Population of Macedonia and Adjacent Areas

[Carlin]

Edmund Spencer: A Journey from Ohrid to Janina, 1850

Captain Edmund Spencer was a British travel writer of the mid-nineteenth century.

1) "I was this time accompanied by a native of Macedonia, as a kiraidji; he was an excellent fellow in his way, spoke a little Italian, which, with his own patois, a mixture of Albanian, Slavonian, Greek, and Turkish, enabled us to understand each other. Among his other qualifications, as a kiraidji, he was lively and communicative, knew the country well, and the character of the inhabitants, and how to avoid danger while travelling through a land in so disorganised a state as Albania; he was also full of anecdote, whether real or imaginary, and among other things amused me with accounts of the great antiquity of his own family, for Stefa was nothing less than a descendant of the Macedonian Kings!"

2) "With all the quickness and sharp intellect of the Greek, Stefa combined the honesty of the Slavonian, but he was one of the ugliest men I ever saw, the greatest talker, the most slavish flatterer and coward in existence; these little foibles, however, did not retard his worldly success, for he was considered to be very wealthy by his townspeople at Strouga."

3) "In short, the only drawback to my amusement, was my inability to hold converse with our warlike companions, except through the medium of two bad interpreters, Stefa and the hanji – a Zinzar [Vlach], whose native tongue, the Roumaniski, somewhat resembled the Latin."

[tchaiku]

page 352

Interesting.

[Carlin]

- John Chrysostom reported in a sermon held in 399 AD that the Thracians had translated the scriptures into their own language. This message agrees with other accounts of the existence of the Thracian language in the 4th century, which shows that big part of the Thracians, probably the village masses, understood very little to no Greek and Latin (languages in which the Christian teachings were usually preached).

- According to Procopius the term Ῥωμαῖοι (Romaioi) means not only those who spoke Latin, but also those who were Eastern Roman, that is, "Byzantine" subjects. One illustrative example in this respect is the following example: μετὰ δὲ τῶν τινα Ῥωμαίων, Βέσον γένος Βουρκέντιον ὄνομα, ὑπὸ Ναροῇ τεταγμένον τῷ Ἀρμενίῳ. That is, the Thracian Burkentiu was a Roman citizen, a Bessian by tribal (ethnic) origin, and a serviceman of the Armenian Narses.

- In Chap. VII of the third book of his work "On Buildings", Procopius reports that Thracians (still) lived in Anchialus/Pomorie. [Pomorie is a town in southeastern Bulgaria, located on a narrow rocky peninsula in Burgas Bay on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast.]

- According to Theophanes, in 505 AD, Emperor Anastasius sent troops against the Persians, composed of Goths, Bessi, and other Thracian tribes: στρατιὰ Γότθων τε καὶ Βέσσων καὶ ἑτέρων Θρᾳκίων ἐθνῶν. One commander of the same emperor bears the Thracian name Ζήμαρχος (Zímarchos).

- According to Priscus, the "Byzantine" commander Dionysius, who was willing to go as a messenger to the Huns (in 433 AD), was a Thracian: Διονύσιος δὲ τοῦ Θρακίου γένους.

- Around 492 AD, Emperor Anastasius sent an army composed of Bessi, Goths, and Scythians (μετὰ πλήθους Σκυθῶν καὶ Γοτθικῆς καὶ Βεσσικῆς χειρός) against the rebellious Isaurians.

- The Thracian miners were subjected to very heavy taxes and were forced to leave their places of residence and seek asylum in neighboring areas. To stop this escape, in 370 AD Emperor Valentinian I issued an order commanding all Thracians who had fled to Illyria and Macedonia to be returned to their native places.

- At the Ecumenical Council in Serdica in 343 AD the bishop of Heracleia Theodore was deposed, who according to Sozomen was a Thracian: καθεῖλον δὲ τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς Θεόδωρον τὸν Θρᾴκα.

[Carlin]

'Liturgier Armanesc' was written in the early 18th century. It was discovered in 1939 at the National Library of Tirana by Ilo Mitke-Qafezezi, who transcribed the Vlach text in the Albanian alphabet. This manuscript was lost during World War II. The text was written in Greek characters and covers 24 pages.

[Carlin]

https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A6%CE%B9%CE%AD%CF%81%CE%B9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fier

1) Koukoudis, Asterios (2003). The Vlachs: Metropolis and Diaspora. Thessaloniki: Zitros Publications. page 359:
"Until the beginning of the twentieth century, Fier was inhabited almost exclusively by Vlach-speaking -with a few Albanian-speaking- Christians."

2) Fier Municipality. "History of the city" (in Albanian). Fier Municipality. Retrieved 2010-08-06:
"The first inhabitants of the city were the servants of Kahreman Pasha Vrioni and members of Vlach families that had lived in the area since the early 19th century period."

[Carlin]

Christos Andreadis, Unpublished documents from Megarovo and Tirnovo.

"The writer makes known unpublished documents which manifest the faith and the persistence of the inhabitants of the towns of Megarovo and Tirnovo in the Orthodox Church."

https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/makedonika/article/viewFile/5999/5737.pdf

Amphipolis, would you be able to provide a summary of the actual contents of the two letters? Thanks.

[Carlin]

On the ethnographic map of the Serbian scholar S. Davidovic (1848), published in Belgrade, and at the expense of the Serbian government, the cities of Nish, Vranje and Skopje are designated as non-Serbian.

[Liberator of Makedonija]

On the ethnographic map of the Serbian scholar S. Davidovic (1848), published in Belgrade, and at the expense of the Serbian government, the cities of Nish, Vranje and Skopje are designated as non-Serbian.

Does he expand on what the demography of these cities looked like?

[Carlin]

Does he expand on what the demography of these cities looked like?

I don't know, it is literally one sentence. The specific quote comes from the book "La Situation Juridique des Macédoniens en Yougoslavie", by Karl Strupp. I have not found or searched yet for the original work by S. Davidovic.

[Carlin]

Theodor Capidan (1879–1953) was a Romanian linguist. He was born into a Vlach family in Prilep, Macedonia. He studied at Leipzig before teaching school at Salonica.

Capidan was interested in toponymy, particularly south of the Danube. During his Leipzig days, he delivered a report on the Slavic place names of Thessaly and Epirus. Over the years, he offered etymological explanations for a large number of place names. He used several of these to argue for the idea that certain Vlachs were native to Greece, basing the theory on their phonetic transformations found only in the Latin elements of Romanian.

In his book Farserotii (Studiu Lingvistic Asurpa Romanilor Din Albania), published in 1930 he had the following to say about the ethnic composition of Lerin. Prior to the Balkan Wars he wrote there were very few Romanians in Lerin. There were Turks and Muslim Albanians but they were expelled to Asia Minor. After the wars, a large number of Vlachs and (Christian) Albanians moved to the city:

"The Vlachs come from Bitola and the Romanian municipalities around this city, such as Magarevo, Trnovo, Nizhepole, Krushevo, etc. Unhappy with the Serbian regime, which closed their schools and churches, they moved to Greek cities... They are engaged in trade, especially the restaurants kept by them... Albanians come from the area of Korcha. Some of them traded in Lerin before the Balkan War; others arrived from there during the riots in Albania in 1914-1915. Without being Greek, they are all Greek and do not want to know about what is happening in Albania, which they unfairly call Second Turkey..."

[Carlin]

- In the 18th century, the Mijaks had an armed conflict with the Islamized Mijak population regarding pasture lands.
- In the first half of the 19th century, a notable part of the Mijak population was Albanized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mijaks

[Carlin]

From Constantine Papanache's "Macedonia" newspaper, year 1955. Issue number 9, page 6:


It's a very small sample size but it is curious that in the Sardinian language the word for 'language' is limba, while the word for 'water' is abba.

These could be natural variations caused by phonetic laws; it doesn't mean that the Vlachs are related to the Sardinians. But, it is very surprising and unexpected.

URLs:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=ReG_MCAJNHAC&pg=PA371&lpg=PA371&dq=abba+water+sardinian&source=bl&ots=bOvZichy30&sig=FOH3OtaH5qyO4h8NfEZyDNs4qG0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjp5J2t0qjVAhUo94MKHejiCYAQ6AEIMTAC#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language

[Carlin]

The testimony comes from a French source (Perrot), from 1855. Let's see what was the "ethnic composition" of Prishtina, Kosovo according to Perrot.




As we can plainly see, the population of Prishtina was: "12,000, of which two-thirds are Albanians and the rest are Greeks."

Let's break it down and analyze this in more detail. Branislav Nushich, in 1902, talks about the diverse ethnic composition of Prishtina:

"Prishtina is a compact town; houses do not have spacious courtyards and gardens... When Prishtina was declared the headquarters of the Vilayet, it barely counted 1800 houses and now it stands at 3760 houses. Of these, 3170 houses are Turks and Albanians; 420 houses of Serbs, and there are at least 100 houses of Gypsies, about 50 Jewish houses, 10 to 15 houses of Armani (Vlachs) and a little bit of Circassians. If we were count roughly five souls per household then the population proportions would be: 15850 Turks and Albanians; 2100 Serbs; 500 Gypsies; 250 Jews and several dozen Armani (Vlachs) and some Circassians, which would total 18,800 souls. Although the official Turkish statistics show this number, however, this is exaggerated. Prishtina does not have more than 12,000 inhabitants, because many people were forced out of the Vilayet and a lot of houses were left empty. A large number of people are moving out into livlier trade places, as well as emigrating to Serbia."

In another Serbian source/publication below we see that Jukich states that Prishtina has about 12,000 residents of which Serbs make up one-third of the population (including Vlachs in this number). According to the first official Yugoslav census in 1921, Prishtina had 14,338 inhabitants of which Serbs (4325), including 'other Slavs' (19) and Vlachs (17) formed roughly one-third (Serbian-speaking Orthodox Gypsies were apparently counted as 'Serbs' as well). Two-thirds were made up of people declaring themselves as Turks (7115) and Albanians (1421).

Links/Sources for the above:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/pri%C5%A1tina-u-/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2-%D1%92-%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%88%D0%B8%D1%9B-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE/1457808190952831/

https://books.google.ca/books?id=NR4NAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA20&lpg=RA1-PA20&dq=%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0+%D0%A6%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8&source=bl&ots=t0z_SCYH0-&sig=ACfU3U0leg1fGch06T5DfYorZmt9718new&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjXs4La17zhAhVGs6wKHcnKAEUQ6AEwBnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%20%D0%A6%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8&f=false

So, Perrot - in 1855 - got the number of Prishtina residents right (!) but his "ethnic Greeks" were Serbs (Slavs) who were Orthodox or Greek Christians. It is actually possible that Greek was used at this time in the Orthodox churches in Prishtina, while some merchants/traders utilized Greek as the language of commerce.

The point and question is this:

If educated westerners were incorrectly classifying population groups as 'Greek' as late as 1855, what hope do we have of knowing or accepting with certainty many other similar reports from Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly, Peloponnese, Crete?

[Carlin]

Assertion of Zonaras: in the great migrations, the ancient Albanians were the same as the Alani who were driven from the Caucasus to Europe by the Tatars in the thirteenth century.

[Carlin]