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The second article gave me rage. Spared the son because of USA citizenship but killed the mother. Filthy animals.Risto the Great
MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
"Holding my breath for the revolution."
Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com
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Shumkoff was indeed an interesting character (in that second article). He was a member of the SMAC, but educated in the US (he had his degrees from University of Chicago and University of Pennsylvania, where he got his PHD). I've written quite a bit about him. He was the editor of the largest Macedonian newspaper in Granite City, Illinois during the 1900s and 1910s and often acted as representation and an interpreter for Macedonians in legal/civil issues in Illinois and other states during those two decades. Often, he would end up in verbal/legal clashes with left-wing IMRO Macedonians. He was in the Sarafov/Matov camp, and frequently clashed with those in the Sandanski camp in the US.
Still, although evidently supportive of Sarafov and occasionally Prince Ferdinand's positions on Macedonia, he often distinguished between Macedonians and Bulgarians. For example, take his defense in February of 1907 against accusations by Greeks in Illinois that Macedonians were operating a Black Hand in the US that killed hundreds of Greeks, Macedonians and Bulgarians in order to extort money for the Macedonian Cause:
Roumaneff was active in a strike of Bulgarians and Macedonians at
Granite City, Illinois, last summer. The Greeks took the places of the
strikers, but their work was found to be unsatisfactory and the
Macedonians and Bulgarians were returned to their jobs at an advance
over what they had received before the strike. The Greeks swore
vengeance, and seven days after Roumaneff came to Indianapolis he was
arrested at the instance of the Greek persecuting committee, which sent a
messenger here to inform the local committee of the order that he was in
the city.
As to the Vassily brothers, one of them a mere boy, a Greek tried to compel
them to pay him $2 every pay day in order to hold their jobs as laborers
with the Vandalia Railroad Company. Other Macedonians were forced to
pay the same amount, but the Vassilys refused. The foreman of the gang
heard of the extortion and discharged the Greek. The charge of conspiracy
against the Vassilys was trumped up as revenge for the discharge of the
Greeks, and because the Macedonians would not pay the money demanded
of them.
Unfortunately for the Greeks, they did not figure that Macedonians who
are American citizens would become interested in the cases, and come to
the aid of the Bulgarians and the Macedonians. We are ready for the
continuance of the trial and have the evidence to prove that our men are
innocent and that it is the Greeks who are blackmailing. They extort money
from our people with threats and our men are entirely innocent of any
crime.Last edited by vicsinad; 05-10-2020, 11:11 AM.
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Regarding the first article, here is what I wrote about Constantine Stephanove in my Macedonians in America book:
For Tsilka’s younger brother, Constantine
Stephanove, the outlook was different – perhaps his
life story did not generate as much of a spectacle as
his sister’s six months with brigands, but it was
certainly interesting. Around the same time that
Sandanski’s rebels were bartering Tsilka and her baby
for money, holding them in caves or shacks in the
mountains far from the sight of Turkish soldiers,
Stephanove was basking with pride, having just
recently secured his Master’s degree from Yale
University in New Haven. He came to America as a
teenager and in those initial years he worked at a dairy
farm in Canterbury, Connecticut, where in addition to
working 16-hour days, he learned the English
language. He then enrolled into the Monson Academy
in Massachusetts and after graduating in 1895, Yale
accepted him as an undergraduate student. He
completed his Bachelor’s degree in 1899 and then
received his graduate degree in the summer of 1901,
just a couple of months before his sister was
kidnapped in Macedonia.24
Stephanove had experienced his own hardships,
even if they did not compare in severity and
uneasiness as his sister’s hardships as a pregnant
hostage. Graduating from the nation’s top university
was no walk in the park and Stephanove did so with a
persistent work ethic. He would attend classes and
study from 7:30 a.m. until the late afternoon, sleep
from six in the evening to midnight, and then work
the graveyard shift as a trolley car conductor (a job he
begged to be given)25 to pay for his schooling.26
According to Stephanove, however, working his way
through school was easy compared to his early
farming days in Connecticut, where he started work at
four in the morning and only finished his day when
the sun would set.27
But his hardships were soon to rival his sister’s.
After Yale, he trekked to Germany and enrolled in
Berlin University to pursue doctoral studies in
philosophy. In early 1903, he decided to visit his
family in Macedonia, who he had not seen for nearly
a decade. While there, Stephanove served as a guide
and interpreter for John MacDonald, a news
correspondent with the London News, showing him
the devastated and rebellious regions of Macedonia.
The Turkish authorities then used that activity as
pretense to throw Stephanove into prison for
collaborating with the Macedonian rebels. The
authorities refused to set a trial date and for six
months he rotted in a Turkish prison.28 The English
and American consuls eventually helped secure his
release in the summer,29 but not before he adopted a
version of the Yale fight song of his 1899 graduating
class as a national song of freedom for the
Macedonians.30
After the failure of the Macedonian uprising, he
returned to America in October 1903 as a Macedonian
delegate for the Macedonian revolutionary
organization. His aim was to convince President
Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hay “to intervene in
the Balkans, or at least to remonstrate with the
sultan.”31 “We want this government to cooperate
with the other powers,” said Stephanove. “We want
all the powers to demand the appointments of a
Christian governor [in Macedonia], who shall be
responsible to the powers and not to Turkey.”32 To
American officials and the press, he insisted that the
Macedonian rebellion would continue until their goals
were achieved. “We could easily put 100,000 men in
the field if we had the arms and ammunition.”33 But
the Assistant Secretary of the State Department,
Francis Loomis, told Stephanove that the U.S. would
favorably support only peaceful movements to relieve
the Macedonians’ suffering.34
Stephanove had more success with religious and
charitable organizations after demonstrating how
Turkish brutalities resulted in a great need of aid for
the 100,000 homeless Macedonian women, children
and elderly.35 Miss Clara Barton, head of the American
Red Cross, responded to Stephanove’s appeal by
saying “it would be a humane and noble thing for the
American people to undertake to relieve the suffering
in Macedonia” and that “the situation would seem to
require a systematic, substantial and immediate effort
on the part of the people generally.”36 Stephanove
additionally traveled to all of the major East Coast
cities, managing to gather the support of several
Americans for the Macedonian Cause, such as
Reverend Joseph H. Twitchell and Bishop Brewster in
Hartford,37 as well as Seth Low, a former mayor of
New York City, and John S. Kennedy, a well-known
and respected millionaire in New York.38 Partly
because of Stephanove’s relentless efforts,
humanitarian aid did indeed find its way into
Macedonia as the harsh winter stormed down on the
Macedonian refugees.
His exemplary academic pursuits, his tenacious
work effort, and his dedication to his Macedonian
homeland was an example set for all Macedonians
coming to America. In a time when Turks were
slaughtering Macedonians, and when Bulgarians,
Greeks and Serbians were struggling to conquest
Macedonia, confusion and ignorance flourished
among Western writers, who were bombarded with
propaganda suggesting that the Macedonians were
really Bulgarians, Greeks or Serbians. Stephanove
refuted this in the only way a modest but intelligent
and proud Macedonian could: “I am proud to be
known as a Greek, but in truth I am not one. I am a
Macedonian.”39
Stephanove eventually temporarily settled in
Macedonia, but upon Macedonia’s division in 1913, he
became a Professor of English at the University of
Sofia in Bulgaria,40 where he slowly became
incorporated into the Bulgarian propaganda machine,
serving as an international news correspondent in the
Balkans during the 1920s.41 During this era of his life,
he would often switch between pro-Macedonian and
pro-Bulgarian views on the Macedonian situation,
such as with publications like “We, the Macedonians”,
“The Bulgarians and Anglo-Saxondom”, and “The
Question of Thrace.” He even published the first
Bulgarian-English dictionary.42 However, this was a
period when Macedonia had been divided into three
pieces, and most Macedonians felt they had no choice
but to choose a side that they thought could offer the
most protection for the Macedonians’ interests.
Unlike most Macedonians, Stephanove was not an
Orthodox Christian. His family had converted to
Protestantism by the American missionaries (such as
Ellen Stone) who had been in Macedonia for several
decades. Not many Macedonians left their Orthodox
faith and identity. For Stephanove’s family, however,
it was not a radical step – his great-grandfather had
been a priest and the American Missionary had a
station in his town.43 Their devotion to Christ and the
Bible made missionary work seem a suitable endeavor
for them.
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