The Macedonian Affair - Part 3

SKOPJE'S THEORETICAL SLEIGHT OF HAND

6. The Invention of the 'History of the Macedonian Nation', and the Real Descent of the Macedonians.

Those who produce the propaganda issued in Skopje attach great importance to the ex post facto construction of the history of the 'Macedonian nation'. The "National History Institute of the Macedonian People" was founded in Skopje in December 1948. The historians of Skopje focused their attention on proving that a separate "Macedonian" nation existed - regardless of whether or not it had ever given any sign of life in the past.

Those historians included Kriste Pitoski, Alexander Trayanovski, Risto Poplazakov and Ivan Katardziev, together with the politician Dimitar Vlahov. Their argument consisted of the claim that there had been a 'Macedonian' people of Slav descent who lived in the area of Macedonia in the 7th century AD. "After a period of importance in the Middle Ages" (this, of course, is the Empire of Tsar Samuel, who was a Bulgarian and certainly not a "Macedonian") 'the Macedonian people were enslaved by the Bulgarians and latterly by the Turks'. In the particular case of Samuel, the argument from Skopje is that he was a "Macedonian Slav", that since he was the leader of a Macedonian state he was therefore a 'Macedonian', and that consequently the state he founded was "the first Macedonian state".

The historical truth of the matter is that Samuel was a Bulgarian Tsar, not a Macedonian. Consequently, the state he founded was Bulgarian. That is why the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, who crushed Samuel and his state, is known as Basil the Bulgar- Slayer and not Basil the Macedonian - Slayer.

According to A. Vasiliev, "Basil's war against the Bulgarians was a very cruel one, as a result of which he was called 'the Bulgar - slayer' ". And M. Levtchenko says that "Basil II acquired the name "Bulgar-slayer" because of his exploits and cruelty in war. By 1018 he had finished with Bulgaria".

An inscription dating from 1017 has been found at Monastir: it refers to John, the nephew of Samuel, "Bulgarian by race".

The "Macedonian" historians of Yugoslavia have been careful enough to avoid the trap of claiming that they are the continuation of the ancient Macedonians. However, they have indulged in theories of various other kinds, identifying the Macedonians with the ancient Illyrians, or tracing their ancestry back to some separate indigenous tribe - a sort of mixture of Illyrians and Thracians.

As a result, the Greek influence which can be seen everywhere in Macedonia has to be interpreted as imported from the Greek colonies of Chalkidike, while the Macedonian kings and their stock are described as "Hellenising apostates" and the population is Macedonian rather than Greek. However, the historians of Skopje are aware of the need for their "Macedonian" nation to acquire some bonds with antiquity. They thus invented the theory that the invasion of the Slavs (a thousand years after the golden age of Macedon) resulted in the extermination of a part of the indigenous population and inevitable intermarriage with mplified version of the process by which nations are born, the Slavs who established themselves in Macedonia "married into" the last traces of the ancient Macedonians so as to provide the Yugoslavs with 20th century 'Macedonians' (11).

7. The Pseudo-Macedonian Church of Skopje

The 'Orthodox Church of Macedonia', founded in Skopje in 1967, which was initially autonomous and is now autocephalous, has done much to spread propaganda about the non-existent 'Macedonian Question'. Soon after its own foundation, this 'Church' set up a 'bishopric' in the United States.

It should be borne in mind, first of all, that no other Yugoslav republic has an independent church. This 'Church', founded in violation of all the rules of Orthodoxy, is not recognised either by the Ecumenical Patriarchate or by the Patriarchate of Serbia-or indeed by any other Orthodox church. To cap it all, the pseudo-Orthodox Church of Macedonia was unique in world history as the only church to be set up by a Communist state which officially persecuted the Christian religion!

The irregularity of the founding of the 'Orthodox Church of Macedonia' by Presidential Decree and in the face of objections from the Patriarchate of Serbia broke the spiritual bonds between the Slavs in the Republic of Skopje and the Serbian nation.

Tito himself undertook to inaugurate this new ecclesiastical policy. On 28 May 1958, he received the hierarchy of the Serbian Church at the Presidential Palace, and, replying to an adders by Patriarch Vincent of Serbia, said: "It is my wish that you should solve the problems of the Church of Macedonia in the best possible way and in accordance with the interests of our country" (18).

Despite Tito's personal intervention, the Serbian Church refused to settle the matter, and the years which followed were marked by a tug-of-war between the Church of Serbia and the governing Communist Party over whether a 'Macedonian Church' should be formed.

In the end, an assembly of clergy and laity controlled by Skopje met at Ochrid on 17 July 1967 and bestowed autocephalous status on the 'Church of Macedonia'. The Serbian Patriarchate reacted immediately, and at an extra-ordinary assembly on 14 and 15 September 1967 decided that the irregular activities of the 'Church of Macedonia' had severed all bonds between it and the Orthodox Church as a whole. The assembly went as far as to describe the 'Macedonian Church' as a "schismatic religious organisation".

All students of the subject are agreed that the objective of Tito's government was not to meet the spiritual needs of the faithful under a Communist regime in a more satisfactory manner. Tito used his political fabrication for the purposes of propaganda and to promote Skopje's positions abroad. Despite the limited role which the pseudo-Macedonian Church has played in domestic developments, it has to be admitted that it has been an effective means of disorientating and misinforming emigrants from the broader geographical area of Macedonia (Greeks and Bulgarians).

8. Is there a 'Macedonian' Minority in Greece?

In view of all the facts given above, it is not reasonable to argue that there is a 'Macedonian' minority in Greece. In the past, there were undoubtedly persons with a Slav national consciousness, who sometimes behaved as Bulgarians and sometimes as Slav-Macedonians. But after the Second World War and the end of the Greek Civil War, these persons took refuge elsewhere, principally in Yugoslavia. There, in conditions which can easily be imagined, they were given suitable training and guidance and the overwhelming majority of them were absorbed into the local Slav environment.

Greece rejects the claim advanced by Skopje for recognition of a 'Macedonian' minority for the very simple reason that, since the Greek-Bulgarian exchange of populations in 1919 and the departure of the 'Slav-Macedonians' in 1949 there has been no Slav minority in Greece. Some remnants of a population group with a Slav national consciousness emigrated to countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States. The very small group still speaking the dialect in Greece demonstrated their Greek national consciousness in practice by refusing to join SNOF or NOF (the Slav National Liberation Front and the National Liberation Front).

Forty years after the events of the 1940s, the drift of populations to the cities, general social mobility, a modern educational system and a higher standard of living have all contributed to greatly reducing bilingualism-that is, the use, in addition to the main Greek language of the sui generis Slav (Bulgarian) dialect which Skopje persists in calling the 'Macedonian language'. Some of the Greeks of northern Greece learn the dialect for reasons of commerce or tourism.

Notes

1. See, by way of indication, Wells, The Outline of History, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History, A. Vakalopoulos, Contemporary Problems of the Balkans, and Will Durant, World History of Culture.

2. Polybious, Historiae, Leipzig 1898.

3. A. Vakalopoulos, op. cit., pp. 84ff, G. Rousos, Recent History of the Greek Nation.

4. Brief History of the Orthodox Churces of Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania, Moscow 1871.

5. See Ekdotike Athinon, Macedonia

6. E. Kofos, Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia, Thessaloniki 1964, pp. 185ff.

7. Douglas Dakin, The Greek Struggle in Macedonia 1897-1915, Thessaloniki 1966, and Dakin with K. Mazarakis-Ainian, E. Kofos and I. Diamantouros, The Macedonian Struggle, Athens 1985.

8. L' improglio Macedonien, Paris 1907, pp. 50-51.

9. Op. cit., p. 176.

10. Hellenism 1903, p. 717

11. See Istorija na Makendonskiot Narod, Skopje, 1969, vol. I pp. 79-92.

12. The Counterfeiting of Macedonian History, Athens 1983.

13. Alexander, 473.

14. XXXI, 29,15.

15. Paedia (12), 1957, p. 250.

16. TheActivities of the Bishopric of Pelagonia 1878-1912, Skopje 1968, pp. 35-43.

17. Hellenism 1907, pp. 585, 586.

18. Newspaper Politika, 29 May 1958.

The text above is from a paperback "THE MACEDONIAN AFFAIR" published by the Institute of International and Strategic Studies in Athens, Greece, before 1995.

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