"They call themselves Macedonians"

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  • Pelister
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 2742

    #16
    Originally posted by Daskalot View Post
    Pelister you are providing great information here in this thread, thank you very much!
    Thanks Daskalot, you are very welcome mate. I'll keep adding stuff to it as I find it.

    I hope that Macedonians can read it and be encouraged. The legacy of colonial rule in Macedonia has been dictating who we are and who we are not for a century now that Macedonians are no longer entirely sure themselves. Our enemies are just hoping that Macedonians begin to believe the crap our colonial rulers have been saying about us. The 'hegemony' (Gramsci's use of the term) of colonial terms, of false represenations and assumptions made about us had to be challenged, otherwise sooner or later a group of Macedonians is going to emerge, who 'accept' the basic premise that our identity has been manufactured and not even realise this is their position.

    Comment

    • Bratot
      Senior Member
      • Sep 2008
      • 2855

      #17
      Colonel A. Corfe had written in 1923 that the Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia, and incidentally in the other two parts, were fearful of state officials and had nothing to say in their presence:

      "But in the evenings in their own houses or when we had given the officials the slip, we encouraged them to speak to us. Then we in-variably heard the same story as "Bad administration. They want to force us to become Greeks, in language, in religion, in sentiment, in every way. We have served in the Greek army and we have fought for them: now they insult us by calling us 'damned Bulgars"' … To my question "WHAT DO YOU WANT, AN AUTHONOMOUS MACEDONIA OR A MACEDONIA UNDER BULGARIA?" the answer was generally the same: "WE WANT GOOD ADMINISTRATION. WE ARE MACEDONIANS, NOT GREEKS OR BULGARS."

      (Foreign Office document O371/8566).
      The purpose of the media is not to make you to think that the name must be changed, but to get you into debate - what name would suit us! - Bratot

      Comment

      • Bratot
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2008
        • 2855

        #18
        "We have many times heard from the Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians but Macedonians,descendants of the Ancient Macedonians" - Slaveykov ( Year: 1871)

        The purpose of the media is not to make you to think that the name must be changed, but to get you into debate - what name would suit us! - Bratot

        Comment

        • Bratot
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2008
          • 2855

          #19
          Originally posted by makedonche View Post
          Pelister

          Good article, there's one part that both intrigues me and provides a solemn reminder of what we should be striving to achieve/stamp our authority on, here it is:-

          " Perry, for example, suggests that the Macedonians were unable to liberate themselves because they lacked a clear sense of national identity."

          For far too long now other people/parties have been playing a game with our identity. They have denied it's exixtence, changed it, mixed it up with other identities, created confusion and doubt about it since nationalism came to the forefront in the 19th/20th centuries. What astounds me is that it's ok for US, France,Germany,Greece etc. to be fanatical about their identity and nationalism - yet any attempt by Macedonians to shore up there existence is seen as radical nationalism and has no place in a "modern Europe".
          To a certian extent we the current Macedonians need to bear responsibility for allowing this to happen or moreso allowing it to continue to happen, the time has come to write our own history, tell our story and stand up and say we are Macedonians - "Not Negotiable".
          I'll go out on a limb here and suggest we "create a clear sense of national identity" - similar to the way we have documented and clearly stated the "Macedonian Cause". Your thoughts?
          That's simply not true and given in this example:

          Canadian Railway Workers and World War I Military Service" Author: Mary MacKinnon
          Source: Labour / Le Travail, Vol. 40 (Fall, 1997), pp. 213-234 Published by: Canadian Committee on Labour History and Athabasca University Press

          It's about year 1910:



          PoI:

          1. Reported nationalities often did not correspond to nation states.

          2. Immigrants from the British Isles were usually classified as English, Ireland, Welsh or Scottish



          This means that nations without states (as Macedonians) were pretty much aware of their ethnic origin.
          The purpose of the media is not to make you to think that the name must be changed, but to get you into debate - what name would suit us! - Bratot

          Comment

          • Pelister
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2008
            • 2742

            #20
            Originally posted by Bratot View Post
            "We have many times heard from the Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians but Macedonians,descendants of the Ancient Macedonians" - Slaveykov ( Year: 1871)

            Thats a good source. Thanks Bratot.

            Comment

            • Pelister
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2008
              • 2742

              #21
              "They call themselves Macedonians"

              I thought I'd introduce this brief analysis of the typical colonial narrative of Macedonia, in order to bring to light some of the assumptions, and presumptions that forces historically outside the region of Macedonia have been pushing in the effort of influencing the mind and thoughts of Westerners as to who lived there, and what they called themselves.

              Example 1 of the colonial legacy.

              Book: The Macedonian Problem and Its Proper Solution, by Dr. Stanislav J. Shoomkof and George N. Chakaloff, M.D (1904).

              The typical Bulgarian colonial narrative:

              Macedonia Ill-defined and 'mixed

              "It is almost impossible to form a definite idea as to the extent of territory to which the name 'Macedonia' would imply". p.12
              A "conglomerate of races", p. 13
              No Macedonian Nationality / No 'distinctive' Macedonian

              "It must be remembered at the outset that there is no such race as 'Macedonians' if we mean to describe the national affiliations of the people by that term", p.13
              Appeals to objectivity

              In order to arrive at an impartial and just conclusion as to the character and number of the Macedonian population, we must resort to the testimonies of foriegn writers who have travelled through the country and are competent to give accurate information, p.13
              nb: the assumption here is that the 'testimonies of foriegn writers' are reliable. This leads the way for introduction of Westerners who represent the regions inhabitants as 'Bulgarian'/.

              What they call themselves

              In this province we find people who call themselves and are known to be Bulgarians
              The use of European 'classifications' and 'statistics'

              "According to Herr Ritter...the remaining population, i.e., 1,117,643, are Bulgarians.", p.14
              A couple things to note about this colonial narrative.

              1. We never actually here from the Macedonians themselves\
              2. The narrative must assume that what these Westerners have to say about the Macedonian demographic is 'objective' and reliable.
              3. Once again, it is a case of foriegners and outsiders (Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbians...etc), informing foriegners and outsiders (Westerners), about the state of things on the ground, and then recycling the representations, again and again.


              Any evidence that "they call themselves Macedonians" directly challenges the interpretive mischief and propoganda in this kind of colonial narrative.
              Last edited by Pelister; 08-16-2010, 10:13 PM.

              Comment

              • Pelister
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2008
                • 2742

                #22
                "They call themselves Macedonians"

                Edmond Bouchie., “Macedonia and the Macedonians”, (Paris, 1922)

                “In the district of Ostrovo / Bitola nine times out of ten these people, despite being the subject of dispute by three adjoining countries – Serbia, Bulgarian and Greece – would reply in response to the question as to their nationality that they were Macedonians”.
                Source: Taken from Edmond Bouchie de Belle, La Macedoine et les Macedoniens, Paris, 1922, 80, IV, 303.

                Note on Author: Edmond Bouchie (Frenchman)
                served time in Macedonia, at the Headquarters of the French East Army in the Balkans. He spent a considerable amount of time in the Bitola/Ostrovo region with the army.

                Comment

                • Pelister
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2008
                  • 2742

                  #23
                  R. A Gallop was the third secretary of the British foriegn office at Belgrade. In 1926 he visited Macedonia for a week in order to get a better picture of the state of things on the ground, and discovered that the people "call themselves 'Makedonci'". In his report he uses the Macedonian term 'Makedonci' rather than its English equivalent - Macedonian.

                  There is no doubt in his mind as to what term they used to describe themselves.

                  "The Macedonian Slavs considered and called themselves 'Makedonci'"
                  Cited in Andrew Rossos, The British Foreign Office and Macedonian National Identity, 1918 - 1941

                  Source: British National Archives, FO 371/11337, Enclosure, 23 April, 1926

                  nb: I have not had the chance check this source, but of the other sources provided by Rossos that I have checked - I can say that they are accurate.

                  Here is something interesting. Even though the British intelligence services had known about the existence of the Macedonians, by their own admission, for many decades the British policy makers insisted on a policy of 'Don't name them' and 'Don't count them'. The British were able to block Macedonian grievances at the League of Nations, to shut them down, and shut them out, they were able to make sure that the voice of the Macedonians was never 'aired' in public, or even mentioned by that name.

                  The British 'slighting' of the Macedonians developed into a blocking operation played out on an international level.

                  Here is an insight into that policy operation.

                  C.H Bateman of the British foriegn office noted that:

                  "Just because the Slavs of Macedonia call themselves Macedonians 'there was no reason why we or you should consent to give them a name which coincides with a piece of territory (of the same name)...which has not for a thousand years been an autonomou entity...
                  Source: FO 371/12856, 'Sargent (London) to Sperling, 22 October, 1928

                  NB: The land is called 'Macedonia', and the people call themselves 'Macedonians', but I'm assuming that because it has not established itself into a political organization that is based on the Western model - British policy makers, 'slighted' it.
                  Last edited by Pelister; 08-18-2010, 09:15 PM.

                  Comment

                  • Bratot
                    Senior Member
                    • Sep 2008
                    • 2855

                    #24
                    Pelister, this is great thread, thank you.

                    Despice the author's view of the 'hellenic' blod this can be also pointing to our national consciousness:





                    (Fanny Janet Blunt, "The People of Turkey. Twenty years residence among Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, and Armenians," 1878, pg. 11-12)
                    Last edited by Bratot; 08-30-2010, 01:10 PM.
                    The purpose of the media is not to make you to think that the name must be changed, but to get you into debate - what name would suit us! - Bratot

                    Comment

                    • Bratot
                      Senior Member
                      • Sep 2008
                      • 2855

                      #25
                      ...I asked him what language they spoke, and my Greek interpreter carelessly
                      rendered the answer Bulgare. The man himself had said Makedonski. I drew
                      attention to this word and the witness explained that he did not consider the rural dialect used in Macedonia the same as Bulgarian, and refused to call it by that name.

                      Allen Upward, The East End of Europe. London, 1908, pp. 204-205.
                      The purpose of the media is not to make you to think that the name must be changed, but to get you into debate - what name would suit us! - Bratot

                      Comment

                      • Bratot
                        Senior Member
                        • Sep 2008
                        • 2855

                        #26
                        "Being shocked and increasingly concerned, I struck the village mayor when I heard him speak Bulgarian, which he wishes to call Macedonian, and I recommended that in the future he should always and everywhere speak only Greek, and that he should recommend that his villagers do the same."

                        Greek Infantry Lieutenant Dim. Kamburas in his report about the situation in the Village Armensko of January 25, 1925.
                        The purpose of the media is not to make you to think that the name must be changed, but to get you into debate - what name would suit us! - Bratot

                        Comment

                        • Bratot
                          Senior Member
                          • Sep 2008
                          • 2855

                          #27
                          Temko Popov (1855-1931), Macedonian Publicist
                          May 9, 1888 Salonika

                          My dear Despot,

                          In the introduction to this letter I will tell you in advance that I will take the trouble to write you, inasfar as it is possible, in our tongue, substituting for those words which I do not know with Bulgarian ones. What else can be done, Despot! This tongue of ours, which could have dictated to the other Slavic tongues, has remained the poorest, and, like a beggar, must stretch out its hand to the Bulgarian, or the Serbian or even the Russian tongue! I do not deny that all of the Slavic tongues are similar to each other and that it is natural that they should borrow from each other, but not to the state to which our miserable tongue has come, so that a man can not express his thoughts without using Bulgarian words, if he has lived in Bulgaria, Serbian - if in Serbia. It is true that our tongue, being most similar to Serbian, should gather from it those words which it does not have in its own dictionary, but where is our dictionary, where are our philologists, who might concern themselves with these important questions, i.e. the compilation of a grammar and other most urgently needed textbooks, at least for elementary schools? If we have no philologists, where are the Serbian ones, who might know our tongue and might write those elementary and necessary books with such impassionate scholarship as to use Serbian words as supplementary words only where they can not find Macedonian ones, and not to be led by blind patriotism and instead of writing Macedonian textbooks, writing purely Serbian ones. Don't fool yourself, Despot, the national spirit in Macedonia has attained such a state that Jesus Christ himself, if he were to descend from heaven, could not convince a Macedonian that he is a Bulgarian or a Serb, except for those Macedonians in whom Bulgarian propaganda has already taken root.
                          The purpose of the media is not to make you to think that the name must be changed, but to get you into debate - what name would suit us! - Bratot

                          Comment

                          • Mikail
                            Senior Member
                            • Sep 2008
                            • 1338

                            #28
                            Thanks guys, great thread! Well done Pelister for starting this
                            From the village of P’pezhani, Tashko Popov, Dimitar Popov-Skenderov and Todor Trpenov were beaten and sentenced to 12 years prison. Pavle Mevchev and Atanas Popov from Vrbeni and Boreshnica joined them in early 1927, they were soon after transferred to Kozhani and executed. As they were leaving Lerin they were heard to shout "With our death, Macedonia will not be lost. Our blood will run, but other Macedonians will rise from it"

                            Comment

                            • Mikail
                              Senior Member
                              • Sep 2008
                              • 1338

                              #29
                              Here's an article from Time magazine date March 25 1935



                              Farewell to Venizelos


                              The back door of Greece opens on the mountainous Balkan hinterland, its front door on the Mediterranean. By the sea, greatness as well as grief have come to Greece. Three weeks ago from the sea, from Greece's greatest island. Crete, came Revolution, led by that greatest of modern Greeks, sly, old Eleutherios Venizelos, against the "Balkan policy" and the monarchist intrigues of Premier Panayoti Tsaldaris.

                              Old Venizelos had planned merely a show of force and a quick coup d'état. Instinctively he seized first the key war boats in Greece's Navy. But the thing turned into a civil war on land (TIME, March 18). Seventy thousand loyalists and some airplanes crumpled the rebel army of 30,000 planeless Greeks from the islands, from Macedonia and Thrace. Venizelos had no stomach for civil war. For all the shooting, the revolt ended with only 100 dead on both sides. The Government, however, promised to execute three times as many. Last week Venizelos, his second wife and a score of the high command fled from Crete to the nearby Italian island of Kasos, then on to the bigger Italian island of Rhodes off the coast of Turkey. Though he was still alive and safe, the world was last week writing Venizelos' political obituary. In Athens the crowd cheered winning General Kondylis and Premier Tsaldaris to the echo. They had won a great victory, but for what?

                              As recently as 1821 Greece was a servile Turkish province. It was largely with Russian backing that a few Greek Christians won freedom for the barren lower tip of the Greek peninsula. For the rest of the 19th Century the Greeks acquired a shameful record of defeat in battle. They acquired more territory only through the benevolence of the Great Powers, chiefly Britain. Then green currants from the Ionian Islands were the main economic support of the dismal little nation.

                              Venizelos changed all that. Born on Crete, equipped with an Athens law degree, he soon developed an extraordinary flair for leadership, a marvelous sense of situation, a nearly perfect aim with a revolver and one of the greatest poker faces in Europe. Crete was then still Turkish. Venizelos rapidly led two revolts, won Cretan autonomy, the first step toward union with Greece. The Greek Crown sent a chuckleheaded prince as Commissioner to Crete. With another revolt, Venizelos kicked him out because the prince looked on Cretans as a subject race. His local fame as a Cretan established. Venizelos moved to Athens and proceeded to take charge of all Greece.

                              Starting as an ordinary member of the Greek Assembly, Venizelos brought into being a national assembly to revise the Constitution, from which he emerged as Premier. After reorganizing the Army and Navy, he sized up Greek military pretensions as a hollow bluff, saw that Greece's future depended on the good will of the Powers, proceeded to play the future that way. He broke with previous Greek policy by joining the Balkan League of Bulgaria and Serbia and ganging on Turkey in the first Balkan War. This time Greece won. In the squabble over the spoils, alert Venizelos formed another alliance with Serbia and ganged on Bulgaria. Spoils: most of Macedonia and the Aegean Islands, the most productive lands in the realm and 100% more people.

                              When the World War broke, Venizelos brought up against the Danish stubbornness of Greece's Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg King Constantine I, who favored Germany. He hypocritically maintained "a very benevolent neutrality" toward the Allies. Pro-ally Venizelos was anathematized by an Archbishop of the Greek Church:
                              "Against this traitor Venizelos we have invoked the following injuries: the ulcers of Job, the whale of Jonah, the leprosy of Naaman, the bite of Death, the shivering of the dying, the thunderbolt of Hell, and the malediction of God and man. We shall call for the same injuries upon those who at the coming elections shall vote for the Traitor Venizelos, and we shall further pray for their hands to wither and for them to become deaf and blind."

                              Unimpressed, Venizelos seceded from the kingdom, forced Constantine to abdicate in favor of his son and declared war against the Central Powers. Though Greece did not do much in war, Venizelos had earned a place at the Peace Conference table. His "enticing, almost ethereal, charm," and the fact that he knew more about the map of Europe than anyone else, did the rest. Spoils: most of Thrace and part of Asiatic Turkey.

                              At home, however, the Greeks were losing part of Venizelos' plunder to a resuscitated Turkey under Mustapha Kemal Pasha. When Venizelos rushed home the Greek electorate, with one of the world's worst non sequiturs, repudiated Venizelos and called back King Constantine. Once again Venizelos turned his hand to revolution. Back as Prime Minister, he deposed Constantine's son George and resigned just before Greece turned Republic in 1924.

                              Greece had improved its economic situation (tobacco, wine, textiles, leather goods) but it was still "the poorest nation in Europe.'' Partial cause of this was the unprecedented importation of 1,400,000 indigent Greeks from Turkey and Bulgaria in exchange for deported Turks and Bulgars. Without Venizelos, Greece entered a typical Balkan shambles of dictatorships and coups d'état, with the royalists always gaining. The old split between the Balkan interests of the repopulated peninsula and the world-trading Mediterranean interests of the islands began to widen, complicated by the unreconciled Macedonians of the north. Finally, in 1928, Venizelos cashed in his popularity for one more Premiership, made alliances with Mussolini and Mustapha Kemal, reasserted the Mediterranean policy of a true island Greek, and got out.

                              Last year he was struck with dismay when his successor, Premier Tsaldaris, concluded the Balkan Pact with Yugoslavia, Rumania and Turkey. Venizelos saw that Yugoslavia was bound to get into trouble with Italy and Albania, that Greece might have to fight to pull Yugoslavia's chestnuts out of the fire. He objected also to the fact that Italy had not been consulted. Himself nobody's cat's-paw, he could not help feeling that no Greek but himself could ever do anything right.

                              All his life Venizelos had worked to consolidate Greeks in Greece. The desperate adventure this month of his last revolution between the peninsula on the one hand, the islands and Macedonia on the other, marked the first time he had ever fought to split Greeks. And for the first time he failed. Once more ''the shivering of the dying and the malediction of man'' fell upon Venizelos. The 71-year-old man, who fled last week to a swank Italian hotel in Rhodes with a private beach, groaned, "I am tired by the hardships and disappointments of the last few days."

                              Last week the Greek Government sealed up seven Venizelos houses, including the great Athens mansion-fort with its $5,000,000 (reputed) library, preparatory to confiscating them. As Mussolini turned a cold shoulder to all Greek attempts to extradite the person of the rebel leader, old Venizelos prepared to end his days in exile with his second wife* and the two sons of his first wife, a beautiful Cretan girl dead these 40 years. He smiled sourly when he heard that his opponent. General Kondylis. who was once his ally and fellow-conspirator, had said, "When conditions become normal, the people will be given the opportunity to decide whether to restore the monarchy."

                              Said Venizelos, who had doubled the area of Greece, deposed its Kings and given it a place in world politics far out of proportion to its real importance: "All my life with all my heart I wanted the union of Crete and Greece. I wanted it to be sustained by profound mutual affection. I swear that was my only desire. . . . Greece will never see me again."

                              * His second wife is the daughter of the late Greek-British textile exporter, John Schilizzi, who left her $15,000,000 in 1908.
                              From the village of P’pezhani, Tashko Popov, Dimitar Popov-Skenderov and Todor Trpenov were beaten and sentenced to 12 years prison. Pavle Mevchev and Atanas Popov from Vrbeni and Boreshnica joined them in early 1927, they were soon after transferred to Kozhani and executed. As they were leaving Lerin they were heard to shout "With our death, Macedonia will not be lost. Our blood will run, but other Macedonians will rise from it"

                              Comment

                              • Onur
                                Senior Member
                                • Apr 2010
                                • 2389

                                #30
                                Originally posted by Mikail View Post
                                Here's an article from Time magazine date March 25 1935

                                http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...8601-1,00.html


                                Venizelos was just a British spy like all the other high Greek officers and patriarchy at that time. They were under the control of British and everything they did was planned by them already, including the population exchange and invasion of Anatolia. After we kicked them out from Anatolia at 1922, most of his colleagues escaped to the England, became British citizen and lived a wealthy life.

                                They were responsible from the death of ~500.000 people and forced expulsion of 2 million more.

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