danforth 1997 page 64
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZmesOn_HhfEC&pg=PA64
The political and military leaders of the Slavs of Macedonia at the turn of the century seem not to have heard Misirkov's call for a separate Macedonian national identity; they continued to identify themselves in a national sense as Bulgarians rather than Macedonians…"Even Gotse Delchev, the famous Macedonian revolutionary leader, whose nom de guerre was Ahil (Achilles), refers to "the Slavs of Macedonia as 'Bulgarians' in an offhanded manner without seeming to indicate that such a designation was a point of contention" (Perry 1988:23).In his correspondence Gotse Delchev often states clearly and simply, "We are Bulgarians" (MacDermott 1978: 192,273).
Page 65 http://books.google.com/books?id=ZmesOn_HhfEC&pg=PA65
At the end of World War I there were very few historians or eth¬nographers who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed. It seems most likely that at this time most of the Slavs of Macedonia, especially those in rural areas, had not yet developed a firm sense of national identity at all… The question as to whether a Macedonian nation actually existed in the 1940s when the Communist Party of Yugoslavia decided to recognize one is difficult to answer. Some observers argue that even at this time it was doubtful whether the Slavs of Macedonia considered themselves to be a nationality separate from the Bulgarians (Palmer and King 1971:199-200).Another observer wrote in 1950 that "the feeling of being Macedonians, and nothing but Macedonians, seems to be a sentiment of fairly recent growth, and even today is not very deep-rooted" (Barker 1950:10).
"The national question in Yougoslavia" by Ivo Banac page 308
http://books.google.com/books?id=KfqbujXqQBkC&pg=PA308
"The Macedonian awakener Dimitar Miladinov, whose early correspondence was in Greek, claimed Serbian Stefan Dusan among the ancestors of Slavo-Bulgars, and called their language strictly Bulgarian."
Page 309 http://books.google.com/books?id=KfqbujXqQBkC&pg=PA309
"Notwithstanding these ambiguities, there never was any serious doubt that the Slavic population of Macedonia belonged to the same linguistic, historical, and cultural zone as the Bulgarians."
Page 310 http://books.google.com/books?id=KfqbujXqQBkC&pg=PA310
"Stjepan Verkovic, a Serbianized Croat and a former Franciscan friar who adopted Orthodoxy and entered the Serbian service in Ottoman Macedonia, entitled his collection of Macedonian folk songs (1860) The Folk Songs of Macedonian Bulgars ,and noted in the introduction that the title was chosen because "should somebody today ask a Macedonian Slav, 'What are you?' he would immediately get the answer, 'I am a Bulgar and my language is Bulgarian.' "
"Das Mazedonisches Jahrhundert" 2007 by Stephan Troebst page 426
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZRm-aY6_RBIC&pg=PA426
"In the 1990s,Macedonians speak a language codified in 1946,spoken by less than two million people, and with a very slender literature. They are members of an Orthodox Church whose authority was established by a socialist political regime in 1968.They are heirs to a 1903 revolution that until the 1940s was described by almost all sources as being Bulgarian. They are descendants from people who were called, and at times called themselves, Serbs or Bulgarians."
"The history of the Balkan Peninsula" 1971 by Ferdinand Schevill page 432
http://books.google.com/books?id=hsx2iWi-PPkC&pg=PA432
"As an oppressed people on an exceedingly primitive level, the Macedonian Slavs had as late as the congress of Berlin exhibited no perceptible national consciousness of their own"
"Studies on Ottoman social and political history" 2002 by Kemal Karpat page 459
http://books.google.com/books?id=082osLxyBDgC&pg=PA459
"In fact, the rise of national Macedonian consciousness came mainly after the Second World War under the Tito regime in Yugoslavia. (Tito could rightfully he called "the father of modern Macedonia".)
"A concise history of Bulgaria" 1997 by R. J. Crampton page 97
http://books.google.com/books?id=eH1MSHM1hLUC&pg=PA97
"Ever since 1878 there had been a sizeable Macedonian presence in Bulgaria…Most if not all Macedonians in Bulgaria at this period regarded themselves as ethnically Bulgarian and the refugees were a potential political lobby of considerable size."
"Ideologies and national identities: the case of twentieth-century" by John R. Lampe, Mark Mazower 2004 page 125
http://books.google.com/books?id=gE1c4wK-ASAC&pg=PA125
"After the Second World War a "Socialist Republic of Macedonia" was created in the framework of Tito's "Federal" Yugoslavia. Belgrade was motivated by its political objective to continue the execution of the old Comintern resolution (adopted in 1934 in Moscow) postulating the creation of a separate "Macedonian" nation. Under the pressure of the Communist regime, the Bulgarian population was obliged to accept the geographical denomination "Macedonian" as a national one. Up to 1990 more than 700 legal trials were held against citizens refusing to adopt the new "Macedonian" national identity"
"The past in question: modern Macedonia and the uncertainties of nation" 2002 by Keith Brown page 2
http://books.google.com/books?id=48NyoQdOWH0C&pg=PA2
"They are descended from people who were called, and at times called themselves, Serbs or Bulgarians. Those who challenge the authenticity of Macedonian national identity—and as this book will show, there are many—use these facts to assert that its components are all newly minted, forged, borrowed, or even stolen from the Republic's neighbors."
"History of the Balkans twentieth century" 1983 by Barbara Jelavich page 91
http://books.google.com/books?id=Hd-or3qtqrsC&pg=PA91
However, in the nineteenth century the term Macedonian was used almost exclusively to refer to the geographic region; the Macedonians were usually not considered a nationality separate from the Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, or Albanians. The diplomatic records of the period make no clear mention of a separate Macedonian nation. At the time of the Constantinople conference of 1876 and the Congress of Berlin, as we have seen, the represen¬tatives of the great powers considered the region to be of an extremely mixed ethnic composition, but predominantly Bulgarian. The second major claimant was believed to be Greece, with Serbia in a weak third place.
"Encyclopedia of Canada´s peoples" 1999 by Paul Robert Magocsi page 288
http://books.google.com/books?id=dbUuX0mnvQMC&pg=PA288
"Whether they supported the idea of autonomy (IMRO) or annexation to Bulgaria (Supreme Committee),most articulate Slavs in Macedo¬nia by the end of the nineteenth century considered themselves Bulgarians and therefore identified as Bulgaro-Macedonians. It was this identity that the early Slavic immigrants from Macedonia brought to Canada."
Page 289 http://books.google.com/books?id=dbUuX0mnvQMC&pg=PA289
"The first organized wave of Bulgarians began in 1903 and consisted mostly of Slavs from Macedonia… Many Macedono-Bulgarians returned home from North America to serve in the Bulgarian army during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. When Bulgaria failed to acquire Macedonia, the Macedono-Bulgarians re-emigrated, this time taking with them their immediate families and relatives As a result, many villages in the regions around Bitola, Kastoria, Florina, and Resnen were largely depleted of their inhabitants… The primary reason for the decline in numbers from the period before World War II is that many Canadians who previously claimed a Bulgarian identity now describe themselves as Macedonians and are listed as such in the census reports."
I think this mention of Bulgarians being suddenly transformed into "Macedonians" after WW2 speaks volumes itself!
Now let´s see Mr.Gandeto´s last "misconception". He asks me: "As you can see Mr. Doukas, if Macedonians were Bulgarians as you claim, why would the Bulgarian government undertake such measures and bring "hell in Macedonia"? Why make "Bulgarians" out of the same old Bulgarians on the first place?
By the same analogy, if Macedonia was Greek, how could these Bulgarians attempt to make "Bulgarians" out of your "kindred" Greeks? Should we include the Serbian claim into the fray? Will they attempt to make the Macedonian inhabitants into Serbs?"
I cannot help but smile with the naivety of this argument! I never claimed Macedonia was exclusively Greek or Bulgarian. It was a multiethnic region and there were Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs amongst the various ethnicities. And although it´s always sad and painful to remind what inhuman methods were used by all the Balkan states (you see i don´t exclude Greece) in order to achieve the desired ethnic homogeneity in some territories, I cannot help but show you what was actually the further aim of Bulgarian policy in Macedonia. A plan that had already been successfully performed in Eastern Rumelia some years before:
"The East end of Europe;The report of an unofficial mission to the European provinces of Turkey on the eve of the revolution" 1908 by Allen Upward.
Pages viii-ix http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n14/mode/1up
Here the Greek cities handed over by the Treaty of Berlin to Bulgaria were sacked and burnt and the inhabitants cruelly maltreated, and even slaughtered, in revenge for the check put at last upon the Comitadji proceedings in Macedonia by the Greek bands organised, tardily enough, for that purpose….during the eighteen months between July,1906, and December, 1907,40.000 Greeks were compelled to quit the soil of Eastern Rumelia, leaving behind them their lands, their houses, and their whole worldly wealth." It was on account of these atrocities that the veteran statesman, M. Natchevitch, then Bulgarian Diplomatic Agent at Constantinople, and formerly a colleague of Stambouloff, resigned his post. His published words were: "In the face of such outrages I was too deeply ashamed to hold up my head among my colleagues of the corps diplomatique?
info@macedonian.com.au
http://www.macedonian.com.au/forum
"In a lengthy overview about Macedonian-Balkan politics and history, written by Capetan Doukas, (who in my opinion deserves the attention of Mr. Papoulias), aside from the expected attacks on the writers for bringing the "inconvenient truth" to the forefront, we find some half truths, some conclusions which cannot withstand minor scrutiny and plenty of misconceptions used in the services of propaganda and falsehood."
This is an excerpt of Mr. Gandeto´s last article which reminds me an old Greek proverb: "Φωνάζει ο κλέφτης για να φοβηθεί ο νοικοκύρης", which can be translated in English as: "The thief shouts so that the householder will be scared".
I don´t imply of course that Mr.Gandeto is a thief, but my intention merely is to expose him committing these very "crimes" of which he is accusing me. Mr. Gandeto and all of his fellow FYROM propagandists know very well that the only "inconvenient truths" are those concerning the real ethnic origin of the so-called "Macedonians" of FYROM type.They also know that their "Macedonistic myth" is a giant standing on feet of clay whose stability can be supported only by blatant lies and serious distortions of historical truth, or using his own words,"half truths, conclusions which cannot withstand minor scrutiny and plenty of misconceptions used in the services of propaganda and falsehood".
One of the most typical examples of such a blatant distortion of historical truth, is the case of the brothers Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov, born in Struga (a town of today´s FYROM) in 1810 and 1830 respectively, who edited in 1861 a collection of folk songs under the title "Bulgarski narodni pesni" (Bulgarian folk songs),gathered from regions that belong today either to FYROM (like Prelep,Bitola,Ochrid,Resen,Struga e.t.c) or to Bulgaria (Sophia and Panagyurishte) and whose usual protagonists are celebrated Bulgarian historical figures of medieval times,like the Tsar Ivan Schishman. The front cover of the original edition clearly states "Bulgarski narodni pesni"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/11/Bulgarian_Folk_Songs.jpg/382px-Bulgarian_Folk_Songs.jpg
While there is also the testimony of the "American Presbyterian review" edited in 1864 by Henry B. Smith and J.M. Sherwood which mentions the original title of the Miladinovs book as "Bulgarski narodni pesni" in page 259
http://books.google.com/books?id=D4tJAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA259
Nevertheless,despite the striking evidence of the Bulgarian self-identification of the Miladinov brothers,FYROMacedonian propagandists insist they were "ethnic Macedonians" and refer to their collection as "Macedonian folk songs"!
"Macedonia:warlords and rebels in the Balkans" by John Phillips,2004 page 41:
http://books.google.com/books?id=SB1OrH8iZtcC&pg=PA41
"The Yugoslav policy of ethnogenesis in Macedonia was carefully hidden.The Macedonian national museum did not display original works by figures such as the Miladinov brothers in the vanguard of Slav consciousness in the mid nineteenth century, who it was argued were Macedonian not Bulgarian, though in some of their writings they said they were Bulgarians.Appropriately edited versions in the new language were promoted to boost the line."
However it wouldn´t be fair to accuse personally Mr.Gandeto as being responsible for this "misconception". Instead, I can accuse him for spreading deliberately historical inaccuracies and lies that can easily be refuted, like this one:
"Note: The newly coined nomenclature "Macedonian" for a Greek fellow, is a very recent evolutionary creation with a clear intent to blur the line of distinction between the real ethnic Macedonians living in Greece (who, as per the Greek government´s claim, do not exist) and the invented ones—the Christians who were transplanted from Asia Minor in the late 1920s and became (through a potent Greek metamorphosis), "Macedonians" directly descended from the Ancient Macedonians."
We, the Greeks of Macedonia, Mr.Gandeto are not a recently invention as you wishfully think and as the case with FYROM. We were living in this area for centuries, way before your Slav ancestors stepped for first time foot in Macedonia. And we didn´t start to use the name "Macedonians" for our regional name 2 decades ago as you falsely assert.
Fortunatelly enough, Mr. Gandeto, "scripta manent", as the ancient Romans said, and there are a lot of "scripta" that believe your claims:
You can find an appeal of some Greek students from Macedonia in page 87 of
"The East end of Europe;The report of an unofficial mission to the European provinces of Turkey on the eve of the revolution" 1908 by Allen Upward.
It starts as follows:
http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n123/mode/1up
"SIR,Before you have the honour of standing Greek students of the National University from all over Macedonia…"
And they sign as Macedonian students:
http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n125/mode/1up
In your journey throughout our country you will come across legions of industrial, scientific, and commercial Greeks,as also of Greek agriculturists, peasants, and labourers.Almost everywhere you will find on your way Greek philanthropic and educational establishments and churches,as also Greek antiquities.Wherever you go you will meet before you people with Greek hearts and with Greek ideas." We are confident that a strict,careful,and impartial investigation cannot but convince you of the fact that the real aspirations of the majority of the Macedonian people nave been for some reason or other waived aside and purposely overlooked,their most ardent desire being that for GREEK FREEDOM.
"ATHENS, 5th— 18th November, 1907.
" The President of " The Society of Macedonian Students, EUMENES OLYMPIADES, from Castoria."
The Committee
A. HERACLIOTIS, Monastir. ALEX. AXIOU, Croussovo.
K. DEMETRIADES, Monastir. KLEITOS GOURAS, Scopia.GEORGE NICOLAIDES, Melenikon. PH. GEORGIADES, Ano. Djoumaya. LUCIEN ANASTASIADES, Serres. CONST. PETRINOS, Korytza. ANTIPATROS LAZARIDES, Nevrocop. CONST. PERDIKAS, Salonica. NICOLAS SMANOPOULOS, Cavalla
Another proof of Macedonian Greeks using the regional name "Macedonians" is from an article of the Greek literary magazine "Nea Pandora" dating from January 15,1858.It refers to the Hellenic School of Thessaloniki and the speech of his principal. Some translated excerpts.Notice,Mr.Gandeto,how many times the regional name "Macedonians" is used:
page 453 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA453
"We learn this today, from the below speech, given during the last exams by the known to us principal of the Thessalonian school K.Nikoklis. This school is organized like our Hellenic schools. There is taught furthermore history, especially the history of Macedonia and not unjustifiably. Because Macedonia, feeling first of all the need for the unification of the whole Greece, attached carefully her pieces and brought glorious the name of the Greek race in the edges of Asia…The Macedonians proved themselves always earnest friends of education. Prior to the liberation struggle they had schools,men educated and authors as well. Today, in the most specialized university, in the rest of the other faculties and the government of free Greece they offer their mental contribution."
page 454 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA454
"... in the same day is celebrated officially the mental progress of the young Macedonians..."
"...every Macedonian must always have in his mind..."
"...it's possible, Macedonian friends, to become happy in the future, using your own instances..."
"… what needs this once glorious city, so that it doesn´t look worst than its bright past and can be classified in the future amongst Athens, Smyrna, Constantinople."
"...Alexander, the great king of the Greeks…"
page 455 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA455
"Only our schools are common for everybody, because there are studying south and north Macedonians, Thessalians, Thracians, Bulgarians, Albanians..."
"Only the education, philomath Macedonians...
Page 456 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA456
"You will also be happy, old metropolis of the Macedonians..."
"Your citizens like tall palm trees will blow from now on the fruits of the love of education and the love of beauty, fruits that will contribute to the progress of the youth and to the mature reception of the newest Greek civilization."
page 457 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA457
"If it's sure, dear Thessalonians, that we expect from there our enlightenment and the civilization, where the seat of the enlightenment and the cradle of the Greek nationality is, if it's true that glorious Athens is walking and today as in the ancient times with gigantic steps to become the school not only of Greece but of the entire Greek nation in the East and in the West, who will not consider the studies in Athens of four beloved to me pupils, four good and wealthy offsprings of the homeland, Hariton, Lysandros, Markos and Leonidas, as a good omen for a more auspicious future for the schools of Macedonia?"
page 459 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA459
"The pupils are taught history of Macedonia, from the period of the successors of Alexander I till the destruction of the Macedonian state".
page 461 http://books.google.com/books?lr=&hl=el&id=_uoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA461
"Don't show yourselves unworthy of the expectations of your homeland and of the bright past of our Macedonian ancestors."
I really would like to see evidence of a Slavic school in Skopje teaching ancient Macedonian history in 1858.Am i asking too much Mr. Gandeto?
In Panagiotes Soutzos´ "Panagiotou Soutsou ta hapanta" 1851 page 103 is to be found a theatrical work where the author urges those Greeks who were still under the Ottoman yoke to uprise as follows:
http://books.google.com/books?id=UoUTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA103
"Eις τα όπλα Ηπειρώται!Εις τα όπλα Μακεδόνες!Εις τα όπλα Θεσσαλοί!Εις τας θείας υμών χώρας τρείς επέρασαν αιώνες Δούλοι και σιωπηλοί. (To arms, Epirotes! To arms, Macedonians! To arms, Thessalians! Three centuries already passed in your sacred lands, slave and silent.)
Furthermore, see how the well known Greek scholar Adamantios Korais, addressed to the uprised Greeks in his "Salpisma polemistērion,dialogos dyo Graikōn" 1821,page 13
http://books.google.com/books?id=x8IGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA13
"Epirotans, remember the achievements of your ancestors....Thessalians and Macedonians, remember that your ancestors totally defeated Darius, who was incomparably more terrible king than the present unmanly and effeminate tyrant of Greece. Peloponnesians and the rest of the Greeks, don't forget the trophies that your ancestors erected thank to their victories against the barbarians. And especially you, the Maniates, bethink that you are blood of the Spartans. All of you together, who are glorified under the bright name of the Hellenes...."
Another usual "misconception" held by Mr.Gandeto and many other FYROM is that their ancestors were considered by all the other people as Bulgarians exclusively due to religious reasons, because they were adherents of the Exarchate, the Bulgarian Church that was established in 1870.They became adherents of the Bulgarian Church because its liturgy "was conducted in a language that they could at least understand" as Mr.Gandeto claims. That´s indeed a very "convenient misconception", a frequently invoked argument by them which however "cannot withstand minor scrutinity". Because, Mr.Gandeto, your ancestors were considered as Bulgarians way before the Bulgarian Exarchate was established in 1870.Let´s the facts talk:
"Nationalities of Europe" vol. II by R.G. Latham,1863,pages 106-107
http://books.google.com/books?id=LyeF22ddaEQC&pg=PA106
"Mixed Districts.—Macedonia.—The Greek and Bulgarian Districts-—The Macedonian Koniarids.—The Yuruks.
"Another Greek district is in the parts about Verria (Berrhea), Niausta, and Vodhena; where, though in contact with Bulgarians and Turks, the Greeks are in so decided a majority as to give a definite Greek character to the districts. Niausta, indeed, was one of the towns which notably suffered for the part it took in the Revolution. Between the Greeks, however, and the sea, the country is Bulgarian ; and in some of the villages of the frontier there is both a mixture of blood and an interchange of characteristics….Of the northern and north-western third of Macedonia, of the hills and valleys of the Strymon and the Axius, the details are pre-eminently obscure. That there are both Servian and Bulgarian, both Albanian and Valachian elements, here, is certain."
"Handbook for travelers in Greece" 1854 by John Murray page 430
http://books.google.com/books?id=lrhOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA430
"The Turks resident in Monastir are for the most part either military or officials. Greeks and Bulgarians form the majority of the inhabitants. There are a few Albanians, and a considerable number of Jews. The peasantry in the northern districts of Macedonia are chiefly of Bulgarian race and language, though they belong to the Greek Church."
"Handbook for travelers in Turkey" 1854 by John Murray page 430
http://books.google.com/books?id=bLgNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA129
"It is to be observed that the Christian Slavonians in Thrace and Macedonia, to the South of the Balkan, generally speak the Bulgarian dialect, and are called Bulgarians."
"The Modern Traveler" 1830 by Josiah Conder vol.14 page 277
http://www.archive.org/stream/moderntraveller14condiala#page/277/mode/1up
"The most southern districts in which the Bulgarian is spoken, according to Colonel Leake, are, on the western side of Macedonia, some villages in the vicinity of Koritza ;and, on the eastern side, the hills bordering the great plains of Thessalonica, Pella, and Edessa. From this latter district, as their southern boundary, the Christians who speak the Bulgarian dialect extend, with scarcely any interruption, through all the northern part of Macedonia Proper, the interior of Thrace, and the whole of Moesia to the Danube."
"Travels in European Turkey" 1850 by Edmond Spencer, Volume II page 28
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZyW6UveKZyMC&pg=PA28
"The population of Uskioub, consisting of Arnouts, Jews, Armenians, Zinzars, Greeks, Bulgarians and Servians, amounts to upwards of twelve thousand"
"The Baptist Missionary magazine" vol. XIX,1839 Page 164:
http://books.google.com/books?id=k09Ij3Lnyu4C&pg=PA164
"Jenidge-Vodhena-Mount Bermius
In this part of the country is found the Bulgarian, as well as the Greek Christian...Our host was a Greek—his wife a Bulgarian. "
Page 166:
http://books.google.com/books?id=k09Ij3Lnyu4C&pg=PA166
"The tract south of the Balkan and east of the Pindus, including the ancient Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, is called Roumelia. The people are Turks and Greeks, and speak their respective languages. In the north and north-western parts of this territory are also many Bulgarians. West of the Pindus and south of Herzegovina is Albania, and the language of the country is Greek and Albanian."
"The Missionary Herald,containing the proceeding of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions" 1852 page 79
http://books.google.com/books?id=-cAPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA79
"They arrived at Doiran….It has a population of about seven thousand Turks and Bulgarians, with 300 Jews. A large Lancasterian school is taught, the pupils being Bulgarians…We waited till eleven o´clock, hoping that some of the Greeks and Bulgarians would buy our books…Several Bulgarians and Jews greeted with joy works in their own languages…"
Page 80: http://books.google.com/books?id=-cAPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA80
"We sold, however, among the Bulgarians, ten New Testaments…A number of Bulgarians assembled at the khan…We were happy to learn that here the Bulgarian is taught in the schools".
Page 81: http://books.google.com/books?id=-cAPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA81
"We improved the first leisure to visit the Bulgarian school (in Skopje)….He seemed to be pleased with our inquiries in respect to the Bulgarian people and literature….in his school-room we noticed a caricature he had made of the Bulgarian people and its oppresors. The Bulgarian people were represented as a blindfolded woman…Next day our friends proceeded to Palanca, a long narrow town in a beautiful valley, in which the Bulgarians have a church, a school e.t.c….we sold thirteen New Testaments in Bulgarian and one in Greek".
If you prefer accounts written in French, here you are: "Voyage militaire dans l'empire Ottoman" 1829 by Felix De Beaujour, page 207
http://books.google.com/books?id=iksCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA207
"Quelques-uns des villages, que l'on rencontre sur la route d'Istip à Keuperli et de Keuperli à Uscup, sont habites par des chrétiens Bulgares, dont l'activité et la propreté contrastent avec la paresse et la saleté des autres chrétiens."(Some of the villages, which are on the road from Istip to Keuperli and Keuperli to Uscup are inhabited by Christian Bulgarians)
"Recueil d'itineraires dans la Turquie d'Europe.Details geographiques,topographiques et statistiques sur cet empire" 1854 by Ami Boué,page 211
http://books.google.com/books?id=w6MFAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA211
Ouskjoub a au moins 10,000 âmes,sa population est éminem¬ment Bulgare,mais il y a aussi assez de Serbes et de Zinzares.(Ouskjoub with a population at least of 10.000 people, which is eminently Bulgarian, but there are also enough Serbs and Zinzares.)
"Albanesische studien" 1854 by Dr.Johan Georg von Hahn,page 16
http://books.google.com/books?id=IPIGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA16
"Eine ausnahme bildet das gebiet des Sees von Ochrida,welches von Bulgaren mit Wlachen untermischt bewohnt wird und wo sich keine Albanese finden sollen" (An exception is the territory of the lake of Ohrid, which is populated by Bulgarians mixed with Vlachs and where aren't any Albanians).
Page 34 http://books.google.com/books?id=IPIGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA34
"Auch in den östlich von Ochrida liegenden Monastir und dessen umgegend finden sich viele Wlachen.Der verfasser hörte sogar behaupten das es um Ochrida und Monastir mehr Wlachen als Bulgaren gebe". (There are also many Vlachs in the eastern of Ohrid located Monastir and its vicinity.The author heard also claims that in Monastir and in Ohrid are more Vlachs than Bulgarians.)
If you want the opinion of prominent geographers of that time:
"Turkey and its resources" 1833 by David Urquhart pages 272-273
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZppNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA272
Here is a record of all the ethnicities that dwelled in the soil of European Turkey and guess who is absent! There are mentioned "Osmanlis (Turkish race and language, all Mussulmans),Greeks (Hellenic race and language, all Christians),Albanians(Skipertar race and language, two-third Mussulmans) Slavonic race and dialects (one-third Mussulmans,-Bosniacs,Tulemans,Pomacs);two-thirds Christians of the Greek church (Servians, Bulgarians);of the Latin (Mirdites Croatians) occupying the tract to the north of 41°,Vlachi,(Greek church),other races—Gypsies, Jews, Armenians and Franks."Ethnic Macedonians" are nowhere mentioned.
"L´empire de Turquie" 1860 by Xavier Heuschling, page 58.Here is a record of all the people of European Turkey: "Bulgares, Serbes,Bosniaques,Herzégovinens,autres branches Slaves,Valaques et Moldo-Valaques,Albanais,Ottomans d'origine asiatique, Grecs, Arméniens,Juifs,Zingares (Bohémiens),Tatares" but not any "ethnic Macedonians".
http://books.google.com/books?id=x_MOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA58
"De Bow´s review" 1854 by J.D. De Bow page 117.Another record of the ethnicities of European Turkey and "ethnic Macedonians" again absent
http://www.archive.org/stream/debowsreview18projgoog#page/n127/mode/1up
"The population, as contradistinguished, is made up of the Wallach, the Greek, and the Slavonic, which comprises the Bulgarian, the Serbian, the Bosniak and the Croatian elements; lastly, the Mussulman, who is greatly in the minority"
I am all ears Mr.Gandeto, how is it that all these authors failed to notice the existence of any "Macedonian ethnicity". I am also very curious to hear who were those Bulgarians in Macedonia, mentioned by all these authors? You wonder whether they actually were the ancestors of the indigenous Greeks of Macedonia or of the Vlachs, the Albanians, the Serbs, the Jews and the Turks. No, they obviously were not what you assert because all the aforementioned ethnicities were recorded with they proper names. Thus, most likely seems they were the ancestors of the only modern ethnicity whose presence in Macedonia of 19th century was never recorded back then. Have you any clue what was that ethnicity Mr.Gandeto?
As for your question: When you state that "99.99% of all geographers, ethnologists, historians and linguists" agree with your stipulation that FYROM ancestors were undoubtedly "considered as one and the same with the Bulgarians", how do you know that for a fact? Did you take a poll yourself of these world´s scholars and have the tabulated results in hand? Did you find these "specific" numbers recorded by another reputable agency?
Leaving aside the wordplay, Mr.Gandeto, i didn´t take such a poll but i can find a plenty of reputable scholars who share the same view with me. Now it´s your turn to find any scholars who believe that your "Macedonian ethnicity" existed in 19th century:
"The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World" Loring M. Danforth 1997 page 64
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZmesOn_HhfEC&pg=PA64
The political and military leaders of the Slavs of Macedonia at the turn of the century seem not to have heard Misirkov's call for a separate Macedonian national identity; they continued to identify themselves in a national sense as Bulgarians rather than Macedonians…"Even Gotse Delchev, the famous Macedonian revolutionary leader, whose nom de guerre was Ahil (Achilles), refers to "the Slavs of Macedonia as 'Bulgarians' in an offhanded manner without seeming to indicate that such a designation was a point of contention" (Perry 1988:23).In his correspondence Gotse Delchev often states clearly and simply, "We are Bulgarians" (MacDermott 1978: 192,273).
Page 65 http://books.google.com/books?id=ZmesOn_HhfEC&pg=PA65
At the end of World War I there were very few historians or eth¬nographers who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed. It seems most likely that at this time most of the Slavs of Macedonia, especially those in rural areas, had not yet developed a firm sense of national identity at all… The question as to whether a Macedonian nation actually existed in the 1940s when the Communist Party of Yugoslavia decided to recognize one is difficult to answer. Some observers argue that even at this time it was doubtful whether the Slavs of Macedonia considered themselves to be a nationality separate from the Bulgarians (Palmer and King 1971:199-200).Another observer wrote in 1950 that "the feeling of being Macedonians, and nothing but Macedonians, seems to be a sentiment of fairly recent growth, and even today is not very deep-rooted" (Barker 1950:10).
"The national question in Yougoslavia" by Ivo Banac page 308
http://books.google.com/books?id=KfqbujXqQBkC&pg=PA308
"The Macedonian awakener Dimitar Miladinov, whose early correspondence was in Greek, claimed Serbian Stefan Dusan among the ancestors of Slavo-Bulgars, and called their language strictly Bulgarian."
Page 309 http://books.google.com/books?id=KfqbujXqQBkC&pg=PA309
"Notwithstanding these ambiguities, there never was any serious doubt that the Slavic population of Macedonia belonged to the same linguistic, historical, and cultural zone as the Bulgarians."
Page 310 http://books.google.com/books?id=KfqbujXqQBkC&pg=PA310
"Stjepan Verkovic, a Serbianized Croat and a former Franciscan friar who adopted Orthodoxy and entered the Serbian service in Ottoman Macedonia, entitled his collection of Macedonian folk songs (1860) The Folk Songs of Macedonian Bulgars ,and noted in the introduction that the title was chosen because "should somebody today ask a Macedonian Slav, 'What are you?' he would immediately get the answer, 'I am a Bulgar and my language is Bulgarian.' "
"Das Mazedonisches Jahrhundert" 2007 by Stephan Troebst page 426
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZRm-aY6_RBIC&pg=PA426
"In the 1990s,Macedonians speak a language codified in 1946,spoken by less than two million people, and with a very slender literature. They are members of an Orthodox Church whose authority was established by a socialist political regime in 1968.They are heirs to a 1903 revolution that until the 1940s was described by almost all sources as being Bulgarian. They are descendants from people who were called, and at times called themselves, Serbs or Bulgarians."
"The history of the Balkan Peninsula" 1971 by Ferdinand Schevill page 432
http://books.google.com/books?id=hsx2iWi-PPkC&pg=PA432
"As an oppressed people on an exceedingly primitive level, the Macedonian Slavs had as late as the congress of Berlin exhibited no perceptible national consciousness of their own"
"Studies on Ottoman social and political history" 2002 by Kemal Karpat page 459
http://books.google.com/books?id=082osLxyBDgC&pg=PA459
"In fact, the rise of national Macedonian consciousness came mainly after the Second World War under the Tito regime in Yugoslavia. (Tito could rightfully he called "the father of modern Macedonia".)
"A concise history of Bulgaria" 1997 by R. J. Crampton page 97
http://books.google.com/books?id=eH1MSHM1hLUC&pg=PA97
"Ever since 1878 there had been a sizeable Macedonian presence in Bulgaria…Most if not all Macedonians in Bulgaria at this period regarded themselves as ethnically Bulgarian and the refugees were a potential political lobby of considerable size."
"Ideologies and national identities: the case of twentieth-century" by John R. Lampe, Mark Mazower 2004 page 125
http://books.google.com/books?id=gE1c4wK-ASAC&pg=PA125
"After the Second World War a "Socialist Republic of Macedonia" was created in the framework of Tito's "Federal" Yugoslavia. Belgrade was motivated by its political objective to continue the execution of the old Comintern resolution (adopted in 1934 in Moscow) postulating the creation of a separate "Macedonian" nation. Under the pressure of the Communist regime, the Bulgarian population was obliged to accept the geographical denomination "Macedonian" as a national one. Up to 1990 more than 700 legal trials were held against citizens refusing to adopt the new "Macedonian" national identity"
"The past in question: modern Macedonia and the uncertainties of nation" 2002 by Keith Brown page 2
http://books.google.com/books?id=48NyoQdOWH0C&pg=PA2
"They are descended from people who were called, and at times called themselves, Serbs or Bulgarians. Those who challenge the authenticity of Macedonian national identity—and as this book will show, there are many—use these facts to assert that its components are all newly minted, forged, borrowed, or even stolen from the Republic's neighbors."
"History of the Balkans twentieth century" 1983 by Barbara Jelavich page 91
http://books.google.com/books?id=Hd-or3qtqrsC&pg=PA91
However, in the nineteenth century the term Macedonian was used almost exclusively to refer to the geographic region; the Macedonians were usually not considered a nationality separate from the Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, or Albanians. The diplomatic records of the period make no clear mention of a separate Macedonian nation. At the time of the Constantinople conference of 1876 and the Congress of Berlin, as we have seen, the represen¬tatives of the great powers considered the region to be of an extremely mixed ethnic composition, but predominantly Bulgarian. The second major claimant was believed to be Greece, with Serbia in a weak third place.
"Encyclopedia of Canada´s peoples" 1999 by Paul Robert Magocsi page 288
http://books.google.com/books?id=dbUuX0mnvQMC&pg=PA288
"Whether they supported the idea of autonomy (IMRO) or annexation to Bulgaria (Supreme Committee),most articulate Slavs in Macedo¬nia by the end of the nineteenth century considered themselves Bulgarians and therefore identified as Bulgaro-Macedonians. It was this identity that the early Slavic immigrants from Macedonia brought to Canada."
Page 289 http://books.google.com/books?id=dbUuX0mnvQMC&pg=PA289
"The first organized wave of Bulgarians began in 1903 and consisted mostly of Slavs from Macedonia… Many Macedono-Bulgarians returned home from North America to serve in the Bulgarian army during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. When Bulgaria failed to acquire Macedonia, the Macedono-Bulgarians re-emigrated, this time taking with them their immediate families and relatives As a result, many villages in the regions around Bitola, Kastoria, Florina, and Resnen were largely depleted of their inhabitants… The primary reason for the decline in numbers from the period before World War II is that many Canadians who previously claimed a Bulgarian identity now describe themselves as Macedonians and are listed as such in the census reports."
I think this mention of Bulgarians being suddenly transformed into "Macedonians" after WW2 speaks volumes itself!
Now let´s see Mr.Gandeto´s last "misconception". He asks me: "As you can see Mr. Doukas, if Macedonians were Bulgarians as you claim, why would the Bulgarian government undertake such measures and bring "hell in Macedonia"? Why make "Bulgarians" out of the same old Bulgarians on the first place?
By the same analogy, if Macedonia was Greek, how could these Bulgarians attempt to make "Bulgarians" out of your "kindred" Greeks? Should we include the Serbian claim into the fray? Will they attempt to make the Macedonian inhabitants into Serbs?"
I cannot help but smile with the naivety of this argument! I never claimed Macedonia was exclusively Greek or Bulgarian. It was a multiethnic region and there were Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs amongst the various ethnicities. And although it´s always sad and painful to remind what inhuman methods were used by all the Balkan states (you see i don´t exclude Greece) in order to achieve the desired ethnic homogeneity in some territories, I cannot help but show you what was actually the further aim of Bulgarian policy in Macedonia. A plan that had already been successfully performed in Eastern Rumelia some years before:
"The East end of Europe;The report of an unofficial mission to the European provinces of Turkey on the eve of the revolution" 1908 by Allen Upward.
Pages viii-ix http://www.archive.org/stream/eastendeuropere00upwagoog#page/n14/mode/1up
Here the Greek cities handed over by the Treaty of Berlin to Bulgaria were sacked and burnt and the inhabitants cruelly maltreated, and even slaughtered, in revenge for the check put at last upon the Comitadji proceedings in Macedonia by the Greek bands organised, tardily enough, for that purpose….during the eighteen months between July,1906, and December, 1907,40.000 Greeks were compelled to quit the soil of Eastern Rumelia, leaving behind them their lands, their houses, and their whole worldly wealth." It was on account of these atrocities that the veteran statesman, M. Natchevitch, then Bulgarian Diplomatic Agent at Constantinople, and formerly a colleague of Stambouloff, resigned his post. His published words were: "In the face of such outrages I was too deeply ashamed to hold up my head among my colleagues of the corps diplomatique?
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